The Reading Intervention Program Making Connections Intervention and Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program Scores in One East Tennessee School District

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the reading intervention program Making Connections Intervention (MCI) and pre-intervention and post- intervention Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading scaled scores in one East Tennessee school district. Participants included 99 Tennessee students in grade levels six through nine who received reading intervention instruction through MCI and were frequently monitored following the requirements stipulated in the Tennessee Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2) Framework. This study assessed pre- and post-intervention data specific to gender, special education classification, Title I classification, and instructor classification through a series of t-tests. Findings indicated that although there were no significant differences in TCAP reading scaled scores for the grouping variables of gender, Title I classification, special education classification, and instructor classification, students’ TCAP reading scaled scores were significantly higher after participating in Making Connections Intervention

Impulse distributions in dense granular flows: signatures of large-scale spatial structures

In this paper we report the results of simulations of a 2D gravity driven, dissipative granular flow through a hopper system. Measurements of impulse distributions P(I) on the simulated system show flow-velocity-invariant behavior of the distribution for impulses larger than the average impulse . For small impulses, however, P(I) decreases significantly with flow velocity, a phenomenon which can be attributed exclusively to collisions between grains undergoing frequent collisions. Visualizations of the system also show that these frequently colliding particles tend to form increasingly large linear clusters as the flow velocity decreases. A model is proposed for the form of P(I), given distributions of cluster size and velocity, which accurately predicts the observed form of the distribution. Thus the impulse distribution provides some insight into the formation and properties of these ``dynamic'' force chains.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The iron content of sediment samples in New York Bight obtained during R/V Caryn cruise 108, October 19 - 24, 1956

Supplement to Reference No. 57-5. Originally issued as Reference No. 57-19.During R/V CARYN Cruise No. 108 to the New York Bight samples of the bottom were obtained with an orange peel dredge at 23 stations and additional bottom samples were obtained by aqualung divers. These samples have been returned to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where they have been analyzed for their iron content.National Lead Compan

Causal Impact of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program on Hospital Readmissions and Mortality

Estimating causal effects of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), part of the Affordable Care Act, has been very controversial. Associational studies have demonstrated decreases in hospital readmissions, consistent with the intent of the program, although analyses with different data sources and methods have differed in estimating effects on patient mortality. To address these issues, we define the estimands of interest in the context of potential outcomes, we formalize a Bayesian structural time-series model for causal inference, and discuss the necessary assumptions for estimation of effects using observed data. The method is used to estimate the effect of the passage of HRRP on both the 30-day readmissions and 30-day mortality. We show that for acute myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure, HRRP caused reduction in readmissions while it had no statistically significant effect on mortality. However, for pneumonia, HRRP had no statistically significant effect on readmissions but caused an increase in mortality.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Decoupling Superpages From a* Search in Randomized Algorithms

Many electrical engineers would agree that, had it not been for the Turing machine, the understanding of the producer-consumer problem might never have occurred. In this paper, authors demonstrate the construction of expert systems, which embodies the confusing principles of hardware and architecture. In order to surmount this riddle, we concentrate our efforts on showing that DHTs and write-back caches can interact to realize this mission

Universal Robotic Gripper based on the Jamming of Granular Material

Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current designs are based on the multi-fingered hand, but this approach introduces hardware and software complexities. These include large numbers of controllable joints, the need for force sensing if objects are to be handled securely without crushing them, and the computational overhead to decide how much stress each finger should apply and where. Here we demonstrate a completely different approach to a universal gripper. Individual fingers are replaced by a single mass of granular material that, when pressed onto a target object, flows around it and conforms to its shape. Upon application of a vacuum the granular material contracts and hardens quickly to pinch and hold the object without requiring sensory feedback. We find that volume changes of less than 0.5% suffice to grip objects reliably and hold them with forces exceeding many times their weight. We show that the operating principle is the ability of granular materials to transition between an unjammed, deformable state and a jammed state with solid-like rigidity. We delineate three separate mechanisms, friction, suction and interlocking, that contribute to the gripping force. Using a simple model we relate each of them to the mechanical strength of the jammed state. This opens up new possibilities for the design of simple, yet highly adaptive systems that excel at fast gripping of complex objects.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Influence of the Amazon River outflow on the ecology of the western tropical Atlantic I. Hydrography and nutrient chemistry

The influence of the Amazon River discharge on the nutrient chemistry and biological productivity in the western tropical Atlantic and the eastern Caribbean was investigated during two oceanogr aphic cruises in the fall of 1964 and the spring of 1965, respectively. The river outflow is entrained in the Guiana Current and carried to the north and east, affecting an area that is at times a million square miles, as indicated by surface salinity...

The annual cycle of phosphorus and nitrogen in New England coastal waters

Distributions of phosphorus and nitrogen in New England coastal waters at various times of year are described. In surface waters the nitrate-nitrogen content is sometimes completely exhausted, even though small concentrations (0.2-0.5µg-at/l) of phosphorus are always available. The ratio of concentrations by atoms, N:P, varies in surface waters from maximum values of about 10: 1 to values approaching zero as the nitrate is exhausted...

Bethe anzats derivation of the Tracy-Widom distribution for one-dimensional directed polymers

The distribution function of the free energy fluctuations in one-dimensional directed polymers with $\delta$-correlated random potential is studied by mapping the replicated problem to a many body quantum boson system with attractive interactions. Performing the summation over the entire spectrum of excited states the problem is reduced to the Fredholm determinant with the Airy kernel which is known to yield the Tracy-Widom distributionComment: 5 page