Teacher assessment of students’ work and social behavior - a validation study

Beeinträchtigungen des Arbeits- und Sozialverhaltens sind in sonderpädagogischen Zielgruppen häufig und stellen ein Risiko für den schulischen Lernerfolg dar. Ziel dieser Studie ist die Validierung von Items, mit denen sonderpädagogische Lehrkräfte das aktuelle Arbeits- und Sozialverhalten ihrer Schülerinnen und Schüler erfassen können. Weiterführend könnten solche Items zur Auswahl und Evaluation von Fördermaßnahmen genutzt werden. Lehrkräfte schätzten elf Items, die erwünschtes Arbeits- und Sozialverhalten abbilden, für 373 Schülerinnen und Schüler aus vier sonderpädagogischen Gruppen (Förderbedarfe Lernen und Emotionale und Soziale Entwicklung) und einer Vergleichsgruppe ein. Zudem wurde für einen Teil der Stichprobe ein standardisiertes Fragebogenverfahren durchgeführt. Es zeigt sich erwartungskonform, dass die Gruppen mit Förderbedarf ein schlechteres Arbeits- und Sozialverhalten aufweisen als die Vergleichsgruppe. Die untersuchten Items korrelieren hoch mit dem standardisierten Fragebogen. Die Ergebnisse implizieren basierend auf der Methode bekannter Gruppen und der konkurrenten Validität, dass sich die untersuchten Items zur Erfassung des Arbeits- und Sozialverhaltens eignen. Da die Überprüfung der Dimensionalität der Items kein annehmbares Modell ergibt, wird eine modifizierte Kurzskala Erfolgreiches Arbeitsverhalten zur weiteren Überprüfung vorgeschlagen. (DIPF/Orig.)Students with special needs frequently exhibit poor work and social behavior, which represents a risk for academic success. The aim of this study is to validate items that enable special education teachers to assess the current work and social behavior of their students. Such items could also be used to select and evaluate interventions. Teachers rated eleven items on appropriate work and social behavior for 373 students from four groups with special needs (learning, emotional, and social problems) and a comparison group. In addition, a standardized questionnaire was administered to part of the sample. As expected, the groups with special needs showed poorer work and a social behavior than the comparison group. The items were found to correlate strongly with the items of the standardized questionnaire. The results imply, based on the method of known groups and the concurrent validity, that the examined items are appropriate for assessing work and social behavior. Since there was no acceptable model on the dimensionality of the items, a modified short scale, Effective Work Behavior, is proposed for further investigation. (DIPF/Orig.

Theoretical Study of Optimizing Rugged Landscapes with the cGA

Estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) provide a distribution - based approach for optimization which adapts its probability distribution during the run of the algorithm. We contribute to the theoretical understanding of EDAs and point out that their distribution approach makes them more suitable to deal with rugged fitness landscapes than classical local search algorithms. Concretely, we make the OneMax function rugged by adding noise to each fitness value. The cGA can nevertheless find solutions with n(1 - \epsilon) many 1s, even for high variance of noise. In contrast to this, RLS and the (1+1) EA, with high probability, only find solutions with n(1/2+o(1)) many 1s, even for noise with small variance.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, PPSN 202

Analysis of the (1+1) EA on LeadingOnes with Constraints

Understanding how evolutionary algorithms perform on constrained problems has gained increasing attention in recent years. In this paper, we study how evolutionary algorithms optimize constrained versions of the classical LeadingOnes problem. We first provide a run time analysis for the classical (1+1) EA on the LeadingOnes problem with a deterministic cardinality constraint, giving $\Theta(n (n-B)\log(B) + n^2)$ as the tight bound. Our results show that the behaviour of the algorithm is highly dependent on the constraint bound of the uniform constraint. Afterwards, we consider the problem in the context of stochastic constraints and provide insights using experimental studies on how the ($\mu$+1) EA is able to deal with these constraints in a sampling-based setting

MuLMS: A Multi-Layer Annotated Text Corpus for Information Extraction in the Materials Science Domain

Keeping track of all relevant recent publications and experimental results for a research area is a challenging task. Prior work has demonstrated the efficacy of information extraction models in various scientific areas. Recently, several datasets have been released for the yet understudied materials science domain. However, these datasets focus on sub-problems such as parsing synthesis procedures or on sub-domains, e.g., solid oxide fuel cells. In this resource paper, we present MuLMS, a new dataset of 50 open-access articles, spanning seven sub-domains of materials science. The corpus has been annotated by domain experts with several layers ranging from named entities over relations to frame structures. We present competitive neural models for all tasks and demonstrate that multi-task training with existing related resources leads to benefits.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, 28 tables, to be published in "Proceedings of the second Workshop on Information Extraction from Scientific Publications

Biofilm Formation Induces C3a Release and Protects Staphylococcus epidermidis from IgG and Complement Deposition and from Neutrophil-Dependent Killing

BackgroundBiofilm formation is considered to be an important virulence factor of the opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus epidermidis. We hypothesized that biofilm formation could interfere with the deposition of immunoglobulins and complement on the bacterial surface, leading to diminished activation of the complement system and protection from killing by human phagocytes MethodsThe killing of biofilm-encased and planktonically grown wild-type (wt) S. epidermidis and the killing of an isogenic biofilm-negative ica mutant (ica−) by human polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) were compared. C3a induction and deposition of C3b and immunoglobulin G (IgG) on the bacteria after opsonization with human serum were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, flow cytometry, and electron microscopy. The virulence of the bacterial strains was compared in a mouse model of catheter-associated infection ResultsBiofilm-embedded wt S. epidermidis was killed less well by human PMNs and induced more C3a than planktonically grown wt and ica− S. epidermidis. However, the deposition of C3b and IgG on the bacterial surface was diminished in biofilm-encased staphylococci. wt S. epidermidis was more virulent in implant-associated infections and was killed more slowly than ica− in ex vivo assays of killing by PMNs ConclusionsThe results indicate that prevention of C3b and IgG deposition on the bacterial surface contributes to the biofilm-mediated protection of S. epidermidis from killing by PMN

Развитие подхода к моделированию процесса получения этилбензола

На примере процесса синтеза этилбензола предложен подход к формализации схемы превращений углеводородов, заключающийся в группировании компонентов по их реакционной способности в отношении определенной реакции. Рассчитаны значения степеней компенсации реакций как показателя реакционной способности компонентов. Разработаны кинетические модели процессов алкилирования бензола этиленом и трансалкилирования полиалкилатов

Influence of acidic characteristics of zeolites on activity and selectivity to diesel fraction of NiMo hydrocracking catalysts

In the present study, we investigated the influence of acid properties of NiMo hydrocracking catalysts on activity and selectivity to the diesel fraction. NiMo catalysts were prepared with using following acid components: ultrastable zeolite Y (UZ-Y), recrystallized zeolite Y (RMZ-Y) and nanocrystalline zeolite BEA (NCZ-BEA). Hydrocracking catalysts were tested in a down-flow, fixed bed reactor. Concentration and strength of Bronsted (BAS) and Lewis (LAS) acid sites of the zeolites were determined by infrared spectroscopy of adsorbed CO. Supports containing γ-Al2O3 and 20, 30 or 40 wt. % of UC-Y zeolite were prepared. It was shown that the higher zeolite content the higher activity and the lower selectivity to diesel fraction of the catalysts are. Testing of the catalysts prepared from different zeolites in hydrocracking showed that selectivity to diesel fraction is greatly influenced by the ratio of BAS concentration on outer surface of zeolite crystals to concentration strongest BAS on internal surface