The Barriers and Facilitators of After-School Physical Activity Participation for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Children with disabilities are more likely to be sedentary in comparison to their typically developing peers. This especially occurs with children who are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) as many of these individuals show impairments in motor and physical functioning. Research has shown that children with ASD have been found to be less physically active in an after-school setting in comparison to their peers of typical development. There are several categories of barriers and facilitators impacting the after-school physical activity levels of children with ASD. Previous research separates these barriers and facilitators into four categories including: interpersonal, intrapersonal, physical, and community/institutional. To date, several research studies have assessed the barriers and facilitators children with ASD encounter when participating in after-school physical activity, but there has been no attempt by researchers to prioritize their importance. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to synthesize relevant literature to prioritize the importance of the known barriers and facilitators of after-school physical activity participation for children with ASD. Coded data from 10 research articles were used to list all the known barriers and/or facilitators and both were prioritized by counting the number of times they were cited in the original literature. The most frequently cited categories of barriers in the literature were intrapersonal, followed by interpersonal, physical, and community/ institutional. The most frequently cited categories of facilitators were interpersonal, followed by physical, intrapersonal, and community/institutional

An Analysis of the Impact of News-Media Sentiment on Cryptocurrency Pricing

Considering the historical volatility of cryptocurrency prices and the industry's frequent entanglement with fraud, it is important to understand the forces that drive returns in these markets. To examine the extent that one of these forces, media coverage, influences the establishment of price levels in the cryptocurrency markets, this paper explores the impact of news-media sentiment on historical prices. In order to do this, sentiment analysis models are used in conjunction with two years' worth of cryptocurrency-related articles from legacy outlets – more established sources such as The Wall Street Journal which cover broad ranges of topics – and crypto-specific outlets – less-established sources covering almost exclusively cryptocurrency-related news such as CoinTelegraph. This paper finds that, although legacy sentiment does not have a statistically significant correlation with any of the coins studied, crypto-specific sentiment does. Additionally, a trading strategy based on lagging crypto-specific sentiment outperformed a buy-and-hold strategy when back tested against historical returns for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. To test whether there was bias inherent in crypto-specific news coverage, crypto-specific and legacy sentiment were compared, and crypto-specific sentiment was consistently higher. Additionally, certain outlets within the crypto-specific dataset seem to have considerable positive spikes in sentiment during negative occurrences in cryptocurrency markets, suggesting biased coverage of certain companies and events.Financ

WERE U.S. CROP YIELDS RANDOM IN RECENT YEARS?

Crop Production/Industries,

Investigation and Characterization of Conductive DEAP Polymer Materials with Nickel Nanocomposites

Dielectric ElectroActive Polymers, or DEAPs, are devices with coupled electrical and mechanical responses that resemble stretchable parallel plate capacitors, that can act as actuators, sensors, or electrical generators. Currently, the electrode layers on the top and bottom are generally conductive carbon grease, which is dirty and also causes curing issues for certain polymers. This thesis explores several polymers and conductive fillers to identify a conductive nanocomposite material, to replace the grease electrode with a solid material and eliminate issues associated with grease electrodes. It then characterizes the mechanical and electric properties and how they change during cyclic loading, while augmenting an equibiaxial tensile testing machine and advancing the knowledge of equibiaxial characterization. The most promising polymer/filler combination was found to be EcoFlex30, a platinum cure silicone rubber, containing seven volume percent of nickel nanostrands and three volume percent of 0.1 mm length nickel-coated carbon fiber. Using two conductive fillers of different sizes resulted in much higher conductivity than a single filler alone, and an enormous piezoresistive effect. This material gave weak conductivity at no load, increasing several orders of magnitude as strained and well surpassing the benchmark of 1.2 S/m set by conductive carbon grease. Elastomer materials were found to have conductivities as high as 275 S/m under peak strain, and changing the nickel-coated carbon fiber length allowed for strains over 120%. Equibiaxial stress-strain curves were also analyzed for energy lost through hysteresis, in order to compare to published results for DEAPs used as Dielectric Energy Generators. Results and recommendations are presented for using and further improving the materials for applications of DEAPs used as energy harvesters and capacitive sensors, using the material alone as a piezoresistive sensor, and improving the equibiaxial characterization process

The Bull\u27s Hide Stretched Thin: Catalan (Literary) Nationalism from the Renaixenca to the Death of Franco

Spain’s “Catalan question” threatens the unity of the central state. To better understand the nature of contemporary nationalist sentiment in Catalonia, I undertake a study of the movement’s cultural roots. It is my view that the development of Catalan nationalism is attributable to the prevalence of nineteenth-century Romantic conceptions of national identity as being inextricably linked to language, the essential vehicle of Volksgeist. This development of a Catalan literary canon was linked to the survival of the Catalan national spirit in the face of Castilian repression, despite the little political unity within Catalonia itself. Paradoxically, it is also through literature that Catalan intellectuals made a critique of Spain and Catalonia, as much to broaden the inclusivity of the political community as to re-conceptualize the connection between language and nation. Ultimately, I argue that the nation—far from a natural or indisputable form, though one with material effects—is “imagined” (and unimagined or deconstructed) by writing fiction

PlayGROUND: How ground surface materials influence children’s activities in public playgrounds

The rise in childhood obesity levels over the last few decades has brought increased attention to public playgrounds as an opportunity to promote healthy physical activity in children. The design of public playgrounds is now viewed as a factor that significantly influences children’s levels of activity that take place in that location. One crucial aspect of playground design is the use of different ground surface materials and how they promote either active or sedentary behavior. This investigation aimed to understand how ground surfaces influence physical activity levels in children and to determine what types of ground materials are the most affective at encouraging physical play. Through observation and behavior mapping, this study revealed that children are most physically active on synthetic rubber surfaces and the least physically active on loose fill surfaces. Supporting materials, or those that do not appear in the immediate playground area but still support child’s play in the surrounding park setting, such as concrete, grass, and compact dirt, yielded similarly moderate physical activity levels

Directional Rope Capture Device

The current market for rope capture devices shows a trend of using toothed devices as the method of creating a rope capture system. These systems are effective for a variety of applications but in any scenario in which a high load is encountered there is a large amount of damage done by the teeth to the rope. The objective of this project was to create a rope capture device that did not utilize teeth in order to create a safer loading condition on the rope. The method used for this project was application of equiangular spirals, this is the same method used for climbing cams. A profile was built using a section of a mathematical curve and was imported into a CAD/CAM program in order to be manufactured. Initial calculations showed that a small cam could replace the toothed plates used in commercial devices in order to remove the elements which could damage the sheath of the rope. The results of the project showed a successful application of the mathematical principles in creating a device that would slide up the rope cleanly in one direction but immediately catch in the opposite direction. This proof of concept device demonstrates the working concepts of a camming unit as a replacement of a toothed device

Correlating music and social studies at the junior high level

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Henri Teminaka correspondence; (Seaver)

This collection contains material pertaining to the life, career, and activities of Henri Temianka, violin virtuoso, conductor, music teacher, and author. Materials include correspondence, concert programs and flyers, music scores, photographs, and books.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/temianka_correspondence/3890/thumbnail.jp