The Impact of Self-Regulated Strategy Development on Upper Elementary Students\u27 Opinion Writing Performance

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of SRSD opinion writing instruction provided by teachers who completed SRSD Writing to Learn™ online training on the writing performance of students with and without specific learning disabilities (SLD) in third, fourth, and fifth grade. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine teachers\u27 perceptions of SRSD Writing to Learn™ online training and the impact of the training on their knowledge of SRSD. A pretest-postest, cluster randomized control design was used to determine the effects of SRSD opinion writing instruction, following teachers\u27 completion of SRSD Writing to Learn™ training, on students\u27 writing achievement. Differential effects for students with SLD and student acceptability of instruction were also examined. Results indicated that students in experimental classes wrote longer essays that contained more elements of opinion essays compared to students in comparison classes. While students with SLD performed below their typically performing peers on measures of elements and length of writing samples, students with SLD in the comparison group wrote longer essays that contained more elements of opinion essays compared to students with SLD in comparison classrooms. Students provided generally positive responses regarding questions of acceptability. To address the secondary purpose of the study, teachers\u27 content knowledge of SRSD was measured, and teachers\u27 provided feedback regarding their perceptions of the online training. Results indicated that after completion of SRSD Writing to Learn™ training and implementation of SRSD instruction with moderate to high levels of fidelity, teachers were able to identify some stages of SRSD and the corresponding instructional components of each stage. Teachers generally reported positive perceptions of the online training. They found the training modules to be applicable and relevant, although they found the information to be somewhat overwhelming and difficult to navigate. A discussion of results addresses limitations of the study, implications for practice, and directions future research. While the results of the study demonstrate that teachers who have completed online training are able to implement SRSD and positively impact opinion writing performance for upper elementary students with and without SLD, specific consideration should be given to the differential effects for students with SLD. When providing SRSD instruction in the general education setting, all students\u27 needs should be considered. Struggling writers, and specifically those with SLD, will likely require more intensive instruction. Differentiating instruction within the general education setting and supplementing and intensifying instruction in intervention or special education settings may allow students with SLD to benefit even more from instruction within an SRSD framework

An Assessment of Recreational Use: The Wenaha Wild and Scenic River, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon

The purpose of this study was to provide data to the US Forest Service about summer recreational use of the Wenaha Wild and Scenic River in eastern Oregon, and to determine if use and use levels were appropriate according to relevant legislation and policies. The Umatilla National Forest is the administrative authority of the river and is required to complete a Comprehensive River Management Plan for this river. At the time of data collection this Draft Environmental Analysis (EA) was being developed. The Final EA was implemented July, 2015.;Recreation surveys were collected at trailheads and other developed and undeveloped recreation areas that access the river corridor during the summer of 2014. The survey instrument asked visitors questions pertaining to sociodemographic items, group size and composition, trip characteristics, satisfaction with facilities and services, motivations to visit, and perceptions of crowding and conflict. Visitors were also asked about activities they participated in and where they recreated in the study area. Vehicle counts at trailheads were conducted to provide additional data about visitor capacity for the river and Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness, which encompassed part of the study area. Observational data was recorded as supplementary if it was determined to be inconsistent with relevant management plans.;Quantitative data was analyzed in concert with relevant guiding documents and policies to determine if recreational use and use levels were appropriate for the study area, which included lands managed by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, state of Oregon, and private lands. The document review included analysis of federal legislation (Wilderness Act and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act), management plans (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and county plans) and policies (including Forest Service directives, public use (fire) restrictions, and Oregon Parks and Recreation Administrative Rules). The Appropriate Use Protocol developed by Haas and the Federal Interagency Task Force on Visitor Capacity on Public Lands (2002) was used to determine if use and use levels were appropriate.;Quantitative data supported the conclusion that recreational use and use levels were appropriate in this low-use, highly protected area. Supplementary qualitative data included a small number of observations pertaining to vehicle and campsite use that were inconsistent with standards or guidelines as defined by legislation, management plans, or policies that apply in the area

Visualising and quantifying 'excess deaths' in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK and the rest of Western Europe

BACKGROUND: Scotland has higher mortality rates than the rest of Western Europe (rWE), with more cardiovascular disease and cancer among older adults; and alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, suicide and violence among younger adults. METHODS: We obtained sex, age-specific and year-specific all-cause mortality rates for Scotland and other populations, and explored differences in mortality both visually and numerically. RESULTS: Scotland's age-specific mortality was higher than the rest of the UK (rUK) since 1950, and has increased. Between the 1950s and 2000s, 'excess deaths' by age 80 per 100 000 population associated with living in Scotland grew from 4341 to 7203 compared with rUK, and from 4132 to 8828 compared with rWE. UK-wide mortality risk compared with rWE also increased, from 240 'excess deaths' in the 1950s to 2320 in the 2000s. Cohorts born in the 1940s and 1950s throughout the UK including Scotland had lower mortality risk than comparable rWE populations, especially for males. Mortality rates were higher in Scotland than rUK and rWE among younger adults from the 1990s onwards suggesting an age-period interaction. CONCLUSIONS: Worsening mortality among young adults in the past 30 years reversed a relative advantage evident for those born between 1950 and 1960. Compared with rWE, Scotland and rUK have followed similar trends but Scotland has started from a worse position and had worse working age-period effects in the 1990s and 2000s

Neutrino transport in accretion disks

We test approximate approaches to solving a neutrino transport problem that presents itself in the analysis of some accretion-disk models. Approximation #1 consists of replacing the full, angular- dependent, distribution function by a two-stream simulation, where the streams are respectively outwardly and inwardly directed, with angles $\cos \theta=\pm 1/\sqrt{3}$ to the vertical. In this approximation the full energy dependence of the distribution function is retained, as are the energy and temperature dependences of the scattering rates. Approximation #2, used in recent works on the subject, replaces the distribution function by an intensity function and the scattering rates by temperature-energy-averaged quantities. We compare the approximations to the results of solving the full Boltzmann equation. Under some interesting conditions, approximation #1 passes the test; approximation #2 does not. We utilize the results of our analysis to construct a toy model of a disc at a temperature and density such that relativistic particles are more abundant than nucleons, and dominate both the opacity and pressure. The nucleons will still provide most of the energy density. In the toy model we take the rate of heat generation (which drives the radiative transfer problem) to be proportional to the nucleon density. The model allows the simultaneous solution of the neutrino transport and hydrostatic equilibrium problems in a disk in which the nucleon density decreases approximately linearly as one moves from the median plane of the disk upwards, reaching zero on the upper boundary.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures Parentheses added in eqs. 10-1

Capacitor performance limitations in high power converter applications

Background: Over the last 80 years the association between social class and obesity has changed. In the 1930s obesity rates were low and wealthy people tended to have a higher risk of obesity than poor people. However, rising affluence and industrialisation has lead to both rising rates of obesity and an obesogenic environment in which socioeconomically disadvantaged people have the highest risk of obesity. This study investigates the magnitude of these changes by modelling trajectories of adiposity by social class and cohort using the Twenty-07 study. Methods: The Twenty-07 study contains three cohorts of people (n = 4510), born in Glasgow in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s. Two measures of adiposity, BMI and Waist to Height Ratio (WHtR), were recorded at baseline in 1987/8 when study participants were aged 15, 35 or 55, and again on 4 further occasions over 20 years. Parental social class (manual/non-manual) was collected at baseline. For each gender, we apply multilevel models to identify trajectories of adiposity by cohort and social class. Results: The trajectories indicated that adiposity increased with age and rates of increase varied by cohort, social class and gender. For any given age the youngest cohort had the fastest rate of increase and the highest predicted adiposity. For example, at age 35 for non-manual men, BMI was 24.2 (95% CI 23.7, 24.8) for the 1950s cohort and 27.2 (26.8, 27.5) for the 1970s cohort. By the end of the study respondents in more recent cohorts had BMI values approximately equivalent to those of people aged 20 years older in an earlier cohort. Cohort variation was much greater than socioeconomic variation. The smallest cohort difference in BMI was 2.10 (0.94, 3.26), a comparison of the 1950 and 1930s cohorts for non-manual men at age 55. In contrast, the largest social class difference in BMI, a comparison of manual and non manual women at age 64, was only 1.18 (0.37, 1.98). Socioeconomic inequalities tended to be smaller for men than women, particularly for the 1930s cohort where there was no evidence of a socioeconomic gradient for men unlike for women. The main difference between WHtR and BMI was that increases in WHtR accelerated with age whilst increases in BMI slowed with age. Conclusion: Increases in adiposity for younger cohorts across all socioeconomic groups dwarf any socioeconomic inequalities in adiposity. This highlights the damaging impact for the whole population of living in an obesogenic environment

Defining health and health inequalities

Objectives: To examine existing definitions of health and health inequalities and to synthesise the most useful of these using explicit rationale and the most parsimonious text. Study design: Literature review and synthesis. Methods: Existing definitions of health and health inequalities were identified, and their normative properties were extracted and then critically appraised. Using explicit reasoning, new definitions, synthesising the most useful aspects of existing definitions, were created. Results: A definition of health as a structural, functional and emotional state that is compatible with effective life as an individual and as a member of society and a definition of health inequalities as the systematic, avoidable and unfair differences in health outcomes that can be observed between populations, between social groups within the same population or as a gradient across a population ranked by social position are proposed. Population health is a less commonly used term but can usefully be defined to encompass the average, distribution and inequalities in health within a society. Conclusions: Clarifying what is meant by the terms health and health inequalities, and the assumptions, emphasis and values that different definitions contain, is important for public health research, practice and policy

Magnetic Stress at the Marginally Stable Orbit: Altered Disk Structure, Radiation, and Black Hole Spin Evolution

Magnetic connections to the plunging region can exert stresses on the inner edge of an accretion disk around a black hole. We recompute the relativistic corrections to the thin-disk dynamics equations when these stresses take the form of a time-steady torque on the inner edge of the disk. The additional dissipation associated with these stresses is concentrated relatively close outside the marginally stable orbit, scaling as r to the -7/2 at large radius. As a result of these additional stresses: spin-up of the central black hole is retarded; the maximum spin-equilibrium accretion efficiency is 36%, and occurs at a/M=0.94; the disk spectrum is extended toward higher frequencies; line profiles (such as Fe K-alpha) are broadened if the line emissivity scales with local flux; limb-brightening, especially at the higher frequencies, is enhanced; and the returning radiation fraction is substantially increased, up to 58%. This last effect creates possible explanations for both synchronized continuum fluctuations in AGN, and polarization rises shortward of the Lyman edge in quasars. We show that no matter what additional stresses occur, when a/M < 0.36, the second law of black hole dynamics sets an absolute upper bound on the accretion efficiency.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa