Clinicians Perspective on Interventions Most Effective in Working with Selectively Mute Children

Children with selective mutism (SM) within the school setting bring forth a unique and challenging set of characteristics and issues for teachers and support staff. Children with selective mutism have an overwhelming fear of being seen or heard speaking, which presents as a challenge in assessing students for knowledge and content within the school setting (Perednik 2011.) There are many different causes for general mutism such as trauma, severe neglect, foster placement, etc. However for the purposes of this paper, selective mutism is the sole focus which effects young people. Selective mutism is categorized as an anxiety disorder and a variant of a social phobia (Black & Uhde, 1992). This qualitative study explored professional clinician\u27s ideas about interventions and strategies that are most effective in working with selectively mute children. Interventions within the school setting and how those interventions are informed and utilized amongst support staff and teachers to support children with selective mutism in overcoming their fear of speaking outside of the home is the main focus within this research. Using qualitative interviews, information was gathered about professionals\u27 perceptions of best practice interventions used with selectively mute children. This research contributes to enhanced knowledge and confidence among educators in addressing children\u27s unique needs with selective mutism through the use of behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques, psychodynamic, family systems, multimodal, and psychopharmacological interventions that were suggested for work toward overcoming this disorder. The research proved that there is a vast amount of literature that already exists, however there is a lot of education that is still needed in order to be effective in teaching children with selective mutism. The research supports a need for professional development and psychoeducation for classroom teachers, special educators, speech clinicians, school social workers, and support staff

Clinicians Perspective on Interventions Most Effective in Working with Selectively Mute Children

Children with selective mutism (SM) within the school setting bring forth a unique and challenging set of characteristics and issues for teachers and support staff. Children with selective mutism have an overwhelming fear of being seen or heard speaking, which presents as a challenge in assessing students for knowledge and content within the school setting (Perednik 2011.) There are many different causes for general mutism such as trauma, severe neglect, foster placement, etc. However for the purposes of this paper, selective mutism is the sole focus which effects young people. Selective mutism is categorized as an anxiety disorder and a variant of a social phobia (Black & Uhde, 1992). This qualitative study explored professional clinician’s ideas about interventions and strategies that are most effective in working with selectively mute children. Interventions within the school setting and how those interventions are informed and utilized amongst support staff and teachers to support children with selective mutism in overcoming their fear of speaking outside of the home is the main focus within this research. Using qualitative interviews, information was gathered about professionals’ perceptions of best practice interventions used with selectively mute children. This research contributes to enhanced knowledge and confidence among educators in addressing children’s unique needs with selective mutism through the use of behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques, psychodynamic, family systems, multimodal, and psychopharmacological interventions that were suggested for work toward overcoming this disorder. The research proved that there is a vast amount of literature that already exists, however there is a lot of education that is still needed in order to be effective in teaching children with selective mutism. The research supports a need for professional development and psychoeducation for classroom teachers, special educators, speech clinicians, school social workers, and support staff

Probing molecular dynamics at the nanoscale via an individual paramagnetic center

Understanding the dynamics of molecules adsorbed to surfaces or confined to small volumes is a matter of increasing scientific and technological importance. Here, we demonstrate a pulse protocol using individual paramagnetic nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond to observe the time evolution of 1H spins from organic molecules located a few nanometers from the diamond surface. The protocol records temporal correlations among the interacting 1H spins, and thus is sensitive to the local system dynamics via its impact on the nuclear spin relaxation and interaction with the NV. We are able to gather information on the nanoscale rotational and translational diffusion dynamics by carefully analyzing the time dependence of the NMR signal. Applying this technique to various liquid and solid samples, we find evidence that liquid samples form a semi-solid layer of 1.5 nm thickness on the surface of diamond, where translational diffusion is suppressed while rotational diffusion remains present. Extensions of the present technique could be adapted to highlight the chemical composition of molecules tethered to the diamond surface or to investigate thermally or chemically activated dynamical processes such as molecular folding

The impact of phenotypic heterogeneity of tumour cells on treatment and relapse dynamics

Intratumour heterogeneity is increasingly recognized as a frequent problem for cancer treatment as it allows for the evolution of resistance against treatment. While cancer genotyping becomes more and more established and allows to determine the genetic heterogeneity, less is known about the phenotypic heterogeneity among cancer cells. We investigate how phenotypic differences can impact the efficiency of therapy options that select on this diversity, compared to therapy options that are independent of the phenotype. We employ the ecological concept of trait distributions and characterize the cancer cell population as a collection of subpopulations that differ in their growth rate. We show in a deterministic model that growth rate-dependent treatment types alter the trait distribution of the cell population, resulting in a delayed relapse compared to a growth rate-independent treatment. Whether the cancer cell population goes extinct or relapse occurs is determined by stochastic dynamics, which we investigate using a stochastic model. Again, we find that relapse is delayed for the growth rate-dependent treatment type, albeit an increased relapse probability, suggesting that slowly growing subpopulations are shielded from extinction. Sequential application of growth rate-dependent and growth rate-independent treatment types can largely increase treatment efficiency and delay relapse. Interestingly, even longer intervals between decisions to change the treatment type may achieve close-to-optimal efficiencies and relapse times. Monitoring patients at regular check-ups may thus provide the temporally resolved guidance to tailor treatments to the changing cancer cell trait distribution and allow clinicians to cope with this dynamic heterogeneity.Author summary The individual cells within a cancer cell population are not all equal. The heterogeneity among them can strongly affect disease progression and treatment success. Recent diagnostic advances allow measuring how the characteristics of this heterogeneity change over time. To match these advances, we developed deterministic and stochastic trait-based models that capture important characteristics of the intratumour heterogeneity and allow to evaluate different treatment types that either do or do not interact with this heterogeneity. We focus on growth rate as the decisive characteristic of the intratumour heterogeneity. We find that by shifting the trait distribution of the cancer cell population, the growth rate-dependent treatment delays an eventual relapse compared to the growth rate-independent treatment. As a downside, however, we observe a refuge effect where slower-growing subpopulations are less affected by the growth rate-dependent treatment, which may decrease the likelihood of successful therapy. We find that navigating along this trade-off may be achieved by sequentially combining both treatment types, which agrees qualitatively with current clinical practice. Interestingly, even rather large intervals between treatment changes allow for close-to-optimal treatment results, which again hints towards a practical applicability.Competing Interest StatementMB performed contract research for Affimed, Amgen and Regeneron, served on the advisory board of Amgen and Incyte, and in the speaker bureau of Amgen, Janssen, Pfizer and Roche

Technical Performance and Energy Intensity of the Electrode-Separator Composite Manufacturing Process

AbstractEnergy storage is one of the key technological factors that determine the success of a sustainable future. Especially green mobility concepts for electric or hybrid electric vehicles highly depend upon storage technologies with high energy density and light-weight materials. At the same time, innovative production processes should be conceived that ensure energy and resource efficient manufacturing of these energy storage devices. This paper focuses on the technical as well as dynamic energetic performance analysis and evaluation of an innovative electrode-separator composite manufacturing process of lithium-ion batteries for automotive applications. The technical performance indicators such as battery capacity and the energy intensity of the manufacturing process are highly dependent upon process parameters, machine and product design. Hence, in-depth process knowledge must be acquired to understand interdependencies between all system components. Thus, the manufacturing process is analysed in terms of its dynamics, and correlations between process parameters, process energy demand and final product properties are assessed. The resulting knowledge is important for the subsequent design of large-scale products and processes involved design, as well as for characterisation of the manufacturing process for life cycle inventory databases or life cycle costing calculations

Actuation and stiffening in fluid-driven soft robots using low-melting-point material

Soft material robots offer a number of advantages over traditional rigid robots in applications including humanrobot interaction, rehabilitation and surgery. These robots can navigate around obstacles, elongate, squeeze through narrow openings or be squeezed - and they are considered to be inherently safe. The ability to stiffen compliant soft actuators has been achieved by embedding various mechanisms that are generally decoupled from the actuation principle. Miniaturisation becomes challenging due to space limitations which can in turn result in diminution of stiffening effects. Here, we propose to hydraulically actuate soft manipulators with lowmelting- point material and, at the same time, be able to switch between a soft and stiff state. Instead of allocating an additional stiffening chamber within the soft robot, one chamber only is used for actuation and stiffening. Low Melting Point Alloy is integrated into the actuation chamber of a single-compartment soft robotic manipulator and the interfaced robotic syringe pump. Temperature change is enabled through embedded nichrome wires. Our experimental results show higher stiffness factors, from 9-12 opposing the motion of curvature, than those previously found for jamming mechanisms incorporated in separate additional chambers, in the range of 2-8 for the same motion

Actuation and stiffening in fluid-driven soft robots using low-melting-point material

Soft material robots offer a number of advantages over traditional rigid robots in applications including human-robot interaction, rehabilitation and surgery. These robots can navigate around obstacles, elongate, squeeze through narrow openings or be squeezed - and they are considered to be inherently safe. The ability to stiffen compliant soft actuators has been achieved by embedding various mechanisms that are generally decoupled from the actuation principle. Miniaturisation becomes challenging due to space limitations which can in turn result in diminution of stiffening effects. Here, we propose to hydraulically actuate soft manipulators with low-melting-point material and, at the same time, be able to switch between a soft and stiff state. Instead of allocating an additional stiffening chamber within the soft robot, one chamber only is used for actuation and stiffening. Low Melting Point Alloy is integrated into the actuation chamber of a single-compartment soft robotic manipulator and the interfaced robotic syringe pump. Temperature change is enabled through embedded nichrome wires. Our experimental results show higher stiffness factors, from 9-12 opposing the motion of curvature, than those previously found for jamming mechanisms incorporated in separate additional chambers, in the range of 2-8 for the same motion

Heat tolerance in common bean derived from interspecific crosses

Many Countries could experience unprecedented heat stress because of global climate change (Battisti and Naylor,2009). Heat sensitivity in common bean is a major limiting factor that can reduce yield, quality, and lead to restricted geographic adaptation (Beebeetal.,2011). Interspecific lines developed with crosses between P.vulgaris and P. acutifolius were evaluated for their tolerance to heat stress. Results from field and greenhouse evaluation confirmed that Phaseolus acutifolius is an important and useful genetic resource for improving heat tolerance in common bean. Results from genomic analysis indicated the introgression of P. acutifolious genes into interspecific INB line that was used as apparent for developing heat tolerant SEF lines

Einsatz von Schmelzklebstoffen zur Montage von MEMS und MOEMS

In diesem Beitrag werden die aktuellen Ergebnisse des Teilprojekts B8 aus dem SFB 516 „Konstruktion und Fertigung aktiver Mikrosysteme“ vorgestellt. Ziel dieses Teilprojektes ist, eine geeignete Verbindungstechnik auf Basis von nicht-viskosen Klebstoffsystemen (Schmelzklebstoffen) für MEMS und MOEMS zu entwickeln. Dabei wird von vorneherein auf die Automatisierbarkeit, die Prozessgeschwindigkeit, minimale Fügegeometrien und die Anwendbarkeit in einem Batchprozess geachtet. Die Herstellung von Schmelzklebstoffgeometrien im pl-Bereich sowie die Entwicklung von batchfähigen Applikationstechniken stehen dabei im Vordergrund dieses Beitrags. Des Weiteren wird ein automatisierter Montageprozess mit schmelzklebstoffbeschichteten Mikrobauteilen vorgestellt