Public Speaking Catch Phrase: Reinforcing good public speaking skills through an interactive in-class gaming experience

Public Speaking Catch Phrase is an interactive in-classroom game derived out of the word guessing party game, Catch Phrase. Public Speaking Catch Phrase intends to make students aware of their communication habits and to develop and reinforce good public speaking skills. Speakers, or “clue-givers,” from two teams will alternate turns and deliver clues to get their team to say the words displayed on the electronic game device. However, students must follow “rules” promoting good public speaking practices in order to receive points. This includes maximizing metaphors and punctuation with gestures, and minimizing non-words (e.g., “um,” “uh,” “er”) and fluency disruptions (e.g., stammering, slurred articulation). This activity challenges students to focus, think quickly, and build a speaker-audience relationship in an interactive, fun, and energetic way

Bleaching of High Yield Mutual Sulphite Semichemical Pulp

The objective of this research project was to investigate the effect of various bleaching agents and procedures on brightness, degree of yellowness and retention of the original high yield of the unbleached neutral sulphite semichemical pulp. In order to avoid excessive losses in bleaching of the high yield pulp, it was decided to limit the selection of bleaching chemicals to hypochlorites, peroxides and hydrosulphites. Furthermore, caustic extraction was to be employed only under relatively mild conditions as to temperature and concentration. Based on the experimental conditions and results described in this report and on the use of an unbleached pulp with relatively low brightness of 32 percent, the following conclusions were drawn: Bleaching of neutral sulphite semichemical pulp by means of one stage calcium hypochlorite treatment brought about only limited brightness development with concurrent relatively high yellowness. Two stage bleaching with calcium hypochlorite was found to be more effective than one stage bleaching for a given amount of chemical. Best results were obtained when about 25 percent of the total hypochlorite were used in the first stage and the remaining 75 percent in the second stage. Caustic extraction between two stages of hypochlorite bleaching improved brightness and reduced the yellow cast of the bleached pulp. With this procedure, best results were obtained by using 50 to 75 percent of the total hypochlorite in the first stage. Pulp bleached with hypochlorite followed by acidification and hydrogen peroxide treatment produced encouraging results as to brightness and decrease yellow cast. Zinc hydrosulphite, although it did not improve brightness was effective in reducing the yellow cast of the bleached pulp. All experiments caused only modest shrinkage of the pulp used

Modes of entry of petroleum distilled spray-oils into insects: a review

Petroleum oils are some of the oldest and safest pesticides in use. In spite of the numerous improvements achieved in oil technology, the mode of entry and the insecticide action mechanism of these products have been the subject of considerable debate and conjecture over many years. The literature reviewed suggests that insecticide oils can penetrate the insect body through the integument as well as through the tracheal system. Suffocation by spiracle blockage was held as the most accepted theory on its mode of action. However, an in depth analysis of the interaction between oils and insects body surface from a physical perspective suggests that suffocation occurs only when insects are over-sprayed or dipped in oil. Based on this analysis, it is more likely that when petroleum oils contact the insect surface, capillary forces and complex physical interactions take place in the cuticular layer, which lead to differences in the melting point and permeability of cuticle waxes. This in turn, alters the waterproofing properties of the cuticle and also leads to penetration of spray oils that can be carried to different lipophilic tissues. The changes in the cuticle caused by oils, which range from changes in melting point of the cuticular wax layer to cuticle dewaxing, strongly suggest cuticular penetration as the foremost mode of entry of insecticide oils.Fil: Stadler, Teodoro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental de Cuyo; ArgentinaFil: Buteler, Micaela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental de Cuyo; Argentin

Neuroimaging in Functional Movement Disorders.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Functional movement disorders are common and disabling causes of abnormal movement control. Here, we review the current state of the evidence on the use of neuroimaging in Functional movement disorders, particularly its role in helping to unravel the pathophysiology of this enigmatic condition. RECENT FINDINGS: In recent years, there has been a shift in thinking about functional movement disorder, away from a focus on high-level psychological precipitants as in Freudian conversion theories, or even an implicit belief they are 'put-on' for secondary gain. New research has emphasised novel neurobiological models incorporating emotional processing, self-representation and agency. Neuroimaging has provided new insights into functional movement disorders, supporting emerging neurobiological theories implicating dysfunctional emotional processing, self-image and sense of agency. Recent studies have also found subtle structural brain changes in patients with functional disorders, arguing against a strict functional/structural dichotomy

Large Scale Structure and Cosmic Rays revisited

We investigate the possibility that ultra high energy cosmic rays (E > 10^19 eV) are related to the distribution of matter on large scales. The large scale structure (LSS) data stems from the recent IRAS PSCz redshift survey. We present preliminary predictions drawn from an anisotropic distribution of sources which follows the galaxy distribution.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, uses World Scientific style. To appear in the proceedings of "Third International Workshop on New Worlds in Astro-Particle Physics", 1-3 Set. 2000, Faro, Portugal and X ENAA, 27-28 Jul. 2000, Lisbon, Portuga

Bounded Error Identification of Systems With Time-Varying Parameters

This note presents a new approach to guaranteed system identification for time-varying parameterized discrete-time systems. A bounded description of noise in the measurement is considered. The main result is an algorithm to compute a set that contains the parameters consistent with the measured output and the given bound of the noise. This set is represented by a zonotope, that is, an affine map of a unitary hypercube. A recursive procedure minimizes the size of the zonotope with each noise corrupted measurement. The zonotopes take into account the time-varying nature of the parameters in a nonconservative way. An example has been provided to clarify the algorithm