Developing an effective social emotional learning program for countering school bullying: An evaluative exploratory study

The meaning of school bullying which incorporates a number of key components: bodily, mental assault, use of harsh and rude language, or terrorizing in attempt to bring about a feeling of fright, anxiety, submission or damage to the bullied. Bullying has serious repercussions to the extent that it might lead a victim to ending their lives (Farrington & Ttofi, 2009). Kazarian and Ammar (2013) linked bullying with the spread of negative health conditions such as insomnia, anorexia, and obesity as well as social behaviors such as the use of drugs and alcohol, aggression, and the use of weapons. Sixty percent of identified bullies have a criminal conviction (Newman, 2007: p. 568). The aim of this evaluative exploratory research is to showcase the effect of a program delivered to school students of ages 12-14 that is designed to help in eradicating school bullying by using Social and Emotional Learning techniques (SEL). SEL develops the students\u27 self- awareness, social awareness, self-management and organization, responsible problem solving, and relationship management. School-based SEL programs developed to prevent school violence, including bullying, are derived from the belief that academic skills are essentially linked to youth\u27s ability to manage and regulate emotions, and to communicate and problem-solve challenges and interpersonal conflicts. Hence based on a fieldwork conducting one to one interviews with fifteen students and five teachers, the SEL program was implemented in a private school in Egypt and its effectiveness was measured by the 62 respondents through open-ended surveys. The findings of the study explain students\u27 perceptions of bullying and the extent to which it is practiced in their school as well as its causing factors. In addition, the study reveals, the perceived effect of the program on participating students and its contribution towards creating a bullying- free school

Delivery Time Reduction for Order-Constrained Applications using Binary Network Codes

Consider a radio access network wherein a base-station is required to deliver a set of order-constrained messages to a set of users over independent erasure channels. This paper studies the delivery time reduction problem using instantly decodable network coding (IDNC). Motivated by time-critical and order-constrained applications, the delivery time is defined, at each transmission, as the number of undelivered messages. The delivery time minimization problem being computationally intractable, most of the existing literature on IDNC propose sub-optimal online solutions. This paper suggests a novel method for solving the problem by introducing the delivery delay as a measure of distance to optimality. An expression characterizing the delivery time using the delivery delay is derived, allowing the approximation of the delivery time minimization problem by an optimization problem involving the delivery delay. The problem is, then, formulated as a maximum weight clique selection problem over the IDNC graph wherein the weight of each vertex reflects its corresponding user and message's delay. Simulation results suggest that the proposed solution achieves lower delivery and completion times as compared to the best-known heuristics for delivery time reduction

Comparative evaluation of dexmedetomidine versus magnesium sulphate on the adequacy of hypotensive anesthesia and post-operative recovery for patients undergoing endoscopic transnasal transsphenoidal pituitary tumor resection

Background: Perioperative use of magnesium sulfate (MgSO4), dexmedetomidine, have been tried in order to provide beneficial clinical effects during general anesthesia (GA). However, few literature discussed it with varying results. Several clinical researches have showed that usage of MgSO4 infusion was associated with a reduction in anesthetic requirement and postsurgical analgesic consumption during GA.Objective: This study aimed to assess the pharmacologic effects of the use of dexmedetomidine and MgSO4 on anesthetic requirement, intra operative haemodynamics stability and postsurgical analgesic effects on the adequacy of hypotensive anesthesia during transsphenoidal resection of pituitary tumours.Patients and methods: A total of 110 cases were enrolled in this prospective study. They were randomized into 2 groups: Group D (55 cases) that was commenced on dexmedetomidine, and group M (55 cases) which received MgSO4Results: The mean values of Boezaart score were significantly decreased in Group D in comparison to group M. In addition, isoflurane and propranolol consumption showed a significant decrease in group D. However, blood loss showed no significant difference when comparing the same groups. Group D expressed significantly longer emergence and extubation times compared to Group M.Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine appears to be superior compared to magnesium sulphate in achieving hypotensive anesthesia during pituitary surgery

The behavior of conjugate gradient algorithms on a multivector processor with a hierarchical memory

AbstractIn this paper, an analysis of some of the tradeoffs involved in the design and efficient implementation of conjugate gradient-based algorithms for a multivector processor with a two-level memory hierarchy is presented and supplemented by experimental results obtained on an Alliant FX/8. The algorithms considered consist of the classical conjugate gradient method, preconditioning techniques that are well suited for parallel computers such as polynomial preconditioners and several versions of the incomplete Cholesky preconditioners as well as the reduced system approach. For linear systems arising from the 5-point finite difference discretization of 2-d self-adjoint elliptic P.D.E.'s, the analysis shows that conjugate gradient methods do not perform as well as algorithms for dense matrix computations on the considered architecture due to lack of data locality. By using the reduced system approach, however, a significant decrease in time could be obtained

On Minimizing the Maximum Broadcast Decoding Delay for Instantly Decodable Network Coding

In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing the maximum broadcast decoding delay experienced by all the receivers of generalized instantly decodable network coding (IDNC). Unlike the sum decoding delay, the maximum decoding delay as a definition of delay for IDNC allows a more equitable distribution of the delays between the different receivers and thus a better Quality of Service (QoS). In order to solve this problem, we first derive the expressions for the probability distributions of maximum decoding delay increments. Given these expressions, we formulate the problem as a maximum weight clique problem in the IDNC graph. Although this problem is known to be NP-hard, we design a greedy algorithm to perform effective packet selection. Through extensive simulations, we compare the sum decoding delay and the max decoding delay experienced when applying the policies to minimize the sum decoding delay [1] and our policy to reduce the max decoding delay. Simulations results show that our policy gives a good agreement among all the delay aspects in all situations and outperforms the sum decoding delay policy to effectively minimize the sum decoding delay when the channel conditions become harsher. They also show that our definition of delay significantly improve the number of served receivers when they are subject to strict delay constraints

Rate Aware Instantly Decodable Network Codes

This paper addresses the problem of reducing the delivery time of data messages to cellular users using instantly decodable network coding (IDNC) with physical-layer rate awareness. While most of the existing literature on IDNC does not consider any physical layer complications and abstract the model as equally slotted time for all users, this paper proposes a cross-layer scheme that incorporates the different channel rates of the various users in the decision process of both the transmitted message combinations and the rates with which they are transmitted. The consideration of asymmetric rates for receivers reflects more practical application scenarios and introduces a new trade-off between the choice of coding combinations for various receivers and the broadcasting rate for achieving shorter completion time. The completion time minimization problem in such scenario is first shown to be intractable. The problem is, thus, approximated by reducing, at each transmission, the increase of an anticipated version of the completion time. The paper solves the problem by formulating it as a maximum weight clique problem over a newly designed rate aware IDNC (RA-IDNC) graph. The highest weight clique in the created graph being potentially not unique, the paper further suggests a multi-layer version of the proposed solution to improve the obtained results from the employed completion time approximation. Simulation results indicate that the cross-layer design largely outperforms the uncoded transmissions strategies and the classical IDNC scheme