Job satisfaction and attrition among special education teachers

It is thought that special education teaching, as a professional entity, experiences high rates of turnover. These high levels of turnover, have been attributed to the demands included in a special education job description. While most previous studies have looked at external factors as the above, few have assessed if and how job satisfaction or the employers indication that they find their job to be meaningful or fulfilling, affects their likelihood to remain in the field instead of looking for alternate employment. The current study will investigate to what extent, job satisfaction, alleviates special education teacher\u27s attrition rates. A survey, relating to job satisfaction and attrition, was administered to full time special education teachers at an out of district Special Services School via staff email. Results of the study, indicated that there was significance between participants who regarded their work to be meaningful and the unlikelihood of looking for another job outside the school district. 59 out of 62 participants from these 5 campuses, of a special services school district, indicated that they found their work to be either quite meaningful or extremely meaningful, 56 of 63 participants indicated that they are lightly or not at all likely to look for another job outside of the company, with 48 (77.42%) indicating that they are not at all likely to leave

Recovery assessment in Lake Nemi (Italy) after a twenty year period (1981-2001) using plant-associated invertebrates

Lake Nemi was subjected to organic pollution in the 1970s due to domestic wastes, which led to a severe eutrophication process. Local authorities consequently planned a gradual waste diversion programme completed in 1990. Comparison between data on plant-associated invertebrates in the period of maximum eutrophication (1981/82) and twenty years after the total waste diversion (2001/02) was carried out with the aim of demonstrating the performance of this littoral community for the purpose of lake recovery assessment. Following the water clarity improvement characterizing the 2001/02 period, the macrophyte community displayed an amelioration in plant diversification, an enlargement of the colonized area, and an appearance of Charales, important bioindicators of oligotrophic conditions. In complete agreement with this new situation, the invertebrate fauna extended its colonization, and the species composition and quantitative structure changed completely. A considerable increase in species richness and diversity, and significant modifications of percentages and densities of bioindicator taxa (cladocerans, gastropods and acari) showed a very appreciable recovery, which can be defined as a phase of oligotrophication. This trophic state is closely related to nutrient reduction in the water and enhanced by a drift of organic materials from littoral to profundal bottoms. This was due to the remarkable water level reduction of about five meters which occurred in the lake in recent times

Effectiveness of Sand Drains in Peaty Soil in a Case of Differential Settlement Recovering

The result obtained in a case history of differential settlement recovery are reported. The effectiveness of sand drains in peaty soil is questioned. The importance and the mutual influence of the primary and secondary settlement are discussed. Remarks are made on the value of secondary settlement coefficient

The Role of Multiple Articulatory Channels of Sign-Supported Speech Revealed by Visual Processing

Purpose The use of sign-supported speech (SSS) in the education of deaf students has been recently discussed in relation to its usefulness with deaf children using cochlear implants. To clarify the benefits of SSS for comprehension, 2 eye-tracking experiments aimed to detect the extent to which signs are actively processed in this mode of communication. Method Participants were 36 deaf adolescents, including cochlear implant users and native deaf signers. Experiment 1 attempted to shift observers' foveal attention to the linguistic source in SSS from which most information is extracted, lip movements or signs, by magnifying the face area, thus modifying lip movements perceptual accessibility (magnified condition), and by constraining the visual field to either the face or the sign through a moving window paradigm (gaze contingent condition). Experiment 2 aimed to explore the reliance on signs in SSS by occasionally producing a mismatch between sign and speech. Participants were required to concentrate upon the orally transmitted message. Results In Experiment 1, analyses revealed a greater number of fixations toward the signs and a reduction in accuracy in the gaze contingent condition across all participants. Fixations toward signs were also increased in the magnified condition. In Experiment 2, results indicated less accuracy in the mismatching condition across all participants. Participants looked more at the sign when it was inconsistent with speech. Conclusions All participants, even those with residual hearing, rely on signs when attending SSS, either peripherally or through overt attention, depending on the perceptual conditions.Unión Europea, Grant Agreement 31674

Composition and structure of planktonic and benthic communities as a basic information in fishpond culture

Zooplankton and zoobenthos of two fishponds were studied in order to define their seasonal patterns and community structures. The ponds PI and P2, of similar depth and surface, were interconnected, annually fertilized and mostly utilized for grey mullet rearing. P2 was less eutrophic than PI which received further nutrient inputs from the surrounding cultivated area by means of a drainage canal. A total of 25 zooplanktonic species and 14 zoobenthic taxa was recorded, most of which were typical of eutrophic waters. The comparison of the invertebrate fauna between the two ponds showed a strong similarity in the qualitative composition and significant differences in density of some taxa and in the community structure. The results suggest that the analysis of these communities can be a good tool to monitor eutrophication in fishponds in the same way as observed in lakes, and could provide some basic information to improve fishpond management.peer-reviewe

Recovering Differential Settlements by Vertical Drains

The differential settlement recovering of a large six storeys building by means of overloading and vertical drains is described. The results are discussed in relation with the geotechnical characteristics of the soil and by numerical analyses of the settlement curves

Relative impacts of morphological alteration to shorelines and eutrophication on littoral macroinvertebrates in Mediterranean lakes

Development of effective methods for assessing the ecological status of lakes based on littoral benthic fauna has been hampered by the lack of quantitative data on the relative impacts of key pressures on the benthic community. We used variance partitioning at 126 sites belonging to 14 natural Mediterranean lakes to analyze the pure and shared effects of eutrophication, morphological alterations, microhabitat type, lake morphometry and geographic position on the littoral macroinvertebrate community. The spatial arrangement of the sampling sites was responsible for 9.1% of the total variance in littoral benthic community composition, lake morphometry accounted for 4.3% of variation, and microhabitat type accounted for 3.9%. Communities appeared to be affected primarily by morphological alterations to lake shorelines, and their impact was 2.5 times as important as that of eutrophication. The structure of littoral benthic communities was governed by processes acting at several spatial scales from region to lake scale. Thus, several pressures and the various spatial scales at which these act should be taken into account when implementing methods of assessing lake ecological condition based on littoral benthic invertebrates. Region-specific methods for subalpine and volcanic lakes might enhance the validity of assessment of results of morphological alterations and improve management of those water resources

An eye tracking study on the perception and comprehension of unimodal and bimodal linguistic inputs by deaf adolescents

An eye tracking experiment explored the gaze behavior of deaf individuals when perceiving language in spoken and sign language only, and in sign-supported speech (SSS). Participants were deaf (n = 25) and hearing (n = 25) Spanish adolescents. Deaf students were prelingually profoundly deaf individuals with cochlear implants (CIs) used by age 5 or earlier, or prelingually profoundly deaf native signers with deaf parents. The effectiveness of SSS has rarely been tested within the same group of children for discourse-level comprehension. Here, video-recorded texts, including spatial descriptions, were alternately transmitted in spoken language, sign language and SSS. The capacity of these communicative systems to equalize comprehension in deaf participants with that of spoken language in hearing participants was tested. Within-group analyses of deaf participants tested if the bimodal linguistic input of SSS favored discourse comprehension compared to unimodal languages. Deaf participants with CIs achieved equal comprehension to hearing controls in all communicative systems while deaf native signers with no CIs achieved equal comprehension to hearing participants if tested in their native sign language. Comprehension of SSS was not increased compared to spoken language, even when spatial information was communicated. Eye movements of deaf and hearing participants were tracked and data of dwell times spent looking at the face or body area of the sign model were analyzed. Within-group analyses focused on differences between native and non-native signers. Dwell times of hearing participants were equally distributed across upper and lower areas of the face while deaf participants mainly looked at the mouth area; this could enable information to be obtained from mouthings in sign language and from lipreading in SSS and spoken language. Few fixations were directed toward the signs, although these were more frequent when spatial language was transmitted. Both native and non-native signers looked mainly at the face when perceiving sign language, although non-native signers looked significantly more at the body than native signers. This distribution of gaze fixations suggested that deaf individuals – particularly native signers – mainly perceived signs through peripheral vision.European Union’s Seventh Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration 31674

Littoral invertebrates associated with aquatic plants and bioassessment of ecological status in Lake Bracciano (Central Italy)

Lake Bracciano is a large and deep volcanic lake which plays an unquestionable role for drawing water source and for fishing and recreational activities. The existence of a project aimed at increasing the amount of water drawn from the lake suggested the advisability of undertaking an ecological analysis of the invertebrate community associated with aquatic plants in order to obtain a detailed knowledge of its composition, biodiversity and quantitative structure, and to provide a set of basic and essential information for defining the ecological status in the littoral zone and for future bioassessments in the lake ecosystem. A good water quality, approaching oligotrophy, was evidenced both from data on aquatic vegetation, which showed the extensive colonization of Charales (down to a depth of about 20 m), and from faunal parameters such as high species richness and diversity values, presence and abundance of bioindicator taxa (mainly cladocerans and gastropods), abundances of total fauna. Nevertheless, a considerable disappearance of the reed thicket due to the intense shore management for recreational purposes have negatively influenced the colonization of the more shallow and productive waters, so evidencing a negative trend of the littoral quality