Uncertainty\u27s Impact on Perceptions Toward Randomness

The current study examined the effects that perceived uncertainty and success in a financial decision task had on participant’s attitudes toward uncertainty. One hundred and fifty-three participants were randomly assigned to read one of three possible vignettes in which varying levels of uncertainty were depicted (i.e., high uncertainty, low uncertainty, and a control condition in which the degree of uncertainty was not mentioned). Participants were asked to make semi-informed decisions based on these vignettes and were, then, randomly assigned to a success or failure feedback condition in which they were told that they had either performed well or poorly. Afterward, attitudes toward uncertainty were measured with a combination of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-12 (IUS-12) and the Economic Locus of Control Scales (ELOC). Analysis revealed non-significant effects of both the varying levels of uncertainty presented in the vignettes and the type of feedback on attitudes toward uncertainty. These results imply that the attitudes a person holds toward uncertainty are robust toward day-to-day chance occurrences and that these attitudes may require immense pressure to change

Adopting Coaching for Doctoral Supervision: Opportunities and Challenges for HRD

Coaching has become a popular form of HRD intervention. One HRD context, which has yet to embrace this, however is that of doctoralsupervision. Although the relevance of coaching to doctoral supervisionhas been noted, research into it remains very limited, and thereis a lack of clarity on how it could be implemented and the skills it would require. This reflects a broader lack of pedagogical thinking about doctoral supervision in universities and consequent paucity of HRD interventions to support it. This article addresses these gaps through reporting on stage one of an on-going research project which assessed the applicability of an existing model of coaching, to doctoral supervision. Building on Cook’s model, a new Collaborative Action for Doctoral Supervision model of coaching is proposed that identifies for supervisors and students individual and shared responsibilities and skills required for effective supervision. The article argues that a shift in HRD in relation to doctoral supervision will be necessary if the benefits of adopting this coaching model are to be realized

Simulation-based Bayesian inference for epidemic models

This is the author pre-print version. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.A powerful and flexible method for fitting dynamic models to missing and censored data is to use the Bayesian paradigm via data-augmented Markov chain Monte Carlo (DA-MCMC). This samples from the joint posterior for the parameters and missing data, but requires high memory overheads for large-scale systems. In addition, designing efficient proposal distributions for the missing data is typically challenging. Pseudo-marginal methods instead integrate across the missing data using a Monte Carlo estimate for the likelihood, generated from multiple independent simulations from the model. These techniques can avoid the high memory requirements of DA-MCMC, and under certain conditions produce the exact marginal posterior distribution for parameters. A novel method is presented for implementing importance sampling for dynamic epidemic models, by conditioning the simulations on sets of validity criteria (based on the model structure) as well as the observed data. The flexibility of these techniques is illustrated using both removal time and final size data from an outbreak of smallpox. It is shown that these approaches can circumvent the need for reversible-jump MCMC, and can allow inference in situations where DA-MCMC is impossible due to computationally infeasible likelihoods. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.T. J. M. was in part supported by Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs/Higher Education Funding Council of England, grant number VT0105 and BBSRC grant (BB/I012192/1). J. V. R was in part supported by Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP110102893). R. D. was in part supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada’s Discovery Grants Program. A. R. C. was in part supported by National Medical Research Council (NMRC/HINIR/005/2009) and NUS Initiative to Improve Health in Asia. The authors would like to thank Andrew Conlan and Theo Kypraios for useful discussions

Audit of failure rate of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine combined with chloroquine to treat falciparum malaria at single fourteen-day follow-up

Objective. To assess the failure rate of the present first line treatment regime for uncomplicated falciparum malaria of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine combined with chloroquine. Design. A before-after study1 Setting. Ndumo Clinic, Ingwavuma District, South Africa, October 2000 Study Group. 55 patients presenting to Ndumo clinic with uncomplicated malaria and malaria trophozoites visible on thin film. Main outcome measures:Trophozoite count on thick film at day 14. Results. 15 out of 37 patients who returned for follow-up still had trophozoites on thick film. Symptoms of most patients at day 0 and day 14 were mild, parasite counts before and after treatment were low, and trophozoites were atypical. Conclusions. There appears to be an unacceptably high day 14 failure rate with the combination of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine and chloroquine.The mildness of symptoms, low parasite counts and atypical trophozoites suggest immunity to falciparum malaria amongst the local population. With few antimalarials to chose from, the difficult question as to future treatment of uncomplicated malaria arises. Keywords: Falciparum malaria, chloroquine, sulfadoxine, pyrimethamine SA Fam Prac Vol.25(3) 2002: 4-

Evaluation of Istation's Early Reading Assessment and Curriculum in Spartanburg County School District 7 Final Report

The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the association between ISIP scores and usage and student achievement and growth on ELA standardized test measures, as well as to compare MAP Reading assessment growth of SCSD-7 Istation students in relation to that of otherwise similar students who did not use Istation. This report includes findings from student usage and achievement data on ISIP ER and AR assessments, as well as on the SC READY ELA state assessment and NWEA MAP reading assessment Results showed that Istation students significantly outgained virtual comparison students, with this pattern especially pronounced for the younger cohort of students. SCSD-7 students were matched with virtual comparison students on the basis of prior reading achievement and demographic variables, with a sufficiently large sample size. Thus, this study supports the conclusion that Istation usage is related to larger reading achievement gains, in relation to non-Istation users. Further, the results of this study meet the criteria for meeting WWC Standards with Reservations, as well as those for “Moderate” evidence of the efficacy of Istation in improving student reading performance per the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Student Istation usage remained fairly consistent across each of the four school years analyzed in this report. Students tended to average between 14-17 hours of total usage each year. Usage was reported as two different measures: total usage and curriculum usage. This allowed for analysis of time students spent working on the Istation curriculum, in addition to total Istation time. Curriculum usage was also relatively steady across years, with students averaging about 13-14 hours of curriculum usage each year. Usage statistics declined markedly in the 2019-20 school year; however, this decline is almost certainly attributable to the disruption in the school year caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.Istatio