A case study on the effectiveness of Kurzweil software on improving participation and comprehension with special education students in the science classroom

This research project addresses using Kurzweil electronic text software as an accommodation with special education students. The research questions addressed were: Is Kurzweil an effective accommodation for special education students with reading deficits? and Will using Kurzweil improve special education students\u27 participation and comprehension? A review of literature provided more in-depth information about: (a) electronic text, specifically Kurzweil, (b) the benefits of integrating electronic text into the general education classrooms, and (c) the recommendations or considerations for teachers considering using electronic text. The research based on the literature review shows that the use of electronic text may lead to improved motivation and comprehension and increased attention to text. Study findings supported the use of Kurzweil as an effective accommodation, and showed improved comprehension and participation

Persistence Hunting: The Origin of Humans

Hominins are smaller, slower, and weaker than most large mammals, yet they have been eating meat from large mammals since before the invention of sophisticated weaponry. It is thought that they achieved this seemingly impossible feat through persistence hunting, a practice powered by endurance running. Essentially, one or more hunters pursue a prey animal in the heat of the day, until it reaches the point of hyperthermia. This allows a hunter to safely kill the weakened animal at close range using methods such as beating, strangling, or spearing. I assessed the feasibility of persistence hunting through several energy returned on investment (EROI) calculations based on the energy used by the hunter, their success rate, the energy used by family members that they supported, and the energy returned as meat from the kudu. I calculated the EROI of hunting greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) as 104:1 to 39:1, when different sized kudu were captured and eaten by the hunting party alone. When I included the energetic needs of the hunters’ families into the calculations the EROI ranged from 16:1 to 6:1. The excess energy within these ranges of EROI values would have supported, and possibly even advanced, the societies that practiced persistence hunting. This could be important in explaining how hominins without advanced weaponry were able to obtain meat, sustain themselves, and could prove to be an important selective pressure that favored our modern anatomy

Modeling interferences of CEP operators on limited resources

Complex Event Processing (CEP) systems are used to combine low-level data from an input stream into high-level information. To account for workload peaks load shedding can be used to drop events. To determine when to drop events, the delay of the CEP system needs to be predicted by its workload. But if multiple operators of the CEP system share a resource, the workload of one operator does also influence the performance of the other operators. In this thesis, we examine the interference effect between multiple operators by building a prediction model. To solve this task we consider it a regression problem, where we use the arrival rate of an operator to predict the processing time of another operator on the same node. To also take into account the difference between the arrival rates of different event types, we introduce the balance score as the second input variable. Next, we design an experiment to generate diverse data. The data generated this way is then used to build prediction models by using two different methods: regression analysis and a neural network. After finding the best prediction model for each method, we compare the performance of these models. Here we show that which model is better mostly depends on the specific use case of the CEP system.Complex Event Processing (CEP) Systeme werden verwendet um Low-Level-Daten aus einem Eingabe-Stream zu High-Level-Informationen zu kombinieren. Um Workload-Spitzen zu berücksichtigen, kann Load-Sheding zum Verwerfen von Ereignissen verwendet werden. Um zu bestimmen, wann Ereignisse verworfen werden sollen, muss die Verzögerung des CEP-Systems anhand seiner Arbeitslast vorhergesagt werden. Wenn sich jedoch mehrere Operatoren des CEP-Systems eine Ressource teilen, beeinflusst die Arbeitslast eines Operators auch die Leistung der anderen Operatoren. In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir den Interferenzeffekt zwischen mehreren Operatoren, indem wir ein Vorhersagemodell erstellen. Um diese Aufgabe zu lösen, betrachten wir sie als ein Regressionsproblem, bei dem wir die Ankunftsrate eines Operators verwenden, um die Verarbeitungszeit eines anderen Operators auf demselben Knoten vorherzusagen. Um auch den Unterschied zwischen den Ankunftsraten verschiedener Ereignistypen zu berücksichtigen, führen wir den Balance Score als zweite Eingabevariable ein. Als nächstes entwerfen wir ein Experiment, um vielfältige Daten zu generieren. Die so generierten Daten werden dann verwendet, um Vorhersagemodelle zu erstellen, wofür zwei verschiedene Methoden verwendet werden: Regressionsanalyse und ein Neurales Netzwerk. Nachdem wir für jede Methode das beste Vorhersagemodell gefunden haben, vergleichen wir die Leistung dieser Modelle. Hier zeigen wir, dass das bessere Modell hauptsächlich vom spezifischen Anwendungsfall des CEP-Systems abhängt

A szkizofrén betegek kognitív deficitjének jelentősége a klinikumban = The clinical importance of the cognitive deficits in schizophrenic patients.

A kutatási programunk célkitűzése a szkizofrén betegek első, illetve újabb akut epizódjaiban történő komplex pszichofiziológiai, neurokognitív és klinikai vizsgálata a kognitív deficitek pontos meghatározására. A kutatási programunk során a célkitűzésnek megfelelően vizsgáltuk a kognitív deficiteket negatív tünetes szkizofrén, továbbá prepszichotikus betegekben. A negatív tünetes betegek egy csoportjában a kognitív deficitet elektrofiziológiai módszerrel (auditoros kiváltott válasz) és pozitron emissziós tomográfia (PET) párhuzamos alkalmazásával is vizsgáltuk a funkcionális eltérések vizsgálatára. A klinikai alkalmazás és differenciál diagnózis számára fontos, hogy a kognitív deficitek eltéréseit különböző egyéb betegcsoportokban: alkohol-dependens, depressziós és Alzheimer demenciában szenvedő betegekben is megvizsgáltuk és jellemző kognitív mintázatokat találtunk. A kutatási program végrehajtása egy évet csúszott, ennek oka volt, hogy csak 2004-ben sikerült a CANTAB vizsgálati módszer legújabb verziójának adaptálása és a gyártó céggel folytatott egyeztetetett installálási folyamat, mely után a kognitív számítógépes battéria folyamatosan rendelkezésünkre áll. A meghosszabbított periódusnak megfelelően a feladattervek is módosultak és a 2004. év során a módosított terveknek megfelelően haladt a kutatási program megvalósítása. Az eredményeikről nemzetközi és hazai konferenciákon, illetve nemzetközi és magyar (peer-reviewed) publikáció formájában számoltunk be. | The research project was aimed to determine the cognitive deficits in the first and consecutive acute episodes of schizophrenic patients with the help of a complex psychophysiological, neurocognitive and clinical research battery. According to the project aims the cognitive deficits were studied in schizophrenic patients with predominant negative symptoms and also in prepsychotic patients. A subgroup of schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms the cognitive deficits were also studied by eletrophysiological method (auditory evoked potential) with the parallel use of positron emitting tomography (PET). Specific cognitive deficit patterns were also described in a group of patients suffering from depression, Alzheimer dementia and substance abuse. These specific cognitive patterns are important for the clinical use and differential diagnosis. The realization of the research project was delayed by one year due to the later-than-expected adaptation and installation of the new version of CANTAB system by the system provider, nevertheless from 2004 the new version of the computerized cognitive battery has been available at our Department. Accordingly, the initial term of contract was been extended by one year in 2004 and the tasks were rescheduled and carried out according to the new research plan. Our results were presented at international and national congresses and also reported in peer-reviewed national and international scientific journals

Clinical decision making and mental health service use in people with severe mental illness across Europe

Objective: This study aims to explore relationships between preferred and experienced clinical decision making with service use, and associated costs, by people with severe mental illness. Methods: Prospective observational study of mental healthcare in six European countries: Germany, UK, Italy Hungary, Denmark and Switzerland. Patients (N = 588) and treating clinicians (N = 213) reported preferred and experienced decision making at baseline using the Clinical Decision Making Style Scale (CDMS) and the Clinical Decision Involvement and Satisfaction Scale (CDIS). Retrospective service use was assessed with the Client Socio-Demographic and Service Receipt Inventory (CSSRI-EU) at baseline and 12-month follow-up. Negative binomial regression analyses examined the effects of CDMS and CDIS on service use and inpatient costs at baseline and multilevel models examined these relationships over time. Results: At baseline, staff and patient preferences for active decision making and low patient satisfaction with experienced decisions were associated with longer hospital admissions and higher costs. Patient preferences for active decision making predicted increases in hospital admissions (b = .236, p =.043) over 12 months and cost increases were predicted by low patient satisfaction (b = 4803, p =.005). Decision making was unrelated to medication, outpatient, or community service use. Conclusions: Decision making is related to inpatient service use and associated costs by people with severe mental illness. A preference for shared decision making may reduce healthcare costs via a reduction in inpatient admissions. Patient satisfaction with decisions is a crucial predictor of healthcare costs; therefore, clinicians should maximize patient satisfaction with decision making

Independent validation of body fluid-specific CpG markers and construction of a robust multiplex assay

Potential forensic use of tissue-specific DNA methylation markers has recently been discussed for the identification of the biological source of a stain. In this study 13 promising markers were evaluated to identify suitable candidate markers for the development of a robust and reliable multiplex assay. The results of this study suggest that a combination of only four highly informative markers will be enough for clear body fluid identification. A multiplex assay was developed for the identification of menstrual blood, saliva, semen, and venous blood. This assay was successfully applied to the identification of these body fluids in mixtures and crime scene stains. The multiplex assay aids in the identification of not only single source body fluids but also of body fluid mixtures. The main advantage of using DNA methylation assays over alternative tests is that it can be applied at a later time point in the investigative process since testing is possible even after DNA analysis

Participation in medical decision-making across Europe: an international longitudinal multicenter study

Background: The purpose of this paper was to examine national differences in the desire to participate in decision-making of people with severe mental illness in six European countries. Methods: The data was taken from a European longitudinal observational study (CEDAR; ISRCTN75841675). A sample of 514 patients with severe mental illness from the study centers in Ulm, Germany, London, England, Naples, Italy, Debrecen, Hungary, Aalborg, Denmark and Zurich, Switzerland were assessed as to desire to participate in medical decision-making. Associations between desire for participation in decision-making and center location were analyzed with generalized estimating equations. Results: We found large cross-national differences in patients’ desire to participate in decision-making, with the center explaining 40% of total variance in the desire for participation (p<0.001). Averaged over time and independent of patient characteristics, London (mean=2.27), Ulm (mean=2.13) and Zurich (mean=2.14) showed significantly higher scores in desire for participation, followed by Aalborg (mean=1.97), where scores were in turn significantly higher than in Debrecen (mean=1.56). The lowest scores were reported in Naples (mean=1.14). Over time, desire for participation in decision-making increased significantly in Zurich (b=0.23) and decreased in Naples (b=-0.14). In all other centers, values remained stable. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that patients’ desire for participation in decisionmaking varies by location. We suggest that more research attention be focused on identifying specific cultural and social factors in each country to further explain observed differences across Europe