Progettare, documentare e osservare all\u2019asilo nido: un\u2019esperienza con il software eNido

La ricerca si sviluppa sull\u2019analisi dell\u2019esperienza con il software eNido, in uso dall\u2019anno educativo 2012-2013 presso l\u2019Asilo nido \u201cle Coccole\u201d di Arzergrande in provincia di Pa- dova, in gestione alla Cooperativa sociale Cosep di Padova. L\u2019asilo nido \ue8 un servizio per la prima infanzia che non si limita pi\uf9 ad essere un servi- zio prettamente assistenziale; ma oggi la famiglia e la societ\ue0 attribuisce un importante compito educativo. I servizi per la prima infanzia sono arrivati oggi a riconoscere la centralit\ue0 e valorizzazione del bambino, in quanto soggetto attivo dell\u2019educazione. Tale concetto deve essere ricordato quando si progetta; gli educatori, infatti, sono chiamati a progettare, ossia creare contesti capaci di accogliere differenti ambiti, di integrare e dare senso alle diverse esperienze dei bambini. L\u2019educatore deve anche osservare e documentare, tenendo traccia di ci\uf2 che osserva e progettando possibili rilanci, evi- denziando l\u2019intento pedagogico e l\u2019azione educativa. Con l\u2019evoluzione delle tecnologie e del Web 2.0 si sono modificate le modalit\ue0 di condivisione, documentazione, progetta- zione e catalogazione delle esperienze. Ed \ue8 qui che si inserisce l\u2019analisi del software eNido, un programma web che automatizza le attivit\ue0 didattiche ed amministrative di un asilo nido e fornisce uno strumento di comunicazione con i genitori dei bambini iscritti. Si \ue8 cercato di rilevare se l\u2019utilizzo del software abbia aumentato il livello di competenza delle educatrici nelle aree della progettazione, osservazione e documenta- zione

Image analysis to calibrate French Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) pods

In order to control the characteristics of a variety, bean breeders have to calibrate pods. This calibration is manually realized, workers have to pass pods through a sieve with holes of different diameter in it, each hole corresponding to a caliber. Pods are weighted, and a repartition in the different calibers in weight is given. This calibration is very tedious, moreover, there is an inter and intra-variability between workers, and the number of characteristics measured is limited.  A new automatic method based on image analysis has been performed, it permits in a limited time, to extract and calculate different pods’ characteristics such as the length, the diameter and the curvature, it offers the possibility to conserve images that is helpful for the traceability of products, and it requires less labor than the actual system (manual ones). Moreover, a relation between surface of pods and weight has been found, allowing the program to give directly the repartition in the different caliber in weight.  An acquisition chain as been installed, composed of a mono CCD sensor camera, manually configured, with a backlight fluorescent system of 5000°K, a tripod and a computer. Images are taken in RAW format, which contrarily to the JPEG is not compressed and avoid edges effects.  Images are pre-processed in order to eliminate the noise and converted in binary images. Then algorithms principally based on morphological mathematics, are applied in order to calculate the different characteristics.  The validation of the program has been performed on more than 150 batches of different varieties of French and butter bean pods along 2008 and 2009.  In this presentation, the image analysis system is described, results obtained with the image analysis system are explained and compared to the manual system

The pion-pion Interaction in the rho Channel in Finite Volume

The aim of this paper is to investigate an efficient strategy that allows to obtain pi-pi phase shifts and rho meson properties from QCD lattice data with high precision. For this purpose we evaluate the levels of the pi-pi system in the rho channel in finite volume using chiral unitary theory. We investigate the dependence on the pi mass and compare with other approaches which use QCD lattice calculations and effective theories. We also illustrate the errors induced by using the conventional Luscher approach instead of a more accurate one recently developed that takes into account exactly the relativistic two meson propagators. Finally we make use of this latter approach to solve the inverse problem, getting pi-pi phase shifts from "synthetic" lattice data, providing an optimal strategy and showing which accuracy is needed in these data to obtain the $\rho$ properties with a desired accuracy.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, substantially modified with practical examples of use to lattice researchers, new comments and references adde

An evidence review of research on health interventions in humanitarian crises. Final Report

This review was conducted to provide a rigorous assessment of the current quality and depth of the evidence-base that informs humanitarian public health programming globally. It assesses the quantity and quality of intervention studies, rather than measuring the actual effectiveness of the intervention itself. The review addresses evidence on interventions in humanitarian crises (including early recovery and forced displacement) for health topics of: communicable disease control water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) nutrition sexual and reproductive health (SRH), including gender-based violence (GBV) mental health and psychosocial support non-communicable disease (NCD) injury and physical rehabilitation health services health systems. In addition, contextual factors influencing the delivery of health-related interventions are included in the project, consisting of: * access to health services * health assessment methods * coordination * accountability * health worker security * urbanisation. The evidence review used the following two main methods: (i) A series of systematic literature reviews on evidence of humanitarian interventions related to the health topics and on the influence of contextual factors on the interventions. The systematic review on evidence of interventions for the different health topics included quantitative evidence from published and grey literature. The systematic review on the contextual factors included quantitative and qualitative evidence from the published literature. Standard systematic review methodologies were used. (ii) Qualitative individual interviews with expert practitioners, policy makers and academics to identify critical weaknesses and gaps in the evidence base for humanitarian public health actions (including related to the contextual factors) and to recommend priority areas for further research. A series of more general consultations with humanitarian health experts through meetings in London, Geneva, Paris, and New York

Urban agriculture: a global analysis of the space constraint to meet urban vegetable demand

Urban agriculture (UA) has been drawing a lot of attention recently for several reasons: the majority of the world population has shifted from living in rural to urban areas; the environmental impact of agriculture is a matter of rising concern; and food insecurity, especially the accessibility of food, remains a major challenge. UA has often been proposed as a solution to some of these issues, for example by producing food in places where population density is highest, reducing transportation costs, connecting people directly to food systems and using urban areas efficiently. However, to date no study has examined how much food could actually be produced in urban areas at the global scale. Here we use a simple approach, based on different global-scale datasets, to assess to what extent UA is constrained by the existing amount of urban space. Our results suggest that UA would require roughly one third of the total global urban area to meet the global vegetable consumption of urban dwellers. This estimate does not consider how much urban area may actually be suitable and available for UA, which likely varies substantially around the world and according to the type of UA performed. Further, this global average value masks variations of more than two orders of magnitude among individual countries. The variations in the space required across countries derive mostly from variations in urban population density, and much less from variations in yields or per capita consumption. Overall, the space required is regrettably the highest where UA is most needed, i.e., in more food insecure countries. We also show that smaller urban clusters (i.e., <100 km2 each) together represent about two thirds of the global urban extent; thus UA discourse and policies should not focus on large cities exclusively, but should also target smaller urban areas that offer the greatest potential in terms of physical space

Methods for removal of unwanted signals from gravity time-series : comparison using linear techniques complemented with analysis of system dynamics

We thanks the participants of the 35th General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission for comments on preliminary results. The authors are grateful to all IGETS contributors, particularly to the station operators and to ISDC/GFZ-Potsdam for providing the original gravity data used in this study. We also thank the developers of ATLANTIDA3.1 and UTide. Part of this work was performed using the ICSMB High Performance Computing Cluster, University of Aberdeen. We also thanks M. Thiel and A. Moura for reviewing a preliminary version and making comments on the methods section and M.A. Ara´ujo for comments on Lyapunov exponents. Funding: A. Valencio is supported by CNPq, Brazil [206246/2014-5]; and received a travel grant from the School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen [PO2073498], for a presentation including preliminary results.Peer reviewedPostprintPublisher PD

Hidden charm molecules in finite volume

In the present paper we address the interaction of pairs of charmed mesons with hidden charm in a finite box. We use the interaction from a recent model based on heavy-quark spin symmetry that predicts molecules of hidden charm in the infinite volume. The energy levels in the box are generated within this model, and from them some synthetic data are generated. These data are then employed to study the inverse problem of getting the energies of the bound states and phase shifts for D (D) over bar or D*(D) over bar*. Different strategies are investigated using the lowest two levels for different values of the box size, and the errors produced are studied. Starting from the upper level, fits to the synthetic data are carried out to determine the scattering length and effective range plus the binding energy of the ground state. A similar strategy using the effective range formula is considered with a simultaneous fit to the two levels-one above and the other one below the threshold. This method turns out to be more efficient than the previous one. Finally, a method based on the fit to the data by means of a potential and a conveniently regularized loop function, turns out to be very efficient and allows us to produce accurate results in the infinite volume starting from levels of the box with errors far larger than the uncertainties obtained in the final results. A regularization method based on Gaussian wave functions turns out to be rather efficient in the analysis and as a byproduct a practical and fast method to calculate the Luscher function with high precision is presented

Integrating the selection of PHA storing biomass and nitrogen removal via nitrite for the treatment of the sludge reject water

Integrating the selection of PHA storing biomass and nitrogen removal via-nitrite for the treatment of the sludge reject wate

STAAR: a randomised controlled trial of electronic adherence monitoring with reminder alarms and feedback to improve clinical outcomes for children with asthma

Background Suboptimal adherence to inhaled steroids is common in children with asthma and is associated with poor disease control, reduced quality of life and even death. Previous studies using feedback of electronically monitored adherence data have demonstrated improved adherence, but have not demonstrated a significant impact on clinical outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine whether introduction of this approach into routine practice would result in improved clinical outcomes. Methods Children with asthma aged 6–16 years were randomised to the active intervention consisting of electronic adherence monitoring with daily reminder alarms together with feedback in the clinic regarding their inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) use or to the usual care arm with adherence monitoring alone. All children had poorly controlled asthma at baseline, taking ICS and long-acting β-agonists. Subjects were seen in routine clinics every 3 months for 1 year. The primary outcome was the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) score. Secondary outcomes included adherence and markers of asthma morbidity. Results 77 of 90 children completed the study (39 interventions, 38 controls). Adherence in the intervention group was 70% vs 49% in the control group (p≤0.001). There was no significant difference in the change in ACQ, but children in the intervention group required significantly fewer courses of oral steroids (p=0.008) and fewer hospital admissions (p≤0.001). Conclusions The results indicate that electronic adherence monitoring with feedback is likely to be of significant benefit in the routine management of poorly controlled asthmatic subjects

Gender differences in the associations between age trends of social media interaction and well-being among 10-15 year olds in the UK

Background Adolescents are among the highest consumers of social media while research has shown that their well-being decreases with age. The temporal relationship between social media interaction and well-being is not well established. The aim of this study was to examine whether the changes in social media interaction and two well-being measures are related across ages using parallel growth models. Methods Data come from five waves of the youth questionnaire, 10-15 years, of the Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (pooled n =9859). Social media interaction was assessed through daily frequency of chatting on social websites. Well-being was measured by happiness with six domains of life and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Results Findings suggest gender differences in the relationship between interacting on social media and well-being. There were significant correlations between interacting on social media and well-being intercepts and between social media interaction and well-being slopes among females. Additionally higher social media interaction at age 10 was associated with declines in well-being thereafter for females, but not for males. Results were similar for both measures of well-being. Conclusions High levels of social media interaction in early adolescence have implications for well-being in later adolescence, particularly for females. The lack of an association among males suggests other factors might be associated with their reduction in well-being with age. These findings contribute to the debate on causality and may inform future policy and interventions