Parent and teacher perspectives on friendships and social interactions of secondary students with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Friendships between students with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) remain infrequent, especially at the secondary level. However, when friendships between students with and without IDD have developed, direct support from parents and teachers has been a critical facilitator. Thus, this qualitative study examined parent (n = 10) and teacher (n = 20) perspectives on friendships and social interactions of middle and high school students with IDD receiving special education services in inclusive settings at least part of the day. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with each participant and analyzed inductively utilizing a multi stage process of open and then thematic coding. The thematic findings suggest that the challenge of friendship development between students with and without IDD is ongoing, though there may be potential in focusing more explicitly and intentionally on increasing social interaction opportunities both in and out of school. Implications for future research and practice are described in the context of supporting students with and without IDD to increase social interactions and develop friendships

Life cycle analysis of hybrid poplar trees for cellulosic ethanol

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-41).The main purpose of this paper is to assess the energy and environmental benefits of cultivating hybrid poplars as a biomass crop for cellulosic ethanol. A "Life Cycle Assessment" (LCA) methodology is used to systematically evaluate the hybrid poplar's energy input and output as well as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The system boundary is divided into three sections, agriculture, transportation, and ethanol processing. In this LCA, only energy from fossil fuels is accounted for, and only energy yield from ethanol yield is considered. Energy demands and associated emissions for all operations are divided equally over the total biomass harvested over a 10 year timeline. Ultimately, the net energy ratio, the amount of clean energy produced over the amount of fossil fuels consumed, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the cultivation process is compared to those of current forms of fuel and other renewable resources. The net energy ratio was calculated to be in the range of 5.82 to 8.55, which was found to be higher than both gasoline and corn ethanol.(cont.) The carbon dioxide emission was calculated to be in the range of 2.42 to 3.55 grams CO2 per MJ output, and was lower than the net emissions of both gasoline and corn ethanol. However, in comparing to other renewable resources, such as solar and wind, hybrid poplars were evaluated to be less optimal in energy efficiency and GHG emissions.by Jessica J. Huang.S.B

Crystallization-Driven Self-Assembly of Hydrolytically-Degradable Block Polymers into Diverse Nanostructures

Cysteine-functionalized poly(L-lactide)-block-polycarbonates (PLLA-b-PC-cys) were synthesized and assembled in nanopure water, by crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA), to yield a variety of nanostructures, of which the dimensions were determined by the polymer composition. CDSA exploits crystallization of one segment of a block polymer to trap nanoscale morphologies that are inaccessible by solution-state self-assembly. This project expands the scope of CDSA-mediated block polymer nanostructures by the design, synthesis, and assembly of fully-degradable PLLA-b-PC, in which the semi-crystalline polylactide block enables CDSA and the polycarbonate block contains alkyne groups for post-polymerization modification. Installation of zwitterionic cysteine moieties onto the polycarbonate alkynes rendered the block polymers amphiphilic. CDSA was performed in nanopure water, by heating above the Tvg of the PLLA block and cooling to induce assembly. The morphology of the resulting nanostructures was investigated as a function of block length and ratio by atomic force microscopy (AFM). These studies demonstrated that spherical, cylindrical, or platelet-like morphologies could be generated, depending on the ratio of the hydrophobic block to the hydrophilic block. Polymers with hydrophobic weight percentages lower than 30% formed only spheres, while assembly of those with intermediate weight percentages (34% and 36%) resulted in platelets with lengths of ca. 500 nm. Finally, polymers with the highest weight percentages (42% and 71%) yielded large bundles of cylinders, ca. 500 nm or longer. Reproducible assembly of a fully-degradable polymeric system is a significant step towards drug delivery applications. The polymer assemblies described in this thesis are currently under investigation as tunable delivery vehicles for silver antimicrobials to treat recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI)

Evaluating Access and Barriers to Mindfulness Among Opioid-Dependent Patients in Bangor, Maine

Mindfulness has been shown to aid in addiction recovery and can help prevent relapse. The Family Medicine Center & Residency Program at Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) in Bangor, Maine has provided mindfulness resources to their opioid-dependent patients; however, the center has no quantitative data on the current understanding and utilization of mindfulness techniques among this patient population. A survey tool was created and distributed to opioid-dependent patients in the clinic to identify barriers to practicing mindfulness. The collected data was submitted by one of the clinic providers in a grant proposal. Grant funding could go toward addressing these barriers.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1152/thumbnail.jp

Silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave stacks for low-thermal-noise mirror coatings

This study investigates a multilayer high reflector with new coating materials for next-generation laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors operated at cryogenic temperatures. We use the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method to deposit amorphous silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave high-reflector stacks and studied the properties pertinent to the coating thermal noise. Room- and cryogenic-temperature mechanical loss angles of the silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave bilayers are measured using the cantilever ring-down method. We show, for the first time, that the bulk and shear loss angles of the coatings can be obtained from the cantilever ring-down measurement, and we use the bulk and shear losses to calculate the coating thermal noise of silicon nitride and silica high-reflector coatings. The mechanical loss angle of the silicon nitride and silica bilayer is dispersive with a linear weakly positive frequency dependence, and, hence, the coating thermal noise of the high reflectors show a weakly positive frequency dependence in addition to the normal 1/ vf dependence. The coating thermal noise of the silicon nitride and silica high-reflector stack is compared to the lower limit of the coating thermal noise of the end test mirrors of ET-LF, KAGRA, LIGO Voyager, and the directly measured coating thermal noise of the current coatings of Advanced LIGO. The optical absorption of the silicon nitride and silica high reflector at 1550 nm is 45.9 ppm. Using a multimaterial system composed of seven pairs of ion-beam-sputter deposited Ti∶Ta2O5 and silica and nine pairs of silicon nitride and silica on a silicon substrate, the optical absorption can be reduced to 2 ppm, which meets the specification of LIGO Voyager

Parallel Five-Cycle Counting Algorithms

Counting the frequency of subgraphs in large networks is a classic research question that reveals the underlying substructures of these networks for important applications. However, subgraph counting is a challenging problem, even for subgraph sizes as small as five, due to the combinatorial explosion in the number of possible occurrences. This paper focuses on the five-cycle, which is an important special case of five-vertex subgraph counting and one of the most difficult to count efficiently. We design two new parallel five-cycle counting algorithms and prove that they are work-efficient and achieve polylogarithmic span. Both algorithms are based on computing low out-degree orientations, which enables the efficient computation of directed two-paths and three-paths, and the algorithms differ in the ways in which they use this orientation to eliminate double-counting. We develop fast multicore implementations of the algorithms and propose a work scheduling optimization to improve their performance. Our experiments on a variety of real-world graphs using a 36-core machine with two-way hyper-threading show that our algorithms achieves 10-46x self-relative speed-up, outperform our serial benchmarks by 10-32x, and outperform the previous state-of-the-art serial algorithm by up to 818x

The Diverse Infrared Properties of a Complete Sample of Star-Forming Dwarf Galaxies

We present mid-infrared Spitzer Space Telescope observations of a complete sample of star-forming dwarf galaxies selected from the KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey. The galaxies span a wide range in mid-infrared properties. Contrary to expectations, some of the galaxies emit strongly at 8 micron indicating the presence of hot dust and/or PAHs. The ratio of this mid-infrared dust emission to the stellar emission is compared with the galaxies' luminosity, star-formation rate, metallicity, and optical reddening. We find that the strength of the 8.0 micron dust emission to the stellar emission ratio is more strongly correlated with the star-formation rate than it is with the metallicity or the optical reddening in these systems. Nonetheless, there is a correlation between the 8.0 micron luminosity and metallicity. The slope of this luminosity-metallicity correlation is shallower than corresponding ones in the B-band and 3.6 micron. The precise nature of the 8.0 micron emission seen in these galaxies (i.e., PAH versus hot dust or some combination of the two) will require future study, including deep mid-IR spectroscopy.Comment: 14 pages, accepted Ap

Weak interactions of supersymmetric staus at high energies

Neutrino telescopes may have the potential to detect the quasi-stable staus predicted by supersymmetric models. Detection depends on stau electromagnetic energy loss and weak interactions. We present results for the weak interaction contribution to the energy loss of high energy staus as they pass through rock. We show that the neutral current weak interaction contribution to the energy loss increases with energy, but it is much smaller than the photonuclear energy loss, however, the charged current contribution may become the dominant process above the energy of $\sim 10^9$ GeV, depending on the parameters of the model. As a consequence, the stau range may be reduced above $\sim 10^9$ GeV as compared to the range neglecting weak interactions. We contrast this with the tau range which is barely changed with the inclusion of charged current interactions.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, version to be publishe

LEVERAGING THE WEB ENJOYMENT EXPERIENCE FOR INFORMAL ONLINE LEARNING: A FIELD STUDY

Online emotional experiences and their relationship to cognitive states are of growing interest. This study investigates one emotional experience – enjoyment – and its impact on informal online learning. The concept of enjoyable online learning, namely online learning that is not part of a formal instructional undertaking, has not been well studied or understood. The study treats enjoyment as a complex and multi-dimensional construct. A field study was conducted with an operational museum website and 1,815 participants. A cross-over experimental design was employed. Structural equation models were constructed to evaluate the relationship between the web enjoyment experience and informal online learning outcomes. This relationship was significant for all three experimental conditions. Analysis also showed relationships among the website design feature of interactivity, the user’s level of enjoyment and informal learning outcomes: (i) the degree of interactivity influences the level of enjoyment; (ii) the degree of interactivity influences informal learning outcomes. Not all results, however, were in the expected direction. The study points to the need for more research in this complex area