Educational interventions for children with ASD: A systematic literature review 2008–2013

Systematic literature reviews can play a key role in underpinning evidence-based practice. To date, large-scale reviews of interventions for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have focused primarily on research quality. To assist practitioners, the current review adopted a broader framework which allowed for greater consideration of educational utility. Between July and August 2013, 20 databases were searched, alongside web searches and hand searches, to identify ASD intervention studies published between 2008 and 2013. This search yielded 6,232 articles and the subsequent screening and evaluation process identified 85 best evidence studies. Studies were grouped into categories and individual interventions were assessed and classified as providing most; moderate; some; or a small amount of evidence. Interventions with most evidence tended to focus on younger children and core difficulties associated with ASD. Emerging trends, such as increasing evidence for technology-based interventions and peer-mediated interventions, were identified. An encouraging finding for practitioners is that in 59% of the studies, interventions were undertaken with or by school staff. Implications for school psychology practice as well as factors to consider when selecting educational interventions are discussed

Coulomb pre-stress and fault bends are ignored yet vital factors for earthquake triggering and hazard

Successive locations of individual large earthquakes (Mw>5.5) over years to centuries can be difficult to explain with simple Coulomb Stress Transfer (CST) because it is common for seismicity to circumvent nearest-neighbour along-strike faults where coseismic CST is greatest. We demonstrate that Coulomb pre-stress (the cumulative CST from multiple earthquakes and interseismic loading on non-planar faults) may explain this, evidenced by study of a 667-year historical record of earthquakes in central Italy. Heterogeneity in Coulomb pre-stresses across the fault system is >±50 bars, whereas coseismic CST is <±2 bars, so the latter will rarely overwhelm the former, explaining why historical earthquakes rarely rupture nearest neighbor faults. However, earthquakes do tend to occur where the cumulative coseismic and interseismic CST is positive, although there are notable examples where earthquake propagate across negatively stressed portions of faults. Hence Coulomb pre-stress calculated for non-planar faults is an ignored yet vital factor for earthquake triggering

Occurrence and inheritance of a colour pattern dimorphism in adults of Hyalophora euryalus (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)

Volume: 97Start Page: 73End Page: 7

Occurrence and inheritance of a colour pattern dimorphism in adults of Hyalophora euryalus (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)

A white prothoracic collar and white abdominal rings are among the characters used to distinguish adults in the genus Hyalophora Duncan (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) from those in the related genera Callosamia Packard and Eupackardia Cockerell. However, some adults of H. euryallis (Boisduval) on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, were found to lack these white body markings. Controlled rearing indicated that the "brown" phenotype is produced by a recessive allele at a single autosomal locus, and examination of museum specimens showed that it is fairly common on southern Vancouver Island and has been present there for at least half a century