Repetitions and reflections in Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of ~ Death Foretold is a spiralling search for satisfying explanations of why events occur as they do. The first sentences prefigure the book's concern with the nature of memory and our perception of reality as describable in words. The narrator's declared intention of reassembling "the broken mirror of memory" allows the scrutiny of many kinds of reflections: dream images, recollections and retrospective insights, repetitions and contradictions. Memory is both individual and collective; separate voices are joined in a town history. The story of a small town murder becomes a chronicle of a universal need to understand the purpose of life. The fallibility of memory and of words is expanded into the impossibility of recovering the past objectively. We are able to perceive repeated patterns of behavior but the meaning of history eludes us. Interwoven throughout the cycling narrative fabric of repetitions, mockeries and fragmented insights are affirmations of the creativity and strength of human imagination, and Chronicle is ultimately a celebration of the power of words, despite the inadequacy of language to mirror objective reality

1-Bit Matrix Completion

In this paper we develop a theory of matrix completion for the extreme case of noisy 1-bit observations. Instead of observing a subset of the real-valued entries of a matrix M, we obtain a small number of binary (1-bit) measurements generated according to a probability distribution determined by the real-valued entries of M. The central question we ask is whether or not it is possible to obtain an accurate estimate of M from this data. In general this would seem impossible, but we show that the maximum likelihood estimate under a suitable constraint returns an accurate estimate of M when ||M||_{\infty} <= \alpha, and rank(M) <= r. If the log-likelihood is a concave function (e.g., the logistic or probit observation models), then we can obtain this maximum likelihood estimate by optimizing a convex program. In addition, we also show that if instead of recovering M we simply wish to obtain an estimate of the distribution generating the 1-bit measurements, then we can eliminate the requirement that ||M||_{\infty} <= \alpha. For both cases, we provide lower bounds showing that these estimates are near-optimal. We conclude with a suite of experiments that both verify the implications of our theorems as well as illustrate some of the practical applications of 1-bit matrix completion. In particular, we compare our program to standard matrix completion methods on movie rating data in which users submit ratings from 1 to 5. In order to use our program, we quantize this data to a single bit, but we allow the standard matrix completion program to have access to the original ratings (from 1 to 5). Surprisingly, the approach based on binary data performs significantly better

Higher Alpha/Theta Ratio May Indicate Decreased Brain Function in Older Adults during CSPFP10 Compared to Young Adults

Declined physical ability and brain function observed in elder can affect daily living activities and negatively influence the quality of life (QOL). While the extensive research has explored the changes in cortical activity related to motor control in elder, less is known about how the brain functions during a physical function test. PURPOSE: To examine the electrocortical activation in the older adults’ brain during the Continuous Scale Physical Function Performance-10 (CSPFP-10) compared to young adults. METHODS: Twenty five older adults (OLD; 75.40±7.32 yrs, 70.33±18.23 kg, 162.87±7.55 cm) and twenty five young (YOUNG; 19.88±1.72 yrs, 66.52±14.22 kg, 167.50±10.22 cm) completed CSPFP10 while frontal (F3, Fz, F4), central (C3, Cz, C4), temporal (T7, T8, P7, P8), parietal (P3, Pz P4), and occipital (O1, Oz, O2) regions’ electrocortical activation was measured using a mobile electroencephalograph (EEG). Spectral power values (μV2/Hz) for theta (θ: 4-8 Hz) and alpha (α: 8-13 Hz) band were averaged across the target electrodes. Then α/θ ratio was calculated. Data were analyzed using independent t-test. RESULTS: OLD exhibited significantly higher α/θ ratio in frontal (M=0.98 vs.0.95, pp=.02), temporal (M=1.02 vs. 0.98, p=.006) compared to YOUNG. The separated t-test showed YOUNG had higher θ and α in frontal (θ: M= 40.93 vs. 37.56, pp=.03), central (θ: M=39.68 vs. 36.43, pp=.038), and parietal θ (M=40.55 vs. 37.98, p=.001) compared to OLD. Pearson’s correlation analysis did not find any significance between brain function and CSPFP10 scores in both groups. CONCLUSION α/θ ratio in OLD showed that their α power was relatively higher than YOUNG. Increased α power indicates suppression/selective cortical processing. It might indicate that OLD had inhibitory cortical activation process during the CSPFP10 task. Decreased frontal and parietal θ in OLD may indicate diminished decision making speed and attention with aging, while lower θ power in a central region (motor cortex) implies disrupt motor control. Overall, our result may indicate that brain activation patterns become less active during aging. It’s important to enhance both physical and brain function to improve activities of daily living and QOL in elderly population

Construction and Nursing Students, Building a Playground for Bauer Family Services

Poster Sessio

Obesity, Parent Perceptions, Child Feeding, and Food Security in First Generation Hispanic Families

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the relationships between parent and child weight status, parental perceptions of weight, child feeding, food insecurity, and acculturation in Hispanic preschoolers and their parents in a southern California school district. Methods: Eighty-five parent-child dyads participated. Height and weight, parental weight perceptions, child feeding, acculturation, and food insecurity data were obtained. Results: Eighty-five percent of parents were born in Mexico, although 94% of their children were born in the US. Eighty percent of parents and 43% of the children were overweight or obese. None of the constructs measured predicted child BMI, although parents significantly underestimated their children's body size. Parents' BMI correlated positively with restrictive child feeding practices, and obese parents pressured their children to eat more than did non-obese parents. Conclusions: Obesity exists disproportionately in Hispanics compared to other ethnic populations. While factors predicting children's weight status are difficult to identify, parents' weight, perceptions of child's weight, adherence to the Hispanic culture, and food insecurity do appear to impact parental concerns and parenting behaviors, particularly restrictive and pressuring-to-eat behaviors. Parental underestimation of their children's weight may hinder behavior change if concerns about unhealthy weight are inaccurate. Interventions should consider parental weight, weight perceptions, and feeding practices

Creation and Worldwide Utilisation of New COVID-19 Online Information Hub for Genetics Health Professionals, Patients and Families

The current COVID-19 pandemic has unfortunately resulted in many significant concerns for individuals with genetic disorders and their relatives, regarding the viral infection and, particularly, its specific implications and additional advisable precautions for individuals affected by genetic disorders. To address this, the resulting requirement for guidance and information for the public and for genetics professionals was discussed among colleagues nationally, on the ScotGEN Steering Committee, and internationally on the Education Committee of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG). It was agreed that the creation of an online hub of genetics-related COVID-19 information resources would be particularly helpful. The proposed content, divided into a web page for professionals and a page for patients, was discussed with, and approved by, genetics professionals. The hub was created and provided online at www.scotgen.org.uk and linked from the ESHG’s educational website for genetics and genomics, at www.eurogems.org. The new hub provides links, summary information and representative illustrations for a wide range of selected international resources. The resources for professionals include: COVID-19 research related hubs provided by Nature, Science, Frontiers, and PubMed; clinical guidelines; the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control; the World Health Organisation; and molecular data sources including coronavirus 3D protein structures. The resources for patients and families include links to many accessible sources of support and relevant information. Since the launch of the pages, the website has received visits from over 50 countries worldwide. Several genetics consultants have commented on usefulness, clarity, readability, and ease of navigation. Visits have originated most frequently in the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Moldova, United States, Philippines, France, and Qatar. More links have been added since the launch of the hub to include additional international public health and academic resources. In conclusion, an up-to-date online hub has been created and made freely available for healthcare professionals, patients, relatives and the public, providing categorised easily navigated links to a range of worldwide resources related to COVID-19. These pages are receiving a rapidly growing number of return visits and the authors continue to maintain and update the pages’ content, incorporating new developments in this field of enormous worldwide importance

Reading problems of the bottom third: grades one through six

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Teacher self-efficacy and reasons for choosing initial teacher education programmes in Norway and New Zealand

publishedVersio