258 research outputs found
Analysis of creative and logical-spatial skills in blind children and adolescents
This paper displays the Action-research project “Analysis and strengthening of divergent thinking in blind and visually impaired children and adolescents”, funded by the University of Catania. In light of the importance of divergent and logical-spatial skills for these subjects, in terms of life skills and good educational practices, this research project is aimed to achieve the following objectives a) to realize divergent and logical-spatial skills assessment tools and to verify the validity of these instruments; b) to explore the factors of divergent thinking in order to better understand the most deficient skills; c) to proceed with the strengthening of the more inadequate divergent abilities in the subjects. We had Stamperia Braille of Catania print the Williams’ Test of divergent thinking (TCD protocol A and B) and the Raven Matrices (standard SPM and colored CPM) in relief by thermoforming on PVC with relief height not lower than 0.9mm in order to allow the haptic understanding of stimuli by the blind. For visually impaired subjects the instruments are made using full color four-color laser printing on 80gr / mq paper. In this phase of the research, in agreement with the Italian Blind Union of Catania, we began to administer these tools to five blind subjects
Performance of the galactomannan antigen detection test in the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis in children with cancer or undergoing haemopoietic stem cell transplantation
AbstractSerum galactomannan (GM) antigen detection is not recommended for defining invasive aspergillosis (IA) in children undergoing aggressive chemotherapy or allogeneic haemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The ability of the GM test to identify IA in children was retrospectively evaluated in a cohort of children. Test performance was evaluated on samples that were collected during 195 periods at risk of IA. Proven IA was diagnosed in seven periods, all with positive GM test results (true positives, 4%), and possible IA was diagnosed in 15 periods, all with negative GM test results (false negatives, 8%). The test result was positive with negative microbiological, histological and clinical features in three periods (false positives, 1%), and in 170 periods it was negative with negative microbiological, histological and clinical features (true negatives, 87%). The sensitivity was 0.32 and the specificity was 0.98; the positive predictive value was 0.70 and the negative predictive value was 0.92. The efficiency of the test was 0.91, the positive likelihood ratio was 18.3, and the negative likelihood ratio was 1.4. The probability of missing an IA because of a negative test result was 0.03. Test performance proved to be better during at-risk periods following chemotherapy than in periods following allogeneic HSCT. The GM assay is useful for identifying periods of IA in children undergoing aggressive chemotherapy or allogeneic HSCT
Transitions from the Quantum Hall State to the Anderson Insulator: Fa te of Delocalized States
Transitions between the quantum Hall state and the Anderson insulator are
studied in a two dimensional tight binding model with a uniform magnetic field
and a random potential. By the string (anyon) gauge, the weak magnetic field
regime is explored numerically. The regime is closely related to the continuum
model. The change of the Hall conductance and the trajectoy of the delocalized
states are investigated by the topological arguments and the Thouless number
study.Comment: 10 pages RevTeX, 14 postscript figure
Phenotypic characterisation of immune cells associated with histological regression in cutaneous melanoma
Charge Localization in Disordered Colossal-Magnetoresistance Manganites
The metallic or insulating nature of the paramagnetic phase of the
colossal-magnetoresistance manganites is investigated via a double exchange
Hamiltonian with diagonal disorder. Mobility edge trajectory is determined with
the transfer matrix method. Density of states calculations indicate that random
hopping alone is not sufficient to induce Anderson localization at the Fermi
level with 20-30% doping. We argue that the metal-insulator transtion is likely
due to the formation of localized polarons from nonuniform extended states as
the effective band width is reduced by random hoppings and electron-electron
interactions.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex. 4 Figures include
Empowering the migrant and refugee family's parenting skills: a literature review
Bachground: Worldwide, more than 79.5 million people are forcibly displaced, including a significant number of migrant and refugee families with children. Migration and refugeedom affect these families in different dimensions, such as mental, physical and spiritual health. Identifying family needs and enhancing parenting skills can improve family cohesion and health, as well as smooth integration into the host country. This review is part of the Erasmus+ funded project- IENE 8 (Intercultural Education for Nurses in Europe) aiming at empowering migrant and refugee families regarding parenting skills.
Methods: This was a scoping review of literature. The IENE 8 partner countries (Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, and United Kingdom) searched for peer reviewed papers, grey literature and mass media reports at international, European and national level. The time period for the search of scientific and grey literature was between2013-2018, and for mass media, it was between 2016 and 2018.
Results: 124 relevant sources were identified. They included 33 Peer reviewed papers, 47 Grey literature documents and 44 mass media reports. This revealed the importance of understanding the needs of migrant families with children.
Conclusion: It is evident from the literature that there is a need to support refugee parents to adjust their existing skill and to empower them to develop new ones. Healthcare and social services professionals have an essential role in improving the refugees' parenting skills. This can be done by developing and implementing family-centered and culturally-sensitive intervention programs
Mesoscopic Effects in the Quantum Hall Regime
We report results of a study of (integer) quantum Hall transitions in a
single or multiple Landau levels for non-interacting electrons in disordered
two-dimensional systems, obtained by projecting a tight-binding Hamiltonian to
corresponding magnetic subbands. In finite-size systems, we find that
mesoscopic effects often dominate, leading to apparent non-universal scaling
behaviour in higher Landau levels. This is because localization length, which
grows exponentially with Landau level index, exceeds the system sizes amenable
to numerical study at present. When band mixing between multiple Landau levels
is present, mesoscopic effects cause a crossover from a sequence of quantum
Hall transitions for weak disorder to classical behaviour for strong disorder.
This behaviour may be of relevance to experimentally observed transitions
between quantum Hall states and the insulating phase at low magnetic fields.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the International Meeting on
Mesoscopic and Disordered Systems, Bangalore December 2000, to appear in
Pramana, February 200
Scaling near random criticality in two-dimensional Dirac fermions
Recently the existence of a random critical line in two dimensional Dirac
fermions is confirmed. In this paper, we focus on its scaling properties,
especially in the critical region. We treat Dirac fermions in two dimensions
with two types of randomness, a random site (RS) model and a random hopping
(RH) model. The RS model belongs to the usual orthogonal class and all states
are localized. For the RH model, there is an additional symmetry expressed by
. Therefore, although all non-zero energy states
localize, the localization length diverges at the zero energy. In the weak
localization region, the generalized Ohm's law in fractional dimensions,
, has been observed for the RH model.Comment: RevTeX with 4 postscript figures, To appear in Physical Review
Crossover from the chiral to the standard universality classes in the conductance of a quantum wire with random hopping only
The conductance of a quantum wire with off-diagonal disorder that preserves a
sublattice symmetry (the random hopping problem with chiral symmetry) is
considered. Transport at the band center is anomalous relative to the standard
problem of Anderson localization both in the diffusive and localized regimes.
In the diffusive regime, there is no weak-localization correction to the
conductance and universal conductance fluctuations are twice as large as in the
standard cases. Exponential localization occurs only for an even number of
transmission channels in which case the localization length does not depend on
whether time-reversal and spin rotation symmetry are present or not. For an odd
number of channels the conductance decays algebraically. Upon moving away from
the band center transport characteristics undergo a crossover to those of the
standard universality classes of Anderson localization. This crossover is
calculated in the diffusive regime.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure
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