Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to Improve Understanding of Disability and Functioning

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a useful framework and classification to better situate disability, health, and functioning. The ICF recognizes disability and functioning as the dynamic individual and environment interaction, promoting a more realistic perspective. This article describes the ICF, its utility, and its strengths/weaknesses

The Need for Culturally Appropriate Strategies in Promoting Self-Determination Among Individuals with Disabilities

While strategies promoting self-determination have been effective in the United States and other Westernized countries, these identical approaches and “best practices” are not necessarily effective in cultures that do not embrace the same individualistic values. In these settings and situations, culturally appropriate approaches are necessary to engage these individuals with disabilities and their families while promoting similar principles underlying self-determination, empowerment, social justice, and rights. This article provides an overview of some traditional strategies promoting self-determination and/or empowerment and then discusses how these are not always useful in practicing with culturally diverse population groups even in the United States. Alternative approaches are described such as the access to culturally diverse resources and community-based rehabilitation that adhere to specific cultural beliefs, values, and practices but still promote some level of empowerment among individuals with disabilities. Evidence drawn from the literature as well as professional experience will be used to discuss the relevance and implementation of these respective strategies in terms of their strengths – namely, empowering individuals with disabilities as well as supporting/embracing family, religion, spirituality, and overall cultural diversity

Reducing teacher workload through ‘real-time’ personalised feedback

The research was commissioned by the Department for Education and took the form of an evaluation of current practices in schools within The Aquinas Trust with regards to the gathering and use of assessment information. The research examined the diversity and quality of assessment, as well as the extent to which the work associated with gathering and use of assessment information impacted on teacher workload, improved student outcomes and enhanced the quality of school transition processes

Personality and Achievement Factors as Influences on Church Attendance of College Students

College students, even of the same religious preference, attend church functions with varying degrees o£ frequency. What factors influence the rate of attendance among students? This study investigated the relationship between reported church attendance and personality and achievement variables in a group of college juniors and seniors in a state university in the South. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant differences between students who reported attendance at church functions either (a) 7 or more times per month (High Attenders), (b) 2 through b times per month (Attenders), or (c) 1 or 0 times per month (Low Attenders) on grade-point standings and scores on the MMP1, Study of Values (SV), and the Form T Inventory of Beliefs. 49 students, both male and female, were included in the final study. Findings were accepted as significant at p \u3c .05 following analysis of the separate variables both between the three groups and between sexes using the analysis of variance technique. Differences between the sexes were found on the Mf scale of the MMPIt as would be expected, and the Si scale of the same instrument. This difference on the Si scale revealed that females were more reserved in unfamiliar social situations than were males. No differences were found between the three groups in respect to grade-point standings, scores on the Form T Inventory of Beliefs, or the scales on the MMPI. Significant differences were found to exist between the groups on three scales of the SV. Low Attenders scored higher on the economic scale than did either of the other groups while the group mean scores on the theoretical scale varied inversely with the amount of reported church attendance. Scores on the religious scale were in direct correspondence to the number of times of church attendance, i.e. High Attenders scoring highest and Low Attenders scoring lowest on this scale. Sex and values as measured by the SV emerge from this study as the major variables affecting the rate of church attendance. Several factors suggest that differences between the 3 groups might have been found on other variables as well, if the groups had been compared within only one sex

Exploring Disability and Poverty in Nepal: An Application of the Capability Approach

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relationships between disability and poverty in Nepal. Linkages between disability, poverty, and deprivation are explored to develop an in-depth understanding of these relationships, to recommend strategies for intervention, and ultimately to improve the situations of individuals and their families experiencing disability and poverty. Since traditional poverty measures such as income and consumption do not fully capture the multi-dimensional construct of poverty, a capability approach was used to further an understanding of the relationships between disability and deprivation at individual and household levels and to address three research questions. What are the ways in which disability contributes to individual deprivations? Is there a correlation between household poverty and the likelihood of having a family member with some type of disability? Do households with a disabled family member experience higher levels of deprivation than households without exposure to disability? Secondary data was taken from two national data sets, A Situation Analysis of Disability in Nepal conducted by New Era and the Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) conducted by the World Bank. Individuals with and without a disability were compared across income poverty and capability poverty using disability, chronic illness and activity limitation as disability indicators. Households with and without a disabled family member were compared across income poverty and asset poverty. Analyses were conducted using various methodologies including chi-square, t-test, ANOVA, odds ratio, and logistic regression. The prevalence of disability was estimated at 1.6% in the SITAN and at 6.4% in the NLSS using chronic illness as a proxy for disability. Differences in disability and deprivation were statistically significant for most demographic variables including gender, marital status, geographical region, and ecological strata. Findings indicated that disability is linked to some degree of poverty and deprivation at both individual and household levels. However, these findings varied by the type of disability indicator used in the analyses

Evolving comprehensible and scalable solvers using CGP for solving some real-world inspired problems

My original contribution to knowledge is the application of Cartesian Genetic Programming to design some scalable and human-understandable metaheuristics automatically; those find some suitable solutions for real-world NP-hard and discrete problems. This technique is thought to possess the ability to raise the generality of a problem-solving process, allowing some supervised machine learning tasks and being able to evolve non-deterministic algorithms. \\ Two extensions of Cartesian Genetic Programming are presented. Iterative My original contribution to knowledge is the application of Cartesian Genetic Programming to design some scalable and human-understandable metaheuristics automatically; those find some suitable solutions for real-world NP-hard and discrete problems. This technique is thought to possess the ability to raise the generality of a problem-solving process, allowing some supervised machine learning tasks and being able to evolve non-deterministic algorithms. \\ Two extensions of Cartesian Genetic Programming are presented. Iterative Cartesian Genetic Programming can encode loops and nested loop with their termination criteria, making susceptible to evolutionary modification the whole programming construct. This newly developed extension and its application to metaheuristics are demonstrated to discover effective solvers for NP-hard and discrete problems. This thesis also extends Cartesian Genetic Programming and Iterative Cartesian Genetic Programming to adapt a hyper-heuristic reproductive operator at the same time of exploring the automatic design space. It is demonstrated the exploration of an automated design space can be improved when specific types of active and non-active genes are mutated. \\ A series of rigorous empirical investigations demonstrate that lowering the comprehension barrier of automatically designed algorithms can help communicating and identifying an effective and ineffective pattern of primitives. The complete evolution of loops and nested loops without imposing a hard limit on the number of recursive calls is shown to broaden the automatic design space. Finally, it is argued the capability of a learning objective function to assess the scalable potential of a generated algorithm can be beneficial to a generative hyper-heuristic

Race, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health Disorders as Predictors of Juvenile Court Outcomes: Do They Vary By Gender?

Predicting juvenile court outcomes based on youthful offenders’ delinquency risk factors is important for the adolescent social work field as well as the juvenile justice system. Using a random sample of 341 delinquent youth from one Midwestern urban county, this study extends previous research by examining if race, substance abuse, and mental health disorders influence important delinquency outcomes (number of court offenses, felony conviction(s), probation supervision length, detention length, and number of probation services) differently for male and female juvenile offenders. Multivariate analysis findings revealed that race was significant only for males, and having a substance use disorder was a stronger predictor of delinquency outcomes for males; whereas, having a mental health disorder was a stronger predictor of delinquency outcomes for females. Implications for this research include the importance of early disorder identification and subsequent availability of gender-focused treatment

Molecular epidemiology of human rhinovirus infections in Kilifi, coastal Kenya

This study reports pediatric surveillance over 3 years for human rhinovirus (HRV) at the District Hospital of Kilifi, coastal Kenya. Nasopharyngeal samples were collected from children presenting at outpatient clinic with no signs of acute respiratory infection, or with signs of upper respiratory tract infection, and from children admitted to the hospital with lower respiratory tract infection. Samples were screened by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) and classified further to species by nucleotide sequencing of the VP4/VP2 junction. Of 441 HRV positives by real-time RT-PCR, 332 were classified to species, with 47% (155) being HRV-A, 5% (18) HRV-B, and 48% (159) HRV-C. There was no clear seasonal pattern of occurrence for any species. The species were present in similar proportions in the inpatient and outpatient sample sets, and no significant association between species distribution and the severity of lower respiratory tract infection in the inpatients could be determined. HRV sequence analysis revealed multiple but separate clusters in circulation particularly for HRV-A and HRV-C. Most HRV-C clusters were distinct from reference sequences downloaded from GenBank. In contrast, most HRV-A and HRV-B sequences clustered with either known serotypes or strains from elsewhere within Africa and other regions of the world. This first molecular epidemiological study of HRV in the region defines species distribution in accord with reports from elsewhere in the world, shows considerable strain diversity and does not identify an association between any species and disease severity

State of Welfare Families on Reservations: Progress, Setbacks, and Issues for Reauthorization (Working Paper 3)

State of Welfare Families on Reservations: Progress, Setbacks, and Issues for Reauthorization (Working Paper 3