Relevant prior knowledge moderates the effect of elaboration during small group discussion on academic achievement

This study set out to test whether relevant prior knowledge would moderate a positive effect on academic achievement of elaboration during small-group discussion. In a 2 × 2 experimental design, 66 undergraduate students observed a video showing a small-group problem-based discussion about thunder and lightning. In the video, a teacher asked questions to the observing participants. Participants either elaborated by responding to these questions, or did not elaborate, but completed a

Sources of information used by women during pregnancy and the perceived quality

BACKGROUND: Access to reliable information is critical to women’s experience and wellbeing during pregnancy and childbirth. In our information-rich society, women are exposed to a wide range of information sources. The primary objective of this study was to explore women’s use of information sources during pregnancy and to examine the perceived usefulness and trustworthiness of these sources. METHOD: A quantitative cross-sectional study of Dutch women's experiences with various information sources during pregnancy, including professional (e.g. healthcare system), and informal sources, divided into conventional (e.g. family or peers) and digital sources (e.g. websites or apps). Exploratory backward stepwise multiple regression was performed to identify associations between the perceived quality of information sources and personal characteristics. RESULTS: A total of 1922 pregnant women were included in this study. The most commonly used information sources were midwives (91.5%), family or friends (79.3%), websites (77.9%), and apps (61%). More than 80% of women found professional information sources trustworthy and useful, while digital sources were perceived as less trustworthy and useful. Personal factors explain only a small part of the variation in the perceived quality of information sources. CONCLUSION: Even though digital sources are perceived as less trustworthy and useful than professional and conventional sources, they are among the most commonly used sources of information for pregnant women. To meet the information needs of the contemporary generation of pregnant women it is essential that professionals help in the development of digital information sources

Impact of maternal height on birthweight classification in singleton births at term: a cohort study in The Netherlands:a cohort study in the Netherlands

Objective: To assess the association between maternal height and birthweight in a healthy population and to study the effect of maternal height on the classification of birthweight as small for gestational age (SGA) and large for gestational age (LGA). Methods: A descriptive, observational retrospective study was conducted in a low risk population in the Netherlands. The study included term singleton healthy nonsmoking pregnant women with normal body mass index (n = 9291). We calculated the impact of maternal height on birthweight using multiple linear regression analyses with adjustment for gestational age, gender, and parity. We calculated the number of newborns classified as SGA and LGA using the cutoff point of the Dutch Birthweight chart, which does not customize for maternal height. Subsequently, we calculated the changes in classification from SGA and LGA to appropriate for gestational age (AGA) in case of customization for maternal height. Results: A significant association was found between maternal height and birthweight; 15.0 g higher birthweight per extra cm maternal height (95% confidence interval 13.8–16.1; p173 cm) women previously LGA were classified as AGA when controlling for maternal height. Conclusions: Maternal height is significantly associated with birthweight. Birthweight charts customized for maternal height change classification in one out of six SGA or LGA newborns at term

CISNE-P: a portable and integral approach for scheduling parallel jobs on non-dedicated clusters

In this work, we present an integral scheduling system for non-dedicated clusters, termed CISNE-P, which ensures the performance required by the local applications, while simultaneously allocating cluster resources to parallel jobs. Our approach solves the problem efficiently by using a social contract technique. This kind of technique is based on reserving computational resources, preserving a predetermined response time to local users. CISNE-P is a middleware which includes both a previously developed space-sharing job scheduler and a dynamic coscheduling system, a time sharing scheduling component. The experimentation performed in a Linux cluster shows that these two scheduler components are complementary and a good coordination improves global performance significantly. We also compare two different CISNE-P implementations: one developed inside the kernel, and the other entirely implemented in the user spaceEn este trabajo presentamos un sistema integral de planificación para clusters no dedicados llamado CISNE-P, el cual asegura el rendimiento especificado por los usuarios locales y al mismo tiempo asegura de forma simultánea recursos del cluster a los trabajos paralelos. Nuestra propuesta soluciona eficientemente el problema usando una técnica de contrato social.Esta clase de técnica se basa en realizar reservas de los recursos de cómputo, preservando de este modo un determinado tiempo de respuesta predeterminado a los usuarios locales. CISNE-P es un midleware que incluye un planificador de espacio compartido desarrollado con anterioridad y un sistema de coplanificación dinámico, un tipo de planificador de tiempo compartido. La experimentación realizada en un cluster Linux muestra como los dos planificadores son complementarios y una buena coordinación entre ellos mejora su rendimiento de forma significativa. También se ha comparado dos implementaciones de CISNE-P: una desarrollada dentro del núcleo y la otra implementada enteramente en el espacio de usuario.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI