Use of the STAR PROCESS for Children with Sensory Processing Challenges

Background: This study examined the effectiveness of the STAR PROCESS, an intensive, short-term intervention that combines principles of sensory integration, relationship-based therapy, and parental-therapist collaboration for children with sensory processing challenges. Method: A nonconcurrent multiple baseline, repeated measures design was used. Four boys, aged 5 years 0 months to 7 years 9 months, participated in this study. The mean length of intervention was 22 sessions delivered 3 to 5 times per week. A behavioral coding system was used to measure change in four areas: play level, positive affect, joint attention, and novel use of equipment. The theory of change reflects the use of multisensory experiences in combination with parent participation to impact outcomes. Results: Improvement was noted in play level in all of the participants. Multisensory experiences and parent participation were associated with these changes in two participants. Discussion: The study results suggest a feasible methodology to study occupational therapy interventions. The behavioral coding system was sensitive to change. Play abilities changed in all four children. Preliminary support was provided for the theory of change combining multisensory experiences with parent participation. Conclusion: A targeted treatment approach that emphasizes parents as play partners in a multisensory environment shows promise in remediating these deficits

VALUING WATER QUALITY MONITORING: A CONTINGENT VALUATION EXPERIMENT INVOLVING HYPOTHETICAL AND REAL PAYMENTS

This paper studies the preferences and willingness-to-pay for individuals for volunteer water quality monitoring programs. The study involves supporting water quality monitoring at two ponds in the state of Rhode Island. The paper uses both a hypothetical and a real-payment contingent valuation survey to directly measure individual preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for volunteer water quality monitoring at the two ponds. The overall results of the study suggest that hypothetical WTP is not statistically greater than real WTP, and that the average survey respondent is willing to support water quality monitoring on one of the two ponds. The study also finds that the specified purpose of water quality monitoring and certain socioeconomic characteristics of a respondent significantly affect the respondent's decision to support volunteer water quality monitoring.Environmental Economics and Policy,

An investigation of the performance portability of OpenCL

This paper reports on the development of an MPI/OpenCL implementation of LU, an application-level benchmark from the NAS Parallel Benchmark Suite. An account of the design decisions addressed during the development of this code is presented, demonstrating the importance of memory arrangement and work-item/work-group distribution strategies when applications are deployed on different device types. The resulting platform-agnostic, single source application is benchmarked on a number of different architectures, and is shown to be 1.3–1.5× slower than native FORTRAN 77 or CUDA implementations on a single node and 1.3–3.1× slower on multiple nodes. We also explore the potential performance gains of OpenCL’s device fissioning capability, demonstrating up to a 3× speed-up over our original OpenCL implementation

The Glacier National Park Visitor Use Study

Presents results of a survey of Glacier National Park visitors from November 1992 to October 1993. Seasonal visitor demographic characteristics and trip characteristics are presented as well as visitor expectations, preferences, perceptions, and satisfactions

The Highly Oscillatory Behavior of Automorphic Distributions for SL(2)

Automorphic distributions for SL(2) arise as boundary values of modular forms and, in a more subtle manner, from Maass forms. In the case of modular forms of weight one or of Maass forms, the automorphic distributions have continuous first antiderivatives. We recall earlier results of one of us on the Holder continuity of these continuous functions and relate them to results of other authors; this involves a generalization of classical theorems on Fourier series by S. Bernstein and Hardy-Littlewood. We then show that the antiderivatives are non-differentiable at all irrational points, as well as all, or in certain cases, some rational points. We include graphs of several of these functions, which clearly display a high degree of oscillation. Our investigations are motivated in part by properties of "Riemann's nondifferentiable function", also known as "Weierstrass' function".Comment: 27 pages, 6 Figures; version 2 corrects misprints and updates reference

Predictive analysis of a hydrodynamics application on large-scale CMP clusters

We present the development of a predictive performance model for the high-performance computing code Hydra, a hydrodynamics benchmark developed and maintained by the United Kingdom Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). The developed model elucidates the parallel computation of Hydra, with which it is possible to predict its runtime and scaling performance on varying large-scale chip multiprocessor (CMP) clusters. A key feature of the model is its granularity; with the model we are able to separate the contributing costs, including computation, point-to-point communications, collectives, message buffering and message synchronisation. The predictions are validated on two contrasting large-scale HPC systems, an AMD Opteron/ InfiniBand cluster and an IBM BlueGene/P, both of which are located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US. We validate the model on up to 2,048 cores, where it achieves a > 85% accuracy in weak-scaling studies. We also demonstrate use of the model in exposing the increasing costs of collectives for this application, and also the influence of node density on network accesses, therefore highlighting the impact of machine choice when running this hydrodynamics application at scale

"The Flower and the Wall": Poet‐Activist Wiji Thukul and Progressive Martyrdom in Post‐Suharto Indonesia

Since the fall of Major-General Suharto's "New Order" regime, Indonesia has struggled to deal with its authoritarian legacy. This article argues that in the quarter of a century since his disappearance, the Indonesian poet-activist Wiji Thukul (1963-1998?) has become a martyr for the still unfulfilled progressive ideals of the Reformasi (reform) movement that helped to bring down that regime in 1998. Using the developing body of theory around "secular" or "political" martyrdom, this article examines the process by which this status has been achieved, situating its development alongside the emergence of the Refusing to Forget movement, as well as comparing and contrasting his fate with that of two other candidates for the label of Reformasi martyr: those of the labour activist Marsinah (1969-1993) and the human rights lawyer Munir Said Thalib (1965-2004). It argues that Thukul's role as a martyr has been significant in maintaining progressive public discourse about the human rights abuses of the Suharto period, as well as the continuing illiberalism of the period since the end of the regime, and that Thukul remains relevant to efforts to stimulate and nurture the fragile democratisation project that was initiated in the late New Order period. In particular, the authors see Thukul's brand of grassroots creative practice as playing a central role in his emergence as a progressive icon and in giving his life and work international significance

RISK-RETURN ANALYSIS OF INCORPORATING ANNUAL LEGUMES AND LAMB GRAZING WITH DRYLAND CROP ROTATIONS

Profitability and risk, 1988-2001, are examined for lamb-grazed field pea as a fallow alternative with wheat, or an extended wheat-sunflower-millet rotation. Switching from conventional wheat-fallow to an extended rotation with grazed-peas increases profitability (2.3% to 7.3%), and reduces risk (below 0% target in only 2 versus 7 of 14 years).Crop Production/Industries,