The impact of model-lead-test coaching on parents\u27 implementation of reinforcement, prompting, and fading with their children with autism spectrum disorder

Parents play an essential role in furthering the development of their children with special needs. They are being trained to be co-therapists for their own children. The goal is to improve the ways they interact with their children in order to create improvements in their children\u27s everyday functioning. If the proper teaching strategies are consistently applied, a learner can significantly improve his/her performance of various life skills, including communication, self-care, social skills, along with other skill sets. Because adults\u27 learning processes differ substantially from children\u27s, it will be critical to utilize the coaching method that employs a Model-Lead-Test (MLT) approach to effectively train parents of children with autism. The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of model-lead-test coaching on parents\u27 use of prompting, fading, and reinforcement with their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The secondary purpose is to assess whether there are improvements in the children\u27s talker, participator, and problem solver repertoires associated with their parents\u27 use of these behavior change processes.;Using a multiple baseline across behavior design for each parent-child dyad, data are collected on parents\u27 proper use of reinforcement, prompting, and fading as well as their children\u27s talker, participator, and problem solver repertoire development. Research phases include baseline, parent training I (Oral Lecture), parent training II (Model-Lead-Test), and maintenance.;The resulting data from this study indicate that the Model-Lead-Test approach to parent implementation of core ABA strategies has a greater impact than merely using an Oral Lecture Discussion approach to parent training. To summarize, the data from all three participants showed an increase in the proper implementation of reinforcement, prompting and fading procedures especially through MLT training. The child participants also showed an increase in their talker, participator and problem solver repertoires. And finally, interpretation of the data is presented along with possible future guidelines for research

Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader for Adversarial Markov Decision Processes with Bandit Feedback

We consider regret minimization for Adversarial Markov Decision Processes (AMDPs), where the loss functions are changing over time and adversarially chosen, and the learner only observes the losses for the visited state-action pairs (i.e., bandit feedback). While there has been a surge of studies on this problem using Online-Mirror-Descent (OMD) methods, very little is known about the Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader (FTPL) methods, which are usually computationally more efficient and also easier to implement since it only requires solving an offline planning problem. Motivated by this, we take a closer look at FTPL for learning AMDPs, starting from the standard episodic finite-horizon setting. We find some unique and intriguing difficulties in the analysis and propose a workaround to eventually show that FTPL is also able to achieve near-optimal regret bounds in this case. More importantly, we then find two significant applications: First, the analysis of FTPL turns out to be readily generalizable to delayed bandit feedback with order-optimal regret, while OMD methods exhibit extra difficulties (Jin et al., 2022). Second, using FTPL, we also develop the first no-regret algorithm for learning communicating AMDPs in the infinite-horizon setting with bandit feedback and stochastic transitions. Our algorithm is efficient assuming access to an offline planning oracle, while even for the easier full-information setting, the only existing algorithm (Chandrasekaran and Tewari, 2021) is computationally inefficient.Comment: Accepted to NeurIPS 202

Surface superconductor-insulator transition induced by an electric field

It is well-known that the electric field can induce phase transitions between superconducting, metallic and insulating states in thin-film materials due to its control of the charge carrier density. Since a similar effect on the charge carriers can also be expected for surfaces of bulk samples, here we investigate the transformation of the surface states in a superconductor under an applied screened electric field. Our study is performed by numerically solving the self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations for the one-dimensional attractive Hubbard model. It is found that the surface insulating regime occurs at sufficiently large (but still experimentally accessible) electric fields. Our calculations yield the phase diagram of the surface superconducting, metallic, and insulating states for a wide range of temperatures and applied fields. Our results are in qualitative agreement with the phase diagram obtained by the transport measurements for (Li, Fe)OHFeSe thin flakes [Sci. Bull. 64, 653 (2019); ACS Nano 14, 7513 (2020)].Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Modeling Three-dimensional Invasive Solid Tumor Growth in Heterogeneous Microenvironment under Chemotherapy

A systematic understanding of the evolution and growth dynamics of invasive solid tumors in response to different chemotherapy strategies is crucial for the development of individually optimized oncotherapy. Here, we develop a hybrid three-dimensional (3D) computational model that integrates pharmacokinetic model, continuum diffusion-reaction model and discrete cell automaton model to investigate 3D invasive solid tumor growth in heterogeneous microenvironment under chemotherapy. Specifically, we consider the effects of heterogeneous environment on drug diffusion, tumor growth, invasion and the drug-tumor interaction on individual cell level. We employ the hybrid model to investigate the evolution and growth dynamics of avascular invasive solid tumors under different chemotherapy strategies. Our simulations reproduce the well-established observation that constant dosing is generally more effective in suppressing primary tumor growth than periodic dosing, due to the resulting continuous high drug concentration. In highly heterogeneous microenvironment, the malignancy of the tumor is significantly enhanced, leading to inefficiency of chemotherapies. The effects of geometrically-confined microenvironment and non-uniform drug dosing are also investigated. Our computational model, when supplemented with sufficient clinical data, could eventually lead to the development of efficient in silico tools for prognosis and treatment strategy optimization.Comment: 41 pages, 8 figure

Breast cancer metastasis to thyroid: a retrospective analysis

Background: Breast cancers metastasizing to thyroid gland are relatively uncommon in clinical practice.Objective: Retrospective analysis of data from breast cancer patients with thyroid metastasis (TM).Methods: The US suspected, fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) confirmed TM in breast cancer patients, treated between 2005 and 2015 at our hospital, was retrospectively analyzed. The data were re-evaluated by the pathologist and radiologist who were blinded to the patients’ data.Results: FNAC and immunohistochemistry confirmed the ultrasonography (US) suspected TM in eight breast cancer patients. Clinically both unilateral and bilateral TM was seen, which were symptomless and metachronously (6-121 months) metastasized. Six of eight cases exhibited recurrence/distant metastasis and were treated with chemotherapy/ thyroidectomy of which two cases passed away. The remaining two patients had no recurrences/distant metastases and were treated with partial/total thyroidectomy. Post-chemotherapy US showed more homogenous thyroid parenchyma with gathering of calcification that reduced in size, revealing the sensitiveness of TM to chemotherapy.Conclusion: US was useful in screening TM in breast cancer patients. Both partial and total thyroidectomy was effective in disease free survival of isolated TM cases, with controlled primary condition. TM responded well to chemotherapy in most of the recurrent breast cancer cases with or without distant metastasis.Keywords: Thyroid, ultrasonography, breast cancer, metastasis