A Preliminary Study of Disproportionate Representation and Response to Intervention

Disproportionate representation occurs when the percentage of an identified group enrolled in special education varies significantly from that group’s overall percentage of the school population (Harry, 1994). Response to Intervention (RTI), a paradigm for educational intervention, is designed to minimize many factors contributing to disproportionality. The study examined disproportionality risk ratios for African American students, ages 6 through 21, who received special education services in a southeastern state supporting the RTI initiative during the 2006-2009 school years. Data suggest that African American students identified with a specific learning disability experienced increased referral and placement in special education in the three years corresponding to the initial RTI implementation efforts. Definitive conclusions about the fidelity of RTI implementation or effectiveness of intervention are beyond the scope of the current study, but disproportionality findings may be used as a comparative baseline for future research

Secret sharing-based authentication and key agreement protocol for machine-type communications

[EN] One of the main challenges for the development of the Internet of Things is the authentication of large numbers of devices/sensors, commonly served by massive machine-type communications, which jointly with long-term evolution has been considered one of the main foundations for the continued growth of Internet of Things connectivity and an important issue to be treated in the development of 5G networks. This article describes some protocols for the group-based authentication of devices/sensors in Internet of Things and presents a new group authentication protocol based on Shamir's secret and Lagrange interpolation formula. The new protocol protects privacy, avoids unauthorized access to information, and assists in the prevention of attacks, as replay, distributed denial of service, and man-in-the-middle. A security analysis and comparisons among the 3GPP evolved packet system authentication and key agreement standard protocol and other recent group authentication protocols were performed toward proving the efficiency of the proposed protocol. The comparisons regard security properties and computational and communication costs. The safety of the protocol was formally verified through simulations conducted by automated validation of internet security protocols and applications.Lopes, APG.; Hilgert, LO.; Gondim, PRL.; Lloret, J. (2019). Secret sharing-based authentication and key agreement protocol for machine-type communications. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks (Online). 15(4):1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1550147719841003S12115

Relativistic Chasles' theorem and the conjugacy classes of the inhomogeneous Lorentz group

This work is devoted to the relativistic generalization of Chasles' theorem, namely to the proof that every proper orthochronous isometry of Minkowski spacetime, which sends some point to its chronological future, is generated through the frame displacement of an observer which moves with constant acceleration and constant angular velocity. The acceleration and angular velocity can be chosen either aligned or perpendicular, and in the latter case the angular velocity can be chosen equal or smaller than than the acceleration. We start reviewing the classical Euler's and Chasles' theorems both in the Lie algebra and group versions. We recall the relativistic generalization of Euler's theorem and observe that every (infinitesimal) transformation can be recovered from information of algebraic and geometric type, the former being identified with the conjugacy class and the latter with some additional geometric ingredients (the screw axis in the usual non-relativistic version). Then the proper orthochronous inhomogeneous Lorentz Lie group is studied in detail. We prove its exponentiality and identify a causal semigroup and the corresponding Lie cone. Through the identification of new Ad-invariants we classify the conjugacy classes, and show that those which admit a causal representative have special physical significance. These results imply a classification of the inequivalent Killing vector fields of Minkowski spacetime which we express through simple representatives. Finally, we arrive at the mentioned generalization of Chasles' theorem.Comment: Latex2e, 49 pages. v2: few typos correcte

Feedback on audit and action planning for dental caries control : a qualitative study to investigate the acceptability among interdisciplinary pediatric dental care teams

Introduction: American Indian and Alaska Native children suffer from the poorest oral health of all populational groups in the United States. Evidence-based practices (EBP) for caries control are well established, but systematically implementing such practices have proven difficult. Audit and feedback with goal setting, and action planning to implement these EBPs have not been tested or adapted for Alaska Native healthcare settings. The aim of this study was to investigate acceptability and perceived feasibility of an audit and feedback intervention for pediatric dental caries control among dental providers and patient stakeholders. Methods: The pilot program was implemented in two dental clinics from a tribal healthcare consortium in Alaska. Key-informant interviews were conducted to investigate the contextual, organizational, and behavioral facilitators and barriers to the implementation and expansion of the program. Interview transcripts were analyzed by two researchers using thematic analysis. Results: Eight key informants were interviewed twice (during and after the intervention period), and one once, for a total of 17 interviews. Patient stakeholders were not interviewed due to COVID-19 pandemic clinic closures and social isolation mandates. Three principal themes emerged: a positive organizational climate and culture fostered the acceptability of the program, the positive impacts of the program observed in the pediatric dental teams and the organization, and the challenges to implement the program including understanding the data reports, trusting the accuracy of the data, and competing priorities. Conclusions: The intervention of audit and feedback with goal setting and action planning was well accepted and perceived as feasible by the study participants given the financial and human resources provided by the research project. This qualitative study can inform the design and evaluation of process-oriented implementation strategies geared towards decreasing health inequities and improving health outcomes, such as dental caries in American Indian and Alaska Native children and adolescents

Cross sections for geodesic flows and \alpha-continued fractions

We adjust Arnoux's coding, in terms of regular continued fractions, of the geodesic flow on the modular surface to give a cross section on which the return map is a double cover of the natural extension for the \alpha-continued fractions, for each $\alpha$ in (0,1]. The argument is sufficiently robust to apply to the Rosen continued fractions and their recently introduced \alpha-variants.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure

A holomorphic representation of the Jacobi algebra

A representation of the Jacobi algebra $\mathfrak{h}_1\rtimes \mathfrak{su}(1,1)$ by first order differential operators with polynomial coefficients on the manifold $\mathbb{C}\times \mathcal{D}_1$ is presented. The Hilbert space of holomorphic functions on which the holomorphic first order differential operators with polynomials coefficients act is constructed.Comment: 34 pages, corrected typos in accord with the printed version and the Errata in Rev. Math. Phys. Vol. 24, No. 10 (2012) 1292001 (2 pages) DOI: 10.1142/S0129055X12920018, references update

Feasibility and Efficacy of the Addition of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback to a Remote Digital Health Intervention for Depression

A rise in the prevalence of depression underscores the need for accessible and effective interventions. The objectives of this study were to determine if the addition of a treatment component showing promise in treating depression, heart rate variability-biofeedback (HRV-B), to our original smartphone-based, 8-week digital intervention was feasible and whether patients in the HRV-B ("enhanced") intervention were more likely to experience clinically significant improvements in depressive symptoms than patients in our original ("standard") intervention. We used a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent (matched) groups design to compare changes in symptoms of depression in the enhanced group (n = 48) to historical outcome data from the standard group (n = 48). Patients in the enhanced group completed a total average of 3.86 h of HRV-B practice across 25.8 sessions, and were more likely to report a clinically significant improvement in depressive symptom score post-intervention than participants in the standard group, even after adjusting for differences in demographics and engagement between groups (adjusted OR 3.44, 95% CI [1.28-9.26], P = .015). Our findings suggest that adding HRV-B to an app-based, smartphone-delivered, remote intervention for depression is feasible and may enhance treatment outcomes.Peer reviewe

Feasibility and acceptability of home delivery of water for dental caries control in latinx children — “sediento por una sonrisa,” thirsty for a smile : single-arm feasibility study

Background: Outcomes of surgical treatments under general anesthesia for early childhood caries of young children from low-income groups are poor requiring retreatment within 2 years. Dietary sugar is an ideal intervention target given that it is the most prominent risk factor for dental caries and there is increasing evidence of successful interventions to reduce its intake. Our aim is to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of the Thirsty for a Smile intervention, designed to promote consumption of water in lieu of sugar sweetened beverages, among children who underwent surgery for early childhood caries and their caregivers, mostly from Latino heritage. Methods: A single-arm feasibility study was conducted in a dental practice from a community health center in eastern Washington State. Bottled water was delivered to the participants’ homes and caregivers received patientcentered counseling for setting goals to increase children’s water intake and reduce sugar sweetened beverages consumption. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention and study procedures through participation rates, interviews and a questionnaire completed by the caregivers. Data was analyzed and themes and descriptive statistics presented. Results: Twenty-two dyads of caregivers and their children between 2 and 9 years old who recently had surgical treatment for early childhood dental caries were enrolled. All study assessments were completed by more than 90% of participants, except for the final 24-h dietary recall (73%). Dietary counseling, both in person and brief telephone calls, was highly acceptable to the caregivers, and they also reported their children enjoyed and used the water bottles. On a scale from 1 to 10, the average rating for the helpfulness of the dietary counseling component for changing child’s drinking habits was 9.62 and for the water delivery component, 8.86. Conclusions: This study tested the feasibility of conducting a trial in a dental practice setting, and the acceptability among caregivers of young children who underwent surgery for early childhood caries. It demonstrated that the Thirsty for a Smile intervention and study processes were feasible and acceptable. The study provides useful information for implementation of a two-arm randomized controlled trial in this setting and may also benefit other researchers attempting to test similar interventions