Animal-Assisted Interactions: Impacts for At-Risk Youth

Animal-assisted interactions (AAI) have shown increasing promise in reaching at-risk youth. Overview: This systematic review explores the biopsychosocial-spiritual impacts of AAI for at-risk youth through analyzing the existing body of empirical research in the field. Qualitative analysis of findings indicated three main themes identified as (1) the human animal connection, exploring the unique impacts of equine and canine partnership in treatment, (2) a new sense of self, describing internal benefits of AAI, and (3) social impacts or increased prosocial behavior in participants. Quality assessment ratings indicated need for additional research in the field; however, results indicate promising outcomes for at-risk clients

Animal-Assisted Interactions: Impacts for At-Risk Youth

Animal-assisted interactions (AAI) have shown increasing promise in reaching at-risk youth. Overview: This systematic review explores the biopsychosocial-spiritual impacts of AAI for at-risk youth through analyzing the existing body of empirical research in the field. Qualitative analysis of findings indicated three main themes identified as (1) “the human animal connection,” exploring the unique impacts of equine and canine partnership in treatment, (2) “a new sense of self,” describing internal benefits of AAI, and (3) “social impacts” or increased prosocial behavior in participants. Quality assessment ratings indicated need for additional research in the field; however, results indicate promising outcomes for at-risk clients

The Progenitors of Superluminous Type Ia Supernovae

Recent observations of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have discovered a subclass of 'super-Chandrasekhar' SNe Ia (SC SNe Ia) whose high luminosities and low ejecta velocities suggest that they originate from the explosions of white dwarfs (WDs) with masses that exceed the Chandrasekhar mass limit. Different models have been proposed to explain the progenitors of these explosions, including a 'magnetized WD' model and a 'WD merger' model. To test the robustness of these models, we conduct a 1D numerical parameter survey of WD explosions using these models as initial conditions. We follow the explosions using the hydrodynamics code Castro and then use the radiation transport code SuperNu to create light curves and spectra for the models. We find that while both classes of models fall within the range of SC SNe Ia observations on the light curve width-luminosity relation, only the WD merger models reproduce the observed low ejecta velocities. The light curves of our merger models are more similar photometrically to observations than our magnetized models. Given this, we discuss possible explanations for the brightest SC SNe Ia observations that cannot be reproduced with our WD merger models. This study provides the basis for future SC SNe Ia observations and higher-dimensional numerical models.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures. Accepted to the Astrophysical Journa

Computing contour trees in all dimensions

AbstractWe show that contour trees can be computed in all dimensions by a simple algorithm that merges two trees. Our algorithm extends, simplifies, and improves work of Tarasov and Vyalyi and of van Kreveld et al

Manifolds.jl: An Extensible Julia Framework for Data Analysis on Manifolds

For data given on a nonlinear space, like angles, symmetric positive matrices, the sphere, or the hyperbolic space, there is often enough structure to form a Riemannian manifold. We present the Julia package Manifolds.jl, providing a fast and easy to use library of Riemannian manifolds and Lie groups. We introduce a common interface, available in ManifoldsBase.jl, with which new manifolds, applications, and algorithms can be implemented. We demonstrate the utility of Manifolds.jl using B\'ezier splines, an optimization task on manifolds, and a principal component analysis on nonlinear data. In a benchmark, Manifolds.jl outperforms existing packages in Matlab or Python by several orders of magnitude and is about twice as fast as a comparable package implemented in C++

Mapping the Bishop of Avignon: sources of episcopal power in the thirteenth century

This dissertation explores the medieval bishop's deployment of power in thirteenth-century Provence, arguing that control of a diocese required the efficient use of both sacred and temporal power. Although a bishop's authority derived from his ordained status (potestas ordinis) and his administrative status (potestas jurisdictionis), regarding these categories as mutually exclusive obscures the nature of episcopal power as a flexible, dynamic force. This project considers a bishop's activity in terms of new local/universal categories rather than across a traditional spiritual/temporal divide. Such an approach provides a clearer understanding of the manner in which both spiritual and temporal powers operated in tandem in the bishop's diocesan and international milieux. The case study of the Italian canon lawyer and papal legate Zoen Tencarari (c. 1200-61), who served as bishop of Avignon from 1241-61, reveals concrete mechanisms by which a medieval bishop centralized ecclesiastical power. In the century between the Albigensian crusade (1209-29) and the relocation of the papal curia there (1309-78), Avignon supported the pope's long-term adversary, the Holy Roman Emperor. As a foreigner educated in the pro-papal university of Bologna, Zoen used his experience with thirteenth-century debates on spiritual and secular power to shape his attack on imperial claims on Provence. On the frontier between imperial and French land, Avignon was a contested space that can be recreated, read, and analyzed through digital mapping. Space is a forum for power display: on the local level, Bishop Zoen centralized his power by laying claim to border towns and holy sites, while on the universal level, his itinerant episcopacy and attendance at councils ensured his influence over Provence more broadly. Mapping Zoen's movement in and domination over the urban and rural topographies of Avignon illuminates the bishop's carefully attuned use of spiritual and temporal powers in local and universal arenas. By tracking Zoen's activity in Provence, this study emphasizes both the singularity and the universality of a medieval bishop's experience, which, though part of a Church-wide bureaucracy bound by tradition and legal precedent, was nonetheless rooted in local events and contingent upon the personal skill set of the prelate.2017-05-01T00:00:00

Global Population Structure and Invasion History of Solenopsis geminata

Relatório de estágio do mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário, apresentado à Faculdade de Ciências do Desporto e Educação Física da Universidade de CoimbraO Estágio Pedagógico levado a cabo na Escola Secundária Infanta Dona Maria representou a oportunidade de consolidar e desenvolver novos conhecimentos e competências ao nível da prática do ensino da Educação Física, alguns deles transversais a outros domínios de intervenção. A produção orientada de documentos de planeamento, realização e avaliação do ensino, devidamente enquadrados com as particularidades do contexto, assumiram, a par da autorreflexão e reflexão partilhada, especial importância ao longo deste percurso, traduzindo-se na melhoria dos processos de ensino e aprendizagem. Ser-se professor exige uma postura ativa e contínua de reflexão acerca das próprias práticas pedagógicas e dos resultados do ensino, sendo os objetivos a perseguir centrados no progresso/sucesso dos alunos. Assumindo que a melhoria da qualidade do ensino promove o sucesso educativo, a investigação conduzida no âmbito do feedback prestado pelo professor durante as aulas, tendente a apontar caminhos de melhoria da sua intervenção, encontra aí a sua justificação. The pedagogical internship at the Secondary School of Infanta Dona Maria (Coimbra, Portugal) represented an opportunity to consolidate and develop new skills related with the practice of Physical Education, some of which cross with other fields of intervention. The oriented production of planning documents, accomplishment and evaluation of various exercises, carefully framed within the particularities of the teaching context, in addition with self and hetero-reflection, assumed special importance throughout this internship, resulting in an increase of the quality of the teaching and learning methods. Being a teacher requires an active role and a continuous reflection on the own pedagogical practices and teaching results. The main objective is focus on the continuous progress and success of the students. Assuming that an increase of the teaching quality promotes educational success, the investigation lead by the “feedback” observed by the teacher (instructor) along the various lessons, tends to point improvements, finding there its own justification (purpose)

Timing of Tertiary Extension in the Railroad Valley Pioche Transect, Nevada: Constraints from Ar-40/Ar-39 Ages of Volcanic Rocks

Time-space relations of extension and volcanism place critical constraints on models of Basin and Range extensional processes. This paper addresses such relations in a 130-km-wide transect in the eastern Great Basin, bounded on the east by the Ely Springs Range and on the west by the Grant and Quinn Canyon ranges. Stratigraphic and structural data, combined with 40Ar/39Ar isotopic ages of volcanic rocks, document a protracted but distinctly episodic extensional history. Field relations indicate four periods of faulting. Only one of these periods was synchronous with nearby volcanic activity, which implies that volcanism and faulting need not be associated closely in space and time. Based on published dates and the analyses reported here, the periods of extension were (1) prevolcanic (pre-32 Ma), (2) early synvolcanic (30 to 27 Ma), (3) immediately postvolcanic (about 16 to 14 Ma), and (4) Pliocene to Quaternary. The break between the second and third periods is distinct. The minimum gap between the first two periods is 2 Ma, but the separation may be much larger. Temporal separation of the last two periods is only suggested by the stratigraphic record and cannot be rigorously demonstrated with present data. The three younger periods of faulting apparently occurred across the entire transect. The oldest period is recognized only at the eastern end of the transect, but appears to correlate about 150 km northward along strike with extension in the Northern Snake Range-Kern Mountains area. Therefore the oldest period also is regional in extent, but affected a different area than that affected by younger periods. This relation suggests that distinct extensional structures and master detachment faults were active at different times. The correlation of deformation periods of a few million years duration across the Railroad Valley-Pioche transect suggests that the scale of active extensional domains in the Great Basin may be greater than 100 km across strike

Middle to late Cenozoic basin evolution in the western Alborz Mountains: Implications for the onset of collisional deformation in northern Iran

Oligocene-Miocene strata preserved in synclinal outcrop belts of the western Alborz Mountains record the onset of Arabia-Eurasia collision-related deformation in northern Iran. Two stratigraphic intervals, informally named the Gand Ab and Narijan units, represent a former basin system that existed in the Alborz. The Gand Ab unit is composed of marine lagoonal mudstones, fluvial and alluvial-fan clastic rocks, fossiliferous Rupelian to Burdigalian marine carbonates, and basalt flows yielding ^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar ages of 32.7 ± 0.3 and 32.9 ± 0.2 Ma. The Gand Ab unit is correlated with the Oligocene–lower Miocene Qom Formation of central Iran and is considered a product of thermal subsidence following Eocene extension. The Narijan unit unconformably overlies the Gand Ab unit and is composed of fluvial-lacustrine and alluvial fan sediments exhibiting contractional growth strata. We correlate the Narijan unit with the middle to upper Miocene Upper Red Formation of central Iran on the basis of lithofacies similarities, stratigraphic position, and an 8.74 ± 0.15 Ma microdiorite dike (^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar) that intruded the basal strata. Deformation timing is constrained by crosscutting relationships and independent thermochronological data. The Parachan thrust system along the eastern edge of the ancestral Taleghan-Alamut basin is cut by dikes dated at 8.74 ± 0.15 Ma to 6.68 ± 0.07 Ma (^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar). Subhorizontal gravels that unconformably overlie tightly folded and faulted Narijan strata are capped by 2.86 ± 0.83 Ma (^(40)Ar/^(39)Ar) andesitic lava flows. These relationships suggest that Alborz deformation had migrated southward into the Taleghan-Alamut basin by late Miocene time and shifted to its present location along the active range front by late Pliocene time. Data presented here demonstrate that shortening in the western Alborz Mountains had started by late middle Miocene time. This estimate is consistent with recent thermochronological results that place the onset of rapid exhumation in the western Alborz at ∼12 Ma. Moreover, nearly synchronous Miocene contraction in the Alborz, Zagros Mountains, Turkish-Iranian plateau, and Anatolia suggests that the Arabia-Eurasia collision affected a large region simultaneously, without a systematic outward progression of mountain building away from the collision zone