The Role of Occupational Therapy in School Disciplinary Practices

The capstone project discusses disproportionate rates of disciplinary practices utilized in public education and examines the negative impact current disciplinary practices have on adolescent well-being, school climate, student engagement, and student outcomes. Public schools across the United States are utilizing exclusionary disciplinary practices wherein the consequence often is more extreme than necessary, influencing continued student misconduct, failing to address trauma and deficits in social-emotional skills, and limiting academic performance and participation for all students. The purpose of this project is to inform occupational therapy practitioners of their potential roles in addressing school disciplinary practices to better support students in promoting positive behavior in the classroom, preventing misconduct, establishing appropriate social-emotional skills, and enhancing academic participation through a holistic and strengths-based approach. The capstone project was divided into phases including the data gathering phase, the writing phase, the peer review phase, and the revising phase. The product of the capstone project is a concept paper for occupational therapy practitioners of the roles in which they may become involved in addressing school disciplinary practices. Occupational therapy practitioners are an asset to schools in improving disciplinary practices that foster active participation in their educational community and promote more effective school performance of the child. The capstone project urges school-based occupational therapy practitioners to consider their available role in addressing disciplinary practices to better enable the engagement of all children in public education.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesfall2020/1010/thumbnail.jp

Highly efficient 2D materials engineered perovskite/Si tandem bifacial cells beyond 29%

Perovskite/Silicon tandem technology represents a promising route to achieve 30% power conversion efficiency (PCE), by ensuring low levelized costs energy. In this article, we develop a mechanically stacked 2T perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell, with subcells independently fabricated, optimized, and subsequently coupled by contacting the back electrode of the mesoscopic perovskite top cell with the texturized and metalized front contact of the silicon bottom cell. The possibility to separately optimize the two sub-cells allows to carefully choose the most promising device structure for both top and bottom cells. Indeed, semitransparent perovskite top cell performance is boosted through the use of selected two-dimensional materials to tune the device interfaces. In addition, a protective buffer layer is used to prevent damages induced by the transparent electrode sputtering deposition over the hole transporting layer. A textured amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction cell fabricated with a fully industrial in-line production process is here used as state of art bottom cell. The perovskite/c-Si tandem device demonstrates remarkable PCE of 28.7%. Moreover, we demonstrate the use of a bifacial silicon bottom cell, as a viable way for overcoming the current matching constrain imposed by the 2T configuration. Here, the current generation difference between perovskite and c-Si cells is compensated by exploiting the albedo radiation thanks to the bifaciality of the commercial c-Si cell used in this article. Considering standard rear irradiation, final power generation density above 32 mW/cm(2) can be achieved, paving the way for a tandem technology customable according to the final installation site

Treatment with class a CpG oligodeoxynucleotides in cats with naturally occurring feline parvovirus infection: A prospective study

Feline parvovirus (FPV) causes severe gastroenteritis and leukopenia in cats; the outcome is poor. Information regarding specific treatments is lacking. Class A CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG-A) are short single-stranded DNAs, stimulating type I interferon production. In cats, CpG-A induced an antiviral response in vivo and inhibited FPV replication in vitro. The aim was to prospectively investigate the effects of CpG-A on survival, clinical score, hematological findings, antiviral response (cytokines), viremia, and fecal shedding (real-time qPCR) in cats naturally infected with FPV. Forty-two FPV-infected cats were randomized to receive 100 g/kg of CpG-A (n = 22) or placebo (n = 20) subcutaneously, on admission and after 48 h. Blood and fecal samples were collected on admission, after 1, 3, and 7 days. All 22 cats showed short duration pain during CpG-A injections. The survival rate, clinical score, leukocyte and erythrocyte counts, viremia, and fecal shedding at any time-point did not differ between cats treated with CpG-A (50%) and placebo (40%). Antiviral myxovirus resistance (Mx) gene transcription increased in both groups from day 1 to 3 (p = 0.005). Antibodies against FPV on admission were associated with survival in cats (p = 0.002). In conclusion, CpG-A treatment did not improve the outcome in cats with FPV infection. FPV infection produced an antiviral response

Serial echocardiographic left ventricular ejection fraction measurements: a tool for detecting thalassemia major patients at risk of cardiac death

Cardiac damage remains a major cause of mortality among patients with thalassemia major. The detection of a lower cardiac magnetic resonance T2* (CMR-T2*) signal has been suggested as a powerful predictor of the subsequent development of heart failure. However, the lack of worldwide availability of CMR-T2* facilities prevents its widespread use for follow-up evaluations of cardiac function in thalassemia major patients, warranting the need to assess the utility of other possible procedures.In this setting,the determination of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF)offers an accurate and reproducible method for heart function evaluation. These findings suggest a reduction in LVEF≥7%, over time, determined by 2-D echocardiography, may be considered a strong predictive tool for the detection of thalassemia major patients with increased risk of cardiac death. The reduction of LVEF≥7% had higher (84.76%) predictive value. Finally, Kaplan–Meier survival curves of thalassemia major patients with LVEF≥7% showed a statistically significant decreased probability of survival for heart disease (p=0.0022). However, because of limitations related to the study design, such findings should be confirmed in a large long-term prospective clinical trial

Quantitative monitoring of an activated sludge reactor using on-line UV-visible and near infrared spectroscopy

The performance of an activated sludge reactor can be significantly enhanced through use of continuous and real-time process-state monitoring, which avoids the need to sample for off-line analysis and to use chemicals. Despite the complexity associated with wastewater treatment systems, spectroscopic methods coupled with chemometric tools have been shown to be powerful tools for bioprocess monitoring and control. Once implemented and optimized, these methods are fast, nondestructive, user friendly, and most importantly, they can be implemented in situ, permitting rapid inference of the process state at any moment. In this work, UV-visible and NIR spectroscopy were used to monitor an activated sludge reactor using in situ immersion probes connected to the respective analyzers by optical fibers. During the monitoring period, disturbances to the biological system were induced to test the ability of each spectroscopic method to detect the changes in the system. Calibration models based on partial least squares (PLS) regression were developed for three key process parameters, namely chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate concentration (N-NO3−), and total suspended solids (TSS). For NIR, the best results were achieved for TSS, with a relative error of 14.1% and a correlation coefficient of 0.91. The UV-visible technique gave similar results for the three parameters: an error of ~25% and correlation coefficients of ~0.82 for COD and TSS and 0.87 for N-NO3−. The results obtained demonstrate that both techniques are suitable for consideration as alternative methods for monitoring and controlling wastewater treatment processes, presenting clear advantages when compared with the reference methods for wastewater treatment process qualification.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) - PPCDT/AMB/60141/2004, bolsa de doutoramento SFRH/BD/32614/200

Potentialities of CdZnTe Quasi-Hemispherical Detectors for Hard X-ray Spectroscopy of Kaonic Atoms at the DAΦNE Collider

Kaonic atom X-ray spectroscopy is a consolidated technique for investigations on the physics of strong kaon-nucleus/nucleon interaction. Several experiments have been conducted regarding the measurement of soft X-ray emission (<20 keV) from light kaonic atoms (hydrogen, deuterium, and helium). Currently, there have been new research activities within the framework of the SIDDHARTA-2 experiment and EXCALIBUR proposal focusing on performing precise and accurate measurements of hard X-rays (>20 keV) from intermediate kaonic atoms (carbon, aluminum, and sulfur). In this context, we investigated cadmium-zinc-telluride (CdZnTe or CZT) detectors, which have recently demonstrated high-resolution capabilities for hard X-ray and gamma-ray detection. A demonstrator prototype based on a new cadmium-zinc-telluride quasi-hemispherical detector and custom digital pulse processing electronics was developed. The detector covered a detection area of 1 cm2 with a single readout channel and interesting room-temperature performance with energy resolution of 4.4% (2.6 keV), 3% (3.7 keV), and 1.4% (9.3 keV) FWHM at 59.5, 122.1, and 662 keV, respectively. The results from X-ray measurements at the DAΦNE collider at the INFN National Laboratories of Frascati (Italy) are also presented with particular attention to the effects and rejection of electromagnetic and hadronic background

D-cycloserine augmentation of exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and posttraumatic stress disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data

Importance: Whether and under which conditions D-cycloserine (DCS) augments the effects of exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and posttraumatic stress disorders is unclear. Objective: To clarify whether DCS is superior to placebo in augmenting the effects of cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and posttraumatic stress disorders and to evaluate whether antidepressants interact with DCS and the effect of potential moderating variables. Data Sources: PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO were searched from inception to February 10, 2016. Reference lists of previous reviews and meta-analyses and reports of randomized clinical trials were also checked. Study Selection: Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were (1) double-blind randomized clinical trials of DCS as an augmentation strategy for exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy and (2) conducted in humans diagnosed as having specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. Data Extraction and Synthesis: Raw data were obtained from the authors and quality controlled. Data were ranked to ensure a consistent metric across studies (score range, 0-100). We used a 3-level multilevel model nesting repeated measures of outcomes within participants, who were nested within studies. Results: Individual participant data were obtained for 21 of 22 eligible trials, representing 1047 of 1073 eligible participants. When controlling for antidepressant use, participants receiving DCS showed greater improvement from pretreatment to posttreatment (mean difference, -3.62; 95% CI, -0.81 to -6.43; P = .01; d = -0.25) but not from pretreatment to midtreatment (mean difference, -1.66; 95% CI, -4.92 to 1.60; P = .32; d = -0.14) or from pretreatment to follow-up (mean difference, -2.98, 95% CI, -5.99 to 0.03; P = .05; d = -0.19). Additional analyses showed that participants assigned to DCS were associated with lower symptom severity than those assigned to placebo at posttreatment and at follow-up. Antidepressants did not moderate the effects of DCS. None of the prespecified patient-level or study-level moderators was associated with outcomes. Conclusions and Relevance: D-cycloserine is associated with a small augmentation effect on exposure-based therapy. This effect is not moderated by the concurrent use of antidepressants. Further research is needed to identify patient and/or therapy characteristics associated with DCS response.2018-05-0

Embodying compassion: A virtual reality paradigm for overcoming excessive self-criticism

Virtual reality has been successfully used to study and treat psychological disorders such as phobias and posttraumatic stress disorder but has rarely been applied to clinically-relevant emotions other than fear and anxiety. Self-criticism is a ubiquitous feature of psychopathology and can be treated by increasing levels of self-compassion. We exploited the known effects of identification with a virtual body to arrange for healthy female volunteers high in self-criticism to experience self-compassion from an embodied first-person perspective within immersive virtual reality. Whereas observation and practice of compassionate responses reduced self-criticism, the additional experience of embodiment also increased self-compassion and feelings of being safe. The results suggest potential new uses for immersive virtual reality in a range of clinical conditions.N/

Anaerobic digestion of screenings for biogas recovery

Screenings comprise untreatable solid materials that have found their way into the sewer. They are removed during preliminary treatment at the inlet work of any wastewater treatment process using a unit operation termed as a screen and at present are disposed of to landfill. These materials, if not removed, will damage mechanical equipment due to its heterogeneity and reduce overall treatment process, reliability and effectiveness. That is why this material is retained and prevented from entering the treatment system before finally being disposed of. The amount of biodegradable organic matter in screenings often exceeds the upper limit and emits a significant amount of greenhouse gases during biodegradation on landfill. Nutrient release can cause a serious problem of eutrophication phenomena in receiving waters and a deterioration of water quality. Disposal of screenings on landfill also can cause odour problem due to putrescible nature of some of the solid material. In view of the high organic content of screenings, anaerobic digestion method may not only offer the potential for energy recovery but also nutrient. In this study, the anaerobic digestion was performed for 30,days, at controlled pH and temperature, using different dry solids concentrations of screenings to study the potential of biogas recovery in the form of methane. It was found screenings have physical characteristics of 30% total solids and 93% volatile solids, suggesting screenings are a type of waste with high dry solids and organic contents. Consistent pH around pH 6.22 indicates anaerobic digestion of screenings needs minimum pH correction. The biomethane potential tests demonstrated screenings were amenable to anaerobic digestion with methane yield of 355,m3/kg VS, which is comparable to the previous results. This study shows that anaerobic digestion is not only beneficial for waste treatment but also to turn waste into useful resources