3,723 research outputs found
Inspiring Music for All: next steps in innovation, improvement and integration
The report, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, provides an overview of schools-based music education in England. It represents the outcomes of research undertaken in January and February 2014 which included detailed literature reviews, personal interviews with thirty-five specialists involved in leading various organisations responsible for different aspects of music education, focus group discussions and an on-line survey of the music education workforce that generated 515 responses. The findings suggest that the place and status of music in schools vary widely across the country. The best music in schools is significantly more inclusive, more musically diverse and better quality that it was a decade ago. However, the quality and reach of schools-based music education is still unacceptably variable and inconsistent at both primary and secondary levels. Detailed findings and recommendations are included in the report
Serious Games Application for Memory Training Using Egocentric Images
Mild cognitive impairment is the early stage of several neurodegenerative
diseases, such as Alzheimer's. In this work, we address the use of lifelogging
as a tool to obtain pictures from a patient's daily life from an egocentric
point of view. We propose to use them in combination with serious games as a
way to provide a non-pharmacological treatment to improve their quality of
life. To do so, we introduce a novel computer vision technique that classifies
rich and non rich egocentric images and uses them in serious games. We present
results over a dataset composed by 10,997 images, recorded by 7 different
users, achieving 79% of F1-score. Our model presents the first method used for
automatic egocentric images selection applicable to serious games.Comment: 11 page
Toward High-Precision Measures of Large-Scale Structure
I review some results of estimation of the power spectrum of density
fluctuations from galaxy redshift surveys and discuss advances that may be
possible with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I then examine the realities of
power spectrum estimation in the presence of Galactic extinction, photometric
errors, galaxy evolution, clustering evolution, and uncertainty about the
background cosmology.Comment: 24 pages, including 11 postscript figures. Uses crckapb.sty (included
in submission). To appear in ``Ringberg Workshop on Large-Scale Structure,''
ed D. Hamilton (Kluwer, Amsterdam), p. 39
Does variation in trait schizotypy and frequency of cannabis use influence the acute subjective, cognitive and psychotomimetic effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol?:A mega-analysis
Background:
While the acute effects of cannabis are relatively benign for most users, some individuals experience significant adverse effects. This study aimed to identify whether variation in schizotypal personality traits and frequency of cannabis use influence the acute effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Methods:
Individual participant data from four double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, acute crossover studies involving 128 cannabis users were combined for a mega-analysis. Using multilevel linear models and moderation analyses, frequency of cannabis use and schizotypal personality traits were investigated as potential moderators of the subjective, cognitive and psychotomimetic effects of acute THC.
Results:
There was evidence of a moderating effect where increased frequency of cannabis use was associated with reduced intensity of subjective (changes in alertness and feeling stoned) and psychosis-like effects following THC when compared with placebo. Moderating effects of cannabis use frequency on acute memory impairment were weak. Trait schizotypy did not moderate the acute psychosis-like effects of THC compared with placebo.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that a pattern of domain-specific tolerance develops to the acute effects of THC. Tolerance to the alertness-reducing effects occurred more readily than tolerance to psychotomimetic effects. Only partial tolerance to feeling stoned was found, and there was weak evidence for tolerance to memory impairment. Trait schizotypy did not moderate THC’s effects on psychotomimetic symptoms
Magnetic resonance imaging protocols for paediatric neuroradiology
Increasingly, radiologists are encouraged to have protocols for all imaging studies and to include imaging guidelines in care pathways set up by the referring clinicians. This is particularly advantageous in MRI where magnet time is limited and a radiologist’s review of each patient’s images often results in additional sequences and longer scanning times without the advantage of improvement in diagnostic ability. The difficulties of imaging small children and the challenges presented to the radiologist as the brain develops are discussed. We present our protocols for imaging the brain and spine of children based on 20 years experience of paediatric neurological MRI. The protocols are adapted to suit children under the age of 2 years, small body parts and paediatric clinical scenarios
Properties of Galaxies in and around Voids
Two surveys for intrinsically faint galaxies towards nearby voids have been
conducted at the MPI f\"ur Astronomie, Heidelberg. One selected targets from a
new diameter limited () catalog with morphological criteria while
the other used digitized objective prism Schmidt plates to select mainly HII
dwarf galaxies. For some 450 galaxies, redshifts and other optical data were
obtained. We studied the spatial distribution of the sample objects, their
luminosity function, and their intrinsic properties. Most of the galaxies
belong to already well known sheets and filaments. But we found about a dozen
highly isolated galaxies in each sample (nearest neighborhood distance ). These tend to populate additional structures and are not
distributed homogeneously throughout the voids. As our results on 'void
galaxies' still suffer from small sample statistics, I also tried to combine
similar existing surveys of nearby voids to get further hints on the larger
structure and on the luminosity function of the isolated galaxies. No
differences in the luminosity function of sheet and void galaxies could be
found. The optical and infrared properties of both samples are in the normal
range for samples dominated by late-type dwarfs. Follow-up HI studies show that
the isolated dwarfs in both samples have unusual high amount of neutral gas for
a given luminosity.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, latex, to appear in the proceedings of the
'Ringberg workshop on Large Scale Structure', hold Sep. 23-28, 199
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