Conceptual Discovery of Educational Resources through Learning Objectives

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοThis poster reports on current work with the NSF-funded Achievement Standards Network (ASN) to support discovery of educational resources in digital libraries using conceptual graphs of officially promulgated achievement standards statements. Conceptual graphs or knowledge maps of achievement standards reveal the macrostructure of the learning domain modeled by those standards and support higher-level understanding by teachers and students. The work builds on the conceptual framework of the AAAS knowledge maps by providing the means to flexibly define and deploy new relationship schemas to fit the disparate modeling needs of the nearly 740 learning standards documents in the ASN repository. Using an RDF-based, node-link representation of learning goals and the relationships among them, the ASN Knowledge Map Service will provide the framework to correlate educational resources to nodes in conceptual models in order to augment more conventional mechanisms of discovery and retrieval in digital libraries

Prior events predict cerebrovascular and coronary outcomes in the PROGRESS trial

<p><b>Background and Purpose:</b> The relationship between baseline and recurrent vascular events may be important in the targeting of secondary prevention strategies. We examined the relationship between initial event and various types of further vascular outcomes and associated effects of blood pressure (BP)–lowering.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Subsidiary analyses of the Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS) trial, a randomized, placebo-controlled trial that established the benefits of BP–lowering in 6105 patients (mean age 64 years, 30% female) with cerebrovascular disease, randomly assigned to either active treatment (perindopril for all, plus indapamide in those with neither an indication for, nor a contraindication to, a diuretic) or placebo(s).</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Stroke subtypes and coronary events were associated with 1.5- to 6.6-fold greater risk of recurrence of the same event (hazard ratios, 1.51 to 6.64; P=0.1 for large artery infarction, P<0.0001 for other events). However, 46% to 92% of further vascular outcomes were not of the same type. Active treatment produced comparable reductions in the risk of vascular outcomes among patients with a broad range of vascular events at entry (relative risk reduction, 25%; P<0.0001 for ischemic stroke; 42%, P=0.0006 for hemorrhagic stroke; 17%, P=0.3 for coronary events; P homogeneity=0.4).</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Patients with previous vascular events are at high risk of recurrences of the same event. However, because they are also at risk of other vascular outcomes, a broad range of secondary prevention strategies is necessary for their treatment. BP–lowering is likely to be one of the most effective and generalizable strategies across a variety of major vascular events including stroke and myocardial infarction.</p&gt

Stochastic B-series analysis of iterated Taylor methods

For stochastic implicit Taylor methods that use an iterative scheme to compute their numerical solution, stochastic B--series and corresponding growth functions are constructed. From these, convergence results based on the order of the underlying Taylor method, the choice of the iteration method, the predictor and the number of iterations, for It\^o and Stratonovich SDEs, and for weak as well as strong convergence are derived. As special case, also the application of Taylor methods to ODEs is considered. The theory is supported by numerical experiments

Early in-hospital exposure to statins and outcome after intracerebral haemorrhage - Results from the Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive

Introduction Recent data suggest that statin use after intracerebral haemorrhage might be beneficial. However, data on the effects of early in-hospital statin exposure are lacking. Therefore, we sought to assess whether (1) early statin exposure during the acute phase after intracerebral haemorrhage and (2) early continuation of prevalent statin use are associated with favourable functional outcome. Patients and methods Data were obtained from the Virtual International Stroke Trials Archive. Patients were categorised according to use patterns of statins during this early in-hospital phase (continuation, discontinuation or new initiation of statins). Univariate and multivariable analyses were conducted to explore the association between early statin exposure and functional outcome. Results A total of 919 patients were included in the analysis. Early in-hospital statin exposure (n = 89, 9.7%) was associated with better functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale <= 3) compared with 790 patients without statin exposure before or early after the event (66% versus 47%, adjusted OR 2.1, 95% confidence interval 1.3-3.6). Compared with patients without exposure to statins before and early after the event, early continuation of statin therapy (n = 57) was associated with favourable functional outcome (adjusted odds ratio 2.6, 95% confidence interval 1.3-5.2). The association between early continuation of statins and outcome remained robust in sensitivity analyses restricted to patients able to take oral medication within 72 h and one-week survivors. Discussion It is possible that part of the observed associations are not due to a protective effect of statins but are confounded by indication bias. Conclusion Statin exposure and continuation of prevalent statin therapy early after intracerebral haemorrhage are associated with favourable functional outcome after 90 days

Brief cognitive-behavioural therapy for children with anxiety disorders: Initial evaluation of a program designed for clinic settings

Ronan, KR ORCiD: 0000-0002-2698-5886Four anxiety disordered 8- to 11-year-old children and their parents participated in a shortened version of an efficacious cognitive–behavioural program for anxiety in children, designed to reflect therapy conditions found in usual clinical practice. A modified multiple-baseline design was used that combined clinic setting pragmatics with a necessary level of methodological protection. For ongoing evaluation, weekly measures of the child’s trait anxiety and coping ability were obtained from the child and parents. In addition, a battery of measures was used to evaluate outcomes following treatment and at two follow-up intervals. Emphasising increased parent involvement and earlier exposure sessions, the program was found to lead to marked changes in child functioning. In particular, all children showed improvement on self-report, parent report, and independent clinician’s ratings over the course of treatment. Moreover, scores on relevant indices were all within a nondeviant range following intervention, and all four children no longer qualified for an anxiety diagnosis at posttreatment and at 3- and 12-month followup. Findings are discussed in terms of implementation and evaluation in practice settings (e.g., critical components of treatment, use of pragmatic single case designs). Suggestions for future research include testing the effectiveness of this brief program on a large and diverse sample of children. Additional research is also required to find out to what extent increased parent involvement and earlier exposure sessions enhance the impact of treatment in the larger context of addressing features of the research-practice gap. Overall, findings provide preliminarysupport for the effectiveness of a brief cognitive–behavioural program for treating anxiety disorders in children, along with an evaluation strategy, compatible with some of the needs of service delivery settings