They Almost Become the Teacher : Pre-K to Third Grade Teachers’ Experiences Reading and Discussing Culturally Relevant Texts with their Students

This qualitative research study examined 13 preschool to third-grade teachers’ experiences reading and discussing culturally relevant texts (CRTs) with their students. Teachers worked at four schools in a large urban school district and with child populations from different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds. We employed provisional and open-coding to analyze teacher interview data. Three salient themes emerged from the data: children’s identity investment in reading and discussing CRTs, children’s interest in CRTs, and children’s depth of comprehension when discussing CRTs. Findings from teacher observations suggest that reading and discussing CRTs with children from nondominant social backgrounds can tap into children’s capacities and experiential knowledge in ways that can promote reading engagement and comprehension development. When students have opportunities to share expertise on the topic of a text, teachers may be better able to understand and tap into the diverse range of knowledge and experiences that their students bring to the reading comprehension task

Time and Place

This podcast is the result of an ethnography assignment for Anthropology 103. For this project, the group observed three locations at Parkland College to see if the varying locations evoke different emotional responses. The group’s findings are summarized in the included slideshow, and a transcript of the podcast is also available

Hybrid Modeling for Scenario-Based Evaluation of Failure Effects in Advanced Hardware-Software Designs

This paper describes an incremental scenario-based simulation approach to evaluation of intelligent software for control and management of hardware systems. A hybrid continuous/discrete event simulation of the hardware dynamically interacts with the intelligent software in operations scenarios. Embedded anomalous conditions and failures in simulated hardware can lead to emergent software behavior and identification of missing or faulty software or hardware requirements. An approach is described for extending simulation-based automated incremental failure modes and effects analysis, to support concurrent evaluation of intelligent software and the hardware controlled by the softwar

Patterns and predictors of falls and their consequences in extreme old age

$\textbf{BACKGROUND AND AIMS}$ Falls in old age can have serious consequences. The impact on health and social care is growing as the older population increases, but there are few data on falling amongst the “oldest old”. This study aimed to provide much needed information on this fastest growing section of the population: the epidemiology of falls and their consequences, the prevalence of potential risk factors and their predictive value in extreme old age. $\textbf{METHODS}$ This study added a special investigation of falling in advanced old age to the 2002–2003 interviews of 110 over-90-year-olds from the Cambridge City over-75s Cohort, a population-based longitudinal study of ageing. The survey (90 women, 20 men) comprised a standardised nurse-administered questionnaire with cognitive assessment, quantitative heel ultrasound scans and functional performance measures: Timed Unsupported Stand, Short Physical Performance Battery (standing balance tests, gait speed and chair rising),180° turn, functional reach and hand grip strength. Data collection also included a year’s prospective monitoring of falls using a combination of weekly calendars and telephone follow-up, with reports from participants themselves and proxy informants. $\textbf{KEY FINDINGS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS}$ The study’s description of a representative population aged over 90 is valuable to service planners preparing for demographic change, revealing high levels of many fall risk factors. Detailed characterisation of functional status showed close agreement between reported disability levels and performance measures. This first population-based survey of skeletal fragility in the tenth decade found quantitative ultrasound measures markedly lower than in previous studies with younger old people. Skeletal fragility reflected weight-bearing functional test performance and reported current or past mobility. This first prospective study of falling amongst people aged over 90 in a representative population-based sample found falls are even more common than previously reported for very old people a decade younger: 60% fell at least once during follow-up, 45% more than once. Incidence was 277 falls / 100 person-years. The extent to which falls in advanced old age lead to serious consequences – both immediate and longerterm – has not previously been reported. In one year’s follow-up 54% of fall reports described the participant as being found on the floor. 82% of falls occurred alone, 80% of those who fell were unable to get up after at least one fall, and 30% suffered long lies of an hour or more. Four out of five times when someone fell alone and could not get up they did not use available alarms to call help. More than half the falls reported to the study, and three in ten of the falls resulting in any injury, had not been reported to any health care professional. Findings also showed high levels of injuries (38% of falls but 68% of fallers) including fractures – one man and 1 in 8 of the women who fell. One in three people had at least one hospital admission, 2/3 of them at least partly due to falling, 2/3 of these directly prompted by a fall. Mean total length of stay of fallers was 6 times that of non-fallers. 1 in 7 of those not already living in long-term care had moved into homes within a year, 80% of these prompted at least in part by falling. Falls, adverse consequences and skeletal fragility shared a pattern of strong associations with several key risk factors, particularly impaired mobility and characteristics typical of frailty. Fracture risk factors were also associated with skeletal ultrasound measures. Functional tests added no predictive value to reported clinical risk factors. The implications of this research for policy and practice are fully discussed in relation to the current developing situation and future projections, setting these novel findings in the context of existing knowledge summarised in an extensive literature review

Global Qualitative Flow-Path Modeling for Local State Determination in Simulation and Analysis

For qualitative modeling and analysis, a general qualitative abstraction of power transmission variables (flow and effort) for elements of flow paths includes information on resistance, net flow, permissible directions of flow, and qualitative potential is discussed. Each type of component model has flow-related variables and an associated internal flow map, connected into an overall flow network of the system. For storage devices, the implicit power transfer to the environment is represented by "virtual" circuits that include an environmental junction. A heterogeneous aggregation method simplifies the path structure. A method determines global flow-path changes during dynamic simulation and analysis, and identifies corresponding local flow state changes that are effects of global configuration changes. Flow-path determination is triggered by any change in a flow-related device variable in a simulation or analysis. Components (path elements) that may be affected are identified, and flow-related attributes favoring flow in the two possible directions are collected for each of them. Next, flow-related attributes are determined for each affected path element, based on possibly conflicting indications of flow direction. Spurious qualitative ambiguities are minimized by using relative magnitudes and permissible directions of flow, and by favoring flow sources over effort sources when comparing flow tendencies. The results are output to local flow states of affected components

Using CONFIG for Simulation of Operation of Water Recovery Subsystems for Advanced Control Software Evaluation

A hybrid discrete/continuous simulation tool, CONFIG, has been developed to support evaluation of the operability life support systems. CON FIG simulates operations scenarios in which flows and pressures change continuously while system reconfigurations occur as discrete events. In simulations, intelligent control software can interact dynamically with hardware system models. CONFIG simulations have been used to evaluate control software and intelligent agents for automating life support systems operations. A CON FIG model of an advanced biological water recovery system has been developed to interact with intelligent control software that is being used in a water system test at NASA Johnson Space Cente

Predicting System Accidents with Model Analysis During Hybrid Simulation

Standard discrete event simulation is commonly used to identify system bottlenecks and starving and blocking conditions in resources and services. The CONFIG hybrid discrete/continuous simulation tool can simulate such conditions in combination with inputs external to the simulation. This provides a means for evaluating the vulnerability to system accidents of a system's design, operating procedures, and control software. System accidents are brought about by complex unexpected interactions among multiple system failures , faulty or misleading sensor data, and inappropriate responses of human operators or software. The flows of resource and product materials play a central role in the hazardous situations that may arise in fluid transport and processing systems. We describe the capabilities of CONFIG for simulation-time linear circuit analysis of fluid flows in the context of model-based hazard analysis. We focus on how CONFIG simulates the static stresses in systems of flow. Unlike other flow-related properties, static stresses (or static potentials) cannot be represented by a set of state equations. The distribution of static stresses is dependent on the specific history of operations performed on a system. We discuss the use of this type of information in hazard analysis of system designs

CONFIG: Integrated engineering of systems and their operation

This article discusses CONFIG 3, a prototype software tool that supports integrated conceptual design evaluation from early in the product life cycle, by supporting isolated or integrated modeling, simulation, and analysis of the function, structure, behavior, failures and operations of system designs. Integration and reuse of models is supported in an object-oriented environment providing capabilities for graph analysis and discrete event simulation. CONFIG supports integration among diverse modeling approaches (component view, configuration or flow path view, and procedure view) and diverse simulation and analysis approaches. CONFIG is designed to support integrated engineering in diverse design domains, including mechanical and electro-mechanical systems, distributed computer systems, and chemical processing and transport systems