How do you spell bird? Effective parent programs to enhance 4-6 year old children's literacy development

This research examined the effectiveness of parent programs designed for families to support the literacy learning of their 4-6 year old children. The project began with a literature review analysing six established, effective parent programs that have been reported in the international and national research literature. An analysis of what made each of the programs effective entailed an analysis of the program's target population, the project inputs and activities and the initial, immediate and long term outcomes. To explore further what local parents and families view as effective parent programs for 4-6 year old children the research explored individual site-specific parent programs in operation in South Australian childcare centres, preschools and schools in a range of diverse socioeconomic and geographic sites. Parents and teachers engaged in focus groups to describe ways the schools and centres sustain links between home and school learning. To assess the elements of two existing parent programs to support children's early literacy development, parents and teachers participated in several focus groups. The two programs were the parent component of The Abecedarian Program (2001, 1979) developed in the United States and the South Australian Early Childhood Literacy Includes Parents Staff and Education ECLIPSE program (1997) developed by the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS)

The type and impact of Evidence Review Group (ERG) exploratory analyses in the NICE Single Technology Appraisal (STA) process

Background: As part of the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) single technology appraisal process, independent evidence review groups (ERGs) critically appraise a company's submission relating to a specific technology and indication. Objectives: To explore the type of additional exploratory analyses conducted by ERGs and their impact on the recommendations made by NICE. Methods: The 100 most recently completed single technology appraisals with published guidance were selected for inclusion. A content analysis of relevant documents was undertaken to identify and extract relevant data, and narrative synthesis was used to rationalize and present these data. Results: The types of exploratory analysis conducted in relation to companies' models were fixing errors, addressing violations, addressing matters of judgment, and the provision of a new, ERG-preferred base case. Ninety-three of the 100 ERG reports contained at least one of these analyses. The most frequently reported type of analysis in these 93 ERG reports related to the category Matters of judgment, which was reported in 83 reports (89%). At least one of the exploratory analyses conducted and reported by an ERG is mentioned in 97% of NICE appraisal consultation documents and 94% of NICE final appraisal determinations, and had a clear influence on recommendations in 72% of appraisal consultation documents and 47% of final appraisal determinations. Conclusions: These results suggest that the additional analyses undertaken by ERGs in the appraisal of company submissions are highly influential in the policy-making and decision-making process

THE IMPROVED SWEEP METAHEURISTIC FOR SIMULATION OPTIMIZATION AND APPLICATION TO JOB SHOP SCHEDULING

We present an improved sweep metaheuristic for discrete event simulation optimization. The sweep algorithm is a tree search similar to beam search. The basic idea is to run a limited number of partial solutions in parallel and to search for solutions by searching the partial solutions. Traditionally, simulation optimization is carried out by multiple simulation runs executed sequentially. In contrast, the sweep algorithm executes multiple simulation runs simultaneously. It uses branching and pruning simulation models to carry out optimization. We describe new components of the algorithm, such as backtracking and local search. Then, we compare our approach with 13 metaheuristics in solving job shop scheduling benchmarks. Our approach ranks in the middle of the comparison which we regard as a success. The general nature of tree search offers a large array of sequential decision applications for the sweep algorithm, such as resource-constrained project scheduling, traveling salesman, or (real-time) production scheduling.

CONCEPTUAL MODELLING: KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION AND MODEL ABSTRACTION

Conceptual modelling has gained a lot of interest in recent years and simulation modellers are particularly interested in understanding the processes involved in arriving at a conceptual model. This paper contributes to this understanding by discussing the artifacts of conceptual modelling and two specific conceptual modelling processes: knowledge acquisition and model abstraction. Knowledge acquisition is the process of finding out about the problem situation and arriving at a system description. Model abstraction refers to the simplifications made in moving from a system description to a conceptual model. Soft Systems Methodology has tools that can help a modeller with knowledge acquisition and model abstraction. These tools are drawing rich pictures, undertaking analyses ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, and constructing a root definition and the corresponding purposeful activity model. The use of these tools is discussed with respect to a case study in health care.

A FLEXIBLE AND SCALABLE EXPERIMENTATION LAYER

Modeling and simulation frameworks for use in different application domains, throughout the complete development process, and in different hardware environments need to be highly scalable. For achieving an efficient execution, different simulation algorithms and data structures must be provided to compute a concrete model on a concrete platform efficiently. The support of parallel simulation techniques becomes increasingly important in this context, which is due to the growing availability of multi-core processors and network-based computers. This leads to more complex simulation systems that are harder to configure correctly. We present an experimentation layer for the modeling and simulation framework JAMES II. It greatly facilitates the configuration and usage of the system for a user and supports distributed optimization, on-demand observation, and various distributed and non-distributed scenarios.

AN APPROACH FOR THE EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF GP-GPUS IN PARALLEL COMBINED SIMULATION

A major challenge in the field of Modeling & Simulation is providing efficient parallel computation for a variety of algorithms. Algorithms that are described easily and computed efficiently for continuous simulation, may be complex to describe and/or efficiently execute in a discrete event context, and vice-versa. Real-world models often employ multiple algorithms that are optimally defined in one approach or the other. Parallel combined simulation addresses this problem by allowing models to define algorithmic components across multiple paradigms. In this paper, we illustrate the performance of parallel combined simulation, where the continuous component is executed across multiple graphical processing units (GPU) and the discrete event component is executed across multiple central processing units (CPU).

A SIMULATION BASED SCHEDULING MODEL FOR CALL CENTERS WITH UNCERTAIN ARRIVAL RATES

In this paper we develop a two stage algorithm for scheduling call centers with strict SLAs and arrival rate uncertainty. The first cut schedule can be developed in less than a minute using a constructive heuristic. The schedule is then refined via a simulation based optimization approach. We find that when allowed to run for five minutes or less this two stage process can create a schedule with a total expected cost within a few percentage points of schedules generated using much more computationally intensive methods. This rapid scheduling process is designed to support front line managers who wish to evaluate multiple scheduling options in a what if analysis mode

A NEW POLICY FOR THE SERVICE REQUEST ASSIGNMENT PROBLEM WITH MULTIPLE SEVERITY LEVEL, DUE DATE AND SLA PENALTY SERVICE REQUESTS

We study the problem of assigning multiple severity level service requests to agents in an agent pool. Each severity level is associated with a due date and a penalty, which is incurred if the service request is not resolved by the due date. Motivated by Van Meighem (2003), who shows the asymptotic optimality of the Generalized Longest Queue policy for the problem of minimizing the due date dependent expected delay costs when there is a single agent, we develop a class of Index-based policies that is a generalization of the Priority First-Come-First-Serve, Weighted Shortest Expected Processing Time and Generalized Longest Queue policy. In our simulation study of an assignment system of a large technology firm, the Index-based policy shows an improvement of 0-20 % over the Priority First-Come-First-Serve policy depending upon the load conditions.

A MODELING-BASED CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM VALIDATED WITH SIMULATED DATA

We present a Generalized Lotka-Volterra (GLV) based approach for modeling and simulation of supervised inductive learning, and construction of an efficient classification algorithm. The GLV equations, typically used to explain the biological world, are employed to simulate the process of inductive learning. In addition, the modeling approach provides a key advantage over the more conventional constraint and optimization-based classification algorithms, as influences of outliers and local patterns, which can lead to problematic overfitting, are auto-moderated by the model itself. We present the bare-bones algorithm and motivate the model through axiomatic postulates. The algorithm is validated using benchmark simulated datasets, showing results competitive with other cutting-edge algorithms.

Organized B cell sites in cartilaginous fishes reveal the evolutionary foundation of germinal centers

The absence of germinal centers (GCs) in cartilaginous fishes lies at odds with data showing that nurse sharks can produce robust antigen-specific responses and affinity mature their B cell repertoires. To investigate this apparent incongruity, we performed RNA sequencing on single nuclei, allowing us to characterize the cell types present in the nurse shark spleen, and RNAscope to provide in situ cellular resolution of key marker gene expression following immunization with R-phycoerythrin (PE). We tracked PE to the splenic follicles where it co-localizes with CXCR5high centrocyte-like B cells and a population of putative T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, surrounded by a peripheral ring of Ki67+ AID+ CXCR4+ centroblast-like B cells. Further, we reveal selection of mutations in B cell clones dissected from these follicles. We propose that the B cell sites iden tified here represent the evolutionary foundation of GCs, dating back to the jawed vertebrate ancestor