Fertilizers for Ohio Farms

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Including children with chronic health conditions in early childhood education and care settings

This article sheds light on how chronic health conditions impact upon concepts of inclusion in children’s early childhood education and care in England; it draws upon findings from a small-scale research project which highlights the need to consider health, in particular, the impact of chronic health conditions on early childhood education and care. The study was conducted in two stages: Stage 1 involved a postal questionnaire to 60 early childhood settings and Stage 2 included interviews with 6 practitioners in 4 settings, interviews with parents and observations of a child (called DJ) in his setting over the course of a year. The findings from this study indicate that in an attempt to be inclusive, practitioners may be unintentionally exclusive in their practice. The data suggest that this may be as a consequence of practitioners having different understandings and definitions of what is meant by the term inclusion, leading to confusion about the aims of inclusion. The findings indicate that there is a need to identify what effective pedagogy is for children with chronic health conditions, as well as a need to redefine inclusion in relation to their needs

Teaching varies with task complexity in wild chimpanzees

Understanding social influences on how apes acquire tool behaviors can help us model the evolution of culture and technology in humans. Humans scaffold novice tool skills with diverse strategies, including the transfer of tools between individuals. Chimpanzees transfer tools, and this behavior meets criteria for teaching. However, it is unclear how task complexity relates to this form of helping. Here, we find differences between 2 wild chimpanzee populations in rate, probability, and types of tool transfer during termite gathering. Chimpanzees showed greater helping in the population where termite gathering is a more complex tool task. In wild chimpanzees, as in humans, regular and active provisioning of learning opportunities may be essential to the cultural transmission of complex skills.Cumulative culture is a transformative force in human evolution, but the social underpinnings of this capacity are debated. Identifying social influences on how chimpanzees acquire tool tasks of differing complexity may help illuminate the evolutionary origins of technology in our own lineage. Humans routinely transfer tools to novices to scaffold their skill development. While tool transfers occur in wild chimpanzees and fulfill criteria for teaching, it is unknown whether this form of helping varies between populations and across tasks. Applying standardized methods, we compared tool transfers during termite gathering by chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo, and in Gombe, Tanzania. At Goualougo, chimpanzees use multiple, different tool types sequentially, choose specific raw materials, and perform modifications that improve tool efficiency, which could make it challenging for novices to manufacture suitable tools. Termite gathering at Gombe involves a single tool type, fishing probes, which can be manufactured from various materials. Multiple measures indicated population differences in tool-transfer behavior. The rate of transfers and probability of transfer upon request were significantly higher at Goualougo, while resistance to transfers was significantly higher at Gombe. Active transfers of tools in which possessors moved to facilitate possession change upon request occurred only at Goualougo, where they were the most common transfer type. At Gombe, tool requests were typically refused. We suggest that these population differences in tool-transfer behavior may relate to task complexity and that active helping plays an enhanced role in the cultural transmission of complex technology in wild apes

Evidence of micro-continent entrainment during crustal accretion

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A note on a third order curvature invariant in static spacetimes

We consider here the third order curvature invariant $I=R_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma;\delta}R^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma;\delta}$ in static spacetimes ${\cal M}=R\times\Sigma$ for which $\Sigma$ is conformally flat. We evaluate explicitly the invariant for the $N$-dimensional Majumdar-Papapetrou multi black-holes solution, confirming that $I$ does indeed vanish on the event horizons of such black-holes. Our calculations show, however, that solely the vanishing of $I$ is not sufficient to locate an event horizon in non-spherically symmetric spacetimes. We discuss also some tidal effects associated to the invariant $I$.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Extra material available at http://vigo.ime.unicamp.br/in

Computational and Experimental Evaluation of Peroxide Oxidants for Amine-Peroxide Redox Polymerization

Amine–peroxide redox polymerization (APRP) is the prevalent method for producing radical-based polymers in the many industrial and medical applications where light or heat activation is impractical. We recently developed a detailed description of the APRP initiation process through a combined computational and experimental effort to show that APRP proceeds through SN2 attack by the amine on the peroxide, followed by the rate-determining homolysis of the resulting intermediate. Using this new mechanistic understanding, a variety of peroxides were computationally predicted to initiate APRP with fast kinetics. In particular, the rate of APRP initiation can be improved by radical and anion stabilization through increased π-electron conjugation or by increasing the electrophilicity of the peroxy bond through the addition of electron-withdrawing groups. On the other hand, the addition of electron-donating groups lowered the initiation rate. These design principles enabled the computational prediction of several new peroxides that exhibited improved initiation rates over the commonly used benzoyl peroxide. For example, the addition of nitro groups (NO₂) to the para positions of benzoyl peroxide resulted in a theoretical radical generation rate of 1.9 × 10⁻⁹ s⁻¹, which is ∼150 times faster than the 1.3 × 10⁻¹¹ s⁻¹ radical generation rate observed with unsubstituted benzoyl peroxide. These accelerated kinetics enabled the development of a redox-based direct-writing process that exploited the extremely rapid reactivity of an optimized redox pair with a custom inkjet printer, capable of printing custom shapes from polymerizing resins without heat or light. Furthermore, the application of more rapid APRP kinetics could enable the acceleration of existing industrial processes, make new industrial manufacturing methods possible, and improve APRP compatibility with biomedical applications through reduced initiator concentrations that still produce rapid polymerization rates

Tool transfers are a form of teaching among chimpanzees

Teaching is a form of high-fidelity social learning that promotes human cumulative culture. Although recently documented in several nonhuman animals, teaching is rare among primates. In this study, we show that wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in the Goualougo Triangle teach tool skills by providing learners with termite fishing probes. Tool donors experienced significant reductions in tool use and feeding, while tool recipients significantly increased their tool use and feeding after tool transfers. These transfers meet functional criteria for teaching: they occur in a learner’s presence, are costly to the teacher, and improve the learner’s performance. Donors also showed sophisticated cognitive strategies that effectively buffered them against potential costs. Teaching is predicted when less costly learning mechanisms are insufficient. Given that these chimpanzees manufacture sophisticated, brush-tipped fishing probes from specific raw materials, teaching in this population may relate to the complexity of these termite-gathering tasks