Fostering Emotion Regulation in Lower Elementary Children through Practical Life Exercises

This action research investigated how integrating practical life exercises and self-regulation lessons could foster emotion regulation in lower elementary children. Twenty First and Second grade students in a public Montessori school participated in this four-week study. Quantitative data tools included students’ feelings self assessments, parent questionnaire, feelings check-in, and tallies of student behavior. Qualitative tools included students’ feeling journals, my observation journal, and children’s practical life reflection. Data analysis indicated that teaching children to identify their feelings and offering choices of calm down activities in the practical life area gave children the tools to recalibrate themselves. By the end of the study, an increasing number of children checked in daily as feeling happy, calm, and focused. Introducing social emotional lessons in September alongside classroom rules, routines, and expectations along with calm down tools equips children with a preventative rather than remedial repertoire of tools to emotionally regulate themselves to be successful learners for life

A Comparison of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Frameworks and Methodologies

Agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) covers issues on developing systems with software agents. There are many techniques, mostly agent-oriented and object-oriented, ready to be chosen as building blocks to create agent-based systems. There have been several AOSE methodologies proposed intending to show engineers guidelines on how these elements are constituted in having agents achieve the overall system goals. Although these solutions are promising, most of them are designed in ad-hoc manner without truly obeying software developing life-cycle fully, as well as lacking of examinations on agent-oriented features. To address these issues, we investigated state-of-the-art techniques and AOSE methodologies. By examining them in different respects, we commented on the strength and weakness of them. Toward a formal study, a comparison framework has been set up regarding four aspects, including concepts and properties, notations and modeling techniques, process, and pragmatics. Under these criteria, we conducted the comparison in both overview and detailed level. The comparison helped us with empirical and analytical study, to inspect the issues on how an ideal agent-based system will be formed

EFFECT OF DIFFERENT RUNNING SPEED ON VERTICAL OSCILLATION AND STRIDE

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different running speed (3.5±O.3 and 4.9±O.2 m/si on vertical oscillation of the center of gravity and stride. Ten male elite running players served as subjects. A camera (60Hz) was to collect the parameters during running. From this research, the t-Test is used to analyze the parameters of the kinematics in different running speed. Results indicated that different running speed would not affect the vertical oscillation of human body center of gravity. In addition, a significant difference (p< .05) was found in the same speed of different step, but no significance was found in different running speed of the same step. The duration of the stance phase in lower speed for about 38.34% of the stride and the swing phase for 61.66%, in higher speed for about 32.11 % and 67.89%

Simplified ZrTiOx-based RRAM cell structure with rectifying characteristics by integrating Ni/n + -Si diode

A simplified one-diode one-resistor (1D1R) resistive switching memory cell that uses only four layers of TaN/ZrTiO( x )/Ni/n(+)-Si was proposed to suppress sneak current where TaN/ZrTiO( x )/Ni can be regarded as a resistive-switching random access memory (RRAM) device while Ni/n(+)-Si acts as an Schottky diode. This is the first RRAM cell structure that employs metal/semiconductor Schottky diode for current rectifying. The 1D1R cell exhibits bipolar switching behavior with SET/RESET voltage close to 1 V without requiring a forming process. More importantly, the cell shows tight resistance distribution for different states, significantly rectifying characteristics with forward/reverse current ratio higher than 10(3) and a resistance ratio larger than 10(3) between two states. Furthermore, the cell also displays desirable reliability performance in terms of long data retention time of up to 10(4) s and robust endurance of 10(5) cycles. Based on the promising characteristics, the four-layer 1D1R structure holds the great potential for next-generation nonvolatile memory technology

Predictors of intra-abdominal coagulopathic hemorrhage after living donor liver transplantation

AbstractBackgroundResults of preoperative conventional coagulation assays are a poor predictor of hemorrhage after liver transplantation. In this study, we evaluated the factors that are predictive of intra-abdominal coagulopathic hemorrhage after living donor liver transplantation surgery.MethodsDuring the period from January 2009 to December 2012, 118 adults underwent living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) in our institution. Of those patients, 18 (15.3%) developed intra-abdominal coagulopathic hemorrhage (n = 7) or hemorrhage due to non-coagulopathic causes (n = 11) that required emergency medical, radiological, or surgical intervention within the first month after LDLT. Possible predictors of postoperative coagulopathic hemorrhage included donor-related factors, age, body mass index, MELD score, INR value, intra-operative blood transfusion, graft/recipient weight ratio, anhepatic phase, cold ischemia time, operative time, APACHE II score, onset of re-bleeding, and hemoglobin levels during rebleeding episodes.ResultsThere were no differences in any of the variables between the two groups (coagulopathic and noncoagulopathic hemorrhage) except for cold ischemia time. We found that cold ischemia time was significantly longer in patients with postoperative coagulopathic hemorrhage (160.50 ± 45.02 min) than in patients with hemorrhage due to non-coagulopathic causes (113.55 ± 29.31 min; P = 0.027).ConclusionProlonged cold ischemia time is associated with postoperative intra-abdominal coagulopathic hemorrhage in patients after LDLT. It is, therefore, necessary to shorten the cold ischemia time in order to reduce the risk of postoperative intra-abdominal hemorrhage due to coagulopathic causes

Interference-Aware Deployment for Maximizing User Satisfaction in Multi-UAV Wireless Networks

In this letter, we study the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle mounted Base Stations (UAV-BSs) in multi-UAV cellular networks. We model the multi-UAV deployment problem as a user satisfaction maximization problem, that is, maximizing the proportion of served ground users (GUs) that meet a given minimum data rate requirement. We propose an interference-aware deployment (IAD) algorithm for serving arbitrarily distributed outdoor GUs. The proposed algorithm can alleviate the problem of overlapping coverage between adjacent UAV-BSs to minimize inter-cell interference. Therefore, reducing co-channel interference between UAV-BSs will improve user satisfaction and ensure that most GUs can achieve the minimum data rate requirement. Simulation results show that our proposed IAD outperforms comparative methods by more than 10% in user satisfaction in high-density environments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in IEEE Wireless Communications Letter

Development of a Piezoelectric Vacuum Sensing Component for a Wide Pressure Range

In this study, we develop a clamped-clamped beam-type piezoelectric vacuum pressure sensing element. The clamped-clamped piezoelectric beam is composed of a PZT layer and a copper substrate. A pair of electrodes is set near each end. An input voltage is applied to a pair of electrodes to vibrate the piezoelectric beam, and the output voltage is measured at the other pair. Because the viscous forces on the piezoelectric beam vary at different air pressures, the vibration of the beam depends on the vacuum pressure. The developed pressure sensor can sense a wide range of pressure, from 6.5 × 10(-6) to 760 Torr. The experimental results showed that the output voltage is inversely proportional to the gas damping ratio, and thus, the vacuum pressure was estimated from the output voltage

In vitro assay to estimate tea astringency via observing flotation of artificial oil bodies sheltered by caleosin fused with histatin 3

AbstractAstringency, a sensory characteristic of food and beverages rich in polyphenols, mainly results from the formation of complexes between polyphenols and salivary proteins, causing a reduction of the lubricating properties of saliva. To develop an in vitro assay to estimate the astringency of oolong tea infusion, artificial oil bodies were constituted with sesame oil sheltered by a modified caleosin fused with histatin 3, one of the human salivary small peptides. Aggregation of artificial oil bodies was induced when they were mixed with oolong tea infusion or its major polyphenolic compound, (−)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) of 100μM as observed in light microscopy. The aggregated artificial oil bodies gradually floated on top of the solution and formed a visible milky layer whose thickness was in proportion to the concentrations of tea infusion. This assay system was applied to test four different oolong tea infusions with sensory astringency corresponding to their EGCG contents. The result showed that relative astringency of the four tea infusions was correlated to the thickness of floated artificial oil bodies, and could be estimated according to the standard curve generated by simultaneously observing a serial dilution of the tea infusion with the highest astringency

Evolution of hot fluids in the Chingshui geothermal field inferred from crystal morphology and geochemical vein data

The Chingshui geothermal field once hosted the first geothermal power plant in Taiwan from 1981 to 1993. After a long period of inactivity, this field is attracting renewed interest to meet the need for clean energy. A 213-m length of cores (IC-21) with continuous recovery, the longest in the Chingshui geothermal field, was recovered from 600 m to 813 m below the surface in 2010. Three types of calcite crystal morphologies have been identified in the veins of the cores of well IC-21: bladed, rhombic and massive crystals. Bladed calcites are generated via degassing under boiling conditions with a precipitation temperature of ∼165 °C and calculated δ18O value of −6.8‰ to −10.2‰ VSMOW for the thermal water. Rhombic calcites grow in low concentration Ca2+ and CO32− meteoric fluids and precipitate at approximately ∼180 °C. Finally, massive calcites are characterized by co-precipitation with quartz in the mixing zone between meteoric water and magmatic or metamorphic fluids with calculated δ18O value of up to 1.5 ± 0.7‰ VSMOW. Furthermore, the scaling and hot fluids at a nearby pilot geothermal power plant confirm a meteoric origin. Based on these observations, we propose that the current orientations of the main conduits for geothermal fluids are oriented at N10°E with a dip of 70°E. This result provides the basic information needed for deploying production and injection wells in future developments of the geothermal power plant in this region

NBM-HD-1: A Novel Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor with Anticancer Activity

HDAC inhibitors (HDACis) have been developed as promising anticancer agents in recent years. In this study, we synthesized and characterized a novel HDACi, termed NBM-HD-1. This agent was derived from the semisynthesis of propolin G, isolated from Taiwanese green propolis (TGP), and was shown to be a potent suppressor of tumor cell growth in human breast cancer cells (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) and rat glioma cells (C6), with an IC50 ranging from 8.5 to 10.3 μM. Western blot demonstrated that levels of p21(Waf1/Cip1), gelsolin, Ac-histone 4, and Ac-tubulin markedly increased after treatment of cancer cells with NBM-HD-1. After NBM-HD-1 treatment for 1–4 h, p-PTEN and p-AKT levels were markedly decreased. Furthermore, we also found the anticancer activities of NBM-HD-1 in regulating cell cycle regulators. Treatment with NBM-HD-1, p21(Waf1/Cip1) gene expression had markedly increased while cyclin B1 and D1 gene expressions had markedly decreased. On the other hand, we found that NBM-HD-1 increased the expressions of tumor-suppressor gene p53 in a dose-dependent manner. Finally, we showed that NBM-HD-1 exhibited potent antitumor activity in a xenograft model. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that this compound, NBM-HD-1, is a novel and potent HDACi with anticancer activity in vitro and in vivo