123,863 research outputs found
The role of trait emotional intelligence and social and emotional skills in students’ emotional and behavioural strengths and difficulties : a study of Greek adolescents’ perceptions
The emergence of the Trait Emotional Intelligence construct shifted the interest in
personality research to the investigation of the effect of global personality characteristics
on behaviour. A second body of research in applied settings, the Social and Emotional
Learning movement, emphasized the cultivation of emotional and social skills for
positive relationships in a school environment. In this paper we investigate the role of
both personality traits and social and emotional skills, in the occurrence of emotional and
behavioural strengths and difficulties, according to adolescent students’ self-perceptions.
Five hundred and fifty-nine students from state secondary schools in Greece, aged 12-14
years old, completed The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Adolescent Short
Form, The Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters, and The Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire. It was found that students with higher Trait Emotional
Intelligence and stronger social and emotional skills were less likely to present
emotional, conduct, hyperactivity and peer difficulties and more likely to present
prosocial behaviour. Gender was a significant factor for emotional difficulties and grade
for peer difficulties. The paper describes the underlying mechanisms of students’
emotional and behavioural strengths and difficulties, and provides practical implications
for educators to improve the quality of students’ lives in schools.peer-reviewe
iPod tours: a new approach to induction
This article is based on a presentation given at a conference organized by cpd 25 in April 2007; “The Library in the Interactive Environment: Practical use of technology to improve the student experience”. It describes the development and creation of an iPod induction tour for the Main Library at Sheffield University, with input from students. It also discusses the use and evaluation of the tour, and concludes by describing how the Library is using the experience to consider other technologies to introduce our students to library services
Safety issues in PV systems: design choices for a secure fault detection and for preventing fire risk
Photovoltaic systems have played a key role over the last decade in the evolution of the electricity sector. In terms of safety design, it's important to consider that a PV plant constitutes a special system of generation, where the Direct Current (DC) presence results in changes to the technical rules. Moreover, if certain electrical faults occur, the plant is a possible source of fire. Choices regarding the grounding of the generator and its protection devices are fundamental for a design that evaluates fire risk. The subject of the article is the analysis of the relation between electrical phenomena in PV systems and the fire risk related to ensuring appropriate fault detection by the electrical protection system. A description of a grid-connected PV system is followed firstly by a comparison of the design solutions provided by international Standards, and secondly by an analysis of electrical phenomena which may trigger a fire. A study of two existing PV systems, where electrical faults have resulted in fires, is then presented. The study highlights the importance of checking all possible failure modes in a PV system design phase, to assess fire risk in advance. Some guidelines for the mitigation of electrical faults that may result in a fire are finally provided
Treewidth, crushing, and hyperbolic volume
We prove that there exists a universal constant such that any closed
hyperbolic 3-manifold admits a triangulation of treewidth at most times its
volume. The converse is not true: we show there exists a sequence of hyperbolic
3-manifolds of bounded treewidth but volume approaching infinity. Along the
way, we prove that crushing a normal surface in a triangulation does not
increase the carving-width, and hence crushing any number of normal surfaces in
a triangulation affects treewidth by at most a constant multiple.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. V2: Section 4 has been rewritten, as the former
argument (in V1) used a construction that relied on a wrong theorem. Section
5.1 has also been adjusted to the new construction. Various other arguments
have been clarifie
The relation between pitch and gestures in a story-telling task
Anecdotal evidence suggests that both pitch range and
gestures contribute to the perception of speakers\u2019 liveliness in
speech. However, the relation between speakers\u2019 pitch range
and gestures has received little attention. It is possible that
variations in pitch range might be accompanied by variations
in gestures, and vice versa. In second language speech, the
relation between pitch range and gestures might also be
affected by speakers\u2019 difficulty in speaking the L2. In this
pilot study we compare global pitch range and gesture rate in
the speech of 3 native Italian speakers, telling the same story
once in Italian and twice in English as part of an in-class oral
presentation task. The hypothesis tested is that contextual
factors, such as speakers\u2019 nervousness with the task, cause
speakers to use narrow pitch range and limited gestures; a
greater ease with the task, due to its repetition, cause speakers
to use a wider pitch range and more gestures. This
experimental hypothesis is partially confirmed by the results
of this study
Fast and stable contour integration for high order divided differences via elliptic functions
In this paper, we will present a new method for evaluating high order divided
differences for certain classes of analytic, possibly, operator valued
functions. This is a classical problem in numerical mathematics but also
arises in new applications such as, e.g., the use of generalized convolution
quadrature to solve retarded potential integral equations. The functions which
we will consider are allowed to grow exponentially to the left complex half
plane, polynomially to the right half plane and have an oscillatory behaviour
with increasing imaginary part. The interpolation points are scattered in a
large real interval. Our approach is based on the representation of divided
differences as contour integral and we will employ a subtle parameterization
of the contour in combination with a quadrature approximation by the
trapezoidal rule
Impulsivity and self-control during intertemporal decision making linked to the neural dynamics of reward value representation
A characteristic marker of impulsive decision making is the discounting of delayed rewards, demonstrated via choice preferences and choice-related brain activity. However, delay discounting may also arise from how subjective reward value is dynamically represented in the brain when anticipating an upcoming chosen reward. In the current study, brain activity was continuously monitored as human participants freely selected an immediate or delayed primary liquid reward and then waited for the specified delay before consuming it. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) exhibited a characteristic pattern of activity dynamics during the delay period, as well as modulation during choice, that is consistent with the time-discounted coding of subjective value. The ventral striatum (VS) exhibited a similar activity pattern, but preferentially in impulsive individuals. A contrasting profile of delay-related and choice activation was observed in the anterior PFC (aPFC), but selectively in patient individuals. Functional connectivity analyses indicated that both vmPFC and aPFC exerted modulatory, but opposite, influences on VS activation. These results link behavioral impulsivity and self-control to dynamically evolving neural representations of future reward value, not just during choice, but also during postchoice delay periods
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