A Parent Handbook for Primary Students with Learning Disabilities

Parents play an important role in the educational process, especially with Special Education students. When a child is identified as Learning Disabled, parents often ask, What can we do at home to help? When there is parent-school cooperation and coordination all will benefit, particularly the child. This project provides parents of the Selah School District in Washington State with information and activities in the academic areas of reading, mathematics, and written language, that will reinforce and strengthen those skills taught at school

Prospectus, December 7, 1994

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1994/1024/thumbnail.jp

New insights into the drainage of inundated ice-wedge polygons using fundamental hydrologic principles

The pathways and timing of drainage from the inundated centers of ice-wedge polygons in a warming climate have important implications for carbon flushing, advective heat transport, and transitions from methane to carbon dioxide dominated emissions. Here, we expand on previous research using a recently developed analytical model of drainage from a low-centered polygon. Specifically, we perform (1) a calibration to field data identifying necessary model refinements and (2) a rigorous model sensitivity analysis that expands on previously published indications of polygon drainage characteristics. This research provides intuition on inundated polygon drainage by presenting the first in-depth analysis of drainage within a polygon based on hydrogeological first principles. We verify a recently developed analytical solution of polygon drainage through a calibration to a season of field measurements. Due to the parsimony of the model, providing the potential that it could fail, we identify the minimum necessary refinements that allow the model to match water levels measured in a low-centered polygon. We find that (1) the measured precipitation must be increased by a factor of around 2.2, and (2) the vertical soil hydraulic conductivity must decrease with increasing thaw depth. Model refinement (1) accounts for runoff from rims into the ice-wedge polygon pond during precipitation events and possible rain gauge undercatch, while refinement (2) accounts for the decreasing permeability of deeper soil layers. The calibration to field measurements supports the validity of the model, indicating that it is able to represent ice-wedge polygon drainage dynamics. We then use the analytical solution in non-dimensional form to provide a baseline for the effects of polygon aspect ratios (radius to thaw depth) and coefficient of hydraulic conductivity anisotropy (horizontal to vertical hydraulic conductivity) on drainage pathways and temporal depletion of ponded water from inundated ice-wedge polygon centers. By varying the polygon aspect ratio, we evaluate the relative effect of polygon size (width), inter-annual increases in active-layer thickness, and seasonal increases in thaw depth on drainage. The results of our sensitivity analysis rigorously confirm a previous analysis indicating that most drainage through the active layer occurs along an annular region of the polygon center near the rims. This has important implications for transport of nutrients (such as dissolved organic carbon) and advection of heat towards ice-wedge tops. We also provide a comprehensive investigation of the effect of polygon aspect ratio and anisotropy on drainage timing and patterns, expanding on previously published research. Our results indicate that polygons with large aspect ratios and high anisotropy will have the most distributed drainage, while polygons with large aspect ratios and low anisotropy will have their drainage most focused near their periphery and will drain most slowly. Polygons with small aspect ratios and high anisotropy will drain most quickly. These results, based on parametric investigation of idealized scenarios, provide a baseline for further research considering the geometric and hydraulic complexities of ice-wedge polygons

Synergy between intention recognition and commitments in cooperation dilemmas

Commitments have been shown to promote cooperation if, on the one hand, they can be sufficiently enforced, and on the other hand, the cost of arranging them is justified with respect to the benefits of cooperation. When either of these constraints is not met it leads to the prevalence of commitment free-riders, such as those who commit only when someone else pays to arrange the commitments. Here, we show how intention recognition may circumvent such weakness of costly commitments. We describe an evolutionary model, in the context of the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma, showing that if players first predict the intentions of their co-player and propose a commitment only when they are not confident enough about their prediction, the chances of reaching mutual cooperation are largely enhanced. We find that an advantageous synergy between intention recognition and costly commitments depends strongly on the confidence and accuracy of intention recognition. In general, we observe an intermediate level of confidence threshold leading to the highest evolutionary advantage, showing that neither unconditional use of commitment nor intention recognition can perform optimally. Rather, our results show that arranging commitments is not always desirable, but that they may be also unavoidable depending on the strength of the dilemma.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Timing of Favorable Conditions, Competition and Fertility Interact to Govern Recruitment of Invasive Chinese Tallow Tree in Stressful Environments

The rate of new exotic recruitment following removal of adult invaders (reinvasion pressure) influences restoration outcomes and costs but is highly variable and poorly understood. We hypothesize that broad variation in average reinvasion pressure of Triadica sebifera (Chinese tallow tree, a major invader) arises from differences among habitats in spatiotemporal availability of realized recruitment windows. These windows are periods of variable duration long enough to permit establishment given local environmental conditions. We tested this hypothesis via a greenhouse mesocosm experiment that quantified how the duration of favorable moisture conditions prior to flood or drought stress (window duration), competition and nutrient availability influenced Triadica success in high stress environments. Window duration influenced pre-stress seedling abundance and size, growth during stress and final abundance; it interacted with other factors to affect final biomass and germination during stress. Stress type and competition impacted final size and biomass, plus germination, mortality and changes in size during stress. Final abundance also depended on competition and the interaction of window duration, stress type and competition. Fertilization interacted with competition and stress to influence biomass and changes in height, respectively, but did not affect Triadica abundance. Overall, longer window durations promoted Triadica establishment, competition and drought (relative to flood) suppressed establishment, and fertilization had weak effects. Interactions among factors frequently produced different effects in specific contexts. Results support our ‘outgrow the stress’ hypothesis and show that temporal availability of abiotic windows and factors that influence growth rates govern Triadica recruitment in stressful environments. These findings suggest that native seed addition can effectively suppress superior competitors in stressful environments. We also describe environmental scenarios where specific management methods may be more or less effective. Our results enable better niche-based estimates of local reinvasion pressure, which can improve restoration efficacy and efficiency by informing site selection and optimal Management

False Beliefs About Asylum Seekers to Australia: The Role of Confidence in Such Beliefs, Prejudice, and the Third Person Effect

There has been much controversy about the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia in recent years, with the Australian Government continuing to enforce a very hard-line stance on asylum seekers who arrive to Australia by boat. The present study examined attitudes towards asylum seekers using 164 Australian community members during June 2015 by way of questionnaire. Our primary research question involved how five variables predicted false beliefs about asylum seekers. Specifically, we measured prejudice, the third-person effect, and confidence in the answers given to false beliefs about asylum seekers. Regression results indicated that the main predictors of false beliefs were right-wing political orientation, prejudice, confidence in espousing false beliefs, and the third-person effect (politicians). Furthermore, most of our community participants accepted a large number of false beliefs as being true, with approximately two-thirds of our participants scoring above the midpoint. This reflects similar findings over the last decade or so. Our results indicate that, if one believes in bottom-up change, a more nuanced approach needs to be undertaken with community anti-prejudice interventions

Holistic Processing of Words Modulated by Reading Experience

Perceptual expertise has been studied intensively with faces and object categories involving detailed individuation. A common finding is that experience in fulfilling the task demand of fine, subordinate-level discrimination between highly similar instances is associated with the development of holistic processing. This study examines whether holistic processing is also engaged by expert word recognition, which is thought to involve coarser, basic-level processing that is more part-based. We adopted a paradigm widely used for faces – the composite task, and found clear evidence of holistic processing for English words. A second experiment further showed that holistic processing for words was sensitive to the amount of experience with the language concerned (native vs. second-language readers) and with the specific stimuli (words vs. pseudowords). The adoption of a paradigm from the face perception literature to the study of expert word perception is important for further comparison between perceptual expertise with words and face-like expertise

The Naked Truth: The Face and Body Sensitive N170 Response Is Enhanced for Nude Bodies

Recent event-related potential studies have shown that the occipitotemporal N170 component - best known for its sensitivity to faces - is also sensitive to perception of human bodies. Considering that in the timescale of evolution clothing is a relatively new invention that hides the bodily features relevant for sexual selection and arousal, we investigated whether the early N170 brain response would be enhanced to nude over clothed bodies. In two experiments, we measured N170 responses to nude bodies, bodies wearing swimsuits, clothed bodies, faces, and control stimuli (cars). We found that the N170 amplitude was larger to opposite and same-sex nude vs. clothed bodies. Moreover, the N170 amplitude increased linearly as the amount of clothing decreased from full clothing via swimsuits to nude bodies. Strikingly, the N170 response to nude bodies was even greater than that to faces, and the N170 amplitude to bodies was independent of whether the face of the bodies was visible or not. All human stimuli evoked greater N170 responses than did the control stimulus. Autonomic measurements and self-evaluations showed that nude bodies were affectively more arousing compared to the other stimulus categories. We conclude that the early visual processing of human bodies is sensitive to the visibility of the sex-related features of human bodies and that the visual processing of other people's nude bodies is enhanced in the brain. This enhancement is likely to reflect affective arousal elicited by nude bodies. Such facilitated visual processing of other people's nude bodies is possibly beneficial in identifying potential mating partners and competitors, and for triggering sexual behavior