556 research outputs found
Competence 1 Running head: COMPETENCE Competence, Persistence, and Success: The Positive Psychology of Behavioral Skill Instruction
Abstract Early school failure is a critical factor in the development of peer rejection and antisocial behavior in children. This paper describes three sets of instructional strategies that have been shown to promote high levels of academic competence by arranging frequent opportunities for correct skill practice: (a) teaching children at their instructional level and monitoring progress, (b) teaching children differently as their skills improve, and (c) rewarding success and setting goals. Research is reviewed showing that practicing skills to high levels of fluency leads to retention and endurance, the emergence of new forms of a skill, and creative problem solving. Motivating children to complete schoolwork through the strategic use of reinforcement and the implications of these strategies for encouraging children to be persistent, self-motivated, life-long learners are discussed. What is the purpose of the American school? Most educators might say that the purpose is to educate. A recent survey of parents, however, indicated that they wan
Understanding older women's decision making and coping in the context of breast cancer treatment
Background: Primary endocrine therapy (PET) is a recognised alternative to surgery followed by endocrine therapy for a subset of older, frailer women with breast cancer. Choice of treatment is preference-sensitive and may require decision support. Older patients are often conceptualised as passive decision-makers. The present study used the Coping in Deliberation (CODE) framework to gain insight into decision making and coping processes in a group of older women who have faced breast cancer treatment decisions, and to inform the development of a decision support intervention (DSI).
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with older women who had been offered a choice of PET or surgery from five UK hospital clinics. Women's information and support needs, their breast cancer diagnosis and treatment decisions were explored. A secondary analysis of these interviews was conducted using the CODE framework to examine women's appraisals of health threat and coping throughout the deliberation process.
Results: Interviews with 35 women aged 75-98 years were analysed. Appraisals of breast cancer and treatment options were sometimes only partial, with most women forming a preference for treatment relatively quickly. However, a number of considerations which women made throughout the deliberation process were identified, including: past experiences of cancer and its treatment; scope for choice; risks, benefits and consequences of treatment; instincts about treatment choice; and healthcare professionals' recommendations. Women also described various strategies to cope with breast cancer and their treatment decisions. These included seeking information, obtaining practical and emotional support from healthcare professionals, friends and relatives, and relying on personal faith. Based on these findings, key questions were identified that women may ask during deliberation.
Conclusions: Many older women with breast cancer may be considered involved rather than passive decision-makers, and may benefit from DSIs designed to support decision making and coping within and beyond the clinic setting
Complementary shifts in photoreceptor spectral tuning unlock the full adaptive potential of ultraviolet vision in birds
Color vision in birds is mediated by four types of cone photoreceptors whose maximal sensitivities (λmax) are evenly spaced across the light spectrum. In the course of avian evolution, the λmax of the most shortwave-sensitive cone, SWS1, has switched between violet (λmax > 400 nm) and ultraviolet (λmax < 380 nm) multiple times. This shift of the SWS1 opsin is accompanied by a corresponding short-wavelength shift in the spectrally adjacent SWS2 cone. Here, we show that SWS2 cone spectral tuning is mediated by modulating the ratio of two apocarotenoids, galloxanthin and 11',12'-dihydrogalloxanthin, which act as intracellular spectral filters in this cell type. We propose an enzymatic pathway that mediates the differential production of these apocarotenoids in the avian retina, and we use color vision modeling to demonstrate how correlated evolution of spectral tuning is necessary to achieve even sampling of the light spectrum and thereby maintain near-optimal color discrimination
Multi-Messenger Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays: Application to 3C66B Using the NANOGrav 11-year Data Set
When galaxies merge, the supermassive black holes in their centers may form
binaries and, during the process of merger, emit low-frequency gravitational
radiation in the process. In this paper we consider the galaxy 3C66B, which was
used as the target of the first multi-messenger search for gravitational waves.
Due to the observed periodicities present in the photometric and astrometric
data of the source of the source, it has been theorized to contain a
supermassive black hole binary. Its apparent 1.05-year orbital period would
place the gravitational wave emission directly in the pulsar timing band. Since
the first pulsar timing array study of 3C66B, revised models of the source have
been published, and timing array sensitivities and techniques have improved
dramatically. With these advances, we further constrain the chirp mass of the
potential supermassive black hole binary in 3C66B to less than using data from the NANOGrav 11-year data set. This
upper limit provides a factor of 1.6 improvement over previous limits, and a
factor of 4.3 over the first search done. Nevertheless, the most recent orbital
model for the source is still consistent with our limit from pulsar timing
array data. In addition, we are able to quantify the improvement made by the
inclusion of source properties gleaned from electromagnetic data to `blind'
pulsar timing array searches. With these methods, it is apparent that it is not
necessary to obtain exact a priori knowledge of the period of a binary to gain
meaningful astrophysical inferences.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Ap
Spatial concordance of DNA methylation classification in diffuse glioma.
BACKGROUND: Intratumoral heterogeneity is a hallmark of diffuse gliomas. DNA methylation profiling is an emerging approach in the clinical classification of brain tumors. The goal of this study is to investigate the effects of intratumoral heterogeneity on classification confidence.
METHODS: We used neuronavigation to acquire 133 image-guided and spatially separated stereotactic biopsy samples from 16 adult patients with a diffuse glioma (7 IDH-wildtype and 2 IDH-mutant glioblastoma, 6 diffuse astrocytoma, IDH-mutant and 1 oligodendroglioma, IDH-mutant and 1p19q codeleted), which we characterized using DNA methylation arrays. Samples were obtained from regions with and without abnormalities on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI. Methylation profiles were analyzed to devise a 3-dimensional reconstruction of (epi)genetic heterogeneity. Tumor purity was assessed from clonal methylation sites.
RESULTS: Molecular aberrations indicated that tumor was found outside imaging abnormalities, underlining the infiltrative nature of this tumor and the limitations of current routine imaging modalities. We demonstrate that tumor purity is highly variable between samples and explains a substantial part of apparent epigenetic spatial heterogeneity. We observed that DNA methylation subtypes are often, but not always, conserved in space taking tumor purity and prediction accuracy into account.
CONCLUSION: Our results underscore the infiltrative nature of diffuse gliomas and suggest that DNA methylation subtypes are relatively concordant in this tumor type, although some heterogeneity exists
System size and energy dependence of near-side di-hadron correlations
Two-particle azimuthal () and pseudorapidity ()
correlations using a trigger particle with large transverse momentum () in
+Au, Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at =\xspace 62.4 GeV and
200~GeV from the STAR experiment at RHIC are presented. The \ns correlation is
separated into a jet-like component, narrow in both and
, and the ridge, narrow in but broad in .
Both components are studied as a function of collision centrality, and the
jet-like correlation is studied as a function of the trigger and associated
. The behavior of the jet-like component is remarkably consistent for
different collision systems, suggesting it is produced by fragmentation. The
width of the jet-like correlation is found to increase with the system size.
The ridge, previously observed in Au+Au collisions at = 200
GeV, is also found in Cu+Cu collisions and in collisions at
=\xspace 62.4 GeV, but is found to be substantially smaller at
=\xspace 62.4 GeV than at = 200 GeV for the
same average number of participants ().
Measurements of the ridge are compared to models.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
An Experimental Exploration of the QCD Phase Diagram: The Search for the Critical Point and the Onset of De-confinement
The QCD phase diagram lies at the heart of what the RHIC Physics Program is
all about. While RHIC has been operating very successfully at or close to its
maximum energy for almost a decade, it has become clear that this collider can
also be operated at lower energies down to 5 GeV without extensive upgrades. An
exploration of the full region of beam energies available at the RHIC facility
is imperative. The STAR detector, due to its large uniform acceptance and
excellent particle identification capabilities, is uniquely positioned to carry
out this program in depth and detail. The first exploratory beam energy scan
(BES) run at RHIC took place in 2010 (Run 10), since several STAR upgrades,
most importantly a full barrel Time of Flight detector, are now completed which
add new capabilities important for the interesting physics at BES energies. In
this document we discuss current proposed measurements, with estimations of the
accuracy of the measurements given an assumed event count at each beam energy.Comment: 59 pages, 78 figure
Growth of Long Range Forward-Backward Multiplicity Correlations with Centrality in Au+Au Collisions at = 200 GeV
Forward-backward multiplicity correlation strengths have been measured with
the STAR detector for Au+Au and collisions at =
200 GeV. Strong short and long range correlations (LRC) are seen in central
Au+Au collisions. The magnitude of these correlations decrease with decreasing
centrality until only short range correlations are observed in peripheral Au+Au
collisions. Both the Dual Parton Model (DPM) and the Color Glass Condensate
(CGC) predict the existence of the long range correlations. In the DPM the
fluctuation in the number of elementary (parton) inelastic collisions produces
the LRC. In the CGC longitudinal color flux tubes generate the LRC. The data is
in qualitative agreement with the predictions from the DPM and indicates the
presence of multiple parton interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures The abstract has been slightly modifie
Measurements of and Production in + Collisions at = 200 GeV
We report measurements of charmed-hadron (, ) production cross
sections at mid-rapidity in + collisions at a center-of-mass energy of
200 GeV by the STAR experiment. Charmed hadrons were reconstructed via the
hadronic decays , and their charge conjugates,
covering the range of 0.62.0 GeV/ and 2.06.0 GeV/ for
and , respectively. From this analysis, the charm-pair production cross
section at mid-rapidity is = 170 45
(stat.) (sys.) b. The extracted charm-pair cross section is
compared to perturbative QCD calculations. The transverse momentum differential
cross section is found to be consistent with the upper bound of a Fixed-Order
Next-to-Leading Logarithm calculation.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures. Revised version submitted to Phys. Rev.
Longitudinal Spin Transfer to and Hyperons in Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions at = 200 GeV
The longitudinal spin transfer, , from high energy polarized protons
to and hyperons has been measured for the first time
in proton-proton collisions at with the STAR
detector at RHIC. The measurements cover pseudorapidity, , in the range
and transverse momenta, , up to . The longitudinal spin transfer is found to be for inclusive
and for
inclusive hyperons with and . The dependence on and is presented.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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