Siblings of youths with chronic conditions: a school-based survey

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the differences between youths with a sibling affected by a chronic condition or a disability (SCCD) and their peers with healthy siblings. Method: Using data from the second wave of GenerationFRee study, we compared adolescents from each gender with healthy siblings to adolescents with SCDD on demographical, familial, internalizing and externalizing behavior variables. Subsequently we repeated the analysis excluding from each group adolescents who suffer from a chronic condition or disability themselves. Results: At bivariate and multivariate level, among those with SCDD, healthy females reported more somatic symptoms, healthy males more violent behaviors, and both genders were more often in nonintact families. When considering both healthy and unhealthy adolescents, at bivariate analysis female adolescents with SCDD were more likely to have a poorer relationship to their mother, to be unhealthy, to smoke, to be at risk for disordered eating and to report somatic symptoms. At multivariate level, only the association with CDD and smoking remained. Male adolescents with SCDD, at both bivariate and multivariate analysis, were more likely to be unhealthy and to live in larger and nonintact families. Conclusion: Adolescents with a SCDD are more at risk if they are healthy themselves. Health professionals in contact with adolescents should always consider them in a systemic approach. Parents should be informed about potential effect on the siblings of a child with CDD, but also reassured, as most other variables were not significantly raised among adolescents with SCDD

A new look at C*-simplicity and the unique trace property of a group

We characterize when the reduced C*-algebra of a group has unique tracial state, respectively, is simple, in terms of Dixmier-type properties of the group C*-algebra. We also give a simple proof of the recent result by Breuillard, Kalantar, Kennedy and Ozawa that the reduced C*-algebra of a group has unique tracial state if and only if the amenable radical of the group is trivial.Comment: 8 page

Siblings of youths with chronic conditions: a school-based survey.

The purpose of this study was to explore the differences between youths with a sibling affected by a chronic condition or a disability (SCCD) and their peers with healthy siblings. Using data from the second wave of GenerationFRee study, we compared adolescents from each gender with healthy siblings to adolescents with SCDD on demographical, familial, internalizing and externalizing behavior variables. Subsequently we repeated the analysis excluding from each group adolescents who suffered from a chronic condition or disability themselves. At the bivariate and multivariate level, among those with SCDD, healthy females reported more somatic symptoms, healthy males more violent behaviors, and both genders lived more often in non-intact families. When considering both healthy and unhealthy adolescents, at bivariate analysis female adolescents with SCDD were more likely to have a poorer relationship to their mother, to be unhealthy, to smoke, to be at risk for disordered eating and to report somatic symptoms. At multivariate level, only the association with SCDD and smoking remained. Male adolescents with SCDD, at both bivariate and multivariate analyses, were more likely to be unhealthy and to live in larger and non-intact families. Healthy adolescents with an SCDD are more at risk of somatic symptoms and violent behaviors than their peers with healthy siblings. Health professionals in contact with adolescents should always consider them with a systemic approach. Parents should be informed about the potential effect on the siblings of a CDD child, but also reassured, as adolescents with SCDD are not different from their peers with healthy siblings

On normalish subgroups of the R. Thompson groups

Funding: UK EPSRC grant EP/R032866/1Results in C∗ algebras, of Matte Bon and Le Boudec, and of Haagerup and Olesen, apply to the R. Thompson groups F ≤ T ≤ V. These results together show that F is non-amenable if and only if T has a simple reduced C∗-algebra. In further investigations into the structure of C∗-algebras, Breuillard, Kalantar, Kennedy, and Ozawa introduce the notion of a normalish subgroup of a group G. They show that if a group G admits no non-trivial finite normal subgroups and no normalish amenable subgroups then it has a simple reduced C∗-algebra. Our chief result concerns the R. Thompson groups F < T < V; we show that there is an elementary amenable group E < F (where here, E ≅ ...)≀Z)≀Z)≀Z) with E normalish in V. The proof given uses a natural partial action of the group V on a regular language determined by a synchronizing automaton in order to verify a certain stability condition: once again highlighting the existence of interesting intersections of the theory of V with various forms of formal language theory.Postprin

Urban conservation : A framework for community involvement in Malaysia.

Whilst interest in conservation planning in Malaysia is growing, there is evidence that it contains several deficiencies, including the commitment and resources to support effective community involvement. This research investigates the underlying factors that contribute to these deficiencies in the system and aims to develop principles to be taken forward for application in a practice-oriented framework, drawn from a critical analysis of the relationships between best practice, as identified through the literature and contemporary practice in Malaysia, as identified through the empirical work.The research examines various examples of community involvement practice from selected developed countries, including the United Kingdom. This suggested a framework of community involvement best practice, which would achieve sustainable conservation results. The current community involvement approach practice in Malaysia (using the Case Study of Historical City of Malacca) was compared to this suggested framework. This comparison to best practice with Malaysia's present practice demonstrates, quite clearly, the vital need for an involvement framework in Malaysia to be improved to make the current practice and provisions more effective.The findings proved that the present process is inefficient. It lacks systematic techniques, adequate communication and awareness. Additionally, there is an imbalance of power and control which requires better coordination and collaboration between both stakeholder organisations (all levels of government, i.e. federal, state and local, as well as private and NGOs) and the communities. The summary of findings from both the authorities and communities was compared and arranged towards a concluding reconciliation of perspectives. This led to the proposed framework for community involvement based on the lessons of best practices explored for the improvement to the present conservation system.The recommended practice-oriented framework comprises of its key principles to guide the reform process and highlights on six main elements, i.e. the emphasis on community focus; policy and approach; involvement and consultation stages; process and procedures; consultation methods; and evaluation and monitoring. The implementation of the framework requires investment in terms of resources, as well as related education and awareness programmes to help secure its success

Least Upper Delay Bound for VBR Flows in Networks-on- Chip with Virtual Channels

Real-time applications such as multimedia and gaming require stringent performance guarantees, usually enforced by a tight upper bound on the maximum end-to-end delay. For FIFO multiplexed on-chip packet switched networks we consider worst-case delay bounds for Variable Bit-Rate (VBR) flows with aggregate scheduling, which schedules multiple flows as an aggregate flow. VBR Flows are characterized by a maximum transfer size, peak rate, burstiness, and average sustainable rate. Based on network calculus, we present and prove theorems to derive per-flow end-to-end Equivalent Service Curves (ESC) which are in turn used for computing Least Upper Delay Bounds (LUDBs) of individual flows. In a realistic case study we find that the end-to-end delay bound is up to 46.9% more accurate than the case without considering the traffic peak behavior. Likewise, results also show similar improvements for synthetic traffic patterns. The proposed methodology is implemented in C++ and has low run-time complexity, enabling quick evaluation for large and complex SoCs

Performance of Scheduling Policies in Adversarial Networks with Non-synchronized Clocks

In this paper we generalize the Continuous Adversarial Queuing Theory (CAQT) model (Blesa et al. in MFCS, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3618, pp. 144–155, 2005) by considering the possibility that the router clocks in the network are not synchronized. We name the new model Non Synchronized CAQT (NSCAQT). Clearly, this new extension to the model only affects those scheduling policies that use some form of timing. In a first approach we consider the case in which although not synchronized, all clocks run at the same speed, maintaining constant differences. In this case we show that all universally stable policies in CAQT that use the injection time and the remaining path to schedule packets remain universally stable. These policies include, for instance, Shortest in System (SIS) and Longest in System (LIS). Then, we study the case in which clock differences can vary over time, but the maximum difference is bounded. In this model we show the universal stability of two families of policies related to SIS and LIS respectively (the priority of a packet in these policies depends on the arrival time and a function of the path traversed). The bounds we obtain in this case depend on the maximum difference between clocks. This is a necessary requirement, since we also show that LIS is not universally stable in systems without bounded clock difference. We then present a new policy that we call Longest in Queues (LIQ), which gives priority to the packet that has been waiting the longest in edge queues. This policy is universally stable and, if clocks maintain constant differences, the bounds we prove do not depend on them. To finish, we provide with simulation results that compare the behavior of some of these policies in a network with stochastic injection of packets

A fluid analysis framework for a Markovian process algebra

Markovian process algebras, such as PEPA and stochastic π-calculus, bring a powerful compositional approach to the performance modelling of complex systems. However, the models generated by process algebras, as with other interleaving formalisms, are susceptible to the state space explosion problem. Models with only a modest number of process algebra terms can easily generate so many states that they are all but intractable to traditional solution techniques. Previous work aimed at addressing this problem has presented a fluid-flow approximation allowing the analysis of systems which would otherwise be inaccessible. To achieve this, systems of ordinary differential equations describing the fluid flow of the stochastic process algebra model are generated informally. In this paper, we show formally that for a large class of models, this fluid-flow analysis can be directly derived from the stochastic process algebra model as an approximation to the mean number of component types within the model. The nature of the fluid approximation is derived and characterised by direct comparison with the Chapman–Kolmogorov equations underlying the Markov model. Furthermore, we compare the fluid approximation with the exact solution using stochastic simulation and we are able to demonstrate that it is a very accurate approximation in many cases. For the first time, we also show how to extend these techniques naturally to generate systems of differential equations approximating higher order moments of model component counts. These are important performance characteristics for estimating, for instance, the variance of the component counts. This is very necessary if we are to understand how precise the fluid-flow calculation is, in a given modelling situation