Prevention of the decline of marital satisfaction during the transition to parenthood: A pilot test of a marital skills training workshop

Previous research has indicated that couples typically experience a decline in marital adjustment during the year after their first baby is born. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of the Prevention Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP{dollar}\rm \sp{TM}{dollar}), a research-based marital skills workshop, in preventing this decline in marital adjustment; Participants were 70 married couples expecting their first child. All participants completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), Marital Instability Index (MII), and the Communication Patterns Questionnaire (CPQ). The couples were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Workshop or control. Couples in the workshop group were invited to attend a modified format of the PREP{dollar}\rm \sp{TM}{dollar} program; Control and workshop couples were given follow-up administrations of the DAS, MII, and CPQ three months postpartum. Results indicate that sample couples did evidence a decline in marital adjustment. There was no difference between groups on the DAS, MII, or the CPQ at the follow-up

Retrieval enhances route knowledge acquisition, but only when movement errors are prevented.

Studies of the testing effect have shown that retrieval significantly improves learning. However, most of these studies have been restricted to simple types of declarative verbal knowledge. Five experiments were designed to explore whether testing improves acquisition of route knowledge, which has a procedural component consisting of actions to be performed at decision points (Golledge, 1991). Participants learned a route through a series of connected rooms in a virtual building. Each room contained multiple doors, only one of which led to the next room. During encoding, participants were shown the correct sequence of doors in a manner similar to global positioning system (GPS) navigation guidance. During subsequent exposures to the route, participants were either shown the correct sequence again or had to recall the sequence from memory. Participants later completed a final test in which they traversed the route without guidance or feedback. Testing improved route memory compared to studying, but only when participants were given feedback about the correct door prior to moving through the room. When feedback occurred after moving to an incorrect door, testing resulted in worse performance compared to studying. These findings parallel work on errorless learning, in which procedural skills are acquired more quickly when errors are minimized during learning

Energy Efficient Process Heating: Insulation and Thermal Mass

Open tanks and exterior surfaces of process heating equipment lose heat to the surroundings via convection, radiation, and/or evaporation. A practical way of reducing heat loss is by insulating or covering the surfaces. This paper presents methods to quantify heat loss and energy savings from insulating hot surfaces and open tanks. The methods include radiation and evaporation losses, which are ignored by simplified methods. In addition, thermal mass, such as refractory, conveyor and racking equipment, acts as a heat sink and increases heating energy use in process heating applications. This paper presents lumped capacitance and finite-difference methods for estimating heat loss to thermal mass, and savings from reducing this loss. The methods described above have been incorporated in free software, and are demonstrated using case study examples. The examples demonstrate the magnitude of the potential error from using simplified methods

Energy Efficient Process Heating: Managing Air Flow

Much energy is lost through excess air flow in and out of process heating equipment. Energy saving opportunities from managing air flow include minimizing combustion air, preheating combustion air, minimizing ventilation air, and reconfiguring openings to reduce leakage. This paper identifies these opportunities and presents methods to quantify potential energy savings from implementing these energy-savings measures. Case study examples are used to demonstrate the methods and the potential energy savings.The method for calculating savings from minimizing combustion air accounts for improvement in efficiency from increased combustion temperature and decreased combustion gas mass flow rate. The method for calculating savings from preheating inlet combustion air consists of fundamental heat exchanger and combustion efficiency equations. This method accounts for the reduction of combustion air flow as fuel input declines, which is often neglected in many commonly-used methods. The method for calculating savings from reducing forced ventilation in ovens accounts for flow rate of ventilation air and air temperature when entering and exhausting the oven. The method for calculating savings from reconfiguring oven openings accounts for flow rate of air entering and exiting the oven due to buoyancy forces

Quantifying Savings From Improved Boiler Operation

On/off operation and excess combustion air reduce boiler energy efficiency. This paper presents methods to quantify energy savings from switching to modulation control mode and reducing excess air in natural gas fired boilers. The methods include calculation of combustion temperature, calculation of the relationship between internal convection coefficient and gas flow rate, and calculation of overall heat transfer assuming a parallel-flow heat exchanger model. The method for estimating savings from changing from on/off to modulation control accounts for purge and drift losses through the boiler and the improved heat transfer within the boiler due to the reduced combustion gas flow rate. The method for estimating savings from reducing excess combustion air accounts for the increased combustion temperature, reduced internal convection coefficient and increased residence time of combustion gasses in the boiler. Measured boiler data are used to demonstrate the accuracy of the methods

Extending patient simulation: A novel prototype to produce tympanic thermal output

Introduction: Despite technologic advances in task trainers and manikins, there persists an inability to replicate key clinical skills as would occur in clinical settings. This report provides details of a project to develop a functional and reliable tympanic thermal simulator prototype that could be embedded into the ear of a manikin to enable tympanic thermometers to be used during simulation encounters. Methods: A simple electrical circuit was built using (i) a standard 9-V battery, (ii) a switch, (iii) 5 × 62-Ω resistors in parallel for circuit stability, (iv) a 62-Ω resistor in parallel with (v) a 1-kΩ potentiometer to vary the infrared light-emitting diode (IRLED) intensity, and (vi) 2 IRLEDs. After confirming reliability of circuit performance, the IRLEDs were implanted into the ear of a manikin. Over 3 consecutive days, 3033 samples were recorded simulating a range of human body temperatures, controlled by altering current flow. Results: Initial testing of the thermal simulator prototype indicates that a range of human temperatures (34.0°C–41.9°C) can be generated using high-intensity IRLEDs. Although, at higher applied current levels, the variation in measured temperature was larger (2.4°C) than at lower applied currents (0.2°C), reasonably precise temperatures were achieved. Conclusions: Testing and reporting initial prototype results are an important first step in developing and refining a useful product to enhance manikin capabilities associated with patient physical assessment in the simulation setting. Despite the undesired variation, the current design could still be used for teaching purposes in educational settings. Retrieving tympanic temperatures during “patient assessment” of the simulator benefits nursing, midwifery, and other health care students by enabling authentic practice. Further development of this prototype is required to improve the reliability, precision, and accuracy of the device.Conclusions: Testing and reporting initial prototype results are an important first step in developing and refining a useful product to enhance manikin capabilities associated with patient physical assessment in the simulation setting. Despite the undesired variation, the current design could still be used for teaching purposes in educational settings. Retrieving tympanic temperatures during “patient assessment” of the simulator benefits nursing, midwifery, and other health care students by enabling authentic practice. Further development of this prototype is required to improve the reliability, precision, and accuracy of the device

Attitudes & Roles Regarding Firearm Access and Suicide Prevention in Vermont Middle & High Schools

Adolescent suicide is a serious public health concern in Vermont, and the presence of firearms in the home is a known risk factor. Suicide attempts with firearms are more likely to be completed than attempts with other means, with an 85% mortality rate of suicide with firearms compared to 5% with other means. This project aimed to assess attitudes, comfort, and perceived roles among school personnel in addressing gun safety and access to firearms with Vermont students and parents.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1298/thumbnail.jp

Options for Economic Growth in Mali through the Application of Science and Technology to Agriculture

Prepared For The United States Agency for International Development Initiative To End Hunger In Africafood security, food policy, Mali science and technology research, research and extension, International Development, Q18,

The Great Escape: A Novel Approach to Collaborative Learning (Pilot)

Healthcare continues toward team-based approaches in which multiple disciplines collaborate to ensure holistic patient care. National standards for intraprofessional collaboration guide curriculum design for entry-level occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) programs to ensure students acquire specific skills and knowledge needed for current OT practices. Effective intraprofessional collaboration includes effective communication, respect, trust, and understanding of role delineation, which students prefer to learn in experiential, face-to-face formats. The purpose of this study was to examine OT and OTA students’ perspectives of participating in an educational escape room (EER) as a novel experience for intraprofessional education. Investigators created an EER with a healthcare plot and conducted it at two sites with 76 students, who had 60 minutes to solve puzzles based on OT/OTA knowledge to “escape” the room. Seventy-five students provided feedback on the EER in an online survey. Participants enjoyed working together in the EER, and felt it was a fun way to apply learned skills. They reported that collaboration was a key benefit and that this learning approach made them feel like equal contributors and created a sense of accomplishment. OT educators should consider including novel game-based learning activities such as EERs in their programs and in collaboration with other programs

Texture Segregation By Visual Cortex: Perceptual Grouping, Attention, and Learning

A neural model is proposed of how laminar interactions in the visual cortex may learn and recognize object texture and form boundaries. The model brings together five interacting processes: region-based texture classification, contour-based boundary grouping, surface filling-in, spatial attention, and object attention. The model shows how form boundaries can determine regions in which surface filling-in occurs; how surface filling-in interacts with spatial attention to generate a form-fitting distribution of spatial attention, or attentional shroud; how the strongest shroud can inhibit weaker shrouds; and how the winning shroud regulates learning of texture categories, and thus the allocation of object attention. The model can discriminate abutted textures with blurred boundaries and is sensitive to texture boundary attributes like discontinuities in orientation and texture flow curvature as well as to relative orientations of texture elements. The model quantitatively fits a large set of human psychophysical data on orientation-based textures. Object boundar output of the model is compared to computer vision algorithms using a set of human segmented photographic images. The model classifies textures and suppresses noise using a multiple scale oriented filterbank and a distributed Adaptive Resonance Theory (dART) classifier. The matched signal between the bottom-up texture inputs and top-down learned texture categories is utilized by oriented competitive and cooperative grouping processes to generate texture boundaries that control surface filling-in and spatial attention. Topdown modulatory attentional feedback from boundary and surface representations to early filtering stages results in enhanced texture boundaries and more efficient learning of texture within attended surface regions. Surface-based attention also provides a self-supervising training signal for learning new textures. Importance of the surface-based attentional feedback in texture learning and classification is tested using a set of textured images from the Brodatz micro-texture album. Benchmark studies vary from 95.1% to 98.6% with attention, and from 90.6% to 93.2% without attention.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0397, F49620-01-1-0423); National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624