In what ways can play-based learning in preschool and kindergarten classrooms support healthy development?

Play-based learning was identified as a developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) within early childhood education (ECE) (NAEYC, 2009). This paper examined current research to determine the impact of play-based learning on the development of preschool and kindergarten children. According to research, play offers effective, innovative approaches to pedagogy that meets children’s diverse needs as a whole learner. Although research has underlined the importance of play for the future of ECE, a number of diverse challenges have created difficulty with implementing play-based learning in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. Most early childhood educators have faced increasing difficulty with advocating for play given the pressure to focus on academic achievement and standardized testing. Other challenges have included the stigma of play within society, difficulty defining play, lack of time, inadequate play spaces, and inappropriate expectations (Belknap & Hazler, 2014; Mainella, Agate, & Clark, 2011; Nilsson, Ferholt, & Lecusay, 2018). Studies in this paper examined research on these issues within ECE, effects of lack of play experiences, as well as benefits of play for young children’s holistic development. Supporting the development of children’s full social, emotional, physical, and cognitive capacities was found to most effectively be addressed through inclusion of play in preschool and kindergarten curriculum

Empowering Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: A Training Manual for Group Leaders

With a growing trend in the number of grandparents raising grandchildren nationally, a demand has been created for professionals to provide some assistance so that grandparents can navigate their way through a variety of family issues, including legal and custody, financial, and parenting skills. Empowering Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: A Training Manual for Group Leaders, by Carole B. Cox, provides a 14-session training workshop program for use with grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Extension, family life, and parent educators will find this manual extremely helpful for use in train-the-trainer programs, support groups for grandparents, and other community education programs

FIRE AND SAFETY ANALYSIS ROBERT E. KENNEDY LIBRARY

The Robert E. Kennedy Library is located on Cal Poly Campus. The Library is a five-story building with different occupancies which consists of library areas, offices, mechanical equipment and storage areas. The building has a total area of 178 702 ft². The original code of construction for the Library was the 1976 Uniform Building code (UBC). However, the fire and life safety analysis of the building in this report is performed using: Egress: NFPA 101 LSC 2015, Water based suppression: NFPA 13, Structural fire protection: 2015 IBC, Fire detection, alarm and communication systems: NFPA 72, Performance based design: NFPA 101 LSC 2015 and the SFPE handbook 5th edition. The prescriptive-based analysis in this report focuses on the egress features, fire alarm and detection systems, fire suppression systems and structural fire protection of the Robert E. Kennedy Library. The egress features built into the Library were found to mostly comply with the prescriptive requirements of the LSC. There is an automatic fire alarm and detection system as well as an emergency notification system installed in the Library, mostly in accordance with the LSC and NFPA 72. However, the notification devices do not cover all common use areas in the Library, which is not up to code. The Library does not have a water based suppression system, but it is designed in this report. The proposed suppression system is in accordance with IBC requirements, and was designed following the requirements of NFPA 13. The analysis demonstrates that the Library is in accordance with all of the requirements of the IBC for Type I- B construction. The performance-based analysis in this report investigated the ability of the fire protection systems in the Library to perform satisfactorily in different fire scenarios. This analysis was completed using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) program, in conjunction with the Pyrosim graphical user interface and the Pathfinder evacuation simulator. The chosen design fire scenario was a fire with 8 bookshelves in the south west corner of the second floor. Two simulations were done, with and without functional sprinkler system. The data needed for the fire and combustion properties was taken from the SFPE handbook. The tenability criteria’s was evaluated east of the fire, where the occupants first will be affected by the fire. The simulations without functional sprinkler system indicated that RSET\u3eASET. The visibility was violated in less than half the required safety egress time (RSET). The simulations with a functional sprinkler system indicated that ASET\u3eRSET. The tenability criteria’s was not violated and it was determined that the building is safe in respect to life safety with sprinklers. It has been shown in the performance-based analysis portion of this report how a sprinklers system can reduce the effects of combustion byproducts in an area with a high fuel load and increase the life safety potential within a building. Sprinkler installation for the control of fires is the most common method of providing fire suppression. I would therefore recommend installing a sprinkler system in the Library for life safety. I would also recommend providing notification devices in all common use areas throughout the Library as required by IBC 2015 edition

Analyse av fuger i mur og betongelementer

Denne oppgaven tar for seg fuger i mur og betongelementer. Ulike typer fuger blir nevnt i bakgrunn, men oppgaven fokuserer hovedsakelig på ikke-kraftoverførende fuger. Fuger er med på å komplettere bygningsdeler. Det som ligger bak problemstillingen er å se på hva lovverket sier om fuging, hva aktører mener om temaet, hva et småskalaforsøk vil kunne gi av resultater og eventuelt en anbefaling på hvordan fuger i en EI60 murkonstruksjon kan bli utført. Småskalaforsøkene fokuserer på ikke-bærende murkonstruksjoner. Dokumentasjonsmengden vil bli vesentlig mindre ved å ha en preakseptert løsning. Slik det er per i dag må fugeløsningene dokumenteres tilstrekkelig. Behovet for dokumentasjon i henhold til produkter er at alle produktene er dokumentert etter retningslinjene til CE-merking. SINTEF har en veiledning på hvordan dokumentasjonen kan utføres tilstrekkelig, dette gjelder for utførende. Uavhengig kontroll vil også være med på å kvalitetssikre dokumentasjonen. SINTEF Byggforsk kunne helt klart være en nøkkel for videre forskning for utarbeiding av en preakseptert løsning for fuger i mur- og betongkonstruksjoner. VTEK10 refererer enkelte ganger til SINTEF Byggforsk detaljblader på grunn av at dette anses som gode løsninger. I en utarbeidelse av en preakseptert løsning vil dette kunne føre til mindre etterspørsel for sertifiserte løsninger. Ut fra hva de forskjellige aktørene mener ser det ut som det er uenigheter på temaet. Dette gjelder hvem og hvordan fuging bør utføres, om fuging oppleves som et problem slik det blir utført per i dag og om muligheten for en preakseptert løsning. Det er blitt utført totalt 10 forsøk hvor det er foretatt ulike fugeløsninger med variasjon i spalter, bruk av ulike materialer og forskjellige komprimeringsgrader på de materialer hvor dette var mulig. Forsøkene hadde 90 minutters varighet som et utgangspunkt. Brannen for småskalaforsøket hadde, i flere av forsøkene, en høyere temperaturvekts enn oppvarmingskurven. Dette ble holdt innenfor tidsintervallet fra start inntil 60 minutter. Ved 90 minutter var oppvarmingskurven 38 °C høyere enn høyest registrert branntemperatur i riggen. Alle tester ble utført konservativt, dette med tanke på at ingen av fugene ble murt eller støpt inn med mørtel. Ut fra forsøkene ble det oppdaget at bruk av vanlig byggskum, uten tildekning, ikke var holdbart til bruk som fugeløsning i en bygningsdel med brannkrav. Forsøk med steinull med 10 prosent komprimeringsgrad gav heller ikke gode resultater, dette var på grunn av at fugen var vanskelig å utføre korrekt. En mulig anbefalt fugeløsning for en bygningsdel med ytelseskrav EI60 vil være å benytte steinull som fugemateriell og utføre dette med en komprimeringsgrad på minst 20 prosent. Dette gjelder for horisontalfuger med spaltehøyde fra 15 mm til 50 mm og vertikalfuge med spalte på 20 mm

Impartial Selection and the Power of Up to Two Choices

ta no_volume: no_number: no_pages: A:X–A:Y no_year: pdf: publications/bfk_impartial.pdf no_tr: no_http: slides: publications/slides_wine15.pdf keywords: web,recent,journal cvnote: \contrib33%ta no_volume: no_number: no_pages: A:X–A:Y no_year: pdf: publications/bfk_impartial.pdf no_tr: no_http: slides: publications/slides_wine15.pdf keywords: web,recent,journal cvnote: \contrib33%We study mechanisms that select members of a set of agents based on nominations by other members and that are impartial in the sense that agents cannot influence their own chance of selection. Prior work has shown that deterministic mechanisms for selecting any fixed number k of agents are severely limited and cannot extract a constant fraction of the nominations of the k most highly nominated agents. We prove here that this impossibility result can be circumvented by allowing the mechanism to sometimes but not always select fewer than k agents. This added flexibility also improves the performance of randomized mechanisms, for which we show a separation between mechanisms that make exactly two or up to two choices and give upper and lower bounds for mechanisms allowed more than two choices

Effekten av sponsing på Instagram

Sponsing er i dag i stadig utvikling og det fattet vår interesse å undersøke temaet nærmere. I tillegg så vi et felt innenfor sponsing som manglet forskning; sponsing av kjente personer gjennom sosiale medier. Vi har i denne oppgaven sett på hvordan kongruens (samsvar) mellom sponsor og sponsorobjekt påvirker forbrukernes holdning til et produkt. Sponsing er et verktøy som flere og flere bedrifter benytter seg av som en del av sin markedsføring, og vi har spesielt observert en slik trend gjennom kjente bloggere/instagrammere. I denne oppgaven har vi tatt for oss Lene Alexandra Øien som sponsorobjekt gjennom et kongruent og et inkongruent sponsorat; det norske treningsmerket We are fit, og et fiktivt motemerke vi har kalt Moda Classica. Hensikten med oppgaven var å undersøke om kongruens har betydning og er med på å påvirke forbrukernes holdning til produktet. Vi ble oppmerksomme på et interessant studie utført av Speed og Thompson, og fikk dermed ideen om å videreføre dette studiet til å gjelde temaet sponsing av kjente Instagram-personer. Med utgangspunkt i Speed og Thompsons studie formulerte vi følgende problemstilling: “Hvordan påvirker kongruens mellom sponsorobjekt og produkt en forbrukers holdning til produktet?”. På bakgrunn av problemstillingen og andre forskningsartikler utarbeidet vi også følgende hypotese: Sponsorater med høy kongruens vil ha en direkte positiv effekt på holdningen til det promoterte produktet. Vi har valgt å benytte oss av kvantitativ metode med et eksperimentelt design, hvor vi baserte utvalget på kvinnelige studenter i alderen 19-29 år ved Høyskolen Kristiania. I utarbeidelsen av teori har vi, i tillegg til Speed og Thompson sin artikkel, lagt vekt på andre relevante forskningsartikler på området. Funnene i analysen viser at graden av kongruens er med på å påvirke forbrukernes holdning til et produkt i positiv retning. Videre fant vi at høy kongruens mellom sponsor og sponsorobjekt fører til en mer positiv holdning enn ved sponsorater med lav oppfattet kongruens

Tight bounds for online TSP on the line

We consider the online traveling salesperson problem (TSP), where requests appear online over time on the real line and need to be visited by a server initially located at the origin. We distinguish between closed and open online TSP, depending on whether the server eventually needs to return to the origin or not. While online TSP on the line is a very natural online problem that was introduced more than two decades ago, no tight competitive analysis was known to date. We settle this problem by providing tight bounds on the competitive ratios for both the closed and the open variant of the problem. In particular, for closed online TSP, we provide a 1.64-competitive algorithm,thus matching a known lower bound. For open online TSP, we give a new upper bound as well as a matching lower bound that establish the remarkable competitive ratio of 2.04. Additionally, we consider the online Dial-A-Ride problem on the line, where each request needs to be transported to a specified destination. We provide an improved non-preemptive lower bound of 1.75 for this setting, as well as an improved preemptive algorithm with competitive ratio 2.41.Finally, we generalize known and give new complexity results for the underlying offline problems. In particular, we give an algorithm with running time O(n2) for closed offline TSP on the line with release dates and show that both variants of offline Dial-A-Ride on the line are NP-hard for any capacity c≥2 of the server

Anything but the truth

Fundamental epistemic values are values that best explain some epistemic evaluations. But there are, I argue, no epistemic evaluations which are best explained by positing truth as an epistemic value. So truth is not a fundamental epistemic value.Peer Reviewe

Algorithm and Mechanism Design for Congested Networks

We are tackling the problem of reducing high congestion in networks from a mathematical point of view. First, we consider resource allocation problems where a set of commodities jointly uses a set of resources. The feasible allocations for each commodity are a commodity specific set of subsets of resources. The cost of each resource is determined by a polynomial function with maximum degree d that depends on the number of comodities using it. We propose a local search algorithm to reduce the overall cost for which we provide an upper and corresponding lower bound on the locality gap. In addition, we give concrete values for the locality gap for small d. We also evaluate the general approximation guarantee for the linear case and show APX-hardness with a lower bound that rises if the Unique Games Conjecture holds true. Further, we consider impartial selection, where a set of agents cast nominations amongst themselves and we seek to select an agent with a high number of nominations. Each selection mechanism shall maintain impartiality, meaning that a user’s nominations have no influence on her probability of being selected. While it has been shown that no deterministic exact mechanism can guarantee any positive approximation factor, we relax the exactness requirement and allow to sometimes, but not always select less than the desired number of agents. We introduce a mechanism which achieves a best possible result for deterministically selecting up to two agents. In the randomized variant, a performance guarantee for the expected number of nominations is given. We give a best possible mechanism for the case of selecting up to two out of three agents. We also introduce upper and lower bounds for exactly selecting two agents. Further, we generalize and subsequently analyze our algorithms to select a larger number of k agents. In addition, our work provides a general allocation subroutine, which gives a quick, simple solution to the problem of fairly allocating representatives in proportion to group sizes. Finally, we consider the online dial-a-ride problem on the line. Users arrive in an online manner in some place on the real line and request to be transported to another place on the line. A server of given capacity which starts at the origin picks users up and delivers them, with or without temporary interruption, to their destination. Our goal is to minimize the makespan, i.e. the time which the server needs until the last request is fulfilled. We provide a competitive algorithm for preemptive online dial-a-ride on the line and we prove an improved lower bound for the non-preemptive setting. In addition, we show that a slightly modified version of the algorithm holds the competitive ratio in metric space. We also consider the offline problem and prove that we can construct instances such that the server has to make direction changes on the line arbitrarily often and give a dynamic program which computes the minimum completion time in quadratic time. Further, we show that in contrast to that, the non-preemptive offline dial-a-ride on the line with capacity one is NP-complete