Examining and measuring sources of stress in a sample of caregivers of children with special needs in Egypt: The Perception of Caregivers Stress Scale

This study aims to examine stress among caregivers of multiple disabled children and to develop and psychometrically assess an instrument to measure the sources of psychological stress among caregivers. The author developed a 24-item scale to measure the sources of stress among caregivers with (6–18) years old intellectually and physically disabled children. Experts (n = 12) provided a content validity of the instrument before it was administered to (n = 209) both male and female caregivers who are directly involved in the daily care of their disabled children. The experts' agreement about the relevance of the instruments' items to measure caregivers' perceptions of sources of stress related to the care of their children was 89%. Internal consistency reliability for the instrument was .86 (Cronbach's alpha). Factor analysis resulted in four cohesive and theoretically meaningful factors, and there is evidence for convergent validity. The developed instrument is a reliable, valid and empirical measure to assess the severity of stress

On contemporary misdefinition of power and the importance of definitional fidelity

This paper's conceptual treatment documents a recent tendency in the literature to abandon the traditional definition of an important social construct: power. Naturally, such flexibility or looseness of conceptualization contains detrimental implications for operationalization and theory. When very different measures or manipulations are derived from incongruent conceptual definitions for a given nominal construct, it can produce uncertainty about the variable really being measured, from which a theoretical void follows. So, in this case, it is possible that many published studies and empirical findings ostensibly applying to social power, in fact, may not be. Thus, an entire literature stream appears to be misleading, even vitiated. Along with empirical grounding, remedial information is provided here to address the concern

L’apprendimento scolastico ai tempi della Rete: Un modello per la produzione sostenibile ed efficace di libri di testo digitali

Debate within the school of the future is currently focusing on the natureof e-books. The model examples here presented include both an exampleof a digital book (c-book) and a method for the designing of one. The modelitem is based on a collaborative construction of the learning resourcesand their shared use. It stems from the interaction between a learning communityconsisting of a number of networked schools on the one side, anda number of teachers who are actively experimenting new teaching methodson the other.The production and the fruition of c-books are seen only as a means towardsimprovement in the teaching practice, without effacing good tradition,in the view of fostering greater awareness in individual learners.Il libro digitale è attualmente al centro del dibattito sulla Scuol@ 2.0: vengonopresentati sia un modello di libro digitale (c-book) che un metodo perla creazione dello stesso; il modello si basa sulla costruzione collaborativadei materiali didattici e sulla fruizione sociale degli stessi.Chiave di volta è un ecosistema di produzione/fruizione di contenuti digitaliche nasce dalla interazione fra una comunità di apprendimento formatada una rete regionale di scuole e una comunità di pratica di docenti focalizzatasulla sperimentazione di nuovi metodi didattici.La creazione e l’utilizzo di c-book viene infatti vista solo come un mezzoper innescare processi di miglioramento delle pratiche didattiche che,assieme ai migliori metodi tradizionali, possano aiutare la personalecostruzione di significato del singolo studente

Construction and re-construction of identities: A study of learners' personal and L2 identity

The indispensable role of identity in language learning has recently attracted considerable attention among SLA scholars. Consequently, the current mixed-methods classroom-based study investigated whether the implementation of intercultural movie clips could contribute to improving the personal identity, and have a positive impact on L2 identity of participants in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context of Iran. To this end, two intact classes were assigned to the control and experimental group, each containing thirty students. This quasi-experimental study was implemented on the pre-test post-test equivalent-group design. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative analysis, using two questionnaires and a semi-structured interview, the results indicate that positive changes took place in the personal and second language identity of the participants. More specifically, they moved from a closed community of practice in which self was seen from one horizon to an intercultural community of practice in which others were seen besides self. The changing community provided by movie clips had an impact on the participants' views and trends. Thus access to new social, cultural, and linguistic resources resulted in the adoption of new identities. Indeed, teachers and educators should know that language can be considered as a site for the construction of self-identification or group affiliation since language is a key element in identity formation and identity is a sense of self or sense of belonging

A SIDA como fator de invalidez: um estudo doutrinário e jurisprudencial acerca da (im)possibilidade da aposentadoria por invalidez permanente do servidor público

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso, apresentado para obtenção do grau de Bacharel no curso de Direito da Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense, UNESC.Este trabalho tem o condão de caracterizar, de forma sucinta, o sistema previdenciário no tocante ao portador da Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida sob o viés de confrontar os critérios utilizados na concessão, ou não, do benefício da aposentadoria por invalidez permanente ao servidor público civil, abordando a evolução do entendimento jurisprudencial do sistema brasileiro, além de inserir brevemente o conceito desta doença e suas características. É alvo deste estudo a forma com que os magistrados têm visto a SIDA, abordando o reflexo social por esta causada, bem como os aspectos que são característicos da espera prolongada das decisões destes. Sob o viés do princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana auferimos a disparidade entre os entendimentos tidos pelos TRFs e pelo STJ, adotando como metodologia a dedução para análise destas decisões culminando que, o entendimento firmado no STJ é o de objetivar a concessão da aposentadoria aos portadores da SIDA, assintomáticos ou não, contrário ao método utilizado pelos TRFs

Rare earth elements in human and animal health: State of art and research priorities

"Background: A number of applications have been developed using rare earth elements (REE), implying several human exposures and raising unsolved questions as to REE-associated health effects. Methods: A MedLine survey was retrieved from early reports (1980s) up to June 2015, focused on human and animal exposures to REE. Literature from animal models was selected focusing on REE-associated health effects. Results: Some REE occupational exposures, in jobs such as glass polishers, photoengravers and movie projectionists showed a few case reports on health effects affecting the respiratory system. No case-control or cohort studies of occupational REE exposures were retrieved. Environmental exposures have been biomonitored in populations residing in REE mining areas, showing REE accumulation. The case for a iatrogenic REE exposure was raised by the use of gadolinium-based contrast agents for nuclear magnetic resonance. Animal toxicity studies have shown REE toxicity, affecting a number of endpoints in liver, lungs and blood. On the other hand, the use of REE as feed additives in livestock is referred as a safe and promising device in zootechnical activities, possibly suggesting a hormetic effect both known for REE and for other xenobiotics. Thus, investigations on long-term exposures and observations are warranted. Conclusion: The state of art provides a limited definition of the health effects in occupationally or environmentally REE-exposed human populations. Research priorities should be addressed to case-control or cohort studies of REE-exposed humans and to life-long animal experiments. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Focusing narrowly or broadly attention when judging categorical and coordinate spatial relations: A MEG study

We measured activity in the dorsal system of the human cortex with magnetoencephalography (MEG) during a matching-to-sample plus cueing paradigm, where participants judged the occurrence of changes in either categorical or coordinate spatial relations (e.g., exchanges of left versus right positions or changes in the relative distances) between images of pairs of animals. The attention window was primed in each trial to be either small or large by using cues that immediately preceded the matching image. In this manner, we could assess the modulatory effects of the scope of attention on the activity of the dorsal system of the human cortex during spatial relations processing. The MEG measurements revealed that large spatial cues yielded greater activations and longer peak latencies in the right inferior parietal lobe for coordinate trials, whereas small cues yielded greater activations and longer peak latencies in the left inferior parietal lobe for categorical trials. The activity in the superior parietal lobe, middle frontal gyrus, and visual cortex, was also modulated by the size of the spatial cues and by the type of spatial relation change. The present results support the theory that the lateralization of each kind of spatial processing hinges on differences in the sizes of regions of space attended to by the two hemispheres. In addition, the present findings are inconsistent with the idea of a right-hemispheric dominance for all kinds of challenging spatial tasks, since response times and accuracy rates showed that the categorical spatial relation task was more difficult than the coordinate task and the cortical activations were overall greater in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere

Bias in food intake reporting in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes: the role of body size, age and gender

An assessment of total daily energy intake is helpful in planning the overall treatment of children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). However, energy intake misreporting may hinder nutritional intervention.Aims: To assess the plausibility of energy intake reporting and the potential role of gender, body mass index (BMI) z-score (z-BMI), disease duration and insulin requirement in energy intake misreporting in a sample of children and adolescents with T1D.Methods: The study included 58 children and adolescents aged 8–16 yr with T1D. Anthropometry, blood pressure and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured. Subjects were instructed to wear a SenseWear Pro Armband (SWA) for 3 consecutive days, including a weekend day and to fill out with their parents a weighed dietary record for the same days. Predicted energy expenditure (pEE) was calculated by age and gender specific equations, including gender, age, weight, height and physical activity level (assessed by SWA). The percent reported energy intake (rEI)/pEE ratio was used as an estimate of the plausibility of dietary reporting.Results: Misreporting of food intake, especially under-reporting, was common in children and adolescents with T1D: more than one-third of participants were classified as under- reporters and 10% as over-reporters. Age, z-BMI and male gender were associated with the risk of under-reporting (model R2 = 0.5). Waist circumference was negatively associated with the risk of over-reporting (model R2 = 0.25).Conclusions: Children and adolescents with T1D frequently under-report their food intake. Age, gender and z-BMI contribute to identify potential under-reporters

Transient-fault-aware design and training to enhance DNNs reliability with zero-overhead

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) enable a wide series of technological advancements, ranging from clinical imaging, to predictive industrial maintenance and autonomous driving. However, recent findings indicate that transient hardware faults may corrupt the models prediction dramatically. For instance, the radiation-induced misprediction probability can be so high to impede a safe deployment of DNNs models at scale, urging the need for efficient and effective hardening solutions. In this work, we propose to tackle the reliability issue both at training and model design time. First, we show that vanilla models are highly affected by transient faults, that can induce a performances drop up to 37%. Hence, we provide three zero-overhead solutions, based on DNN re-design and re-train, that can improve DNNs reliability to transient faults up to one order of magnitude. We complement our work with extensive ablation studies to quantify the gain in performances of each hardening component