Opening up and closing down : how teachers and TAs manage turn-taking, topic and repair in mathematics lessons

Support for children with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms is increasingly provided by teaching assistants (TAs). They often have a direct pedagogical role, taking responsibility for instruction in mathematics. The quality of TAs' oral skills is crucial for learning but has rarely been researched. Using conversation analysis, this study compares teacher and TA talk in terms of turn allocation, topic generation and repair. From 130 recordings, transcripts of mathematics teaching in four lessons were analysed in depth. We found that teachers open up students whilst TAs close down the talk. Teachers, with whole classes, adopt inclusive teaching strategies to ensure oral participation whereas TAs, working with individuals, emphasise task completion. Teachers use open strategies for topic generation whilst TAs ask closed questions. Teachers withhold correction with prompts and hints whilst TAs supply answers. The findings are interpreted with reference to the TA role and implications for management and training

Formal Verification of Synchronisation, Gossip and Environmental Effects for Wireless Sensor Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a revolution in the monitoring and control of a wide range of applications, from urban water supply networks and precision agriculture food production, to vehicle connectivity and healthcare monitoring. For applications in such critical areas, control software and protocols for IoT systems must be verified to be both robust and reliable. Two of the largest obstacles to robustness and reliability in IoT systems are effects on the hardware caused by environmental conditions, and the choice of parameters used by the protocol. In this paper we use probabilistic model checking to verify that a synchronisation and dissemination protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is correct with respect to its requirements, and is not adversely affected by the environment. We show how the protocol can be converted into a logical model and then analysed using the probabilistic model-checker, PRISM. Using this approach we prove under which circumstances the protocol is guaranteed to synchronise all nodes and disseminate new information to all nodes. We also examine the bounds on synchronisation as the environment changes the performance of the hardware clock, and investigate the scalability constraints of this approach

Examination of the burden of disease of intimate partner violence against women in 2011: final report

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious health outcomes for Australian women and their children, and its prevention is a recognised national priority. Burden of disease studies measure the combined impact of living with illness and injury (non-fatal burden) and dying prematurely (fatal burden) on a population. This report estimated the amount of burden that could have been avoided if no adult women in Australia in 2011 had been exposed to IPV during their lifetime. This “attributable burden” is reported in terms of total, non-fatal and fatal burden. This report extends results from the Australian Burden of Disease Study 2011 (ABDS 2011) to produce detailed estimates of the health burden due to exposure to IPV that are specific to Australian women in 2011. Of note, this report also includes estimates of attributable burden using a broader definition of IPV than used in the ABDS 2011, one that includes non-cohabiting partners as well as partner emotional abuse

Scaffolding learning for independence: Clarifying teacher and teaching assistant roles for children with special educational needs

Support for children with special educational needs (SEN) in inclusive classrooms, in many countries, continues to be provided by teaching assistants (TAs). Whilst they frequently take responsibility for instruction, they are rarely adequately trained and prepared. As TAs have ample opportunities for individualised and group interactions, this paper recommends scaffolding as the key theory to inform their practice. From a large dataset of interactions in mathematics and literacy lessons, episodes of TA scaffolding were selected. Using conversation analysis, three scaffolding roles emerged: 1) a support role that maintained learner engagement, on-task behaviour and motivation; 2) a repair function that focused on learning and fostered independence when children were in difficulty; and c) a heuristic role that encouraged students to use their own learning strategies. The paper concludes with implications for trainers and managers and how teachers can support TAs in implementing each role

Meta-analyses support a taxonomic model for representations of different categories of audio-visual interaction events in the human brain

Our ability to perceive meaningful action events involving objects, people and other animate agents is characterized in part by an interplay of visual and auditory sensory processing and their cross-modal interactions. However, this multisensory ability can be altered or dysfunctional in some hearing and sighted individuals, and in some clinical populations. The present meta-analysis sought to test current hypotheses regarding neurobiological architectures that may mediate audio-visual multisensory processing. Reported coordinates from 82 neuroimaging studies (137 experiments) that revealed some form of audio-visual interaction in discrete brain regions were compiled, converted to a common coordinate space, and then organized along specific categorical dimensions to generate activation likelihood estimate (ALE) brain maps and various contrasts of those derived maps. The results revealed brain regions (cortical “hubs”) preferentially involved in multisensory processing along different stimulus category dimensions, including (1) living versus non-living audio-visual events, (2) audio-visual events involving vocalizations versus actions by living sources, (3) emotionally valent events, and (4) dynamic-visual versus static-visual audio-visual stimuli. These meta-analysis results are discussed in the context of neurocomputational theories of semantic knowledge representations and perception, and the brain volumes of interest are available for download to facilitate data interpretation for future neuroimaging studies

Fostering learner independence through heuristic scaffolding: A valuable role for teaching assistants

Teaching assistants currently play a key pedagogical role in supporting learners with special educational needs. Their practice is primarily oral, involving verbal differentiation of teacher talk or printed materials. In order to help students think for themselves, this paper argues that their practice should be informed by heuristic scaffolding. A substantial dataset from three teaching assistant projects was scrutinised for examples of heuristics. Using conversation analysis, the paper shows how assistance is negotiated and adjusted over a sequence of discourse. Four patterns of heuristic scaffolding are shown: heuristic modelling represents the highest level of support; heuristic questioning and prompting are jointly negotiated with the student. Self-scaffolding by students shows them taking responsibility for their own learning strategies. Implications for the school system are explored

Morbidity due to Schistosoma mansoni: an epidemiological assessment of distended abdomen syndrome in Ugandan school children with observations before and 1-year after anthelminthic chemotherapy

The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence and distribution of distended abdomens among Ugandan school children across a range of eco-epidemiological settings and to investigate the relationship between distended abdomens and helminth infections, in particular Schistosoma mansoni, before and 1-year after anthelminthic treatment. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 4354 school children across eight districts, with a longitudinal 1-year follow-up of 2644 children (60.7%). On both occasions, parasitological, biometrical and clinical data were collected for each child. Baseline prevalence of S. mansoni and hookworms was 44.3% and 51.8%, respectively. Distended abdomens, defined as an abdominal circumference ratio (ACR) >1.05, were observed in 2.5% of the sampled children, several of whom presented with particularly severe distensions necessitating hospital referral. ACR scores were highly overdispersed between districts and schools. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that S. mansoni infection accounted for only a small fraction of ACR variation, suggesting that either single point prevalence and intensity measures failed to reflect this more chronically evolved morbidity and/or that other interacting factors were involved, e.g. malnutrition and malaria. At 1-year follow-up, ACR scores showed an overall trend of regression towards the mean, potentially indicative of amelioration following chemotherapy, but geographic overdispersion still remaine

Common Polymorphisms in IFI16 and AIM2 Genes Are Associated With Periodontal Disease

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142266/1/jper0663-sup-0009.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142266/2/jper0663-sup-0008.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142266/3/jper0663-sup-0010.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142266/4/jper0663-sup-0005.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142266/5/jper0663.pd