Risk-minimal routes for emergency cars

The computation of an optimal route for given start and destination in a static transportation network is used in many applications of private route planning. In this work we focus on route planning for emergency cars, such as for example police, fire brigade and ambulance. In case of private route planning typical quantities to be minimized are travel time or route length. However, the idea of this paper is to minimize the risk of a travel time exceeding a certain limit. This is inspired by the fact that the emergency cars have to reach the destination within a legal time. We consider mainly two approaches. The first approach takes into account relevant information to determine the weight, i.e. the desirability of certain edges of a graph during the minimization procedure. One possible risk factor to be aware of would be a suddenly jammed single-lane road on which the emergency car has no chance to make use of the benefits of the siren for instance. The same holds for full-closure situations and railroad crossings. We present a catalogue of risk factors along with an appropriate algorithm for practical route planning in emergency situations. The second one takes into account a weekly updated set of probe-vehicle data for each minute of the week along with data of current travel times. Comparing those travel-time data allows calculation of the associated risk for traveling certain edges of a route in a road network. We expect our algorithm to be a major advancement especially for destinations that lie outside the typical region travelled weekdays. In this case the automatic route planning naturally goes along with an additional gain of time

"El nen s'ha menjat una aranya": The development of narratives in Catalan speaking children

The production of a well-constructed narrative is the culmination of several years of language acquisition and is an important milestone in children's development. There is no current description of narrative development for Catalan speaking children. This study collected elicited narratives in Catalan from 118 children aged 4;0-10;11. Narratives were scored for macrostructure and microstructure. Narrative scores improved with age with maximum performance for macrostructure by 9 years. Children's ability to use micro-structural components of Catalan is variable with some developments continuing beyond 9 years. The results are discussed in relation to theoretical arguments about universal and specific features of narrative development. We conclude by highlighting the usefulness of the new test for future language assessment of children acquiring Catalan

Improving storytelling and vocabulary in secondary school students with language disorder: a randomized controlled trial

Background: Although language and communication difficulties are common in secondary school students, there has been limited research into the efficacy of interventions for adolescents with language and communication difficulties. Aims: To investigate the efficacy of teaching assistant (TA)-delivered narrative and vocabulary interventions to mainstream secondary school-aged students with language disorder. Methods & Procedures: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a language and communication intervention was used to evaluate the efficacy of vocabulary and narrative interventions to improve the vocabulary and narrative performance of adolescents (mean age = 12.8 years) with language disorder. The language and communication programmes (narrative, vocabulary and combined narrative and vocabulary) were delivered by TAs in the classroom, three times per week, for 45–60 min each, over 6 weeks, totalling 18 sessions. Standardized and intervention-specific measures were used as outcomes. Outcomes & Results: Twenty-one schools with 358 eligible participants were recruited. The three intervention groups showed significant improvements (d =.296) on a narrative latent variable defined by a standardized narrative assessment (the Expression, Reception and Recall of Narrative Instrument—ERRNI), but there were no significant improvements on an overall vocabulary latent variable compared with the waiting control group. Differential effects were found on some non-standardized intervention-specific measures with the narrative group making significantly more progress on narrative tasks compared with the waiting control group, the vocabulary group showing the same pattern on specific vocabulary tasks, and the combined narrative and vocabulary group making significantly more progress on some of the intervention-specific narrative, and all the intervention-specific vocabulary outcomes compared with the waiting control group. Conclusions & Implications: It is possible to improve narrative but not vocabulary skills, as assessed by standardized measures, in secondary school students with a relatively brief group TA-delivered intervention. There were differential effects for both narrative and vocabulary with intervention-specific measures. Future work is required to explore whether more intensive and longer lasting interventions would be more effective and to identify which students in this age group are most likely to benefit from such interventions

Dynamic assessment of children with language impairments: A pilot study

This article describes the construction of a procedure for dynamic assessment of the expressive grammar of children already identified with language impairments. Few instruments exist for the dynamic assessment of language, and those that have been developed have been largely used to successfully differentiate language impaired from culturally different or typically developing populations. The emphasis in this study was on eliciting clinically useful information that may be used to inform intervention for children with specific language impairment (SLI). The method was piloted on three children with specific language impairments.The test—train—retest format made use of standardized administration of the CELF-3 (UK) before and after a designated training protocol. The training procedure required the children to formulate sentences from randomly presented words, assisted by mediation from the assessor. Results showed that the task used was valuable and appropriate for use as a dynamic measure, and elicited differentiated amounts of change in the children in response to the mediated training phase. Pre-test—post-test results were inconclusive, however, and the frameworks for summarizing information could benefit from revision

Social, emotional, and behavioral functioning of secondary school students with low academic and language performance: perspectives from students, teachers, and parents

Adolescence is a time of transition when young people with language difficulties are at increased risk of experiencing social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (SEBD). Most studies of social, emotional, and behavioral functioning (SEBF) in individuals with language difficulties focus on children with a clinical diagnosis of language impairment. This study explores SEBF in a nonclinical group of 12-year-old students with low educational and language performance from their own perspectives and those of their parents and teachers

Action-points in human driving and in SUMO

When following a vehicle, drivers change their acceleration at so called action-points (AP), and keep it constant in between them. By investigating a large data-set of car-following data, the state- and time-distributions of the APs is analyzed. In the state-space spanned by speed-difference and distance to the lead vehicle, this distribution of APs is mostly proportional to the distribution of all data-points, with small deviations from this. Therefore, the APs are not concentrated around certain thresholds as is claimed by psycho-physical car-following models.Instead, small distances indicate a slightly higher probability of finding an AP than is the case for large distances. A SUMO simulation with SUMO\u27s implementation of the Wiedemann model confirms this view: the AP\u27s of the Wiedemann model follow a completely different distribution than the empirical ones

Figurative language processing in atypical populations: the ASD perspective

This document is protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. It is reproduced with permissionThis paper is intended to provide a critical overview of experimental and clinical research documenting problems in figurative language processing in atypical populations with a focus on the Autistic Spectrum. Research in the comprehension and processing of figurative language in autism invariably documents problems in this area. The greater paradox is that even at the higher end of the spectrum or in the cases of linguistically talented individuals with Asperger syndrome, where structural language competence is intact, problems with extended language persist. If we assume that figurative and extended uses of language essentially depend on the perception and processing of more concrete core concepts and phenomena, the commonly observed failure in atypical populations to understand figurative language remains a puzzle. Various accounts have been offered to explain this issue, ranging from linking potential failure directly to overall structural language competence (Norbury, 2005; Brock et al., 2008) to right-hemispheric involvement (Gold and Faust, 2010). We argue that the dissociation between structural language and figurative language competence in autism should be sought in more general cognitive mechanisms and traits in the autistic phenotype (e.g., in terms of weak central coherence, Vulchanova et al., 2012b), as well as failure at on-line semantic integration with increased complexity and diversity of the stimuli (Coulson and Van Petten, 2002). This perspective is even more compelling in light of similar problems in a number of conditions, including both acquired (e.g., Aphasia) and developmental disorders (Williams Syndrome). This dissociation argues against a simple continuity view of language interpretation

The effectiveness of classroom vocabulary intervention for adolescents with language disorder

Purpose Phonological-semantic intervention has been shown to be effective in enhancing the vocabulary skills of children with language disorder in small-group or individual settings. Less is known about vocabulary interventions for adolescents with language disorder in whole-class models of delivery. The current study investigated the effectiveness of phonological-semantic vocabulary intervention for adolescents with language disorder, delivered by secondary school teachers within science lessons. Methods Seventy-eight adolescents with language disorder, aged 11 – 13 years, were taught science curriculum words by teachers in class, under two conditions: 1) 10 words taught through usual teaching practice; and 2) 10 matched words taught using an experimental intervention known as Word Discovery, which embedded phonological-semantic activities into the teaching of the syllabus. Ten similar control words received no intervention. Word knowledge was assessed pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up. Results At pre-intervention, measures of depth of word knowledge and expressive word use did not differ between usual teaching practice and experimental words. At post-intervention, depth of knowledge of experimental words was significantly greater than that of usual teaching practice words. This significant advantage was not maintained at follow-up, although depth of knowledge for experimental words remained significantly higher at follow-up than at preintervention. At post-intervention, expressive use of experimental words was significantly greater than that of usual teaching practice words, and this significant difference was maintained at follow-up. There was no change in students’ depth of knowledge or expressive use of no-intervention words over time, confirming that the findings were not due to maturity or practice effects. Conclusion The experimental intervention was more effective than usual teaching practice in increasing the word knowledge of participants. Clinical and teaching implications include the importance of intervening during the adolescent years, with classroom vocabulary intervention being a viable option for collaborative teacher and speech and language therapy/pathology practice

Listening to Voices: Understanding Chinese Students' Journey at a Canadian University

This research explored the motivations of Chinese students to study in Canada and analyzed their cultural adaptation process at a Canadian university. This served the Canadian educational administrators and prospective Chinese students who were interested in studying in Canada. The following three research questions provided the direction for this study: 1 What are Chinese students’ motivations to study in Canada? 2 What are Chinese students’ experiences at Canadian universities and how do their motivations shape their journey in Canada? 3 What challenges and opportunities do Chinese students face in their cultural adaptation, and what strategies do Chinese students think can be applied by Canadian educational administrators to assist Chinese students? A qualitative approach was the research method utilized in this study. Using semi-structured life-story interviews, data were collected from a purposeful sample of four Chinese graduate students studying at a Canadian university. Utilizing a narrative research method, from an emic perspective, I listened to Chinese students’ voices and their life stories and to explore deeply their experiences in Canada. Three theoretical frameworks were employed to analyze the data. The synthesis model was used to explore the decision making process of participants to come to Canada; the push-pull model was employed to identify the factors attracting people to move to another country; and Self- Determined Theory was used to analyze the connection between participants’ motivations to study abroad and their subsequent cultural adaptation. Data collected from semi-structured interviews with four participants indicated that Chinese students were easily attracted to study in Canada by its favorable and tolerant environment, positive reputation for diversity, high quality post-secondary institutions and the possibility of securing a visa relatively easily. In their decision making process, Chinese students were influenced by some important factors: student characteristics, parental factors, and other external important factors. Among those factors influencing Chinese students’ decisions to move to Canada, family was recognized a very important factor and participants’ narratives suggested that having family connections in Canada could be a helpful factor for Chinese students to adapt to a new culture, which was reported as a best case scenario in this research. However, family also acted as a barrier for Chinese students to acquire English proficiency and interact with local people. Findings from this study supported earlier research that suggested students who were more self-determined to study abroad were more likely to succeed academically and had fewer traumas in navigating cross-cultural adaptations