Parents Supporting Their Adolescents’ Independent Remedial Math Practice: The Effects of a Multi-Component Intervention Package on Math Academic Performance

This dissertation examined the effects of high school students’ independent, remedial, home-based math practice while receiving parent support on math computation fluency. The multi-component intervention package encompassed both home-based remedial practice and parent support. Teacher interviews, normative assessments, and a performance-deficit analysis were conducted to identify high-school students who displayed math academic skill deficits. Next, identification and analysis of individual skills (e.g., multiplication, division) to be targeted for intervention occurred for each participant included in the study. A multiple-baseline across participants design was used to examine teaching high school students to choose effective instructional components for math computation and subsequently given support to implement the intervention(s) of their choice on math computation fluency. Conditions were implemented with a high degree of integrity, and results demonstrated that, though there were some performance increases, there were no observable increases in math academic performance and experimental control was not established. Results were discussed in terms of the importance of identifying appropriate instructional antecedents and consequences for establishing stimulus control, providing adolescents with instruction on intervention use, allowing students to choose intervention components, establishing an appropriate balance between parental involvement and support and adolescent autonomy, and determining acceptability of all participants involved. Discussion also focused on the limitations of the current study, including time constraints, treatment integrity, and measurement issues, as well as directions for future research, such as examining intervention components separately, technology use, and exploring treatment strength and intensity in relation to acceptability. Advisor: Edward J. Daly II

Landscape and well-being : a scoping study on the health-promoting impact of outdoor environments

OBJECTIVES The present literature review conceptualises landscape as a health resource that promotes physical, mental, and social well-being. Different health-promoting landscape characteristics are discussed. METHODS This article is based on a scoping study which represents a special kind of qualitative literature review. Over 120 studies have been reviewed in a five-step-procedure, resulting in a heuristic device. RESULTS A set of meaningful pathways that link landscape and health have been identified. Landscapes have the potential to promote mental well-being through attention restoration, stress reduction, and the evocation of positive emotions; physical well-being through the promotion of physical activity in daily life as well as leisure time and through walkable environments; and social well-being through social integration, social engagement and participation, and through social support and security. CONCLUSION This scoping study allows us to systematically describe the potential of landscape as a resource for physical, mental and social well-being. A heuristic framework is presented that can be applied in future studies, facilitating systematic and focused research approaches and informing practical public health interventions

Landscape and well-being: a scoping study on the health-promoting impact of outdoor environments

Objectives: The present literature review conceptualises landscape as a health resource that promotes physical, mental, and social well-being. Different health-promoting landscape characteristics are discussed. Methods: This article is based on a scoping study which represents a special kind of qualitative literature review. Over 120 studies have been reviewed in a five-step-procedure, resulting in a heuristic device. Results: A set of meaningful pathways that link landscape and health have been identified. Landscapes have the potential to promote mental well-being through attention restoration, stress reduction, and the evocation of positive emotions; physical well-being through the promotion of physical activity in daily life as well as leisure time and through walkable environments; and social well-being through social integration, social engagement and participation, and through social support and security. Conclusion: This scoping study allows us to systematically describe the potential of landscape as a resource for physical, mental and social well-being. A heuristic framework is presented that can be applied in future studies, facilitating systematic and focused research approaches and informing practical public health intervention

Using IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee in audio applications

Most of the current uses for ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 focus on control applications. However, there are other areas that will benefit from the standardisation, low cost and possibly low power of ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4. This paper focuses on the use of ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 for audio applications. We will discuss the advantages and theoretical limits of ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 for this kind of applications. We will then present a design that we used as starting point to develop applications related to the transfer of audio data

Observation of non-exponential magnetic penetration profiles in the Meissner state - A manifestation of non-local effects in superconductors

Implanting fully polarized low energy muons on the nanometer scale beneath the surface of a superconductor in the Meissner state enabled us to probe the evanescent magnetic field profile B(z)(0<z<=200nm measured from the surface). All the investigated samples [Nb: kappa \simeq 0.7(2), Pb: kappa \simeq 0.6(1), Ta: kappa \simeq 0.5(2)] show clear deviations from the simple exponential B(z) expected in the London limit, thus revealing the non-local response of these superconductors. From a quantitative analysis within the Pippard and BCS models the London penetration depth lambda_L is extracted. In the case of Pb also the clean limit coherence length xi0 is obtained. Furthermore we find that the temperature dependence of the magnetic penetration depth follows closely the two-fluid expectation 1/lambda^2 \propto 1-(T/T_c)^4. While B(z) for Nb and Pb are rather well described within the Pippard and BCS models, for Ta this is only true to a lesser degree. We attribute this discrepancy to the fact that the superfluid density is decreased by approaching the surface on a length scale xi0. This effect, which is not taken self-consistently into account in the mentioned models, should be more pronounced in the lowest kappa regime consistently with our findings.Comment: accepted in PRB 14 pages, 17 figure

Reading with a Simulated 60-Channel Implant

First generation retinal prostheses containing 50–60 electrodes are currently in clinical trials. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the theoretical upper limit (best possible) reading performance attainable with a state-of-the-art 60-channel retinal implant and to find the optimum viewing conditions for the task. Four normal volunteers performed full-page text reading tasks with a low-resolution, 60-pixel viewing window that was stabilized in the central visual field. Two parameters were systematically varied: (1) spatial resolution (image magnification) and (2) the orientation of the rectangular viewing window. Performance was measured in terms of reading accuracy (% of correctly read words) and reading rates (words/min). Maximum reading performances were reached at spatial resolutions between 3.6 and 6 pixels/char. Performance declined outside this range for all subjects. In optimum viewing conditions (4.5 pixels/char), subjects achieved almost perfect reading accuracy and mean reading rates of 26 words/min for the vertical viewing window and of 34 words/min for the horizontal viewing window. These results suggest that, theoretically, some reading abilities can be restored with actual state-of-the-art retinal implant prototypes if “image magnification” is within an “optimum range.” Future retinal implants providing higher pixel resolutions, thus allowing for a wider visual span might allow faster reading rates

Significados associados a tarefa de cuidar de idosos de alta dependencia no contexto familiar

Orientador: Anita Liberalesso NeriDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de EducaçãoMestrad

An unusual reason for an inguinal swelling: De Garengeot's hernia

We present the case of a 71-year-old female with an inguinal swelling. Intra-abdominally the appendix was found in a femoral hernia sac (De Garengeot’s hernia). A laparoscopic transabdominal preperitoneal hernia repair procedure was performed with uneventful post-operative course. Clinical presentation of this type of hernia is unspecific and often not to be distinguished from a common incarcerated hernia. Computed tomography can be helpful in obtaining a diagnosis, although the definite diagnosis is mostly found intraoperatively. As surgical options are numerous, there is no consensus on the most suitable one. A laparoscopic approach incorporates the benefit of a total abdominal overview and the possibility of standard procedures. If the appendix appears normal, the use of synthetic mesh is considered safe and an incidental appendectomy is not necessarily required

Resonant anomaly detection without background sculpting

We introduce a new technique named Latent CATHODE (LaCATHODE) for performing "enhanced bump hunts", a type of resonant anomaly search that combines conventional one-dimensional bump hunts with a model-agnostic anomaly score in an auxiliary feature space where potential signals could also be localized. The main advantage of LaCATHODE over existing methods is that it provides an anomaly score that is well behaved when evaluating it beyond the signal region, which is essential to prevent the sculpting of background distributions in the bump hunt. LaCATHODE accomplishes this by constructing the anomaly score directly in the latent space learned by a conditional normalizing flow trained on sideband regions. We demonstrate the superior stability and comparable performance of LaCATHODE for enhanced bump hunting in an illustrative toy example as well as on the LHC Olympics R&D dataset.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; v2 (published version): referencing code and minor style update