Large-amplitude chirped coherent phonons in tellurium mediated by ultrafast photoexcited carrier diffusion

We report femtosecond time-resolved reflectivity measurements of coherent phonons in tellurium performed over a wide range of temperatures (3K to 296K) and pump laser intensities. A totally symmetric A$_{1}$ coherent phonon at 3.6 THz responsible for the oscillations in the reflectivity data is observed to be strongly positively chirped (i.e, phonon time period decreases at longer pump-probe delay times) with increasing photoexcited carrier density, more so at lower temperatures. We show for the first time that the temperature dependence of the coherent phonon frequency is anomalous (i.e, increasing with increasing temperature) at high photoexcited carrier density due to electron-phonon interaction. At the highest photoexcited carrier density of $\sim$ 1.4 $\times$ 10$^{21}$cm$^{-3}$ and the sample temperature of 3K, the lattice displacement of the coherent phonon mode is estimated to be as high as $\sim$ 0.24 \AA. Numerical simulations based on coupled effects of optical absorption and carrier diffusion reveal that the diffusion of carriers dominates the non-oscillatory electronic part of the time-resolved reflectivity. Finally, using the pump-probe experiments at low carrier density of 6 $\times$ 10$^{18}$ cm$^{-3}$, we separate the phonon anharmonicity to obtain the electron-phonon coupling contribution to the phonon frequency and linewidth.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Challenges of Humanistic Psychology for Secondary Education

A new conception of man is now being unfolded in a very different orientation toward psychology or in a new psychology called Humanistic Psychology. It is the purpose of this thesis to arrive at these new concepts of man through research into the writings of and about four humanistic psychologists--Gordon W. Allport, James F. T. Bugental, Abraham H. Maslow, and Carl R. Rogers--and to use their own writings to interpret what may be the effects of the major concepts of their humanistic psychology on education. I have used the historical approach in my own study of the movement in the sense that I have reviewed, studied and synthesized ideas from the recent past writings of these major humanistic psychologists and critical books and articles about them. Even at this early stage of the movement a study of humanistic psychology must be limited. From the universe of all the major works of all the humanistic psychologists and books and articles written about them and their ideas, I have selected four humanistic psychologists for my study in my thesis. Gordon W. Allport, James F. T. Bugental, Abraham H. Maslow, and Carl R. Rogers. I have chosen to study these four psychologists for different reasons. I have chosen to study Gordon W. Allport because he is one of the older, most frequently cited, and conservative of the humanistic psychologists whom I have read, and his inclusion should give a better range and balance to the ideas that I gather in my study of humanistic psychology. James F. T. Bugental has been included in my study because I consider him one of the most essential, though one of the most complex, of the humanistic psychologists. Abraham H. Maslow has been selected because I consider him a pioneer and founder of the entire humanistic psychology movement. I chose Carl R. Rogers because of the profound effect he has had on personalistic theories and the impact he has already made on education as the founder of client-centered or non-directive counseling. The movement called Humanistic Psychology is very young. The author of this thesis would mark its official birth as 1961 when Anthony J. Sutich launched The Journal of Humanistic Psychology and with the collaboration of Abraham H. Maslow formulated the first formal definition of Humanistic Psychology in that issue. Because the movement is so young, a comparatively limited amount of formal studies has been made on this topic. In the second chapter of the thesis I shall try to place Humanistic Psychology in its historical context and give both a definition and description through the work of its originators. In Chapters III to VI, I wish to take each of the four major humanistic psychologists in tum--Allport, Bugental, Maslow and Rogers--and try to arrive at what I will call the structure of his major conceptions of man the structure of his views concerning the growing human being, and I hope to arrive at this structure through a study of the writings of each psychologist and research into writings about him and his work. In Chapter VII I shall review and synthesize the major concepts of man as developed by Allport , Bugental, Maslow and Rogers. In Chapter VIII I shall use the ideas developed in previous chapters and some writings of these psychologists on education to summarize the possible effects of their concepts of man on education. In the final chapter, Chapter IX, I shall draw conclusions in three parts: first, the conclusions concerning the common emphases all four humanistic :psychologists develop in their concept of man; second, the summary conclusions of the impact of their thinking on education; and third, I shall present my own personal conclusions in two parts: I shall cite several characteristics of our present secondary school education that I believe are dehumanizing and outmoded; then, I shall review and evaluate what I believe are the effects of the thinking of Allport, Bugental, Maslow and Rogers, and humanistic psychologists generally, on education

Across space and time: infants learn from backward and forward visual statistics

within temporal and spatial visual streams. Two groups of 8-month-old infants were familiarized with an artificial grammar of shapes, comprised of backward and forward base pairs (i.e., two shapes linked by strong backward or forward transitional probability) and part-pairs (i.e., two shapes with weak transitional probabilities in both directions). One group viewed the continuous visual stream as a temporal sequence, while the other group viewed the same stream as a spatial array. Following familiarization, infants looked longer at test trials containing part- pairs than base pairs, though they had appeared with equal frequency during familiarization. This pattern of looking time was evident for both forward and backward pairs, in both the temporal and spatial conditions. Further, differences in looking time to part-pairs that were consistent or inconsistent with the predictive direction of the base pairs (forward or backward) indicated that infants were indeed sensitive to direction when presented with temporal sequences, but not when presented with spatial arrays. These results suggest that visual statistical learning is flexible in infancy and depends on the nature of visual input

Use of PRECIS ratings in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory

BACKGROUND: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory (NIH Collaboratory) seeks to produce generalizable knowledge about the conduct of pragmatic research in health systems. This analysis applied the PRECIS-2 pragmatic trial criteria to five NIH Collaboratory pragmatic trials to better understand 1) the pragmatic aspects of the design and implementation of treatments delivered in real world settings and 2) the usability of the PRECIS-2 criteria for assessing pragmatic features across studies and across time. METHODS/DESIGN: Using the PRECIS-2 criteria, five pragmatic trials were each rated by eight raters. For each trial, we reviewed the original grant application and a required progress report written at the end of a 1-year planning period that included changes to the protocol or implementation approach. We calculated median scores and interrater reliability for each PRECIS domain and for the overall trial at both time points, as well as the differences in scores between the two time points. We also reviewed the rater comments associated with the scores. RESULTS: All five trials were rated to be more pragmatic than explanatory, with comments indicating that raters generally perceived them to closely mirror routine clinical care across multiple domains. The PRECIS-2 domains for which the trials were, on average, rated as most pragmatic on the 1 to 5 scale at the conclusion of the planning period included primary analysis (mean = 4.7 (range = 4.5 to 4.9)), recruitment (4.3 (3.6 to 4.8)), eligibility (4.1 (3.4 to 4.8)), setting (4.1 (4.0 to 4.4)), follow-up (4.1 (3.4 to 4.9)), and primary outcome (4.1 (3.5 to 4.9)). On average, the less pragmatic domains were organization (3.3 (2.6 to 4.4)), flexibility of intervention delivery (3.5 (2.1-4.5)), and flexibility of intervention adherence (3.8 (2.8-4.5)). Interrater agreement was modest but statistically significant for four trials (Gwet’s AC1 statistic range 0.23 to 0.40) and the intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.05 to 0.31. Rating challenges included assigning a single score for domains that may relate to both patients and care settings (that is, eligibility or recruitment) and determining to what extent aspects of complex research interventions differ from usual care. CONCLUSIONS: These five trials in diverse healthcare settings were rated as highly pragmatic using the PRECIS-2 criteria. Applying the tool generated insightful discussion about real-world design decisions but also highlighted challenges using the tool. PRECIS-2 raters would benefit from additional guidance about how to rate the interwoven patient and practice-level considerations that arise in pragmatic trials. TRIAL REGISTRATIONS: Clinicaltrials.gov trial registrations: NCT02019225, NCT01742065, NCT02015455, NCT02113592, NCT02063867

Making sense of infant familiarity and novelty responses to words at lexical onset

This study suggests that familiarity and novelty preferences in infant experimental tasks can in some instances be interpreted together as a single indicator of language advance. We provide evidence to support this idea based on our use of the auditory headturn preference paradigm to record responses to words likely to be either familiar or unfamiliar to infants. Fifty-nine 10-month-old infants were tested. The task elicited mixed preferences: Familiarity (longer average looks to the words likely to be familiar to the infants), novelty (longer average looks to the words likely to be unfamiliar) and no-preference (similar-length of looks to both type of words). The infants who exhibited either a familiarity or a novelty response were more advanced on independent indices of phonetic advance than the infants who showed no preference. In addition, infants exhibiting novelty responses were more lexically advanced than either the infants who exhibited familiarity or those who showed no-preference. The results provide partial support for Hunter and Ames' (1988) developmental model of attention in infancy and suggest caution when interpreting studies indexed to chronological age

Face processing in Williams syndrome is already atypical in infancy

Face processing is a crucial socio-cognitive ability. Is it acquired progressively or does it constitute an innately-specified, face-processing module? The latter would be supported if some individuals with seriously impaired intelligence nonetheless showed intact face processing abilities. Some theorists claim that Williams syndrome (WS) provides such evidence since, despite IQs in the 50s, adolescents/adults with WS score in the normal range on standardized face-processing tests. Others argue that atypical neural and cognitive processes underlie WS face-processing proficiencies. But what about infants with WS? Do they start with typical face processing abilities, with atypicality developing later, or are atypicalities already evident in infancy? We used an infant familiarization/novelty design and compared infants with WS to typically developing controls as well as to a group of infants with Down syndrome matched on both mental and chronological age. Participants were familiarized with a schematic face, after which they saw a novel face in which either the features (eye shape) were changed or just the configuration of the original features. Configural changes were processed successfully by controls, but not by infants with WS who were only sensitive to featural changes and who showed syndrome-specific profiles different from infants with the other neurodevelopmental disorder. Our findings indicate that theorists can no longer use the case of WS to support claims that evolution has endowed the human brain with an independent face-processing module

La Audiencia Obligatoria en la Constitución en Actor Civil, como Afectación al Debido Proceso, Tacna 2011, Problemática Vigente al 2017

La investigación analiza al Actor Civil y el trámite para constituirse como tal, a partir del Acuerdo Plenario Nº 05-2011/CJ-116 del 06 de diciembre del 2011 que estableció carácter obligatorio a la realización de audiencia pública para resolver la petición del agraviado. Mayoría de Jueces acatan tal obligatoriedad, investigada la duración de los referidos trámites desde su petición hasta la expedición del Auto Resolutivo, se descubre las causas que generan dilaciones. La Investigación alcanza procesos penales en trámite año 2011 validado al 2017en Juzgados de ciudad de Tacna como área geográfica y aplicable resultados para el Distrito Judicial con proyección al resto del país. El método empleado consistió en análisis de gabinete respecto de Casos en trámite representativos en el periodo materia de investigación, la Legislación aplicable, la Jurisprudencia Vinculante y la Doctrina especializada; entrevistándose Fiscales, Jueces y Abogados del ámbito. Los resultados confirman las hipótesis planteadas: la obligatoriedad del trámite de Audiencia afecta al Debido Proceso, en su versión de celeridad procesal, generando victimización secundaria. Pese al tiempo transcurrido, y que el Legislador abordó la problemática via Decreto Legislativo N° 1307 del 29 de diciembre del 2016, se encuentra latente la dilación al 2017, proponiéndose medidas legislativas que contribuirán a solucionar la problemática, como aporte para beneficio de las Víctimas en marco del Debido Proceso, reformándose. el NCPP, : art. 100 inc.2 literal b), supresión del inc.) 1del art. 102 y modificación del inc. 2do,estableciéndose como innecesaria la presencia del Fiscal en la Audiencia y añadiendo responsabilidades al Abogado de la Victima.Tesi

Perspectives on Research Participation and Facilitation Among Dialysis Patients, Clinic Personnel, and Medical Providers: A Focus Group Study

BACKGROUND: Most prospective studies involving individuals receiving maintenance dialysis have been small, and many have had poor clinical translatability. Research relevance can be enhanced through stakeholder engagement. However, little is known about dialysis clinic stakeholders' perceptions of research participation and facilitation. The objective of this study was to characterize the perspectives of dialysis clinic stakeholders (patients, clinic personnel, and medical providers) on: (1) research participation by patients and (2) research facilitation by clinic personnel and medical providers. We also sought to elucidate stakeholder preferences for research communication. STUDY DESIGN: Qualitative study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS: 7 focus groups (59 participants: 8 clinic managers, 14 nurses/patient care technicians, 8 social workers/dietitians, 11 nephrologists/advanced practice providers, and 18 patients/care partners) from 7 North Carolina dialysis clinics. METHODOLOGY: Clinics and participants were purposively sampled. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed. ANALYTICAL APPROACH: Thematic analysis. RESULTS: We identified 11 themes that captured barriers to and facilitators of research participation by patients and research facilitation by clinic personnel and medical providers. We collapsed these themes into 4 categories to create an organizational framework for considering stakeholder (narrow research understanding, competing personal priorities, and low patient literacy and education levels), relationship (trust, buy-in, and altruistic motivations), research design (convenience, follow-up, and patient incentives), and dialysis clinic (professional demands, teamwork, and communication) aspects that may affect stakeholder interest in participating in or facilitating research. These themes appear to shape the degree of research readiness of a dialysis clinic environment. Participants preferred short research communications delivered in multiple formats. LIMITATIONS: Potential selection bias and inclusion of English-speaking participants only. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed patient interest in participating in research and clinical personnel and medical provider interest in facilitating research. Overall, our results suggest that dialysis clinic research readiness may be enhanced through increased stakeholder research knowledge and alignment of clinical and research activities