293 research outputs found
The English riddle ballads
The term 'English Riddle Ballad' is taken here to describe the six items in Child's collection of English and Scottish popular ballads which have become known as such: Child numbers 1, 2, 3,45, 46 and 47. All these ballads are in the English language, and all contain some sort of questions which do not have direct answers; beyond this, the group is not a homogenous one in age, place, form or content. For each ballad, as many variants as possible have been assembled and are described chronologically in Appendices. By an examination of the whole corpus of texts, this thesis traces, within the limitations of the material, the history and transmission of each item. At the same time, the various relationships with cultural and historical backgrounds are explored. The tunes have been arranged in groups to help in identifying patterns of transmission. In particular, the nature and effects of the riddling element in each case is investigated, and a separate chapter (8) goes on to compare and analyse these as poetic structures. This chapter also puts forward a definition of riddling based on the mental processes involved, rather than on the linguistic form of the riddle itself; this avoids the problems of former definitions of the genre which exclude much material that is traditionally and instinctively classed as riddle. According to this definition, however, only four of the six 'Riddle Ballads' can be said to contain true riddling elements. A final chapter brings the ballads into alignment with modern anthropological studies of the riddle, describing other contexts in which riddling occurs, and evaluating the achievements of this limited but intriguing genre
Beyond group differences: Exploring the preliminary signals of target engagement of an executive function training for autistic children
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings for this study are
available within the National Database for Autism
Research (NDAR) at nda.nih.gov.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the staff and students who assisted
with collecting and scoring these measures and who provided
coaching. The authors specially thank the children
and families who contributed their time to this study and
joined in the effort to better understand the executive
function of children on the autism spectrum. Additional
protocol information is available at ClinicalTrials.gov:
NCT02361762. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following
financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported
in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy
Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human
Development of the National Institutes of Health under
Award no. R00HD071966. Additional funding to support
intervention with the waitlist group was provided by
the GoFAR Foundation. The content is solely the
responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent
the official views of the National Institutes of
Health.Understanding both for whom and how interventions work is a crucial next step
in providing personalized care to children with autism spectrum disorder
(ASD). Autistic children present with heterogeneity both within core ASD
criteria and with respect to co-occurring mental health challenges, which may
affect their ability to benefit from intervention. In a secondary data analysis of
a randomized control trial evaluating an executive function (EF) training with
70 7- to 11-year-old autistic children, we explored: (1) whether co-occurring
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) features or anxiety features at
baseline moderated the extent to which children benefited from the EF training.
In other words, we asked, “For whom is training effective?” We also
explored: (2) the extent to which changes in a brain-based measure of target
engagement predicted the clinical outcomes of the EF training. This is a step
towards asking, “How is training effective?” We found that EF training
improved behavioral inhibition only for children with clinically significant cooccurring
ADHD features. Anxiety features, while prevalent, did not moderate
EF training efficacy. Finally, for the EF training group only, there was a significant
correlation between pre-to-post change in an EEG-based measure of
target engagement, N2 incongruent amplitude during a flanker task, and
change in repetitive behaviors, a behavioral outcome that was reported in the
parent RCT to have improved with training compared to waitlist control. This
study provides preliminary evidence that EF training may differentially affect
subgroups of autistic children and that changes at the neural level may precede
changes in behavior.Eunice Kennedy
Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human
Development of the National Institutes of Health under
Award no. R00HD071966GoFAR Foundatio
Combining serological and contact data to derive target immunity levels for achieving and maintaining measles elimination
AbstractBackgroundVaccination has reduced the global incidence of measles to the lowest rates in history. However, local interruption of measles virus transmission requires sustained high levels of population immunity that can be challenging to achieve and maintain. The herd immunity threshold for measles is typically stipulated at 90–95%. This figure does not easily translate into age-specific immunity levels required to interrupt transmission. Previous estimates of such levels were based on speculative contact patterns based on historical data from high-income countries. The aim of this study was to determine age-specific immunity levels that would ensure elimination of measles when taking into account empirically observed contact patterns.MethodsWe combined estimated immunity levels from serological data in 17 countries with studies of age-specific mixing patterns to derive contact-adjusted immunity levels. We then compared these to case data from the 10 years following the seroprevalence studies to establish a contact-adjusted immunity threshold for elimination. We lastly combined a range of hypothetical immunity profiles with contact data from a wide range of socioeconomic and demographic settings to determine whether they would be sufficient for elimination.ResultsWe found that contact-adjusted immunity levels were able to predict whether countries would experience outbreaks in the decade following the serological studies in about 70% of countries. The corresponding threshold level of contact-adjusted immunity was found to be 93%, corresponding to an average basic reproduction number of approximately 14. Testing different scenarios of immunity with this threshold level using contact studies from around the world, we found that 95% immunity would have to be achieved by the age of five and maintained across older age groups to guarantee elimination. This reflects a greater level of immunity required in 5–9 year olds than established previously.ConclusionsThe immunity levels we found necessary for measles elimination are higher than previous guidance. The importance of achieving high immunity levels in 5–9 year olds presents both a challenge and an opportunity. While such high levels can be difficult to achieve, school entry provides an opportunity to ensure sufficient vaccination coverage. Combined with observations of contact patterns, further national and sub-national serological studies could serve to highlight key gaps in immunity that need to be filled in order to achieve national and regional measles elimination.</jats:sec
Prophetic Reading: Sisterhood and Psychoanalysis in H.D.’s HERmione
This article offers a comparative reading of H.D.’s 1927 kunstlerroman à clef, HERmione, and Freud’s Dora alongside an intertextual close reading of its dense web of literary allusions in order to argue that it offers a sustained critique of Freudian psychoanalysis and an alternative origin story for the condition of hysteria. Drawing on the notion of prophecy as it is thematised in the novel, the article demonstrates H.D.’s prefiguring of Juliet Mitchell’s recent reconfiguration of hysteria as a response to, replacement by, or failure of identification with a sibling
Combining serological and contact data to derive target immunity levels for achieving and maintaining measles elimination.
BACKGROUND: Vaccination has reduced the global incidence of measles to the lowest rates in history. However, local interruption of measles virus transmission requires sustained high levels of population immunity that can be challenging to achieve and maintain. The herd immunity threshold for measles is typically stipulated at 90-95%. This figure does not easily translate into age-specific immunity levels required to interrupt transmission. Previous estimates of such levels were based on speculative contact patterns based on historical data from high-income countries. The aim of this study was to determine age-specific immunity levels that would ensure elimination of measles when taking into account empirically observed contact patterns. METHODS: We combined estimated immunity levels from serological data in 17 countries with studies of age-specific mixing patterns to derive contact-adjusted immunity levels. We then compared these to case data from the 10 years following the seroprevalence studies to establish a contact-adjusted immunity threshold for elimination. We lastly combined a range of hypothetical immunity profiles with contact data from a wide range of socioeconomic and demographic settings to determine whether they would be sufficient for elimination. RESULTS: We found that contact-adjusted immunity levels were able to predict whether countries would experience outbreaks in the decade following the serological studies in about 70% of countries. The corresponding threshold level of contact-adjusted immunity was found to be 93%, corresponding to an average basic reproduction number of approximately 14. Testing different scenarios of immunity with this threshold level using contact studies from around the world, we found that 95% immunity would have to be achieved by the age of five and maintained across older age groups to guarantee elimination. This reflects a greater level of immunity required in 5-9-year-olds than established previously. CONCLUSIONS: The immunity levels we found necessary for measles elimination are higher than previous guidance. The importance of achieving high immunity levels in 5-9-year-olds presents both a challenge and an opportunity. While such high levels can be difficult to achieve, school entry provides an opportunity to ensure sufficient vaccination coverage. Combined with observations of contact patterns, further national and sub-national serological studies could serve to highlight key gaps in immunity that need to be filled in order to achieve national and regional measles elimination
An investigation into the ways in which art is taught in an English Waldorf Steiner school
Children who are educated using a Waldorf Steiner approach demonstrate superior expressive drawing skills (Rose et al., 2011) but little is known about how art is taught within this educational system. Four Waldorf Steiner primary school teachers participated in semistructured interviews designed to explore the Waldorf Steiner educational philosophy, their training and the ways in which they approach art in the classroom. A social constructionist thematic analysis identified two themes – teacher’s experience of art and the teacher and child’s approach to art. Within these themes the importance of adequate training which stresses the value of art and gives teachers opportunity to engage in art activities was emphasised. Such training was linked to an effective teaching approach which placed importance on teaching skills and encouraging children to develop their understanding of art through discussio
Combined Forward-Backward Asymmetry Measurements in Top-Antitop Quark Production at the Tevatron
The CDF and D0 experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron have measured the asymmetry between yields of forward- and backward-produced top and antitop quarks based on their rapidity difference and the asymmetry between their decay leptons. These measurements use the full data sets collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of TeV. We report the results of combinations of the inclusive asymmetries and their differential dependencies on relevant kinematic quantities. The combined inclusive asymmetry is . The combined inclusive and differential asymmetries are consistent with recent standard model predictions
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