1,947 research outputs found
Direct Observation of High-Temperature Polaronic Behavior In Colossal Magnetoresistive Manganites
The temperature dependence of the electronic and atomic structure of the
colossal magnetoresistive oxides (x = 0.3, 0.4) has
been studied using core and valence level photoemission, x-ray absorption and
emission, and extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy. A dramatic
and reversible change of the electronic structure is observed on crossing the
Curie temperature, including charge localization and spin moment increase of
Mn, together with Jahn-Teller distortions, both signatures of polaron
formation. Our data are also consistent with a phase-separation scenario.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, revte
Evaluation of Afterschool Activity Programsā (ASAP) Effect on Childrenās Physical Activity, Physical Health, and Fundamental Movement Skills
Publisher Copyright: Ā© The Author(s) 2021.Background: Physical literacy-focused afterschool activity programs (ASAPs) can be an effective strategy to improve childrenās health-related parameters. We sought to compare physical activity, body composition, aerobic capacity, and fundamental movement skills between physical literacy-focused ASAP and a standard recreational ASAP. Method: A preāpost (6 months) comparison study was conducted in 5- to 12-year-old children in a physical literacy-focused ASAP (physical literacy group, n = 14) and children attending a standard recreational ASAP (comparison group, n = 15). Physical activity guideline adherence was assessed using accelerometry, body composition was analyzed using bioelectrical impedance, aerobic capacity was estimated using the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run test, and fundamental movement skills were evaluated using the Test of Gross Motor Developmentā2. Results: There were no significant differences between groups at baseline. After 6 months, the physical literacy group exhibited a significant improvement in their total raw score for the Test of Gross Motor Developmentā2 (p =.016), which was likely due to improvements in object control skills (p =.024). The comparison group significantly increased body mass index (p =.001) and body fat (p =.009) over time. No significant between-group differences were found; however, there was a trend for improved aerobic capacity in the physical literacy group (d = 0.58). Conclusions: Engagement in the physical literacy-focused ASAP contributed to an attenuated increase in adiposity and an improvement in object control skills.Peer reviewe
Study of the Hindrance Effect in Sub-barrier Fusion Reactions
We have measured the fusion cross sections of the 12C(13C, p)24Na reaction
through off-line measurement of the beta-decay of 24Na using the beta-gamma
coincidence method. Our new measurements in the energy range of Ec.m. = 2.6-3.0
MeV do not show an obvious S-factor maximum but a plateau. Comparison between
this work and various models is presented.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Talk at the "10th International Conference on
Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions", Beijing, 16-21 August 200
Fabric Image Representation Encoding Networks for Large-scale 3D Medical Image Analysis
Deep neural networks are parameterised by weights that encode feature
representations, whose performance is dictated through generalisation by using
large-scale feature-rich datasets. The lack of large-scale labelled 3D medical
imaging datasets restrict constructing such generalised networks. In this work,
a novel 3D segmentation network, Fabric Image Representation Networks
(FIRENet), is proposed to extract and encode generalisable feature
representations from multiple medical image datasets in a large-scale manner.
FIRENet learns image specific feature representations by way of 3D fabric
network architecture that contains exponential number of sub-architectures to
handle various protocols and coverage of anatomical regions and structures. The
fabric network uses Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) extended to 3D to
extract local and image-level features at a fine selection of scales. The
fabric is constructed with weighted edges allowing the learnt features to
dynamically adapt to the training data at an architecture level. Conditional
padding modules, which are integrated into the network to reinsert voxels
discarded by feature pooling, allow the network to inherently process
different-size images at their original resolutions. FIRENet was trained for
feature learning via automated semantic segmentation of pelvic structures and
obtained a state-of-the-art median DSC score of 0.867. FIRENet was also
simultaneously trained on MR (Magnatic Resonance) images acquired from 3D
examinations of musculoskeletal elements in the (hip, knee, shoulder) joints
and a public OAI knee dataset to perform automated segmentation of bone across
anatomy. Transfer learning was used to show that the features learnt through
the pelvic segmentation helped achieve improved mean DSC scores of 0.962,
0.963, 0.945 and 0.986 for automated segmentation of bone across datasets.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure
Parental cultural models and resources for understanding mathematical achievement in culturally diverse school settings
This paper proposes that the theoretical concept of cultural models can offer useful insights into parental involvement in their childās mathematical achievement and the resources they use to go about gaining information in culturally diverse learning settings. This examination takes place within a cultural-developmental framework and draws on the notion of cultural models to explicate parental understandings of their childās mathematics achievement and what resources are used to make sense of this. Three parental resources are scrutinized: (a) the teacher, (b) examination test results, and (c) constructions of child development. The interviews with 22 parents revealed some ambiguity around the interpretation of these resources by the parent, which was often the result of incongruent cultural models held between the home and the school. The resources mentioned are often perceived as being unambiguous but show themselves instead to be highly interpretive because of the diversity of cultural models in existence in culturally diverse settings. Parents who are in minority or marginalized positions tend to have difficulties in interpreting cultural models held by school, thereby disempowering them to be parentally involved in the way the school would like
Why do some social insect queens mate with several males? Testing the sex-ratio manipulation hypothesis in Lasius niger
Although multiple mating most likely increases mortality risk for social insect queens and lowers the kin benefits for nonreproductive workers, a significant proportion of hymenopteran queens mate with several males. It has been suggested that queens may mate multiply as a means to manipulate sex ratios to their advantage. Multiple paternity reduces the extreme relatedness value of females for workers, selecting for workers to invest more in males. In populations with female-biased sex ratios, queens heading such male-producing colonies would achieve a higher fitness. We tested this hypothesis in a Swiss and a Swedish population of the ant Lasius niger. There was substantial and consistent variation in queen mating frequency and colony sex allocation within and among populations, but no evidence that workers regulated sex allocation in response to queen mating frequency; the investment in females did not differ among paternity classes. Moreover, population-mean sex ratios were consistently less female biased than expected under worker control and were close to the queen optimum. Queens therefore had no incentive to manipulate sex ratios because their fitness did not depend on the sex ratio of their colony. Thus, we found no evidence that the sex-ratio manipulation theory can explain the evolution and maintenance of multiple mating in L. niger
Parental agency, identity and knowledge: mothers of children with dyslexia
This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Oxford Review of EducationĀ© 2004 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Oxford Review of Education is available online at http://www.informaworld.comIn this paper we report and analyse findings from part of a two-year evaluation project which focuses on parent-professional communications over the issues of learning difficulties arising from dyslexia. The key concepts in this study are dyslexia friendly schools and parental partnership, which are discussed in the current policy interest in inclusive education and parent partnership. A conceptual framework has been derived from the study which focuses on parental strategies to ensure adequate provision for their children, knowledge about dyslexia and identity, in particular that of the mother of the child with dyslexia. Excerpts from in-depth interviews of parents are then presented to illustrate the framework. The significance of the findings is examined in relation to other studies of parent partnership. Implications for a more inclusive version of extended professionalism are also considered
Recommended from our members
Development of a short food frequency questionnaire to assess diet quality in UK adolescents using the National Diet and Nutrition Survey
BACKGROUND: UK adolescents consume fewer fruits and vegetables and more free sugars than any other age group. Established techniques to understand diet quality can be difficult to use with adolescents because of high participant burden. This study aimed to identify key foods that indicate variation in diet quality in UK adolescents for inclusion in a short food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and to investigate the associations between adolescent diet quality, nutritional biomarkers and socio-demographic factors.
METHODS: Dietary, demographic and biomarker data from waves 1-8 of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme were used (n=2587; aged 11-18āyears; 50% boys; n=ā¤997 biomarker data). Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to 139 food groups to identify the key patterns within the data. Two diet quality scores, a 139-group and 20-group, were calculated using the PCA coefficients for each food group and multiplying by their standardised reported frequency of consumption and then summing across foods. The foods with the 10 strongest positive and 10 strongest negative coefficients from the PCA results were used for the 20-group score. Scores were standardised to have a zero mean and standard deviation of one.
RESULTS: The first PCA component explained 3.0% of variance in the dietary data and described a dietary pattern broadly aligned with UK dietary recommendations. A correlation of 0.87 was observed between the 139-group and 20-group scores. Bland-Altman mean difference was 0.00 and 95% limits of agreement were -ā0.98 to 0.98 SDs. Correlations, in the expected direction, were seen between each nutritional biomarker and both scores; results attenuated slightly for the 20-group score compared to the 139-group score. Better diet quality was observed among girls, non-white populations and in those from higher socio-economic backgrounds for both scores.
CONCLUSIONS: The diet quality score based on 20 food groups showed reasonable agreement with the 139-group score. Both scores were correlated with nutritional biomarkers. A short 20-item FFQ can provide a meaningful and easy-to-implement tool to assess diet quality in large scale observational and intervention studies with adolescents
Local lattice disorder in the geometrically-frustrated spin glass pyrochlore Y2Mo2O7
The geometrically-frustrated spin glass Y2Mo2O7 has been considered widely to
be crystallographically ordered with a unique nearest neighbor magnetic
exchange interaction, J. To test this assertion, we present x-ray-absorption
fine-structure results for the Mo and Y K edges as a function of temperature
and compare them to results from a well-ordered pyrochlore, Tl2Mn2O7. We find
that the Mo-Mo pair distances are significantly disordered at approximately
right angles to the Y-Mo pairs. These results strongly suggest that lattice
disorder nucleates the spin-glass phase in this material.Comment: 9 pages, 2 Postscript figures, Phys. Rev. B: Rapid, in pres
- ā¦