Using TPA to count linear extensions

A linear extension of a poset $P$ is a permutation of the elements of the set that respects the partial order. Let $L(P)$ denote the number of linear extensions. It is a #P complete problem to determine $L(P)$ exactly for an arbitrary poset, and so randomized approximation algorithms that draw randomly from the set of linear extensions are used. In this work, the set of linear extensions is embedded in a larger state space with a continuous parameter ?. The introduction of a continuous parameter allows for the use of a more efficient method for approximating $L(P)$ called TPA. Our primary result is that it is possible to sample from this continuous embedding in time that as fast or faster than the best known methods for sampling uniformly from linear extensions. For a poset containing $n$ elements, this means we can approximate $L(P)$ to within a factor of $1 + \epsilon$ with probability at least $1 - \delta$ using an expected number of random bits and comparisons in the poset which is at most $O(n^3(ln n)(ln L(P))\epsilon^{-2}\ln \delta^{-1}).$Comment: 12 pages, 4 algorithm

Building Family Strengths Through Successful Parental Involvement Strategies: A Case Study with Latino Immigrant Families and Elementary School Staff

Latino immigrant families often face significant barriers in becoming involved in their children’s education due to common cultural biases and misunderstandings and language barriers. Moreover, limited evidence suggests that the ways in which Latino immigrant families engage in their children’s education may not be recognized and valued by schools, which operate within mainstream cultural values. As a result, effective outreach and engagement practices specifically for Latino parents, particularly recent immigrants, are not presently well understood. To that end, the purpose of the present case study is to explore and evaluate the strategies used by an elementary school to involve its Latino immigrant parents into their children’s education. Focus groups with parents and interviews with key school staff revealed three ways that the school has broken through cultural and language barriers to encourage their families to get involved: building trust, clearly communicating with families in culturally sensitive ways, and empathizing with families and their needs. These findings are discussed in light of implications for social work practice

Building Family Strengths Through Successful Parental Involvement Strategies: A Case Study with Latino Immigrant Families and Elementary School Staff

Latino immigrant families often face significant barriers in becoming involved in their children’s education due to common cultural biases and misunderstandings and language barriers. Moreover, limited evidence suggests that the ways in which Latino immigrant families engage in their children’s education may not be recognized and valued by schools, which operate within mainstream cultural values. As a result, effective outreach and engagement practices specifically for Latino parents, particularly recent immigrants, are not presently well understood. To that end, the purpose of the present case study is to explore and evaluate the strategies used by an elementary school to involve its Latino immigrant parents into their children’s education. Focus groups with parents and interviews with key school staff revealed three ways that the school has broken through cultural and language barriers to encourage their families to get involved: building trust, clearly communicating with families in culturally sensitive ways, and empathizing with families and their needs. These findings are discussed in light of implications for social work practice

Reassessing the Puzzle of Environmental Management Systems and Their Impact on Firm Performance: A Panel Data Analysis

Companies have increasingly adopted environmental management systems (EMSs) in response to the need for improving their environmental sustainability and accountability. EMSs enable companies managing their environmental activities, supposedly leading to improved environmental performance and cost savings. However, research findings regarding the effectiveness of EMSs on key environmental and financial performance measures are inconclusive. To address this puzzle, we collected data from various sources to analyze the relationships between EMS certification, environmental performance, and financial performance for the STOXX 600 using panel data regression covering six years. With this comprehensive, large-scale approach, we account for largely neglected indirect effects and widespread validity issues of prior research, such as cross-sectional designs, perception-based performance measures, and small sample sizes. Our results show that EMS certification has a significant positive effect on environmental performance, particularly on emission reduction. We did not find a significant effect of EMS certification and environmental performance on financial performance

The effect of brumation on memory retention

Long-term torpor is an adaptive strategy that allows animals to survive harsh winter conditions. However, the impact that prolonged torpor has on cognitive function is poorly understood. Hibernation causes reduced synaptic activity and experiments with mammals reveal that this can have adverse effects on memories formed prior to hibernation. The impact of brumation, the winter dormancy that is observed in ectotherms, on memory remains unknown. The aim of this study was to examine whether an amphibian, the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra), was able to retain learned spatial information after a period of brumation. Twelve fire salamanders were trained to make a simple spatial discrimination using a T-maze. All subjects learned the initial task. Upon reaching criterion, half of the subjects were placed into brumation for 100 days while the other half served as controls and were maintained under normal conditions. A post-brumation memory retention test revealed that animals from both conditions retained the learned response. Control tests showed that they solved the task using learned information and not olfactory cues. This finding contrasts with much of the mammalian research and suggests that the processes involved in prolonged torpor may have a fundamentally different impact on memory in mammals and amphibians

Was macht ein Pizzabote auf dem Zauberberg?

Digitale Angebote von Theater sind oft marketinggebtrieben oder beschränken sich auf Streamingangebote mit mehr oder weniger Einsatz von Technik. Am Wiener Burgtheater experimentiert man seit der Spielzeit 2019/20 mit neuen digitalen Erzählformen und kokreaktiven Formaten. Nun auch auf TikTok

Was macht ein Pizzabote auf dem Zauberberg? Über digitale Kulturproduktion am Wiener Burgtheater

Digitale Angebote von Theater sind oft marketinggebtrieben oder beschränken sich auf Streamingangebote mit mehr oder weniger Einsatz von Technik. Am Wiener Burgtheater experimentiert man seit der Spielzeit 2019/20 mit neuen digitalen Erzählformen und kokreaktiven Formaten. Nun auch auf TikTok.Digital offers by theatres are often marketing-driven or limited to streaming offers with more or less use of technology. At Vienna's Burgtheater, they have been experimenting with new digital narrative forms and co-creative formats since the 2019/20 season. Now also on TikTok

Electroencephalogram approximate entropy influenced by both age and sleep

The use of information-based measures to assess changes in conscious state is an increasingly popular topic. Though recent results have seemed to justify the merits of such methods, little has been done to investigate the applicability of such measures to children. For our work, we used the approximate entropy (ApEn), a measure previously shown to correlate with changes in conscious state when applied to the electroencephalogram (EEG), and sought to confirm whether previously reported trends in adult ApEn values across wake and sleep were present in children. Besides validating the prior findings that ApEn decreases from wake to sleep (including wake, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep) in adults, we found that previously reported ApEn decreases across vigilance states in adults were also present in children (ApEn trends for both age groups: wake > REM sleep > non-REM sleep). When comparing ApEn values between age groups, adults had significantly larger ApEn values than children during wakefulness. After the application of an 8 Hz high-pass filter to the EEG signal, ApEn values were recalculated. The number of electrodes with significant vigilance state effects dropped from all 109 electrodes with the original 1 Hz filter to 1 electrode with the 8 Hz filter. The number of electrodes with significant age effects dropped from 10 to 4. Our results support the notion that ApEn can reliably distinguish between vigilance states, with low-frequency sleep-related oscillations implicated as the driver of changes between vigilance states. We suggest that the observed differences between adult and child ApEn values during wake may reflect differences in connectivity between age groups, a factor which may be important in the use of EEG to measure consciousness