1,262 research outputs found
Efficacy of a Self-monitoring Technique to Improve Academic Skill Production
This study examined archival data from an assisted self-graphing intervention for improving early literacy skills in first grade students from one elementary school. The purpose of the investigation is to examine the use of a self-graphing supplemental intervention that occurred outside of the class-wide first grade reading instruction. The participants included first grade students from three classroom settings in one predominately middle class, suburban school district in southeastern Pennsylvania. The participants formed three groups: (1) 8 students in a DIBELS Progress Monitoring and Self-Graphing Intervention group (PM + SG group); (2) 9 students in a DIBELS Progress Monitoring-only group (PM group), and (3) 49 students in a Non-intervention & Non-progress Monitoring group (NI group). Two subgroups from the NI group were identified for the purposes of a PSF comparison group and a NWF comparison group (12 students NI group for PSF and 11 students in NI groups for NWF). The PSF and NWF comparison group performances were compared with performances of participants in the PM + SG group and the PM group on the PSF and NWF measures. The students in the PM + SG and PM groups were identified as “at risk” readers in the skill areas either of Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, Nonsense Word Fluency or both Phoneme Segmentation Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency based on the Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment. The students in the PM + SG group self-graphed their Phoneme Segmentation and/or Nonsense Word Fluency scores immediately following the DIBELS assessment. This group of participants was selected, based upon the higher number of students who were identified as “at risk” from this classroom setting when compared with the other two classroom settings. The participants in the PM groups were provided only with the bi-weekly progress monitoring during the intervention period as a means for continued formative evaluation as well as for intervention evaluation. All participants were provided with pre-and post-assessment DIBELS measures. At the end of the intervention period, the students and teacher involved in the self-graphing intervention were surveyed regarding the effectiveness of the intervention. Findings indicated that reading fluency production increased for all the students in the participant groups (PM + SG, PM, and NI subgroups for PSF and NWF). The students that participated in the self-graphing intervention did demonstrate higher levels of growth along with higher reading fluency scores than the other participant groups. These findings lend support to the literature in the field of self-monitoring and self-graphing as a method for improving student performance
Harvest-induced disruptive selection increases variance in fitness-related traits
The form of Darwinian selection has important ecological and management implications. Negative effects of harvesting are often ascribed to size truncation (i.e. strictly directional selection against large individuals) and resultant decrease in trait variability, which depresses capacity to buffer environmental change, hinders evolutionary rebound and ultimately impairs population recovery. However, the exact form of harvest-induced selection is generally unknown and the effects of harvest on trait variability remain unexplored. Here we use unique data from the Windermere (UK) long-term ecological experiment to show in a top predator (pike, Esox lucius) that the fishery does not induce size truncation but disruptive (diversifying) selection, and does not decrease but rather increases variability in pike somatic growth rate and size at age. This result is supported by complementary modelling approaches removing the effects of catch selectivity, selection prior to the catch and environmental variation. Therefore, fishing most likely increased genetic variability for somatic growth in pike and presumably favoured an observed rapid evolutionary rebound after fishery relaxation. Inference about the mechanisms through which harvesting negatively affects population numbers and recovery should systematically be based on a measure of the exact form of selection. From a management perspective, disruptive harvesting necessitates combining a preservation of large individuals with moderate exploitation rates, and thus provides a comprehensive tool for sustainable exploitation of natural resources
The Importance of eHealth in the Education of Underserved Populations
The use of the Internet or the World Wide Web for educational purposes is widespread and rapidly growing. It is only natural that, in response to this rapid growth, its usage expands into the field of medicine, particularly eHealth. But as the nature of how the Internet is being used in health and medicine increases, there is a large segment of the population being left behind because of lack of access. This lack of access is in response to economic barriers, political barriers, social-cultural barriers and social-economic barriers. Issues of literacy, content, and language also play a role in the continuance of what is known as the digital divide and its role in the education of underserved populations on health-related issues. The purpose of this literature review is to examine the role of technology in the in the education of underserved populations on health care related issues, and to measure the effectiveness of the Internet as a mechanism for obtaining health information for underserved populations
Engineering derivatives from biological systems for advanced aerospace applications
The present study consisted of a literature survey, a survey of researchers, and a workshop on bionics. These tasks produced an extensive annotated bibliography of bionics research (282 citations), a directory of bionics researchers, and a workshop report on specific bionics research topics applicable to space technology. These deliverables are included as Appendix A, Appendix B, and Section 5.0, respectively. To provide organization to this highly interdisciplinary field and to serve as a guide for interested researchers, we have also prepared a taxonomy or classification of the various subelements of natural engineering systems. Finally, we have synthesized the results of the various components of this study into a discussion of the most promising opportunities for accelerated research, seeking solutions which apply engineering principles from natural systems to advanced aerospace problems. A discussion of opportunities within the areas of materials, structures, sensors, information processing, robotics, autonomous systems, life support systems, and aeronautics is given. Following the conclusions are six discipline summaries that highlight the potential benefits of research in these areas for NASA's space technology programs
Digital mammography, cancer screening: Factors important for image compression
The use of digital mammography for breast cancer screening poses several novel problems such as development of digital sensors, computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) methods for image noise suppression, enhancement, and pattern recognition, compression algorithms for image storage, transmission, and remote diagnosis. X-ray digital mammography using novel direct digital detection schemes or film digitizers results in large data sets and, therefore, image compression methods will play a significant role in the image processing and analysis by CAD techniques. In view of the extensive compression required, the relative merit of 'virtually lossless' versus lossy methods should be determined. A brief overview is presented here of the developments of digital sensors, CAD, and compression methods currently proposed and tested for mammography. The objective of the NCI/NASA Working Group on Digital Mammography is to stimulate the interest of the image processing and compression scientific community for this medical application and identify possible dual use technologies within the NASA centers
Recommended from our members
Assessing landscape complexity using remotely sensed and field based measurements : does landscape complexity drive leafroller parasitism rates on Oregon caneberry farms?
Landscape heterogeneity is thought to differ among farm management types (i.e. organic and conventional), and this difference is hypothesized to result in variations in pest control by natural enemies. However, it is unclear if these variations in pest control are driven by landscape structure or by farm management practices themselves. Remotely sensed datasets were used to describe the landscape structure surrounding a group of organic and conventional caneberry farms in Oregon and Washington that have different leafroller parasitism rates attributed to farm management type. A finer scale survey was done at one of the farms using the remotely sensed data as well as field surveys. Landscape metrics of diversity, richness and percent non-crop were used to describe the landscapes surrounding the farm fields at scales ranging from 0.05 km to 5.00 km for the large scale study, and 0.05 km to 0.20 km for the fine scale study. In the fine scale study, data on parasitoid species assemblages, diversity, and parasitism rate were collected and analyzed against the calculated landscape metrics spatially and seasonally. The purpose of this study was to quantify effects of farm management type on habitat structure, effect of habitat structure on leafroller parasitism rate, and to access correlations between landscape metrics calculated at the landscape and field scale. Overall, the farms were embedded in a landscape that was broadly similar, with very few differences in landscape structure occurring between organic and conventional farms. Organic farms had higher vegetation height class diversity at the largest scale compared to conventional farms, while conventional farms had significantly higher percent non-crop area compared to organic farms. There was no significant effect of any of the calculated landscape metrics on parasitism rates. In the field scale study, no correlations were found between habitat metrics and parasitism rates, or between field based metrics and those calculated at the landscape scale. The results of this study suggest that conventional and organic caneberry farms in the Willamette Valley are broadly similar in the habitat conditions they provide parasitoids. This suggests that management changes to pesticide use alone could increase levels of leafroller biological control on conventional farms to levels that are comparable to those seen on organic farms. Our comparisons of the landscape scale and field scale landscape metrics showed no connection, this suggests that direct comparisons cannot be made with these particular metrics at these very different scales. Rather than comparing these types of data, it may be more useful to combine them in order to increase the resolution and predictive power of remotely sensed data for describing landscapes at broad scales
Source placement error for permanent implant of the prostate
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134896/1/mp8058.pd
Designing a methodology for surveying fish populations in freshwater lakes
This report was commissioned to review available fish survey methods and the limitations and constraints presented by the lakes within the SSSI series, to design a standardised, practical, and representative method for fish survey which could be reasonably applied throughout the SSSI lakes to achieve comparable results.
The report then goes on to design a study which applies this fish survey design to a selection of SSSI lakes to ascertain whether fish are likely to be contributing to their unfavourable condition.
This report has been used to inform a follow up study which seeks to apply the fish survey techniques to a range of SSSI lakes to ascertain information about their fish populations and their likely impact on SSSI condition.
The report also includes a comprehensive review of fish survey methods and concludes with a recommended standardised fish survey method which can be applied consistently across different SSSIs to provide comparable quantitative results. It is expected that this methodology can be applied in subsequent fish surveys commissioned on SSSI lakes, to provide more robust and repeatable results
- …