Teachers'Experiences when Encouraging Social Interaction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Mainstream Schools. A Case Study in the Czech Republic

The rights of students with AS I) to enter mainstream settings have been strongly advocated. However, past research has shown that inclusion might prove challenging for them, leading to isolation from mainstream peers. This study focuses on how the interviewee-teachers in the Czech Republic operate to provide opportunities for meaningful anil sustainable social inclusion for learners with ASD. What knowledge they share to help these students socialize, and how they respond to challenges. In this study, two different approaches providing skills and techniques to develop genuine social interaction are considered. Firstly, the individually-based approach, where the student is taught how to develop social skills. Secondly, the child-to-child approach which aims to give guidance to classmates. This is a case- study in two urban primary schools in Prague. Five teachers were selected using a convenience sampling strategy within the purposeful sampling. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, participant observations ami field-notes were used to combine multiple sources when collecting data. The research questions evolved as the study progressed. Tlie data verifies that in general interviewee- teachers recognise benefits in social interaction. They see positive advances in both the individual's...The rights of students with AS I) to enter mainstream settings have been strongly advocated. However, past research has shown that inclusion might prove challenging for them, leading to isolation from mainstream peers. This study focuses on how the interviewee-teachers in the Czech Republic operate to provide opportunities for meaningful anil sustainable social inclusion for learners with ASD. What knowledge they share to help these students socialize, and how they respond to challenges. In this study, two different approaches providing skills and techniques to develop genuine social interaction are considered. Firstly, the individually-based approach, where the student is taught how to develop social skills. Secondly, the child-to-child approach which aims to give guidance to classmates. This is a case- study in two urban primary schools in Prague. Five teachers were selected using a convenience sampling strategy within the purposeful sampling. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, participant observations ami field-notes were used to combine multiple sources when collecting data. The research questions evolved as the study progressed. Tlie data verifies that in general interviewee- teachers recognise benefits in social interaction. They see positive advances in both the individual's...Katedra speciální pedagogikyFaculty of EducationPedagogická fakult

Implementación de los instrumentos jurídicos de la Organización De Naciones Unidas -ONU- referentes a la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático en Colombia – años 2015 al 2019

El estudio permitió determinar la forma en que se han implementado los instrumentos jurídicos de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas – ONU- referentes a la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático en Colombia, en los años 2015 al 2019, y a su vez este propendió por: 1. Identificar los instrumentos jurídicos que han sido expedidos por la Organización de Naciones Unidas - ONU- referentes a la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático; 2. Examinar el proceso de adopción de los instrumentos jurídicos que han sido expedidos por la Organización de Naciones Unidas – ONU relacionados con la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático; y, 3. Describir las acciones que ha desarrollado el Estado colombiano de acuerdo a lo consagrado en los instrumentos jurídicos de la Organización de Naciones Unidas – ONU frente a la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático.The study allowed to determine the way in which the legal instruments have been implemented of the United Nations Organization – UN- regarding the adaptation and mitigation of the climate change in Colombia, in the years 2015 to 2019, and in turn this tended to: 1. Identify the legal instruments that have been issued by the United Nations Organization Nations - UN- regarding the adaptation and mitigation of climate change; 2. Examine the process of adoption of the legal instruments that have been issued by the Organization of the United Nations – UN related to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change; and, 3. Describe the actions that the Colombian State has developed in accordance with what is enshrined in the legal instruments of the United Nations Organization – UN against the adaptation and mitigation of climate change

Australian Indigenous model of mental healthcare based on transdiagnostic cognitive–behavioural therapy co-designed with the Indigenous community: protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background A four- to seven-fold increase in the prevalence of current mood, anxiety, substance use and any mental disorders in Indigenous adults compared with non-Indigenous Australians has been reported. A lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder was 23.9%. High rates of comorbid mental disorders indicated a transdiagnostic approach to treatment might be most appropri- ate. The effectiveness of psychological treatment for Indigenous Australians and adjunct Indigenous spiritual and cultural healing has not previously been evaluated in controlled clinical trials. Aims This project aims to develop, deliver and evaluate the effectiveness of an Indigenous model of mental healthcare (IMMHC). Trial registration: ANZCTR Registration Number: ACTRN12618001746224 and World Health Organization Universal Trial Number: U1111-1222-5849. Method The IMMHC will be based on transdiagnostic cognitive–behav- iour therapy co-designed with the Indigenous community to ensure it is socially and culturally appropriate for Indigenous Australians. The IMMHC will be evaluated in a randomised con- trolled trial with 110 Indigenous adults diagnosed with a current diagnosis of depression. The primary outcome will be the severity of depression symptoms as determined by changes in Beck Depression Inventory-II score at 6 months post-interven- tion. Secondary outcomes include anxiety, substance use disorder and quality of life. Outcomes will be assessed at base- line, 6 months post-intervention and 12 months post- intervention. Results The study design adheres to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement recommendations and CONSORT extensions for pilot trials. We followed the Standard Protocol Items for Randomised Trials statement recommenda- tions in writing the trial protocol. Conclusions This study will likely benefit participants, as well as collaborating Aboriginal Medical Services and health organisations. The transdiagnostic IMMHC has the potential to have a substantial impact on health services delivery in the Indigenous health sector

Super-resolution imaging reveals resistance to mass transfer in functionalized stationary phases

Chemical separations are costly in terms of energy, time, and money. Separation methods are optimized with inefficient trial-and-error approaches that lack insight into the molecular dynamics that lead to the success or failure of a separation and, hence, ways to improve the process. We perform super-resolution imaging of fluorescent analytes in four different commercial liquid chromatography materials. Surprisingly, we observe that chemical functionalization can block over fifty percent of the porous interior of the material, rendering it inaccessible to small molecule analytes. Only in situ imaging unveils the inaccessibility when compared to the industry-accepted ex situ characterization methods. Selectively removing some of the functionalization with solvent restores pore access without significantly altering the single-molecule kinetics that underlie the separation and agree with bulk chromatography measurements. Our molecular results determine that commercial stationary phases, marketed as fully porous, are over-functionalized and provide a new avenue to characterize and direct separation material design from the bottom-up

Unified superresolution experiments and stochastic theory provide mechanistic insight into protein ion-exchange adsorptive separations

Chromatographic protein separations, immunoassays, and biosensing all typically involve the adsorption of proteins to surfaces decorated with charged, hydrophobic, or affinity ligands. Despite increasingly widespread use throughout the pharmaceutical industry, mechanistic detail about the interactions of proteins with individual chromatographic adsorbent sites is available only via inference from ensemble measurements such as binding isotherms, calorimetry, and chromatography. In this work, we present the direct superresolution mapping and kinetic characterization of functional sites on ion-exchange ligands based on agarose, a support matrix routinely used in protein chromatography. By quantifying the interactions of single proteins with individual charged ligands, we demonstrate that clusters of charges are necessary to create detectable adsorption sites and that even chemically identical ligands create adsorption sites of varying kinetic properties that depend on steric availability at the interface. Additionally, we relate experimental results to the stochastic theory of chromatography. Simulated elution profiles calculated from the molecular-scale data suggest that, if it were possible to engineer uniform optimal interactions into ion-exchange systems, separation efficiencies could be improved by as much as a factor of five by deliberately exploiting clustered interactions that currently dominate the ion-exchange process only accidentally

Evaluación preliminar de la influencia del biodiesel en el desgaste del sistema de alimentación de los motores de combustión interna

En el presente trabajo se estudia de forma preliminar la influencia de un combustible renovable derivado de aceites vegetales denominado Biodiesel, sobre el sistema de alimentación del motor de combustión interna. Para el estudio se tomó como punto de partida los elementos que se encuentran en contacto directo con el combustible durante el funcionamiento del mismo. Para realizar los experimentos, se diseñó un banco de prueba, en el cual los elementos analizados fueron el par émbolo buzo-camisa y el par aguja-boquilla del inyector. Los experimentos de desgaste se realizaron empleando el método gravimétrico comparativo utilizando como combustible patrón el diesel tradicional Se muestran los resultados del desgaste durante 100 horas de trabajo de la instalación experimental. Se determinó que el uso de biodiesel a larga la vida útil de los motores, dado que su uso provoca una disminución de las emisiones de gases contaminantes y del desgaste de los elementos.In this work the influence of a renewable fuel derived from vegetables oils namely biodiesel on the feeding system of internal combustion engine is preliminary studied. To make the study it was took as starting point the elements that are directly in contact with the fuel during the operation of the same one. To carry out the experiments, a test bank was designed, in which the analyzed elements were the pair piston plunger-shirt, that dosage he fuel, as well as the pair needle-mouthpiece of the injector, that pulverizes the fuel and introduce it inside the combustion camera. The wear experiments was carried out using the gravimetric comparative method like fuel traditional diesel as patron, maintaining the same operation conditions in both injection pumps installed for each one of the fuels analyzed. The results of the wear, during 100 working hours of the experimental installation for each one of the elements of the analyzed pairs independently and using both fuels are shown. It was determined that the biodiesel use lengthens the useful life of the engines, because its use causes a significant decrease of the polluting gases emissions and the analyzed elements wear of the injection system.Asociación Argentina de Energías Renovables y Medio Ambiente (ASADES

Sensory gating in primary insomnia

Although previous research indicates that sleep architecture is largely intact in primary insomnia (PI), the spectral content of the sleeping electroencephalographic trace and measures of brain metabolism suggest that individuals with PI are physiologically more aroused than good sleepers. Such observations imply that individuals with PI may not experience the full deactivation of sensory and cognitive processing, resulting in reduced filtering of external sensory information during sleep. To test this hypothesis, gating of sensory information during sleep was tested in participants with primary insomnia ( n  = 18) and good sleepers ( n  = 20). Sensory gating was operationally defined as (i) the difference in magnitude of evoked response potentials elicited by pairs of clicks presented during Wake and Stage II sleep, and (ii) the number of K complexes evoked by the same auditory stimulus. During wake the groups did not differ in magnitude of sensory gating. During sleep, sensory gating of the N350 component was attenuated and completely diminished in participants with insomnia. P450, which occurred only during sleep, was strongly gated in good sleepers, and less so in participants with insomnia. Additionally, participants with insomnia showed no stimulus-related increase in K complexes. Thus, PI is potentially associated with impaired capacity to filter out external sensory information, especially during sleep. The potential of using stimulus-evoked K complexes as a biomarker for primary insomnia is discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79243/1/j.1460-9568.2010.07237.x.pd

Synaptic dynamics contribute to long-term single neuron response fluctuations

Firing rate variability at the single neuron level is characterized by long-memory processes and complex statistics over a wide range of time scales (from milliseconds up to several hours). Here, we focus on the contribution of non-stationary efficacy of the ensemble of synapses-activated in response to a given stimulus-on single neuron response variability. We present and validate a method tailored for controlled and specific long-term activation of a single cortical neuron in vitro via synaptic or antidromic stimulation, enabling a clear separation between two determinants of neuronal response variability: membrane excitability dynamics vs. synaptic dynamics. Applying this method we show that, within the range of physiological activation frequencies, the synaptic ensemble of a given neuron is a key contributor to the neuronal response variability, long-memory processes and complex statistics observed over extended time scales. Synaptic transmission dynamics impact on response variability in stimulation rates that are substantially lower compared to stimulation rates that drive excitability resources to fluctuate. Implications to network embedded neurons are discussed. \ua9 2014 Reinartz, Biro, Gal, Giugliano and Marom

A Generalized Framework for Quantifying the Dynamics of EEG Event-Related Desynchronization

Brains were built by evolution to react swiftly to environmental challenges. Thus, sensory stimuli must be processed ad hoc, i.e., independent—to a large extent—from the momentary brain state incidentally prevailing during stimulus occurrence. Accordingly, computational neuroscience strives to model the robust processing of stimuli in the presence of dynamical cortical states. A pivotal feature of ongoing brain activity is the regional predominance of EEG eigenrhythms, such as the occipital alpha or the pericentral mu rhythm, both peaking spectrally at 10 Hz. Here, we establish a novel generalized concept to measure event-related desynchronization (ERD), which allows one to model neural oscillatory dynamics also in the presence of dynamical cortical states. Specifically, we demonstrate that a somatosensory stimulus causes a stereotypic sequence of first an ERD and then an ensuing amplitude overshoot (event-related synchronization), which at a dynamical cortical state becomes evident only if the natural relaxation dynamics of unperturbed EEG rhythms is utilized as reference dynamics. Moreover, this computational approach also encompasses the more general notion of a “conditional ERD,” through which candidate explanatory variables can be scrutinized with regard to their possible impact on a particular oscillatory dynamics under study. Thus, the generalized ERD represents a powerful novel analysis tool for extending our understanding of inter-trial variability of evoked responses and therefore the robust processing of environmental stimuli