1,312 research outputs found
Comparing three short questionnaires to detect psychosocial problems among 3 to 4-year olds
Background: Validated questionnaires help community pediatric services to identify psychosocial problems. Our aim was to assess which of three short questionnaires was most suitable for this identification among pre-school children. Methods: We included 1,650 children (response 64 %) aged 3-4 years undergoing routine well-child health assessments in 18 services across the Netherlands. Child healthcare professionals (CHPs) interviewed and examined children and parents. Parents were randomized regarding filling out the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) or the KIPPPI, a Dutch-origin questionnaire. In addition, all filled out the Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional (ASQ:SE) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). We assessed the internal consistency and validity of each questionnaire, with CBCL and treatment status as criteria, and the degree to which each questionnaire could improve identification based solely on clinical assessment. Results: The internal consistency of the total problems scale of each questionnaire was satisfactory, Cronbach's alphas varied between 0.75 and 0.98. Only the SDQ discriminated sufficiently between children with and without problems as measured by the CBCL (sensitivity = 0.76 at a cut-off point with specificity = 0.90), in contrast to the other two questionnaires (with sensitivity indices varying between 0.51-0.63). Similar results were found for the treatment status criterion, although sensitivity was lower for all questionnaires. The SDQ seemed to add most to the identification of psychosocial problems by CHPs, but the differences between the SDQ and the ASQ: SE were not statistically significant. Conclusions: The SDQ is the best tool for the identification of psychosocial problems in pre-school children by community paediatric services
Education in the working-class home: modes of learning as revealed by nineteenth-century criminal records
The transmission of knowledge and skills within the working-class household greatly troubled social commentators and social policy experts during the first half of the nineteenth century. To prove theories which related criminality to failures in working-class up-bringing, experts and officials embarked upon an ambitious collection of data on incarcerated criminals at various penal institutions. One such institution was the County Gaol at Ipswich. The exceptionally detailed information that survives on families, literacy, education and apprenticeships of the men, women and children imprisoned there has the potential to transform our understanding of the nature of home schooling (broadly interpreted) amongst the working classes in nineteenth-century England. This article uses data sets from prison registers to chart both the incidence and ‘success’ of instruction in reading and writing within the domestic environment. In the process, it highlights the importance of schooling in working-class families, but also the potentially growing significance of the family in occupational training
Uptake and Participation in Physical Activity Referral Schemes in the UK: An Investigation of Patients Referred with Mental Health Problems
Nanotechnology and Society: A discussion-based undergraduate course
Nanotechnology has emerged as a broad, exciting, yet ill-defined field of
scientific research and technological innovation. There are important questions
about the technology's potential economic, social, and environmental
implications. We discuss an undergraduate course on nanoscience and
nanotechnology for students from a wide range of disciplines, including the
natural and social sciences, the humanities, and engineering. The course
explores these questions and the broader place of technology in contemporary
societies. The course is built around active learning methods and seeks to
develop the students' critical thinking skills, written and verbal
communication abilities, and general knowledge of nanoscience and
nanoengineering concepts. Continuous assessment was used to gain information
about the effectiveness of class discussions and enhancement of student
understanding of the interaction between nanotechnology and society.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Edited and shortened for readability. Visit
http://www.tahan.com/charlie/nanosociety/course201/ for more informatio
A Stellar Population Gradient in VII Zw 403 - Implications for the Formation of Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxies
We present evidence for the existence of an old stellar halo in the Blue
Compact Dwarf galaxy VII Zw 403. VII Zw 403 is the first Blue Compact Dwarf
galaxy for which a clear spatial segregation of the resolved stellar content
into a "core-halo" structure is detected. Multicolor HST/WFPC2 observations
indicate that active star formation occurs in the central region, but is
strikingly absent at large radii. Instead, a globular-cluster-like red giant
branch suggests the presence of an old (> 10 Gyr) and metal poor
(=-1.92) stellar population in the halo. While the vast majority of
Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies has been recognized to possess halos of red color
in ground-based surface photometry, our observations of VII Zw 403 establish
for the first time a direct correspondence between a red halo color and the
presence of old, red giant stars. If the halos of Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies
are all home to such ancient stellar populations, then the fossil record
conflicts with delayed-formation scenarios for dwarfs.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Ap
Using Linux PCs in DAQ applications
ATLAS Data Acquisition/Event Filter "-1" (DAQ/EF1) project provides the opportunity to explore the use of commodity hardware (PCs) and Open Source Software (Linux) in DAQ applications. In DAQ/EF-1 there is an element called the LDAQ which is responsible for providing local run-control, error-handling and reporting for a number of read- out modules in front end crates. This element is also responsible for providing event data for monitoring and for the interface with the global control and monitoring system (Back-End). We present the results of an evaluation of the Linux operating system made in the context of DAQ/EF-1 where there are no strong real-time requirements. We also report on our experience in implementing the LDAQ on a VMEbus based PC (the VMIVME-7587) and a desktop PC linked to VMEbus with a Bit3 interface both running Linux. We then present the problems encountered during the integration with VMEbus, the status of the LDAQ implementation and draw some conclusions on the use of Linux in DAQ applications. (18 refs)
Coherence Potentials Encode Simple Human Sensorimotor Behavior
Recent work has shown that large amplitude negative periods in the local field potential (nLFPs) are able to spread in saltatory manner across large distances in the cortex without distortion in their temporal structure forming ‘coherence potentials’. Here we analysed subdural electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals recorded at 59 sites in the sensorimotor cortex in the left hemisphere of a human subject performing a simple visuomotor task (fist clenching and foot dorsiflexion) to understand how coherence potentials arising in the recordings relate to sensorimotor behavior. In all behaviors we found a particular coherence potential (i.e. a cascade of a particular nLFP wave pattern) arose consistently across all trials with temporal specificity. During contrateral fist clenching, but not the foot dorsiflexion or ipsilateral fist clenching, the coherence potential most frequently originated in the hand representation area in the somatosensory cortex during the anticipation and planning periods of the trial, moving to other regions during the actual motor behavior. While these ‘expert’ sites participated more consistently, other sites participated only a small fraction of the time. Furthermore, the timing of the coherence potential at the hand representation area after onset of the cue predicted the timing of motor behavior. We present the hypothesis that coherence potentials encode information relevant for behavior and are generated by the ‘expert’ sites that subsequently broadcast to other sites as a means of ‘sharing knowledge’
Under pressure: Response urgency modulates striatal and insula activity during decision-making under risk
When deciding whether to bet in situations that involve potential monetary loss or gain (mixed gambles), a subjective sense of pressure can influence the evaluation of the expected utility associated with each choice option. Here, we explored how gambling decisions, their psychophysiological and neural counterparts are modulated by an induced sense of urgency to respond. Urgency influenced decision times and evoked heart rate responses, interacting with the expected value of each gamble. Using functional MRI, we observed that this interaction was associated with changes in the activity of the striatum, a critical region for both reward and choice selection, and within the insula, a region implicated as the substrate of affective feelings arising from interoceptive signals which influence motivational behavior. Our findings bridge current psychophysiological and neurobiological models of value representation and action-programming, identifying the striatum and insular cortex as the key substrates of decision-making under risk and urgency
A Guide to Localized Frames and Applications to Galerkin-like Representations of Operators
This chapter offers a detailed survey on intrinsically localized frames and
the corresponding matrix representation of operators. We re-investigate the
properties of localized frames and the associated Banach spaces in full detail.
We investigate the representation of operators using localized frames in a
Galerkin-type scheme. We show how the boundedness and the invertibility of
matrices and operators are linked and give some sufficient and necessary
conditions for the boundedness of operators between the associated Banach
spaces.Comment: 32 page
A quantum magnetic analogue to the critical point of water
At the familiar liquid-gas phase transition in water, the density jumps
discontinuously at atmospheric pressure, but the line of these first-order
transitions defined by increasing pressures terminates at the critical point, a
concept ubiquitous in statistical thermodynamics. In correlated quantum
materials, a critical point was predicted and measured terminating the line of
Mott metal-insulator transitions, which are also first-order with a
discontinuous charge density. In quantum spin systems, continuous quantum phase
transitions (QPTs) have been investigated extensively, but discontinuous QPTs
have received less attention. The frustrated quantum antiferromagnet
SrCu(BO) constitutes a near-exact realization of the paradigmatic
Shastry-Sutherland model and displays exotic phenomena including magnetization
plateaux, anomalous thermodynamics and discontinuous QPTs. We demonstrate by
high-precision specific-heat measurements under pressure and applied magnetic
field that, like water, the pressure-temperature phase diagram of
SrCu(BO) has an Ising critical point terminating a first-order
transition line, which separates phases with different densities of magnetic
particles (triplets). We achieve a quantitative explanation of our data by
detailed numerical calculations using newly-developed finite-temperature
tensor-network methods. These results open a new dimension in understanding the
thermodynamics of quantum magnetic materials, where the anisotropic spin
interactions producing topological properties for spintronic applications drive
an increasing focus on first-order QPTs.Comment: 8+4 pages, 4+3 figure
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