Examining cognitive, motivational and environmental factors that relate to reading performance for children with English as a first or additional language

Mixed findings exist in the literature regarding the reading skills of children with English as an Additional Language (EAL). Moreover, little research has considered how related literacy skills, motivation, and environmental factors may differ between EAL children and English monolinguals, and how these factors may contribute to reading outcomes. The present study compared 36 children with EAL and 31 monolingual English children (mean age 9 years) on measures of reading, phonology, vocabulary, motivation and environmental factors. No group differences were found in word reading and reading fluency, phonological awareness, expressive vocabulary, reading motivation, time spent reading with a parent and independently, and parental attitudes to reading. However, maternal education was lower in the EAL group and these children had more children’s books at home than their monolingual peers. The findings confirm the importance of phonological awareness and expressive vocabulary for reading performance in both groups, as well as suggesting that maternal education may indirectly relate to EAL children’s reading abilities through maternal attitudes towards reading. In contrast, in the case of monolingual children, maternal education related to number of books in the home. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed

On Some Further Classes of Isomers Which Exhibit Topological Effect on Molecular Orbitals

Some further classes of isomers exibiting the Topological Effect on Molecular Orbitals (TEMO) are considered. They include two classes of hetero-substituted polyenes and three classes of substituted annulenes. The sixth class contains bridged annulenes where TEMO is exhibited only for the related matching spectra

Fireworks-related Injuries during New Year celebrations in Kosovo: A comparison of the years 2008 and 2009

Background: Fireworks related injuries in children occur in Kosovo particularly during New Year celebrations.Aim: To report the pattern of fireworks- related injuries in childrenup to 16 years of age treated at the Emergency Center and Plastic Surgery,University Clinical Centre of Kosovo during the 2008 and 2009 New Year celebrations.Methods: Retrospective review of hospital recordsResults: During the New Year celebrations in 2008, a total of 65 caseswere admitted, 32 (49.2%) of who were children injured by fireworks. The ages of the children ranged from 5 to 16 years with a mean of 10.5years. The modal age affected was the 10 – 14 year-old group (53.6%). Boys constituted 93.8% of patients and girls 6.3%. During the 2009 New Year celebration, 17 cases were admitted with fireworks injuries, 12 (70.58%) of who were children ranging in age from 8 to 15 years (mean 11.5 years) with a modal age group of 10 – 14 years (66.7%). Boys accounted for 88.3% and girls for 16.7% of patients.Conclusions: The frequency of fireworks injuries reduced appreciablyafter introduction of laws restricting sales of fireworks devices and banningtheir use by children.Recommendations: It is recommended that parents play a greaterrole in controlling the activities of their children during festivities. Thegovernment and police should also ensure compliance with the law onthe use of fireworks during the holidays.Key words: fireworks injury, epidemiology, wounds, prevention

Experimental comparison of cracks width and cracks spacing results for beams of self-compacting concrete (SCC) and conventional concrete for period t = 400 days

Concrete is a material which has found a wide usage in engineering especially in construction engineering and road infrastructure facilities. Development trends for high rise constructions, modern skyscrapers indicate that building such constructions with normal concretes and low consistency is impossible, therefore there is a need for concrete with high processes because of great amount of reinforcement in cross-section of concrete elements. Solution for such construction is self-compacting concrete because of its ability to fill good formworks without compaction and vibration. Considering this fact, researches for cracks, mechanical characteristics of concrete and deformations have been conducted worldwide. In this line, we conducted an experimental research to determine the cracks on beams of selfcompacting concrete and compared it with conventional concrete. The experimentallyobtained results will be presented for both types of concrete for: module of elasticity, compression strength, crack with and cracks spacing for duration failure testing time t = 400 days

On the stability and spectrum of non-supersymmetric AdS(5) solutions of M-theory compactified on Kahler-Einstein spaces

Eleven-dimensional supergravity admits non-supersymmetric solutions of the form AdS(5)xM(6) where M(6) is a positive Kahler-Einstein space. We show that the necessary and sufficient condition for such solutions to be stable against linearized bosonic supergravity perturbations can be expressed as a condition on the spectrum of the Laplacian acting on (1,1)-forms on M(6). For M(6)=CP(3), this condition is satisfied, although there are scalars saturating the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. If M(6) is a product S(2)xM(4) (where M(4) is Kahler-Einstein) then there is an instability if M(4) has a continuous isometry. We show that a potential non-perturbative instability due to 5-brane nucleation does not occur. The bosonic Kaluza-Klein spectrum is determined in terms of eigenvalues of operators on M(6).Comment: 21 pages. v2: Includes SU(4) quantum numbers for CP3 case, typos fixed, refs adde