The MTV experiment: searching for T-violation in polarized Li-8 at TRIUMF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murata, J.; Baba, H.; Behr, J. A.; Goto, F.; Inaba, S.; Kawamura, H.; Kitaguchi, M.; Levy, C. D. P.; Masuda, H.; Nakaya, Y.; Ninomiya, K.; Onishi, J.; Openshaw, R.; Pearson, M.; Sakamoto, Y.; Shimizu, H.; Shimizu, Y.; Tanaka, S.; Tanaka, Y.; Tanuma, R.; Totsuka, Y.; Watanabe, E.; Yokohashi, M.

2016-12-01

The MTV experiment ( Mott Polarimetry for T- Violation Experiment) is running at TRIUMF, to search for a large T-violating transverse electron-polarization in polarized 8Li β-decay. We aim at reaching precision of 10-4 for the R-correlation, which is defined as a T-violating triple vector correlation in the β-decay rate function. A Mott polarimeter system using a CDC ( Cylindrical Drift Chamber) is used to measure the left-right scattering asymmetry in the Mott scattering from a thin metal foil. In the present study, we aim to discuss systematic effects in Mott polarimetry using the CDC.

The GBAR experiment: gravitational behaviour of antihydrogen at rest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perez, P.; Sacquin, Y.

2012-09-01

The recently recommended experiment GBAR is foreseen to run at CERN at the AD/ELENA antiproton source. It aims at performing the first measurement of the Earth's gravitational acceleration on antimatter by observing the free-fall of antihydrogen atoms. This requires creating anti-atoms at an unprecedented low energy. The different steps of the experiment and their present status are reviewed.

The Fixed Target Experiment for Studies of Baryonic Matter at the Nuclotron (BM@N)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kapishin, M. N.

2017-12-01

BM@N (Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron) is the first experiment to be realized at the NICA-Nuclotron accelerator complex. The aim of the BM@N experiment is to study relativistic heavy ion beam interactions with fixed targets. The BM@N setup, results of Monte Carlo simulations, and the BM@N experimental program are presented.

Japanese propagation experiments with ETS-5

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ikegami, Tetsushi

1989-01-01

Propagation experiments for maritime, aeronautical, and land mobile satellite communications were performed using Engineering Test Satellite-Five (ETS-5). The propagation experiments are one of major mission of Experimental Mobile Satellite System (EMSS) which is aimed for establishing basic technology for future general mobile satellite communication systems. A brief introduction is presented for the experimental results on propagation problems of ETS-5/EMSS.

Bootstrapping Methods Applied for Simulating Laboratory Works

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prodan, Augustin; Campean, Remus

2005-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this work is to implement bootstrapping methods into software tools, based on Java. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents a category of software e-tools aimed at simulating laboratory works and experiments. Findings: Both students and teaching staff use traditional statistical methods to infer the truth from sample…

The effect of state anxiety on the online and offline control of fast target-directed movements.

PubMed

Lawrence, Gavin P; Khan, Michael A; Hardy, Lew

2013-07-01

In target-directed aiming, afferent information is used to adjust limb trajectories during movement execution (i.e. online) and to enhance the programming of subsequent trials (i.e. offline). The objective of the present study was to determine the influence of state anxiety on both online and offline afferent information processing for the first time. Participants practiced either a directional aiming task (Experiment 1) or an amplitude aiming task (Experiment 2) without anxiety before being transferred to a high anxiety condition. In both experiments, results revealed that anxiety resulted in a decrement in performance. Furthermore, use of afferent information to adjust movement trajectories online was disrupted when movements were performed with anxiety, whereas there were no differences in the offline processing of afferent information between the low anxiety and high anxiety conditions.

Students' Experiences of Learning Manual Clinical Skills through Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johannesson, Eva; Silen, Charlotte; Kvist, Joanna; Hult, Hakan

2013-01-01

Learning manual skills is a fundamental part of health care education, and motor, sensory and cognitive learning processes are essential aspects of professional development. Simulator training has been shown to enhance factors that facilitate motor and cognitive learning. The present study aimed to investigate the students' experiences and…

An Experience-Based Learning Framework: Activities for the Initial Development of Sustainability Competencies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caniglia, Guido; John, Beatrice; Kohler, Martin; Bellina, Leonie; Wiek, Arnim; Rojas, Christopher; Laubichler, Manfred D.; Lang, Daniel

2016-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to present an experience-based learning framework that provides a bottom-up, student-centered entrance point for the development of systems thinking, normative and collaborative competencies in sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: The framework combines mental mapping with exploratory walking. It interweaves…

Summer Science Camp for Middle School Students: A Turkish Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sezen Vekli, Gulsah

2013-01-01

The present study aims to identify the effectiveness of summer science camp experience on middle school students' content knowledge and interest towards biology. For this purpose, two instruments including reflective journal and pre-post questionnaire were developed by four researchers who are expert in science education. Besides, the instruction…

The Impact of Translators' Academic Experience on Their Translation Quality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Varzande, Mohsen; Jadidi, Esmaeil

2015-01-01

Translators differ from each other in many ways in terms of their knowledge and professional conditions that may directly influence their translation. The present study aimed at investigating the impact of translators' academic experience on their translation quality. Following a "causal-comparative study", a sample of 100 male and…

The Majorana Double Beta Decay Experiment:. Present Status

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguayo, E.; Avignone, F. T.; Back, H. O.; Barabash, A. S.; Beene, J. R.; Bergevin, M.; Bertrand, F. E.; Boswell, M.; Brudanin, V.; Busch, M.; Chan, Y.-D.; Christofferson, C. D.; Collar, J. I.; Combs, D. C.; Cooper, R. J.; Detwiler, J. A.; Doe, P. J.; Efremenko, Yu.; Egorov, V.; Ejiri, H.; Elliott, S. R.; Esterline, J.; Fast, J. E.; Fields, N.; Finnerty, P.; Fraenkle, F. M.; Gehman, V. M.; Giovanetti, G. K.; Green, M. P.; Guiseppe, V. E.; Gusey, K.; Hallin, A. L.; Hazama, R.; Henning, R.; Hime, A.; Hoppe, E. W.; Horton, M.; Howard, S.; Howe, M. A.; Johnson, R. A.; Keeter, K. J.; Keller, C.; Kidd, M. F.; Knecht, A.; Kochetov, O.; Konovalov, S. I.; Kouzes, R. T.; Laferriere, B. D.; Laroque, B. H.; Leon, J.; Leviner, L. E.; Loach, J. C.; Macmullin, S.; Marino, M. G.; Martin, R. D.; Mei, D.-M.; Merriman, J. H.; Miller, M. L.; Mizouni, L.; Nomachi, M.; Orrell, J. L.; Overman, N. R.; Phillips, D. G.; Poon, A. W. P.; Perumpilly, G.; Prior, G.; Radford, D. C.; Rielage, K.; Robertson, R. G. H.; Ronquest, M. C.; Schubert, A. G.; Shima, T.; Shirchenko, M.; Snavely, K. J.; Steele, D.; Strain, J.; Thomas, K.; Timkin, V.; Tornow, W.; Vanyushin, I.; Varner, R. L.; Vetter, K.; Vorren, K.; Wilkerson, J. F.; Yakushev, E.; Young, A. R.; Yu, C.-H.; Yumatov, V. I.; Zhang, C.

2013-11-01

The Majorana collaboration is actively pursuing research and development aimed at a tonne-scale 76Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) experiment. The current, primary focus is the construction of the Majorana Demonstrator experiment, an R&D effort that will field approximately 40 kg of germanium detectors with mixed enrichment levels. This article provides a status update on the construction of the Demonstrator.

Bullying and Victimization at School: The Role of Mothers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Georgiou, Stelios N.

2008-01-01

Background: Social learning literature is used in order to describe the contextual parameters of peer aggression, and specifically bullying and victimization. Aim: The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of maternal characteristics on their child's victimization or bullying experience at school. Sample: The participants were 252…

The mental representation of living and nonliving things: differential weighting and interactivity of sensorial and non-sensorial features.

PubMed

Ventura, Paulo; Morais, José; Brito-Mendes, Carlos; Kolinsky, Régine

2005-02-01

Warrington and colleagues (Warrington & McCarthy, 1983, 1987; Warrington & Shallice, 1984) claimed that sensorial and functional-associative (FA) features are differentially important in determining the meaning of living things (LT) and nonliving things (NLT). The first aim of the present study was to evaluate this hypothesis through two different access tasks: feature generation (Experiment 1) and cued recall (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments provided consistent empirical support for Warrington and colleagues' assumption. The second aim of the present study was to test a new differential interactivity hypothesis that combines Warrington and colleagueS' assumption with the notion of a higher number of intercorrelations and hence of a stronger connectivity between sensorial and non-sensorial features for LTs than for NLTs. This hypothesis was motivated by previoUs reports of an uncrossed interaction between domain (LTs vs NLTs) and attribute type (sensorial vs FA) in, for example, a feature verification task (Laws, Humber, Ramsey, & McCarthy, 1995): while FA attributes are verified faster than sensorial attributes for NLTs, no difference is observed for LTs. We replicated and generalised this finding using several feature verification tasks on both written words and pictures (Experiment 3), including in conditions aimed at minimising the intervention of priming biases and strategic or mnemonic processes (Experiment 4). The whole set of results suggests that both privileged relations between features and categories, and the differential importance of intercorrelations between features as a function of category, modulate access to semantic features.

Event Structure and Cognitive Control

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reimer, Jason F.; Radvansky, Gabriel A.; Lorsbach, Thomas C.; Armendarez, Joseph J.

2015-01-01

Recently, a great deal of research has demonstrated that although everyday experience is continuous in nature, it is parsed into separate events. The aim of the present study was to examine whether event structure can influence the effectiveness of cognitive control. Across 5 experiments we varied the structure of events within the AX-CPT by…

Regulating Emotions and Aiming for a Ph.D.: Excerpts from "Anthropology Matters"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hovland, Ingie

2012-01-01

In this article I will present a range of experiences of graduate socialisation that have been discussed in past articles in the journal "Anthropology Matters". These are the experiences of social anthropology Ph.D. students in the United Kingdom. The overarching theme for the article is "regulating emotions", and the excerpts…

Career-Self Management and Entrepreneurship: An Experience with PhD Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pinto, Joana Carneiro; do Ceu Taveira, Maria; Sa, Elisabete

2012-01-01

Introduction: This study presents an experience developed with PhD students aimed to analyze the extent to which career self-management should be approached along with entrepreneurship issues to promote students' career development. Method: An intervention group who attended a Career Self-Management Seminar (EG1), a comparison group who attended…

Some Aspects of Collaboration in Inclusive Education--Teachers' Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bouillet, Dejana

2013-01-01

The main aim of the present article is to analyse some aspects of collaboration in inclusive educational practice in Croatian schools by analysing teachers' experiences. Special attention is devoted to the professional support resources available to teachers, as well as to teachers' views on the content and usefulness of the professional support…

Dissociating Stimulus-Set and Response-Set in the Context of Task-Set Switching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kieffaber, Paul D.; Kruschke, John K.; Cho, Raymond Y.; Walker, Philip M.; Hetrick, William P.

2013-01-01

The primary aim of the present research was to determine how "stimulus-set" and "response-set" components of task-set contribute to switch costs and conflict processing. Three experiments are described wherein participants completed an explicitly cued task-switching procedure. Experiment 1 established that task switches requiring a reconfiguration…

Reflective Learning in Higher Education: A Qualitative Study on Students' Perceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fullana, Judit; Pallisera, Maria; Colomer, Jordi; Fernández Peña, Rosario; Pérez-Burriel, Marc

2016-01-01

This article presents the results of a study aimed at determining the perceptions of students participating in reflective learning (RL) experiences at the University of Girona (Spain), specifically regarding the benefits and challenges of this methodology. Four focus groups were organized with students who had participated in RL experiences on…

Measurement of interfacial tension of immiscible liquid pairs in microgravity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Weinberg, Michael C.; Neilson, George F.; Baertlein, Carl; Subramanian, R. Shankar; Trinh, Eugene H.

1994-01-01

A discussion is given of a containerless microgravity experiment aimed at measuring the interfacial tension of immiscible liquid pairs using a compound drop rotation method. The reasons for the failure to execute such experiments in microgravity are described. Also, the results of post-flight analyses used to confirm our arguments are presented.

Emotion and Education: Reflecting on the Emotional Experience Emotion and Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mortari, Luigina

2015-01-01

The paper presents an educative experience organized in a postgraduate course in a faculty of education with the aim of facilitating students' "affective self-understanding". Affective self-understanding is a reflective practice that allows people to comprehend their own emotions in order to gain awareness of them. Students were…

International Encounters: Experiences of Visitors and Hosts in a Cross-Cultural Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ranz, Rebecca; Nuttman-Shwartz, Orit; Thachil, Githa

2015-01-01

The present study aimed to gain further insights into how visiting international social work students and their hosts from different cultures learn about each others' social services, culture, and personal values. Six Israeli students and 8 Indian students have written narratives and reflections on their experiences in the international encounter…

A Teaching and Learning Sequence about the Interplay of Chance and Determinism in Nonlinear Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stavrou, D.; Duit, R.; Komorek, M.

2008-01-01

A teaching and learning sequence aimed at introducing upper secondary school students to the interplay between chance and determinism in nonlinear systems is presented. Three experiments concerning nonlinear systems (deterministic chaos, self-organization and fractals) and one experiment concerning linear systems are introduced. Thirty upper…

Facing CLIL Challenges at University Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Granados Beltrán, Carlo

2011-01-01

Experiments in Content Language Integrated Learning have been carried out most of the time at primary and secondary education. However, not much is known about what higher education institutions are doing in this respect. This article aims to present an experience that occurred in the Languages Department at Universidad Central (Bogotá, Colombia)…

The Effect of Chemistry Laboratory Activities on Students' Chemistry Perception and Laboratory Anxiety Levels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aydogdu, Cemil

2017-01-01

Chemistry lesson should be supported with experiments to understand the lecture effectively. For safety laboratory environment and to prevent laboratory accidents; chemical substances' properties, working principles for chemical substances' usage should be learnt. Aim of the present study was to analyze the effect of experiments which depend on…

Preparation and evaluation of Apollo 14 composite experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Steurer, W. H.; Kaye, S.

1971-01-01

An account is given of the work aimed at flight experiments on Apollo 14, in relation to space manufacturing processes. Evaluation of suitable materials, definition of in-flight processing procedures, preparation of preprocessed materials and delivery, and evaluation of the space-processed samples after return from the Apollo 14 flight are presented.

Hemispheric Predominance Assessment of Phonology and Semantics: A Divided Visual Field Experiment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cousin, Emilie; Peyrin, Carole; Baciu, Monica

2006-01-01

The aim of the present behavioural experiment was to evaluate the most lateralized among two phonological (phoneme vs. rhyme detection) and the most lateralized among two semantic ("living" vs. "edible" categorization) tasks, within the dominant hemisphere for language. The reason of addressing this question was a practical one: to evaluate the…

Nuclear astrophysics at Gran Sasso Laboratory: the LUNA experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cavanna, Francesca

2018-05-01

LUNA is an experimental approach for the study of nuclear fusion reactions based on an underground accelerator laboratory. Aim of the experiment is the direct measurement of the cross section of nuclear reactions relevant for stellar and primordial nucleosynthesis. In the following the latest results and the future goals will be presented.

Educative Experience of the Use of Concept Mapping in Science and Environmental Teacher Training Programmes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pontes-Pedrajas, Alfonso; Varo-Martínez, Marta

2014-01-01

Environmental education in the 21st century requires well-instructed teachers with teaching and communication abilities. This paper presents an educational experience developed in several biology and environmental teacher training courses and focused on the treatment of environmental education as a transversal educational topic. For that aim, text…

Environmental Learning Experiences for Kindergarten Through Second Grade.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Willoughby-Eastlake School District, Willoughby, OH.

This collection of teaching units is one of three volumes designed to assist teachers in bringing relevant, interdisciplinary, environmental learning experiences to elementary students. This first volume is aimed at the K-2 level and deals with the immediate environment of the student. Titles of the nine units presented are: Preparing for Seasonal…

The Students' Experiences of Ethics in Online Systems: A Phenomenological Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mosalanejad, Leili; Dehghani, Ali; Abdolahifard, Khadije

2014-01-01

Cyber ethics is the philosophical study of ethics pertaining to computer networks encompassing users' behavior, what networked computers are programmed to do, and how this affects the individuals and the society. This study aimed to investigate the students' experiences of ethics in cyber systems.In the present study, the researchers conducted…

Improving the Learning Experience of Business Subjects in Engineering Studies Using Automatic Spreadsheet Correctors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rafart Serra, Maria Assumpció; Bikfalvi, Andrea; Soler Masó, Josep; Prados Carrasco, Ferran; Poch Garcia, Jordi

2017-01-01

The combination of two macro trends, Information and Communication Technologies' (ICT) proliferation and novel approaches in education, has resulted in a series of opportunities with no precedent in terms of content, channels and methods in education. The present contribution aims to describe the experience of using an automatic spreadsheet…

Transformative Learning Experience: Aim Higher, Gain More

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Brent G.; Parrish, Patrick E.

2011-01-01

A transformative learning experience (TLE) is an especially meaningful encounter that leaves a lasting impact on a person's sense of competence or place in the world. The construct of TLE is presented in transactional terms as an irreducible interplay between learner and the world (including the natural world, artifacts, and other people).…

Higher Education Teachers' Experiences with Learning Analytics in Relation to Student Retention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

West, Deborah; Huijser, Henk; Heath, David; Lizzio, Alf; Toohey, Danny; Miles, Carol; Searle, Bill; Bronnimann, Jurg

2016-01-01

This paper presents findings from a study of Australian and New Zealand academics (n = 276) that teach tertiary education students. The study aimed to explore participants' early experiences of learning analytics in a higher education milieu in which data analytics is gaining increasing prominence. Broadly speaking participants were asked about:…

The Evolution of Oscillatory Behavior during Learning on a Ski Simulator

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teulier, Caroline; Nourrit, Deborah; Delignieres, Didier

2006-01-01

Recent experiments on the ski simulator produced ambiguous results and raised unanswered questions concerning the true nature of "novice" behavior and the occurrence of behavioral changes during learning. The aim of the present experiment was to analyze the evolving behavior of three beginners during six practice sessions on a ski simulator. The…

Accurate inclusion mass screening: a bridge from unbiased discovery to targeted assay development for biomarker verification.

PubMed

Jaffe, Jacob D; Keshishian, Hasmik; Chang, Betty; Addona, Theresa A; Gillette, Michael A; Carr, Steven A

2008-10-01

Verification of candidate biomarker proteins in blood is typically done using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) of peptides by LC-MS/MS on triple quadrupole MS systems. MRM assay development for each protein requires significant time and cost, much of which is likely to be of little value if the candidate biomarker is below the detection limit in blood or a false positive in the original discovery data. Here we present a new technology, accurate inclusion mass screening (AIMS), designed to provide a bridge from unbiased discovery to MS-based targeted assay development. Masses on the software inclusion list are monitored in each scan on the Orbitrap MS system, and MS/MS spectra for sequence confirmation are acquired only when a peptide from the list is detected with both the correct accurate mass and charge state. The AIMS experiment confirms that a given peptide (and thus the protein from which it is derived) is present in the plasma. Throughput of the method is sufficient to qualify up to a hundred proteins/week. The sensitivity of AIMS is similar to MRM on a triple quadrupole MS system using optimized sample preparation methods (low tens of ng/ml in plasma), and MS/MS data from the AIMS experiments on the Orbitrap can be directly used to configure MRM assays. The method was shown to be at least 4-fold more efficient at detecting peptides of interest than undirected LC-MS/MS experiments using the same instrumentation, and relative quantitation information can be obtained by AIMS in case versus control experiments. Detection by AIMS ensures that a quantitative MRM-based assay can be configured for that protein. The method has the potential to qualify large number of biomarker candidates based on their detection in plasma prior to committing to the time- and resource-intensive steps of establishing a quantitative assay.

Potential Use of Ayahuasca in Grief Therapy.

PubMed

González, Débora; Carvalho, María; Cantillo, Jordi; Aixalá, Marc; Farré, Magí

2017-01-01

The death of a loved one is ultimately a universal experience. However, conventional interventions employed for people suffering with uncomplicated grief have gathered little empirical support. The present study aimed to explore the potential effects of ayahuasca on grief. We compared 30 people who had taken ayahuasca with 30 people who had attended peer-support groups, measuring level of grief and experiential avoidance. We also examined themes in participant responses to an open-ended question regarding their experiences with ayahuasca. The ayahuasca group presented a lower level of grief in the Present Feelings Scale of Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, showing benefits in some psychological and interpersonal dimensions. Qualitative responses described experiences of emotional release, biographical memories, and experiences of contact with the deceased. Additionally, some benefits were identified regarding the ayahuasca experiences. These results provide preliminary data about the potential of ayahuasca as a therapeutic tool in treatments for grief.

Youth tobacco prevention mass media campaigns: past, present, and future directions.

PubMed

Farrelly, M C; Niederdeppe, J; Yarsevich, J

2003-06-01

This paper focuses on countermarketing efforts aimed at curbing youth smoking. We review the literature on the effectiveness of tobacco countermarketing campaigns, characterise current state and national campaign approaches, present findings from qualitative approaches and laboratory experiments that explore a variety of messages (for example, health consequences, industry manipulation), and discuss newer, non-traditional approaches to countermarketing. In conclusion, we outline research needed to fill gaps in our existing knowledge and discuss future directions in tobacco countermarketing aimed at youth.

Comparison of scattering and reflection SFG: a question of phase-matching.

PubMed

de Aguiar, Hilton B; Scheu, Rüdiger; Jena, Kailash C; de Beer, Alex G F; Roke, Sylvie

2012-05-21

We present a comparison between sum frequency scattering (SFS) and reflection mode sum frequency generation (R-SFG). We have used scattering theory to describe both scattering experiments as well as reflection mode experiments. The interfacial vibrational spectrum of nanoscopic oil droplets dispersed in water was probed with SFS as well as with R-SFG. Spectra recorded in phase-matched R-SFG mode and spectra recorded with SFS from the same sample are different, which shows that different interfaces are measured. Scattering spectra at different scattering angles agree with nonlinear light scattering theory. We further present experiments with polymer films aimed at quantifying the comparative strength of R-SFG and SFS experiments.

Cross-Cultural Practices in Art Education: The Art Lunch Project in Turkey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Acer, Dilek

2012-01-01

This article presents a selective review of the literature on cross-cultural art studies, with the aim of identifying their commonalities. The article includes a specific cross-cultural case study, the Art Lunch Project, which the author attended as a representative of Turkey, that aims to exchange practical teaching experiences. The participants…

Explanatory Item Response Modeling of Children's Change on a Dynamic Test of Analogical Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stevenson, Claire E.; Hickendorff, Marian; Resing, Wilma C. M.; Heiser, Willem J.; de Boeck, Paul A. L.

2013-01-01

Dynamic testing is an assessment method in which training is incorporated into the procedure with the aim of gauging cognitive potential. Large individual differences are present in children's ability to profit from training in analogical reasoning. The aim of this experiment was to investigate sources of these differences on a dynamic test of…

Exploratory Learning with Geodromo: Design of Emotional and Cognitive Factors within an Educational Cross-Media Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bidarra, Jose; Martins, Olimpio

2011-01-01

In this paper we present Geodromo, a prototype of an educational multimedia system, part of the Portuguese "Ciencia Viva" (Live Science) educational program, which is aimed at young people and designed with innovative characteristics. The project is based on a robotic multimedia simulator and an online puzzle game aimed at the…

Scattering of Waves by Visoelastic Composites and the Characterization of their Dynamic Properties.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-01-13

experimental results of Hawley , Beard and Twersky [131 and Olsen and Kharadly (141. One of the aims of this paper is to suggest improvements to the QCA by...two such experi- ments are presented here [.3,141 and compared with computations. The first experiment refers to the work of Hawley et al. t13) who...packing.. The attenuation measure- ments are shown in Fig. 4 together with computations using the present theory and that used by Hawley et al. The

Experiences of People with Learning Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hyun, Elly; Hahn, Lyndsey; McConnell, David

2014-01-01

The aim of this review is to synthesise findings from research about the experiences of people with learning disabilities who have faced arrest and jail time. After an extensive search of the literature, four relevant articles were found. The first-person accounts presented in these four studies were pooled, and a thematic analysis was undertaken.…

Parents' Experiences of Support: Co-Constructing Their Stories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sherwood, Gina; Nind, Melanie A.

2014-01-01

The aim of this paper is to present a way of supporting parents that can lead to positive outcomes for families. The findings and processes from a study in England of six parents' experiences of support services for their young children with special needs are discussed in making the case that co-constructing the stories of parent and researcher…

Behavioral Experiments in the Treatment of Paranoid Schizophrenia: A Single Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hagen, Roger; Nordahl, Hans M.

2008-01-01

Since the first description of cognitive therapy of paranoid delusions appeared in the literature, the empirical support for cognitive behavioral therapy in treating psychotic symptoms has been widely established. The aim of the present case study is to show how the behavioral experiment can be used as a powerful tool to change delusional thinking…

Learning Crafts as Practices of Masculinity. Finnish Male Trainee Teachers' Reflections and Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kokko, Sirpa

2012-01-01

Craft education in Finland has long gendered traditions that effect the present situation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the processes of learning the interlinking of crafts and gender. The analysis concentrates on male trainee teachers' experiences of craft education in comprehensive schools in Finland. Data were collected through memory…

Confronting Similar Challenges? Disabled and Non-Disabled Students' Learning and Assessment Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Madriaga, Manuel; Hanson, Katie; Heaton, Caroline; Kay, Helen; Newitt, Sarah; Walker, Ann

2010-01-01

The article presents evidence from a systematic survey of disabled (n = 172) and non-disabled (n = 312) students regarding their learning and assessment experiences within one higher education institution in the UK. This study builds upon previous work in the sector, with the aim of gathering evidence to inform inclusive policy and practice for…

Children's Experiences Wearing Pedometers in a Telephone-Delivered Imagery Intervention Aimed at Increasing Active Play

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guerrero, Michelle D.; Hoffmann, Matt D.; Munroe-Chandler, Krista J.; Hall, Craig R.

2016-01-01

Purpose: Much of what we know about pedometer interventions and imagery interventions with children is grounded in quantitative data. The general purpose of the present study was to qualitatively explore the experiences of children who had participated in a 4-week imagery intervention designed to increase active play. Specifically, the current…

Facilitating Self-Directed Learning (SDL) and Satisfaction with SDL among Pre-University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yeoh, Miranda P.; Cazan, Ana-Maria; Ierardi, Enzo; Jacic, Ljubomir A.

2017-01-01

The aim of the study was to evaluate our practice of self-directed learning (SDL) among pre-university students in Malaysia. Respondents provided data on their previous school learning experiences besides present SDL experiences in college. We carried out exploratory factor analysis based on the school data. We did a confirmatory factor analysis…

The Student Experience of a Collaborative E-Learning University Module

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biasutti, Michele

2011-01-01

The aim of this paper is to present a picture of student experience of a collaborative e-learning module in an asynchronous e-learning environment. A distance learning module on music education worth five credit points for a bachelor online degree for primary school educating teachers was assessed using a self-evaluation questionnaire that…

The Educational, Social and Emotional Experiences of Students with Dyslexia: The Perspective of Postsecondary Education Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doikou-Avlidou, Maro

2015-01-01

The present study aimed at exploring the educational, social and emotional experiences of individuals with dyslexia both during school and tertiary education. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Greek students with dyslexia who were enrolled in higher education institutions. The data analysis was carried out with…

Beyond Reason: Emotion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suárez Araujo, Carmen Paz; Barahona da Fonseca, Isabel; Barahona da Fonseca, José; Simões da Fonseca, J.

2004-08-01

A theoretical approach that aims to the identification of information processing that may be responsible for emotional dimensions of subjective experience is studied as an initial step in the construction of a neural net model of affective dimensions of psychological experiences. In this paper it is suggested that a way of orientated recombination of attributes can be present not only in the perceptive processing but also in cognitive ones. We will present an analysis of the most important emotion theories, we show their neural organization and we propose the neural computation approach as an appropriate framework for generating knowledge about the neural base of emotional experience. Finally, in this study we present a scheme corresponding to framework to design a computational neural multi-system for Emotion (CONEMSE).

Commissioning and initial experimental program of the BGO-OD experiment at ELSA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alef, S.; Bauer, P.; Bayadilov, D.; Beck, R.; Becker, M.; Bella, A.; Bielefeldt, P.; Böse, S.; Braghieri, A.; Brinkmann, K.; Cole, P.; Di Salvo, R.; Dutz, H.; Elsner, D.; Fantini, A.; Freyermuth, O.; Friedrich, S.; Frommberger, F.; Ganenko, V.; Geffers, D.; Gervino, G.; Ghio, F.; Görtz, S.; Gridnev, A.; Gutz, E.; Hammann, D.; Hannappel, J.; Hillert, W.; Ignatov, A.; Jahn, R.; Joosten, R.; Jude, T. C.; Klein, F.; Knaust, J.; Kohl, K.; Koop, K.; Krusche, B.; Lapik, A.; Levi Sandri, P.; Lopatin, I. V.; Mandaglio, G.; Messi, F.; Messi, R.; Metag, V.; Moricciani, D.; Mushkarenkov, A.; Nanova, M.; Nedorezov, V.; Novinskiy, D.; Pedroni, P.; Reitz, B.; Romaniuk, M.; Rostomyan, T.; Rudnev, N.; Schaerf, C.; Scheluchin, G.; Schmieden, H.; Stugelev, A.; Sumachev, V.; Tarakanov, V.; Vegna, V.; Walther, D.; Watts, D.; Zaunick, H.; Zimmermann, T.

2016-11-01

BGO-OD is a new meson photoproduction experiment at the ELSA facility of Bonn University. It aims at the investigation of non strange and strange baryon excitations, and is especially designed to be able to detect weekly bound meson-baryon type structures. The setup for the BGO-OD experiment is presented, the characteristics of the photon beam and the detector performances are shown and the initial experimental program is discussed.

Double beta decay: yesterday, today, tomorrow

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fiorini, Ettore

2011-12-16

After a brief introduction on the main features of Double Beta Decay (DBD) and on its origin, its importance is stressed in view of the recent results of experiments on neutrino oscillations. The present experimental situation is reported with special reference to direct experiments and to the comparison of their results with theory. The expectations of the future experiments aiming to reach the sensitivity indicated by neutrino oscillations in the inverse hierarchy hypothesis are discussed.

Comprehension of Architectural Construction through Multimedia Active Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mas, Ángeles; Blasco, Vicente; Lerma, Carlos; Angulo, Quiteria

2013-01-01

This study presents an investigation about the use of multimedia procedures applied to architectural construction teaching. We have applied current technological resources, aiming to rationalize and optimize the active learning process. The experience presented to students is very simple and yet very effective. It has consisted in a simulation of…

Cued Reacquisition Trials during Extinction Weaken Contextual Renewal in Human Predictive Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Effting, Marieke; Vervliet, Bram; Beckers, Tom; Kindt, Merel

2013-01-01

Extinction is generally more context specific than acquisition, as illustrated by the renewal effect. While most strategies to counteract renewal focus on decreasing the context specificity of extinction, the present work aimed at increasing the context specificity of acquisition learning. Two experiments examined whether presenting cued…

A Peer-Reviewed Research Assignment for Large Classes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, LaRhee; Buising, Charisse

2000-01-01

Introduces a writing exercise students work on in collaborative groups. Aims to enhance students' scientific research paper writing skills and provide experience working in collaborative groups. Presents evaluation criteria for peer-group evaluation of a poster presentation, intra-group evaluation of peer performance, and peer-group evaluation of…

Multilingual Policies and Multilingual Education in the Nordic Countries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Björklund, Mikaela; Björklund, Siv; Sjöholm, Kaj

2013-01-01

This article presents some aspects of multilingualism and multilingual education in the Nordic countries, drawing upon experiences from the project "Network for Researchers of Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, RoMME" (2011-2013), where Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are represented. The aim is to briefly present and…

High-resolution continuum observations of the Sun

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zirin, Harold

1987-01-01

The aim of the PFI or photometric filtergraph instrument is to observe the Sun in the continuum with as high resolution as possible and utilizing the widest range of wavelengths. Because of financial and political problems the CCD was eliminated so that the highest photometric accuracy is only obtainable by comparison with the CFS images. Presently there is a limitation to wavelengths above 2200 A due to the lack of sensitivity of untreated film below 2200 A. Therefore the experiment at present consists of a film camera with 1000 feet of film and 12 filters. The PFI experiments are outlined using only two cameras. Some further problems of the experiment are addressed.

Trigger Menu-aware Monitoring for the ATLAS experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoad, Xanthe; ATLAS Collaboration

2017-10-01

We present a“trigger menu-aware” monitoring system designed for the Run-2 data-taking of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Unlike Run-1, where a change in the trigger menu had to be matched by the installation of a new software release at Tier-0, the new monitoring system aims to simplify the ATLAS operational workflows. This is achieved by integrating monitoring updates in a quick and flexible manner via an Oracle DB interface. We present the design and the implementation of the menu-aware monitoring, along with lessons from the operational experience of the new system with the 2016 collision data.

Teachers' Beliefs and Practices for Nurturing Creativity in Students: Perspectives from Teachers of Gifted Students in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Serene; Yuen, Mantak

2015-01-01

The long-term aim of fostering creativity in all students is specifically included in Hong Kong's curriculum guidelines. However, implementation of teaching strategies to achieve this aim has presented difficulties for many teachers. It is likely that teachers with experience in gifted education are in the best position in this respect, because…

Does a Sensory Processing Deficit Explain Counting Accuracy on Rapid Visual Sequencing Tasks in Adults with and without Dyslexia?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conlon, Elizabeth G.; Wright, Craig M.; Norris, Karla; Chekaluk, Eugene

2011-01-01

The experiments conducted aimed to investigate whether reduced accuracy when counting stimuli presented in rapid temporal sequence in adults with dyslexia could be explained by a sensory processing deficit, a general slowing in processing speed or difficulties shifting attention between stimuli. To achieve these aims, the influence of the…

Observing functional actions affects semantic processing of tools: evidence of a motor-to-semantic priming.

PubMed

De Bellis, Francesco; Ferrara, Antonia; Errico, Domenico; Panico, Francesco; Sagliano, Laura; Conson, Massimiliano; Trojano, Luigi

2016-01-01

Recent evidence shows that activation of motor information can favor identification of related tools, thus suggesting a strict link between motor and conceptual knowledge in cognitive representation of tools. However, the involvement of motor information in further semantic processing has not been elucidated. In three experiments, we aimed to ascertain whether motor information provided by observation of actions could affect processing of conceptual knowledge about tools. In Experiment 1, healthy participants judged whether pairs of tools evoking different functional handgrips had the same function. In Experiment 2 participants judged whether tools were paired with appropriate recipients. Finally, in Experiment 3 we again required functional judgments as in Experiment 1, but also included in the set of stimuli pairs of objects having different function and similar functional handgrips. In all experiments, pictures displaying either functional grasping (aimed to use tools) or structural grasping (just aimed to move tools independently from their use) were presented before each stimulus pair. The results demonstrated that, in comparison with structural grasping, observing functional grasping facilitates judgments about tools' function when objects did not imply the same functional manipulation (Experiment 1), whereas worsened such judgments when objects shared functional grasp (Experiment 3). Instead, action observation did not affect judgments concerning tool-recipient associations (Experiment 2). Our findings support a task-dependent influence of motor information on high-order conceptual tasks and provide further insights into how motor and conceptual processing about tools can interact.

Validation of Competences and Professionalisation of Teachers and Trainers = Validation des Acquis et Professionnalisation des Enseignants et Formateurs. CEDEFOP Dossier Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Blignieres-Legeraud, Anne; Bjornavold, Jens; Charraud, Anne-Marie; Gerard, Francoise; Diamanti, Stamatina; Freundlinger, Alfred; Bjerknes, Ellen; Covita, Horacio

A workshop aimed to clarify under what conditions the validation of knowledge gained through experience can be considered a professionalizing factor for European Union teachers and trainers by creating a better link between experience and training and between vocational training and qualifications. Seven papers were presented in addition to an…

The polarised internal target for the PAX experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ciullo, G.; Barion, L.; Barschel, C.; Grigoriev, K.; Lenisa, P.; Nass, A.; Sarkadi, J.; Statera, M.; Steffens, E.; Tagliente, G.

2011-05-01

The PAX (Polarized Antiproton eXperiment) collaboration aims to polarise antiproton beams stored in ring by means of spin-filtering. The experimental setup is based on a polarised internal gas target, surrounded by a detection system for the measurement of spin observables. In this report, we present results from the commission of the PAX target (atomic beam source, openable cell, and polarimeter).

The Effects of Cognitive: Linguistic Variables and Language Experience on Behavioural and Kinematic Performances in Nonword Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sasisekaran, Jayanthi; Weisberg, Sanford

2013-01-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of cognitive-linguistic variables and language experience on behavioral and kinematic measures of nonword learning in young adults. Group 1 consisted of thirteen participants who spoke American English as the first and only language. Group 2 consisted of seven participants with varying…

Do People Really Have Insights in the Shower? The When, Where and Who of the Aha! Moment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ovington, Linda A.; Saliba, Anthony J.; Moran, Carmen C.; Goldring, Jeremy; MacDonald, Jasmine B.

2018-01-01

While there are well-known anecdotes and documented insight cases by renowned scientists and inventors, little is known about the experiences of insight in the general population. The present study aimed to determine peoples' self-reported experience of insight in their daily lives. Using an online questionnaire, responses were obtained from 1,114…

Loneliness in the Daily Lives of Adolescents: An Experience Sampling Study Examining the Effects of Social Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Roekel, Eeske; Scholte, Ron H. J.; Engels, Rutger C. M. E.; Goossens, Luc; Verhagen, Maaike

2015-01-01

The main aim of the present study was to examine state levels of loneliness in adolescence. Both concurrent associations and temporal dynamics between social contexts and state levels of loneliness were examined. Data were collected from 286 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.19 years, 59% girls) by using the Experience Sampling Method. Results…

Adolescents' Definitions of Bullying: The Contribution of Age, Gender, and Experience of Bullying

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrne, Hollie; Dooley, Barbara; Fitzgerald, Amanda; Dolphin, Louise

2016-01-01

The aim of the present research was to examine adolescents' definitions of bullying in a nationally representative sample of adolescents in Ireland. Definitions of bullying were examined according to age, gender, and bullying experiences. A sample of 4358 adolescents aged 12-19 years (M = 14.99 years, SD = 1.63) provided their definitions of…

Double Beta Decays and Neutrinos - Experiments and MOON

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ejiri, H.; National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, 263-8555

2008-01-24

This is a brief review of the present and future experiments of neutrino-less double beta decays (0{nu}{beta}{beta}) and the MOON (Mo Observatory Of Neutrinos) project. High sensitivity 0{nu}{beta}{beta} experiments are unique and realistic probes for studying the Majorana nature of neutrinos and the absolute mass scale as suggested by neutrino oscillation experiments. MOON aims at spectroscopic 0{nu}{beta}{beta} studies with the {nu}-mass sensitivity of 100-30 meV by means of a super ensemble of multilayer modules of scintillator plates and tracking detector planes.

Huzzah Means Hooray: Activities from the Days of Damsels, Jesters, and Blackbirds in a Pie. First Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlson, Laurie

Written for juveniles, this book presents information and activities aimed at increasing student understanding of the life experiences of Europeans during the Middle Ages. Student activities are organized by the following categories: (1) "Medieval--What's That?" presents background information; (2) "Lets Dress Up!" examines…

Countermeasures to Mitigate the Negative Impact of Sensory Deprivation and Social Isolation in Long-Duration Space Flight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bachman, Katharine Ridgeway OBrien; Otto, Christian; Leveton, Lauren

2012-01-01

Long-duration space flight presents several challenges to the behavioral health of crew members. The environment that they are likely to experience will be isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) and, as such, crew members will experience extreme sensory deprivation and social isolation. The current paper briefly notes the behavioral, cognitive, and affective consequences of psychological stress induced by ICE environments and proposes nine countermeasures aimed at mitigating the negative effects of sensory deprivation and social isolation. Implementation of countermeasures aims to maintain successful crew performance and psychological well-being in a long-duration space flight mission.

Experimental investigation of granular dynamics close to the jamming transition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caballero, G.; Kolb, E.; Lindner, A.; Lanuza, J.; Clément, E.

2005-06-01

We present different experiments on dense granular assemblies with the aim of clarifying the notion of 'jamming transition' for these assemblies of non-Brownian particles. The experimental set-ups differ in the way in which external perturbations are applied in order to unjam the systems. The first experiment monitors the response to a locally applied deformation of a model packing at rest. The two other experiments study local and collective dynamics in a granular assembly weakly excited by vibration.

[Driving modes of the interview in phenomenological research: experience report].

PubMed

de Paula, Cristiane Cardoso; Padoin, Stela Maris de Mello; Terra, Marlene Gomes; Souza, Ivis Emília de Oliveira; Cabral, Ivone Evangelista

2014-01-01

This paper aimed to report the experience of driving modes of an interview on data production in phenomenological research. The proposed study is an experience report of a phenomenological investigation in which the researchers present their experience with children, considering the interview as an existential encounter. It describes ways of conducting the interview in its ontic and ontological dimensions. The ontic dimension refers to the facts related to the interview, presented in the researcher, in the researched subject and in the environment; both in its planning and its development. The ontological dimension is based on empathy and intersubjectivity. The interview enables the access to meaningful structures to comprehend the being, as a way of building investigative/assistance possibilities that enable to reveal the being of the human.

Anti-Collision Function Design and Performances of the CNES Formation Flying Experiment on the PRISMA Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cayeux, P.; Raballand, F.; Borde, J.; Berges, J.-C.; Meyssignac, B.

2007-01-01

Within the framework of a partnership agreement, EADS ASTRIUM has worked since June 2006 for the CNES formation flying experiment on the PRISMA mission. EADS ASTRIUM is responsible for the anti-collision function. This responsibility covers the design and the development of the function as a Matlab/Simulink library, as well as its functional validation and performance assessment. PRISMA is a technology in-orbit testbed mission from the Swedish National Space Board, mainly devoted to formation flying demonstration. PRISMA is made of two micro-satellites that will be launched in 2009 on a quasi-circular SSO at about 700 km of altitude. The CNES FFIORD experiment embedded on PRISMA aims at flight validating an FFRF sensor designed for formation control, and assessing its performances, in preparation to future formation flying missions such as Simbol X; FFIORD aims as well at validating various typical autonomous rendezvous and formation guidance and control algorithms. This paper presents the principles of the collision avoidance function developed by EADS ASTRIUM for FFIORD; three kinds of maneuvers were implemented and are presented in this paper with their performances.

Obtaining and Investigating Amphoteric Properties of Aluminum Oxide in a Hands-On Laboratory Experiment for High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Orwat, Kinga; Bernard, Pawel; Migdal-Mikuli, Anna

2016-01-01

The aim of this laboratory exercise is to present a high school hands-on laboratory experiment, focused on obtaining and investigating the properties of various polymorphic forms of aluminum oxide. Amphoterism plays a key role when discussing the law of periodicity and periodic changes of acid-base properties of elements and their compounds. In…

Measuring Ocean Literacy in Pre-Service Teachers: Psychometric Properties of the Greek Version of the Survey of Ocean Literacy and Experience (SOLE)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Markos, Angelos; Boubonari, Theodora; Mogias, Athanasios; Kevrekidis, Theodoros

2017-01-01

The aim of the present study was to respond to the increasing demand for comprehensive tools for the measurement of ocean literacy, by investigating the psychometric characteristics of a Greek version of the Survey of Ocean Literacy and Experience (SOLE), an instrument that assesses conceptual understanding of general ocean sciences content,…

The Role of Context Free Collaboration Design Patterns in Learning Design within LAMS: Lessons Learned from an Empirical Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kordaki, Maria

2011-01-01

This study presents an experiment aimed at the design of short learning courses in the context of LAMS, using a number of specific context-free collaboration design patterns implemented within LAMS. In fact, 25 Prospective Computer Engineers (PCEs) participated in this experiment. The analysis of the data shows that PCEs fully used these context…

The Effects of Using Drawings in Developing Young Children's Mathematical Word Problem Solving: A Design Experiment with Third-Grade Hungarian Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Csikos, Csaba; Szitanyi, Judit; Kelemen, Rita

2012-01-01

The present study aims to investigate the effects of a design experiment developed for third-grade students in the field of mathematics word problems. The main focus of the program was developing students' knowledge about word problem solving strategies with an emphasis on the role of visual representations in mathematical modeling. The experiment…

A Developmental Study on Children's Capacity to Ascribe Goals and Intentions to Others

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bello, Arianna; Sparaci, Laura; Stefanini, Silvia; Boria, Sonia; Volterra, Virginia; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

2014-01-01

The capacity to ascribe goals and intentions to others is a fundamental step in child cognitive development. The aim of the present study was to assess the age at which these capabilities are acquired in typically developing children. Two experiments were carried out. In the first experiment, 4 groups of children (age range = 3 years 2 months-7…

How Young Children and Their Mothers Experience Two Different Types of Toys: A Traditional Stuffed Toy versus an Animated Digital Toy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sung, Jihyun

2018-01-01

Background: Despite widespread use of digital toys, research evidence of how a digital toy's features affect children's development and the nature of parent-child interactions during play is limited. Objective: The present study aimed to examine how mother-child dyads experience a traditional stuffed toy and an animated digital toy by comparing…

The FESTER field trial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Eijk, Alexander M. J.; Gunter, Willie H.; February, Faith J.; Maritz, Benita; Vrahimis, George; Koago, Mokete S.; Wainman, Carl; Eisele, Christian; Seiffer, Dirk; Sucher, Erik; Stein, Karin; van Iersel, Miranda; Cohen, Leo H.; Van Binsbergen, Sven A.; Heemskerk, H. J. M. (Eric); Sternberg, A.; Schulte, H.; van Rheenen, Arthur D.; Brenthagen, Erik; Thomassen, Jan B.; Griffith, D.

2016-09-01

An overview is given of the First European - South African Transmission ExpeRiment (FESTER), which took place in South Africa, over the False Bay area, centered around Simon's Town. The experiment lasted from April 2015 through February 2016 and involved continuous observations as well as periodic observations that took place during four Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs) of 2 weeks each, which were spread over the year. The continuous observations aimed at a characterization of the electro-optical propagation environment, and included standard meteorology, aerosol, refraction and turbulence measurements. The periodic observations aimed at assessing the performance of electro-optical sensors in VIS / SWIR / MWIR and LWIR wavebands by following a boat sailing outbound and inbound tracks. In addition, dynamic aspects of electro-optical signatures, i.e., the changes induced by variations in the environment and/or target orientation, were studied. The present paper provides an overview of the trial, and presents a few first results.

Program for studying fundamental interactions at the PIK reactor facilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Serebrov, A. P.; Vassiljev, A. V.; Varlamov, V. E.; Geltenbort, P.; Gridnev, K. A.; Dmitriev, S. P.; Dovator, N. A.; Egorov, A. I.; Ezhov, V. F.; Zherebtsov, O. M.; Zinoviev, V. G.; Ivochkin, V. G.; Ivanov, S. N.; Ivanov, S. A.; Kolomensky, E. A.; Konoplev, K. A.; Krasnoschekova, I. A.; Lasakov, M. S.; Lyamkin, V. A.; Martemyanov, V. P.; Murashkin, A. N.; Neustroev, P. V.; Onegin, M. S.; Petelin, A. L.; Pirozhkov, A. N.; Polyushkin, A. O.; Prudnikov, D. V.; Ryabov, V. L.; Samoylov, R. M.; Sbitnev, S. V.; Fomin, A. K.; Fomichev, A. V.; Zimmer, O.; Cherniy, A. V.; Shoka, I. V.

2016-05-01

A research program aimed at studying fundamental interactions by means of ultracold and polarized cold neutrons at the GEK-4-4' channel of the PIK reactor is presented. The apparatus to be used includes a source of cold neutrons in the heavy-water reflector of the reactor, a source of ultracold neutrons based on superfluid helium and installed in a cold-neutron beam extracted from the GEK-4 channel, and a number of experimental facilities in neutron beams. An experiment devoted to searches for the neutron electric dipole moment and an experiment aimed at a measurement the neutron lifetime with the aid of a large gravitational trap are planned to be performed in a beam of ultracold neutrons. An experiment devoted to measuring neutron-decay asymmetries with the aid of a superconducting solenoid is planned in a beam of cold polarized neutrons from the GEK-4' channel. The second ultracold-neutron source and an experiment aimed at measuring the neutron lifetime with the aid of a magnetic trap are planned in the neutron-guide system of the GEK-3 channel. In the realms of neutrino physics, an experiment intended for sterile-neutrino searches is designed. The state of affairs around the preparation of the experimental equipment for this program is discussed.

Experiments in Computing: A Survey

PubMed Central

Moisseinen, Nella

2014-01-01

Experiments play a central role in science. The role of experiments in computing is, however, unclear. Questions about the relevance of experiments in computing attracted little attention until the 1980s. As the discipline then saw a push towards experimental computer science, a variety of technically, theoretically, and empirically oriented views on experiments emerged. As a consequence of those debates, today's computing fields use experiments and experiment terminology in a variety of ways. This paper analyzes experimentation debates in computing. It presents five ways in which debaters have conceptualized experiments in computing: feasibility experiment, trial experiment, field experiment, comparison experiment, and controlled experiment. This paper has three aims: to clarify experiment terminology in computing; to contribute to disciplinary self-understanding of computing; and, due to computing's centrality in other fields, to promote understanding of experiments in modern science in general. PMID:24688404

Experiments in computing: a survey.

PubMed

Tedre, Matti; Moisseinen, Nella

2014-01-01

Experiments play a central role in science. The role of experiments in computing is, however, unclear. Questions about the relevance of experiments in computing attracted little attention until the 1980s. As the discipline then saw a push towards experimental computer science, a variety of technically, theoretically, and empirically oriented views on experiments emerged. As a consequence of those debates, today's computing fields use experiments and experiment terminology in a variety of ways. This paper analyzes experimentation debates in computing. It presents five ways in which debaters have conceptualized experiments in computing: feasibility experiment, trial experiment, field experiment, comparison experiment, and controlled experiment. This paper has three aims: to clarify experiment terminology in computing; to contribute to disciplinary self-understanding of computing; and, due to computing's centrality in other fields, to promote understanding of experiments in modern science in general.

[Policies encouraging price competition in the generic drug market: Lessons from the European experience].

PubMed

Puig-Junoy, Jaume

2010-01-01

To describe alternative policies aimed at encouraging price competition in generic drug markets in countries with strict price regulation, and to present some case studies drawn from the European experience. Systematic literature review of articles and technical reports published after 1999. The shortcomings in consumer price competition observed in some European generic markets, including Spain, may be reduced through three types of public reimbursement or financing reforms: policies aimed at improving the design of current maximum reimbursement level policies; policies aimed at monitoring competitive prices in order to reimburse real acquisition cost to pharmacies; and, more radical and market-oriented policies such as competitive tendering of public drug purchases. The experience of recent reforms adopted in Germany, Belgium, Holland, Norway, and Sweden offers a useful guide for highly price-regulated European countries, such as Spain, currently characterized by limited consumer price competition and the high discounts offered to pharmacy purchases. Direct price regulation and/or the generic reference pricing systems used to reduce generic drug prices in many European countries can be successfully reformed by adopting measures more closely aimed at encouraging consumer price competition in generic drug markets. Copyright 2009 SESPAS. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Open inquiry-based learning experiences: a case study in the context of energy exchange by thermal radiation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pizzolato, Nicola; Fazio, Claudio; Rosario Battaglia, Onofrio

2014-01-01

An open inquiry (OI)-based teaching/learning experience, regarding a scientific investigation of the process of energy exchange by thermal radiation, is presented. A sample of upper secondary school physics teachers carried out this experience at the University of Palermo, Italy, in the framework of ESTABLISH, a FP7 European Project aimed at promoting and developing inquiry-based science education. The teachers had the opportunity to personally experience an OI-based learning activity, with the aim of exploring the pedagogical potentialities of this teaching approach to promote both the understanding of difficult concepts and a deeper view of scientific practices. The teachers were firstly engaged in discussions concerning real-life problematic situations, and then stimulated to design and carry out their own laboratory activities, aimed at investigating the process of energy exchange by thermal radiation. A scientific study on the energy exchange between a powered resistor and its surrounding environment, during the heating and cooling processes, was designed and performed. Here we report the phases of this experiment by following the teachers' perspective. A structured interview conducted both before and after the OI experience allowed us to analyze and point out the teachers' feedback from a pedagogical point of view. The advantages and limits of an OI-based approach to promote the development of more student-centred inquiry-oriented teaching strategies are finally discussed.

Barriers to and Facilitators of Help-Seeking Behavior Among Men Who Experience Sexual Violence

PubMed Central

Donne, Martina Delle; DeLuca, Joseph; Pleskach, Pavel; Bromson, Christopher; Mosley, Marcus P.; Perez, Edward T.; Mathews, Shibin G.; Stephenson, Rob; Frye, Victoria

2017-01-01

Research on sexual violence and related support services access has mainly focused on female victims; there is still a remarkable lack of research on men who experience sexual violence. Research demonstrates that people who both self-identify as men and are members of sexual-orientation minority populations are at higher risk of sexual violence. They are also less likely to either report or seek support services related to such experiences. The present study is an exploratory one aimed at filling the gap in the literature and better understanding how men, both straight and gay as well as cisgender and transgender, conceptualize, understand, and seek help related to sexual violence. A sample of 32 men was recruited on-line and participated in either a one-on-one in-depth interview (N = 19) or one of two focus group discussions (N = 13). All interviews and groups were audiotaped, professionally transcribed and coded using NVivo 9 qualitative software. The present analysis focused on barriers to and facilitators of support service access. Emergent and cross-cutting themes were identified and presented, with an emphasis on understanding what factors may prevent disclosure of a sexual violence experience and facilitate seeking support services and/or professional help. Through this analysis, the research team aims to add knowledge to inform the development of tools to increase service access and receipt, for use by both researchers and service professionals. Although this study contributes to the understanding of the issue of men’s experiences of sexual violence, more research with diverse populations is needed. PMID:29161934

Barriers to and Facilitators of Help-Seeking Behavior Among Men Who Experience Sexual Violence.

PubMed

Donne, Martina Delle; DeLuca, Joseph; Pleskach, Pavel; Bromson, Christopher; Mosley, Marcus P; Perez, Edward T; Mathews, Shibin G; Stephenson, Rob; Frye, Victoria

2018-03-01

Research on sexual violence and related support services access has mainly focused on female victims; there is still a remarkable lack of research on men who experience sexual violence. Research demonstrates that people who both self-identify as men and are members of sexual-orientation minority populations are at higher risk of sexual violence. They are also less likely to either report or seek support services related to such experiences. The present study is an exploratory one aimed at filling the gap in the literature and better understanding how men, both straight and gay as well as cisgender and transgender, conceptualize, understand, and seek help related to sexual violence. A sample of 32 men was recruited on-line and participated in either a one-on-one in-depth interview ( N = 19) or one of two focus group discussions ( N = 13). All interviews and groups were audiotaped, professionally transcribed and coded using NVivo 9 qualitative software. The present analysis focused on barriers to and facilitators of support service access. Emergent and cross-cutting themes were identified and presented, with an emphasis on understanding what factors may prevent disclosure of a sexual violence experience and facilitate seeking support services and/or professional help. Through this analysis, the research team aims to add knowledge to inform the development of tools to increase service access and receipt, for use by both researchers and service professionals. Although this study contributes to the understanding of the issue of men's experiences of sexual violence, more research with diverse populations is needed.

Relating therapy for people who hear voices: perspectives from clients, family members, referrers and therapists.

PubMed

Hayward, Mark; Fuller, Ella

2010-01-01

Current psychological models of voice hearing emphasise the personal meaning that individuals attribute to the voice hearing experience. Recent developments in theory and research have highlighted the importance of the relationship between the hearer and the voice. This study aims to contribute to this area of research, by exploring the experience and usefulness of a new form of 'Relating Therapy' that aims to modify distressing relationships with voices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants and explored the experience and usefulness of a pilot of Relating Therapy: three therapists, three voice hearers, two relatives and two referrers. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three themes that emerged from the analysis are presented for discussion: engaging with the therapeutic model; developing a new relating style; and how change is described and defined by participants. This study is consistent with the growing body of theory and research that highlights the interpersonal nature of the voice hearing experience. It also offers tentative support for a therapeutic framework that aims to modify distressing relationships with voices as a means of bringing about positive change. Clinical implications and areas for future research are outlined.  © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reconstruction and Analysis for the DUNE 35-ton Liquid Argon Prototype

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wallbank, Michael James

Neutrino physics is approaching the precision era, with current and future experiments aiming to perform highly accurate measurements of the parameters which govern the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations. The ultimate ambition with these results is to search for evidence of CP-violation in the lepton sector, currently hinted at in the world-leading analyses from present experiments, which may explain the dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a future long-baseline experiment based at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), with a far detector at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) and a baseline ofmore » 1300 km. In order to make the required precision measurements, the far detector will consist of 40 kton liquid argon and an embedded time projection chamber. This promising technology is still in development and, since each detector module is around a factor 15 larger than any previous experiment employing this design, prototyping the detector and design choices is critical to the success of the experiment. The 35-ton experiment was constructed for this purpose and will be described in detail in this thesis. The outcomes of the 35-ton prototype are already influencing DUNE and, following the successes and lessons learned from the experiment, confidence can be taken forward to the next stage of the DUNE programme. The main oscillation signal at DUNE will be electron neutrino appearance from the muon neutrino beam. High-precision studies of these νe interactions requires advanced processing and event reconstruction techniques, particularly in the handling of showering particles such as electrons and photons. Novel methods developed for the purposes of shower reconstruction in liquid argon are presented with an aim to successfully develop a selection to use in a νe charged-current analysis, and a first-generation selection using the new techniques is presented.« less

‘It makes you think’ – exploring the impact of qualitative films on pain clinicians

PubMed Central

Jenkins, Sue

2015-01-01

Background: Researchers need to consider the impact and utility of their findings. Film is an accessible medium for qualitative research findings and can facilitate learning through emotional engagement. Aim: We aimed to explore the usefulness of a short film presenting findings from a published qualitative synthesis of adults’ experience of chronic musculoskeletal pain for pain education. In particular, we were interested in the impact of the film on clinician’s understanding of patients’ experience of chronic pain and how this knowledge might be used for improved healthcare for people with pain. Methods: Focus groups with healthcare professionals enrolled in a pain management foundation course explored healthcare professionals’ experience of watching the film. A constructivist grounded theory approach was adopted by the researchers. Findings: This article presents one thematic exemplar from a wider study. Participants reflected upon the pitfalls of judging by appearances and the value of seeing the person beneath his or her performance. Conclusion: There is a danger that the impact of qualitative findings is under-valued in clinical education. We present one exemplar from a study exploring knowledge mobilisation, which demonstrates that qualitative research, specifically qualitative films, can make us think about the care that we provide to people with chronic pain. PMID:26516558

National Educators' Workshop: Update 2002 - Standard Experiments in Engineering, Materials Science, and Technology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Prior, Edwin J. (Compiler); Jacobs, James A. (Compiler); Chung, W. Richard (Compiler)

2003-01-01

This document contains a collection of experiments presented and demonstrated at the National Educators' Workshop: Update 2002 held in San Jose, California, October 13-16,2002. This publication provides experiments and demonstrations that can serve as a valuable guide to faculty who are interested in useful activities for their students. The material was the result of years of research aimed at better methods of teaching technical subjects. The experiments developed by faculty, scientists, and engineers throughout the United States and abroad add to the collection from past workshops. They include a blend of experiments on new materials and traditional materials.

Brief Report: Examining the Association of Autism and Adverse Childhood Experiences in the National Survey of Children's Health: The Important Role of Income and Co-Occurring Mental Health Conditions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kerns, Connor Morrow; Newschaffer, Craig J.; Berkowitz, Steven; Lee, Brian K.

2017-01-01

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are risk factors for mental and physical illness and more likely to occur for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study aimed to clarify the contribution of poverty, intellectual disability and mental health conditions to this disparity. Data on child and family characteristics, mental…

Nurse presence enhanced through Equus.

PubMed

Walsh, Kathleen M; Blakeney, Barbara A

2013-06-01

The purpose of this study was for nurses to experience equine-assisted learning and for them to describe their being in the moment with their horse. The aims of the study were to assist clinicians in recognizing their ability and skill at being present--that is, calm and centered--as they engage with horses and to determine if interaction with horses is a valid representation in recognizing presence in the participants. Descriptive phenomenology was used to explore this lived experience. Five themes emerged: The Experienced Novice, Present in the Moment, Discovery of Self, Team Building, and Leadership. Equine-assisted learning can be a meaningful venue for nurses to self-discover their ability to be present.

Contextualising experiences of depression in women from South Asian communities: a discursive approach.

PubMed

Burr, Jennifer; Chapman, Tom

2004-05-01

The aim of this paper is to present an interpretation of the accounts of depression provided by women from South Asian communities. The paper presents the findings from a qualitative study, conducted in the UK, which explored women from South Asian communities and their experiences of depression. It is argued here, through examples of women's accounts of their experiences, that depression is 'embodied', that is, grounded in the materiality of the body which is also immersed in subjective experiences and in the social context of women's lives. Qualitative data were collected from four focus groups and ten individual interviews with women. The analysis involved a discursive approach. Analysis revealed how women made strategic choices in how they presented their symptoms as legitimate and for gaining access to what they perceived to be appropriate healthcare. This is not to argue that this is a culturally specific phenomenon but one which is a feature of all healthcare negotiations.

Determining the wavelength spectrum of neutrons on the NG6 beam line at NCNR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ivanov, Juliet

2016-09-01

Historically, in-beam experiments and bottle experiments have been performed to determine the lifetime of a free neutron. However, these two different experimental techniques have provided conflicting results. It is crucial to precisely and accurately elucidate the neutron lifetime for Big Bang Nucleosynthesis calculations and to investigate physics beyond the Standard Model. Therefore, we aimed to understand and minimize systematic errors present in the neutron beam experiment at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). In order to reduce the uncertainty related to wavelength dependent corrections present in previous beam experiments, the wavelength spectrum of the NCNR reactor cold neutron beam must be known. We utilized a beam chopper and lithium detector to characterize the wavelength spectrum on the NG6 beam line at the NCNR. The experimental design and techniques employed will be discussed, and our results will be presented. Future plans to utilize our findings to improve the neutron lifetime measurement at NCNR will also be described.

E-Learning Teacher Training Courses for Differentiated Instruction in Multicultural Classrooms: Reflections upon the Participants' Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dimitriadou, Catherine; Nari, Eirini; Palaiologou, Nektaria

2012-01-01

The focus and purpose of this paper is to present an e-learning teacher training course, including its aims and main results from teachers' interviews. The case study presented here examines the effectiveness of an in-service training seminar which was targeted toward teachers at multicultural schools. It concerns qualitative research that…

The Development of Approaches to Learning and Perceptions of the Teaching-Learning Environment during Bachelor Level Studies and Their Relation to Study Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asikainen, Henna; Parpala, Anna; Lindblom-Ylänne, Sari; Vanthournout, Gert; Coertjens, Liesje

2014-01-01

The aim of the present study is to explore changes both in approaches to learning as well as in students' experiences of the teaching-learning environment and how these changes are related to each other during their Bachelor studies by using a longitudinal data set. The aim is further to explore how students' approaches to learning and their…

Experiment for validation of fluid-structure interaction models and algorithms.

PubMed

Hessenthaler, A; Gaddum, N R; Holub, O; Sinkus, R; Röhrle, O; Nordsletten, D

2017-09-01

In this paper a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) experiment is presented. The aim of this experiment is to provide a challenging yet easy-to-setup FSI test case that addresses the need for rigorous testing of FSI algorithms and modeling frameworks. Steady-state and periodic steady-state test cases with constant and periodic inflow were established. Focus of the experiment is on biomedical engineering applications with flow being in the laminar regime with Reynolds numbers 1283 and 651. Flow and solid domains were defined using computer-aided design (CAD) tools. The experimental design aimed at providing a straightforward boundary condition definition. Material parameters and mechanical response of a moderately viscous Newtonian fluid and a nonlinear incompressible solid were experimentally determined. A comprehensive data set was acquired by using magnetic resonance imaging to record the interaction between the fluid and the solid, quantifying flow and solid motion. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Measuring user experience in digital gaming: theoretical and methodological issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takatalo, Jari; Häkkinen, Jukka; Kaistinen, Jyrki; Nyman, Göte

2007-01-01

There are innumerable concepts, terms and definitions for user experience. Few of them have a solid empirical foundation. In trying to understand user experience in interactive technologies such as computer games and virtual environments, reliable and valid concepts are needed for measuring relevant user reactions and experiences. Here we present our approach to create both theoretically and methodologically sound methods for quantification of the rich user experience in different digital environments. Our approach is based on the idea that the experience received from a content presented with a specific technology is always a result of a complex psychological interpretation process, which components should be understood. The main aim of our approach is to grasp the complex and multivariate nature of the experience and make it measurable. We will present our two basic measurement frameworks, which have been developed and tested in large data set (n=2182). The 15 measurement scales extracted from these models are applied to digital gaming with a head-mounted display and a table-top display. The results show how it is possible to map between experience, technology variables and the background of the user (e.g., gender). This approach can help to optimize, for example, the contents for specific viewing devices or viewing situations.

Effects of 25 mg oxazepam on emotional mimicry and empathy for pain: a randomized controlled experiment

PubMed Central

Sörman, Karolina; Olsson, Andreas; Petrovic, Predrag

2017-01-01

Emotional mimicry and empathy are mechanisms underlying social interaction. Benzodiazepines have been proposed to inhibit empathy and promote antisocial behaviour. First, we aimed to investigate the effects of oxazepam on emotional mimicry and empathy for pain, and second, we aimed to investigate the association of personality traits to emotional mimicry and empathy. Participants (n=76) were randomized to 25 mg oxazepam or placebo. Emotional mimicry was examined using video clips with emotional expressions. Empathy was investigated by pain stimulating the participant and a confederate. We recorded self-rated experience, activity in major zygomatic and superciliary corrugator muscles, skin conductance, and heart rate. In the mimicry experiment, oxazepam inhibited corrugator activity. In the empathy experiment, oxazepam caused increased self-rated unpleasantness and skin conductance. However, oxazepam specifically inhibited neither emotional mimicry nor empathy for pain. Responses in both experiments were associated with self-rated empathic, psychopathic and alexithymic traits. The present results do not support a specific effect of 25 mg oxazepam on emotional mimicry or empathy. PMID:28405353

A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: I. An introduction to the LARES2 space experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ciufolini, Ignazio; Paolozzi, Antonio; Pavlis, Erricos C.; Sindoni, Giampiero; Koenig, Rolf; Ries, John C.; Matzner, Richard; Gurzadyan, Vahe; Penrose, Roger; Rubincam, David; Paris, Claudio

2017-08-01

We introduce the LARES 2 space experiment recently approved by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The LARES 2 satellite is planned for launch in 2019 with the new VEGA C launch vehicle of ASI, ESA and ELV. The orbital analysis of LARES 2 experiment will be carried out by our international science team of experts in General Relativity, theoretical physics, space geodesy and aerospace engineering. The main objectives of the LARES 2 experiment are gravitational and fundamental physics, including accurate measurements of General Relativity, in particular a test of frame-dragging aimed at achieving an accuracy of a few parts in a thousand, i.e., aimed at improving by about an order of magnitude the present state-of-the-art and forthcoming tests of this general relativistic phenomenon. LARES 2 will also achieve determinations in space geodesy. LARES 2 is an improved version of the LAGEOS 3 experiment, proposed in 1984 to measure frame-dragging and analyzed in 1989 by a joint ASI and NASA study.

Accommodative and convergence response to computer screen and printed text

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferreira, Andreia; Lira, Madalena; Franco, Sandra

2011-05-01

The aim of this work was to find out if differences exist in accommodative and convergence response for different computer monitors' and a printed text. It was also tried to relate the horizontal heterophoria value and accommodative response with the symptoms associated with computer use. Two independents experiments were carried out in this study. The first experiment was measuring the accommodative response on 89 subjects using the Grand Seiko WAM-5500 (Grand Seiko Co., Ltd., Japan). The accommodative response was measured using three computer monitors: a 17-inch cathode ray tube (CRT), two liquid crystal displays LCDs, one 17-inch (LCD17) and one 15 inches (LCD15) and a printed text. The text displayed was always the same for all the subjects and tests. A second experiment aimed to measure the value of habitual horizontal heterophoria on 80 subjects using the Von Graefe technique. The measurements were obtained using the same target presented on two different computer monitors, one 19-inch cathode ray tube (CRT) and other 19 inches liquid crystal displays (LCD) and printed on paper. A small survey about the incidence and prevalence of symptoms was performed similarly in both experiments. In the first experiment, the accommodation response was higher in the CRT and LCD's than for paper. There were not found significantly different response for both LCD monitors'. The second experiment showed that, the heterophoria values were similar for all the stimuli. On average, participants presented a small exophoria. In both experiments, asthenopia was the symptom that presented higher incidence. There are different accommodative responses when reading on paper or on computer monitors. This difference is more significant for CRT monitors. On the other hand, there was no difference in the values of convergence for the computer monitors' and paper. The symptoms associated with the use of computers are not related with the increase in accommodation and with the horizontal heterophoria values.

Formal and Informal Learning and First-Year Psychology Students’ Development of Scientific Thinking: A Two-Wave Panel Study

PubMed Central

Soyyılmaz, Demet; Griffin, Laura M.; Martín, Miguel H.; Kucharský, Šimon; Peycheva, Ekaterina D.; Vaupotič, Nina; Edelsbrunner, Peter A.

2017-01-01

Scientific thinking is a predicate for scientific inquiry, and thus important to develop early in psychology students as potential future researchers. The present research is aimed at fathoming the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to psychology students’ development of scientific thinking during their 1st-year of study. We hypothesize that informal experiences are relevant beyond formal experiences. First-year psychology student cohorts from various European countries will be assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the second semester. Assessments of scientific thinking will include scientific reasoning skills, the understanding of basic statistics concepts, and epistemic cognition. Formal learning experiences will include engagement in academic activities which are guided by university authorities. Informal learning experiences will include non-compulsory, self-guided learning experiences. Formal and informal experiences will be assessed with a newly developed survey. As dispositional predictors, students’ need for cognition and self-efficacy in psychological science will be assessed. In a structural equation model, students’ learning experiences and personal dispositions will be examined as predictors of their development of scientific thinking. Commonalities and differences in predictive weights across universities will be tested. The project is aimed at contributing information for designing university environments to optimize the development of students’ scientific thinking. PMID:28239363

Formal and Informal Learning and First-Year Psychology Students' Development of Scientific Thinking: A Two-Wave Panel Study.

PubMed

Soyyılmaz, Demet; Griffin, Laura M; Martín, Miguel H; Kucharský, Šimon; Peycheva, Ekaterina D; Vaupotič, Nina; Edelsbrunner, Peter A

2017-01-01

Scientific thinking is a predicate for scientific inquiry, and thus important to develop early in psychology students as potential future researchers. The present research is aimed at fathoming the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to psychology students' development of scientific thinking during their 1st-year of study. We hypothesize that informal experiences are relevant beyond formal experiences. First-year psychology student cohorts from various European countries will be assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the second semester. Assessments of scientific thinking will include scientific reasoning skills, the understanding of basic statistics concepts, and epistemic cognition. Formal learning experiences will include engagement in academic activities which are guided by university authorities. Informal learning experiences will include non-compulsory, self-guided learning experiences. Formal and informal experiences will be assessed with a newly developed survey. As dispositional predictors, students' need for cognition and self-efficacy in psychological science will be assessed. In a structural equation model, students' learning experiences and personal dispositions will be examined as predictors of their development of scientific thinking. Commonalities and differences in predictive weights across universities will be tested. The project is aimed at contributing information for designing university environments to optimize the development of students' scientific thinking.

[A unit for the care of acute headache attacks. A new experience in our milieu].

PubMed

Zukerman, E; Lima, J G; Hannuch, S N; Nothen, M R; Carvalho, D de S

1989-01-01

This paper presents the aims of the first unit for treatment of headache crisis in a Brazilian Medical School. The differences between this unit and a neurological emergency unit and the therapeutic schedules are discussed.

The Effects of Endocrine Disruptors on Steroidogenesis Gene Expression Dynamics in Fathead Minnow

EPA Science Inventory

Steroid hormones play key roles in regulating reproduction and development and fish and other vertebrates. This presentation reports results from two in vitro experiments aimed characterizing the dynamics of transcriptional and metabolomic responses to endocrine disrupting chemi...

Workshop IV: Professional Development and Leadership

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sui, Man-Ling; Yoon, Jin-Hee

2015-12-01

The Professional Development and Leadership workshop of the 5th IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics was aimed at identifying and overcoming the personal and professional roadblocks that female physicists experience while pursuing their careers and obtaining leadership positions. Participants shared their thoughts and experiences related to the workshop's three sessions—Leadership, Education, and Inspiration—and concluded by formulating resolutions and recommendations to present to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).

The Benefits of Self-Set Goals: Is Ego Depletion Really a Result of Self-Control Failure?

PubMed Central

Zahn, Daniela; Rowland, Zarah; Kubiak, Thomas

2016-01-01

Research on ego depletion aims at explaining self-control failures in daily life. Both resource models and motivational accounts have been proposed for explanation. The aim of the present research was to test the different assumptions in two dual-task experiments where we operationalized ego depletion as a performance deviation from a self-set goal. In two experiments, we found evidence for this deviation contradicting motivational accounts of ego depletion: Participants experiencing ego depletion set themselves a stricter instead of a more lenient goal than controls, in that they chose to eat less cookies or wanted to perform better. Moreover, only participants without an initial self-control task could adhere to their self-set goal, whereas participants in the ego depletion condition in both experiments could not follow through with their more ambitious intentions. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the importance of goals in ego depletion research. PMID:27280531

Spectral atmospheric observations at Nantucket Island, May 7-14, 1981

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Talay, T. A.; Poole, L. R.

1981-01-01

An experiment was conducted by the National Langley Research Center to measure atmospheric optical conditions using a 10-channel solar spectral photometer system. This experiment was part of a larger series of multidisciplinary experiments performed in the area of Nantucket Shoals aimed at studying the dynamics of phytoplankton production processes. Analysis of the collected atmospheric data yield total and aerosol optical depths, transmittances, normalized sky radiance distributions, and total and sky irradiances. Results of this analysis may aid in atmospheric corrections of remote sensor data obtained by several sensors overflying the Nantucket Shoals area. Recommendations are presented concerning future experiments using the described solar photometer system and calibration and operational deficiencies uncovered during the experiment.

False memories and lexical decision: even twelve primes do not cause long-term semantic priming.

PubMed

Zeelenberg, René; Pecher, Diane

2002-03-01

Semantic priming effects are usually obtained only if the prime is presented shortly before the target stimulus. Recent evidence obtained with the so-called false memory paradigm suggests, however, that in both explicit and implicit memory tasks semantic relations between words can result in long-lasting effects when multiple 'primes' are presented. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether these effects would generalize to lexical decision. In four experiments we showed that even as many as 12 primes do not cause long-term semantic priming. In all experiments, however, a repetition priming effect was obtained. The present results are consistent with a number of other results showing that semantic information plays a minimal role in long-term priming in visual word recognition.

Community Resilience and the Fulfilment of Child Rights in the Family, School and Community

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tintor, Arijana Mataga

2013-01-01

The present paper presents the experience of researching the resilience of the local community and the fulfilment of the rights of the child. The aim of research was to place the assessment of the rights of the child in the function of local community resilience, focusing on one particular group of rights: the right to participate. This concept is…

Transient Pressure Measurements in the Vaneless Space of a Francis Turbine during Load Acceptances from Minimum Load

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goyal, R.; Gandhi, B. K.; Cervantes, M. J.

2018-06-01

Increased penetration of solar and the wind impels the designers of the hydroelectric power generation unit to provide more flexibility in operation for the stability of the grid. The power generating unit includes turbine which needs to sustain sudden change in its operating conditions. Thus, the hydraulic turbine experiences more transients per day which result in chronic problems such as fatigue to the runner, instrument malfunctioning, vibrations, wear and tear etc. This paper describes experiments performed on a high model (1.5:1) Francis turbine for load acceptances from the minimum load. The experiments presented in the paper are the part of Francis-99 workshop which aims to determine the performance of numerical models in simulations of model Francis turbine under steady and transient operating conditions. The aim of the paper is to present the transient pressure variation in the vaneless space of a Francis turbine where high-frequency pulsations are normally expected. For this, two pressure sensors, VL1 and VL2, are mounted at the vaneless space, one near the beginning of the spiral casing and the other before the end of the spiral casing. Both are used to capture the unsteady pressure field developed in the space between guide vanes and runner inlet. The time-resolved pressure signals are analyzed and presented during the transient to observe the pressure variation and dominant frequencies of pulsations.

Harwell high pressure heat transfer loop

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bennett, A.W.; Keeys, R.K.F.

1967-12-15

A detailed description is presented of the Harwell (Chemical Engineering and Process Technology Division) high pressure, steam-water heat transfer loop; this description is aimed at supplementing the information given in reports on individual experiments. The operating instructions for the loop are given in an appendix. (auth)

Introscopy in nano- and mesoscopic physics: Single electronics and quantum ballistics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tkachenko, V. A.; Tkachenko, O. A.; Kvon, Z. D.; Latyshev, A. V.; Aseev, A. L.

2016-09-01

A method is presented to be used in a computational experiment aimed at studying the internal structure of nano- and mesoscopic objects, i.e., conducting subsystems and quantum phenomena in solid submicron objects, which demonstrate an individual behavior of low-temperature resistance.

Suggestopaedia-Canada. 1977-2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Racle, Gabriel

This issue presents the original English version and a French translation of a text written at the Sofia Institute of Suggestology around April 1971. The document defines suggestology and suggestopedia, and traces the development of the suggestopedic method, from the first collective experiments aimed at attaining suggestive hypermnesia carried…

Effective Thinking Outdoors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hyde, Rod

1997-01-01

Effective Thinking Outdoors (ETO) is an organization that teaches thinking skills and strategies via significant outdoor experiences. Identifies the three elements of thinking as creativity, play, and persistence; presents a graphic depiction of the problem-solving process and aims; and describes an ETO exercise, determining old routes of travel…

First Year Experiences in School of Mechanical Engineering Kanazawa University

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kinari, Toshiyasu; Kanjin, Yuichi; Furuhata, Toru; Tada, Yukio

This paper reports two lectures of the first year experience, ‧Lecture on Life in Campus and Society‧ and ‧Freshman Seminar‧ and discusses their effects. Both lectures have been given freshmen of the school of mechanical engineering, Kanazawa University in H20 spring term. The former lecture is aimed at freshmen to keep on a proper way in both social and college life. It consists of normal class and e-learning system lectures. E-learning system examination requires students to review the whole text book and that seems to have brought better results in the survey. The latter seminar is aimed at freshmen to get active and self-disciplined learning way through their investigation, discussion, presentation, writing work, and so on.

Accuracy and Precision of Visual Stimulus Timing in PsychoPy: No Timing Errors in Standard Usage

PubMed Central

Garaizar, Pablo; Vadillo, Miguel A.

2014-01-01

In a recent report published in PLoS ONE, we found that the performance of PsychoPy degraded with very short timing intervals, suggesting that it might not be perfectly suitable for experiments requiring the presentation of very brief stimuli. The present study aims to provide an updated performance assessment for the most recent version of PsychoPy (v1.80) under different hardware/software conditions. Overall, the results show that PsychoPy can achieve high levels of precision and accuracy in the presentation of brief visual stimuli. Although occasional timing errors were found in very demanding benchmarking tests, there is no reason to think that they can pose any problem for standard experiments developed by researchers. PMID:25365382

Integration of cloud-based storage in BES III computing environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, L.; Hernandez, F.; Deng, Z.

2014-06-01

We present an on-going work that aims to evaluate the suitability of cloud-based storage as a supplement to the Lustre file system for storing experimental data for the BES III physics experiment and as a backend for storing files belonging to individual members of the collaboration. In particular, we discuss our findings regarding the support of cloud-based storage in the software stack of the experiment. We report on our development work that improves the support of CERN' s ROOT data analysis framework and allows efficient remote access to data through several cloud storage protocols. We also present our efforts providing the experiment with efficient command line tools for navigating and interacting with cloud storage-based data repositories both from interactive sessions and grid jobs.

Demonstration of an ebbinghaus illusion at a memory level: manipulation of the memory size and not the perceptual size.

PubMed

Rey, Amandine Eve; Riou, Benoit; Versace, Rémy

2014-01-01

Based on recent behavioral and neuroimaging data suggesting that memory and perception are partially based on the same sensorimotor system, the theoretical aim of the present study was to show that it is difficult to dissociate memory mechanisms from perceptual mechanisms other than on the basis of the presence (perceptual processing) or absence (memory processing) of the characteristics of the objects involved in the processing. In line with this assumption, two experiments using an adaptation of the Ebbinghaus illusion paradigm revealed similar effects irrespective of whether the size difference between the inner circles and the surrounding circles was manipulated perceptually (the size difference was perceptually present, Experiment 1) or merely reactivated in memory (the difference was perceptually absent, Experiment 2).

The Experiences of an Entrepreneurial Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kermani, Moe

2012-10-01

The majority of pre- and post-graduate training in physics is focused on the acquisition of hard skills necessary to pursue academic research within a specific discipline of the broader field. Often many physics graduates view a career transition from academia to the private sector with much consternation. In this presentation, Moe Kermani will share his experience in making the transition and discuss how elements of post graduate training in physics provide a good foundation for success as an entrepreneur. This presentation is primarily aimed at young physicists and graduate students that are considering a transition from the academic sector to the world of technology startups.

Setting a research question, aim and objective.

PubMed

Doody, Owen; Bailey, Maria E

2016-03-01

To describe the development of a research question, aim and objective. The first steps of any study are developing the research question, aim and objective. Subsequent steps develop from these and they govern the researchers' choice of population, setting, data to be collected and time period for the study. Clear, succinctly posed research questions, aims and objectives are essential if studies are to be successful. Researchers developing their research questions, aims and objectives generally experience difficulties. They are often overwhelmed trying to convert what they see as a relevant issue from practice into research. This necessitates engaging with the relevant published literature and knowledgeable people. This paper identifies the issues to be considered when developing a research question, aim and objective. Understanding these considerations will enable researchers to effectively present their research question, aim and objective. To conduct successful studies, researchers should develop clear research questions, aims and objectives.

Statistical Computations Underlying the Dynamics of Memory Updating

PubMed Central

Gershman, Samuel J.; Radulescu, Angela; Norman, Kenneth A.; Niv, Yael

2014-01-01

Psychophysical and neurophysiological studies have suggested that memory is not simply a carbon copy of our experience: Memories are modified or new memories are formed depending on the dynamic structure of our experience, and specifically, on how gradually or abruptly the world changes. We present a statistical theory of memory formation in a dynamic environment, based on a nonparametric generalization of the switching Kalman filter. We show that this theory can qualitatively account for several psychophysical and neural phenomena, and present results of a new visual memory experiment aimed at testing the theory directly. Our experimental findings suggest that humans can use temporal discontinuities in the structure of the environment to determine when to form new memory traces. The statistical perspective we offer provides a coherent account of the conditions under which new experience is integrated into an old memory versus forming a new memory, and shows that memory formation depends on inferences about the underlying structure of our experience. PMID:25375816

Exotic nuclear studies around and below A = 100

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nara Singh, B. S.; Wadsworth, R.; Brock, T. S.

2011-11-30

A RISING experiment with an aim to study exotic Cd nuclei was carried out at GSI-FRS facility. Some preliminary results from this experiment are presented here. In particular, the {beta} decay of {sup 96}Cd to {sup 96}Ag revealed the existence of a high spin isomer predicted a few decades ago. In this context, the structures of both these nuclei are discussed. Shell model calculations using the Gross-Frenkel interaction are used to interpret the results.

Teaching Process Writing in an Online Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carolan, Fergal; Kyppö, Anna

2015-01-01

This reflective practice paper offers some insights into teaching an interdisciplinary academic writing course aimed at promoting process writing. The study reflects on students' acquisition of writing skills and the teacher's support practices in a digital writing environment. It presents writers' experiences related to various stages of process…

Caring for the Environment while Teaching Organic Chemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santos, Elvira Santos; Gavilan Garcia, Irma Cruz; Lejarazo Gomez, Eva Florencia

2004-01-01

A comprehensive program in the field of green chemistry, which concentrates on processing and managing of wastes produced during laboratory experiments, is presented. The primary aim of the program is to instill a sense of responsibility and a concern for the environment through organic chemistry education.

Contesting Contained Bodily Coaching Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Richard

2013-01-01

Through critical readings of several images and texts, including photographs and artifacts in this collected montage, my aim here is to use multiple interactional analyses (visual culture techniques and deconstructive techniques) to assist in the critique of these presented visual images that represent current coaching policies in the USA.

Interfacing Email Tutoring: Shaping an Emergent Literate Practice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Dana

2002-01-01

Presents a descriptive analysis of 29 online writing lab sites for email tutoring, currently the most popular mode of computer-mediated collaboration. Considers how email tutoring interfaces represent the literate practice of email tutoring, shaping expectations and experiences consistent with its literate aims. Suggests that email tutoring…

Neutrino Factory Targets and the MICE Beam

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Walaron, Kenneth Andrew

2007-01-01

The future of particle physics in the next 30 years must include detailed study of neutrinos. The first proof of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics is evident in results from recent neutrino experiments which imply that neutrinos have mass and flavour mixing. The Neutrino Factory is the leading contender to measure precisely the neutrino mixing parameters to probe beyond the Standard Model physics. Significantly, one must look to measure the mixing angle θ 13 and investigate the possibility of leptonic CP violation. If found this may provide a key insight into the origins of the matter/anti- mattermore » asymmetry seen in the universe, through the mechanism of leptogenesis. The Neutrino Factory will be a large international multi-billion dollar experiment combining novel new accelerator and long-baseline detector technology. Arguably the most important and costly features of this facility are the proton driver and cooling channel. This thesis will present simulation work focused on determining the optimal proton driver energy to maximise pion production and also simulation of the transport of this pion °ux through some candidate transport lattices. Bench-marking of pion cross- sections calculated by MARS and GEANT4 codes to measured data from the HARP experiment is also presented. The cooling channel aims to reduce the phase-space volume of the decayed muon beam to a level that can be e±ciently injected into the accelerator system. The Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE) hosted by the Rutherford Appleton laboratory, UK is a proof-of-principle experiment aimed at measuring ionisation cooling. The experiment will run parasitically to the ISIS accelerator and will produce muons from pion decay. The MICE beamline provides muon beams of variable emittance and momentum to the MICE experiment to enable measurement of cooling over a wide range of beam conditions. Simulation work in the design of this beamline is presented in this thesis as are results from an experiment to estimate the °ux from the target into the beamline acceptance.« less

THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN FOR BeO IRAADIATION EXPERIMENTS ORNL 41-8 AND ORNL 41-9

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gardiner, D.A.

1962-07-18

The experimental plan for irradiating BeO pellets in Experiments ORNL 41- 8 and ORNL 41-9 was chosen in accordance with the principles of experimental design. The design is known by statisticians as a 2/sup 5/ factorial experiment confound'' in six replications. Five variables---size, density, grain size, temperature and time--are controlled at two levels to form the basic 2i factorial experiment. The sixth variable, neutron flux, is introduced by confounding on higher-order interactions. An explanation is presented in nontechnical language the means by which the aims of the experimenters and the physical conditions affecting the experiment were utilized in constructing themore » experimental design. (auth)« less

Use of the FAR Guide to Present a Pedagogical Analogical Model of Gel Electrophoresis in Year 10 Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, James

2013-01-01

This paper is a qualitative, practice based study describing the use of the Focus-Action-Reflection (FAR) Guide (Harrison & Treagust, 2000) to address the shortcomings of a pedagogical analogical model in Year 10 Science. The aim of this paper is to present my experience of the FAR Guide in relation to an analogical model that gave rise to…

A qualitative study examining the experience of primary care dentists in the detection and management of potentially malignant lesions. 1. Factors influencing detection and the decision to refer.

PubMed

Brocklehurst, P R; Baker, S R; Speight, P M

2010-01-23

Many oral squamous cell carcinomas present as late stage disease and so the detection of early and pre-malignancy is considered to be of paramount importance. The majority of research examining primary care dentists' experience of the detection and management of early disease has been undertaken using questionnaires, with the inherent bias this introduces. The aim of this study was to use qualitative methods to develop a richer account of practitioners' views about screening and what factors influence the decision to refer a patient. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with eighteen dentists in Sheffield, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Ten codes were identified according to the aims of the study and organized into four overarching themes. Although many dentists were screening regularly, some did not appear to be adopting a rigorous and systematic approach. A number of participants also placed more reliance on 'classical' presentations rather than the more varied presentation of potentially malignant lesions and were more influenced by the clinical history of the lesion rather than risk factors. Overall, the present research suggests that for some dentists, more rigour is required when examining for early disease.

No effect of stress on false recognition.

PubMed

Beato, María Soledad; Cadavid, Sara; Pulido, Ramón F; Pinho, María Salomé

2013-02-01

The present study aimed to analyze the effect of acute stress on false recognition in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In this paradigm, lists of words associated with a non-presented critical lure are studied and, in a subsequent memory test, critical lures are often falsely remembered. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to either the stress group (Trier Social Stress Test) or the no-stress control group. Because we sought to control the level-of-processing at encoding, in Experiment 1, participants created a visual mental image for each presented word (deep encoding). In Experiment 2, participants performed a shallow encoding (to respond whether each word contained the letter "o"). The results indicated that, in both experiments, as predicted, heart rate and STAI-S scores increased only in the stress group. However, false recognition did not differ across stress and no-stress groups. Results suggest that, although psychosocial stress was successfully induced, it does not enhance the vulnerability of individuals with acute stress to DRM false recognition, regardless of the level of processing.

Multifocal visual evoked responses to dichoptic stimulation using virtual reality goggles: Multifocal VER to dichoptic stimulation.

PubMed

Arvind, Hemamalini; Klistorner, Alexander; Graham, Stuart L; Grigg, John R

2006-05-01

Multifocal visual evoked potentials (mfVEPs) have demonstrated good diagnostic capabilities in glaucoma and optic neuritis. This study aimed at evaluating the possibility of simultaneously recording mfVEP for both eyes with dichoptic stimulation using virtual reality goggles and also to determine the stimulus characteristics that yield maximum amplitude. ten healthy volunteers were recruited and temporally sparse pattern pulse stimuli were presented dichoptically using virtual reality goggles. Experiment 1 involved recording responses to dichoptically presented checkerboard stimuli and also confirming true topographic representation by switching off specific segments. Experiment 2 involved monocular stimulation and comparison of amplitude with Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, orthogonally oriented gratings were dichoptically presented. Experiment 4 involved dichoptic presentation of checkerboard stimuli at different levels of sparseness (5.0 times/s, 2.5 times/s, 1.66 times/s and 1.25 times/s), where stimulation of corresponding segments of two eyes were separated by 16.7, 66.7,116.7 & 166.7 ms respectively. Experiment 1 demonstrated good traces in all regions and confirmed topographic representation. However, there was suppression of amplitude of responses to dichoptic stimulation by 17.9+/-5.4% compared to monocular stimulation. Experiment 3 demonstrated similar suppression between orthogonal and checkerboard stimuli (p = 0.08). Experiment 4 demonstrated maximum amplitude and least suppression (4.8%) with stimulation at 1.25 times/s with 166.7 ms separation between eyes. It is possible to record mfVEP for both eyes during dichoptic stimulation using virtual reality goggles, which present binocular simultaneous patterns driven by independent sequences. Interocular suppression can be almost eliminated by using a temporally sparse stimulus of 1.25 times/s with a separation of 166.7 ms between stimulation of corresponding segments of the two eyes.

Hearing voices: re/presenting the findings of narrative research into patient experience as poems.

PubMed

Stenhouse, R

2014-06-01

The study aimed to understand the experience of being a patient on an acute psychiatric inpatient ward. A further aim was to open up spaces for the voices of participants to be heard. Contemporary government policy places patient experience at the centre of healthcare policy and service development. Despite this, those who occupy marginalized discourses struggle to be heard within the dominant discourse of health care. A qualitative approach was used, and narrative was conceptualized as representing experience. Sociolinguistic theories informed the development of the analytic framework treating meaning as contextual and arising from both content and structure of narratives. Concepts of representation, voice and authorship were problematized. Thirteen people who had been inpatients on an acute psychiatric inpatient ward participated. Narrative data were gathered using unstructured interviews. The data were analysed holistically using a method that attended to both the structure and content of the narrative. The product of these holistic narratives was the development of a poem representing each participant's experience. This paper focuses on the development of these poems as a method of decentring the authorial voice and opening up spaces for the voices of the participants to be heard. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Can an old dog learn (and want to experience) new tricks? Cognitive training increases openness to experience in older adults

PubMed Central

Jackson, Joshua J.; Hill, Patrick L.; Payne, Brennan R.; Roberts, Brent W.; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A. L.

2012-01-01

The present study investigated whether an intervention aimed to increase cognitive ability in older adults also changes the personality trait of openness to experience. Older adults completed a 16-week program in inductive reasoning training supplemented by weekly crossword and Sudoku puzzles. Changes in openness to experience were modeled across four assessments over 30 weeks using latent growth curve models. Results indicate that participants in the intervention condition increased in the trait of openness compared to a waitlist control group. The study is one of the first to demonstrate that personality traits can change through non-psychopharmocological interventions. PMID:22251379

The Transformation of Traditional Universities into Entrepreneurial Universities to Ensure Sustainable Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bikse, Veronika; Lusena-Ezera, Inese; Rivza, Baiba; Volkova, Tatjana

2016-01-01

This paper aims to investigate the experience and to identify the drivers of transforming traditional universities into Entrepreneurial Universities for ensuring sustainable higher education in Latvia. Due to the wide scope, Entrepreneurial University characteristics, the present research study is limited and focuses on the university providing…

Mapping Remote and Multidisciplinary Learning Barriers: Lessons from "Challenge-Based Innovation" at CERN

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen, Matilde Bisballe; Utriainen, Tuuli Maria; Steinert, Martin

2018-01-01

This paper presents the experienced difficulties of students participating in the multidisciplinary, remote collaborating engineering design course challenge-based innovation at CERN. This is with the aim to identify learning barriers and improve future learning experiences. We statistically analyse the rated differences between distinct design…

A Collaboration-Mediated Exploration of Nonnative L2 Teachers' Cognition of Language Teaching Methodology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tajeddin, Zia; Aryaeian, Nafeeseh

2017-01-01

The present study sought to investigate nonnative L2 teachers' cognition of teaching methodology based on their collaborative talks. Participants were 12 nonnative EFL teachers categorized into three collaborative discussion groups by their teaching experience. Collaborative discussions were aimed at exploring the participants' cognition of…

Evaluation of Emotional Literacy Activities: A Phenomenological Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oksuz, Yucel

2016-01-01

The present study aims to evaluate impact of the emotional literacy activities through participant student's experiences. Emotional literacy activities, including social-emotional skills Goleman's emotional intelligence and Fapuel's emotional literacy model designed and conducted for 2 months on primary school students, who study in 4th grade. The…

Distance Training as Part of a Distance Consulting Solution.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fulantelli, Giovanni; Chiazzese, Giuseppe; Allegra, Mario

"Distance Training" models, when integrated in a more complex framework, such as a "Distance Consulting" model, present specific features and impose a revision of the strategies commonly adopted in distance training experiences. This paper reports on the distance training strategies adopted in a European funded project aimed at…

Online Self-Assessment with Feedback and Metacognitive Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ibabe, Izaskun; Jauregizar, Joana

2010-01-01

The present work describes an experience of educational innovation in a university context. Its aim was to determine the relationship between students' frequency of use of online self-assessment with feedback and their final performance on the course, taking into account both learners' motivation and perceived usefulness of these resources for…

Automated Assessment in a Programming Tools Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fernandez Aleman, J. L.

2011-01-01

Automated assessment systems can be useful for both students and instructors. Ranking and immediate feedback can have a strongly positive effect on student learning. This paper presents an experience using automatic assessment in a programming tools course. The proposal aims at extending the traditional use of an online judging system with a…

Indian Institutional Repositories: A Study of User's Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sawant, Sarika

2012-01-01

Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the experience, contribution and opinions of users of respective institutional repositories (IRs) developed in India. Design/methodology/approach: The survey method was used. The data collection tool was a web questionnaire, which was created with the help of software provided by surveymonkey.com…

DYNAMIC ENERGY SAVING IN BUILDINGS WITH UNDERFLOOR AIR DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM – EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATION STUDIES

EPA Science Inventory

The present study is aimed at seeking a better understanding of the thermodynamics involved with the air distribution strategies associated with UFAD systems and its impact on the energy saving dynamics.
Thus objectives are:

• Experiment...

• Effects of roadway configurations on near-road air quality and the implications on roadway designs

  EPA Science Inventory

  This paper presents an analysis of wind tunnel experiments of twelve different roadway configurations and modeling of these configurations using a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) model, aiming at investigating how flow structures affect the impact of roadway features on near-road and...

• Effects of Post-Training Hippocampal Injections of Midazolam on Fear Conditioning

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Gafford, Georgette M.; Parsons, Ryan G.; Helmstetter, Fred J.

  2005-01-01

  Benzodiazepines have been useful tools for investigating mechanisms underlying learning and memory. The present set of experiments investigates the role of hippocampal GABA[subscript A]/benzodiazepine receptors in memory consolidation using Pavlovian fear conditioning. Rats were prepared with cannulae aimed at the dorsal hippocampus and trained…

• MOOC Learning Experience Design: Issues and Challenges

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Fournier, Hélène; Kop, Rita

  2015-01-01

  This paper will present current work on various frameworks that are aimed at guiding the research, development, and evaluation efforts around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Initiatives and activities, including current work by the National Research Council (NRC) in the context of Learning and Performance Support Systems and MOOCs, will be…

• The information retrieval system of {open_quotes}heat abd nass transfer{close_quotes} software complexes

  DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

  Tsitsin, A.G.

  A project is discussed which is aimed at creating the International Center for certification of software complexes (SC), intended to for soling various heat and mass transfer problems. Information on the experience gained in the operation of an information retrieval SC system is presented.

• Teenagers' Explanations of Bullying

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Thornberg, Robert; Knutsen, Sven

  2011-01-01

  The aim of the present study was to explore how teenagers explain why bullying takes place at school, and whether there were any differences in explaining bullying due to gender and prior bullying experiences. One hundred and seventy-six Swedish students in Grade 9 responded to a questionnaire. Mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative methods)…

• Student-to-Student Legacies in Exploratory Action Research

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Moran, Katherine

  2017-01-01

  In 2013/2014, I conducted two consecutive cycles of exploratory action research aimed at improving the quality of my French engineering students' oral presentations in English. Each cycle involved a different group of students. I collaborated with the students extensively throughout the project and found that the experience was highly beneficial…

• Cognate Facilitation in Sentence Context--Translation Production by Interpreting Trainees and Non-Interpreting Trilinguals

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Lijewska, Agnieszka; Chmiel, Agnieszka

  2015-01-01

  Conference interpreters form a special case of language users because the simultaneous interpretation practice requires very specific lexical processing. Word comprehension and production in respective languages is performed under strict time constraints and requires constant activation of the involved languages. The present experiment aimed at…

• Learning Molecular Structures in a Tangible Augmented Reality Environment

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Asai, Kikuo; Takase, Norio

  2011-01-01

  This article presents the characteristics of using a tangible table top environment produced by augmented reality (AR), aimed at improving the environment in which learners observe three-dimensional molecular structures. The authors perform two evaluation experiments. A performance test for a user interface demonstrates that learners with a…

• A Holistic Model to Infer Mathematics Performance: The Interrelated Impact of Student, Family and School Context Variables

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Zhao, Ningning; Valcke, Martin; Desoete, Annemie; Zhu, Chang; Sang, Guoyuan; Verhaeghe, JeanPierre

  2014-01-01

  The present study aims at exploring predictors influencing mathematics performance. In particular, the study focuses on internal students' characteristics (gender, age, metacognitive experience, mathematics self-efficacy) and external contextual factors (GDP of school location, parents' educational level, teachers' educational level, and teacher…

• MovementScapes as Ecomotricity in Ecopedagogy

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Rodrigues, Cae

  2018-01-01

  This elaboration of an ecopedagogy in movementscapes aims to present an empirically informed account of the concept of "ecomotricity" as manifested in the living body interacting in/with nature (human-and-other-than-human). This interaction is ludic (where pleasure or joy/happiness gives meaning to the lived experience) and ecological…

• Positionings in an Immature Triad in Teacher Education

  ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

  Klemp, Torunn; Nilssen, Vivi

  2017-01-01

  This article presents and discusses experiences from an intervention project in Norwegian teacher education focusing on a triadic collaboration between student teachers, mentors and lecturers. The aim of the project was to establish a written, digital meeting place supporting the student teachers' professional development. The question explored in…

• Neutron streaming studies along JET shielding penetrations

  NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

  Stamatelatos, Ion E.; Vasilopoulou, Theodora; Batistoni, Paola; Obryk, Barbara; Popovichev, Sergey; Naish, Jonathan

  2017-09-01

  Neutronic benchmark experiments are carried out at JET aiming to assess the neutronic codes and data used in ITER analysis. Among other activities, experiments are performed in order to validate neutron streaming simulations along long penetrations in the JET shielding configuration. In this work, neutron streaming calculations along the JET personnel entrance maze are presented. Simulations were performed using the MCNP code for Deuterium-Deuterium and Deuterium- Tritium plasma sources. The results of the simulations were compared against experimental data obtained using thermoluminescence detectors and activation foils.

Self-Concept Clarity and Online Self-Presentation in Adolescents.

PubMed

Fullwood, Chris; James, Billie May; Chen-Wilson, Chao-Hwa Josephine

2016-12-01

The Internet may be conceptualized as a social laboratory, providing freedom to experiment with different presentations of self. Adolescence is an important time in the development of self-concept; however, little is known about how clarity of self-concept relates to online behavior. The principal aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that self-concept clarity would be associated with adolescents' inclination to experiment with online self-presentation. One hundred forty-eight participants aged 13-18 completed the Self-Concept Clarity Scale, the Facebook Intensity Scale, and the Presentation of Online Self Scale (POSS). Adolescents possessing a less stable sense of self reported experimenting with online self-presentation more regularly, presenting an idealized version of self and a preference for presenting themselves online. Adolescents with a more stable self-concept reported presenting an online self which was more consistent with their offline self-presentation. Younger adolescents were more likely to present an inconsistent self, whereas older adolescents presented themselves more consistently across different communication contexts. Finally, adolescents who spent more time on Facebook and had fewer Facebook friends were more likely to present multiple versions of self while online. The implications of these findings will be discussed in terms of the development of self-concept during adolescence and the potential for the online world to facilitate flexible identity construction and self-presentation.

Experimental design, power and sample size for animal reproduction experiments.

PubMed

Chapman, Phillip L; Seidel, George E

2008-01-01

The present paper concerns statistical issues in the design of animal reproduction experiments, with emphasis on the problems of sample size determination and power calculations. We include examples and non-technical discussions aimed at helping researchers avoid serious errors that may invalidate or seriously impair the validity of conclusions from experiments. Screen shots from interactive power calculation programs and basic SAS power calculation programs are presented to aid in understanding statistical power and computing power in some common experimental situations. Practical issues that are common to most statistical design problems are briefly discussed. These include one-sided hypothesis tests, power level criteria, equality of within-group variances, transformations of response variables to achieve variance equality, optimal specification of treatment group sizes, 'post hoc' power analysis and arguments for the increased use of confidence intervals in place of hypothesis tests.

Surface alpha backgrounds from plate-out of radon progeny

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perumpilly, Gopakumar; Guiseppe, Vincente

2012-03-01

Low-background detectors operating underground aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. Although the radioactive decays of airborne radon (particularly Rn-222) and its subsequent daughters present in an experiment are potential backgrounds, more troublesome is the deposition of radon daughters on detector materials. Exposure to radon at any stage of assembly of an experiment can result in surface contamination by daughters supported by the long half life (22 y) of Pb-210 on sensitive locations of a detector. We have developed a model of the radon progeny implantation using Geant4 simulations based on the low energy nuclear recoil process. We explore the alpha decays from implanted progeny on a Ge crystal as potential backgrounds for a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment. Results of the simulations validated with alpha spectrum measurement of plate-out samples will be presented.

SPECIAL SEMINAR - The NOTTE experiment, or how to become a Total Solar Eclipse chaser

ScienceCinema

None

2017-12-09

The NOTTE experiment (Neutrino Oscillations with Telescope during Total Eclipse) aims at searching for visible photons emitted through a possible radiative decay of solar neutrinos. The experiment and the expeditions organized by a group of physicists and astrophysicists from INFN and INAF Bologna hunting for Total Solar Eclipses from 1998 to 2006 wil be described. The results of observations performed during total solar eclipse expeditions in 2001 (Zambia) and 2006 (Sahara desert, Libya) are presented and a beautiful photo gallery will be shown. Other peculiar observations that can be made during a solar eclipse are also illustrated. The seminar will be followed by a brief presentation of future camps for solar eclipse chasers and scientists organized in 2008 in Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia, in 2009 in Shanghai and on the Easter Island in 2010.

!CHAOS: A cloud of controls

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Angius, S.; Bisegni, C.; Ciuffetti, P.; Di Pirro, G.; Foggetta, L. G.; Galletti, F.; Gargana, R.; Gioscio, E.; Maselli, D.; Mazzitelli, G.; Michelotti, A.; Orrù, R.; Pistoni, M.; Spagnoli, F.; Spigone, D.; Stecchi, A.; Tonto, T.; Tota, M. A.; Catani, L.; Di Giulio, C.; Salina, G.; Buzzi, P.; Checcucci, B.; Lubrano, P.; Piccini, M.; Fattibene, E.; Michelotto, M.; Cavallaro, S. R.; Diana, B. F.; Enrico, F.; Pulvirenti, S.

2016-01-01

The paper is aimed to present the !CHAOS open source project aimed to develop a prototype of a national private Cloud Computing infrastructure, devoted to accelerator control systems and large experiments of High Energy Physics (HEP). The !CHAOS project has been financed by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Research and Education) and aims to develop a new concept of control system and data acquisition framework by providing, with a high level of aaabstraction, all the services needed for controlling and managing a large scientific, or non-scientific, infrastructure. A beta version of the !CHAOS infrastructure will be released at the end of December 2015 and will run on private Cloud infrastructures based on OpenStack.

Localisation of threat substances in urban society - LOTUS: a viable tool for finding illegal bomb factories in cities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Önnerud, Hans; Wallin, Sara; Östmark, Henric; Menning, Dennis; Ek, Stefan; Ellis, Hanna; Kölhed, Malin

2011-06-01

Results of dispersion experiments and dispersion modelling of explosives, drugs, and their precursors will be presented. The dispersion of chemicals evolving during preparation of home made explosives and a drug produced in an improvised manner in an ordinary kitchen has been measured. Experiments with concentration of hydrogen peroxide have been performed during spring and summer of 2009 and 2010 and further experiments with concentration of hydrogen peroxide, synthesis and drying of TATP and Methamphetamine are planned for the spring and summer of 2011. Results from the experiments are compared to dispersion modelling to achieve a better understanding of the dispersion processes and the resulting substances and amounts available for detection outside the kitchen at distances of 10-30 m and longer. Typical concentration levels have been determined as a function of environmental conditions. The experiments and modelling are made as a part of the LOTUS project aimed at detecting and locating the illicit production of explosives and drugs in an urban environment. It can be concluded that the proposed LOTUS system concept, using mobile automatic sensors, data transfer, location via GSM/GPS for on-line detection of illicit production of explosive or precursors to explosives and drugs is a viable approach and is in accordance with historical and today's illicit bomb manufacturing. The overall objective and approach of the LOTUS project will also be presented together with two more projects called PREVAIL and EMPHASIS both aiming at hindering or finding illicit production of home made explosives.

Foreign-grammar acquisition while watching subtitled television programmes.

PubMed

Van Lommel, Sven; Laenen, Annouschka; d'Ydewalle, Géry

2006-06-01

Past research has shown that watching a subtitled foreign movie (i.e. foreign language in the soundtrack and native language in the subtitles) leads to considerable foreign-language vocabulary acquisition; however, acquisition of the grammatical rules has failed to emerge. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for the acquisition of grammatical rules in watching subtitled foreign movies. Given an informal context, younger children were predicted to outperform older children in acquiring a foreign language; however, older children will take more advantage of explicit instruction compared with younger children. In Experiment 1, 62 sixth-graders from a primary school and 47 sixth-graders from a secondary school volunteered to participate. The participants in Experiment 2 were 94 sixth-graders from primary schools and 84 sixth-graders from secondary schools. The two experiments manipulated the instructions (incidental- vs. intentional-language learning). Moreover, before the experiments began, some participants explicitly received some of the foreign grammatical rules (presented rules), while the movie contained cases of presented rules as well as cases of rules which had to be inferred (not-presented rules). Rule acquisition through the movie only was not obtained; there was a strong effect of advance rule presentation but only on the items of presented rules, particularly among the older participants. Contrary to vocabulary, grammar may be too complicated to acquire from a rather short movie presentation.

Empathy and child neglect: a theoretical model.

PubMed

De Paul, Joaquín; Guibert, María

2008-11-01

To present an explanatory theory-based model of child neglect. This model does not address neglectful behaviors of parents with mental retardation, alcohol or drug abuse, or severe mental health problems. In this model parental behavior aimed to satisfy a child's need is considered a helping behavior and, as a consequence, child neglect is considered as a specific type of non-helping behavior. The central hypothesis of the theoretical model presented here suggests that neglectful parents cannot develop the helping response set to care for their children because the observation of a child's signal of need does not lead to the experience of emotions that motivate helping or because the parents experience these emotions, but specific cognitions modify the motivation to help. The present theoretical model suggests that different typologies of neglectful parents could be developed based on different reasons that parents might not to experience emotions that motivate helping behaviors. The model can be helpful to promote new empirical studies about the etiology of different groups of neglectful families.

Improving care coordination for community-dwelling older Australians: a longitudinal qualitative study.

PubMed

Harvey, Desley; Foster, Michele; Strivens, Edward; Quigley, Rachel

2017-05-01

Objective The aim of the present study was to describe the care transition experiences of older people who transfer between subacute and primary care, and to identify factors that influence these experiences. A further aim of the study was to identify ways to enhance the Geriatric Evaluation and Management (GEM) model of care and improve local coordination of services for older people. Methods The present study was an exploratory, longitudinal case study involving repeat interviews with 19 patients and carers, patient chart audits and three focus groups with service providers. Interview transcripts were coded and synthesised to identify recurring themes. Results Patients and carers experienced care transitions as dislocating and unpredictable within a complex and turbulent service context. The experience was characterised by precarious self-management in the community, floundering with unmet needs and holistic care within the GEM service. Patient and carer attitudes to seeking help, quality and timeliness of communication and information exchange, and system pressure affected care transition experiences. Conclusion Further policy and practice attention, including embedding early intervention and prevention, strengthening links between levels of care by building on existing programs and educative and self-help initiatives for patients and carers is recommended to improve care transition experiences and optimise the impact of the GEM model of care. What is known about the topic? Older people with complex care needs experience frequent care transitions because of fluctuating health and fragmentation of aged care services in Australia. The GEM model of care promotes multidisciplinary, coordinated care to improve care transitions and outcomes for older people with complex care needs. What does this paper add? The present study highlights the crucial role of the GEM service, but found there is a lack of systemised linkages within and across levels of care that disrupts coordinated care and affects care transition experiences. There are underutilised opportunities for early intervention and prevention across the system, including the emergency department and general practice. What are the implications for practitioners? Comprehensive screening, assessment and intervention in primary and acute care, formalised transition processes and enhanced support for patients and carers to access timely, appropriate care is required to achieve quality, coordinated care transitions for older people.

Experiments Aimed at the ``Baikal'' Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kingsep, Alexander; Bakshaev, Yuri; Bartov, Alexander; Blinov, Petr; Chernenko, Andrey; Danko, Sergey; Dolgachev, Georgy; Kalinin, Yuri; Kovalenko, Igor; Lobanov, Alexey; Maslennikov, Dmitri; Mizhiritsky, Valery; Shashkov, Andrey; Smirnov, Valentin

2002-12-01

On the S-300 pulsed power generator (4.5 MA, 70 ns, 0.15 Ohm), within the frames of ICF program based on fast high-current Z-pinches, experiments are being carried out studying promising schemes of output units. In particular, a nanosecond-range plasma flow switch is being investigated aimed at sharpening the pulse. As a result, the switching rate as high as 2.5 MA / 2.5 ns has been achieved. The numerical simulation of such a device has been carried out. The results of experiments on the extrinsic magnetic field influence on high-impedance plasma opening switch (POS) operation are reported. It has been demonstrated that the POS output voltage could be increased by the factor of 1.5 compared to the POS free of an extrinsic field. Also the possibility of the expansion of POS conduction phase duration up to 40 μs has been presented. The development of more new laser and nuclear diagnostic methods will definitely contribute to attain new data which could help in understanding the POS operation physics.

A multichannel fiber optic photometer present performance and future developments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barwig, H.; Schoembs, R.; Huber, G.

1988-01-01

A three channel photometer for simultaneous multicolor observations was designed with the aim of making possible highly efficient photometry of fast variable objects like cataclysmic variables. Experiences with this instrument over a period of three years are presented. Aspects of the special techniques applied are discussed with respect to high precision photometry. In particular, the use of fiber optics is critically analyzed. Finally, the development of a new photometer concept is discussed.

Las experiencias clinicas de los estudiantes de enfermeria: Estudio de caso hacia la integracion de la mentoria

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rivera Rodriguez, Ivelisse

Clinical experiences are an essential part of the training of future nursing professionals. The period of clinical experience aims to develop in the student the necessary skills to practice as a nursing professional, when the academic program ends. This case study aimed to understand the opinion and explore the perception of faculty, clinical instructors, and nursing students on the meaning, contributions and challenges presented during clinical experiences. Among the themes explored in the focus groups were the meaning and importance to learning about the profession of clinical experiences, teaching strategies used during the practice scenarios, didactic relationships developed among students, clinical instructors, and teachers. The goal was to learn from all participants about what they do, their expectations, and the challenges presented during the clinical experiences. A qualitative, descriptive and contextual research design was followed, which required conducting six focus groups to collect the information from the perspective of all the participants. Faculty, clinical instructors, and nursing students participated each in two focus groups. Collected data were transcribed, coded and analyzed in order to organize it under themes related to the research framework. The qualitative analysis of the focus groups revealed that nursing faculty and clinical instructors perceived clinical experiences as a very important element in the training of nursing students, but that coordination between the academy and practice scenarios is disconnected and needs improvement. They also expressed that they use various learning strategies during the clinical experiences, however, they recognize it needs more structure and suggested mentoring as a strategy to consider. They affirmed that mentoring could contribute positively to enhance the teaching-learning process. Clinical instructors understand they perform mentoring roles, but they would like to have a more defined role and structured process. Nursing students, also, recognized the importance of clinical experiences in their professional training. They expressed the need to improve the communication between the academy and the practice scenarios in order to reduce the levels of anxiety they experience when entering the clinical experiences. Nursing students also expressed the need to consider the use of different teaching strategies, such as mentoring, to improve clinical experiences.

Experiments on the transportation of a magnetized plasma stream in the GOL-3 facility

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Postupaev, V. V., E-mail: V.V.Postupaev@inp.nsk.su; Batkin, V. I.; Burdakov, A. V.

2016-04-15

The program of the deep upgrade of the GOL-3 multiple-mirror trap is presented. The upgrade is aimed at creating a new GOL-NB open trap located at the GOL-3 site and intended to directly demonstrate the efficiency of using multiple-mirror magnetic cells to improve longitudinal plasma confinement in a gasdynamic open trap. The GOL-NB device will consist of a new central trap, adjoint cells with a multiple-mirror magnetic field, and end tanks (magnetic flux expanders). Plasma in the central trap will be heated by neutral beam injection with a power of up to 1.5 MW and duration of 1 ms. Atmore » present, physical experiments directed at developing plasma technologies that are novel for this facility are being carried out using the 6-m-long autonomous part of the GOL-3 solenoid. The aim of this work was to develop a method for filling the central trap with a low-temperature start plasma. Transportation of a plasma stream from an arc source over a distance of 3 m in a uniform magnetic field with an induction of 0.5–4.5 T is demonstrated. In these experiments, the axial plasma density was (1–4) × 10{sup 20} m{sup –3} and the mirror ratio varied from 5 to 60. In general, the experiments confirmed the correctness of the adopted decisions for the start plasma source of the GOL-NB device.« less

Research on teaching reform and practice of applied optics design experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Geng, Tao; Tong, Chengguo; Zhang, Tao; Lu, Cunlian; Meng, Ting; Zhang, Yang; Wang, Ran; Sun, Weimin; Liu, Zhihai; Yang, Jun

2017-08-01

It is an important way to effectively improve applied optics experimental teaching effect and motivate the undergraduates' practice ability and creativity by means of scientific and systematic setting teaching contents and link. Based on the research and analysis of applied optics experiment teaching present condition at home and abroad, this paper aims to solve the existed problems and deficiencies during the experiment teaching in our university, and also puts forward some reform ideas and practice method from several aspects such as teaching thought, teaching content and mode, examination and evaluation and so on. Simultaneously, this paper also gives some suggestions on the future course development.

Status report of the GERDA experiment phase I

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riboldi, Stefano; Gerda Collaboration

2013-08-01

Phase I of GERDA, aimed at investigating neutrino-less double beta decay of 76Ge is in the active phase since November 2011 at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of INFN-Italy. GERDA Ge detectors are non-encapsulated and operate immersed in liquid argon, equipped with a front-end readout electronics consisting of cryogenic charge sensitive preamplifiers designed and manufactured to cope with the characteristics of the GERDA experiment (radio-purity, long and resistive cables, etc.). The presentation will report on the current status of the GERDA experiment phase I, focusing on Ge detectors performance in terms of energy resolution, stability over time, counting rate and related issues.

Starflo glaucoma implant: early experience in Hungary

PubMed Central

István, Cseke; Péter, Vámosi; Mária, Bausz

2016-01-01

Aim: To present the early experience with the implantation technique, safety and efficiency of STARflo™ device for open angle glaucoma (OAG). Methods: referring intra- and postoperative clinical experience with a series of seven cases in three glaucoma centers in Hungary. Results: No intraoperative complications were observed. Postoperative inflammatory signs disappeared rapidly. The mean IOP reduction was from 27,6 ± 5,0 mmHg to 18,9±3,4 mmHg (32% reduction/ patient) at six months postoperatively. Conclusion: STARflo™ implant was safe and (except for one case with neovascular glaucoma) effective in our cases. The learning curve for experienced anterior segment surgeons was short. PMID:27220226

High body mass index is associated with impaired cognitive control.

PubMed

Sellaro, Roberta; Colzato, Lorenza S

2017-06-01

The prevalence of weight problems is increasing worldwide. There is growing evidence that high body mass index (BMI) is associated with frontal lobe dysfunction and cognitive deficits concerning mental flexibility and inhibitory control efficiency. The present study aims at replicating and extending these observations. We compared cognitive control performance of normal weight (BMI < 25) and overweight (BMI ≥ 25) university students on a task tapping either inhibitory control (Experiment 1) or interference control (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 replicated previous findings that found less efficient inhibitory control in overweight individuals. Experiment 2 complemented these findings by showing that cognitive control impairments associated with high BMI also extend to the ability to resolve stimulus-induced response conflict and to engage in conflict-driven control adaptation. The present results are consistent with and extend previous literature showing that high BMI in young, otherwise healthy individuals is associated with less efficient cognitive control functioning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

MHD control experiments in the Extrap T2R Reversed Field Pinch

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marrelli, L.; Bolzonella, T.; Brunsell, P.; Cecconello, M.; Drake, J.; Franz, P.; Gregoratto, D.; Manduchi, G.; Martin, P.; Ortolani, S.; Paccagnella, R.; Piovesan, P.; Spizzo, G.; Yadikin, D.; Zanca, P.

2004-11-01

We report here on MHD active control experiments performed in the Extrap T2R device, which has been recently equipped with a set of 32 feedback controlled saddle coils couples. Experiments aiming at selectively exciting a resonant resistive instability in order to actively induce Quasi Single Helicity states will be presented. Open loop experiments have in fact shown that a spectrum with one dominant mode can be excited in a high aspect ratio device like T2R. In addition, evidences of controlled braking of tearing modes, which spontaneously rotate in T2R, have been gathered, allowing the determination of a threshold for mode wall locking. Different feedback control schemes have been implemented. In particular, mode suppression schemes proved successful in delaying resistive wall modes growth and in increasing the discharge duration: this suggests a hybrid mode control scenario, in which RWM are suppressed and QSH is induced. Radiation imaging and internal magnetic field reconstructions performed with the ORBIT code will be presented.

A Brief Comparison of the Current Approaches in Teaching Pronunciation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aydin, Selami; Akyüz, Serhat

2017-01-01

Though pronunciation has an important place in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning, it is evident that EFL teachers experience some problems in pronunciation classes. Thus, this study aims to review some studies on teaching pronunciation to present essential information and solutions to the problems encountered in…

An Intensive Programme on Education for Sustainable Development: The Participants' Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biasutti, Michele

2015-01-01

This paper presents the framework of an intensive programme (IP) organised by UNESCO and addressed to young graduate professionals to prepare them for a career in fields related to sustainability. The aims of the IP were to address participants' environmental awareness and to develop attitudes and skills related to environmental planning and…

E-Learning and Development: Lessons from Multi-Disciplinary Capacity Strengthening

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Babu, Suresh Chandra

2014-01-01

This paper documents the experience and lessons from implementing an e-learning program aimed at creating multidisciplinary research capacity. It presents a case study of bringing together a multidisciplinary group of professionals on-line to learn the skills needed to be a successful researcher in the context of HIV/AIDS and food security…

Early Development of Object Unity: Evidence for Perceptual Completion in Newborns

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valenza, Eloisa; Bulf, Hermann

2011-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate whether perceptual completion is available at birth, in the absence of any visual experience. An extremely underspecified kinetic visual display composed of four spatially separated fragments arranged to give rise to an illusory rectangle that occluded a vertical rod (illusory condition) or rotated so as not…

EFL Teachers' Emotions and Learners' Views of Teachers' Pedagogical Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toraby, Ehsan; Modarresi, Ghasem

2018-01-01

Emotions that teachers experience are not only important for their performance and satisfaction in the classroom, but they also affect their interaction with students and students' achievement. The present study mainly aimed to examine the association between teachers' emotions and students' perspectives towards the their teachers' success in…

Cultural Competence Development, Critical Service Learning, and Latino/a Youth Empowerment: A Qualitative Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vargas, Lucila C.; Erba, Joseph

2017-01-01

As universities create service-learning programs, educators are experimenting with pedagogical approaches that enhance learning outcomes while benefiting communities. We present a qualitative case study of a radio-based, service-learning program, grounded in a Freirean foundation and aimed at developing the cultural competence and sense of…

Priorities in Education: Pre-School; Evidence and Conclusions. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 323.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smilansky, M.

This paper presents and evaluates the broad results of pre-school intervention experiments and programs aimed at fostering the intellectual and social development of "disadvantaged" groups. Among the general findings discussed are (1) there is a "sensitive," or even "critical," period in child development, an age at…

Salience Is Only Briefly Represented: Evidence from Probe-Detection Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Donk, Mieke; Soesman, Leroy

2010-01-01

Salient objects in the visual field tend to capture attention. The present study aimed to examine the time-course of salience effects using a probe-detection task. Eight experiments investigated how the salience of different orientation singletons affected probe reaction time as a function of stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the…

A Hands-On Experience of English Language Teachers as Researchers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yayli, Demet

2012-01-01

This study presents the results of a teacher research project. The analysis aimed to explore both the four teacher researchers' interpretations of conducting research in English language teaching and the nature of their collaboration with their supervisor in the procedure. The results showed that qualitative data analysis and interpreting the…

Exploring EFL Learners' Perceptions of Integrated Skills Approach: A Grounded Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tajzad, Maryam; Ostovar-Namaghi, Seyyed Ali

2014-01-01

This qualitative study aims at exploring EFL learners' perceptions of the integrated skills approach to language teaching. To this end, the researchers presented the integrated skills approach to a group of 30 participants and interviewed those who were willing to share their views and experience with the researchers. The researchers used grounded…

Flourishing in a Second Language (FL2): Integrating Positive Psychology, Transition Pedagogy and CLIL Principles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strambi, Antonella; Luzeckyj, Ann; Rubino, Antonia

2017-01-01

This paper presents findings from the "Flourishing in a Second Language" (FL2) project--a language curriculum for first-year university students which integrates Positive Psychology (Seligman, 2002), Transition Pedagogy (Kift, 2009a), and CLIL principles (Coyle, 2006). The project aims to create learning experiences that are personally…

Mental Health Issues and Higher Education Psychology Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Craig, Naomi

2010-01-01

This paper focuses on widening participation and accessibility in relation to mental health issues and undergraduate psychology students. Sections 1 and 2 set the context and outline the scope and aims of this paper. Section 3 presents evidence of the student experience from the Improving Provisions for Disabled Psychology Students (IPDPS)…

Fostering Regimes of Truth: Understanding and Reflecting on the Freedom School Way

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Kersha

2010-01-01

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the inner workings of a North American summer enrichment programme named Freedom School. More specifically this research explores how participants of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School programme experience "the Freedom School way", an amalgam of ideologies, discourses, and behaviours…

Promoting Individual and Group Regulated Learning in Collaborative Settings: An Experience in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Onrubia, Javier; Rochera, Maria José; Engel, Anna

2015-01-01

We present a teaching innovation intervention aimed at promoting individual and group learning regulation in undergraduate students working in a computer supported collaborative learning environment. Participants were 127 students and three teachers of a compulsory course on Educational Psychology at the University of Barcelona (Spain). As a…

Community and Parent Involvement in Early Childhood Development: The South African Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atmore, Eric; And Others

Noting that disadvantaged communities in South Africa can be empowered by involving parents and communities in the development of preschool education programs, this report presents the achievements of South Africa's Early Childhood Education and Care (educare) programs. Educare aims to develop the young child's potential to be a meaningful part of…

Beliefs about Creativity: Views of Tertiary Students in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ho, Kwok Keung; Soh, Kay Cheng; Ho, Belinda

2006-01-01

Background: Creativity is associated with many pet beliefs, unfounded or based on limited personal experiences and observations. Aims: The intention of the present study is to take the research one step backward to look at possible antecedents of beliefs regarding creativity, as such knowledge has implications for education where creativity is…

A Cognitive Behavioral Depression Prevention Program for Early Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miloseva, Lence

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to present results of our one year experience with Cognitive Behavioral Psychology Program, in order to contribute to the building of whole school approach and positive psychology preventive mental health problems model. Based on Penn Resilience program (PRP), we modify and create program for early adolescents: how to…

The ELP through Time: Background Motivation, Growing Experience, Current Beliefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Argondizzo, Carmen; Sasso, Maria I.

2016-01-01

This article offers an overview of research strategies currently in use at the Language Centre of the University of Calabria and aimed at observing university students' learning habits when they are asked to use the European Language Portfolio during language courses. We present evidence of how experimental groups of students belonging to…

Exploring Students' Engineering Designs through Open-Ended Assignments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Puente, S. M. Gómez; Jansen, J. W.

2017-01-01

This paper aims at presenting the experience of the Power Conversion project in teaching students to design a proof-of-principle contactless energy transfer system for the charging of electrical vehicles. The Power Conversion is a second-year electrical engineering (EE) project in which students are to gather and apply EE knowledge to design and…

Research: Annotated Bibliography of New Canadian Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toronto Board of Education (Ontario). Research Dept.

This annotated bibliography of twenty-one research reports that provide knowledge about various cultures and educational experiences of the major ethnic groups in the Toronto schools is designed to present information for not only special English teachers, but other school personnel as well. The bibliography consists of reports that aim to: 1)…

Rhythmic Priming Enhances the Phonological Processing of Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cason, Nia; Schon, Daniele

2012-01-01

While natural speech does not possess the same degree of temporal regularity found in music, there is recent evidence to suggest that temporal regularity enhances speech processing. The aim of this experiment was to examine whether speech processing would be enhanced by the prior presentation of a rhythmical prime. We recorded electrophysiological…

Sustainability and Ethics as Decision-Making Paradigms in Engineering Curricula

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

El-Zein, Abbas; Airey, David; Bowden, Peter; Clarkeburn, Henriikka

2008-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the rationale for teaching sustainability and engineering ethics within a decision-making paradigm, and critically appraise ways of achieving related learning outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents the experience of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in…

Clinical Heterogeneity in Patients with the Hypermobility Type of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Wandele, Inge; Rombaut, Lies; Malfait, Fransiska; De Backer, Tine; De Paepe, Anne; Calders, Patrick

2013-01-01

EDS-HT is a connective tissue disorder characterized by large inter-individual differences in the clinical presentation, complicating diagnosis and treatment. We aim to describe the clinical heterogeneity and to investigate whether differences in the symptom profile are also reflected as disparity in functional impairment and pain experience. In…

Young Adult Literature in the Malaysian Secondary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Govindarajoo, Mallika V.; Mukundan, Jayakaran

2013-01-01

This article presents the results of a study on the experience of the Malaysian secondary school student with Young Adult Literature in the English language classroom. The study aimed to determine the extent to which the Malaysian secondary school student identified with the young adult protagonists and issues in the novels which have been…

Social Skills of Slovenian Primary School Students with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmidt, Majda; Prah, Alenka; Cagran, Branka

2014-01-01

Social skills of students with special needs play a very important role in their successful integration into inclusive learning environments. The aim of present empirical research was to establish whether students with learning disabilities (LD) attending grades 7-9 of regular primary school in Slovenia experience difficulties in social skills…

Reward Magnitude Effects on Temporal Discrimination

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galtress, Tiffany; Kirkpatrick, Kimberly

2010-01-01

Changes in reward magnitude or value have been reported to produce effects on timing behavior, which have been attributed to changes in the speed of an internal pacemaker in some instances and to attentional factors in other cases. The present experiments therefore aimed to clarify the effects of reward magnitude on timing processes. In Experiment…

Student Teachers' Intrinsic Motivation during a Short-Term Teacher Training Course Abroad

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pfingsthorn, Joanna; Czura, Anna

2017-01-01

While research data concerning study abroad experiences of tertiary level students are easily accessible, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of international programmes in pre-service foreign language (FL) teacher education. The present study involved student teachers of English from three countries and aimed to explore their…

Using Literature and Multiple Technologies in ESL Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Traore, Moussa; Kyei-Blankson, Lydia

2010-01-01

Many instructors are using literary texts along with language structure books in English as a Secondary Language (ESL) classrooms with the aim of increasing students' language skills. Since literature is often written to portray a particular cultural or authentic experience, the material presented may not be familiar to ESL students. Also, the…

Parenting at Home and Bullying at School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Georgiou, Stelios N.; Stavrinides, Panayiotis

2013-01-01

The present study aimed at examining the relationship that may exist between specific parental practices at home and the child's bullying and victimization experiences at school. This study attempted to go beyond parental styles, a variable that most of the earlier studies have used and introduce three, relatively new parameters of bullying and…

Financing Educational Development. Proceedings of an International Seminar (Mont Sainte Marie, Canada, May 19-21, 1982).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

International Development Research Centre, Ottawa (Ontario).

Four papers were presented at a conference of 16 donor agencies involved in funding educational development and research. The conference focused on world investment in education, constraints on educational funding, and experiences with educational innovations aimed at improving cost effectiveness. Following an introductory overview of the…

Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Knowledge of Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kilic, Hulya

2011-01-01

The aim of this paper is to present the nature of preservice secondary mathematics teachers' knowledge of students as emerged from a study investigating the development of their pedagogical content knowledge in a methods course and its associated field experience. Six preservice teachers participated in the study and the data were collected in the…

How I Used Flipped Learning to Inform My Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Sau Hou

2016-01-01

This paper aims to reflect upon the experience of using flipped learning in a college class. After presenting the alignment of learning objectives and assessments, evidence-based evaluation was provided as rationale for changes. Approaches taken to improve learning were then elaborated. Further assessment of impact of change on student learning…

A Sino-Finnish Initiative for Experimental Teaching Practices Using the Design Factory Pedagogical Platform

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Björklund, Tua A.; Nordström, Katrina M.; Clavert, Maria

2013-01-01

The paper presents a Sino-Finnish teaching initiative, including the design and experiences of a series of pedagogical workshops implemented at the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory (DF), Shanghai, China, and the experimentation plans collected from the 54 attending professors and teachers. The workshops aimed to encourage trying out interdisciplinary…

Collaborative Experiments Online in a Module Presented Globally

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, David J.

2011-01-01

A new module for Level 1 students called "Science Investigations" provides an introduction to practical work, in an on-line environment. Most of the activities in the module require observational or experimental work done at home, with only the field work being "virtual". The aim is to encourage practical and group work in an…

Psychological Well-Being among Mothers of Children with Cerebral Palsy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barlow, J. H.; Cullen-Powell, L. A.; Cheshire, A.

2006-01-01

Little is known about the proportion of mothers of children with cerebral palsy (CP) who experience distress, particularly in terms of depressed and anxious moods. The present study aimed to address this issue by examining the level of maternal anxious and depressed moods. The associations between maternal psychological well-being and…

Self-Efficacy Perspectives of Children Ages 7 to 10 with Peanut Allergies: A Phenomenological Exploration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koel, Jennifer L.

2017-01-01

Navigating through life with a peanut allergy is challenging for children and requires developmentally appropriate self-management or children could experience unfavorable allergic reactions. This research study presents self-efficacy as an important construct of peanut allergy management in childhood. This study aimed to illuminate the extent…

Designing Mobile LMS Interfaces: Learners' Expectations and Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ssekakubo, Grace; Suleman, Hussein; Marsden, Gary

2013-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to present findings of a study that was carried out to identify strategies of enabling learners in developing countries to fully exploit the potential of learning management systems (LMSs). The study set out to: identify the services of learning management systems that are most needed and desired by university learners in…

Curriculum Guide for Interpreter Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sternberg, Martin L. A.; And Others

Presented is a curriculum guide for the training of interpreters for the deaf consisting of 15 sections to be used as individual units or comprising a two part, 1 year course. The full course uses the text, Interpreting for Deaf People, as a guide and includes laboratory and practicum experiences. Curriculum guidelines include specific aims such…

Fun Microbiology: How To Measure Growth of a Fungus.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitchell, James K.; And Others

1997-01-01

Describes an experiment to demonstrate a simple method for measuring fungus growth by monitoring the effect of temperature on the growth of Trichoderma viride. Among the advantages that this experimental model provides is introducing students to the importance of using the computer as a scientific tool for analyzing and presenting data. (AIM)

Sympathetic Arousal to a Vestibular Stressor in High and Low Hostile Men

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carmona, Joseph E.; Holland, Alissa K.; Stratton, Harrison J.; Harrison, David W.

2008-01-01

The aim of the present experiment was to extend the literature on hostility and a cerebral systems based model of sympathetic arousal to a vestibular-based stress. Several authors have concluded that autonomic stress reactivity in high hostile individuals must be interpersonally based, whereas healthy vestibular system functioning does not depend…

Internationalisation in the Swedish Nurse Education from the Perspective of Teachers Involved: An Interview Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Svensson, Lennart; Wihlborg, Monne

2007-01-01

This paper presents results from an interview investigation with teachers in Swedish nurse education especially interested in internationalising the education. The aim has been to study teachers' understandings and experiences of internationalisation against the backdrop of the strong concern for internationalisation expressed in policy documents.…

Academic and Career Trajectories of African American Males in San Bernardino

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyles, Lolita Laree

2013-01-01

A qualitative grounded theory approach is utilized to study the academic and career trajectories of twenty African American male collegiate students living in San Bernardino, California. There is limited research that explores the positive educational experiences of young adult African American males. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to…

Overview of experiment design and comparison of models participating in phase 1 of the SPARC Quasi-Biennial Oscillation initiative (QBOi)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butchart, Neal; Anstey, James A.; Hamilton, Kevin; Osprey, Scott; McLandress, Charles; Bushell, Andrew C.; Kawatani, Yoshio; Kim, Young-Ha; Lott, Francois; Scinocca, John; Stockdale, Timothy N.; Andrews, Martin; Bellprat, Omar; Braesicke, Peter; Cagnazzo, Chiara; Chen, Chih-Chieh; Chun, Hye-Yeong; Dobrynin, Mikhail; Garcia, Rolando R.; Garcia-Serrano, Javier; Gray, Lesley J.; Holt, Laura; Kerzenmacher, Tobias; Naoe, Hiroaki; Pohlmann, Holger; Richter, Jadwiga H.; Scaife, Adam A.; Schenzinger, Verena; Serva, Federico; Versick, Stefan; Watanabe, Shingo; Yoshida, Kohei; Yukimoto, Seiji

2018-03-01

The Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (SPARC) Quasi-Biennial Oscillation initiative (QBOi) aims to improve the fidelity of tropical stratospheric variability in general circulation and Earth system models by conducting coordinated numerical experiments and analysis. In the equatorial stratosphere, the QBO is the most conspicuous mode of variability. Five coordinated experiments have therefore been designed to (i) evaluate and compare the verisimilitude of modelled QBOs under present-day conditions, (ii) identify robustness (or alternatively the spread and uncertainty) in the simulated QBO response to commonly imposed changes in model climate forcings (e.g. a doubling of CO2 amounts), and (iii) examine model dependence of QBO predictability. This paper documents these experiments and the recommended output diagnostics. The rationale behind the experimental design and choice of diagnostics is presented. To facilitate scientific interpretation of the results in other planned QBOi studies, consistent descriptions of the models performing each experiment set are given, with those aspects particularly relevant for simulating the QBO tabulated for easy comparison.

#ClimateEdCommunity : Field Workshops Bring Together Teachers and Researchers to Make Meaning of Science and Classroom Integration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bartholow, S.; Warburton, J.; Wood, J. H.; Steiner, S. M.

2015-12-01

Seeing Understanding and Teaching: Climate Change in Denali is a four-day immersive teacher professional development course held in Denali National Park. Developed through three partner organizations, the course aims to develop teachers' skills for integrating climate change content into their classrooms. This presentation aims to share tangible best practices for linking researchers and teachers in the field, through four years of experience in program delivery and reported through a published external evaluation. This presentation will examine the key aspects of a successful connection between teachers, researchers, science, and classrooms: (1) Inclusion of teacher leaders, (2) dedicated program staff, (3) workshop community culture, and will expose barriers to this type of collaboration including (1) differences in learning style, (2) prior teaching experience, (3) existing/scaffolding understanding of climate change science, and (4) accessibility of enrollment and accommodations for the extended learning experience. Presentation Content Examples:Participants overwhelmingly value the deep commitment this course has to linking their field experience to the classroom attributing to the role of a teacher-leader; an expert science teacher with first-hand field research experience in the polar regions. The goal of including a teacher-leader is to enhance translatability between fieldwork and the classroom. Additionally, qualitative aspects of the report touches on the intangible successes of the workshop such as: (1) the creation of a non-judgmental learning atmosphere, (2) addressing accessibility to science learning tools in rural and under-served communities, (3) defining successful collaboration as making meaning together through exploratory questioning while in the field (4) discussed the social and cultural implications of climate change, and the difficulty of navigating these topics in educational and/or multicultural spaces. Next Steps? Create a #ClimateEdCommunity that is both teachers and researchers with teacher leaders as a catalyst for transcending our disparate disciplines and developing a community of learning, without judgment, and interpersonal connections.

End-to-End Beam Simulations for the New Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Korostelev, Maxim; Bailey, Ian; Herrod, Alexander

2016-06-01

The aim of the new muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab is to measure the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon with an unprecedented uncertainty of 140 ppb. A beam of positive muons required for the experiment is created by pion decay. Detailed studies of the beam dynamics and spin polarization of the muons are important to predict systematic uncertainties in the experiment. In this paper, we present the results of beam simulations and spin tracking from the pion production target to the muon storage ring. The end-to-end beam simulations are developed in Bmad and include the processes of particle decay,more » collimation (with accurate representation of all apertures) and spin tracking.« less

Experiencing health care service quality: through patients' eyes.

PubMed

Schembri, Sharon

2015-02-01

The primary aim of the present study was to consider health care service quality from the patients' perspective, specifically through the patient's eyes. A narrative analysis was performed on 300 patient stories. This rigorous analysis of patient stories is designed to identify and describe health care service quality through patients' eyes in an authentic and accurate, experiential manner. The findings show that there are variant and complex ways that patients experience health care service quality. Patient stories offer an authentic view of the complex ways that patients experience health care service quality. Narrative analysis is a useful tool to identify and describe how patients experience health care service quality. Patients experience health care service quality in complex and varying ways.

[Adaptation of psychodrama in psychotherapy of patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa].

PubMed

Izydorczyk, Bernadetta

2011-01-01

The aim of the article was an attempt to present selected theoretical motifs and moreover self experience in the adaptation of elements of psychodrama by Moreno in psychodynamic psychotherapy (individual and group psychotherapy) in a group of people with anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Psychodrama through own creativity, spontaneity and taking action on the "here and now" stage helps to attain and intensify therapeutic aims which concern the consciousness of inner conflict of persons with anorexia and bulimia nervosa, which is translocated on their body.

All About Oxygen in the Ocean: Cheap, Quick and Easy Experiments for Pupils Grades 5 to 10

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soria-Dengg, S.

2015-12-01

The collaborative research project (SFB 754) at GEOMAR Helmholtz-Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany addresses among others the decreasing concentrations of oxygen in the oceans. The school outreach component of the SFB 754 a project funded by the German Science Foundation aims to spread the science behind ocean de-oxygenation in secondary schools in Germany. To realise this goal, a series of hands-on experiments have been developed on different topics like gas solubility in water, gas transport in the ocean, oxygen production by phytoplankton, oxygen consumption by bacteria and experiments on nutrient uptake by phytoplankton. The experiments developed are simple, using low cost and reusable materials thus ensuring affordability in schools. For the hands-on session the following experiments will be presented: (1) The effects of temperature, oxygen partial pressure, nature of solute and nature of solvent on the solubility of oxygen in water will be demonstrated using Luer-Lock syringes, (2) Oxygen transport from the ocean surface to the deep will be shown in an experiment using a modification of the "blue-bottle" experiment, and (3) Simulation of ocean circulation employing a 2-dimensional tank. Applications and experiment ideas using immobilised phytoplankton and other procedures suitable for schools for measuring oxygen consumption by bacteria will be introduced in a poster presentation.

Perceived duration decreases with increasing eccentricity.

PubMed

Kliegl, Katrin M; Huckauf, Anke

2014-07-01

Previous studies examining the influence of stimulus location on temporal perception yield inhomogeneous and contradicting results. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to soundly examine the effect of stimulus eccentricity. In a series of five experiments, subjects compared the duration of foveal disks to disks presented at different retinal eccentricities on the horizontal meridian. The results show that the perceived duration of a visual stimulus declines with increasing eccentricity. The effect was replicated with various stimulus orders (Experiments 1-3), as well as with cortically magnified stimuli (Experiments 4-5), ruling out that the effect was merely caused by different cortical representation sizes. The apparent decreasing duration of stimuli with increasing eccentricity is discussed with respect to current models of time perception, the possible influence of visual attention and respective underlying physiological characteristics of the visual system. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

SPECIAL SEMINAR - The NOTTE experiment, or how to become a Total Solar Eclipse chaser

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2011-02-08

The NOTTE experiment (Neutrino Oscillations with Telescope during Total Eclipse) aims at searching for visible photons emitted through a possible radiative decay of solar neutrinos. The experiment and the expeditions organized by a group of physicists and astrophysicists from INFN and INAF Bologna hunting for Total Solar Eclipses from 1998 to 2006 wil be described. The results of observations performed during total solar eclipse expeditions in 2001 (Zambia) and 2006 (Sahara desert, Libya) are presented and a beautiful photo gallery will be shown. Other peculiar observations that can be made during a solar eclipse are also illustrated. The seminar willmore » be followed by a brief presentation of future camps for solar eclipse chasers and scientists organized in 2008 in Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia, in 2009 in Shanghai and on the Easter Island in 2010.« less

Applying heuristic inquiry to nurse migration from the UK to Australia.

PubMed

Vafeas, Caroline; Hendricks, Joyce

2017-01-23

Background Heuristic inquiry is a research approach that improves understanding of the essence of an experience. This qualitative method relies on researchers' ability to discover and interpret their own experience while exploring those of others. Aim To present a discussion of heuristic inquiry's methodology and its application to the experience of nurse migration. Discussion The researcher's commitment to the research is central to heuristic inquiry. It is immersive, reflective, reiterative and a personally-affecting method of gathering knowledge. Researchers are acknowledged as the only people who can validate the findings of the research by exploring their own experiences while also examining those of others with the same experiences to truly understand the phenomena being researched. This paper presents the ways in which the heuristic process guides this discovery in relation to traditional research steps. Conclusion Heuristic inquiry is an appropriate method for exploring nurses' experiences of migration because nurse researchers can tell their own stories and it brings understanding of themselves and the phenomenon as experienced by others. Implications for practice Although not a popular method in nursing research, heuristic inquiry offers a depth of exploration and understanding that may not be revealed by other methods.

Benchmarking optimization software with COPS.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dolan, E.D.; More, J.J.

2001-01-08

The COPS test set provides a modest selection of difficult nonlinearly constrained optimization problems from applications in optimal design, fluid dynamics, parameter estimation, and optimal control. In this report we describe version 2.0 of the COPS problems. The formulation and discretization of the original problems have been streamlined and improved. We have also added new problems. The presentation of COPS follows the original report, but the description of the problems has been streamlined. For each problem we discuss the formulation of the problem and the structural data in Table 0.1 on the formulation. The aim of presenting this data ismore » to provide an approximate idea of the size and sparsity of the problem. We also include the results of computational experiments with the LANCELOT, LOQO, MINOS, and SNOPT solvers. These computational experiments differ from the original results in that we have deleted problems that were considered to be too easy. Moreover, in the current version of the computational experiments, each problem is tested with four variations. An important difference between this report and the original report is that the tables that present the computational experiments are generated automatically from the testing script. This is explained in more detail in the report.« less

Impact of protected mealtimes on ward mealtime environment, patient experience and nutrient intake in hospitalised patients.

PubMed

Hickson, M; Connolly, A; Whelan, K

2011-08-01

Malnutrition is a common problem in hospitalised inpatients, resulting in a range of negative clinical, patient-centred and economic sequelae. Protected mealtimes (PM) aim to enhance the quality of the mealtime experience and maximise nutrient intake in hospitalised patients. The present study aimed to measure mealtime environment, patient experience and nutrient intake before and after the implementation of PM.   PM were implemented in a large teaching hospital through a range of different approaches. Direct observations were used to assess ward-level mealtime environment (e.g. dining room use, removal of distractions) (40 versus 34 wards) and individual patient experience (e.g. assistance with eating, visitors present) (253 versus 237 patients), and nutrient intake was assessed with a weighed food intake at lunch (39 versus 60 patients) at baseline and after the implementation of PM, respectively. Mealtime experience showed improvements in three objectives: more patients were monitored using food/fluid charts (32% versus 43%, P = 0.02), more were offered the opportunity to wash hands (30% versus 40%, P = 0.03) and more were served meals at uncluttered tables (54% versus 64%, P = 0.04). There was no difference in the number of patients experiencing mealtime interruptions (32% versus 25%, P = 0.14). There was no difference in energy intake (1088 versus 837 kJ, P = 0.25) and a decrease in protein intake (14.0 versus 7.5 g, P = 0.04) after PM. Only minor improvements in mealtime experience were made after the implementation of PM and so it is not unexpected that macronutrient intake did not improve. The implementation of PM needs to be evaluated to ensure improvements in mealtime experience are made such that measurable improvements in nutritional and clinical outcomes ensue. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics © 2011 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.

[Changes by Balint group education: experience with residents in family medicine].

PubMed

Laperrière, S; Turgeon, J

1993-09-01

The article is about the change observed in participants in a training course by the Balint groups. The authors' experiment is aimed at residents in family medicine. It involves both the psychiatrist and physician, leader and participant. Psychic functioning as a process is applied to presentation, discussions and leadership. The optimum clinical understanding of this training strives for development within the group itself. The authors consider two factors that come into play: symbolization and awareness. These concepts are developed to support the notion of a global approach.

First experiment at TASCA towards X-ray fingerprinting of element 115 decay chains

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Forsberg, U.; Golubev, P.; Sarmiento, L. G.

2012-01-01

To identify the atomic number of superheavy nuclei produced in 48Ca-induced fusion-evaporation reactions, an experiment aiming at measuring characteristic X-rays is being prepared at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany. The gas-filled separator TASCA will be employed, sending the residues towards the multi-coincidence detector setup TASISpec. Two ionoptical modes relying on differing magnetic polarities of the quadrupole magnets can be used at TASCA. New simulations and experimental tests of transmission and background suppression for these two focusing modes into TASISpec are presented.

Status of the LISA On Table experiment: a electro-optical simulator for LISA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Laporte, M.; Halloin, H.; Bréelle, E.; Buy, C.; Grüning, P.; Prat, P.

2017-05-01

The LISA project is a space mission that aim at detecting gravitational waves in space. An electro-optical simulator called LISA On Table (LOT) is being developed at APC in order to test noise reduction techniques (such as Timed Delayed Interferometry) and instruments that will be used. This document presents its latest results: TimeDelayed Interferometry of 1st generation works in the case of a simulated white noise with static, unequal arms. Future and ongoing developments of the experiment are also addressed.

Auditory Inhibition of Rapid Eye Movements and Dream Recall from REM Sleep

PubMed Central

Stuart, Katrina; Conduit, Russell

2009-01-01

Study Objectives: There is debate in dream research as to whether ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) waves or cortical arousal during sleep underlie the biological mechanisms of dreaming. This study comprised 2 experiments. As eye movements (EMs) are currently considered the best noninvasive indicator of PGO burst activity in humans, the aim of the first experiment was to investigate the effect of low-intensity repeated auditory stimulation on EMs (and inferred PGO burst activity) during REM sleep. It was predicted that such auditory stimuli during REM sleep would have a suppressive effect on EMs. The aim of the second experiment was to examine the effects of this auditory stimulation on subsequent dream reporting on awakening. Design: Repeated measures design with counterbalanced order of experimental and control conditions across participants. Setting: Sleep laboratory based polysomnography (PSG) Participants: Experiment 1: 5 males and 10 females aged 18-35 years (M = 20.8, SD = 5.4). Experiment 2: 7 males and 13 females aged 18-35 years (M = 23.3, SD = 5.5). Interventions: Below-waking threshold tone presentations during REM sleep compared to control REM sleep conditions without tone presentations. Measurements and Results: PSG records were manually scored for sleep stages, EEG arousals, and EMs. Auditory stimulation during REM sleep was related to: (a) an increase in EEG arousal, (b) a decrease in the amplitude and frequency of EMs, and (c) a decrease in the frequency of visual imagery reports on awakening. Conclusions: The results of this study provide phenomenological support for PGO-based theories of dream reporting on awakening from sleep in humans. Citation: Stuart K; Conduit R. Auditory inhibition of rapid eye movements and dream recall from REM sleep. SLEEP 2009;32(3):399–408. PMID:19294960

MARE-l in Milan: Status and Perspectives

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ferri, E.; Arnaboldi, C.; Ceruti, G.; Faverzani, M.; Gatti, C.; Giachero, A.; Gotti, C.; Kilbourne, C.; Kraft-Bermuth, S.; Nucciotti, A.;

The role of clinical experience, diagnosis, and theoretical orientation in the treatment of posttraumatic and dissociative disorders: A vignette and survey investigation.

PubMed

Dorahy, Martin J; Lewis-Fernández, Roberto; Krüger, Christa; Brand, Bethany L; Şar, Vedat; Ewing, Jan; Martínez-Taboas, Alfonso; Stavropoulos, Pam; Middleton, Warwick

2017-01-01

Controversy exists regarding the merits of exposure-based treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) versus a phased approach when prominent dissociative symptoms are present. The first aim of this study was to examine the degree to which diagnosing dissociation in two traumatized patients' vignettes influenced clinicians' preference for phase-oriented treatment and whether clinicians' treatment experience contributed to their treatment preference. The second aim was to assess the extent to which participants had observed traumatized patients worsen when treated with exposure therapy or phase-oriented therapy and whether the theoretical orientation and treatment experience of the clinician were related to the observed deterioration. In the tradition of expert and practitioner surveys, 263 clinicians completed a survey of their diagnoses and treatment preferences for two vignettes and their treatment experience, theoretical orientation, and observations of patients' deterioration. When a marked degree of dissociation was noted in the PTSD vignette, respondents favored phased approaches regardless of the diagnosis given. Reports of having observed patient deterioration during both exposure and phased therapy were predicted by years of experience. Psychodynamic therapists reported more observations of worsening during exposure therapy than cognitive behavior therapy therapists. Clinical experience treating PTSD may heighten awareness of negative therapeutic effects, potentially because experienced clinicians have a lower threshold for detecting such effects and because they are referred more challenging cases.

Fungi in space--literature survey on fungi used for space research.

PubMed

Kern, V D; Hock, B

1993-09-01

A complete review of the scientific literature on experiments involving fungi in space is presented. This review begins with balloon experiments around 1935 which carried fungal spores, rocket experiments in the 1950's and 60's, satellite and moon expeditions, long-time orbit experiments and Spacelab missions in the 1980's and 90's. All these missions were aimed at examining the influence of cosmic radiation and weightlessness on genetic, physiological, and morphogenetic processes. During the 2nd German Spacelab mission (D-2, April/May 1993), the experiment FUNGI provided the facilities to cultivate higher basidiomycetes over a period of 10 d in orbit, document gravimorphogenesis and chemically fix fruiting bodies under weightlessness for subsequent ultrastructural analysis. This review shows the necessity of space travel for research on the graviperception of higher fungi and demonstrates the novelty of the experiment FUNGI performed within the framework of the D-2 mission.

BioBlocks: Programming Protocols in Biology Made Easier.

PubMed

Gupta, Vishal; Irimia, Jesús; Pau, Iván; Rodríguez-Patón, Alfonso

2017-07-21

The methods to execute biological experiments are evolving. Affordable fluid handling robots and on-demand biology enterprises are making automating entire experiments a reality. Automation offers the benefit of high-throughput experimentation, rapid prototyping, and improved reproducibility of results. However, learning to automate and codify experiments is a difficult task as it requires programming expertise. Here, we present a web-based visual development environment called BioBlocks for describing experimental protocols in biology. It is based on Google's Blockly and Scratch, and requires little or no experience in computer programming to automate the execution of experiments. The experiments can be specified, saved, modified, and shared between multiple users in an easy manner. BioBlocks is open-source and can be customized to execute protocols on local robotic platforms or remotely, that is, in the cloud. It aims to serve as a de facto open standard for programming protocols in Biology.

Summary of sensor evaluation for the Fusion Electromagnetic Induction Experiment (FELIX)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knott, M. J.

1982-08-01

As part of the First Wall/Blanket/Shield Engineering Test Program, a test bed called FELIX (fusion electromagnetic induction experiment) is under construction. Its purpose is to test, evaluate, and develop computer codes for the prediction of electromagnetically induced phenomenon in a magnetic environment modeling that of a fusion reaction. Crucial to this process is the sensing and recording of the various induced effects. Sensor evaluation for FELIX reached the point where most sensor types were evaluated and preliminary decisions are being made as to type and quantity for the initial FELIX experiments. These early experiments, the first, flat plate experiment in particular, will be aimed at testing the sensors as well as the pertinent theories involved. The reason for these evaluations, decisions, and proof tests is the harsh electrical and magnetic environment that FELIX presents.

Online Gaming Issues in Offline Couple Relationships: A Primer for Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hertlein, Katherine M.; Hawkins, Blendine P.

2012-01-01

Although the challenges around participation in online gaming grow, gamers and their partners who experience online relationship issues related to gaming, present a new set of treatment challenges for therapists. In this article, we report on the findings of a hermeneutic research study aimed at evaluating the scholarly literature related to…

Phonological Effects in Handwriting Production : Evidence from the Implicit Priming Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Afonso, Olivia; Alvarez, Carlos J.

2011-01-01

In the present article, we report 3 experiments using the odd-man-out variant of the implicit priming paradigm, aimed at determining the role played by phonological information during the handwriting process. Participants were asked to write a small set of words learned in response to prompts. Within each block, response words could share initial…

Effects on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Early Childhood Teacher Candidates Using Digital Storytelling to Teach Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kildan, Abdullah Oguzhan; Incikabi, Lutfi

2015-01-01

This study aimed to present early childhood teacher candidates' experiences preparing digital stories and to reveal the resulting changes, if any, in self-reported technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). This study was quasi-experimental and indicated that teacher candidates' evaluations of digital storytelling were affected by their…

Can We Find Solutions with People? Participatory Action Research with Small Organic Producers in Andalusia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cuellar-Padilla, Mamen; Calle-Collado, Angel

2011-01-01

This paper reports on an experiment linking science with people. Taking as a paradigm the holistic scientific approach fostered by agroecology, we present a methodological proposal for the implementation of participatory action research in rural areas. Our aims were various: to solve a specific problem, i.e. the exclusion of small- and…

Library Automation in Sub Saharan Africa: Case Study of the University of Botswana

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mutula, Stephen Mudogo

2012-01-01

Purpose: This article aims to present experiences and the lessons learned from the University of Botswana (UB) library automation project. The implications of the project for similar libraries planning automation in sub Saharan Africa and beyond are adduced. Design/methodology/approach: The article is a case study of library automation at the…

The Contribution of Constructivist Instruction Accompanied by Concept Mapping in Enhancing Pre-Service Chemistry Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Chemistry in the Laboratory Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aydin, Sevgi; Aydemir, Nurdane; Boz, Yezdan; Cetin-Dindar, Ayla; Bektas, Oktay

2009-01-01

The present study aimed to evaluate whether a chemistry laboratory course called "Laboratory Experiments in Science Education" based on constructivist instruction accompanied with concept mapping enhanced pre-service chemistry teachers' conceptual understanding. Data were collected from five pre-service chemistry teachers at a university…

Creating Open Textbooks: A Unique Partnership between Oregon State University Libraries and Press and Open Oregon State

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chadwell, Faye A.; Fisher, Dianna M.

2016-01-01

This article presents Oregon State University's experience launching an innovative Open Textbook initiative in spring 2014. The partners, Open Oregon State and the Oregon State University Libraries and Press, aimed to reduce the cost of course materials for students while ensuring the content created was peer-reviewed and employed multimedia…

Gifted Students' Perceptions of Gifted Programs: An Inquiry into Their Academic and Social-Emotional Functioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kitsantas, Anastasia; Bland, Lori; Chirinos, David S.

2017-01-01

The aim of the present study was to examine elementary and middle school students' (N = 49) perceptions of their gifted and talented program using eight focus group interviews. Qualitative analyses revealed several themes regarding students' academic and social-emotional functioning and how teachers influenced students' experiences within their…

Enhancing Competence and Autonomy in Computer-Based Instruction Using a Skill-Challenge Balancing Strategy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Jieun; Ryu, Hokyoung; Katuk, Norliza; Wang, Ruili; Choi, Gyunghyun

2014-01-01

The present study aims to show if a skill-challenge balancing (SCB) instruction strategy can assist learners to motivationally engage in computer-based learning. Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory (self-control, curiosity, focus of attention, and intrinsic interest) was applied to an account of the optimal learning experience in SCB-based learning…

Long-Term Experiences in Cash and Counseling for Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities: Familial Programme Representative Descriptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harry, Melissa L.; MacDonald, Lynn; McLuckie, Althea; Battista, Christina; Mahoney, Ellen K.; Mahoney, Kevin J.

2017-01-01

Background: Our aim was to explore previously unknown long-term outcomes of self-directed personal care services for young adults with intellectual disabilities and limitations in activities of daily living. Materials and Methods: The present authors utilized participatory action research and qualitative content analysis in interviewing 11 unpaid…

Evaluating Student Satisfaction of Quality at International Branch Campuses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahmad, Syed Zamberi

2015-01-01

The aim of this research is to present the determinants of students' perceptions of quality and experience of study at international branch campuses in Malaysia, a country that is set to become an academic hub in Asia. This study used a multi-method approach for data collection. The respondents comprised 245 students (both undergraduate and…

An Effect of Spatial-Temporal Association of Response Codes: Understanding the Cognitive Representations of Time

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vallesi, Antonino; Binns, Malcolm A.; Shallice, Tim

2008-01-01

The present study addresses the question of how such an abstract concept as time is represented by our cognitive system. Specifically, the aim was to assess whether temporal information is cognitively represented through left-to-right spatial coordinates, as already shown for other ordered sequences (e.g., numbers). In Experiment 1, the…

The Misinformation Effect Revisited: Interactions between Spontaneous Memory Processes and Misleading Suggestions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pansky, Ainat; Tenenboim, Einat; Bar, Sarah Kate

2011-01-01

Recent findings indicate that retained information tends to converge at the basic level (BL). The aim of the present study was to apply these findings to the investigation of misinformation phenomena. In three experiments, we examined the extent to which the contaminating effects of misinformation are influenced by its consistency with the…

Mathematical Modelling with Technology: The Role of Dynamic Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arzarello, Ferdinando; Ferrara, Francesca; Robutti, Ornella

2012-01-01

In this research we present the use of some technologies in problem solving activities (at different secondary school grades), aimed at finding a model for a geometric configuration, and representing this model in various ways: through a construction, through a Cartesian graph, etc. The task is part of a teaching experiment, in which students used…

Empowering Pre-Service Teacher Supervisors' Perspectives: A Relational-Cultural Approach towards Mentoring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Uusimaki, Liisa

2013-01-01

Positive relationship building between the university and the schools that receive their pre-service teachers are crucial to developing quality educators fit for the teaching profession. This paper presents an overview of a mentor workshop that was introduced by the professional experience unit of a regional university in Australia. The aim of the…

Scrum Methodology in Higher Education: Innovation in Teaching, Learning and Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jurado-Navas, Antonio; Munoz-Luna, Rosa

2017-01-01

The present paper aims to detail the experience developed in a classroom of English Studies from the Spanish University of Málaga, where an alternative project-based learning methodology has been implemented. Such methodology is inspired by scrum sessions widely extended in technological companies where staff members work in teams and are assigned…

Helping Adolescents with Health Problems to Become Socially Competent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Drozdikova-Zaripova, Albina R.; Kostyunina, Nadezhda Yu.

2016-01-01

The purpose of the article is to present and analyze the results of experimental work to verify the efficiency of the developed and approved program aimed at the formation of social competence in adolescents with physical problems. The leading method in the study of this problem is a consequent version of the pedagogical experiment. The results of…

Making the Match between Content and Foreign Language: A Case Study on University Students' Opinions towards CLIL

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin de Lama, M. Teresa

2015-01-01

The present article intends to show the positive evaluation of post-graduate university students at a Spanish university after the curricular integration experience and the application of CLIL scaffolding techniques. It also aims to identify areas of methodological improvements and recommendations in the application of CLIL in the referred…

Work All Day, Study at Night: The Interactive Evening Lecture to Invigorate Working Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stone, Gerard

2014-01-01

Gerard Stone was asked to present the evening lecture in a first-year undergraduate accounting subject. The aim of the subject matter was to provide students with an understanding of fundamental accounting issues and concepts. The subject coordinator advised Stone that, from past experience, most students who attend the evening lecture would be…

Observing and Understanding Arterial and Venous Circulation Differences in a Physiology Laboratory Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altermann, Caroline; Gonçalves, Rithiele; Lara, Marcus Vinícius S.; Neves, Ben-Hur S.; Mello-Carpes, Pâmela B.

2015-01-01

The purpose of the present article is to describe three simple practical experiments that aim to observe and discuss the anatomic and physiological functions and differences between arteries and veins as well as the alterations observed in skin blood flow in different situations. For this activity, students were divided in small groups. In each…

Compensation for Transport Delays Produced by Computer Image Generation Systems. Cooperative Training Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ricard, G. L.; And Others

The cooperative Navy/Air Force project described is aimed at the problem of image-flutter encountered when visual displays that present computer generated images are used for the simulation of certain flying situations. Two experiments are described which extend laboratory work on delay compensation schemes to the simulation of formation flight in…

The Flipped Classroom Model to Develop Egyptian EFL Students' Listening Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahmad, Samah Zakareya

2016-01-01

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of the flipped classroom model on Egyptian EFL students' listening comprehension. A one-group pre-posttest design was adopted. Thirty-four 3rd-year EFL students at the Faculty of Education, Suez University, were pretested on listening comprehension before the experiment and then posttested after…

Submental Orotracheal Intubation in Maxillofacial Fracture Surgery: Report of Two Cases

PubMed Central

Tekelioğlu, Ümit Yaşar; Karabekmez, Furkan Erol; Demirhan, Abdullah; Akkaya, Akcan; Bayır, Hakan; Koçoğlu, Hasan

2013-01-01

Two patients, aged 18 and 28 years, with maxillofacial trauma due to motor vehicle accident, were operated upon by a team of plastic surgeons. In this report we aimed to present our experience with submental intubation procedure in these cases, in which orotracheal or nasotracheal intubation was impossible due to panfacial fracture. PMID:27366379

Social Presence in the 21st Century: An Adjustment to the Community of Inquiry Framework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armellini, Alejandro; De Stefani, Magdalena

2016-01-01

The Community of Inquiry framework, originally proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer, identifies teaching, social and cognitive presences as central to a successful online educational experience. This paper presents the findings of a study conducted in Uruguay between 2007 and 2010. The research aimed to establish the role of cognitive, social…

An Update on the Study Abroad Experience: Language Choices and Social Media Abroad

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martínez-Arbelaiz, Asunción; Areizaga, Elisabet; Camps, Carmen

2017-01-01

While growing numbers of university students study abroad in different European countries, little is known about the communicative practices facilitated by this exchange situation in an increasing globalised world. The present study aims to describe the language-related practices of 37 Erasmus students in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain. We used a…

Catching the Moments--Coteaching to Stimulate Science in the Preschool Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nilsson, Pernilla

2015-01-01

An important task for the preschool teacher is to create meaningful learning situations where children have opportunities to experience science. However, many teachers have both weak subject knowledge and a lack of confidence to teach science. The aim of the project presented in this article was to capture how nine preschool teachers developed…

Automatic Content Analysis; Part I of Scientific Report No. ISR-18, Information Storage and Retrieval...

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY. Dept. of Computer Science.

Four papers are included in Part One of the eighteenth report on Salton's Magical Automatic Retriever of Texts (SMART) project. The first paper: "Content Analysis in Information Retrieval" by S. F. Weiss presents the results of experiments aimed at determining the conditions under which content analysis improves retrieval results as well…

Conducting a Graduate Employer Survey: A Monash University Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nair, Chenicheri Sid; Mertova, Patricie

2009-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a framework that can be utilized in the design of graduate employer surveys carried out by tertiary institutions as a form of monitoring their graduate attributes. It further aims to identify the potential issues and challenges that may be involved in undertaking such a survey.…

Different Action Patterns for Cooperative and Competitive Behaviour

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Georgiou, Ioanna; Becchio, Cristina; Glover, Scott; Castiello, Umberto

2007-01-01

The aim of the present study is to elucidate the influence of context on the kinematics of the reach-to-grasp movement. In particular, we consider two basic modes of social cognition, namely cooperation and competition. In two experiments kinematics of the very same action--reaching-to-grasp a wooden block--were analyzed in two different contexts…

Rallou Manou and Her Contribution to Modern Dance in Greece

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pagona, Bournelli

2008-01-01

The aim of this study is to present Rallou Manou's work, as well as to demonstrate her contribution to the development and emergence of modern dance in Greece. The data used were mostly collected from Rallou Manou's personal "Archive," but also from published reviews, interviews from her students and the personal experience of the…

The Well of Time. Eighteen Short Stories from Philippine Contemporary Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laygo, Teresito M., Comp.

A collection of eighteen short stories by Filipino writers is presented. The selections represent a variety of images of Filipino culture, both urban and rural, and life styles in northern and southern Philippines. The aim of the anthology is that the student will learn to empathize with experience rendered in language, appreciate the Filipino…

Cognitive Representations of Obligation and Prohibition Signs when They Provide the Same Amount of Semantic Information

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castro, C.; Moreno-Rios, S.; Tornay, F. J.

2012-01-01

The aim of this research was to test whether there is an inherent difficulty in understanding prohibition signs rather than obligation signs. In the experiment conducted, participants decided whether simple car movements presented on a computer screen were allowed or not according to either obligation or prohibition traffic signs. The information…

Children, Spaces, Relations: Metaproject for an Environment for Young Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ceppi, Giulio, Ed.; Zini, Michele, Ed.

This book describes a project on designing spaces for young children; the aim of the project is to enable a "meeting of minds" between the pedagogical philosophy of Reggio Emilia preschools and the innovative experiences within the culture of design and architecture. The book presents the project in three main sections: (1) a critical analysis of…

Learning English Grammar with a Corpus: Experimenting with Concordancing in a University Grammar Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vannestal, Maria Estling; Lindquist, Hans

2007-01-01

Corpora have been used for pedagogical purposes for more than two decades but empirical studies are relatively rare, particularly in the context of grammar teaching. The present study focuses on students' attitudes towards grammar and how these attitudes are affected by the introduction of concordancing. The principal aims of the project were to…

Interaction of Simple Ions with Water: Theoretical Models for the Study of Ion Hydration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gancheff, Jorge S.; Kremer, Carlos; Ventura, Oscar N.

2009-01-01

A computational experiment aimed to create and systematically analyze models of simple cation hydrates is presented. The changes in the structure (bond distances and angles) and the electronic density distribution of the solvent and the thermodynamic parameters of the hydration process are calculated and compared with the experimental data. The…

The Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' Collective Efficacy Beliefs, Teaching Experience and Perception of Teacher Empowerment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baleghizadeh, Sasan; Goldouz, Elnaz

2016-01-01

The present study aimed to contribute to the current findings of the relationship between collective efficacy perceptions of EFL teachers and their perception of teacher empowerment. To this end, 147 Iranian EFL teachers from a well-known institute in Tehran participated in the study. The instruments used were two questionnaires: Collective…

Some first experiments on the photometric calibration of Schmidt plates against the Tycho catalogue

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morrison, J. E.; Lasker, B.; McLean, B.; Bucciarelli, B.; Spagna, A.; Zacchei, A.

1997-01-01

Preliminary work carried out with the aim of reducing the Guide Star Catalog (GSC2) measurements of the Palomar 2 plates with the Tycho catalog for a 625 sq deg test field centered on the North Galactic Pole, is reported on and the results are presented. The emphasis was on the photometric calibrations.

Faculty Members' Attitudes towards the Performance Appraisal Process in the Public Universities in Light of Some Variables

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Ashqar, Wafaa Mohammed Ali

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to detect the level of faculty members' attitudes at public universities towards the performance appraisal process and its relationship with some variables (gender, college, scientific rank, university, teaching experience, and age). The study sample consisted of (320) faculty members of both sexes in three public…

Conceptions of Work in Italian Adults with Intellectual Disability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferrari, Lea; Nota, Laura; Soresi, Salvatore

2008-01-01

People's ideas about work can greatly affect the ways in which they characterize their own work experience and their lives. The first aim of the present study was to analyze the concept of work in individuals with mild or moderate intellectual disability working in competitive or sheltered work settings and, second, to compare the notions of work…

Ageing and Learning Experiences: The Perspective of a Polish Senior Immigrant in Sweden

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rawinski, Malgorzata Malec

2017-01-01

The general aim of this paper is to present some insights into Polish senior immigrants in Sweden. In particular, it seeks to identify and illustrate the important contribution of previous generations of Polish senior immigrants in building on the diverse culture, traditions and values of the Polish community (Polonia) in Sweden. The paper…

How Can We Improve through Pupil Participation? An Infants School Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ceballos López, Noelia; Susinos Rada, Teresa; Saiz Linares, Ángela

2016-01-01

This paper is part of a research project and forms part of a doctoral thesis in development whose aim was to promote and encourage improvement in schools based on the student voice. We believe that student participation is essential in order to progress towards inclusive educational communities. We present the main conclusions obtained in two…

Views of Instructors on the Use of Textbooks in Turkish Education Departments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kara, Ömer Tugru

2015-01-01

Textbooks have a great importance in instructing and sharing experiences by the use of theoretical information. This study aims to present views of instructors regarding the selection and use of textbooks in Turkish education departments. For that purpose, the participants in this survey were composed of 15 instructors officiating in the Turkish…

High-School Students Believe School Physics Helps in Developing Logical but Not Creative Thinking: Active Learning Can Change This Idea

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marušic, Mirko; Sliško, Josip

2014-01-01

This study is based on two exploratory questions with the aim of determining the relative effectiveness of two different student activities, called "Reading, Presenting and Questioning" (RPQ) and "Experimenting and Discussing" (ED), in changing students' perceptions and attitudes about the impact of physics learning on the…

The Shape of Joy, the Colour of Fear: Multimodal Abduction in the Foreign Language Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Mark Evan; Johnson, Neil H.

2014-01-01

In this article, we describe a programme of qualitative research and interpretive analysis around an approach to foreign language pedagogy that aimed to develop learners' symbolic competence through experience with and examination of the signs in acts of communication. Learners were presented with the problem of visually representing the abstract…

A Comparison between Written and Spoken Narratives in Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Behrns, Ingrid; Wengelin, Asa; Broberg, Malin; Hartelius, Lena

2009-01-01

The aim of the present study was to explore how a personal narrative told by a group of eight persons with aphasia differed between written and spoken language, and to compare this with findings from 10 participants in a reference group. The stories were analysed through holistic assessments made by 60 participants without experience of aphasia…

Resilience to Adult Psychopathology Following Childhood Maltreatment: Evidence from a Community Sample

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collishaw, Stephan; Pickles, Andrew; Messer, Julie; Rutter, Michael; Shearer, Christina; Maughan, Barbara

2007-01-01

Objective: Child abuse is an important risk for adult psychiatric morbidity. However, not all maltreated children experience mental health problems as adults. The aims of the present study were to address the extent of resilience to adult psychopathology in a representative community sample, and to explore predictors of a good prognosis. Methods:…

SNARC-like Congruency Based on Number Magnitude and Response Duration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kiesel, Andrea; Vierck, Esther

2009-01-01

Recent findings demonstrated that number magnitude affects the perception of display time (B. Xuan, D. Zhang, S. He, & X. Chen, 2007). Participants made fewer errors when display time (e.g., short) and magnitude (e.g., small) matched, suggesting an influence of magnitude on time perception. With the present experiment, the authors aimed to extend…

Cross-Language Translation Priming Asymmetry with Chinese-English Bilinguals: A Test of the Sense Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Baoguo; Zhou, Huixia; Gao, Yiwen; Dunlap, Susan

2014-01-01

The present study aimed to test the Sense Model of cross-linguistic masked translation priming asymmetry, proposed by Finkbeiner et al. ("J Mem Lang" 51:1-22, 2004), by manipulating the number of senses that bilingual participants associated with words from both languages. Three lexical decision experiments were conducted with…

Targeted Mentoring: Evaluation of a Program

PubMed Central

McAllister, Carolyn A.; Harold, Rena D.; Ahmedani, Brian K.; Cramer, Elizabeth P.

2009-01-01

Targeted mentoring refers to mentoring aimed at a particular population. This article presents the evaluation of a mentoring program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in social work education. Forty-three mentors and protégés responded to a survey regarding their program experiences. The results highlight the need for targeted mentoring, although some disparities of experience for mentors and protégés in this program are apparent. In general, mentors felt positive about participating, giving back to the LGBT community, and were more satisfied with their experiences than were the protégés, who were looking for more specific types of instrumental and psychosocial support. PMID:20046917

Neutrino Charged Current Quasi-Elastic Analysis at MINERvA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hurtado Anampa, Kenyi; Osta, Jyotsna

2014-03-01

MINERvA is a few GeV neutrino-nucleus scattering experiment designed to study low energy neutrino interactions both in support of neutrino oscillation experiments and as a pure weak probe of the nuclear medium. The experiment uses a fine-grained, high resolution detector. The active region is composed of plastic scintillator with additional targets of helium, carbon, iron, lead and water placed upstream of the active region. We present kinematic distributions from the double differential cross section analysis that aims to study quasi-elastic scattering of neutrinos in the active region as a function of the muon and proton observables. This analysis will use the low energy neutrino dataset recorded from November 2009 to April 2012.

MicroBooNE and its Cross Section Measurement

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tsai, Yun-Tse

2017-05-22

MicroBooNE (the Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment) is a short-baseline neutrino experiment based on the technology of a liquid-argon time-projection chamber (LArTPC), and has recently completed its first year of data-taking in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam. It aims to address the anomalous excess of events with an electromagnetic final state in MiniBooNE, to measure neutrino-argon interaction cross sections, and to provide relevant R\\&D for the future LArTPC experiments, such as DUNE. In these proceedings, we present the first reconstructed energy spectrum of Michel electrons from cosmic muon decays, the first kinematic distributions of the candidate muon tracks frommore » $$\

Telescience testbed pilot program, volume 3: Experiment summaries

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leiner, Barry M.

1989-01-01

Space Station Freedom and its associated labs, coupled with the availability of new computing and communications technologies, have the potential for significantly enhancing scientific research. A Telescience Testbed Pilot Program (TTPP), aimed at developing the experience base to deal with issues in the design of the future information system of the Space Station era. The testbeds represented four scientific disciplines (astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, life sciences, and microgravity sciences) and studied issues in payload design, operation, and data analysis. This volume, of a 3 volume set, which all contain the results of the TTPP, presents summaries of the experiments. This experiment involves the evaluation of the current Internet for the use of file and image transfer between SIRTF instrument teams. The main issue addressed was current network response times.

Overview of large scale experiments performed within the LBB project in the Czech Republic

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kadecka, P.; Lauerova, D.

1997-04-01

During several recent years NRI Rez has been performing the LBB analyses of safety significant primary circuit pipings of NPPs in Czech and Slovak Republics. The analyses covered the NPPs with reactors WWER 440 Type 230 and 213 and WWER 1000 Type 320. Within the relevant LBB projects undertaken with the aim to prove the fulfilling of the requirements of LBB, a series of large scale experiments were performed. The goal of these experiments was to verify the properties of the components selected, and to prove the quality and/or conservatism of assessments used in the LBB-analyses. In this poster, amore » brief overview of experiments performed in Czech Republic under guidance of NRI Rez is presented.« less

A Comparison of Metamodeling Techniques via Numerical Experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Crespo, Luis G.; Kenny, Sean P.; Giesy, Daniel P.

2016-01-01

This paper presents a comparative analysis of a few metamodeling techniques using numerical experiments for the single input-single output case. These experiments enable comparing the models' predictions with the phenomenon they are aiming to describe as more data is made available. These techniques include (i) prediction intervals associated with a least squares parameter estimate, (ii) Bayesian credible intervals, (iii) Gaussian process models, and (iv) interval predictor models. Aspects being compared are computational complexity, accuracy (i.e., the degree to which the resulting prediction conforms to the actual Data Generating Mechanism), reliability (i.e., the probability that new observations will fall inside the predicted interval), sensitivity to outliers, extrapolation properties, ease of use, and asymptotic behavior. The numerical experiments describe typical application scenarios that challenge the underlying assumptions supporting most metamodeling techniques.

Learning Is Better with the Hands Free: The Role of Posture in the Memory of Manipulable Objects.

PubMed

Dutriaux, Léo; Gyselinck, Valérie

2016-01-01

Grounded cognition proposes that memory shares processing resources with sensorimotor systems. The aim of the present study was to show that motor simulation participates in the conceptual representation of manipulable objects in long-term memory. In two experiments, lists of manipulable and nonmanipulable objects were presented. Participants were instructed to memorize the items while adopting different postures. In the control condition, they had to keep their hands at rest in front of them. In the interference condition, participants had to keep their hands crossed behind their back to make their hands less free for action. After each list, participants had to perform first a distractive task, and then an oral free recall. The results showed that the interfering posture produced a specific decrease in the recall of manipulable objects, but not of nonmanipulable ones. This decrease was similar when the items were presented as pictures (Experiment 1) or as words (Experiment 2), thus excluding a purely visual effect. These results provide strong evidence that the motor simulation plays a role in the memory trace of the object.

[Effect of spatial location on the generality of block-wise conflict adaptation between different types of scripts].

PubMed

Watanabe, Yurina; Yoshizaki, Kazuhito

2014-10-01

This study aimed to investigate the generality of conflict adaptation associated with block-wise conflict frequency between two types of stimulus scripts (Kanji and Hiragana). To this end, we examined whether the modulation of the compatibility effect with one type of script depending on block-wise conflict frequency (75% versus 25% generalized to the other type of script whose block-wise conflict frequency was kept constant (50%), using the Spatial Stroop task. In Experiment 1, 16 participants were required to identify the target orientation (up or down) presented in the upper or lower visual-field. The results showed that block-wise conflict adaptation with one type of stimulus script generalized to the other. The procedure in Experiment 2 was the same as that in Experiment 1, except that the presentation location differed between the two types of stimulus scripts. We did not find a generalization from one script to the other. These results suggest that presentation location is a critical factor contributing to the generality of block-wise conflict adaptation.

The pursuit of happiness measurement: a psychometric model based on psychophysiological correlates.

PubMed

Pietro, Cipresso; Silvia, Serino; Giuseppe, Riva

2014-01-01

Everyone is interested in the pursuit of happiness, but the real problem for the researchers is how to measure it. Our aim was to deeply investigate happiness measurement through biomedical signals, using psychophysiological methods to objectify the happiness experiences measurements. The classic valence-arousal model of affective states to study happiness has been extensively used in psychophysiology. However, really few studies considered a real combination of these two dimensions and no study further investigated multidimensional models. More, most studies focused mainly on self-report to measure happiness and a deeper psychophysiological investigation on the dimensions of such an experience is still missing. A multidimensional model of happiness is presented and both the dimensions and the measures extracted within each dimension are comprehensively explained. This multidimensional model aims at being a milestone for future systematic study on psychophysiology of happiness and affective states.

National data centre preparedness exercise 2015 (NPE2015): MY-NDC progress result and experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rashid, Faisal Izwan Abdul; Zolkaffly, Muhammed Zulfakar

2017-01-01

Malaysia has established the National Data Centre (MY-NDC) in December 2005. MY-NDC is tasked to perform the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty (CTBT) data management as well as providing relevant information for Treaty related events to the Malaysian Nuclear Agency (Nuclear Malaysia) as the CTBT National Authority. In the late 2015, MY-NDC has participated in the National Data Centre Preparedness Exercise 2015 (NPE 2015) which aims to access the level of readiness at MY-NDC. This paper aims at presenting the progress result of NPE 2015 as well as highlighting MY-NDC experience in NPE 2015 compared to previous participation in NPE 2013. MY-NDC has utilised available resources for NPE 2015. In NPE 2015, MY-NDC has performed five type of analyses compared with only two analyses in NPE 2013. Participation in the NPE 2015 has enabled MY-NDC to assess its capability and identify rooms for improvement.

Study of the cluster structure of10Be and16C neutron-rich isotopes by means of intermediate energies breakup reactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dell'Aquila, D.; Acosta, L.; Auditore, L.; Cardella, G.; De Filippo, E.; De Luca, S.; Francalanza, L.; Gnoffo, B.; Lanzalone, G.; Lombardo, I.; Martorana, N. S.; Pagano, A.; Pagano, E. V.; Papa, M.; Pirrone, S.; Politi, G.; Quattrocchi, L.; Rizzo, F.; Rosato, E.; Russotto, P.; Trifirò, A.; Trimarchi, M.; Verde, G.; Vigilante, M.

2017-06-01

We describe the results of a new experiment aimed to investigate the possible existence of cluster structures in10Be and16C isotopes. They have been investigated at the FRIBs facility of INFN-LNS by means of an invariant mass analysis on correlated projectile breakup fragments carried out with the CHIMERA 4π detector. From the analysis of the6He+4He channel we found evidence of a new state in10Be at 13.5MeV excitation energy. Concerning16C, we investigated6He+10Be correlated fragments and we found a non-vanishing yield at about 20.5MeV in the corresponding excitation energy spectrum. Finally, we describe few details of a new experiment performed at the FRIBs facility where the CHIMERA detector was coupled to the FARCOS hodoscope, with the aim to improve the presently obtained results.

Publication Bias in Methodological Computational Research.

PubMed

Boulesteix, Anne-Laure; Stierle, Veronika; Hapfelmeier, Alexander

2015-01-01

The problem of publication bias has long been discussed in research fields such as medicine. There is a consensus that publication bias is a reality and that solutions should be found to reduce it. In methodological computational research, including cancer informatics, publication bias may also be at work. The publication of negative research findings is certainly also a relevant issue, but has attracted very little attention to date. The present paper aims at providing a new formal framework to describe the notion of publication bias in the context of methodological computational research, facilitate and stimulate discussions on this topic, and increase awareness in the scientific community. We report an exemplary pilot study that aims at gaining experiences with the collection and analysis of information on unpublished research efforts with respect to publication bias, and we outline the encountered problems. Based on these experiences, we try to formalize the notion of publication bias.

An experience of group work with parents of children and adolescents with gender identity disorder.

PubMed

Di Ceglie, Domenico; Thümmel, Elizabeth Coates

2006-07-01

This article gives an account of an experience of group work with parents and carers who had children or adolescents with gender identity disorder (GID). The history of this intervention within the context of a service for children with gender identity problems is outlined. The limited literature on the subject is reviewed. Group meetings were held monthly for 6 months, facilitated by two therapists (the authors). Selection criteria for group participants, the aims of the group and the methodology for achieving those aims are described. Some information about the group's composition is provided. The structure and content of the group sessions are outlined together with details of some group interactions. Finally, we present the results of an evaluation of the intervention through feedback questionnaires and discuss the value for the children and young people of running such groups.

Results of Kirari optical communication demonstration experiments with NICT optical ground station (KODEN) aiming for future classical and quantum communications in space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toyoshima, Morio; Takenaka, Hideki; Shoji, Yozo; Takayama, Yoshihisa; Koyama, Yoshisada; Kunimori, Hiroo

2012-05-01

Bi-directional ground-to-satellite laser communication experiments were successfully performed between the optical ground station developed by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), located in Koganei City in suburban Tokyo, and a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite, the "Kirari" Optical Inter-orbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite (OICETS). The experiments were conducted in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and called the Kirari Optical communication Demonstration Experiments with the NICT optical ground station (or KODEN). The ground-to-OICETS laser communication experiment was the first in-orbit demonstration involving the LEO satellite. The laser communication experiment was conducted since March 2006. The polarization characteristics of an artificial laser source in space, such as Stokes parameters, and the degree of polarization were measured through space-to-ground atmospheric transmission paths, which results contribute to the link estimation for quantum key distribution via space and provide the potential for enhancements in quantum cryptography on a global scale in the future. The Phase-5 experiment, international laser communications experiments were also successfully conducted with four optical ground stations located in the United States, Spain, Germany, and Japan from April 2009 to September 2009. The purpose of the Phase-5 experiment was to establish OICETS-to-ground laser communication links from the different optical ground stations and the statistical analyses such as the normalized power, scintillation index, probability density function, auto-covariance function, and power spectral density were performed. Thus the applicability of the satellite laser communications was demonstrated, aiming not only for geostationary earth orbit-LEO links but also for ground-to-LEO optical links. This paper presents the results of the KODEN experiments and mainly introduces the common analyses among the different optical ground stations.

Behavioral Priming: It's All in the Mind, but Whose Mind?

PubMed Central

Doyen, Stéphane; Klein, Olivier; Pichon, Cora-Lise; Cleeremans, Axel

2012-01-01

The perspective that behavior is often driven by unconscious determinants has become widespread in social psychology. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows' (1996) famous study, in which participants unwittingly exposed to the stereotype of age walked slower when exiting the laboratory, was instrumental in defining this perspective. Here, we present two experiments aimed at replicating the original study. Despite the use of automated timing methods and a larger sample, our first experiment failed to show priming. Our second experiment was aimed at manipulating the beliefs of the experimenters: Half were led to think that participants would walk slower when primed congruently, and the other half was led to expect the opposite. Strikingly, we obtained a walking speed effect, but only when experimenters believed participants would indeed walk slower. This suggests that both priming and experimenters' expectations are instrumental in explaining the walking speed effect. Further, debriefing was suggestive of awareness of the primes. We conclude that unconscious behavioral priming is real, while real, involves mechanisms different from those typically assumed to cause the effect. PMID:22279526

"I've never been a yes person": Decision-making participation and self-conceptualization after severe traumatic brain injury.

PubMed

Knox, Lucy; Douglas, Jacinta M; Bigby, Christine

2017-11-01

Although adults who sustain a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) require support to make decisions in their lives, little is known about their experience of this process. The aim of this study was to explore how participation in decision making contributes to self-conceptualization in adults with severe TBI. We used constructivist grounded theory methods. Data included 20 in-depth interviews with adults with severe TBI. Through a process of constant comparison, analysis involved open and focused coding until clear categories emerged and data saturation was achieved. Self-conceptualization emerged as a complex and multifaceted process, as individuals with TBI aimed to reestablish a sense of autonomy. We describe a recursive relationship in which decision-making participation assists the dynamic construction of self, and self-concept contributes to the experience of making decisions. The role of an individual's social support network in acting as a bridge between participation and self-conceptualization is presented. Findings emphasize that contributing to decisions about one's own goals across a range of life areas can reinforce a positive self-concept. It is vital that supporters understand that participation in decision making provides a pathway to conceptualizing self and aim to maximize the person's participation in the decision-making process. Implications for Rehabilitation Previous research has identified that the experience of sustaining TBI has a significant impact on a person's conceptualization of self. This study identified that decision-making experiences play an important role in the ongoing process of self-conceptualization after injury. Decision-making experiences can reinforce a person's self-concept or lead them to revise (positively or negatively) their sense of self. By maximizing the person's decision-making participation, those around them can support them to develop positive self-attributes and contribute to shaping their future goals.

[Promoting citizen participation in healthcare through PyDEsalud.com].

PubMed

Perestelo-Pérez, Lilisbeth; Pérez-Ramos, Jeanette; Abt-Sacks, Analía; Rivero-Santana, Amado; Serrano-Aguilar, Pedro

2013-01-01

This project supports the initiative promoted by the Spanish National Health System to provide informational materials, in printed or interactive format, to encourage public participation in decision making and healthcare. We present the newly created PyDEsalud.com, a web platform aimed at people with chronic diseases with a high socioeconomic impact, such as breast cancer, depression, and diabetes. This platform uses scientific methodology and contains three information service modules (Patients' experiences, Shared decision making, and Research needs), aimed at promoting health education for patients and families. Copyright © 2012 SESPAS. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Synthetic polymers as substrates for a DNA-sliding clamp protein.

PubMed

van Dongen, S F M; Clerx, J; van den Boomen, O I; Pervaiz, M; Trakselis, M A; Ritschel, T; Schoonen, L; Schoenmakers, D C; Nolte, R J M

2018-04-26

The clamp protein (gp45) of the DNA polymerase III of the bacteriophage T4 is known to bind to DNA and stay attached to it in order to facilitate the process of DNA copying by the polymerase. As part of a project aimed at developing new biomimetic data-encoding systems we have investigated the binding of gp45 to synthetic polymers, that is, rigid, helical polyisocyanopeptides. Molecular modelling studies suggest that the clamp protein may interact with the latter polymers. Experiments aimed at verifying these interactions are presented and discussed. © 2018 The Authors Biopolymers Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Psychosocial aspects of donation and the dissection course: An extra-curricular program with the objective of assisting students confront issues surrounding gross anatomy lab

PubMed Central

Weyers, Simone; Noack, Thorsten; Rehkämper, Gerd

2014-01-01

Background and aim: The dissection course is an essential part of preclinical medical education. At the Medical Faculty of Duesseldorf, an education concept has been developed with the aim, to reflect with students their experiences and to support them in dealing with the donor and preparation. The aim of this paper is to present the concept. Method: The education concept had a peer group approach. It comprised a lecture, a small group seminar and an online diary as core element. Finally, the concept was evaluated. Results: Approximately one sixth of students made use of the online diary. Selected entries are presented here. Also, one sixth of students took part in the evaluation. They rated the activity as helpful to prepare for the dissection course. Discussion: The education concept could be a corner stone of a longitudinal training to promote the adequate encounter with topics such as dying and death. PMID:24872851

Are All Interventions Created Equal? A Multi-Threat Approach to Tailoring Stereotype Threat Interventions

PubMed Central

Shapiro, Jenessa R.; Williams, Amy M.; Hambarchyan, Mariam

2013-01-01

To date, stereotype threat interventions have been considered interchangeable. Across 4 experiments, the present research demonstrates that stereotype threat interventions need to be tailored to the specific form of experienced stereotype threat to be effective. The Multi-Threat Framework (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007) distinguishes between group-as-target stereotype threats—concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on the abilities of one’s group—and self-as-target stereotype threats—concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on one’s own abilities. The present experiments explored Black college students’ performance on diagnostic intelligence tests (Experiments 1 and 3) and women’s interest (Experiment 2) and performance (Experiment 4) in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Across the 4 experiments, participants were randomly assigned to experience either a group-as-target or self-as-target stereotype threat. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that role model interventions were successful at protecting only against group-as-target stereotype threats, and Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that self-affirmation interventions were successful at protecting only against self-as-target stereotype threats. The present research provides an experimental test of the Multi-Threat Framework across different negatively stereotyped groups (Black students, female students), different negatively stereotyped domains (general intelligence, STEM), and different outcomes (test performance, career interest). This research suggests that interventions should address the range of possible stereotype threats to effectively protect individuals against these threats. Through an appreciation of the distinct forms of stereotype threats and the ways in which interventions work to reduce them, this research aims to facilitate a more complete understanding of stereotype threat. PMID:23088232

Are all interventions created equal? A multi-threat approach to tailoring stereotype threat interventions.

PubMed

Shapiro, Jenessa R; Williams, Amy M; Hambarchyan, Mariam

2013-02-01

To date, stereotype threat interventions have been considered interchangeable. Across 4 experiments, the present research demonstrates that stereotype threat interventions need to be tailored to the specific form of experienced stereotype threat to be effective. The Multi-Threat Framework (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007) distinguishes between group-as-target stereotype threats-concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on the abilities of one's group-and self-as-target stereotype threats-concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on one's own abilities. The present experiments explored Black college students' performance on diagnostic intelligence tests (Experiments 1 and 3) and women's interest (Experiment 2) and performance (Experiment 4) in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Across the 4 experiments, participants were randomly assigned to experience either a group-as-target or self-as-target stereotype threat. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that role model interventions were successful at protecting only against group-as-target stereotype threats, and Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that self-affirmation interventions were successful at protecting only against self-as-target stereotype threats. The present research provides an experimental test of the Multi-Threat Framework across different negatively stereotyped groups (Black students, female students), different negatively stereotyped domains (general intelligence, STEM), and different outcomes (test performance, career interest). This research suggests that interventions should address the range of possible stereotype threats to effectively protect individuals against these threats. Through an appreciation of the distinct forms of stereotype threats and the ways in which interventions work to reduce them, this research aims to facilitate a more complete understanding of stereotype threat. (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Memory-guided selective attention: Single experiences with conflict have long-lasting effects on cognitive control.

PubMed

Brosowsky, Nicholaus P; Crump, Matthew J C

2018-05-17

Adjustments in cognitive control, as measured by congruency sequence effects, are thought to be influenced by both external stimuli and internal goals. However, this dichotomy has often overshadowed the potential contribution of past experience stored in memory. Here, we examine the role of long-term episodic memory in guiding selective attention. Our aim was to demonstrate new evidence that selective attention can be modulated by long-term retrieval of stimulus-specific attentional control settings. All the experiments used a modified flanker task involving multiple unique stimuli. Critically, each stimulus was only presented twice during the experiment: first as a prime, and second as a probe. Experiments 1 and 2 varied the number of intervening trials between prime and probe and manipulated the amount of conflict using a secondary task. Experiment 3 ensured that specific colors assigned to prime stimuli were not repeated when presented as probes. Across both Experiments 1 and 2, we consistently found smaller congruency effects on probe trials when its associated prime trial was incongruent compared with congruent, demonstrating long-term congruency sequence effects. However, Experiment 3 showed no evidence for long-term effects. These findings suggest long-term preservation of selective attention processing at the episodic level, and implicate a role for memory in updating cognitive control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

A radon daughter deposition model for low background experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rielage, K.; Guiseppe, V. E.; Mastbaum, A.; Elliott, S. R.; Hime, A.

2009-05-01

The next generation low-background detectors operating underground, such as dark matter searches and neutrinoless double-beta decay, aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. Although the radioactive decays of airborne radon (particularly ^222Rn) and its subsequent daughters present in an experiment are potential backgrounds, more troublesome is the deposition of radon daughters on detector materials. Exposure to radon at any stage of assembly of an experiment can result in surface contamination by daughters supported by the long half life (22 y) of ^210Pb on sensitive locations of a detector. An understanding of the potential surface contamination will enable requirements of radon-reduced air and clean room environments for the assembly of low background experiments. It is known that there are a number of environmental factors that govern the deposition of daughters onto surfaces. However, existing models have not explored the impact of some environmental factors important for low background experiments. A test stand has been constructed to deposit radon daughters on various surfaces under a controlled environment in order to develop a deposition model. Results from this test stand and the resulting deposition model will be presented.

Development and validation of a Chinese music quality rating test.

PubMed

Cai, Yuexin; Zhao, Fei; Zheng, Yiqing

2013-09-01

The present study aims to develop and validate a Chinese music quality rating test (MQRT). In Experiment 1, 22 music pieces were initially selected and paired as a 'familiar music piece' and 'unfamiliar music piece' based on familiarities amongst the general public in the categories of classical music (6), Chinese folk music (8), and pop music (8). Following the selection criteria, one pair of music pieces from each music category was selected and used for the MQRT in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, the MQRT was validated using these music pieces in the categories 'Pleasantness', 'Naturalness', 'Fullness', 'Roughness', and 'Sharpness'. Seventy-two adult participants and 30 normal-hearing listeners were recruited in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Significant differences between the familiar and unfamiliar music pieces were found in respect of pleasantness rating for folk and pop music pieces as well as in sharpness rating for pop music pieces. The comparison of music category effect on MQRT found significant differences in pleasantness, fullness, and sharpness ratings. The Chinese MQRT developed in the present study is an effective tool for assessing music quality.

A radon progeny deposition model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rielage, Keith; Elliott, Steven R; Hime, Andrew

2010-12-01

The next generation low-background detectors operating underground aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. Although the radioactive decays of airborne radon (particularly {sup 222}Rn) and its subsequent progeny present in an experiment are potential backgrounds, also problematic is the deposition of radon progeny on detector materials. Exposure to radon at any stage of assembly of an experiment can result in surface contamination by progeny supported by the long half life (22 y) of {sup 210}Pb on sensitive locations of a detector. An understanding of the potential surface contamination from deposition will enable requirements of radon-reduced air and clean roommore » environments for the assembly of low background experiments. It is known that there are a number of environmental factors that govern the deposition of progeny onto surfaces. However, existing models have not explored the impact of some environmental factors important for low background experiments. A test stand has been constructed to deposit radon progeny on various surfaces under a controlled environment in order to develop a deposition model. Results from this test stand and the resulting deposition model are presented.« less

Numerical simulation of NQR/NMR: Applications in quantum computing.

PubMed

Possa, Denimar; Gaudio, Anderson C; Freitas, Jair C C

2011-04-01

A numerical simulation program able to simulate nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) as well as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments is presented, written using the Mathematica package, aiming especially applications in quantum computing. The program makes use of the interaction picture to compute the effect of the relevant nuclear spin interactions, without any assumption about the relative size of each interaction. This makes the program flexible and versatile, being useful in a wide range of experimental situations, going from NQR (at zero or under small applied magnetic field) to high-field NMR experiments. Some conditions specifically required for quantum computing applications are implemented in the program, such as the possibility of use of elliptically polarized radiofrequency and the inclusion of first- and second-order terms in the average Hamiltonian expansion. A number of examples dealing with simple NQR and quadrupole-perturbed NMR experiments are presented, along with the proposal of experiments to create quantum pseudopure states and logic gates using NQR. The program and the various application examples are freely available through the link http://www.profanderson.net/files/nmr_nqr.php. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ISMIP6 - initMIP: Greenland ice sheet model initialisation experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goelzer, Heiko; Nowicki, Sophie; Payne, Tony; Larour, Eric; Abe Ouchi, Ayako; Gregory, Jonathan; Lipscomb, William; Seroussi, Helene; Shepherd, Andrew; Edwards, Tamsin

2016-04-01

Earlier large-scale Greenland ice sheet sea-level projections e.g. those run during ice2sea and SeaRISE initiatives have shown that ice sheet initialisation can have a large effect on the projections and gives rise to important uncertainties. This intercomparison exercise (initMIP) aims at comparing, evaluating and improving the initialization techniques used in the ice sheet modeling community and to estimate the associated uncertainties. It is the first in a series of ice sheet model intercomparison activities within ISMIP6 (Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6). The experiments are conceived for the large-scale Greenland ice sheet and are designed to allow intercomparison between participating models of 1) the initial present-day state of the ice sheet and 2) the response in two schematic forward experiments. The latter experiments serve to evaluate the initialisation in terms of model drift (forward run without any forcing) and response to a large perturbation (prescribed surface mass balance anomaly). We present and discuss first results of the intercomparison and highlight important uncertainties with respect to projections of the Greenland ice sheet sea-level contribution.

Differential effects of white noise in cognitive and perceptual tasks

PubMed Central

Herweg, Nora A.; Bunzeck, Nico

2015-01-01

Beneficial effects of noise on higher cognition have recently attracted attention. Hypothesizing an involvement of the mesolimbic dopamine system and its functional interactions with cortical areas, the current study aimed to demonstrate a facilitation of dopamine-dependent attentional and mnemonic functions by externally applying white noise in five behavioral experiments including a total sample of 167 healthy human subjects. During working memory, acoustic white noise impaired accuracy when presented during the maintenance period (Experiments 1–3). In a reward based long-term memory task, white noise accelerated perceptual judgments for scene images during encoding but left subsequent recognition memory unaffected (Experiment 4). In a modified Posner task (Experiment 5), the benefit due to white noise in attentional orienting correlated weakly with reward dependence, a personality trait that has been associated with the dopaminergic system. These results suggest that white noise has no general effect on cognitive functions. Instead, they indicate differential effects on perception and cognition depending on a variety of factors such as task demands and timing of white noise presentation. PMID:26579024

Inner experience in the scanner: can high fidelity apprehensions of inner experience be integrated with fMRI?

PubMed Central

Kühn, Simone; Fernyhough, Charles; Alderson-Day, Benjamin; Hurlburt, Russell T.

2014-01-01

To provide full accounts of human experience and behavior, research in cognitive neuroscience must be linked to inner experience, but introspective reports of inner experience have often been found to be unreliable. The present case study aimed at providing proof of principle that introspection using one method, descriptive experience sampling (DES), can be reliably integrated with fMRI. A participant was trained in the DES method, followed by nine sessions of sampling within an MRI scanner. During moments where the DES interview revealed ongoing inner speaking, fMRI data reliably showed activation in classic speech processing areas including left inferior frontal gyrus. Further, the fMRI data validated the participant’s DES observations of the experiential distinction between inner speaking and innerly hearing her own voice. These results highlight the precision and validity of the DES method as a technique of exploring inner experience and the utility of combining such methods with fMRI. PMID:25538649

Antipsychotic profile of cannabidiol and rimonabant in an animal model of emotional context processing in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Levin, Raquel; Almeida, Valeria; Peres, Fernanda Fiel; Calzavara, Mariana Bendlin; da Silva, Neide Derci; Suiama, Mayra Akimi; Niigaki, Suzy Tamie; Zuardi, Antonio Waldo; Hallak, Jaime Eduardo Cecilio; Crippa, Jose Alexandre; Abílio, Vanessa Costhek

2012-01-01

Clinical and neurobiological findings suggest that cannabinoids and their receptors are implicated in schizophrenia. Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychotomimetic compound of the Cannabis sativa plant, has been reported to have central therapeutic actions, such as antipsychotic and anxiolytic effects. We have recently reported that spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) present a deficit in contextual fear conditioning (CFC) that is specifically ameliorated by antipsychotics and aggravated by proschizophrenia manipulations. These results led us to suggest that the CFC deficit presented by SHR could be used as a model to study emotional processing impairment in schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of CBD and rimonabant (CB1 receptor antagonist) on the contextual fear conditioning in SHR and Wistar rats (WR). Rats were submitted to CFC task after treatment with different doses of CBD (experiment 1) and rimonabant (experiment 2). In experiment 1, SHR showed a decreased freezing response when compared to WR that was attenuated by 1 mg/kg CBD. Moreover, all CBD-treated WR presented a decreased freezing response when compared to control rats. In experiment 2, SHR showed a decreased freezing response when compared to WR that was attenuated by 3 mg/kg rimonabant. Our results suggest a potential therapeutical effect of CBD and rimonabant to treat the emotional processing impairment presented in schizophrenia. In addition, our results reinforce the anxiolytic profile of CBD.

Sexual orientation and spatial memory.

PubMed

Cánovas, Ma Rosa; Cimadevilla, José Manuel

2011-11-01

The present study aimed at determining the influence of sexual orientation in human spatial learning and memory. Participants performed the Boxes Room, a virtual reality version of the Holeboard. In Experiment I, a reference memory task, the position of the hidden rewards remained constant during the whole experiment. In Experiment II, a working memory task, the position of rewards changed between blocks. Each block consisted of two trials: One trial for acquisition and another for retrieval. The results of Experiment I showed that heterosexual men performed better than homosexual men and heterosexual women. They found the rewarded boxes faster. Moreover, homosexual participants committed more errors than heterosexuals. Experiment II showed that working memory abilities are the same in groups of different sexual orientation. These results suggest that sexual orientation is related to spatial navigation abilities, but mostly in men, and limited to reference memory, which depends more on the function of the hippocampal system.

Dissociating Stimulus-Set and Response-Set in the Context of Task-Set Switching

PubMed Central

Kieffaber, Paul D.; Kruschke, John K.; Cho, Raymond Y.; Walker, Philip M.; Hetrick, William P.

2014-01-01

The primary aim of the present research was to determine how stimulus-set and response-set components of task-set contribute to switch costs and conflict processing. Three experiments are described wherein participants completed an explicitly cued task-switching procedure. Experiment 1 established that task switches requiring a reconfiguration of both stimulus- and response-set incurred larger residual switch costs than task switches requiring the reconfiguration of stimulus-set alone. Between-task interference was also drastically reduced for response-set conflict compared with stimulus-set conflict. A second experiment replicated these findings and demonstrated that stimulus- and response-conflict have dissociable effects on the “decision time” and “motor time” components of total response time. Finally, a third experiment replicated Experiment 2 and demonstrated that the stimulus- and response- components of task switching and conflict processing elicit dissociable neural activity as evidence by event-related brain potentials. PMID:22984990

BIM LAU-PE: Seedlings in Microgravity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gass, S.; Pennese, R.; Chapuis, D.; Dainesi, P.; Nebuloni, S.; Garcia, M.; Oriol, A.

2015-09-01

The effect of gravity on plant roots is an intensive subject of research. Sounding rockets represent a costeffective platform to study this effect under microgravity conditions. As part of the upcoming MASER 13 sounding rocket campaign, two experiments on Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings have been devised: GRAMAT and SPARC. These experiments are aimed at studying (1) the genes that are specifically switched on or off during microgravity, and (2) the position of auxin-transporting proteins during microgravity. To perform these experiments, RUAG Space Switzerland site of Nyon, in collaboration with the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and the University of Freiburg, has developed the BIM LAU-PE (Biolology In Microgravity Late Access Unit Plant Experiment). In the following an overview of the BIM LAU-PE design is presented, highlighting specific module design features and verifications performed. A particular emphasis is placed on the parabolic flight experiments, including results of the micro-g injection system validation.

The Georgians Experience Astronomy Research in Schools (GEARS) High School Galaxy Unit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Higdon, Sarah; Higdon, J.; Aguilar, J.

2012-01-01

The Georgians Experience Astronomy Research in Schools (GEARS) project aims to provide a rigorous and inquiry-based astronomy curriculum to GA's public schools. Exposure to data mining and research activities using the astronomy archives can be the trigger for the next generation of scientists, and it improves a student's ability to solve problems. Students then consolidate their findings and improve their communication skills by writing scientific reports and creating video presentations. The GEARS curriculum has units on the solar system, life in the Universe, stars, galaxies and cosmology. Here we present some of the activities in the Galaxy Unit. The GEARS material is freely available. Please email shigdon_AT_georgiasouthern.edu if you would like more details. NASA Grant NNX09AH83A through the GADOE funds this project.

Automatic Activation of Phonological Code during Visual Word Recognition in Children: A Masked Priming Study in Grades 3 and 5

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sauval, Karinne; Perre, Laetitia; Casalis, Séverine

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate the development of automatic phonological processes involved in visual word recognition during reading acquisition in French. A visual masked priming lexical decision experiment was carried out with third, fifth graders and adult skilled readers. Three different types of partial overlap between the prime and…

Protective Role of Educational Level on Episodic Memory Aging: An Event-Related Potential Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Angel, Lucie; Fay, Severine; Bouazzaoui, Badiaa; Baudouin, Alexia; Isingrini, Michel

2010-01-01

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate whether educational level could modulate the effect of aging on episodic memory and on the electrophysiological correlates of retrieval success. Participants were divided into four groups based on age (young vs. older) and educational level (high vs. low), with 14 participants in each group.…

Higher Education Policy and Flexibility in University Studies--Student Experiences with Electronic Exams in Finland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saarivirta, Toni; Karppinen, Jenni

2016-01-01

Finnish university students graduate later than their counterparts in other countries. For several years, Finnish higher education policy, regulated by Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture, has aimed at fostering the graduation of students in a shorter time than at present. The study at hand provides insights into one of the reforms carried…

Effectiveness of Proactive Intensive FFI in Cultivating Grammatical Knowledge of Iranian EFL Learners at Different Proficiency Levels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rooholamin, Amir; Biria, Reza; Haghverdi, Hamid Reza

2016-01-01

The present study provides a report on an experiment seeking the effect of proactive intensive form-focused instruction on the grammatical development of intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners. More specifically the aim of the study was to discern (a) whether the grammatical knowledge of Iranian EFL learners at different proficiency levels…

Environmental Education Activities Manual, Book 3: Middle Elementary Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stapp, William B., Ed.; Cox, Dorothy A., Ed.

This activities book for the middle elementary grades is the third book of a series of six books designed to provide developmental K-12 experiences designed to support the basic environmental philosophy of spaceship earth presented in Book 1. The aims of the four activity sections of this book are to aid in developing students to make them more…

Environmental Education Activities Manual, Book 4: Upper Elementary Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stapp, William B., Ed.; Cox, Dorothy A., Ed.

This activities book for the upper elementary grades is the fourth book of a series of six books designed to provide developmental K-12 experiences designed to support the basic environmental philosophy of spaceship earth presented in Book 1. The aims of the four activity sections of this book are to aid in developing students to make them more…

Environmental Education Activities Manual, Book 5: Junior High Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stapp, William B., Ed.; Cox, Dorothy A., Ed.

This activities book for the junior high level is the fifth book of a series of six books designed to provide developmental K-12 experiences designed to support the basic environmental philosophy of spaceship earth presented in Book 1. The aims of the four activity sections of this book are to aid in developing students to make them more sensitive…

Environmental Education Activities Manual, Book 6: Senior High Activities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stapp, William B., Ed.; Cox, Dorothy A., Ed.

This activities book for the senior high school level is the sixth book of a series of six books designed to provide developmental K-12 experiences designed to support the basic environmental philosophy of spaceship earth presented in Book 1. The aims of the four activity sections of this book are to aid in developing students to make them more…

Perceiving Speech Rhythm in Music: Listeners Classify Instrumental Songs According to Language of Origin

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hannon, Eric E.

2009-01-01

Recent evidence suggests that the musical rhythm of a particular culture may parallel the speech rhythm of that culture's language (Patel, A. D., & Daniele, J. R. (2003). "An empirical comparison of rhythm in language and music." "Cognition, 87," B35-B45). The present experiments aimed to determine whether listeners actually perceive such rhythmic…

Evaluating a Split Processing Model of Visual Word Recognition: Effects of Orthographic Neighborhood Size

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lavidor, Michal; Hayes, Adrian; Shillcock, Richard; Ellis, Andrew W.

2004-01-01

The split fovea theory proposes that visual word recognition of centrally presented words is mediated by the splitting of the foveal image, with letters to the left of fixation being projected to the right hemisphere (RH) and letters to the right of fixation being projected to the left hemisphere (LH). Two lexical decision experiments aimed to…

New Tools for Learning: A Case of Organizational Problem Analysis Derived from Debriefing Records in a Medical Center

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holzmann, Vered; Mischari, Shoshana; Goldberg, Shoshana; Ziv, Amitai

2012-01-01

Purpose: This article aims to present a unique systematic and validated method for creating a linkage between past experiences and management of future occurrences in an organization. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on actual data accumulated in a series of projects performed in a major medical center. Qualitative and quantitative…

Teacher's Experience from Collaborative Design: Reported Impact on Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Svendsen, Bodil

2017-01-01

This article is based on a research and development project conducted in one upper secondary school in Norway. The participating teachers have been part of a three year longitudinal study, and the findings in the present study are from their third and final year of a professional development study. The aim of this study was to find out how…

The Analysis of the Problems the Pre-Service Teachers Experience in Posing Problems about Equations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Isik, Cemalettin; Kar, Tugrul

2012-01-01

The present study aimed to analyse the potential difficulties in the problems posed by pre-service teachers about first degree equations with one unknown and equation pairs with two unknowns. It was carried out with 20 pre-service teachers studying in the Department of Elementary Mathematics Educations at a university in Eastern Turkey. The…

Promoting Student Metacognition through the Analysis of Their Own Debates. Is It Better with Text or with Graphics?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martínez, Marc Lafuente; Valdivia, Ibis M. Álvarez

2016-01-01

This paper presents a higher education experience aimed at explicitly promoting metacognitive processes in a social and collaborative context. Students carried out a debate on an e-forum, and were later asked to collaboratively analyse their own debates. The control group conducted this analysis using text-based tools; the experimental group…

MOOC and Blended Learning Models: Analysis from a Stakeholders' Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Torres-Coronas, Teresa; Vidal-Blasco, María-Arántzazu

2017-01-01

Interest is growing in educational designs that blend MOOCs with on-campus teaching and researchers are seeking to incorporate the spirit of a MOOC into a hybrid model. This article reports on the current experience of a higher education institution embarking on blended learning models. The aim of this article is to present a case study and to…

Experience of valorization projects ISTC for laser technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sartory, A. V.; Stepennov, D. B.; Vlasova, E. Y.; Pokrovsky, K. K.

2002-04-01

Application of the achievements of the ISTC projects is one of the main problems being solved to achieve one of the basic goals of the ISTC, namely, to adapt Russian scientists to conditions of developing market economy in Russia. The present report is aimed at rendering of promotional services for ISTC project teams in the context of the program of projects outcomes valorization.

Selected Aspects and Conditions of the Use of Robots in STEM Education for Young Learners as Viewed by Teachers and Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smyrnova-Trybulska, Eugenia; Morze, Nataliia; Kommers, Piet; Zuziak, Wojciech; Gladun, Mariia

2017-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss issues related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. It is emphasized that the need to prepare students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching is strong, especially at the elementary level. The authors present selected previous experiences, publications,…

Functional Adult Literacy: An Alternative Gateway to Grassroots Women's Improved Income Generation in Lango Subregion, Northern Uganda

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akello, Judith Abal; Lutwama-Rukundo, Evelyn; Musiimenta, Peace

2017-01-01

This article presents findings of study on women's experiences of Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) as a gateway to their financial progress and welfare in Lango region, Northern Uganda. The qualitative study of 45 participants aimed at examining women's live changes resulting from using their acquired FAL knowledge and skills to participate in…

Integrated and Contextual Basic Science Instruction in Preclinical Education: Problem-Based Learning Experience Enriched with Brain/Mind Learning Principles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gülpinar, Mehmet Ali; Isoglu-Alkaç, Ümmühan; Yegen, Berrak Çaglayan

2015-01-01

Recently, integrated and contextual learning models such as problem-based learning (PBL) and brain/mind learning (BML) have become prominent. The present study aimed to develop and evaluate a PBL program enriched with BML principles. In this study, participants were 295 first-year medical students. The study used both quantitative and qualitative…

Juvenile Offenders and Independent Living: An Irish Perspective on Program Development with St. Xavier's

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McElwee, Niall; O'Connor, Michael; McKenna, Susan

2007-01-01

This article discusses the authors' experience in working with young offenders who are leaving care in Ireland. It first presents a brief discussion around one agency called St. Xavier's which the authors have had connections with over the past decade. The main aim of St. Xavier's is to deliver individualized programs of care, education, and…

The Effects of a Pedagogical Agent's Smiling Expression on the Learner's Emotions and Motivation in a Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liew, Tze Wei; Zin, Nor Azan Mat; Sahari, Noraidah; Tan, Su-Mae

2016-01-01

The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that a smiling expression on the face of a talking pedagogical agent could positively affect a learner's emotions, motivation, and learning outcomes in a virtual learning environment. Contrary to the hypothesis, results from Experiment 1 demonstrated that the pedagogical agent's smile induced negative…

A Laboratory Activity on the Eddy Current Brake

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Molina-Bolivar, J. A.; Abella-Palacios, A. J.

2012-01-01

The aim of this paper is to introduce a simple and low-cost experimental setup that can be used to study the eddy current brake, which considers the motion of a sliding magnet on an inclined conducting plane in terms of basic physical principles. We present a set of quantitative experiments performed to study the influence of the geometrical and…

Feel the Progress: Second-Year Students' Reflections on Their First-Year Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hailikari, Telle; Kordts-Freudinger, Robert; Postareff, Liisa

2016-01-01

The aim of the present study was to explore first-year students' academic emotions and how they relate to their study progress. A mixed-method approach was used. The data consisted of deep interviews with 43 students. The number of their study credits was used as an indicator of their study progress. The results revealed that students expressed a…

Which Space? Whose Space? An Experience in Involving Students and Teachers in Space Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casanova, Diogo; Di Napoli, Roberto; Leijon, Marie

2018-01-01

To date, learning spaces in higher education have been designed with little engagement on the part of their most important users: students and teachers. In this paper, we present the results of research carried out in a UK university. The research aimed to understand how students and teachers conceptualise learning spaces when they are given the…

A Case Study of E-Tutors' Teaching Practice: Does Technology Drive Pedagogy?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chuang, Hsueh-Hua

2013-01-01

This article presents a case study of e-tutoring teaching practice during a 20-week e-tutoring program aimed at improving the English proficiency of targeted students. The study revealed what and why certain online tools were used by e-tutors and investigated how different technological proficiency and face-to-face (f2f) teaching experience shaped…

A Plan for Evaluating Teacher Training Workshops and Institutes. Technical Report 87-2-3.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ayers, Jerry B.

A plan for evaluating teacher training workshops and institutes is presented. Juxtaposition of the target group and the type of evaluation provides the framework for evaluating such a program. Evaluation is formative, aimed at modifying and improving the plan as it is being developed, and summative, assessed at the end of the experience. The use…

Educational Practice, Student Experience, and the Purpose of Education--A Critique of "Pedagogy in Practice"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klitmøller, Jacob

2016-01-01

The focus of the present paper is a critical discussion of the recently developed concept Pedagogy in Practice (PiP) with the intention of improving the concept for future research. PiP aims to understand ongoing educational practice from the students' perspective by interviewing groups of students about their understanding of learning. By…

Connecting Students to Nature--How Intensity of Nature Experience and Student Age Influence the Success of Outdoor Education Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braun, Tina; Dierkes, Paul

2017-01-01

Nature connectedness counts as a crucial predictor of pro-environmental behavior. For counteracting today's environmental issues a successful re-connection of individuals to nature is necessary. Besides the promotion of knowledge transfer the aim of the educational program presented in this study is to connect students to their environment. This…

Designing from Cinema: Film as Trigger of the Creative Process in Architecture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergera, Iñaki

2018-01-01

The present paper examines, in a case study format, the use of films, short films and audiovisual documentaries as reasoning and references for design assignments during the first years of an architectural degree course. The aim of this fruitful and comparable experience is not so much to study and verify the well-known synergies between film and…

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI). Final Report. NCEE 2012-4008

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newman, Denis; Finney, Pamela B.; Bell, Steve; Turner, Herb; Jaciw, Andrew P.; Zacamy, Jenna L.; Gould, Laura Feagans

2012-01-01

This report presents the results of an experiment conducted in Alabama beginning in the 2006/07 school year, to determine the effectiveness of the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI), which aims to improve mathematics and science achievement in the state's K-12 schools. This study is the first randomized controlled trial…

Switching from Contextual to Tone Fear Conditioning and Vice Versa: The Key Role of the Glutamatergic Hippocampal-Lateral Septal Neurotransmission

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calandreau, Ludovic; Desgranges, Bertrand; Jaffard, Robert; Desmedt, Aline

2010-01-01

The aim of the present experiment was to directly assess the role of the glutamatergic hippocampal-lateral septal (HPC-LS) neurotransmission in tone and contextual fear conditioning. We found that pretraining infusion of glutamatergic acid into the lateral septum promotes tone conditioning and concomitantly disrupts contextual conditioning.…

Where Is the Engineering I Applied For? A Longitudinal Study of Students' Transition into Higher Education Engineering, and Their Considerations of Staying or Leaving

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmegaard, Henriette Tolstrup; Madsen, Lene Møller; Ulriksen, Lars

2016-01-01

This paper presents results from a qualitative longitudinal study of students' transition into higher education engineering. The study aims at comparing upper-secondary school students' expectations of engineering with their actual experiences when encountering the engineering programme. It explores how this encounter provides a platform for…

Revolution of View: Visual Presentation under the Influence of Multidimensional Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feng, Zhu

2011-01-01

The ultimate aim of artistic exploration is to explore the claim that objects are different from experience and beauty is just a by-product of the exploration. In other words, the truth in the eyes of each person may quite literally not be the same. This indicates that differences in the visual apparatus influence the viewing body's mastery of the…

Encounters of the Traditional Kind: Reflections on the In-Service Teacher Training of Traditional Filipino Arts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loza, Cynthia B.; de Guzman, Allan B.; Jose, Regalado T.

2010-01-01

This article presents the second segment of a qualitative study on the integration of traditional arts in tertiary level art and design education in the Philippines. It is focused on the experience of artist-teachers as participants in an in-service teacher training programme that aimed to prepare the teachers for the trial integration of…

Pain Intensity after an Ice Pack Application Prior to Venipuncture among School-Age Children: An Experimental Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alalo, Fadeelah Mansour Ahmed; Ahmad, Awatef El Sayed; El Sayed, Hoda Mohamed Nafee

2016-01-01

Venipuncture and other invasive procedures as blood draws, intramuscular injections or heel pricks are the most commonly performed painful procedures in children. These can be a terrifying and painful experience for children and their families. The present study aimed to identify Pain intensity after an ice pack application prior to venipuncture…

Wireless Sensor Networks--A Hands-On Modular Experiments Platform for Enhanced Pedagogical Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taslidere, E.; Cohen, F. S.; Reisman, F. K.

2011-01-01

This paper presents the use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in educational research as a platform for enhanced pedagogical learning. The aim here with the use of a WSN platform was to go beyond the implementation stage to the real-life application stage, i.e., linking the implementation to real-life applications, where abstract theory and…

Open Distance Learning for Development: Lessons from Strengthening Research Capacity on Gender, Crisis Prevention, and Recovery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Babu, Suresh Chandra; Ferguson, Jenna; Parsai, Nilam; Almoguera, Rose

2013-01-01

This paper documents the experience and lessons from implementing an e-learning program aimed at creating research capacity for gender, crisis prevention, and recovery. It presents a case study of bringing together a multidisciplinary group of women professionals through both online and face-to-face interactions to learn the skills needed to be a…

The cerebellum does more than sensory prediction error-based learning in sensorimotor adaptation tasks.

PubMed

Butcher, Peter A; Ivry, Richard B; Kuo, Sheng-Han; Rydz, David; Krakauer, John W; Taylor, Jordan A

2017-09-01

Individuals with damage to the cerebellum perform poorly in sensorimotor adaptation paradigms. This deficit has been attributed to impairment in sensory prediction error-based updating of an internal forward model, a form of implicit learning. These individuals can, however, successfully counter a perturbation when instructed with an explicit aiming strategy. This successful use of an instructed aiming strategy presents a paradox: In adaptation tasks, why do individuals with cerebellar damage not come up with an aiming solution on their own to compensate for their implicit learning deficit? To explore this question, we employed a variant of a visuomotor rotation task in which, before executing a movement on each trial, the participants verbally reported their intended aiming location. Compared with healthy control participants, participants with spinocerebellar ataxia displayed impairments in both implicit learning and aiming. This was observed when the visuomotor rotation was introduced abruptly ( experiment 1 ) or gradually ( experiment 2 ). This dual deficit does not appear to be related to the increased movement variance associated with ataxia: Healthy undergraduates showed little change in implicit learning or aiming when their movement feedback was artificially manipulated to produce similar levels of variability ( experiment 3 ). Taken together the results indicate that a consequence of cerebellar dysfunction is not only impaired sensory prediction error-based learning but also a difficulty in developing and/or maintaining an aiming solution in response to a visuomotor perturbation. We suggest that this dual deficit can be explained by the cerebellum forming part of a network that learns and maintains action-outcome associations across trials. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Individuals with cerebellar pathology are impaired in sensorimotor adaptation. This deficit has been attributed to an impairment in error-based learning, specifically, from a deficit in using sensory prediction errors to update an internal model. Here we show that these individuals also have difficulty in discovering an aiming solution to overcome their adaptation deficit, suggesting a new role for the cerebellum in sensorimotor adaptation tasks. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

The Effect of the Muller-Lyer Illusion on the Planning and Control of Manual Aiming Movements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mendoza, Jocelyn E.; Elliott, Digby; Meegan, Daniel V.; Lyons, James L.; Welsh, Timothy N.

2006-01-01

Two experiments used Muller-Lyer stimuli to test the predictions of the planning-control model (S. Glover, 2002) for aiming movements. In Experiment 1, participants aimed to stimuli that either remained the same or changed upon movement initiation. Experiment 2 was identical except that the duration of visual feedback for online control was…

Evaluation results of xTCA equipment for HEP experiments at CERN

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di Cosmo, M.; Bobillier, V.; Haas, S.; Joos, M.; Mico, S.; Vasey, F.; Vichoudis, P.

2013-12-01

The MicroTCA and AdvancedTCA industry standards are candidate modular electronic platforms for the upgrade of the current generation of high energy physics experiments. The PH-ESE group at CERN launched in 2011 the xTCA evaluation project with the aim of performing technical evaluations and eventually providing support for commercially available components. Different devices from different vendors have been acquired, evaluated and interoperability tests have been performed. This paper presents the test procedures and facilities that have been developed and focuses on the evaluation results including electrical, thermal and interoperability aspects.

Top Quark and Higgs Boson Physics at LHC-ATLAS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tomoto, M.

2013-03-01

One of the main goal of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN in Switzerland is to aim to solve the "origin of the mass" by discovering the Higgs boson and understanding the interaction of the Higgs boson with the elementary particles. The ATLAS, which is one of the LHC experiments has taken about 5 fb-1 of physics quality data and published several results with regard to the "origin of the mass" since March 2010. This presentation focuses on the latest results of the heaviest elementary particle, namely, top quark physics and the Higgs boson searches from ATLAS.

A focal plane metrology system and PSF centroiding experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Haitao; Li, Baoquan; Cao, Yang; Li, Ligang

2016-10-01

In this paper, we present an overview of a detector array equipment metrology testbed and a micro-pixel centroiding experiment currently under development at the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences. We discuss on-going development efforts aimed at calibrating the intra-/inter-pixel quantum efficiency and pixel positions for scientific grade CMOS detector, and review significant progress in achieving higher precision differential centroiding for pseudo star images in large area back-illuminated CMOS detector. Without calibration of pixel positions and intrapixel response, we have demonstrated that the standard deviation of differential centroiding is below 2.0e-3 pixels.

Cell Kinetic and Histomorphometric Analysis of Microgravitational Osteopenia: PARE.03B

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roberts, W. Eugene; Garetto, Lawrence P.

1997-01-01

The final report includes the hypotheses and specific aims of the project as well as summaries of the experimental findings. Descriptions of several figures that are not included in the report are also presented. A list of publications that resulted from the research is also given. The three experimental summaries are entitled: (1) Pre-flight Experiment to compare 5-Bromo-2'Deoxyuridine (BrdU) Immunohistochemistry and 3H-Thymidine (3HT) Autoradiography; (2) Recovery of Osteoblast Histogenesis in Rat Periodontal Ligament following a 9-day Spaceflight (PARE.03); and (3) Analysis of Mandibular Condyles from PARE.03 Flight Experiment.

Experiential Collaborative Learning and Preferential Thinking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Volpentesta, Antonio P.; Ammirato, Salvatore; Sofo, Francesco

The paper presents a Project-Based Learning (shortly, PBL) approach in a collaborative educational environment aimed to develop design ability and creativity of students coming from different engineering disciplines. Three collaborative learning experiences in product design were conducted in order to study their impact on preferred thinking styles of students. Using a thinking style inventory, pre- and post-survey data was collected and successively analyzed through ANOVA techniques. Statistically significant results showed students successfully developed empathy and an openness to multiple perspectives. Furthermore, data analysis confirms that the proposed collaborative learning experience positively contributes to increase awareness in students' thinking styles.

Universe Awareness: Inspiring young children around the world

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ödman, Carolina J.

2011-06-01

Universe Awareness (UNAWE) has over three years of experience enthusing young children with the scale and beauty of the Universe. UNAWE is an outreach programme with a strong social vision aiming at broadening children's minds, awakening their curiosity in science and stimulating global citizenship. UNAWE uses the inspirational aspects of astronomy to instil a culture of peace and tolerance. We present the main principles of the programme, describe how it functions as a community-driven organisation and share some of the UNAWE experience. We describe projects and opportunities for IYA2009 and the future of the global programme.

[Screening of adverse childhood experiences in preschoolers: scoping review].

PubMed

Vega-Arce, Maribel; Núñez-Ulloa, Gastón

The aim of the present article was to describe available scientific publications detailing strategies and screening tools for Adverse Childhood Experiences in preschoolers (2 to 5 years of age). A scoping review of the topic was carried out through investigative articles published in peer review journals from January 1998 to June 2017 and indexed in seven international databases (Cochrane Library, EBSCO, PubMed, Science Direct, Springer, Web of Science and Scielo). The articles were selected based on predefined criteria, using limiters and manual screening. Twenty articles published between 1999 and 2017 were selected. The screening of adverse childhood experiences is performed through opportunistic recruitment in a professional context aimed at caregivers and children, which integrates training actions, application of screening tools and reception of identified cases. Screening tools differ between interviews and questionnaires. Furthermore, we report the periodicity of the screening, the behaviors and beliefs of the professionals against it and the barriers to its implementation. This review confirms that the screening of Adverse Childhood Experiences is an emerging topic in the research field. We emphasize the need to systematize and evaluate the strategies and tools for screening Adverse Childhood Experiences, as well as to develop local approaches to respond to the needs of children exposed to adversity. Copyright © 2017 Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez. Publicado por Masson Doyma México S.A. All rights reserved.

Real simulation tools in introductory courses: packaging and repurposing our research code.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heagy, L. J.; Cockett, R.; Kang, S.; Oldenburg, D.

2015-12-01

Numerical simulations are an important tool for scientific research and applications in industry. They provide a means to experiment with physics in a tangible, visual way, often providing insights into the problem. Over the last two years, we have been developing course and laboratory materials for an undergraduate geophysics course primarily taken by non-geophysics majors, including engineers and geologists. Our aim is to provide the students with resources to build intuition about geophysical techniques, promote curiosity driven exploration, and help them develop the skills necessary to communicate across disciplines. Using open-source resources and our existing research code, we have built modules around simulations, with supporting content to give student interactive tools for exploration into the impacts of input parameters and visualization of the resulting fields, fluxes and data for a variety of problems in applied geophysics, including magnetics, seismic, electromagnetics, and direct current resistivity. The content provides context for the problems, along with exercises that are aimed at getting students to experiment and ask 'what if...?' questions. In this presentation, we will discuss our approach for designing the structure of the simulation-based modules, the resources we have used, challenges we have encountered, general feedback from students and instructors, as well as our goals and roadmap for future improvement. We hope that our experiences and approach will be beneficial to other instructors who aim to put simulation tools in the hands of students.

The Split Fovea Theory and the Leicester critique: what do the data say?

PubMed

Van der Haegen, Lise; Drieghe, Denis; Brysbaert, Marc

2010-01-01

According to the Split Fovea Theory (SFT) recognition of foveally presented words involves interhemispheric transfer. This is because letters to the left of the fixation location are initially sent to the right hemisphere, whereas letters to the right of the fixation position are projected to the left hemisphere. Both sources of information must be integrated for words to be recognized. Evidence for the SFT comes from the Optimal Viewing Position (OVP) paradigm, in which foveal word recognition is examined as a function of the letter fixated. OVP curves are different for left and right language dominant participants, indicating a time cost when information is presented in the half-field ipsilateral to the dominant hemisphere (Hunter, Brysbaert, & Knecht, 2007). The methodology of the SFT research has recently been questioned, because not enough efforts were made to ensure adequate fixation. The aim of the present study is to test the validity of this argument. Experiment 1 replicated the OVP effect in a naming task by presenting words at different fixation positions, with the experimental settings applied in previous OVP research. Experiment 2 monitored and controlled eye fixations of the participants and presented the stimuli within the boundaries of the fovea. Exactly the same OVP curve was obtained. In Experiment 3, the eyes were also tracked and monocular viewing was used. Results again revealed the same OVP effect, although latencies were remarkably higher than in the previous experiments. From these results we can conclude that although noise is present in classical SFT studies without eye-tracking, this does not change the OVP effect observed with left dominant individuals.

Specificity of Esthetic Experience for Artworks: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Di Dio, Cinzia; Canessa, Nicola; Cappa, Stefano F.; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

2011-01-01

In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, where we investigated the neural correlates of esthetic experience, we found that observing canonical sculptures, relative to sculptures whose proportions had been modified, produced the activation of a network that included the lateral occipital gyrus, precuneus, prefrontal areas, and, most interestingly, the right anterior insula. We interpreted this latter activation as the neural signature underpinning hedonic response during esthetic experience. With the aim of exploring whether this specific hedonic response is also present during the observation of non-art biological stimuli, in the present fMRI study we compared the activations associated with viewing masterpieces of classical sculpture with those produced by the observation of pictures of young athletes. The two stimulus-categories were matched on various factors, including body postures, proportion, and expressed dynamism. The stimuli were presented in two conditions: observation and esthetic judgment. The two stimulus-categories produced a rather similar global activation pattern. Direct comparisons between sculpture and real-body images revealed, however, relevant differences, among which the activation of right antero-dorsal insula during sculptures viewing only. Along with our previous data, this finding suggests that the hedonic state associated with activation of right dorsal anterior insula underpins esthetic experience for artworks. PMID:22121344

Pre-hospital burn mission as a unique experience: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Froutan, Razieh; Khankeh, Hamid Reza; Fallahi, Masoud; Ahmadi, Fazlollah; Norouzi, Kian

2014-12-01

A thorough understanding of experiences related to pre-hospital emergency care of burns is a prerequisite of skill promotion for medical personnel. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the experiences of pre-hospital emergency personnel during burn accidents. The present qualitative study was performed using a content analysis method. In total, 18 Iranian emergency care personnel participated in the study. A purposeful sampling method was applied until reaching data saturation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and field observations. Afterwards, the gathered data were analyzed through face content analysis. By analyzing 498 primary codes, four main categories; the nature of burn care, tension at the accident scene, gradual job 'burnout', and insufficient information, were extracted from the experiences of pre-hospital emergency personnel during burn care. These categories each included several sub-categories, which were classified according to their significant characteristics. This study showed that different factors affect the quality of pre-hospital clinical services for burns. Authorities and health system administrators should consider the physical and psychological health of their staff, and assign policies to improve the quality of pre-hospital medical care. According to the present results, it is recommended that the process of pre-hospital emergency care for burns be investigated further. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.

Dataset of two experiments of the application of gamified peer assessment model into online learning environment MeuTutor.

PubMed

Tenório, Thyago; Bittencourt, Ig Ibert; Isotani, Seiji; Pedro, Alan; Ospina, Patrícia; Tenório, Daniel

2017-06-01

In this dataset, we present the collected data of two experiments with the application of the gamified peer assessment model into online learning environment MeuTutor to allow the comparison of the obtained results with others proposed models. MeuTutor is an intelligent tutoring system aims to monitor the learning of the students in a personalized way, ensuring quality education and improving the performance of its members (Tenório et al., 2016) [1]. The first experiment evaluated the effectiveness of the peer assessment model through metrics as final grade (result), time to correct the activities and associated costs. The second experiment evaluated the gamification influence into peer assessment model, analyzing metrics as access number (logins), number of performed activities and number of performed corrections. In this article, we present in table form for each metric: the raw data of each treatment; the summarized data; the application results of the normality test Shapiro-Wilk; the application results of the statistical tests T -Test and/or Wilcoxon. The presented data in this article are related to the article entitled "A gamified peer assessment model for on-line learning environments in a competitive context" (Tenório et al., 2016) [1].

Maximum Likelihood Analysis in the PEN Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lehman, Martin

2013-10-01

The experimental determination of the π+ -->e+ ν (γ) decay branching ratio currently provides the most accurate test of lepton universality. The PEN experiment at PSI, Switzerland, aims to improve the present world average experimental precision of 3 . 3 ×10-3 to 5 ×10-4 using a stopped beam approach. During runs in 2008-10, PEN has acquired over 2 ×107 πe 2 events. The experiment includes active beam detectors (degrader, mini TPC, target), central MWPC tracking with plastic scintillator hodoscopes, and a spherical pure CsI electromagnetic shower calorimeter. The final branching ratio will be calculated using a maximum likelihood analysis. This analysis assigns each event a probability for 5 processes (π+ -->e+ ν , π+ -->μ+ ν , decay-in-flight, pile-up, and hadronic events) using Monte Carlo verified probability distribution functions of our observables (energies, times, etc). A progress report on the PEN maximum likelihood analysis will be presented. Work supported by NSF grant PHY-0970013.

Remembering and diagnosing clients: does experience matter?

PubMed

Witteman, Cilia L M; Tollenaar, Marieke S

2012-01-01

Experienced mental health clinicians often do not outperform novices in diagnostic decision making. In this paper we look for an explanation of this phenomenon by testing differences in memory processes. In two studies we aimed to look at differences in accuracy of diagnoses in relation to free recall of client information between mental health clinicians with different levels of experience. Clinicians were presented with two cases, and were asked afterwards, either directly (Study 1) or after 1 week (Study 2), to give the appropriate diagnoses and to write down what they remembered of the cases. We found in Study 1 that the accuracy of the diagnoses was the same for all levels of experience, as was the amount of details recalled. Very experienced clinicians did remember more higher-order concepts, that is, abstractions from the presented information. In Study 2 we found that the very experienced clinicians were less accurate in their diagnoses and remembered fewer details than the novices. In response to these findings we further discuss their implications for psychodiagnostic practice.

First Results from the Cornell COBRA Accelerator for Light Ion ICF Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindholm, F.; Krastelev, E. G.; Greenly, J. B.; Kusse, B. R.

1996-11-01

COBRA, the Cornell Beam Research Accelerator, is a four-stage linear induction adder based on the Sandia National Laboratories SABRE accelerator design. The full 4 × 1 MV, 200 kA, 40 ns COBRA was completed in June 1996, after a year of initial operation with a single stage. Accelerator operation will be described, and first experimental results of power coupling and ion beam generation using a closely-coupled (short MITL) applied-B extraction ion diode load will be presented. A diagnostic package for beam optics including local microdivergence and aiming measurements is being developed, and results from both the single-stage experiments and new experiments on the full accelerator will be presented. A 20 ns, 15% voltage precursor to the main pulse resulting from coupling through the nonlinear magnetization characteristic of the Metglas^circR core at high magnetization rate was seen in the single-cell experiments. This mechanism will be discussed and its consequences on the full accelerator will be investigated.

Towards Pervasive Augmented Reality: Context-Awareness in Augmented Reality.

PubMed

Grubert, Jens; Langlotz, Tobias; Zollmann, Stefanie; Regenbrecht, Holger

2017-06-01

Augmented Reality is a technique that enables users to interact with their physical environment through the overlay of digital information. While being researched for decades, more recently, Augmented Reality moved out of the research labs and into the field. While most of the applications are used sporadically and for one particular task only, current and future scenarios will provide a continuous and multi-purpose user experience. Therefore, in this paper, we present the concept of Pervasive Augmented Reality, aiming to provide such an experience by sensing the user's current context and adapting the AR system based on the changing requirements and constraints. We present a taxonomy for Pervasive Augmented Reality and context-aware Augmented Reality, which classifies context sources and context targets relevant for implementing such a context-aware, continuous Augmented Reality experience. We further summarize existing approaches that contribute towards Pervasive Augmented Reality. Based our taxonomy and survey, we identify challenges for future research directions in Pervasive Augmented Reality.

Contextual match and cue-independence of retrieval-induced forgetting: Testing the prediction of the model by Norman, Newman, and Detre (2007).

PubMed

Hanczakowski, Maciej; Mazzoni, Giuliana

2013-05-01

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is the finding of impaired memory performance for information stored in long-term memory due to retrieval of a related set of information. This phenomenon is often assigned to operations of a specialized mechanism recruited to resolve interference during retrieval by deactivating competing memory representations. This inhibitory account is supported by, among others, findings showing that RIF occurs with independent cues not used during retrieval practice. However, these findings are not always consistent. Recently, Norman, Newman, and Detre (2007) have proposed a model that aims at resolving discrepancies concerning cue-independence of RIF. The model predicts that RIF should be present with independent cues when episodic associations are created between independent cues and their targets in the same episodic context that is later used to cue memory during retrieval practice. In the present study we aimed to test this prediction. We associated studied items with semantically unrelated words during the main study phase of the retrieval practice paradigm, and we tested memory with both cues used during retrieval practice (Experiment 2) and episodic associates serving as independent cues (Experiments 3a and 3b). Although RIF was present when the same cues were used during retrieval practice and a final test, contrary to the prediction formulated by Norman et al., RIF failed to emerge when episodic associates were employed as independent cues.

Study of neutron generation in the compact tokamak TUMAN-3M in support of a tokamak-based fusion neutron source

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kornev, V. A.; Askinazi, L. G.; Belokurov, A. A.; Chernyshev, F. V.; Lebedev, S. V.; Melnik, A. D.; Shabelsky, A. A.; Tukachinsky, A. S.; Zhubr, N. A.

2017-12-01

The paper presents DD neutron flux measurements in neutron beam injection (NBI) experiments aimed at the optimization of target plasma and heating beam parameters to achieve maximum neutron flux in the TUMAN-3M compact tokamak. Two ion sources of different design were used, which allowed the separation of the beam’s energy and power influence on the neutron rate. Using the database of experiments performed with the two ion sources, an empirical scaling was derived describing the neutron rate dependence on the target plasma and heating beam parameters. Numerical modeling of the neutron rate in the NBI experiments performed using the ASTRA transport code showed good agreement with the scaling.

Imaging the experiments on respiration and transpiration of Lavoisier and Séguin: two unknown drawings by Madame Lavoisier.

PubMed

Beretta, Marco

2012-01-01

This paper presents two hitherto unknown drawings by Marie-Anne-Pierrette Lavoisier dating to the early 1790s that illustrate the experiments on respiration and transpiration of her husband Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his assistant Armand Séguin. These works may be associated with the well-known sepia drawings that were published for the first time by Edouard Grimaux in 1888. Details contained in these newly discovered drawings by M.me Lavoisier provide fresh evidence as to the nature and aims of Lavoisier's innovative experiments. As we will show, these drawings were intended to illustrate the collection of papers on respiration being prepared by Lavoisier for his Mémoires de physique et de chimie (1792-1805).

News from the NA61/SHINE experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Šuša, Tatjana

2018-02-01

The main goals of the NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS are the search for the critical point of strongly interacting matter and the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement. These aims are pursued by performing a two-dimensional scan of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter by varying the momentum and size of the colliding nuclei. This contribution summarises the latest results from the NA61/SHINE experiment, in particular, new results on spectra and yields of ϕ meson in p+p interactions at 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c and K+ and K- production in central Be+Be collisions at mid-rapidity. In addition, results on system size dependence of particle yield ratios and fluctuations are presented.

Lighting, sleep and circadian rhythm: An intervention study in the intensive care unit.

PubMed

Engwall, Marie; Fridh, Isabell; Johansson, Lotta; Bergbom, Ingegerd; Lindahl, Berit

2015-12-01

Patients in an intensive care unit (ICU) may risk disruption of their circadian rhythm. In an intervention research project a cycled lighting system was set up in an ICU room to support patients' circadian rhythm. Part I aimed to compare experiences of the lighting environment in two rooms with different lighting environments by lighting experiences questionnaire. The results indicated differences in advantage for the patients in the intervention room (n=48), in perception of daytime brightness (p=0.004). In nighttime, greater lighting variation (p=0.005) was found in the ordinary room (n=52). Part II aimed to describe experiences of lighting in the room equipped with the cycled lighting environment. Patients (n=19) were interviewed and the results were presented in categories: "A dynamic lighting environment", "Impact of lighting on patients' sleep", "The impact of lighting/lights on circadian rhythm" and "The lighting calms". Most had experiences from sleep disorders and half had nightmares/sights and circadian rhythm disruption. Nearly all were pleased with the cycled lighting environment, which together with daylight supported their circadian rhythm. In night's actual lighting levels helped patients and staff to connect which engendered feelings of calm. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Body Image and Body Experience Disturbances in Schizophrenia: an Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Body Self as a Conceptual Framework.

PubMed

Sakson-Obada, Olga; Chudzikiewicz, Paulina; Pankowski, Daniel; Jarema, Marek

2018-01-01

Disturbances in body experience are described as key schizophrenia symptoms and early disease predictors. In case studies, different disorders relating to body experience are presented, but only a few empirical studies have aimed to distinguish the characteristics of body experience in schizophrenia, and these have been selected arbitrarily and without reference to cohesive theoretical model. To integrate this fragmentary approach, we propose a body self (BS) model, composed of: functions; representations (e.g., body image); and sense of body identity. The aim of the study was to determine whether the BS differentiates schizophrenic patients from healthy controls, and to investigate the relations between aspects of BS and a history of illness and clinical characteristics. The Body Self Questionnaire and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale were administered to 63 schizophrenic patients and 63 healthy subjects. The difference was found in the functions of the body-self (perceiving, interpreting, and regulating body experience), in the sense of body identity, and in one of three aspects of body image explored (e.g., acceptance of biological sex). Disturbances in BS were related to positive symptoms and to the number of hospitalizations for other diseases. Together, the results demonstrate that schizophrenia is more body experience than body image disorder, since the negative emotional attitude towards the body and acceptance of fitness were not distinctive for schizophrenia. The link between the disturbances in BS and the number of nonpsychiatric hospitalizations suggests that misinterpretation of body experiences in schizophrenia can promote a search for medical attention.

Strengths and Deficiencies in the Content of US Radiology Private Practices' Websites.

PubMed

Johnson, Evan J; Doshi, Ankur M; Rosenkrantz, Andrew B

2017-03-01

The Internet provides a potentially valuable mechanism for radiology practices to communicate with patients and enhance the patient experience. The aim of this study was to assess the websites of US radiology private practices, with attention to the frequency of content of potential patient interest. The 50 largest private practice radiology facilities in the United States were identified from RadiologyBusiness.com. Websites were reviewed for information content and functionality. Content regarding radiologists' names, medical schools, residencies, fellowships, photographs, and board certification status; contact for billing questions; and ability to make online payments was present on 80% to 98% of sites. Content regarding examination preparation, contrast use, examination duration, description of examination experience, scheduling information, directions, privacy policy, radiologists' role in interpretation, and ACR accreditation was present on 60% to 78%. Content regarding accepted insurers, delivery of results to referrers, report turnaround times, radiologists' years of experience, radiation safety, and facility hours was present on 40% to 58%. Content regarding technologist certification, registration forms, instructions for requesting a study on disc, educational videos, and patient testimonials was present on 20% to 38%. Content regarding examination prices, patient satisfaction scores, peer review, online scheduling, online report and image access, and parking was present on <20%. Radiology practices' websites most frequently provided information regarding their radiologists' credentials, as well as billing and payment options. Information regarding quality, safety, and the examination experience, as well as non-payment-related online functionality, was less common. These findings regarding the most common deficiencies may be useful for radiology practices in expanding their websites' content, thereby improving communication and potentially the patient experience. Copyright © 2016 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

New research on women's low participation in science and technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stout, Jane

It is well known that women have historically been and continue to be grossly underrepresented in technical fields (i.e., the physical sciences, engineering, and computing). This presentation will address the following research questions: What dissuades women from entering into a technical career track, and what are women's experiences like within technical fields? At the same time, this presentation will acknowledge a shortcoming of decades of social science research and interventions designed to improve women's interest and persistence in technical fields: a narrow definition of ``women''. Given that the majority of women in colleges and universities (i.e., the typical sites of social science research) tend to be affluent and/or White, STEM education research that relies on convenience samples at colleges and universities paints a skewed picture of gender issues in technical fields. This presentation will showcase research findings that call into question conventional conceptions of gender disparities in technical fields. Specifically, the presentation will emphasize the importance of recognizing that women constitute more than their gender; women come from a diverse array of backgrounds, which no doubt play a role in the experience of being a woman in technical fields. By understanding the experiences of women from a broad array of demographics groups, the STEM education community can develop a corresponding set of strategies to recruit and retain women with diverse interests, experiences, and values (e.g., first generation versus second college students; women of different racial/ethnic backgrounds). The aim of this presentation is to promote social science research and interventions that acknowledge the nuanced experiences of diverse women in technical fields, in order to address the seemingly intractable problem of women's underrepresentation in technical fields. NSF DUE-1431112, NSF CNS-1246649.

Educational needs in patients with spondyloarthritis in Sweden - a mixed-methods study.

PubMed

Haglund, Emma; Bremander, Ann; Bergman, Stefan; Larsson, Ingrid

2017-08-02

There is a demand for a flexible and individually tailored patient education to meet patients' specific needs and priorities, but this area has seldom been studied in patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA), a family of inflammatory rheumatic diseases. The aim of the present study was to identify needs and priorities in patient education in patients with SpA. A second aim was to investigate patients' experiences and preferences of receiving patient education. Data collection included a questionnaire survey with the Educational Needs Assessment Tool (ENAT) and interviews, using a mixed-methods design. Patients were identified through a specialist clinic register. Descriptive data are presented as mean with standard deviation, or frequencies. Chi-square test and independent-samples t-test were used for group comparisons. A manifest qualitative conventional content analysis was conducted to explore patients' experiences and needs in patient education, based on two focus groups (n = 6) and five individual interviews. Almost half (43%) of the 183 SpA patients had educational needs, particularly regarding aspects of self-help, feelings, and the disease process. More educational needs were reported by women and in patients with higher disease activity, while duration of disease did not affect the needs. The qualitative analysis highlighted the importance of obtaining a guiding, reliable, and easily available patient education for management of SpA. Individual contacts with healthcare professionals were of importance, but newer media were also requested. There are considerable educational needs in patients with SpA, and education concerning self-help, feelings, and the diseases process were raised as important issues. Healthcare professionals need to consider the importance of presenting varied formats of education based on the experiences and preferences of patients with SpA.

Bringing Science Public Outreach to Elementary Schools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, Lucas; Speck, A.; Tinnin, A.

2012-01-01

Many science "museums” already offer fantastic programs for the general public, and even some aimed at elementary school kids. However, these venues are usually located in large cities and are only occasionally used as tools for enriching science education in public schools. Here we present preliminary work to establish exciting educational enrichment environments for public schools that do not easily have access to such facilities. This program is aimed at motivating children's interest in science beyond what they learn in the classroom setting. In this program, we use the experience and experiments/demonstrations developed at a large science museum (in this case, The St. Louis Science Center) and take them into a local elementary school. At the same time, students from the University of Missouri are getting trained on how to present these outreach materials and work with the local elementary schools. Our pilot study has started with implementation of presentations/demonstrations at Benton Elementary School within the Columbia Public School district, Missouri. The school has recently adopted a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) centered learning system throughout all grade levels (K-5), and is therefore receptive to this effort. We have implemented a program in which we have given a series of scientific demonstrations at each grade level's lunch hour. Further enrichment ideas and plans include: addition demonstrations, hands-on experiments, and question and answer sessions. However, the application of these events would be to compliment the curriculum for the appropriate grade level at that time. The focus of this project is to develop public communications which links science museums, college students and local public schools with an emphasis on encouraging college science majors to share their knowledge and to strengthen their ability to work in a public environment.

Tailoring Summer Research Experiences to Diverse Student Cohorts: Lessons Learned from Teaching Scientific Communication to Summer Interns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Batchelor, R. L.; Haacker, R.

2014-12-01

Scientific posters, presentations and papers are frequently assigned outputs for students participating in summer research experiences, yet previous exposure to any form of scientific communication is not a given. Providing training in scientific communication in some form is thus a necessity for many internship programs, especially those aimed towards academically younger students. In this presentation, we will share some of the experiences we've gained from teaching scientific communication workshops to summer interns who range from high school to graduate school. Building on the many years of experience learned through the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research Science (SOARS) program, course material has been adapted and tailored to students participating in the National Center for Atmospheric Research High-School Internship Research Opportunity (HIRO, now the NCAR PreCollege Internship) and Research Experiences for Community College Students (RECCS, based with Colorado University's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science). SOARS also has experience supporting graduate students towards publication. Weekly communications workshops have served not only to provide necessary scientific skills, but also as a place to gather, reflect, discuss and build community. The unique opportunities and challenges in working with each of these groups will be discussed as part of the larger community discussion of how we can increase diversity in STEM through providing genuine research experiences to diverse and academically young students.

A spaceflight experiment to investigate the effects of a range of unilateral blue light phototropic stimulations on the movements of wheat coleoptiles (6-IML-1)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heathcote, David G.

1992-01-01

In 1978, in response to an announcement of opportunity by NASA, two independent groups proposed related investigations to study the response of seedling plants to photostimulations at microgravity. The spaceflight experiment is known by its NASA acronym, FOTRAN. The scientific objectives behind the experiment are outlined, and a brief description of the spaceflight equipment and the experimental procedures developed to accomplish the aims of the experiment are presented. By reference to the results of ground-based studies, the likely scientific returns of the FOTRAN experiment will be assessed. The experiment is designed to investigate the effects of a range of blue light stimulations on the movements of wheat coleoptiles at zero-g. The seedlings will be dark-grown, and their movements assessed from infrared time-lapse video recordings made during flight. The photostimulus may be expected to modulate circumnutations of the coleoptiles, by synchronizing, initiating or amplifying these rhythmic movements, and to initiate the classic phototropic response.

Priming for new associations in animacy decision: evidence for context dependency.

PubMed

Pecher, Diane; Raaijmakers, Jeroen

2004-10-01

In four experiments we investigated the context-dependent nature of semantic memory by looking at priming effects in animacy decision for newly formed associations. The first experiment investigated whether the priming effect depended on the nature of the prior relation between the word pairs. The results showed no such effect, replicating earlier findings. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 investigated the role of context overlap between study and test. In Experiment 2 priming for new associations was found only for word pairs that had been presented in the animacy decision task during study. Experiment 3 showed that in order to obtain priming effects for new associations these associations have to be studied in a study task that is aimed at unitized processing of the word pair at a semantic level. Experiment 4 showed that processing the pairs as separate words at an orthographic level cancelled the priming effect. The results are explained by assuming that priming results from the overlap of features that are activated during both study and test.

Design of experiments for zeroth and first-order reaction rates.

PubMed

Amo-Salas, Mariano; Martín-Martín, Raúl; Rodríguez-Aragón, Licesio J

2014-09-01

This work presents optimum designs for reaction rates experiments. In these experiments, time at which observations are to be made and temperatures at which reactions are to be run need to be designed. Observations are performed along time under isothermal conditions. Each experiment needs a fixed temperature and so the reaction can be measured at the designed times. For these observations under isothermal conditions over the same reaction a correlation structure has been considered. D-optimum designs are the aim of our work for zeroth and first-order reaction rates. Temperatures for the isothermal experiments and observation times, to obtain the most accurate estimates of the unknown parameters, are provided in these designs. D-optimum designs for a single observation in each isothermal experiment or for several correlated observations have been obtained. Robustness of the optimum designs for ranges of the correlation parameter and comparisons of the information gathered by different designs are also shown. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Antibacterial activity of methanol extract of Ruta chalapensis (L), Quercus infectoria (Oliver) and Canthium parviflorum (Lam)

PubMed Central

Priya, P. Sathiya; Sasikumar, J.M.; Gowsigan, G.

2009-01-01

The present study aimed at evaluating the antibacterial activity of methanol extract of Ruta chalapensis, L., (Rutaceae), Quercus infectoria Oliver., (Fagaceae) and Canthium parviflorum Lam., (Rubiaceae) against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis, Klebsiella oxytocoa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Proteus mirabilis. The experiment was carried out using disc diffusion method. The results revealed that the methanol extract of aerial parts of Ruta chalepensis (L) presented the highest zone of inhibition against tested pathogens. Other plants showed significant zone of inhibition. PMID:22557348

[Herpes zoster: the associated burden and its prevention].

PubMed

Lang, Pierre-Olivier

2011-12-01

The burden of illness and healthcare resource utilisation associated with herpes zoster in individuals aged 60 years or above is substantial, causing severe loss of quality of life. In the absence of antiviral therapy, up to 45% of over 60 year-olds experience pain which persists for months to years. The importance of preventive strategies for PHN is becoming widely recognised. The aim of the present review is not only to present the herpes zoster-associated burden, but also to detail the effectiveness of the preventive approaches currently available.

Effects of L-glutamate on 1F Helix aspersa neurons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bernal-Martínez, Juan; Ortega Soto, Arturo

2004-09-01

The aim of this work is to characterize the effect of L-glut and related compounds on the electrical properties of 1F identified neurons of the garden snail Helix aspersa. We used intracellular recording experiments with regular microelectrodes, in current clamp conditions. We report here that the putative L-glut receptor present in 1F Helix neurons has some similarities with the L-glut receptor present in vertebrates, regarding ionic permeability and biophysical properties. However, these responses show different pharmacological properties from those receptors found in vertebrates and mammals.

β-decay studies of r-process nuclei at NSCL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pereira, J.; Aprahamian, A.; Arndt, O.; Becerril, A.; Elliot, T.; Estrade, A.; Galaviz, D.; Hennrich, S.; Hosmer, P.; Schnorrenberger, L.; Kessler, R.; Kratz, K.-L.; Lorusso, G.; Mantica, P. F.; Matos, M.; Montes, F.; Pfeiffer, B.; Quinn, M.; Santi, P.; Schatz, H.; Schertz, F.; Smith, E.; Tomlin, B. E.; Walters, W. B.; Wöhr, A.

2008-06-01

Observed neutron-capture elemental abundances in metal-poor stars, along with ongoing analysis of the extremely metal-poor Eu-enriched sub-class provide new guidance for astrophysical models aimed at finding the r-process sites. The present paper emphasizes the importance of nuclear physics parameters entering in these models, particularly β-decay properties of neutron-rich nuclei. In this context, several r-process motivated β-decay experiments performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) are presented, including a summary of results and impact on model calculations.

Physics of Hard Sphere Experiment: Scattering, Rheology and Microscopy Study of Colloidal Particles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cheng, Z.-D.; Zhu, J.; Phan, S.-E.; Russel, W. B.; Chaikin, P. M.; Meyer, W. V.

2002-01-01

The Physics of Hard Sphere Experiment has two incarnations: the first as a scattering and rheology experiment on STS-83 and STS-94 and the second as a microscopy experiment to be performed in the future on LMM on the space station. Here we describe some of the quantitative and qualitative results from previous flights on the dynamics of crystallization in microgravity and especially the observed interaction of growing crystallites in the coexistance regime. To clarify rheological measurements we also present ground based experiments on the low shear rate viscosity and diffusion coefficient of several hard sphere experiments at high volume fraction. We also show how these experiments will be performed with confocal microscopy and laser tweezers in our lab and as preparation for the phAse II experiments on LMM. One of the main aims of the microscopy study will be the control of colloidal samples using an array of applied fields with an eye toward colloidal architectures. Temperature gradients, electric field gradients, laser tweezers and a variety of switchable imposed surface patterns are used toward this control.

Screenwriting: A Strategy for the Improvement of Writing Instructional Practices (La escritura de guiones: una estrategia para mejorar las prácticas instruccionales de escritura)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amado, Hernán

2010-01-01

This article presents a pedagogical experience that addresses the use of an instructional strategy called screenwriting aimed at improving the teaching of writing in an educational context. This pedagogical intervention took place in a private English language school, where three adult students willingly participated to create their own short…

Challenges of Bilingualism in Higher Education: The Experience of the Languages Department at the Universidad Central in Bogotá, Colombia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Granados Beltrán, Carlo

2013-01-01

Many of the actions of Colombia's National Programme for the Development of Foreign Languages (Programa Nacional de Desarrollo de Lenguas Extranjeras--PNDLE) have been carried out in elementary and secondary education, but there is not much information about its impact in institutions of higher education. The aim of this article is to present the…

"I Am Proud that I Did It and It's a Piece of Me": Digital Storytelling in the Foreign Language Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castaneda, Martha E.

2013-01-01

This case study examines students' experiences regarding the infusion of digital storytelling in their high school fourth-year Spanish class. The aim of this case study is to determine if digital storytelling can be an effective tool for language learners to communicate emotion and present information to an audience. Sources of information for…

Design of a Model of Knee Joint for Educational Purposes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jastaniah, Saddig; Alganmi, Ohud

2016-01-01

Uses of models play an important role by simulating the bone, obviating the need to experiment on humans or animals. The aim of the present study was to access local materials as gypsum and wax is to be tested for performing a knee model matching bone in the density also to explore how students can come to understand function through a model-based…

Development of a Didactical Training Concept for Peer Tutors in Gross Anatomy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alvarez, Simone; Nikendei, Christoph; Schultz, Jobst-Hendrik

2017-01-01

Even though peer tutors are often used in gross anatomy courses, research in the field is rather a subject of the last two decades. This is especially true about the didactical challenges these types of peer tutors experience during their tutorials and about how they are prepared for the task. The aim of the presented study was to learn about the…

Provisional Approaches to Goals for School Mathematics; Cambridge Conference on School Mathematics Feasibility Study No. 37.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cambridge Conference on School Mathematics, Newton, MA.

These materials were written with the aim of reflecting the thinking of Cambridge Conference on School Mathematics (CCSM) regarding the goals and objectives for school mathematics K-6. In view of the experiences of other curriculum groups and of the general discussions since 1963, the present report initiates the next step in evolving the "Goals".…

Investigating Pre-Service EFL Teachers' Self-Concepts within the Framework of Teaching Practicum in Turkish Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yilmaz, Cevdet

2018-01-01

The present study aimed at understanding the nature and potential dynamism of five pre-service EFL teachers' self-concepts in the domain of English as a foreign language (EFL). To this end, the effects of pre-service teachers' experiences gained alongside the practicum on their EFL self-concept development were also discussed. Data were generated…

The Cuban Model for Higher Education of Older Adults: Generativity, Social Commitment, and Collaborative Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yuni, José Alberto; Urbano, Claudio Ariel

2014-01-01

The present work is an approach to study the "Cuban model" for educating the elderly, and its aim is to describe the main features of the experience developed by this country. The University of the Third Age is more than three decades old in Latin America, but none of the countries in the region can show a state educational policy…

Role of School Administration in Solving Students' Problems among Bedouin Schools within the Green Line in Palestine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Badarna, Laila Khaled; abu Ashour, Muhammad Ali

2016-01-01

The present study aimed to identify the role of the school administration in solving the students' problems and differences according to gender, scientific qualification, years of experience and job title. The sample consisted of (300) staff from those who are working in the Bedouin schools within the Green Line of Palestine. The author used a…

Improving the Nutritional Value of the Food Served and the Dining Experience in a Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duncan, Sue

2011-01-01

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to make major changes in a primary school with limited investment. I wish to present the methods used in this process which enabled me to examine the existing catering, to identify, investigate and research the problems, to explore the literature available and to synthesise my results…

The Eye Gaze Direction of an Observed Person Can Bias Perception, Memory, and Attention in Adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freeth, M.; Ropar, D.; Chapman, P.; Mitchell, P.

2010-01-01

The reported experiments aimed to investigate whether a person and his or her gaze direction presented in the context of a naturalistic scene cause perception, memory, and attention to be biased in typically developing adolescents and high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A novel computerized image manipulation program…

ORIOLE, in the Search for Evidence of OER in Teaching. Experiences in the Use, Re-Use and the Sharing and Influence of Repositories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santos-Hermosa, Gema

2014-01-01

The study presented here aims to gather useful information on the use, re-reuse and sharing of resources in Education and also the influence of repositories, to better understand the perspective of individual practitioners and suggest future areas of debate for researchers. Open Resources: Influence on Learners and Educators (ORIOLE) project, was…

Migrants' Resources: Multilingualism and Transnational Mobility. A Study on Learning Paths and School to Job Transition of Young Portuguese Migrants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Furstenau, Sara

2005-01-01

In this contribution, the results of an empirical study on young immigrants' learning paths and school to job transition are presented. The study focused on the strategies of successful students from the Portuguese immigrant minority in Hamburg. One aim was to find out whether the young people could profit by their migration experiences and…

Emotional Self-Efficacy among a Sample of Faculty Members and Its Relation to Gender (Male/Female), Experience, Qualification, and Specialization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdel-Hadi, Samer A.

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to identify the level of emotional self-efficacy among a sample of faculty members who speak Arabic at the Abu Dhabi University. The study sample consisted of 99 faculty members Ph.D. and master's holders from scientific, social and education and management and humanities disciplines in University branches: Abu Dhabi and…

Having Students Create Short Video Clips to Help Transition from Naïve Conceptions about Mechanics to True Newtonian Physics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corten-Gualtieri, Pascale; Ritter, Christian; Plumat, Jim; Keunings, Roland; Lebrun, Marcel; Raucent, Benoit

2016-01-01

Most students enter their first university physics course with a system of beliefs and intuitions which are often inconsistent with the Newtonian frame of reference. This article presents an experiment of collaborative learning aiming at helping first-year students in an engineering programme to transition from their naïve intuition about dynamics…

Students' Critical Mathematical Thinking Skills and Character: Experiments for Junior High School Students through Realistic Mathematics Education Culture-Based

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Palinussa, Anderson L.

2013-01-01

This paper presents the findings of a quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test design and control group that aims to assess students' critical mathematical thinking skills and character through realistic mathematics education (RME) culture-based. Subjects of this study were 106 junior high school students from two low and medium schools level in…

Directive versus Facilitative Peer Tutoring? A View on Students' Appraisal, Reported Learning Gains and Experiences within Two Differently-Tutored Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berghmans, Inneke; Michiels, Lotte; Salmon, Sara; Dochy, Filip; Struyven, Katrien

2014-01-01

The present study aimed to shed light on students' appraisal and reported learning gains in two differently-tutored learning environments (i.e. directively and facilitatively tutored). In order to investigate this, a quasi-experimental study was set up in the context of a clinical skills learning environment. Not only were participating…

Pericyclic or Pseudopericyclic? The Case of an Allylic Transposition in The Synthesis of a Saccharin Derivative

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hare, Stephanie R.; Tantillo, Dean J.

2017-01-01

When new concepts, models, or theories are introduced in a course, their presentation should be accurate, even if depth is not the goal. In a recent publication in this Journal, the Woodward-Hoffmann rules were invoked in the context of a new laboratory experiment, but the associated description was inaccurate. Here we aim to clarify the…

Process development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bickler, D. B.

1985-01-01

An overview is given of seven process development activities which were presented at this session. Pulsed excimer laser processing of photovoltaic cells was presented. A different pulsed excimer laser annealing was described using a 50 w laser. Diffusion barrier research focused on lowering the chemical reactivity of amorphous thin film on silicon. In another effort adherent and conductive films were successfully achieved. Other efforts were aimed at achieving a simultaneous front and back junction. Microwave enhanced plasma deposition experiments were performed. An updated version of the Solar Array Manufacturing Industry Costing Standards (SAMICS) was presented, along with a life cycle cost analysis of high efficiency cells. The last presentation was on the evaluation of the ethyl vinyl acetate encapsulating system.

Methods for the culture of C. elegans and S. cerevisiae in microgravity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fahlen, Thomas; Sunga, June; Rask, Jon; Herrera, Anna; Lam, Kitty; Sing, Luke; Sato, Kevin; Ramos, Ross A.; Kirven-Brooks, Melissa; Reiss-Bubenheim, Debra

2005-01-01

To support the study of the effects of microgravity on biological systems, our group is developing and testing methods that allow the cultivation of C. elegans and S. cerevisiae in microgravity. Our aim is to develop the experimental means by which investigators may conduct peer reviewed biological experiments with C. elegans or S. cerevisiae in microgravity. Our protocols are aimed at enabling investigators to grow these organisms for extended periods during which samples may be sub-cultured, collected, preserved, frozen, and/or returned to earth for analysis. Data presented include characterization of the growth phenotype of these organisms in liquid medium in OptiCells(TM) (Biocrystal, LTD).

Gas mixture studies for streamer operated Resistive Plate Chambers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paoloni, A.; Longhin, A.; Mengucci, A.; Pupilli, F.; Ventura, M.

2016-06-01

Resistive Plate Chambers operated in streamer mode are interesting detectors in neutrino and astro-particle physics applications (like OPERA and ARGO experiments). Such experiments are typically characterized by large area apparatuses with no stringent requirements on detector aging and rate capabilities. In this paper, results of cosmic ray tests performed on a RPC prototype using different gas mixtures are presented, the principal aim being the optimization of the TetraFluoroPropene concentration in Argon-based mixtures. The introduction of TetraFluoroPropene, besides its low Global Warming Power, is helpful because it simplifies safety requirements allowing to remove also isobutane from the mixture. Results obtained with mixtures containing SF6, CF4, CO2, N2 and He are also shown, presented both in terms of detectors properties (efficiency, multiple-streamer probability and time resolution) and in terms of streamer characteristics.

Basic visual perceptual processes in children with typical development and cerebral palsy: The processing of surface, length, orientation, and position.

PubMed

Schmetz, Emilie; Magis, David; Detraux, Jean-Jacques; Barisnikov, Koviljka; Rousselle, Laurence

2018-03-02

The present study aims to assess how the processing of basic visual perceptual (VP) components (length, surface, orientation, and position) develops in typically developing (TD) children (n = 215, 4-14 years old) and adults (n = 20, 20-25 years old), and in children with cerebral palsy (CP) (n = 86, 5-14 years old) using the first four subtests of the Battery for the Evaluation of Visual Perceptual and Spatial processing in children. Experiment 1 showed that these four basic VP processes follow distinct developmental trajectories in typical development. Experiment 2 revealed that children with CP present global and persistent deficits for the processing of basic VP components when compared with TD children matched on chronological age and nonverbal reasoning abilities.

Experience the magic of light and color: outreach activity by Universidad del Valle student chapter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valdes, Claudia; Reyes, Camilo; Osorio, Alberto; Solarte, Efrain

2010-08-01

During 2007, the Universidad del Valle Student Chapter presented a proposal for developing an educational outreach activity for children from an underprivileged zone to the Optical Society of America Foundation (OSAF) and to SPIE. The activity was carried out jointly by OSA and SPIE Universidad del Valle Student Chapters in the hillsides of Santiago de Cali, in a zone known as "Pueblo Joven" during 2008. It was aimed to boys and girls with ages between 8 and 13 years and was called "Experience the magic of light and color". The main purpose was to bring the children some basic concepts on optics and to encourage them to explore science through optics. The Universidad del Valle Student Chapters designed a series of talks and practical workshops where children participated in hands-on experiments that easily explain the fundamental concepts of light phenomena. Afterwards the children presented their achievements in a small science fair offered to the community and tried to explain in their own words what they learned and built. In this work, we present the most successful experimental designs and the educational standards we tried to develop with this activity.

'It makes you think' - exploring the impact of qualitative films on pain clinicians.

PubMed

Toye, Francine; Jenkins, Sue

2015-02-01

Researchers need to consider the impact and utility of their findings. Film is an accessible medium for qualitative research findings and can facilitate learning through emotional engagement. We aimed to explore the usefulness of a short film presenting findings from a published qualitative synthesis of adults' experience of chronic musculoskeletal pain for pain education. In particular, we were interested in the impact of the film on clinician's understanding of patients' experience of chronic pain and how this knowledge might be used for improved healthcare for people with pain. Focus groups with healthcare professionals enrolled in a pain management foundation course explored healthcare professionals' experience of watching the film. A constructivist grounded theory approach was adopted by the researchers. This article presents one thematic exemplar from a wider study. Participants reflected upon the pitfalls of judging by appearances and the value of seeing the person beneath his or her performance. There is a danger that the impact of qualitative findings is under-valued in clinical education. We present one exemplar from a study exploring knowledge mobilisation, which demonstrates that qualitative research, specifically qualitative films, can make us think about the care that we provide to people with chronic pain.

Algorithm for improving psychophysical threshold estimates by detecting sustained inattention in experiments using PEST.

PubMed

Rinderknecht, Mike D; Ranzani, Raffaele; Popp, Werner L; Lambercy, Olivier; Gassert, Roger

2018-05-10

Psychophysical procedures are applied in various fields to assess sensory thresholds. During experiments, sampled psychometric functions are usually assumed to be stationary. However, perception can be altered, for example by loss of attention to the presentation of stimuli, leading to biased data, which results in poor threshold estimates. The few existing approaches attempting to identify non-stationarities either detect only whether there was a change in perception, or are not suitable for experiments with a relatively small number of trials (e.g., [Formula: see text] 300). We present a method to detect inattention periods on a trial-by-trial basis with the aim of improving threshold estimates in psychophysical experiments using the adaptive sampling procedure Parameter Estimation by Sequential Testing (PEST). The performance of the algorithm was evaluated in computer simulations modeling inattention, and tested in a behavioral experiment on proprioceptive difference threshold assessment in 20 stroke patients, a population where attention deficits are likely to be present. Simulations showed that estimation errors could be reduced by up to 77% for inattentive subjects, even in sequences with less than 100 trials. In the behavioral data, inattention was detected in 14% of assessments, and applying the proposed algorithm resulted in reduced test-retest variability in 73% of these corrected assessments pairs. The novel algorithm complements existing approaches and, besides being applicable post hoc, could also be used online to prevent collection of biased data. This could have important implications in assessment practice by shortening experiments and improving estimates, especially for clinical settings.

Design preferences and cognitive styles: experimentation by automated website synthesis.

PubMed

Leung, Siu-Wai; Lee, John; Johnson, Chris; Robertson, David

2012-06-29

This article aims to demonstrate computational synthesis of Web-based experiments in undertaking experimentation on relationships among the participants' design preference, rationale, and cognitive test performance. The exemplified experiments were computationally synthesised, including the websites as materials, experiment protocols as methods, and cognitive tests as protocol modules. This work also exemplifies the use of a website synthesiser as an essential instrument enabling the participants to explore different possible designs, which were generated on the fly, before selection of preferred designs. The participants were given interactive tree and table generators so that they could explore some different ways of presenting causality information in tables and trees as the visualisation formats. The participants gave their preference ratings for the available designs, as well as their rationale (criteria) for their design decisions. The participants were also asked to take four cognitive tests, which focus on the aspects of visualisation and analogy-making. The relationships among preference ratings, rationale, and the results of cognitive tests were analysed by conservative non-parametric statistics including Wilcoxon test, Krustal-Wallis test, and Kendall correlation. In the test, 41 of the total 64 participants preferred graphical (tree-form) to tabular presentation. Despite the popular preference for graphical presentation, the given tabular presentation was generally rated to be easier than graphical presentation to interpret, especially by those who were scored lower in the visualization and analogy-making tests. This piece of evidence helps generate a hypothesis that design preferences are related to specific cognitive abilities. Without the use of computational synthesis, the experiment setup and scientific results would be impractical to obtain.

It's a kind of magic-what self-reports can reveal about the phenomenology of insight problem solving.

PubMed

Danek, Amory H; Fraps, Thomas; von Müller, Albrecht; Grothe, Benedikt; Öllinger, Michael

2014-01-01

Magic tricks usually remain a mystery to the observer. For the sake of science, we offered participants the opportunity to discover the magician's secret method by repeatedly presenting the same trick and asking them to find out how the trick worked. In the context of insightful problem solving, the present work investigated the emotions that participants experience upon solving a magic trick. We assumed that these emotions form the typical "Aha! experience" that accompanies insightful solutions to difficult problems. We aimed to show that Aha! experiences can be triggered by magic tricks and to systematically explore the phenomenology of the Aha! experience by breaking it down into five previously postulated dimensions. 34 video clips of different magic tricks were presented up to three times to 50 participants who had to find out how the trick was accomplished, and to indicate whether they had experienced an Aha! during the solving process. Participants then performed a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessment of their Aha! experiences which was repeated after 14 days to control for its reliability. 41% of all suggested solutions were accompanied by an Aha! experience. The quantitative assessment remained stable across time in all five dimensions. Happiness was rated as the most important dimension. This primacy of positive emotions was also reflected in participants' qualitative self-reports which contained more emotional than cognitive aspects. Implementing magic tricks as problem solving task, we could show that strong Aha! experiences can be triggered if a trick is solved. We could at least partially capture the phenomenology of Aha! by identifying one prevailing aspect (positive emotions), a new aspect (release of tension upon gaining insight into a magic trick) and one less important aspect (impasse).

Impacts of historic and projected land-cover, land-use, and land-management change on carbon and water fluxes: The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lawrence, D. M.; Lombardozzi, D. L.; Lawrence, P.; Hurtt, G. C.

2017-12-01

Human land-use activities have resulted in large changes to the Earth surface, with resulting implications for climate. In the future, land-use activities are likely to intensify to meet growing demands for food, fiber, and energy. The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) aims to further advance understanding of the broad question of impacts of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) as well as more detailed science questions to get at process-level attribution, uncertainty, and data requirements in more depth and sophistication than possible in a multi-model context to date. LUMIP is multi-faceted and aims to advance our understanding of land-use change from several perspectives. In particular, LUMIP includes a factorial set of land-only simulations that differ from each other with respect to the specific treatment of land use or land management (e.g., irrigation active or not, crop fertilization active or not, wood harvest on or not), or in terms of prescribed climate. This factorial series of experiments serves several purposes and is designed to provide a detailed assessment of how the specification of land-cover change and land management affects the carbon, water, and energy cycle response to land-use change. The potential analyses that are possible through this set of experiments are vast. For example, comparing a control experiment with all land management active to an experiment with no irrigation allows a multi-model assessment of whether or not the increasing use of irrigation during the 20th century is likely to have significantly altered trends of regional water and energy fluxes (and therefore climate) and/or crop yield and carbon fluxes in agricultural regions. Here, we will present preliminary results from the factorial set of experiments utilizing the Community Land Model (CLM5). The analyses presented here will help guide multi-model analyses once the full set of LUMIP simulations are available.

Advanced Integration Matrix Education Outreach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Paul Heather L.

2004-01-01

The Advanced Integration Matrix (AIM) will design a ground-based test facility for developing revolutionary integrated systems for joint human-robotic missions in order to study and solve systems-level integration issues for exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This paper describes development plans for educational outreach activities related to technological and operational integration scenarios similar to the challenges that will be encountered through this project. The education outreach activities will provide hands-on, interactive exercises to allow students of all levels to experience design and operational challenges similar to what NASA deals with everyday in performing the integration of complex missions. These experiences will relate to and impact students everyday lives by demonstrating how their interests in science and engineering can develop into future careers, and reinforcing the concepts of teamwork and conflict resolution. Allowing students to experience and contribute to real-world development, research, and scientific studies of ground-based simulations for complex exploration missions will stimulate interest in the space program, and bring NASA's challenges to the student level. By enhancing existing educational programs and developing innovative activities and presentations, AIM will support NASA s endeavor to "inspire the next generation of explorers.. .as only NASA can."

Assessing positive and negative experiences: validation of a new measure of well-being in an Italian population.

PubMed

Corno, Giulia; Molinari, Guadalupe; Baños, Rosa Maria

2016-01-01

The aim of this study is to explore the psychometric properties of an affect scale, the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE), in an Italian-speaking population. The results of this study demonstrate that the Italian version of the SPANE has psychometric properties similar to those shown by the original and previous versions, and it presents satisfactory reliability and factorial validity. The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis support the expected two-factor structure, positive and negative feeling, which characterized the previous versions. As expected, measures of negative affect, anxiety, negative future expectances, and depression correlated positively with the negative experiences SPANE subscale, and negatively with the positive experiences SPANE subscale. Results of this study demonstrate that the Italian version of the SPANE has psychometric properties similar to those shown by the original and previous versions, and it presents satisfactory reliability and factorial validity. The use of this instrument provides clinically useful information about a person’s overall emotional experience and it is an indicator of well-being. Although further studies are required to confirm the psychometric characteristics of the scale, the SPANE Italian version is expected to improve theoretical and empirical research on the well-being of the Italian population.

Changes in dream experience in relation with antidepressant escitalopram treatment in depressed female patients: a preliminary study.

PubMed

Quartini, Adele; Anastasia, Annalisa; Bersani, Francesco Saverio; Melcore, Claudia; Albano, Gabriella; Colletti, Chiara; Valeriani, Giuseppe; Bersani, Giuseppe

2014-01-01

Sleep disturbances have long been considered as a cardinal symptom of endogenous depression and dreams in depressed patients usually differ from those of healthy people. The aim of the present study was to investigate dream subjective experiences and their modifications in relation to clinical response in a group of escitalopram-treated depressed patients. Twenty-seven female patients meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and starting SSRI therapy were included in the study. Data about psychopathological status and dreaming subjective experiences were collected at baseline (T0), 4 weeks after the beginning of the treatment (T1) and after further 4 weeks of therapy (T2). At T0 dream experience was impaired and negatively toned. Concomitantly with the decrease of symptoms severity, the 8-week escitalopram treatment yielded to significant improvements in the recall of both quantity and quality of dreams; those patients whit lower clinical benefits kept on reporting impaired dream experiences. The results of the present study evidence how the changes in some specific dreaming characteristics, such as the subjective recall of dream activity, the dream recall quality, the dream emotional content and the dream complexity represent reliable markers of the effectiveness of antidepressant therapy.

Ukrainian Program for Material Science in Microgravity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fedorov, Oleg

Ukrainian Program for Material Sciences in Microgravity O.P. Fedorov, Space Research Insti-tute of NASU -NSAU, Kyiv, The aim of the report is to present previous and current approach of Ukrainian research society to the prospect of material sciences in microgravity. This approach is based on analysis of Ukrainian program of research in microgravity, preparation of Russian -Ukrainian experiments on Russian segment of ISS and development of new Ukrainian strategy of space activity for the years 2010-2030. Two parts of issues are discussed: (i) the evolution of our views on the priorities in microgravity research (ii) current experiments under preparation and important ground-based results. item1 The concept of "space industrialization" and relevant efforts in Soviet and post -Soviet Ukrainian research institutions are reviewed. The main topics are: melt supercooling, crystal growing, testing of materials, electric welding and study of near-Earth environment. The anticipated and current results are compared. item 2. The main experiments in the framework of Ukrainian-Russian Research Program for Russian Segment of ISS are reviewed. Flight installations under development and ground-based results of the experiments on directional solidification, heat pipes, tribological testing, biocorrosion study is presented. Ground-based experiments and theoretical study of directional solidification of transparent alloys are reviewed as well as preparation of MORPHOS installation for study of succinonitrile -acetone in microgravity.

UK health-care professionals' experience of on-line learning techniques: a systematic review of qualitative data.

PubMed

Carroll, Christopher; Booth, Andrew; Papaioannou, Diana; Sutton, Anthea; Wong, Ruth

2009-01-01

Continuing professional development and education is vital to the provision of better health services and outcomes. The aim of this study is to contribute to the evidence base by performing a systematic review of qualitative data from studies reporting health professionals' experience of e-learning. No such previous review has been published. A systematic review of qualitative data reporting UK health professionals' experiences of the ways in which on-line learning is delivered by higher education and other relevant institutions. Evidence synthesis was performed with the use of thematic analysis grounded in the data. Literature searches identified 19 relevant studies. The subjects of the studies were nurses, midwives, and allied professions (8 studies), general practitioners and hospital doctors (6 studies), and a range of different health practitioners (5 studies). The majority of courses were stand-alone continuing professional development modules. Five key themes emerged from the data: peer communication, flexibility, support, knowledge validation, and course presentation and design. The effectiveness of on-line learning is mediated by the learning experience. If they are to enhance health professionals' experience of e-learning, courses need to address presentation and course design; they must be flexible, offer mechanisms for both support and rapid assessment, and develop effective and efficient means of communication, especially among the students themselves.

Behind Bars: Experiences Conducting Behavioral Addictions Research in a County Jail.

PubMed

Hickey, Kari L; Kerber, Cindy; Astroth, Kim Schafer; Kim, MyoungJin; Schlenker, Emily

2015-10-01

Individuals who are incarcerated experience disparities in mental health, warranting study by nurse researchers. However, nurse researchers' unfamiliarity with the jail environment may pose a barrier to conducting research with this vulnerable population. The current article presents an account of the planning and implementation needed to study perceived health and gambling behavior in county jail inmates. The challenges and rewards of research that aim to better understand the mental health issues affecting this population are also identified. Developing relationships with jail personnel and understanding the incarcerated population and their surroundings are key to conducting research in this environment. Copyright 2015, SLACK Incorporated.

Crystallographic phases in heavy rare earth metals under megabar pressures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samudrala, G. K.; Vohra, Y. K.

2012-07-01

Experiments aimed at understanding the crystallographic phases of heavy rare earth metals were carried out in a diamond anvil cell at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. Heavy rare earth metals dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er) and thulium (Tm) were compressed to multi-megabar pressures. The rare earth crystal sequence hcp→Sm-type→dhcp→distorted-fcc (dfcc) is observed in all four elements. Upon further compression, a structural transformation to a monoclinic C2/m phase has been observed. We summarize the results from these experiments and present Rietveld structural refinements on high pressure phases for the specific case of dysprosium.

A culture of education: Enhancing school performance of youth living in residential group care in Ontario.

PubMed

Gharabaghi, Kiaras

2011-01-01

This article presents a synthesis of what is known about the educational experiences of youth living in residential group care based on a literature review that highlights both the experiences of the youth themselves and the operational context of residential group care in Ontario as it pertains to educational performance. The author argues that there is little emphasis on education within the residential group care sector in Ontario that could translate into more productive educational experiences for youth. The article then provides a framework for developing a culture of education for residential group care that can be acted upon expeditiously. Enhancing the educational performance of young people living in group care will require a cultural approach that provides for daily and pervasive education supports and encouragement, and aims to enhance the lived experience of young people pursuant to their education.

Understanding the experiences of hearing voices and sounds others do not hear.

PubMed

Kalhovde, Anne Martha; Elstad, Ingunn; Talseth, Anne-Grethe

2013-11-01

In this article, we aim to contribute to the understanding of how people with mental illness experience hearing voices and sounds that others do not hear in daily life. We conducted in-depth interviews with 14 people and analyzed the interviews using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The themes we arrived at included the following: hearing someone else or myself, am I losing my mind?, and daily life recurrently dominated by opposing voices. Our overall understanding of how the voices and sounds were experienced in daily life was that the intentions of others resounded intrusively in the participants and disrupted their lives. The tones and contents of these perplexing perceptions echoed and amplified past, present, and future experiences and concerns. The results elucidate the value that exploring and attempting to understand people's daily life experiences of hearing voices and sounds might have for the voice hearer, his or her family, and health care providers.

The lived experience of well-being in retirement: A phenomenological study.

PubMed

Bauger, Lars; Bongaardt, Rob

2016-01-01

This phenomenological study aimed to identify and describe the general meaning structure of the experience of well-being after retirement. We interviewed nine retirees about their lived experiences with well-being and analysed the data with Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological method. The general meaning structure described well-being in retirement as a phenomenon that interweaves four constituents: (1) an awareness of and gratitude for a healthy and functioning body, (2) a new experience of time presenting possibilities for action, (3) a heightened sense of agency, and (4) being-in-place in relationships. We discuss these findings in relation to relevant literature of successful aging, the perception of time, eudaimonic and hedonic well-being and generativity. Our findings contribute to the field by comprehensibly describing the phenomenon of well-being as it is experienced by retirees, which we conclude to be a valuable contribution for initiatives promoting well-being in retirement.

[Family groups in nursing graduation teaching practice].

PubMed

de Assis, Aisllan Diego; da Silva, Priscila Patrícia; Claudino, Talita Xavier; de Oliveira, Alice Guimarães Bottaro

2010-09-01

The centers of psychosocial care (CAPS, acronym in Portuguese) are strategic devices for mental health care currently available in Brazil. Nurses are professionals required to compose the minimum staff of this device, which values the group activities involving users. This study presents a report of the experience of nursing undergraduates from Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso (UFMT) on their conducting waiting-room group sessions with relatives of users of a CAPS from Cuiabá, Mato Grosso state. This experience is justified by the fact that nursing students have few opportunities to develop group approach abilities during their graduation course, which focuses mainly on clinical individual care. The aim of the experience was to provide theoretical-practical learning of all the work stages of group work: recognizing the need and possibility of conducting the activity, planning, coordination and group evaluation. The results confirm the need and possibility of performing group experiences in mental health care and in nursing education.

Hands as Sex Cues: Sensitivity Measures, Male Bias Measures, and Implications for Sex Perception Mechanisms

PubMed Central

Gaetano, Justin; van der Zwan, Rick; Blair, Duncan; Brooks, Anna

2014-01-01

Sex perceptions, or more particularly, sex discriminations and sex categorisations, are high-value social behaviours. They mediate almost all inter-personal interactions. The two experiments reported here had the aim of exploring some of the basic characteristics of the processes giving rise to sex perceptions. Experiment 1 confirmed that human hands can be used as a cue to an individual’s sex even when colour and texture cues are removed and presentations are brief. Experiment 1 also showed that when hands are sexually ambiguous observers tend to classify them as male more often than female. Experiment 2 showed that “male bias” arises not from sensitivity differences but from differences in response biases. Observers are conservative in their judgements of targets as female but liberal in their judgements of targets as male. These data, combined with earlier reports, suggest the existence of a sex-perception space that is cue-invariant. PMID:24603615

Experiences of well-being among female doctoral students in Sweden.

PubMed

Schmidt, Manuela; Umans, Timurs

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore how female PhD students experience and perceive their well-being. Focus groups were conducted with female PhD students employed at a Swedish university. The study was performed using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach based on the concept of the lifeworld, used as both a philosophical perspective and a methodology. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: being true to oneself, being in the sphere of influence, and performing a balancing act. By unfolding these themes, the study shows that perceptions and experiences of well-being in female PhD students are a multifaceted phenomenon and materialize through interaction of different aspects of "self" (agent) and "others" (structure). As well as illustrating these perceptions and experiences, the study also presents female PhD students' conceptualization of their well-being, expressed in terms of a white-water rafting metaphor.

The lived experience of well-being in retirement: A phenomenological study

PubMed Central

Bauger, Lars; Bongaardt, Rob

2016-01-01

This phenomenological study aimed to identify and describe the general meaning structure of the experience of well-being after retirement. We interviewed nine retirees about their lived experiences with well-being and analysed the data with Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. The general meaning structure described well-being in retirement as a phenomenon that interweaves four constituents: (1) an awareness of and gratitude for a healthy and functioning body, (2) a new experience of time presenting possibilities for action, (3) a heightened sense of agency, and (4) being-in-place in relationships. We discuss these findings in relation to relevant literature of successful aging, the perception of time, eudaimonic and hedonic well-being and generativity. Our findings contribute to the field by comprehensibly describing the phenomenon of well-being as it is experienced by retirees, which we conclude to be a valuable contribution for initiatives promoting well-being in retirement. PMID:27814778

Experiences of well-being among female doctoral students in Sweden

PubMed Central

Schmidt, Manuela; Umans, Timurs

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore how female PhD students experience and perceive their well-being. Focus groups were conducted with female PhD students employed at a Swedish university. The study was performed using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach based on the concept of the lifeworld, used as both a philosophical perspective and a methodology. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: being true to oneself, being in the sphere of influence, and performing a balancing act. By unfolding these themes, the study shows that perceptions and experiences of well-being in female PhD students are a multifaceted phenomenon and materialize through interaction of different aspects of “self” (agent) and “others” (structure). As well as illustrating these perceptions and experiences, the study also presents female PhD students’ conceptualization of their well-being, expressed in terms of a white-water rafting metaphor. PMID:24746246

Effects of Youth Participation in Extra-Curricular Sport Programs on Perceived Self-Efficacy: A Multilevel Analysis.

PubMed

Reverdito, Riller S; Carvalho, Humberto M; Galatti, Larissa R; Scaglia, Alcides J; Gonçalves, Carlos E; Paes, Roberto R

2017-06-01

The present study examined extracurricular sport participation variables and developmental context in relationship to perceived self-efficacy among underserved adolescents. Participants ( n = 821, 13.6 ± 1.5 years) completed the Youth Experience in Sport questionnaire and General Self-Efficacy Scale. We used the Human Development Index (HDI) to characterize developmental contexts. Multilevel regression models were used to explore the relative contributions of age, sex, years of participation in extracurricular sport, HDI, and perceived positive experience in sport. Our results highlight that positive experience alone and in interaction with length of participation in the program fostered perceived self-efficacy. Participants from higher HDI contexts remained longer in the program. An implication of our research is that variables linked to positive sport experiences and perceived self-efficacy can be used as markers to evaluate the outcomes and impact of sport participation programs aimed at promoting positive youth development.

Exploring the Experiences of Living With Stroke Through Narrative: Stroke Survivors' Perspectives.

PubMed

Nasr, Nasrin; Mawson, Susan; Wright, Peter; Parker, Jack; Mountain, Gail

2016-01-01

Chronic illness models are normally used to explain and predict the experience of living with a long-term condition. The aim of this study was to present the findings of narrative interviews with stroke survivors and their family carers to understand their experiences of stroke. We interviewed five people with stroke and three family carers from the United Kingdom. We used thematic analysis to generate themes from their narrative accounts and then linked them to broader theoretical perspectives while influenced by the concept of reinterpretation of life. The narrative accounts of participants are mainly structured based on how their changed bodies poststroke changed their identities and roles and consequently their relationships with others. In this study, we underline the need for using methods like narrative to explain strategies that people use to make sense of their experiences of living with a long-term condition such as stroke.

Exploring the Experiences of Living With Stroke Through Narrative

PubMed Central

Nasr, Nasrin; Mawson, Susan; Wright, Peter; Parker, Jack; Mountain, Gail

2016-01-01

Chronic illness models are normally used to explain and predict the experience of living with a long-term condition. The aim of this study was to present the findings of narrative interviews with stroke survivors and their family carers to understand their experiences of stroke. We interviewed five people with stroke and three family carers from the United Kingdom. We used thematic analysis to generate themes from their narrative accounts and then linked them to broader theoretical perspectives while influenced by the concept of reinterpretation of life. The narrative accounts of participants are mainly structured based on how their changed bodies poststroke changed their identities and roles and consequently their relationships with others. In this study, we underline the need for using methods like narrative to explain strategies that people use to make sense of their experiences of living with a long-term condition such as stroke. PMID:28462337

Dentistry students' perceptions about an extramural experience with a Brazilian indigenous community.

PubMed

Bulgarelli, Alexandre Favero; Roperto, Renato Cassio; Mestriner, Soraya Fernandes; Mestriner, Wilson

2012-01-01

The aim of the present study was to evaluate dentistry students' perceptions about an extramural activity designed to deliver dental care to an indigenous community. This was a qualitative investigation involving 4 students of dentistry who had just had the experience of delivering treatment to indigenous Brazilian people. These students answered questions about the relevance of the experience to their personal and professional lives. We performed Content Analysis to data treatment and it was analysed by Social Representation Theory. Two social representations were reached: a) Being capable to promote oral health; b) Facing human feeling and respect each other. We concluded that participation in an extramural project improves the students' understanding of primary health care in dentistry. Such experiences help students develop a sense of cultural respect, comprehensive care, and to understand patients in their totality as social beings with their own values, beliefs, and attitudes regarding oral health care.

Elderly persons' experiences of striving to receive care on their own terms in nursing homes.

PubMed

Anderberg, Patrice; Berglund, Anna-Lena

2010-02-01

Elderly persons' participation in and decisions about their own care need more attention. The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of elderly persons' experiences of care and help, and how their lives change in nursing homes. Fifteen elderly persons living in four nursing homes were interviewed about their experiences of needing care and help in their daily life. The interviews were analysed using van Manen's phenomenological approach. Elderly persons' experiences of care and help were described as: a balance between sorrow and relief, a struggle to maintain control and connectedness, managing to live in the present and yet worrying about the future, and an attempt to hide one's vulnerability in order to be accepted and create an inner calm in an exposed situation. In conclusion, important issues were raised concerning elderly persons' perspectives on care and help in daily life in nursing homes.

Religious Moral Beliefs Inversely Related to Trauma Experiences Severity and Presented Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Bosnia and Herzegovina War Veterans.

PubMed

Hasanović, Mevludin; Pajević, Izet

2015-08-01

The aim of this study was to determine the correlation of the level of religious moral beliefs (RMB) with trauma experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity in war veterans of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The sample consists of 120 Bosnian war veterans divided into two equal groups-one with and one without PTSD. We used the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the RMB belief scale. We then correlated the severity of trauma experiences and PTSD symptoms with veterans' scores on the RMB scale. The score on the RMB scale was negatively correlated to severity of trauma experiences and PTSD symptoms (Pearson's r = -0.509, P = 0.004; Pearson's r = -0.325, P < 0.001, respectively). The RMB may have protective role in the mental health stability of severely traumatized war veterans.

Magical attachment: Children in magical relations with hospital clowns

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

The aim of the present study was to achieve a theoretical understanding of several different-age children's experiences of magic relations with hospital clowns in the context of medical care, and to do so using psychological theory and a child perspective. The method used was qualitative and focused on nine children. The results showed that age was important to consider in better understanding how the children experienced the relation with the hospital clowns, how they described the magical aspects of the encounter and how they viewed the importance of clown encounters to their own well-being. The present theoretical interpretation characterized the encounter with hospital clowns as a magical safe area, an intermediate area between fantasy and reality. The discussion presented a line of reasoning concerning a magical attachment between the child and the hospital clowns, stating that this attachment: a) comprised a temporary relation; b) gave anonymity; c) entailed reversed roles; and d) created an emotional experience of boundary-transcending opportunities. PMID:22371813

From the past to the future: Integrating work experience into the design process.

PubMed

Bittencourt, João Marcos; Duarte, Francisco; Béguin, Pascal

2017-01-01

Integrating work activity issues into design process is a broadly discussed theme in ergonomics. Participation is presented as the main means for such integration. However, a late participation can limit the development of both project solutions and future work activity. This article presents the concept of construction of experience aiming at the articulated development of future activities and project solutions. It is a non-teleological approach where the initial concepts will be transformed by the experience built up throughout the design process. The method applied was a case study of an ergonomic participation during the design of a new laboratory complex for biotechnology research. Data was obtained through analysis of records in a simulation process using a Lego scale model and interviews with project participants. The simulation process allowed for developing new ways of working and generating changes in the initial design solutions, which enable workers to adopt their own developed strategies for conducting work more safely and efficiently in the future work system. Each project decision either opens or closes a window of opportunities for developing a future activity. Construction of experience in a non-teleological design process allows for understanding the consequences of project solutions for future work.

Posttraumatic Stress Symptomatology in Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Professionals Assaulted by Patients and/or Relatives: Importance of Severity and Experience of the Aggression.

PubMed

Gómez-Gutiérrez, M Mar; Bernaldo-de-Quirós, Mónica; Piccini, Ana T; Cerdeira, Jose C

2016-01-01

Exposure to violence from patients or relatives causes problems in emergency departments. To assess the development of posttraumatic symptoms in pre-hospital emergency care professionals assaulted by patients and/or relatives, it may be crucial to establish preventive measures at different levels. This study examined 358 pre-hospital emergency care professionals assaulted by patients and/or relatives. The aims of the present study were (a) to assess the presence of posttraumatic symptoms and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and (b) identify compliance diagnoses for PTSD depending on the experience of aggression (presence of fear, helplessness, or horror during the aggression), the perceived severity of aggression, and socio-demographic variables (gender, age, profession, employment status, and work experience). The results show that the experience of aggression with fear, helplessness, or horror is associated with the presence of posttraumatic symptoms related to re-experiencing but is not related to avoidance and emotional numbing and arousal. Furthermore, the perception of aggression as severe was associated with the presence of symptoms related to re-experiencing. These results are presented and discussed. © The Author(s) 2014.

No effects of transcranial DLPFC stimulation on implicit task sequence learning and consolidation.

PubMed

Savic, Branislav; Cazzoli, Dario; Müri, René; Meier, Beat

2017-08-29

Neurostimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) can modulate performance in cognitive tasks. In a recent study, however, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the DLPFC did not affect implicit task sequence learning and consolidation in a paradigm that involved bimanual responses. Because bimanual performance increases the coupling between homologous cortical areas of the hemispheres and left and right DLPFC were stimulated separately the null findings may have been due to the bimanual setup. The aim of the present study was to test the effect of neuro-stimulation on sequence learning in a uni-manual setup. For this purpose two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the DLPFC was stimulated with tDCS. In Experiment 2 the DLPFC was stimulated with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In both experiments, consolidation was measured 24 hours later. The results showed that sequence learning was present in all conditions and sessions, but it was not influenced by stimulation. Likewise, consolidation of sequence learning was robust across sessions, but it was not influenced by stimulation. These results replicate and extend previous findings. They indicate that established tDCS and TMS protocols on the DLPFC do not influence implicit task sequence learning and consolidation.

Administration, Best Practices, and Evaluation of the National Weather Center REU Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zaras, D. S.; Gonzalez-Espada, W.

2005-12-01

The National Weather Center Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in Norman, Oklahoma, is a unique undergraduate career exploration experience, drawing upon the resources available in the National Weather Center's (NWC) state, federal, and university groups. This program takes full advantage of our location by including a wide variety of professionals from throughout the NWC community as mentors and contributors of lectures, workshops, tours, field trips, and job shadow experiences to expose the students to a broad spectrum of research topics and careers in meteorology. Students actively practice good research methodology by being paired with mentors who are productive researchers. The program aims to provide a strong and transformative educational experience that models the life of a scientist. This presentation will include a brief overview of program administration, analysis of applicant characteristics, "best practices" learned since 2001, and new additions to the NWC program funded through a 2-Year Extension for Special Creativity. The presentation will conclude with a brief evaluation of how well the program meets its goals of helping students clarify graduate school and career plans, and build self-efficacy regarding their potential for a career in scientific research.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: facing challenges through reflecting, persevering and relating in new ways.

PubMed

Horton-Deutsch, Sara; Young, Patricia K; Nelson, Kristine A

2010-05-01

The aim of the present study was to explore the experience of becoming a nurse faculty leader. In a recent interpretation of 23 interviews conducted with nurse faculty leaders from across the United States about their experiences of becoming a leader three themes were identified: being thrust into leadership, taking risks and facing challenges. This interpretive phenomenological study further explicates three aspects of how nurse educators faced challenges in becoming and serving as a leader. Facing challenges meant reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate to others in new ways. Exemplars of participant experiences are provided for concreteness, to assist readers in determining how findings resonate with their own experience and how they can actualize this resonance in their own leadership practice. In the present study, reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate with others in a new way was how leaders faced challenges. Leadership development opportunities that facilitate self-exploration, caring and thoughtful interactions with others and values clarification serve as the foundation for becoming a nurse faculty leader who is, in turn, able to build leadership capacity in other individuals and organizations.

Historical Experiments and Physics Teaching: adding considerations from a Bibliographic Review and the Cultural History of Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jardim, W. T.; Guerra, A.

2017-12-01

In this paper, a discussion about the purposes of historical experiments in science teaching found in the literature will be presented. As a starting point, we carried out a bibliographic review, on the websites of six relevant periodicals for the area of Science Teaching and, especially for Physics Teaching. The search was based, at first, on works published between the years 2001 and 2016, from terms like "historical experiments", "museums" and "experience". Thereon, due to the large number of publications found, a screening process was developed based on the analysis of titles, abstracts, keywords and, whether necessary, the whole text, aiming to identify which searches emphasize working with historical experiments in Physics teaching, from a theoretical perspective or based on manipulation of a replica of historical apparatus. The selected proposals were arranged in categories adapted from the work of Heering and Höttecke (2014) which allowed us to draw a parallel between the national and international publication that presented resembling scopes. Furthermore, the analysis of the results leads us to infer that, in general, extralab factors, inherent to science, when not neglected, are placed in a peripheral perspective. Thus, we draw theoretical considerations based on Historians of Science, which develop their researches based on the bias of the Cultural History of Science, seeking to add reflections to what has been developed about historical experiments in teaching up to now.

Attainable and Relevant Moral Exemplars Are More Effective than Extraordinary Exemplars in Promoting Voluntary Service Engagement.

PubMed

Han, Hyemin; Kim, Jeongmin; Jeong, Changwoo; Cohen, Geoffrey L

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes.

Attainable and Relevant Moral Exemplars Are More Effective than Extraordinary Exemplars in Promoting Voluntary Service Engagement

PubMed Central

Han, Hyemin; Kim, Jeongmin; Jeong, Changwoo; Cohen, Geoffrey L.

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes. PMID:28326045

RF System for the MICE Demonstration of Ionisation Cooling

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ronald, K.; et al.

2017-04-01

Muon accelerators offer an attractive option for a range of future particle physics experiments. They can enable high energy (TeV+) high energy lepton colliders whilst mitigating the difficulty of synchrotron losses, and can provide intense beams of neutrinos for fundamental physics experiments investigating the physics of flavor. The method of production of muon beams results in high beam emittance which must be reduced for efficient acceleration. Conventional emittance control schemes take too long, given the very short (2.2 microsecond) rest lifetime of the muon. Ionisation cooling offers a much faster approach to reducing particle emittance, and the international MICE collaborationmore » aims to demonstrate this technique for the first time. This paper will present the MICE RF system and its role in the context of the overall experiment.« less

State Anxiety Subjective Imbalance and Handicap in Vestibular Schwannoma.

PubMed

Saman, Yougan; Mclellan, Lucie; Mckenna, Laurence; Dutia, Mayank B; Obholzer, Rupert; Libby, Gerald; Gleeson, Michael; Bamiou, Doris-Eva

2016-01-01

Evidence is emerging for a significant clinical and neuroanatomical relationship between balance and anxiety. Research has suggested a potentially priming effect with anxiety symptoms predicting a worsening of balance function in patients with underlying balance dysfunction. We propose to show that a vestibular stimulus is responsible for an increase in state anxiety, and there is a relationship between increased state anxiety and worsening balance function. (1) To quantify state anxiety following a vestibular stimulus in patients with a chronic vestibular deficit. (2) To determine if state anxiety during a vestibular stimulus would correlate with the severity of chronic balance symptoms and handicap. Two separate cohorts of vestibular schwannoma (VS) patients underwent vestibular tests (electronystagmography, cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials, and caloric responses) and questionnaire assessments [vertigo handicap questionnaire (VHQ), vertigo symptom scale (VSS), and state-trait anxiety inventory (STAIY)]. Fifteen post-resection VS patients, with complete unilateral vestibular deafferentation, were assessed at a minimum of 6 months after surgery in Experiment 1 (Aim 1). Forty-five patients with VS in situ formed the cohort for Experiment 2 (Aim 2). Experiment 1: VS subjects (N = 15) with a complete post-resection unilateral vestibular deafferentation completed a state anxiety questionnaire before caloric assessment and again afterward with the point of maximal vertigo as the reference (Aim 1). Experiment 2: state anxiety measured at the point of maximal vertigo following a caloric assessment was compared between two groups of patients with VS in situ presenting with balance symptoms (Group 1, N = 26) and without balance symptoms (Group 2, N = 11) (Aim 2). The presence of balance symptoms was defined as having a positive score on the VSS-VER. In Experiment 1, a significant difference (p < 0.01) was found when comparing STAIY at baseline and at the peak of the subjective vertiginous response in post-resection patients with a unilateral vestibular deafferentation. In Experiment 2, VS in situ patients with balance symptoms had significantly worse state anxiety at the peak vertiginous response than patients without balance symptoms (p < 0.001), as did patients with a balance-related handicap (p < 0.001). Anxiety symptoms during a vestibular stimulus may contribute to a priming effect that could explain worsening balance function.

Improving the Usefulness and Use of Patient Survey Programs: National Health Service Interview Study

PubMed Central

Darzi, Ara; Gancarczyk, Sarah; Mayer, Erik

2018-01-01

Background A growing body of evidence suggests a concerning lag between collection of patient experience data and its application in service improvement. This study aims to identify what health care staff perceive to be the barriers and facilitators to using patient-reported feedback and showcase successful examples of doing so. Objective This study aimed to apply a systems perspective to suggest policy improvements that could support efforts to use data on the frontlines. Methods Qualitative interviews were conducted in eight National Health Service provider locations in the United Kingdom, which were selected based on National Inpatient Survey scores. Eighteen patient-experience leads were interviewed about using patient-reported feedback with relevant staff. Interviews were transcribed and underwent thematic analysis. Staff-identified barriers and facilitators to using patient experience feedback were obtained. Results The most frequently cited barriers to using patient reported feedback pertained to interpreting results, understanding survey methodology, presentation of data in both national Care Quality Commission and contractor reports, inability to link data to other sources, and organizational structure. In terms of a wish list for improved practice, staff desired more intuitive survey methodologies, the ability to link patient experience data to other sources, and more examples of best practice in patient experience improvement. Three organizations also provided examples of how they successfully used feedback to improve care. Conclusions Staff feedback provides a roadmap for policy makers to reconsider how data is collected and whether or not the national regulations on surveys and patient experience data are meeting the quality improvement needs of local organizations. PMID:29691207

The Sony PlayStation II EyeToy: low-cost virtual reality for use in rehabilitation.

PubMed

Rand, Debbie; Kizony, Rachel; Weiss, Patrice Tamar L

2008-12-01

The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of using a low-cost video-capture virtual reality (VR) platform, the Sony PlayStation II EyeToy, for the rehabilitation of older adults with disabilities. This article presents three studies that were carried out to provide information about the EyeToy's potential for use in rehabilitation. The first study included the testing of healthy young adults (N = 34) and compared their experiences using the EyeToy with those using GestureTek's IREX VR system in terms of a sense of presence, level of enjoyment, control, success, and perceived exertion. The second study aimed to characterize the VR experience of healthy older adults (N = 10) and to determine the suitability and usability of the EyeToy for this population and the third study aimed to determine the feasibility of the EyeToy for use by individuals (N = 12) with stroke at different stages. The implications of these three studies for applying the system to rehabilitation are discussed.

Science and sociability: women as audience at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831-1901.

PubMed

Higgitt, Rebekah; Withers, Charles W J

2008-03-01

This essay recovers the experiences of women at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) from its founding in 1831 to the end of the Victorian era. It aims to add to research on women in science by reconsidering the traditional role of women as consumers rather than producers of knowledge and to that on science popularization by focusing on audience experience rather than on the aims and strategies of popularizers. The essay argues that, in various ways, the ubiquitous and visible female audience came to define the BAAS audience and "the public" for science more generally. The women who swelled the BAAS audiences were accepted as a social element within the meetings even as they were regarded critically as scientific participants. Portrayed as passive and nonscientific, women allowed the male scientific elites to distance themselves from their audiences. Arguing from diary and other evidence, we present examples that complicate existing notions of audiences for science as necessarily active.

Initial results from divertor heat-flux instrumentation on Alcator C-Mod

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Labombard, B.; Brunner, D.; Payne, J.; Reinke, M.; Terry, J. L.; Hughes, J. W.; Lipschultz, B.; Whyte, D.

2009-11-01

Physics-based plasma transport models that can accurately simulate the heat-flux power widths observed in the tokamak boundary are lacking at the present time. Yet this quantity is of fundamental importance for ITER and most critically important for DEMO, a reactor similar to ITER but with ˜4 times the power exhaust. In order to improve our understanding, C-Mod, DIII-D and NSTX will aim experiments in FY10 towards characterizing the divertor ``footprint'' and its connection to conditions ``upstream'' in the boundary and core plasmas [2]. Standard IR-based heat-flux measurements are particularly difficult in C-Mod, due to its vertical-oriented divertor targets. To overcome this, a suite of embedded heat-flux sensor probes (tile thermocouples, calorimeters, surface thermocouples) combined with IR thermography was installed during the FY09 opening, along with a new divertor bolometer system. This paper will report on initial experiments aimed at unfolding the heat-flux dependencies on plasma operating conditions. [2] a proposed US DoE Joint Facilities Milestone.

[Education for future agricultural workers: role of schools and other public and private agencies].

PubMed

Candura, F; Candura, S M

1999-01-01

The authors report their health education experience in the high schools of Pavia, emphasizing the responsibility of the public school in promoting a rational behaviour of the youth aimed at health maintenance, and illustrating the role recently played in this regard by a private institution (linked to the University of Pavia and several other Universities): the Salvatori Maugeri Foundation. Since the authors' experience also encompasses the prevention of work-related injuries and diseases, the article presents a didactic plan specifically aimed at the education of future agriculture workers. The program starts from the fundamental principle that considers risk not as something fatally ineluctable but as probabilty of damage, and then dwells on the consequent predictive meaning of a series of notions which allow interventions useful to minimize the various occupational risk factors (or "causes of damage"). The teaching program is composed by educational steps which gradually becomes more complete and specific according to the advancement of learning.

Experimental verification of internal parameter in magnetically coupled boost used as PV optimizer in parallel association

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sawicki, Jean-Paul; Saint-Eve, Frédéric; Petit, Pierre; Aillerie, Michel

2017-02-01

This paper presents results of experiments aimed to verify a formula able to compute duty cycle in the case of pulse width modulation control for a DC-DC converter designed and realized in laboratory. This converter, called Magnetically Coupled Boost (MCB) is sized to step up only one photovoltaic module voltage to supply directly grid inverters. Duty cycle formula will be checked in a first time by identifying internal parameter, auto-transformer ratio, and in a second time by checking stability of operating point on the side of photovoltaic module. Thinking on nature of generator source and load connected to converter leads to imagine additional experiments to decide if auto-transformer ratio parameter could be used with fixed value or on the contrary with adaptive value. Effects of load variations on converter behavior or impact of possible shading on photovoltaic module are also mentioned, with aim to design robust control laws, in the case of parallel association, designed to compensate unwanted effects due to output voltage coupling.

Inflated dielectric elastomer actuator for eyeball's movements: fabrication, analysis and experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Yanju; Shi, Liang; Liu, Liwu; Zhang, Zhen; Leng, Jinsong

2008-03-01

Bio-mimetic actuators are inspired to the human or animal organ and they are aimed at replicating actions exerted by the main organic muscles. We present here an inflated dielectric Electroactive Polymer actuator based on acrylic elastomer aiming at mimicing the ocular muscular of the human eye. Two sheets of polyacrylic elastomer coated with conductive carbon grease are sticked to a rotatable backbone, which function like an agonist-antagonist configuration. When stimulating the two elastomer sheets separately, the rotatable mid-arc of the actuator is capable of rotating from -50° to 50°. Experiments shows that the inflated actuator, compared with uninflated one, performs much bigger rotating angle and more strengthened. Connected with the actuator via an elastic tensive line, the eyeball rotates around the symmetrical axes. The realization of more accurate movements and emotional expressions of our native eye system is the next step of our research and still under studied. This inflated dielectric elastomer actuator shows as well great potential application in robofish and adaptive stucture.

Reliability assessment of slender concrete columns at the stability failure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valašík, Adrián; Benko, Vladimír; Strauss, Alfred; Täubling, Benjamin

2018-01-01

The European Standard for designing concrete columns within the use of non-linear methods shows deficiencies in terms of global reliability, in case that the concrete columns fail by the loss of stability. The buckling failure is a brittle failure which occurs without warning and the probability of its formation depends on the columns slenderness. Experiments with slender concrete columns were carried out in cooperation with STRABAG Bratislava LTD in Central Laboratory of Faculty of Civil Engineering SUT in Bratislava. The following article aims to compare the global reliability of slender concrete columns with slenderness of 90 and higher. The columns were designed according to methods offered by EN 1992-1-1 [1]. The mentioned experiments were used as basis for deterministic nonlinear modelling of the columns and subsequent the probabilistic evaluation of structural response variability. Final results may be utilized as thresholds for loading of produced structural elements and they aim to present probabilistic design as less conservative compared to classic partial safety factor based design and alternative ECOV method.

Investigation of Neutral Beam Arc Chamber Failure During Helium Operations at DIII-D

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beckers, Jasper; Crowley, Brendan; Scoville, J. T.; Jaspers, Roger; Sobota, Ana

2017-10-01

The Neutral Beam system on the DIII-D tokamak consists of eight ion sources using the Common Long Pulse Source (CLPS) design. During helium operation, desired for research regarding the ITER pre-nuclear phase, it has been observed that the ion source arc chamber performance steadily deteriorates, eventually failing due to electrical breakdown across the insulation. This poster presents the details and preliminary results of an experimental effort to replicate the problem in a bench top ion source with similar plasma parameters. The initial aim of the experiment is to test the hypothesis that during helium operation there is increased tungsten evaporation and sputtering due to ion bombardment of the hot cathodes, leading to the deposition of filament material on the insulation and subsequent short circuits. Ultimately the aim of the experiment is to find methods to ameliorate the problems associated with helium operation at DIII-D. Work supported by U.S. DOE under DE-FC02-04ER54698.

Measuring Software Timing Errors in the Presentation of Visual Stimuli in Cognitive Neuroscience Experiments

PubMed Central

Garaizar, Pablo; Vadillo, Miguel A.; López-de-Ipiña, Diego; Matute, Helena

2014-01-01

Because of the features provided by an abundance of specialized experimental software packages, personal computers have become prominent and powerful tools in cognitive research. Most of these programs have mechanisms to control the precision and accuracy with which visual stimuli are presented as well as the response times. However, external factors, often related to the technology used to display the visual information, can have a noticeable impact on the actual performance and may be easily overlooked by researchers. The aim of this study is to measure the precision and accuracy of the timing mechanisms of some of the most popular software packages used in a typical laboratory scenario in order to assess whether presentation times configured by researchers do not differ from measured times more than what is expected due to the hardware limitations. Despite the apparent precision and accuracy of the results, important issues related to timing setups in the presentation of visual stimuli were found, and they should be taken into account by researchers in their experiments. PMID:24409318

An architecture for rapid prototyping of control schemes for artificial ventricles.

PubMed

Ficola, Antonio; Pagnottelli, Stefano; Valigi, Paolo; Zoppitelli, Maurizio

2004-01-01

This paper presents an experimental system aimed at rapid prototyping of feedback control schemes for ventricular assist devices, and artificial ventricles in general. The system comprises a classical mock circulatory system, an actuated bellow-based ventricle chamber, and a software architecture for control schemes implementation and experimental data acquisition, visualization and storing. Several experiments have been carried out, showing good performance of ventricular pressure tracking control schemes.

Using Nikola Tesla's Story and His Experiments as Presented in the Film "The Prestige" to Promote Scientific Inquiry: A Report of an Action Research Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hadzigeorgiou, Yannis; Garganourakis, Vassilios

2010-01-01

This paper reports on an action research project undertaken with the primary aim of investigating the extent to which situations that evoke a sense of wonder can promote scientific inquiry. Given the intense interest, curiosity, and wonder that some students had begun to develop after seeing the film "The Prestige", a science teacher…

The ArDM experiment

DOE PAGES

Harańczyk, M.; Amsler, C.; Badertscher, A.; ...

2010-08-24

The aim of the ArDM project is the development and operation of a one ton double-phase liquid argon detector for direct Dark Matter searches. The detector measures both the scintillation light and the ionization charge from ionizing radiation using two independent readout systems. This paper briefly describes the detector concept and presents preliminary results from the ArDM R & D program, including a 3 l prototype developed to test the charge readout system.

History Books That Were Introduced in the Cypriot Educational System and the Reactions of the Cypriot Educational Community and Society

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kimitris, Petros N.

2017-01-01

The present study was designed to explore the role of history school books in evaluating the experience of a nation but also to examine the causes behind the reactions of political parties, historians and the wider public. Depending on the sociohistorical context, the aims of history education may range from the inculcation of national identity to…

The Effect of iPad Assisted Language Learning on Developing EFL Students' Autonomous Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Albadry, Haifa

2015-01-01

This paper will present the experience of using iPads with a group of 21 students in a Saudi university over a period of one semester. The purpose of this ongoing study is to explore how students learn to collaborate and interact in English by participating in a teacher-designed English as a Foreign Language (EFL) course. The course aimed at…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kozyrev, E. A., E-mail: eakozyrev09@gmail.com; Akhmetshin, R. R.; Anisenkov, A. V.

Preliminary results of an experiment that is aimed at measuring the cross section for the process e{sup +}e{sup −} → K{sup +}K{sup −} at c.m. energies in the range between 1.01 and 2.0 GeV with the aid of the CMD-3 detector and which is being performed at the VEPP-2000 collider of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences) are presented.

The Impact of Sonority on Onset-Rime and Peak-Coda Lexical Decision and Naming of Lexical Items by Children with Different Spelling Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leong, Che Kan

2008-01-01

The present study used the lexical decision (making YES/NO decision) and the vocalization (naming) paradigms in two reaction time experiments to examine the cohesiveness of onset-rime and peak-coda in the syllable structure of English lexical items. The aim was to study the effect of sonority hierarchy of liquids, nasals and obstruents on the…

"I like the Americans...but I Certainly Don't Aim for an American Accent": Language Attitudes, Vitality and Foreign Language Learning in Denmark

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ladegaard, Hans J.; Sachdev, Itesh

2006-01-01

The power and status of America in the world today are undeniable. This paper presents some empirical data about the attitudes and perceptions Danish learners of EFL have about British and American English. Ninety-six EFL learners participated in a verbal-guise experiment that involved rating different accents of English: American, Australian,…

Mathematics, experience and laboratories: Herbart's and Brentano's role in the rise of scientific psychology.

PubMed

Huemer, Wolfgang; Landerer, Christoph

2010-01-01

In this article we present and compare two early attempts to establish psychology as an independent scientific discipline that had considerable influence in central Europe: the theories of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) and Franz Brentano (1838-1917). While both of them emphasize that psychology ought to be conceived as an empirical science, their conceptions show revealing differences. Herbart starts with metaphysical principles and aims at mathematizing psychology, whereas Brentano rejects all metaphysics and bases his method on a conception of inner perception (as opposed to inner observation) as a secondary consciousness, by means of which one gets to be aware of all of one's own conscious phenomena. Brentano's focus on inner perception brings him to deny the claim that there could be unconscious mental phenomena - a view that stands in sharp contrast to Herbart's emphasis on unconscious, "repressed" presentations as a core element of his mechanics of mind. Herbart, on the other hand, denies any role for psychological experiments, while Brentano encouraged laboratory work, thus paving the road for the more experimental work of his students like Stumpf and Meinong. By briefly tracing the fate of the schools of Herbart and Brentano, respectively, we aim to illustrate their impact on the development of psychological research, mainly in central Europe.

Surgical management of gynecomastia: experience of a general surgery center

PubMed Central

LONGHEU, A.; MEDAS, F.; CORRIAS, F.; FARRIS, S.; TATTI, A.; PISANO, G.; ERDAS, E.; CALÒ, P.G.

2016-01-01

Aim Gynecomastia is a common finding in male population of all ages. The aim of our study was to present our experience and goals in surgical treatment of gynecomastia. Patients and Methods Clinical records of patients affected by gynecomastia referred to our Department of Surgery between September 2008 and January 2015 were analyzed. 50 patients were included in this study. Results Gynecomastia was monolateral in 12 patients (24%) and bilateral in 38 (76%); idiopathic in 41 patients (82%) and secondary in 9 (18%). 39 patients (78%) underwent surgical operation under general anaesthesia, 11 (22%) under local anaesthesia. 3 patients (6%) presented recurrent disease. Webster technique was performed in 28 patients (56%), Davidson technique in 16 patients (32%); in 2 patients (4%) Pitanguy technique was performed and in 4 patients (8%) a mixed surgical technique was performed. Mean surgical time was 80.72±35.14 minutes, median postoperative stay was 1.46±0.88 days. 2 patients (4%) operated using Davidson technique developed a hematoma, 1 patient (2%) operated with the same technique developed hypertrophic scar. Conclusions Several surgical techniques are described for surgical correction of gynecomastia. If performed by skilled general surgeons surgical treatment of gynecomastia is safe and permits to reach satisfactory aesthetic results. PMID:27938530

The Influence of Clinical Experience and Photographic Presentation on Age Assessment of Women.

PubMed

Nielsen, Barbara Rubek; Linneberg, Allan; Christensen, Kaare; Forman, Julie Lyng; Schwarz, Peter

2016-01-01

Epidemiological studies have reported that a higher perceived age is associated with poor health and higher mortality. However, the method used for the assessment of perceived age differs between studies with regard to age, gender, the number and occupation of assessors as well as the presentation of participants. It is not known whether the clinical experience of the assessor or photographic presentation have an influence on the assessment of perceived age, which the present study aimed to investigate. In a cross-sectional study of 460 women aged 25-93 years, 10 consultants and 10 residents were asked to estimate the age of each participant using three different photographic presentations: facial photograph, whole-body photograph, and combined facial and whole-body photographs. Data were analyzed by means of summary statistics and linear mixed models. The inter-class correlation coefficient within each assessor group and photographic presentation varied from 0.66 to 0.75. Limits of agreement were in a broad range but were similar in the two assessor groups. The best inter-assessor agreement was obtained from photographs of both the face and the whole body. Intra- and inter-assessor agreements between photographic presentations were similar among both assessor groups. The accuracy in age assessment was significantly influenced by the photographic presentation but not by the clinical experience of the assessor. The difference in the mean perceived age of a participant of average age was estimated as +0.40 years (95% CI: -1.80; 2.59) for consultants versus residents, -2.05 years (95% CI: -2.90; -1.19) for facial photographs versus both facial and whole-body photographs, and -1.44 years (95% CI: -2.30; -0.58) for whole-body photographs versus both facial and whole-body photographs. A regression towards the mean age was seen. The assessment of perceived age was influenced by the photographic presentation but not by the clinical experience of the assessor. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Non-contact optical sensor for detection of glucose concentration using a magneto-optic effect

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ozana, Nisan; Beiderman, Yevgeny; Anand, Arun; Javidi, Baharam; Polani, Sagi; Schwarz, Ariel; Shemer, Amir; García, Javier; Zalevsky, Zeev

2016-03-01

In this paper we aim to experimentally verify a speckle based technique for non-contact measurement of glucose concentration in blood stream while the vision for the final device aims to contain a single wristwatch-style device containing an AC (alternating) electro-magnet generated by a solenoid, a laser and a camera. The experiments presented in work are performed in-vitro in order to verify the effects that are responsible for the operation principle. When a glucose substance is inserted into a solenoid generating an alternating magnetic field it exhibits Faraday rotation which affects the temporal changes of the secondary speckle patterns distribution. The temporal frequency resulting from the AC magnetic field was found to have a lock-in amplification role which increased the observability of the relatively small magneto-optic effect. Experimental results to support the proposed concept are presented.

Quo vadis, analytical chemistry?

PubMed

Valcárcel, Miguel

2016-01-01

This paper presents an open, personal, fresh approach to the future of Analytical Chemistry in the context of the deep changes Science and Technology are anticipated to experience. Its main aim is to challenge young analytical chemists because the future of our scientific discipline is in their hands. A description of not completely accurate overall conceptions of our discipline, both past and present, to be avoided is followed by a flexible, integral definition of Analytical Chemistry and its cornerstones (viz., aims and objectives, quality trade-offs, the third basic analytical reference, the information hierarchy, social responsibility, independent research, transfer of knowledge and technology, interfaces to other scientific-technical disciplines, and well-oriented education). Obsolete paradigms, and more accurate general and specific that can be expected to provide the framework for our discipline in the coming years are described. Finally, the three possible responses of analytical chemists to the proposed changes in our discipline are discussed.

The One or the Many: Quantified Subjectivity and Aggregated Uniqueness in Qualitative Rehabilitation Research.

PubMed

Juritzen, Truls I; Soberg, Helene L; Røe, Cecilie; Saebu, Martin; Engen, Grace; Bliksvaer, Trond; Engebretsen, Eivind

2017-01-01

This article aims to identify and critically assess qualitative intervention studies of rehabilitation processes that target young adults. By applying a meta-epistemological approach inspired by the works of Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva, we examine how the included studies present qualitative knowledge and whether they adhere to their own stated principles of qualitative knowledge. Through their stated aims and theoretical framing, the articles draw attention to individual processes of meaning making. Nonetheless, we find that the articles to a great extent emphasize frequencies of the qualitative data they present. Individual processes and experiences are subject to subdivisions and categorization and transformed into manageable objects of knowledge. In conclusion, these studies, with one important exception, contribute to self-marginalization of the knowledge they themselves promote: They undermine the uniqueness of the qualitative knowledge they proclaim by focusing on frequency and the general patterns and categories encompassing the unique. © The Author(s) 2016.