Telehealth for expanding the reach of early autism training to parents.

Although there is consensus that parents should be involved in interventions designed for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), parent participation alone does not ensure consistent, generalized gains in children's development. Barriers such as costly intervention, time-intensive sessions, and family life may prevent parents from using the intervention at home. Telehealth integrates communication technologies to provide health-related services at a distance. A 12 one-hour per week parent intervention program was tested using telehealth delivery with nine families with ASD. The goal was to examine its feasibility and acceptance for promoting child learning throughout families' daily play and caretaking interactions at home. Parents became skilled at using teachable moments to promote children's spontaneous language and imitation skills and were pleased with the support and ease of telehealth learning. Preliminary results suggest the potential of technology for helping parents understand and use early intervention practices more often in their daily interactions with children

Emotional Expression Management and Social Acceptance in Childhood: Ability, Strategy, and Gender.

The present study was designed to examine the relationship between children\u27s ability to manage emotional expressions and peer acceptance. Specifically, using a mild mood induction paradigm, children between the ages of 8- to 10-years were instructed to neutralize and dissemble genuinely negative emotions. Children\u27s ability to effectively manage their negative emotional expressions was then examined with respect to gender differences and in relation to peer acceptance ratings. Results indicated that girls were significantly better than boys at substituting positive expressions for genuine negative ones, were marginally worse than boys at neutralizing negative expressions, and overall were significantly more expressively positive than boys. With respect to social acceptance, findings revealed that the ability to neutralize negative expressions was significantly related to overall acceptance ratings for boys. For girls, the ability to substitute positive expressions for genuinely negative ones was significantly related to peer acceptance as rated only by girls. Taken together, these results support the general hypothesis that the ability to manage emotional expressions is an important component in children\u27s social functioning

Landscape Epidemiology and Machine Learning: A Geospatial Approach to Modeling West Nile Virus Risk in the United States

The complex interactions between human health and the physical landscape and environment have been recognized, if not fully understood, since the ancient Greeks. Landscape epidemiology, sometimes called spatial epidemiology, is a sub-discipline of medical geography that uses environmental conditions as explanatory variables in the study of disease or other health phenomena. This theory suggests that pathogenic organisms (whether germs or larger vector and host species) are subject to environmental conditions that can be observed on the landscape, and by identifying where such organisms are likely to exist, areas at greatest risk of the disease can be derived. Machine learning is a sub-discipline of artificial intelligence that can be used to create predictive models from large and complex datasets. West Nile virus (WNV) is a relatively new infectious disease in the United States, and has a fairly well-understood transmission cycle that is believed to be highly dependent on environmental conditions. This study takes a geospatial approach to the study of WNV risk, using both landscape epidemiology and machine learning techniques. A combination of remotely sensed and in situ variables are used to predict WNV incidence with a correlation coefficient as high as 0.86. A novel method of mitigating the small numbers problem is also tested and ultimately discarded. Finally a consistent spatial pattern of model errors is identified, indicating the chosen variables are capable of predicting WNV disease risk across most of the United States, but are inadequate in the northern Great Plains region of the US

Option-Implied Measures of Equity Risk

Equity risk measured by beta is of great interest to both academics and practitioners. Existing estimates of beta use historical returns. Many studies have found option-implied volatility to be a strong predictor of future realized volatility. We .nd that option-implied volatility and skewness are also good predictors of future realized beta. Motivated by this .nding, we establish a set of assumptions needed to construct a beta estimate from option-implied return moments using equity and index options. This beta can be computed using only option data on a single day. It is therefore potentially able to re.ect sudden changes in the structure of the underlying company. Le risque du marché des actions mesuré selon le coefficient bêta suscite un vif intérêt de la part des universitaires et des praticiens. Les estimations existantes du coefficient bêta utilisent les rendements historiques. De nombreuses études ont démontré que la volatilité implicite du prix des options constitue un indice solide de la volatilité future réalisée. Nous constatons que la volatilité implicite des options et leur caractère asymétrique sont aussi de bons facteurs prévisionnels du bêta futur réalisé. Motivés par ce constat, nous établissons un ensemble d’hypothèses nécessaires pour effectuer une estimation du bêta, à partir des moments de rendement implicite des options, en recourant aux actions et aux options sur indices boursiers. Ce bêta peut être calculé en utilisant seulement les données obtenues sur les options au cours d’une même journée. Il peut donc refléter les changements soudains de la structure de la société sous-jacente.market beta; CAPM; historical; capital budgeting; model-free moments, bêta du marché, MEDAF (modèle d’équilibre des actifs financiers), historique, budgétisation des investissements, moments non paramétriques.

High fidelity sorting of remarkably similar components via metal-mediated assembly.

Subtle differences in ligand coordination angle and rigidity lead to high fidelity sorting between individual components displaying identical coordination motifs upon metal-mediated self-assembly. Narcissistic self-sorting can be achieved between highly similar ligands that vary minimally in rigidity and internal coordination angle upon combination with Fe(ii) ions and 2-formylpyridine. Selective, sequential cage formation can be precisely controlled in a single flask from a mix of three different core ligands (and 33 total components) differing only in the hybridization of one group that is uninvolved in the metal coordination process

How do politicians' responses to scandals differ on social media? An evaluation of three case studies using the contingency theory

Professional project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Journalism from the School of Journalism, University of Missouri--Columbia.This study focused on furthering the research around the contingency theory, developed by Cancel et al. (1997), that focuses on discovering whether the response to the scandal is more accommodative or advocacy-focused. The study furthered this research by measuring whether politicians' responses to sex scandals fall more on the advocacy or accommodative side of the theory. Additionally, this study also focused on whether there was a difference between how a politician responded to a scandal on social media, as compared to their responses on more traditional forms of media, such as press releases or media interviews. In order to accomplish this research, three case studies were reviewed: former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's 2011 sexual harassment scandal, former Representative Anthony Weiner's 2010 sex scandal, and former Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Rutherford's 2014 sexual harassment scandal. Each scandal was reviewed extensively with a focus on their traditional media and social media responses to the scandal. This included looking at the press releases, media interviews and Twitter pages of the politicians' studied. It was discovered that none of the responses on social media were at all accommodative, as all were advocacy-based responses. Additionally, almost all of the traditional media appearances were advocacy-focused as well, with few exceptions. It was thus concluded that social media is rarely used to make accommodative responses to scandals, due to the difficulty of responding thoroughly to the allegations. Overall, this study helps to provide further depth to the contingency theory and brings more clarity in exactly how politicians respond to scandals.Includes bibliographic references

Nonpropagation of tachyon on the BTZ black hole in type 0B string theory

We obtain the BTZ black hole (AdS$_3 \times$S$^3$) as a non-dilatonic solution from type 0B string theory. Analyzing the perturbation around this black hole background, we show that the tachyon is not a propagating mode.Comment: some detailed explanations are added, modified version will be appeared in Physics Letters B, 11 pages in RevTeX, no figure