Teachers\u27 Attitudes Towards Using Individual Education Plans in the Regular Classroom for Students With Specific Learning Difficulties

Western Australia schools are now encouraged to provide education for an increasingly wider diversity of students and referral to special classes is less common place than it was in the past(EDWA, 1993). As a consequence the responsibility for teaching these students with disabilities, who were once eligible for education support has been given to the regular classroom teacher. This study focused on teachers\u27 attitudes towards using Individual Education Plans for students with specific learning difficulties in regular Western Australian primary classrooms. A sample of 300 regular metropolitan classroom teachers was randomly selected from regular primary schools and Priority School Program schools within the Perth metropolitan area. Survey variables were teachers\u27 ages, special education provisions at their school, year group taught, amount of practical teaching experience, qualifications, confidence as a result of teacher training and their previous success with students experiencing difficulty with learning. A mailed questionnaire produced a response rate of 48% (145 responses), marginally below the minimal 50 percent return rate expected for mail surveys (Deschamp & Taguolini, 1988). The study identified a number of anxieties and apprehensions that mainstream Western Australia primary school teachers have in regard to Individual Education Plans and students experiencing difficulties with learning. It also emphasised teachers\u27 perceptions of the availability and adequacy of classroom support and resources for teachers of students experiencing difficulties with learning in mainstream Western Australia primary schools

An Experimental Investigation of Real-time Video Transmission over IEEE 802.11e WLAN Networks using TXOP

Real-time multimedia streaming applications require a strict bounded end-to-end delay and are considered to be bursty as each video frame is typically transmitted as a burst of packets. In this paper we show how the distribution of video frame sizes can be used to efficiently dimension the IEEE 802.11e TXOP limit parameter to efficiently deal with this burstiness in order to enhance the transmission of real-time video streaming services. Through experimental investigation, we show that by using the mean video frame size to dimension the TXOP limit parameter, the transmission delay for the video frame is reduced by 67% under heavily loaded conditions. Other techniques investigated in this paper include applying the TXOP facility separately to each of the constituent I, P, and B video frame types

Video Frame Differentiation for Streamed Multimedia over Heavilty Loaded IEEE 802.11e WLAN using TXOP

In this paper we perform an experimental investigation of using video frame differentiation in conjunction with the TXOP facility to enhance the transmission of parallel multimedia streaming sessions in IEEE 802.11e. The delay constraints associated with the audio and video streams that comprise a multimedia session pose the greatest challenge since real-time multimedia is particularly sensitive to delay as the packets require a strict bounded end-to-end delay. Video streaming applications are considered to be bursty. This burstiness is due to the frame rate of vide., the intrinsic hierarchical structure of the constituent video frame types. The TXOP facility is particularly suited to efficiently deal with this burstiness since it can be used to reserve bandwidth for the duration of the packet burst associated with a packetised video frame. Through experimental investigation, we show that there is a significant performance improvement for video streaming applications under heavily loaded conditions by differentiating between the constituent video frame types. The results shoe that video frame differentiation reduces the mean loss rate by 12% and increases the mean PSNR by 13.1 dB

Two decades of dune slack restoration in North Wales: diversity, community and habitat specialists

Humid dunes slacks are a highly threatened habitat, listed as vulnerable in the EU habitat red list. Accelerated successional processes in dune systems have resulted in the loss and degradation of ideal conditions for specialist dune slack species, hence the need for conservation management. We investigated the restoration of a dune slack in North Wales, UK, where vegetation and soil removal to 10 cm depth was undertaken to reinstate nutrient‐poor, open and damp conditions. We assessed the outcomes of the management for dune slack communities over the 18 years since restoration. We also assessed the differences between restored and unrestored areas of dune slacks. The dunes were restored in the winter of 2004/2005, after which we conducted vegetation surveys in fixed quadrats for most years in the restored and adjacent, un‐restored dune slacks. Species diversity and plant community composition changes over time were assessed using Shannon's index, multivariate analysis and indicator species analysis. Comparisons between the restored and unrestored areas of the dune slacks were also made. Ellenberg indicator values (EIVs) were examined to identify potential environmental drivers of post management successional changes. After 18 years the restored dune slacks developed a species‐rich and diverse community. compared to the unrestored slacks. The establishment of species occurred rapidly in the first three years, followed by continued but slower increases in species richness and diversity. This is due to the addition of new species without losses of established species. EIVs show no significant difference over time suggesting the restored areas are still at an early stage of succession. Distinct stages of community change since restoration are characterised by different indicator species. Plants are likely to be largely recruited from an existing seed bank. Restoration by turf removal may be suitable for other low nutrient, species rich habitats dependent upon fluctuating groundwater levels

Radius of a Photon Beam with Orbital Angular Momentum

We analyze the transverse structure of the Gouy phase shift in light beams carrying orbital angular momentum and show that the Gouy radius $r_G$ characterizing the transverse structure grows as $\sqrt{2p+|\ell|+1}$ with the nodal number $p$ and photon angular momentum number $\ell$. The Gouy radius is shown to be closely related to the root-mean-square radius of the beam, and the divergence of the radius away from the focal plane is determined. Finally, we analyze the rotation of the Poynting vector in the context of the Gouy radius.Comment: 11 page

The money bail system places undue burden on the incarcerated poor- but risk informed release can change that

The money bail system widely used throughout the American criminal justice system requires a defendant to pay a specified sum of money or await their trail from a jail cell, placing undue burden on the poor. New research by Dottie Carmichael, Heather Caspers, Nicholas Davis, Trey Marchbanks, George Naufal and Steve Wood focuses on the use of validated risk assessment ..