FDTD analysis of open-ended dielectric sensors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anderson, J.; Okoniewski, M.; Stuchly, S.S. [Univ. of Victoria (Canada)

1994-12-31

The reflection coefficient of an open-ended coaxial line immersed in water and methanol is simulated using a modified FDTD code. Calculated values are compared with previously obtained moment method and experimental values. The effects of variations in the end of line geometry on the reflection coefficient are investigated.

Providing open-access online materials and hands-on sessions for GIS exercises

Science.gov (United States)

Oguchi, T.; Yamauchi, H.; Hayakawa, Y. S.

2017-12-01

Researchers of GIS (Geographical Information Systems/Sciences) in Japan have collaborated to provide materials for GIS lecture classes in universities for the last 20 years. The major outcomes include 1) a GIS core curriculum, 2) a GIS "body of knowledge" explaining the details of the curriculum, 3) a series of PowerPoint presentations, and 4) a comprehensive GIS textbook. However, materials for GIS exercises at university classes using GIS software have been limited in Japan. Therefore, we launched a project to provide such materials which will be available online and accessible by anybody. The materials cover broad basic aspects of GIS including geoscientific applications such as terrain analysis using digital elevation models. The materials utilize public-domain and open-source software packages such as QGIS and GRASS. The data used are also freely available ones such as those from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. The use of the GitHub platform to distribute the materials allow easier online interactions by both material producers and users. Selected sets of the materials have been utilized for hands-on activities including both official university classes and public instructions. We have been updating the materials based on the opinions of people who took the hands-on courses for better GIS education. The current materials are in Japanese, but we plan to translate some of them into English.

Survey reveals public open to ban on hand-held cell phone use and texting.

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

A study performed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reveals that the public is open to a ban on hand-held cell phone use while driving. The study is based on data from 2009s Omnibus Household Survey (OHS), which is administered by B...

New technical design of food packaging makes the opening process easier for patients with hand disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Hensler, Stefanie; Herren, Daniel B; Marks, Miriam

2015-09-01

Opening packaged food is a complex daily activity carried out worldwide. Peelable packaging, as used for cheese or meat, causes real problems for many consumers, especially elderly people and those with hand disorders. Our aim was to investigate the possibility of producing meat packaging that is easier for patients with hand disorders to open. One hundred patients with hand osteoarthritis were asked to open a meat package currently available in supermarkets (Type A) and a modified, newly designed version (Type B), and rate their experiences with a consumer satisfaction index (CSI). The mean CSI of the Type B packs was 68.9%, compared with 41.9% for Type A (p food packages that afford greater consumer satisfaction. Such future packaging would benefit not only people with hand disorders but also the population as a whole. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

Open-Ended Electric Motor

Science.gov (United States)

Gould, Mauri

1975-01-01

Presents complete instructions for assembling an electric motor which does not require large amounts of power to operate and which is inexpensive as well as reliable. Several open-ended experiments with the motor are included as well as information for obtaining a kit of parts and instructions. (BR)

Open Fractures of the Hand: Review of Pathogenesis and Introduction of a New Classification System.

Science.gov (United States)

Tulipan, Jacob E; Ilyas, Asif M

2018-02-01

Open fractures of the hand are a common and varied group of injuries. Although at increased risk for infection, open fractures of the hand are more resistant to infection than other open fractures. Numerous unique factors in the hand may play a role in the altered risk of postinjury infection. Current systems for the classification of open fractures fail to address the unique qualities of the hand. This article proposes a novel classification system for open fractures of the hand, taking into account the factors unique to the hand that affect its risk for developing infection after an open fracture. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Review: Open-ended objects: A tool for brainstorming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Broek, Egon

2010-01-01

Cruz and Gaudron sketch the concept of open-ended objects that are positioned as facilitating brainstorming workshops for human-computer interaction (HCI) purposes. Open-ended objects are characterized by four features: those that provide a preliminary experience, a tangible representation of a

Student’s Critical Thinking in Solving Open-Ended Problems Based on Their Personality Type

Science.gov (United States)

Fitriana, L. D.; Fuad, Y.; Ekawati, R.

2018-01-01

Critical thinking plays an important role for students in solving open-ended problems. This research aims at describing student’s critical thinking in solving open-ended problems based on Keirsey’s personality types, namely rational, idealist, guardian, and artisan. Four students, with the higher rank in the mathematics’ test and representing each type of Keirsey personality, were selected as the research subjects. The data were collected from the geometry problem and interviews. The student’s critical thinking is described based on the FRISCO criteria. The result underlines that rational and idealist students fulfilled all FRISCO criteria, and but not for guardian and artisan students. Related to the inference criteria, guardian and artisan students could not make reasonable conclusions and connect the concepts. Related to the reason of criteria, rational student performed critical thinking by providing logical reason that supported his strategy to solve the problem. In contrast, the idealist student provided subjective reason. This results suggest that teachers should frequently train the students’ logical thinkingin every lesson and activity to develop student’s critical thinking and take the student’s personality character into account, especially for guardian and artisan students.

12 CFR 221.109 - Loan to open-end investment company.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... CARRYING MARGIN STOCK (REGULATION U) Interpretations § 221.109 Loan to open-end investment company. In... customarily purchases stocks registered on a national securities exchange, the Board stated that in view of... 12 Banks and Banking 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Loan to open-end investment company. 221.109...

A THEORETICAL MODEL OF SUPPORTING OPEN SOURCE FRONT END INNOVATION THROUGH IDEA MANAGEMENT

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aagaard, Annabeth

2013-01-01

to overcome these various challenges companies are looking for new models to support FEI. This theoretical paper explores in what way idea management may be applied as a tool in facilitation of front end innovation and how this facilitation may be captured in a conceptual model. First, I show through...... a literature study, how idea management and front end innovation are related and how they may support each other. Secondly, I present a theoretical model of how idea management may be applied in support of the open source front end of new product innovations. Thirdly, I present different venues of further...... exploration of active facilitation of open source front end innovation through idea management....

Design and validation of low-cost assistive glove for hand assessment and therapy during activity of daily living-focused robotic stroke therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Nathan, Dominic E; Johnson, Michelle J; McGuire, John R

2009-01-01

Hand and arm impairment is common after stroke. Robotic stroke therapy will be more effective if hand and upper-arm training is integrated to help users practice reaching and grasping tasks. This article presents the design, development, and validation of a low-cost, functional electrical stimulation grasp-assistive glove for use with task-oriented robotic stroke therapy. Our glove measures grasp aperture while a user completes simple-to-complex real-life activities, and when combined with an integrated functional electrical stimulator, it assists in hand opening and closing. A key function is a new grasp-aperture prediction model, which uses the position of the end-effectors of two planar robots to define the distance between the thumb and index finger. We validated the accuracy and repeatability of the glove and its capability to assist in grasping. Results from five nondisabled subjects indicated that the glove is accurate and repeatable for both static hand-open and -closed tasks when compared with goniometric measures and for dynamic reach-to-grasp tasks when compared with motion analysis measures. Results from five subjects with stroke showed that with the glove, they could open their hands but without it could not. We present a glove that is a low-cost solution for in vivo grasp measurement and assistance.

Designing students’ worksheet based on open-ended approach to foster students’ creative thinking skills

Science.gov (United States)

Romli, S.; Abdurrahman; Riyadi, B.

2018-01-01

This study aimed at designing an open-ended worksheet to enhance students’ creative thinking skills. The study was conducted at one private school in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia. The participants of the study were twenty students of tenth grade students and two physics teachers. This study used descriptive data. Data were collected by analyzing qualitative data, literature and focus group discussion to gain information about students’ conceptions of physics in the context of open-ended learning. The result showed that students needed innovative learning resources in form of open ended-based worksheet which could give the students an opportunity to develop various solutions related to physics problem. Therefore, students’ creative thinking skill could be improved.

A natural approach to convey numerical digits using hand activity recognition based on hand shape features

Science.gov (United States)

Chidananda, H.; Reddy, T. Hanumantha

2017-06-01

This paper presents a natural representation of numerical digit(s) using hand activity analysis based on number of fingers out stretched for each numerical digit in sequence extracted from a video. The analysis is based on determining a set of six features from a hand image. The most important features used from each frame in a video are the first fingertip from top, palm-line, palm-center, valley points between the fingers exists above the palm-line. Using this work user can convey any number of numerical digits using right or left or both the hands naturally in a video. Each numerical digit ranges from 0 to9. Hands (right/left/both) used to convey digits can be recognized accurately using the valley points and with this recognition whether the user is a right / left handed person in practice can be analyzed. In this work, first the hand(s) and face parts are detected by using YCbCr color space and face part is removed by using ellipse based method. Then, the hand(s) are analyzed to recognize the activity that represents a series of numerical digits in a video. This work uses pixel continuity algorithm using 2D coordinate geometry system and does not use regular use of calculus, contours, convex hull and datasets.

Course Evaluation Systems for Open-ended Quality Enhancement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Piihl, Jesper; Rasmussen, Jens Smed

2013-01-01

Quality in higher education is widely controlled through surveys asking students to evaluate teaching. However, control of quality does not necessarily lead to enhancement of quality. Drawing on accounting research and a case study, a measurement-based and open-ended quality control system...... emphasising quality enhancement is suggested. The case shows how interactive use of performance measurement can lead to more engaged and enabling dialogue amongst involved actors concerning quality enhancement, however institutionalised beliefs regarding course evaluation systems makes a change challenging....... The chapter suggests that open-ended measurement systems enabling stakeholders to take responsibility for quality enhancement is not so much a matter of technical design as a matter of an enabling style of use....

Hand safety for specialty crop production workers: a pilot study investigating frequencies of minor open-wound hand injuries and presence of pathogenic bacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Pate, M L; Nummer, B

2013-10-01

The purpose of this study was to quantify the presence of minor open-wound hand injuries in addition to Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, coliforms, and Escherichia coli on the hands of farm workers who hand-harvest fruit crops in Utah. Data collection was conducted on four farms without USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certification and on two farms with GAP certification. This study identified essential safety issues that need to be addressed for improving the effectiveness of safety training for migrant farm workers. Farms that have a food safety audit program in place are less likely to have farm workers exposed to pathogenic bacteria and open-wound injuries to their hands. High frequency of S. aureus may indicate a potentially higher risk for wound infection within this worker population. This could lead to infections that are resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections, resulting in greater work loss time and medical expenses for these workers. Higher frequencies of bacterial presence on workers' hands on non-certified farms indicate a need to identify essential practices to improve worker hygiene habits and on-farm management practices to promote healthy hygiene. Open-wound injuries to migrant farm workers during hand-harvesting could create additional health problems with the possibility of infection and the spread of diseases. Continued research is needed to understand workers' acceptance of these injuries and barriers to personal protection.

Getting Started with Open-Ended Assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Leatham, Keith R.; Lawrence, Kathy; Mewborn, Denise S.

2005-01-01

The open-ended assessment item supports students in achieving mathematical understanding that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) advocates. The items encourage students to demonstrate their understanding in creative and informative ways.

The Physics of Open Ended Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Alyssa M.

What makes living systems different than non-living ones? Unfortunately this question is impossible to answer, at least currently. Instead, we must face computationally tangible questions based on our current understanding of physics, computation, information, and biology. Yet we have few insights into how living systems might quantifiably differ from their non-living counterparts, as in a mathematical foundation to explain away our observations of biological evolution, emergence, innovation, and organization. The development of a theory of living systems, if at all possible, demands a mathematical understanding of how data generated by complex biological systems changes over time. In addition, this theory ought to be broad enough as to not be constrained to an Earth-based biochemistry. In this dissertation, the philosophy of studying living systems from the perspective of traditional physics is first explored as a motivating discussion for subsequent research. Traditionally, we have often thought of the physical world from a bottom-up approach: things happening on a smaller scale aggregate into things happening on a larger scale. In addition, the laws of physics are generally considered static over time. Research suggests that biological evolution may follow dynamic laws that (at least in part) change as a function of the state of the system. Of the three featured research projects, cellular automata (CA) are used as a model to study certain aspects of living systems in two of them. These aspects include self-reference, open-ended evolution, local physical universality, subjectivity, and information processing. Open-ended evolution and local physical universality are attributed to the vast amount of innovation observed throughout biological evolution. Biological systems may distinguish themselves in terms of information processing and storage, not outside the theory of computation. The final research project concretely explores real-world phenomenon by means of

A randomized study comparing outcomes of stapled and hand-sutured anastomoses in patients undergoing open gastrointestinal surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Chandramohan, S M; Gajbhiye, Raj Narenda; Agwarwal, Anil; Creedon, Erin; Schwiers, Michael L; Waggoner, Jason R; Tatla, Daljit

2013-08-01

Although stapling is an alternative to hand-suturing in gastrointestinal surgery, recent trials specifically designed to evaluate differences between the two in surgery time, anastomosis time, and return to bowel activity are lacking. This trial compared the outcomes of the two in subjects undergoing open gastrointestinal surgery. Adult subjects undergoing emergency or elective surgery requiring a single gastric, small, or large bowel anastomosis were enrolled into this open-label, prospective, randomized, interventional, parallel, multicenter, controlled trial. Randomization was assigned in a 1:1 ratio between the hand-sutured group (n = 138) and the stapled group (n = 142). Anastomosis time, surgery time, and time to bowel activity were collected and compared as primary endpoints. A total of 280 subjects were enrolled from April 2009 to September 2010. Only the time of anastomosis was significantly different between the two arms: 17.6 ± 1.90 min (stapled) and 20.6 ± 1.90 min (hand-sutured). This difference was deemed not clinically or economically meaningful. Safety outcomes and other secondary endpoints were similar between the two arms. Mechanical stapling is faster than hand-suturing for the construction of gastrointestinal anastomoses. Apart from this, stapling and hand-suturing are similar with respect to the outcomes measured in this trial.

Phase radiation characteristics of an open-ended circular waveguide

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shishkova, Anna; Pivnenko, Sergey; Kim, Oleksiy S.

2007-01-01

General analytical expressions are derived for the far-field amplitude and phase radiation patterns of an open-ended circular waveguide (OE-CWG) regardless of its radius or the operation frequency for the dominant and symmetric higher-order excitation modes. The derivation is based on the rigorous...... solution to the problem of diffraction at an open end of a waveguide proposed by Weinstein. The near-field amplitude and phase patterns of an OE-CWG are then calculated using the spherical wave expansion technique. The measurement of the radiation pattern of an OE-CWG was carried out to verify the validity...

EFEKTIVITAS OPEN-ENDED EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CASES DALAM PENINGKATAN PERTIMBANGAN PROFESIONAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andian Ari Istiningrum

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui efektivitas implementasi model pembelajaran Open-Ended Experiential Learning Cases dalam usaha peningkatan kemampuan mahasiswa untuk memberikan pertimbangan profesional. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian pre-experimental design dengan jenis one-group pretes-postes design. Popolasi penelitian adalah mahasiswa jurusan Akuntansi yang mengambil mata kuliah Akuntansi Keuangan Menengah 1 sebanyak 75 orang, sedangkan sampel yang digunakan adalah 44 orang. Teknik pengambilan sampel dilakukan dengan convenience sampling. Data dikumpulkan dengan tes uraian dan dianalisis dengan uji beda t test untuk sampel berhubungan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat perbedaan signifikan kemampuan mahasiswa dalam memberikan pertimbangan profesional sebelum dan sesudah model pembelajaran open-ended experiential learning cases diimplementasikan yang menunjukkan terjadinya peningkatan pertimbangan profesional setelah mahasiswa mengikuti pembelajaran dengan model pembelajaran openended experiential learning cases. Kata Kunci: open-ended experiential learning cases, pertimbangan profesional THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OPEN-ENDED EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CASES TO IMPROVE PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT Abstract: This study was aimed to reveal the effectiveness of the implementation of the open-ended experiential learning cases to improve students’ professional judgment. To achieve this purpose, the study was designed as the pre-experimental design with the one-group pretest-post-test design type. The population of the study was the Accounting Department Students at Yogyakarta State University taking the 1 st Intermediate Financial Accounting course. There were 75 students as the population and 44 students were chosen as the research sample. The sampling technique used was the convenience sampling. The data were collected by using the essay test and analyzed by t-test for paired samples. The findings showed that there was a

Centrifuge modeling of rapid load tests with open-ended piles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nguyen, T.C.; Van Lottum, H.; Holscher, P.; Van Tol, A.F.

2012-01-01

Rapid and static load tests were conducted on open-ended and close-ended piles in the Deltares GeoCentriflige. hi flight, a pile was driven into the soil. Both fme-grained sand and silt beds were tested. Both the rapid and static soil resistances o f a close-ended pile were higher than the soil

A Computational Analysis Model for Open-ended Cognitions

Science.gov (United States)

Morita, Junya; Miwa, Kazuhisa

In this paper, we propose a novel usage for computational cognitive models. In cognitive science, computational models have played a critical role of theories for human cognitions. Many computational models have simulated results of controlled psychological experiments successfully. However, there have been only a few attempts to apply the models to complex realistic phenomena. We call such a situation ``open-ended situation''. In this study, MAC/FAC (``many are called, but few are chosen''), proposed by [Forbus 95], that models two stages of analogical reasoning was applied to our open-ended psychological experiment. In our experiment, subjects were presented a cue story, and retrieved cases that had been learned in their everyday life. Following this, they rated inferential soundness (goodness as analogy) of each retrieved case. For each retrieved case, we computed two kinds of similarity scores (content vectors/structural evaluation scores) using the algorithms of the MAC/FAC. As a result, the computed content vectors explained the overall retrieval of cases well, whereas the structural evaluation scores had a strong relation to the rated scores. These results support the MAC/FAC's theoretical assumption - different similarities are involved on the two stages of analogical reasoning. Our study is an attempt to use a computational model as an analysis device for open-ended human cognitions.

Motives for Volunteering: Categorization of Volunteers' Motivations Using Open-ended Questions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fernando Chacón

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Most studies of volunteers’ motivations use standardized questionnaires with one of the most commonly-used being the Volunteer Function Inventory. Open-ended questions about what drives individuals to be volunteers are seldom used. We hypothesize that questionnaires tend to overestimate the number of motivations and to underestimate their variety. Therefore, in this paper we analyze the answers of 1515 volunteers to an open-ended question and categorize these answers. Results show that volunteers give an average of 2 motivations, fewer than the questionnaires, and that the Value motivation is the most frequently mentioned and the most important for volunteers. In addition, this motivation coexists with other motivations, which are lacking in the standard questionnaires, such as Organizational Commitment, Personal Development, Religiosity, Social Change or Interest in the Activity.

Product differentiation among health maintenance organizations: causes and consequences of offering open-ended products.

Science.gov (United States)

Wholey, D R; Christianson, J B

1994-01-01

Open-ended products that allow an HMO enrollee to use providers who are not affiliated with the HMO have become an important component of the Clinton administration's health reform proposal, because these products maintain consumer freedom of choice of any provider. However, little is known about the consequences of offering an open-ended product from an organizational standpoint. This paper uses a theory of "spatial competition" to examine the decisions of health maintenance organizations to offer an open-ended product and the effect of offering an open-ended product on their enrollment.

End-point impedance measurements across dominant and nondominant hands and robotic assistance with directional damping.

Science.gov (United States)

Erden, Mustafa Suphi; Billard, Aude

2015-06-01

The goal of this paper is to perform end-point impedance measurements across dominant and nondominant hands while doing airbrush painting and to use the results for developing a robotic assistance scheme. We study airbrush painting because it resembles in many ways manual welding, a standard industrial task. The experiments are performed with the 7 degrees of freedom KUKA lightweight robot arm. The robot is controlled in admittance using a force sensor attached at the end-point, so as to act as a free-mass and be passively guided by the human. For impedance measurements, a set of nine subjects perform 12 repetitions of airbrush painting, drawing a straight-line on a cartoon horizontally placed on a table, while passively moving the airbrush mounted on the robot's end-point. We measure hand impedance during the painting task by generating sudden and brief external forces with the robot. The results show that on average the dominant hand displays larger impedance than the nondominant in the directions perpendicular to the painting line. We find the most significant difference in the damping values in these directions. Based on this observation, we develop a "directional damping" scheme for robotic assistance and conduct a pilot study with 12 subjects to contrast airbrush painting with and without robotic assistance. Results show significant improvement in precision with both dominant and nondominant hands when using robotic assistance.

Promoting Female Students' Learning Motivation towards Science by Exercising Hands-On Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Wen-jin, Kuo; Chia-ju, Liu; Shi-an, Leou

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study is to design different hands-on science activities and investigate which activities could better promote female students' learning motivation towards science. This study conducted three types of science activities which contains nine hands-on activities, an experience scale and a learning motivation scale for data…

A Randomized Study Comparing Outcomes of Stapled and Hand-Sutured Anastomoses in Patients Undergoing Open Gastrointestinal Surgery

OpenAIRE

Chandramohan, S. M.; Gajbhiye, Raj Narenda; Agwarwal, Anil; Creedon, Erin; Schwiers, Michael L.; Waggoner, Jason R.; Tatla, Daljit

2012-01-01

Although stapling is an alternative to hand-suturing in gastrointestinal surgery, recent trials specifically designed to evaluate differences between the two in surgery time, anastomosis time, and return to bowel activity are lacking. This trial compared the outcomes of the two in subjects undergoing open gastrointestinal surgery. Adult subjects undergoing emergency or elective surgery requiring a single gastric, small, or large bowel anastomosis were enrolled into this open-label, prospectiv...

Experimental study on pressure wave propagation through the open end of pipe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoshida, K.; Kumagai, H.

1994-01-01

The steam generators of a double pool type liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) are used in a large sodium pool which is formed between the primary vessel and the secondary vessel and accommodates the entire secondary heat transport system. Therefore, if there is a sodium-water reaction event in the steam generator, it becomes important to evaluate the pressure rises at the walls of the primary and secondary vessels as well as those at the other secondary components. An experimental study was performed, focusing on the propagation of the initial pressure spike of the-sodium-water reaction from the bottom end of the steam generator to the sodium pool. Pressure wave propagation from inside of a pipe to an open space through the pipe end was measured. Two kinds of pressure propagation media, water and air, ensured a wide range of experimental conditions. The experimental results revealed that the pressure attenuation at the open end of a pipe can be put in order using the concept of inertial length, and that the dimensionless inertial length, i.e., the inertial length divided by the half wave length of the pressure pulse, is proportional to the square of the dimensionless diameter. These results provide a prediction method for a pressure rise by the initial pressure spike in the secondary sodium pool of the Double Pool LMFBR

Hands On Activity Pada Pembelajaran Geometri Sekolah Sebagai Asesmen Kinerja Siswa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kartono Kartono

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Geometri merupakan cabang matematika yang diajarkan mulai dari pendidikan dasar sampai pendidikan tinggi, namun berdasarkan suatu penelitian hasil belajar geometri kurang memuaskan khususnya hasil belajar geometri sekolah. Hasil belajar geometri sekolah terkait langsung dengan kegiatan pembelajarannya. Pembelajaran geometri akan efektif apabila kegiatan yang dilakukan sesuai dengan struktur kemampuan berpikir siswa. Menurut Teori Van Hiele tentang pembelajaran geometri, bahwa tingkat kemampuan berpikir siswa dalam belajar geometri meliputi lima tingkat , yaitu visualisasi, analisis, deduksi informal, deduksi, dan rigor.Tingkatan berpikir tersebut akan dilalui siswa secara berurutan, kecepatan berpindah dari tingkat ke tingkat berikutnya banyak bergantung pada isi dan metode pembelajarannya.Perlu disediakan aktivitas-aktivitas dalam pembelajaran yang sesuai dengan tingkat berpikir siswa dalam bentuk hands on activity. Melalui hands on activity akan terbentuk suatu penghayatan dan pengalaman untuk  menetapkan suatu pengertian, karena mampu membelajarkan secara bersama-sama kemampuan kognitif, afektif, dan psikomotorik serta dapat memberikan penghayatan secara mendalam terhadap apa yang dipelajari, sehingga apa yang diperoleh oleh siswa tidak mudah dilupakan. Hands on activity selain sebagai komponen kegiatan pembelajaran, dapat dimanfaatkan sebagai intrumen asesmen, khususnya asesmen kinerja siswa. Gunakanlah hands on activity pada pembelajaran geometri sekolah dan manfaatkan kegiatan tersebut sebagai bentuk asesmen kinerja siswa. 

Discontinuous phase transition in an open-ended Naming Game

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crokidakis, Nuno; Brigatti, Edgardo

2015-01-01

In this work we study on a 2D square lattice a recent version of the Naming Game, an agent-based model used for describing the emergence of linguistic structures. The system is open-ended and agents can invent new words throughout the evolution of the game, picking them up from a pool characterised by a Gaussian distribution with standard deviation σ. The model displays a nonequilibrium phase transition at a critical point σ c  ≈ 25.6, which separates an absorbing consensus state from an active fragmented state where agents continuously exchange different words. The finite-size scaling analysis of our simulations strongly suggests that the phase transition is discontinuous. (paper)

PENGEMBANGAN MODUL DENGAN PENDEKATAN OPEN ENDED UNTUK MEMFASILITASI PENCAPAIAN LITERASI MATEMATIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agung Putra Wijaya

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This research and development aimed to develop module with an open ended approach to facilitate the achievement of mathematical literacy. This study was conducted only until the  field trial and the revision of product. The module was validated by experts with attention to aspects: matter, appearance, and practicality. Having been declared valid by experts, the test readability by the students was done. Based on the steps, it was obtained (1 the use of the module with an open ended approach in Linier Programmingwas expected by the students, (2 the module characteristics were in accordance with the curriculum and designed in accordance with the open-ended approach, (3 the experts responses to the module were appropriate in terms of aspects of matter, appearance, and practicality and (4 the students responses were good viewed by readability.

A qualitative analysis of kindergarteners’ open-ended drawing and story telling opportunities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pirtle Jody M.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to identify and examine the themes in the written productions of 114 kindergarten students. Participants were from two schools in different regions in the United States and were given an open-ended opportunity to draw and subsequently dictate a story. Content analysis was performed and six themes emerged: (a family, (b inanimate objects/personal belongings, (c activities/events, (d fantasy stories, (e self-talk/reflection, and (f nature/outdoors. Comparative analysis was performed for both gender and ethnicity and few differences were found between boys’ and girls’ stories or across ethnicities. Recommendations were included for teachers and families to allow young children more open-ended literacy opportunities and future research to analyze children’s drawings and stories between classrooms and across grade levels were included.

Development of Open-Ended Problems for Measuring The Higher-Order-Thinking-Skills of High School Students on Global Warming Phenomenon

Science.gov (United States)

Fianti; Najwa, F. L.; Linuwih, S.

2017-04-01

Higher-order-thinking-skills can not be developed directly, except by training which is employing open-ended problems for measuring and developing critics, creativeness, and problem-solving thinking-skills of students. This study is a research and development producing open-ended problems. The purpose of this study is to measure the properness and effectiveness of the developed product and to observe the profile of higher-order-thinking-skills of students on global warming phenomenon. The result of properness test of open-ended problems according to the experts is 92,59% on the first stage and 97,53% on the second stage, so we can assume that the product isvery proper. The result of effectiveness test shows the coefficient of correlation between student’s midterm test scores and open-ended questions is 0,634 which is in the category of strong. Higher-order-thinking-skills of SMA Negeri 1 Salatiga students is in the category of good with the average achievement scores 61,28.

Clad vent set cup open end (closure weld zone) wall-thickness study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ulrich, G.B.; Sherrill, M.W.

1994-09-01

The wall thickness at the open end of Clad Vent Set (CVS) cups is a very important parameter for maintaining control of the fueled CVS closure weld process. Ideally, the wall thickness in the closure weld zone should be constant. The DOP-26 iridium alloy is very difficult to machine; therefore, key dimensional features are established during the two-draw warm-forming operation. Unfortunately, anisotropy in the forming blanks produces four ears at the open end of each cup. Formation of these ears produces axial and circumferential variations in wall thickness. The cup certification requirement is that the wall thickness in the closure weld zone, defined as the 2.5-mm band at the open end of a cup, measure from 0.63 to 0.73 mm. The wall thickness certification data for the open end of the CVS cups have been statistically evaluated. These data show that the cups recently produced for the Cassini mission have well-controlled open-end wall thicknesses.

Performance Evaluation of Open-Ended ELSS Mutual Fund ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study examined the performance of the open-ended equity linked saving mutual fund schemes (ELSS) in India during the financial distress in 2008-2009. In this study, the month end net asset values of selected equity linked saving mutual fund schemes were considered and the data was obtained from the website of ...

Mudaraba-Venture Capital Closed-end Mutual Funds and Mudaraba-Venture Capital Open-end Mutual Funds

OpenAIRE

Halil Ibrahim Bulut

2008-01-01

The important part of this study attempts to explain that both venture capital and interest-free financing are based on similar ground, if not the same. Two new models called Mudaraba-Venture Capital Closed-End Mutual Funds and Mudaraba-Venture Capital Open-End Mutual Funds, based on both the similarities and the needs of financial innovation in the interest-free financing system, are detailed. It is believed that the development of these two models could make some improvements not only in th...

Undecidability and Irreducibility Conditions for Open-Ended Evolution and Emergence.

Science.gov (United States)

Hernández-Orozco, Santiago; Hernández-Quiroz, Francisco; Zenil, Hector

2018-01-01

Is undecidability a requirement for open-ended evolution (OEE)? Using methods derived from algorithmic complexity theory, we propose robust computational definitions of open-ended evolution and the adaptability of computable dynamical systems. Within this framework, we show that decidability imposes absolute limits on the stable growth of complexity in computable dynamical systems. Conversely, systems that exhibit (strong) open-ended evolution must be undecidable, establishing undecidability as a requirement for such systems. Complexity is assessed in terms of three measures: sophistication, coarse sophistication, and busy beaver logical depth. These three complexity measures assign low complexity values to random (incompressible) objects. As time grows, the stated complexity measures allow for the existence of complex states during the evolution of a computable dynamical system. We show, however, that finding these states involves undecidable computations. We conjecture that for similar complexity measures that assign low complexity values, decidability imposes comparable limits on the stable growth of complexity, and that such behavior is necessary for nontrivial evolutionary systems. We show that the undecidability of adapted states imposes novel and unpredictable behavior on the individuals or populations being modeled. Such behavior is irreducible. Finally, we offer an example of a system, first proposed by Chaitin, that exhibits strong OEE.

Adapting a successful inquiry-based immersion program to create an Authentic, Hands- on, Field based Curriculum in Environmental Science at Barnard College

Science.gov (United States)

Kenna, T. C.; Pfirman, S.; Mailloux, B. J.; Martin, S.; Kelsey, R.; Bower, P.

2008-12-01

Adapting a successful inquiry-based immersion program to create an Authentic, Hands-on, Field based Curriculum in Environmental Science at Barnard College T. C. Kenna, S. Pfirman, B. J. Mailloux, M. Stute, R. Kelsey, and P. Bower By adapting a successful inquiry-based immersion program (SEA semester) to the typical college format of classes, we are improving the technical and quantitative skills of undergraduate women and minorities in environmental science and improving their critical thinking and problem-solving by exposing our students to open-ended real-world environmental issues. Our approach uses the Hudson River Estuary as a natural laboratory. In a series of hands-on inquiry-based activities, students use advanced equipment to collect data and samples. Each class session introduces new analytical and data analysis techniques. All classes have the connecting theme of the river. Working with real data is open-ended. Our major findings as indicated by surveys as well as journaling throughout the semester are that the field- based experience significantly contributed to student learning and engagement. Journaling responses indicated that nearly all students discussed the importance and excitement of an authentic research experience. Some students were frustrated with data irregularities, uncertainty in methods and data, and the general challenge of a curriculum with inherent ambiguity. The majority were satisfied with the aims of the course to provide an integrative experience. All students demonstrated transfer of learned skills. This project has had a significant impact on our undergraduate female students: several students have pursued senior thesis projects stemming from grant activities, stating that the field activities were the highlight of their semester. Some students love the experience and want more. Others decide that they want to pursue a different career. All learn how science is conducted and have a better foundation to understand concepts such

The da vinci robot system eliminates multispecialty surgical trainees' hand dominance in open and robotic surgical settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Badalato, Gina M; Shapiro, Edan; Rothberg, Michael B; Bergman, Ari; RoyChoudhury, Arindam; Korets, Ruslan; Patel, Trushar; Badani, Ketan K

2014-01-01

Handedness, or the inherent dominance of one hand's dexterity over the other's, is a factor in open surgery but has an unknown importance in robot-assisted surgery. We sought to examine whether the robotic surgery platform could eliminate the effect of inherent hand preference. Residents from the Urology and Obstetrics/Gynecology departments were enrolled. Ambidextrous and left-handed subjects were excluded. After completing a questionnaire, subjects performed three tasks modified from the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery curriculum. Tasks were performed by hand and then with the da Vinci robotic surgical system (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, California). Participants were randomized to begin with using either the left or the right hand, and then switch. Left:right ratios were calculated from scores based on time to task completion. Linear regression analysis was used to determine the significance of the impact of surgical technique on hand dominance. Ten subjects were enrolled. The mean difference in raw score performance between the right and left hands was 12.5 seconds for open tasks and 8 seconds for robotic tasks (Probot tasks, respectively (Probotic and open approaches for raw time scores (Phand, prior robotic experience, and comfort level. These findings remain to be validated in larger cohorts. The robotic technique reduces hand dominance in surgical trainees across all task domains. This finding contributes to the known advantages of robotic surgery.

Open-ended guidewire for percutaneous therapy of varicocele

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Benea, G.; Galeotti, R.; Tartari, S.; Mannella, P.

1989-01-01

Percutaneous transvenous treatment has become the elective therapy for varicocele because it is a simple, safe, economic and reliable procedure. The presence of proximal anastomoses connecting a competent valved spermatic trunk with the renal vein can be responsible for a varicocele and make its treatment difficult. In such cases, the valve of the spermatic venous trunk can be bypassed using an open-ended guidewire with a removable mandril core, and then injecting the sclerosing agent through the guide. Moreover, the guidewire can facilitate the insertion of catheter through the competent valve, thus allowing the placement of Gianturco coils. During the past 12 months the authors have successfully treated 4 patients affected by varicocele with competent valved venous trunk using the open-ended guidewire

Open-end Investment Funds in Croatia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bojan Morić Milovanović

2006-03-01

Full Text Available This work discusses investment funds in Croatia, with a particular emphasis on openend investment funds. After a short review of the development of the funds, the perception of the funds is analysed, as are the trends in total assets and in average yields. The degree of concentration of open-end investment funds is shown with statistical measures of concentration (the Gini Coefficient, the Lorenz Curve and concentration ratios. All these indicators show that the concentration is moderate to strong. The greatest yields are given by the equity funds, but these are also the most risky.

Phase Radiation Characteristics of an Open-Ended Circular Waveguide

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shishkova, A.V.; Pivnenko, Sergiy; Kim, O.S.

2002-01-01

Analytic expressions for phase radiation characteristics of a semi-infinite open-ended circular waveguide regardless of its aperture size and operating frequency have been obtained making use of the rigorous Weinstein's theory. The analysis of phase radiation patterns has been carried out...... for the dominant mode (TE11) as well as for the high order modes TM01 and TE01, both for a single and multimode propagation. The measurement of radiation characteristics of an open-ended circular waveguide has been carried out at the DTU-ESA Spherical Near-Field Antenna Test Facility. It is shown...

The leading hand in bimanual activities - A search for more valid handedness items.

Science.gov (United States)

Olsson, Bo; Kirchengast, Sylvia

2016-11-01

The aim of this pilot study is to test a new approach to handedness assessment based on the concept of the leading hand. A well-established graphomotor performance test of handedness (H-D-T) and a new test according on the concept of the leading hand were undertaken by 41 Viennese schoolchildren between 6 and 8 years of age. The new test is based on in vivo observations of bimanual activities. In detail the test battery consisted of 8 fine motor leading hand items. Participants had to open and close four small objects (one tube, three small bottles) in order to observe twisting movements and four small objects (2 matchboxes, 2 small brushes) in order to observe back-and-forth movements. It turned out that the leading hand does not correlate with the hand dominance in a graphomotor test to the degree that the handedness in unimanual items has been found to do and that right leading hand scores in bimanual items are encountered significantly less often than right hand scores in a graphomotor test. The findings of the present study suggest that tests of the leading hand in vivo may contribute to a higher validity of the assessment of handedness in examinations of the lateralization of higher cortical functions.

The Use of Open-Ended Questions with Giving Feedback (OEQGF) for Effective Mathematic Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Sabilah, I.; Manoy, J. T.

2018-01-01

Feedback deals with giving information to students related to their task which is done through score of their achievement, reaction, and comments. Considering its hierarchy, task difficulty level consists of low, middle and high levels. The difficulty level of open-ended questions is middle to high. Open-ended question is a good way to train students’ knowledge. This research is a descriptive research which aims at describing teacher’s learning management, students’ activities, students’ learning achievement, and students’ responses in mathematic learning using OEQGF. The subject was a teacher of mathematics who teaches eighth graders, and students themselves. The research design used is one shot case study. The result shows that: management learning has been very well implemented by the teacher; every students’ activity has been carried out by students; the students’ learning achievement have reached the criteria of completeness, and the students’ responses can be considered as positive. Therefore, it can be concluded that mathematic learning using OEQGF is effective.

Leaving room for improvisation: towards a design approach for open-ended play.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Valk, de L.C.T.; Bekker, M.M.; Eggen, J.H.

2013-01-01

Open-ended play with interactive objects provides children with the freedom to construct their own rules, goals and meaning. Instead of games with strict rules, open-ended play designs offer interaction opportunities as a trigger for creating personalized games. The process of developing these

Comparison of performance on multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions in an introductory astronomy laboratory

OpenAIRE

Michelle M. Wooten; Adrienne M. Cool; Edward E. Prather; Kimberly D. Tanner

2014-01-01

When considering the variety of questions that can be used to measure students’ learning, instructors may choose to use multiple-choice questions, which are easier to score than responses to open-ended questions. However, by design, analyses of multiple-choice responses cannot describe all of students’ understanding. One method that can be used to learn more about students’ learning is the analysis of the open-ended responses students’ provide when explaining their multiple-choice response. I...

Open-ended response theory with polarizable embedding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Steindal, Arnfinn Hykkerud; Beerepoot, Maarten T P; Ringholm, Magnus

2016-01-01

We present the theory and implementation of an open-ended framework for electric response properties at the level of Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham density functional theory that includes effects from the molecular environment modeled by the polarizable embedding (PE) model. With this new state......-of-the-art multiscale functionality, electric response properties to any order can be calculated for molecules embedded in polarizable atomistic molecular environments ranging from solvents to complex heterogeneous macromolecules such as proteins. In addition, environmental effects on multiphoton absorption (MPA...

17 CFR 230.498 - Summary Prospectuses for open-end management investment companies.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

...-end management investment companies. 230.498 Section 230.498 Commodity and Securities Exchanges... management investment companies. (a) Definitions. For purposes of this section: (1) Class means a class of... reliance on an exemptive rule adopted by the Commission. (3) Fund means an open-end management investment...

Optimizing Open-Ended Crowdsourcing: The Next Frontier in Crowdsourced Data Management

Science.gov (United States)

Parameswaran, Aditya; Sarma, Akash Das; Venkataraman, Vipul

2017-01-01

Crowdsourcing is the primary means to generate training data at scale, and when combined with sophisticated machine learning algorithms, crowdsourcing is an enabler for a variety of emergent automated applications impacting all spheres of our lives. This paper surveys the emerging field of formally reasoning about and optimizing open-ended crowdsourcing, a popular and crucially important, but severely understudied class of crowdsourcing—the next frontier in crowdsourced data management. The underlying challenges include distilling the right answer when none of the workers agree with each other, teasing apart the various perspectives adopted by workers when answering tasks, and effectively selecting between the many open-ended operators appropriate for a problem. We describe the approaches that we’ve found to be effective for open-ended crowdsourcing, drawing from our experiences in this space. PMID:28951893

Open-ended fusion devices and reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kawabe, T.; Nariai, H.

1983-01-01

Conceptual design studies on fusion reactors based upon open-ended confinement schemes, such as the tandem mirror and rf plugged cusp, have been carried out in Japan. These studies may be classified into two categories: near-term devices (Fusion Engineering Test Facility), and long-term fusion power recators. In the first category, a two-component cusp neutron source was proposed. In the second category, the GAMMA-R, a tandem-mirror power reactor, and the RFC-R, an axisymetric mirror and cusp, reactor studies are being conducted at the University of Tsukuba and the Institute of Plasma Physics. Mirror Fusion Engineering Facility parameters and a schematic are shown. The GAMMA-R central-cell design schematic is also shown

Investigating Students' Success in Solving and Attitudes towards Context-Rich Open-Ended Problems in Chemistry

Science.gov (United States)

Overton, Tina L.; Potter, Nicholas M.

2011-01-01

Much research has been carried out on how students solve algorithmic and structured problems in chemistry. This study is concerned with how students solve open-ended, ill-defined problems in chemistry. Over 200 undergraduate chemistry students solved a number of open-ended problem in groups and individually. The three cognitive variables of…

17 CFR 239.15 - Form N-1 for open-end management investment companies registered on Form N-8A.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... management investment companies registered on Form N-8A. 239.15 Section 239.15 Commodity and Securities... Registration Statements § 239.15 Form N-1 for open-end management investment companies registered on Form N-8A...-end management investment companies that are separate accounts of insurance companies as defined by...

Modulation of hand aperture during reaching in persons with incomplete cervical spinal cord injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Stahl, Victoria A; Hayes, Heather B; Buetefisch, Cathrin M; Wolf, Steven L; Trumbower, Randy D

2015-03-01

The intact neuromotor system prepares for object grasp by first opening the hand to an aperture that is scaled according to object size and then closing the hand around the object. After cervical spinal cord injury (SCI), hand function is significantly impaired, but the degree to which object-specific hand aperture scaling is affected remains unknown. Here, we hypothesized that persons with incomplete cervical SCI have a reduced maximum hand opening capacity but exhibit novel neuromuscular coordination strategies that permit object-specific hand aperture scaling during reaching. To test this hypothesis, we measured hand kinematics and surface electromyography from seven muscles of the hand and wrist during attempts at maximum hand opening as well as reaching for four balls of different diameters. Our results showed that persons with SCI exhibited significantly reduced maximum hand aperture compared to able-bodied (AB) controls. However, persons with SCI preserved the ability to scale peak hand aperture with ball size during reaching. Persons with SCI also used distinct muscle coordination patterns that included increased co-activity of flexors and extensors at the wrist and hand compared to AB controls. These results suggest that motor planning for aperture modulation is preserved even though execution is limited by constraints on hand opening capacity and altered muscle co-activity. Thus, persons with incomplete cervical SCI may benefit from rehabilitation aimed at increasing hand opening capacity and reducing flexor-extensor co-activity at the wrist and hand.

Metacognition Difficulty of Students with Visual-Spatial Intelligence during Solving Open-Ended Problem

Science.gov (United States)

Rimbatmojo, S.; Kusmayadi, T. A.; Riyadi, R.

2017-09-01

This study aims to find out students metacognition difficulty during solving open-ended problem in mathematics. It focuses on analysing the metacognition difficulty of students with visual-spatial intelligence in solving open-ended problem. A qualitative research with case study strategy is used in this study. Data in the form of visual-spatial intelligence test result and recorded interview during solving open-ended problems were analysed qualitatively. The results show that: (1) students with high visual-spatial intelligence have no difficulty on each metacognition aspects, (2) students with medium visual-spatial intelligence have difficulty on knowledge aspect on strategy and cognitive tasks, (3) students with low visual-spatial intelligence have difficulty on three metacognition aspects, namely knowledge on strategy, cognitive tasks and self-knowledge. Even though, several researches about metacognition process and metacognition literature recommended the steps to know the characteristics. It is still important to discuss that the difficulties of metacognitive is happened because of several factors, one of which on the characteristics of student’ visual-spatial intelligence. Therefore, it is really important for mathematics educators to consider and pay more attention toward students’ visual-spatial intelligence and metacognition difficulty in designing better mathematics learning.

New frontiers in the rubber hand experiment: when a robotic hand becomes one's own.

Science.gov (United States)

Caspar, Emilie A; De Beir, Albert; Magalhaes De Saldanha Da Gama, Pedro A; Yernaux, Florence; Cleeremans, Axel; Vanderborght, Bram

2015-09-01

The rubber hand illusion is an experimental paradigm in which participants consider a fake hand to be part of their body. This paradigm has been used in many domains of psychology (i.e., research on pain, body ownership, agency) and is of clinical importance. The classic rubber hand paradigm nevertheless suffers from limitations, such as the absence of active motion or the reliance on approximate measurements, which makes strict experimental conditions difficult to obtain. Here, we report on the development of a novel technology-a robotic, user- and computer-controllable hand-that addresses many of the limitations associated with the classic rubber hand paradigm. Because participants can actively control the robotic hand, the device affords higher realism and authenticity. Our robotic hand has a comparatively low cost and opens up novel and innovative methods. In order to validate the robotic hand, we have carried out three experiments. The first two studies were based on previous research using the rubber hand, while the third was specific to the robotic hand. We measured both sense of agency and ownership. Overall, results show that participants experienced a "robotic hand illusion" in the baseline conditions. Furthermore, we also replicated previous results about agency and ownership.

Translating Answers to Open-Ended Survey Questions in Cross-Cultural Research: A Case Study on the Interplay between Translation, Coding, and Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Behr, Dorothée

2015-01-01

Open-ended probing questions in cross-cultural surveys help uncover equivalence problems in cross-cultural survey research. For languages that a project team does not understand, probe answers need to be translated into a common project language. This article presents a case study on translating open-ended, that is, narrative answers. It describes…

A study of open strings ending on giant gravitons, spin chains and integrability

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berenstein, David; Correa, Diego H.; Vazquez, Samuel E.

2006-01-01

We systematically study the spectrum of open strings attached to half BPS giant gravitons in the N = 4 SYM AdS/CFT setup. We find that some null trajectories along the giant graviton are actually null geodesics of AdS 5 x S 5 , so that we can study the problem in a plane wave limit setup. We also find the description of these states at weak 't Hooft coupling in the dual CFT. We show how the dual description is given by an open spin chain with variable number of sites. We analyze this system in detail and find numerical evidence for integrability. We also discover an interesting instability of long open strings in Ramond-Ramond backgrounds that is characterized by having a continuum spectrum of the string, which is separated from the ground state by a gap. This instability arises from accelerating the D-brane on which the strings end via the Ramond-Ramond field. From the integrable spin chain point of view, this instability prevents us from formulating the integrable structure in terms of a Bethe Ansatz construction

Development of a Framework to Characterise the Openness of Mathematical Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Yeo, Joseph B. W.

2017-01-01

Educators usually mean different constructs when they speak of open tasks: some may refer to pure-mathematics investigative tasks while others may have authentic real-life tasks in mind; some may think of the answer being open while others may refer to an open method. On the other hand, some educators use different terms, e.g. open and open-ended,…

"Multiculturalism" - a dead end in conceptualizing difference, or an open-ended approach to facilitating democratic experiences in the foreign language classroom?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ulrika Tornberg

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The focus of this text is on the multicultural condition, related to the foreignlanguage classroom as a possible arena for democratic experiences. However,due to the increasing ambiguity, to say the least, of the conceptions of “culture”and “multiculturalism” today, I will argue that, depending on how “multicul-turalism” is conceived, this focus may indeed either lead to a cultural andcommunicative closure, or open up the possibility of multi-vocal dialogue andcommunication. If, on the one hand, “multiculturalism” is understood asdifference, mainly constituted by a variety of categorized cultural groupings,you may end up essentializing culture to something that people “have”, andthat is imposed on them collectively from an outside position. If, on the otherhand, cultural differences are seen as constructed within human practices ofongoing narratives and negotiations between individuals and groups – acrossand beyond all kinds of cultural borders – then the hybrid, pluralistic condi-tion of a society, or even of a foreign language classroom, may offer at least anopportunity for cultural identities to co-construct a social space, where nor-mative conflicts and different viewpoints could be dealt with through multi-vocal deliberative communication.

KEEFEKTIFAN PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED DAN PROBLEM SOLVING PADA PEMBELAJARAN BANGUN RUANG SISI DATAR DI SMP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nuning Melianingsih

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan keefektifan dan perbandingan keefektifan dari pendekatan open-ended dan problem solving pada pembelajaran bangun ruang sisi datar ditinjau dari pencapaian kemampuan penalaran, pemecahan masalah, dan komunikasi matematis. Penelitian ini adalah quasi experiment dengan desain pretest-posttest nonequivalent group design. Populasi penelitian mencakup seluruh siswa kelas VIII SMP Negeri 1 Pandak, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Selanjutnya dengan memilih secara acak dari keseluruhan kelas tersebut, terpilih kelas VIII F dan VIII G sebagai sampel penelitian. Untuk menguji keefektifan masing-masing pendekatan pembelajaran digunakan uji one sample t-test. Untuk menguji bahwa pendekatan open-ended lebih efektif daripada pendekatan problem solving, data dianalisis menggunakan MANOVA yang dilanjutkan dengan uji t-Bonferroni. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kedua pendekatan pembelajaran efektif ditinjau dari masing-masing aspek, dan pendekatan open-ended lebih efektif daripada pendekatan problem solving pada pembelajaran bangun ruang sisi datar ditinjau dari pencapaian kemampuan penalaran, pemecahan masalah, dan komunikasi matematis di SMP. Kata Kunci: pendekatan open-ended, pendekatan problem solving, kemampuan penalaran, kemampuan pemecahan masalah, kemampuan komunikasi matematis   THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OPEN-ENDED AND PROBLEM SOLVING APPROACH IN MATTER OF FLAT SIDE CONSTRUCT IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Abstract The aims of this research are to decide the effectiveness and the comparison of the effectiveness of open-ended and problem solving approach toward matter of flat side construct lesson viewed from achivement of reasoning ability, problem solving and mathematics communication. This study was a quasi experimental study using the pretest-posttest nonequivalent group design. The research population covered the entire VIII class students’ of SMP Negeri 1 Pandak, Bantul, Yogyakarta. From the population, classes of VIII F and

Stimulating Mathematical Reasoning with Simple Open-Ended Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

West, John

2018-01-01

The importance of mathematical reasoning is unquestioned and providing opportunities for students to become involved in mathematical reasoning is paramount. The open-ended tasks presented incorporate mathematical content explored through the contexts of problem solving and reasoning. This article presents a number of simple tasks that may be…

Development of a GUI Based Front End for Open Source CFD Program, OpenFOAM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Han, Samhee; Lee, Youngjin; Kim, Hyongchol; Park, Sunbyung; Kim, Hyunjik

2013-01-01

OpenFOAM is sorely lacking in user friendliness as it runs in console mode under Li nux. Run F OAM was developed to greatly simplify the task of running an OpenFOAM calculation under Windows OS. Run F OAM was written using Delphi object pascal language, and GLScene package was used for the 3D graphics. Verification of Run F OAM was carried out by performing some OpenFOAM CFD calculations provided in OpenFOAM package, and these showed that the use of Run F OAM is simple whilst providing sufficient allowances in user modifications. Run F oam, a GUI based front end program to simplify running Open Foam CFD cases, has been developed. By incorporating numerous GUI in the program, Run F oam has demonstrated that running an Open Foam case can be easily accomplished. There is a potential for further development as the Open Foam has the great advantage of being free to develop and to use. There is also a potential to couple or interface the Open Foam with the systems analysis code such as Relap5

Two Open-Ended, Experiential Learning Cases in Accounting

Science.gov (United States)

Fuglister, Jayne; Stegmoyer, Matthew; Castrigano, Renee

2010-01-01

The rapidly changing environment in international business provides an excellent opportunity for instructors to design timely, adaptable, experiential learning, and open-ended cases. This paper presents and discusses how to prepare and use two such cases in the areas of bank accounting and international accounting. The cases can be offered and…

Optimized Integrated Harmonic Filter Inductor for Dual-Converter-Fed Open-End Transformer Topology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gohil, Ghanshyamsinh Vijaysinh; Bede, Lorand; Teodorescu, Remus

2017-01-01

Many high power converter systems are often connected to the medium voltage network using a step-up transformer. In such systems, the converter-side windings of the transformer can be configured as an open-end and multi-level voltage waveforms can be achieved by feeding these open-end windings from...

Albert-Lembert versus hybrid-layered suture in hand sewn end-to-end cervical esophagogastric anastomosis after esophageal squamous cell carcinoma resection.

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Fan; Sun, Li; Xu, Guanghui; Hong, Liu; Yang, Jianjun; Cai, Lei; Li, Guocai; Guo, Man; Lian, Xiao; Zhang, Hongwei

2015-11-01

Hand sewn cervical esophagogastric anastomosis (CEGA) is regarded as preferred technique by surgeons after esophagectomy. However, considering the anastomotic leakage and stricture, the optimal technique for performing this anastomosis is still under debate. Between November 2010 and September 2012, 230 patients who underwent esophagectomy with hand sewn end-to-end (ETE) CEGA for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) were analyzed retrospectively, including 111 patients underwent Albert-Lembert suture anastomosis and 119 patients underwent hybrid-layered suture anastomosis. Anastomosis construction time was recorded during operation. Anastomotic leakage was recorded through upper gastrointestinal water-soluble contrast examination. Anastomotic stricture was recorded during follow up. The hybrid-layered suture was faster than Albert-Lembert suture (29.40±1.24 min vs. 33.83±1.41 min, P=0.02). The overall anastomotic leak rate was 7.82%, the leak rate in hybrid-layered suture group was significantly lower than that in Albert-Lembert suture group (3.36% vs. 12.61%, P=0.01). The overall anastomotic stricture rate was 9.13%, the stricture rate in hybrid-layered suture group was significantly lower than that in Albert-Lembert suture group (5.04% vs. 13.51%, P=0.04). Hand sewn ETE CEGA with hybrid-layered suture is associated with lower anastomotic leakage and stricture rate compared to hand sewn ETE CEGA with Albert-Lembert suture.

17 CFR 270.12b-1 - Distribution of shares by registered open-end management investment company.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... registered open-end management investment company. 270.12b-1 Section 270.12b-1 Commodity and Securities... 1940 § 270.12b-1 Distribution of shares by registered open-end management investment company. (a)(1... the printing and mailing of sales literature; (b) A registered, open-end management investment company...

The Effect of an Open-Ended Design Experience on Student Achievement in an Engineering Laboratory Course

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew Cullin

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This study explores the effect of incorporating an Open-Ended Design Experience (OEDE into an undergraduate materials science laboratory taken by third-year mechanical engineering students. The focus of the OEDE was carbon fiber reinforced plastics and sandwich structures. The results indicate that the incorporation of OEDE’s in laboratory courses produces significant benefits in terms of student engagement, participation, and perception of competence. In addition, the OEDE was found to enhance students’ ability to apply related concepts as compared to non-OEDE lab activities. The authors conclude that the incorporation of OEDE’s can increase the effectiveness of engineering laboratory courses.

Should essays and other "open-ended"-type questions retain a place in written summative assessment in clinical medicine?

Science.gov (United States)

Hift, Richard J

2014-11-28

Written assessments fall into two classes: constructed-response or open-ended questions, such as the essay and a number of variants of the short-answer question, and selected-response or closed-ended questions; typically in the form of multiple-choice. It is widely believed that constructed response written questions test higher order cognitive processes in a manner that multiple-choice questions cannot, and consequently have higher validity. An extensive review of the literature suggests that in summative assessment neither premise is evidence-based. Well-structured open-ended and multiple-choice questions appear equivalent in their ability to assess higher cognitive functions, and performance in multiple-choice assessments may correlate more highly than the open-ended format with competence demonstrated in clinical practice following graduation. Studies of construct validity suggest that both formats measure essentially the same dimension, at least in mathematics, the physical sciences, biology and medicine. The persistence of the open-ended format in summative assessment may be due to the intuitive appeal of the belief that synthesising an answer to an open-ended question must be both more cognitively taxing and similar to actual experience than is selecting a correct response. I suggest that cognitive-constructivist learning theory would predict that a well-constructed context-rich multiple-choice item represents a complex problem-solving exercise which activates a sequence of cognitive processes which closely parallel those required in clinical practice, hence explaining the high validity of the multiple-choice format. The evidence does not support the proposition that the open-ended assessment format is superior to the multiple-choice format, at least in exit-level summative assessment, in terms of either its ability to test higher-order cognitive functioning or its validity. This is explicable using a theory of mental models, which might predict that the

Intrinsic Hand Muscle Activation for Grasp and Horizontal Transport

OpenAIRE

Winges, Sara A.; Kundu, Bornali; Soechting, John F.; Flanders, Martha

2007-01-01

During object manipulation, the hand and arm muscles produce internal forces on the object (grasping forces) and forces that result in external translation or rotation of the object in space (transport forces). The present study tested whether the intrinsic hand muscles are actively involved in transport as well as grasping. Intrinsic hand muscle activity increased with increasing demands for grasp stability, but also showed the timing and directional tuning patterns appropriate for actively ...

Ambiguity Towards Multiple Historical Performance Information Signals: Evidence From Indonesian Open-Ended Mutual Fund Investors

OpenAIRE

Haris Pratama Loeis; Ruslan Prijadi

2015-01-01

This study focuses on the behavior of open-ended mutual fund investors when encountered with multiple information signals of mutual fund’s historical performance. The behavior of investors can be reflected on their decision to subscribe or redeem their funds from mutual funds. Moreover, we observe the presence of ambiguity within investors due to multiple information signals, and also their reaction towards it. Our finding shows that open-ended mutual fund investors do not only have sen...

Large Scale Metric Learning for Distance-Based Image Classification on Open Ended Data Sets

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mensink, T.; Verbeek, J.; Perronnin, F.; Csurka, G.; Farinella, G.M.; Battiato, S.; Cipolla, R,

2013-01-01

Many real-life large-scale datasets are open-ended and dynamic: new images are continuously added to existing classes, new classes appear over time, and the semantics of existing classes might evolve too. Therefore, we study large-scale image classification methods that can incorporate new classes

Development of a GUI Based Front End for Open Source CFD Program, OpenFOAM

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Han, Samhee; Lee, Youngjin; Kim, Hyongchol; Park, Sunbyung; Kim, Hyunjik [Nuclear Safety Evaluation, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2013-05-15

OpenFOAM is sorely lacking in user friendliness as it runs in console mode under Li nux. Run{sub F}OAM was developed to greatly simplify the task of running an OpenFOAM calculation under Windows OS. Run{sub F}OAM was written using Delphi object pascal language, and GLScene package was used for the 3D graphics. Verification of Run{sub F}OAM was carried out by performing some OpenFOAM CFD calculations provided in OpenFOAM package, and these showed that the use of Run{sub F}OAM is simple whilst providing sufficient allowances in user modifications. Run{sub F}oam, a GUI based front end program to simplify running Open Foam CFD cases, has been developed. By incorporating numerous GUI in the program, Run{sub F}oam has demonstrated that running an Open Foam case can be easily accomplished. There is a potential for further development as the Open Foam has the great advantage of being free to develop and to use. There is also a potential to couple or interface the Open Foam with the systems analysis code such as Relap5.

Vortex formation at the open end of an acoustic waveguide

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez Del Rio, Leon; Rendon, Pablo L.; Malaga, Carlos; Zenit, Roberto

2017-11-01

For high enough levels of acoustic pressure inside a cylindrical tube, a nonlinear mechanism is responsible for the formation of annular vortices at the open end of the tube, which results in energy loss. Higher sound pressure levels in the tube lead, in turn, to larger values of the acoustic velocity at the exit, and thus to higher Reynolds numbers. It has been observed [Buick et al., 2011] that, provided the magnitude of the acoustic velocity is large enough, two nonlinear regimes are possible: in the first regime, the vorticity appears only in the immediate vicinity of the tube; for higher velocities, vortex rings are formed at the open end of the tube and are advected outwards. We use a Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) to simulate the velocity and the pressure fields at the exit of the tube in 3D, with Reynolds numbers based on the acoustic boundary layer thickness 18 >Rδ > 1.8 . We also conduct experiments with phase-locked particle image velocimetry (PL-PIV) 2D within a range of 25.5 >Rδ > 10.2 . Experimental and numerical results are compared for a range of Womersley numbers. The effects of varying both the tube geometry and the end shape are addressed.

OpenCyto: an open source infrastructure for scalable, robust, reproducible, and automated, end-to-end flow cytometry data analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Greg Finak

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Flow cytometry is used increasingly in clinical research for cancer, immunology and vaccines. Technological advances in cytometry instrumentation are increasing the size and dimensionality of data sets, posing a challenge for traditional data management and analysis. Automated analysis methods, despite a general consensus of their importance to the future of the field, have been slow to gain widespread adoption. Here we present OpenCyto, a new BioConductor infrastructure and data analysis framework designed to lower the barrier of entry to automated flow data analysis algorithms by addressing key areas that we believe have held back wider adoption of automated approaches. OpenCyto supports end-to-end data analysis that is robust and reproducible while generating results that are easy to interpret. We have improved the existing, widely used core BioConductor flow cytometry infrastructure by allowing analysis to scale in a memory efficient manner to the large flow data sets that arise in clinical trials, and integrating domain-specific knowledge as part of the pipeline through the hierarchical relationships among cell populations. Pipelines are defined through a text-based csv file, limiting the need to write data-specific code, and are data agnostic to simplify repetitive analysis for core facilities. We demonstrate how to analyze two large cytometry data sets: an intracellular cytokine staining (ICS data set from a published HIV vaccine trial focused on detecting rare, antigen-specific T-cell populations, where we identify a new subset of CD8 T-cells with a vaccine-regimen specific response that could not be identified through manual analysis, and a CyTOF T-cell phenotyping data set where a large staining panel and many cell populations are a challenge for traditional analysis. The substantial improvements to the core BioConductor flow cytometry packages give OpenCyto the potential for wide adoption. It can rapidly leverage new developments in

Educational Implication For Adopting Open-Ended Response Systems In Higher Education The Scenario Of Wa Polytechnic Ghana.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicholas A. Tetteh

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Teaching and learning is fundamentally a two-way affair the teacher transferring knowledge and the learner making meaning from the knowledge. Teaching becomes complete when the learner acquires the knowledge transferred and applies it appropriately to real life situations. However in Ghana teaching and learning has undergone a lot of alteration coupled with both negative and positive effects. In Wa Polytechnic teaching and learning has seen little or no improvement with regards to information and communication Technology ICT making it difficult for students to acquire 21st century skills and be part of the digitally connected ecosystem. Active classroom participation and engagement information sharing communication collaboration coupled with large class sizes have been a problem for teachers and students in Wa Polytechnic hence the need to conduct a study to identify productive solutions that enhance students participation and engagement in the classroom. The study investigates the role of ICT in augmenting active participation and engagement of students in the classroom via open-ended response systems. The study was conducted using Educational Design Research EDR methods. A critical analysis was done by studying the responses of the respondents which identified three forms of students classroom participation and engagement verbal classroom participation non-verbal classroom participation and after classroom teaching and learning activities. Smart phones laptop tablet iPad and regular cellular phone were the predominant devices used by students for other purpose rather than teacher-led class activities. When students were made to actively participate in the classroom using the devices as open-ended response system students engagement and their ability to contribute during lectures appreciated comparatively. It was however evident that open-ended response system was effective tool to manage large class sizes as students who were timid could

Formal Definitions of Unbounded Evolution and Innovation Reveal Universal Mechanisms for Open-Ended Evolution in Dynamical Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Alyssa; Zenil, Hector; Davies, Paul C W; Walker, Sara Imari

2017-04-20

Open-ended evolution (OEE) is relevant to a variety of biological, artificial and technological systems, but has been challenging to reproduce in silico. Most theoretical efforts focus on key aspects of open-ended evolution as it appears in biology. We recast the problem as a more general one in dynamical systems theory, providing simple criteria for open-ended evolution based on two hallmark features: unbounded evolution and innovation. We define unbounded evolution as patterns that are non-repeating within the expected Poincare recurrence time of an isolated system, and innovation as trajectories not observed in isolated systems. As a case study, we implement novel variants of cellular automata (CA) where the update rules are allowed to vary with time in three alternative ways. Each is capable of generating conditions for open-ended evolution, but vary in their ability to do so. We find that state-dependent dynamics, regarded as a hallmark of life, statistically out-performs other candidate mechanisms, and is the only mechanism to produce open-ended evolution in a scalable manner, essential to the notion of ongoing evolution. This analysis suggests a new framework for unifying mechanisms for generating OEE with features distinctive to life and its artifacts, with broad applicability to biological and artificial systems.

Financial Investments in Romania. A Comparative Analysis between Open-end Mutual Funds and Bank Deposits

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pop Izabela Luiza

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Despite the failures that investment funds have registered in Romania by the year 2000, they are a financial instrument chosen by more and more people to capitalize on their savings. Therefore, open-end investment funds have had a steady growth trend in Romania over the past 10 years; their net asset value increased by 24 times and the number of investors tripled. In this context, the purpose of our paper is to present possible factors that have caused this increase. Particularly, the empirical research focuses on studying the links that might exist between open-end investment funds, bank deposits and interest rates on bank deposits. The correlations between these variables were analysed by computing the Pearson's correlation coefficient. The results highlight a high negative relationship that exist between net asset value of investment funds and bank interest. Nevertheless, it has been found that bank deposits are related neither to the interest rate nor to the open-end investment funds.

Hands-on physics displays for undergraduates

Science.gov (United States)

Akerlof, Carl W.

2014-07-01

Initiated by Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the Exploratorium in San Francisco has been the model for hands-on science museums throughout the world. The key idea has been to bring people with all levels of scientific background in contact with interesting and attractive exhibits that require the active participation of the visitor. Unfortunately, many science museums are now forced to cater primarily to very young audiences, often 8 years old or less, with predictable constraints on the intellectual depth of their exhibits. To counter this trend, the author has constructed several hands-on displays for the University of Michigan Physics Department that demonstrate: (1) magnetic levitation of pyrolytic graphite, (2) the varied magnetic induction effects in aluminum, copper and air, (3) chaotic motion of a double pendulum, (4) conservation of energy and momentum in a steel ball magnetic accelerator, (5) the diffraction pattern of red and green laser pointer beams created by CDs and DVDs, (6) a magnetic analog of the refraction of light at a dielectric boundary and (7) optical rotation of light in an aqueous fructose solution. Each of these exhibits can be constructed for something like $1000 or less and are robust enough to withstand unsupervised public use. The dynamic behavior of these exhibits will be shown in accompanying video sequences. The following story has a history that goes back quite a few years. In the late 70's, I was spending time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center accompanied by my family that included our two grade school children. Needless to say, we much enjoyed weekend excursions to all sorts of interesting sites in the Bay Area, especially the Exploratorium, an unusual science museum created by Frank Oppenheimer that opened in 1969. The notion that exhibits would be designed specifically for "hands-on" interactions was at that time quite revolutionary. This idea captivated a number of people everywhere including a friend in Ann Arbor, Cynthia

Design and characterization of the OpenWrist: A robotic wrist exoskeleton for coordinated hand-wrist rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Pezent, Evan; Rose, Chad G; Deshpande, Ashish D; O'Malley, Marcia K

2017-07-01

Robotic devices have been clinically verified for use in long duration and high intensity rehabilitation needed for motor recovery after neurological injury. Targeted and coordinated hand and wrist therapy, often overlooked in rehabilitation robotics, is required to regain the ability to perform activities of daily living. To this end, a new coupled hand-wrist exoskeleton has been designed. This paper details the design of the wrist module and several human-related considerations made to maximize its potential as a coordinated hand-wrist device. The serial wrist mechanism has been engineered to facilitate donning and doffing for impaired subjects and to insure compatibility with the hand module in virtual and assisted grasping tasks. Several other practical requirements have also been addressed, including device ergonomics, clinician-friendliness, and ambidextrous reconfigurability. The wrist module's capabilities as a rehabilitation device are quantified experimentally in terms of functional workspace and dynamic properties. Specifically, the device possesses favorable performance in terms of range of motion, torque output, friction, and closed-loop position bandwidth when compared with existing devices. The presented wrist module's performance and operational considerations support its use in a wide range of future clinical investigations.

Communicating Quantitative Literacy: An Examination of Open-Ended Assessment Items in TIMSS, NALS, IALS, and PISA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karl W. Kosko

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Quantitative Literacy (QL has been described as the skill set an individual uses when interacting with the world in a quantitative manner. A necessary component of this interaction is communication. To this end, assessments of QL have included open-ended items as a means of including communicative aspects of QL. The present study sought to examine whether such open-ended items typically measured aspects of quantitative communication, as compared to mathematical communication, or mathematical skills. We focused on public-released items and rubrics from four of the most widely referenced assessments: the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS-95: the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS; now the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, NAAL in 1985 and 1992, the International Adult Literacy Skills (IALS beginning in 1994; and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA beginning in 2000. We found that open-ended item rubrics in these QL assessments showed a strong tendency to assess answer-only responses. Therefore, while some open-ended items may have required certain levels of quantitative reasoning to find a solution, it is the solution rather than the reasoning that was often assessed.

Retail market opening plan : key activities and milestones to market opening on May 1, 2002

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-01-01

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) published its Retail Market Readiness Plan in January 2000 with particular focus on what is needed by distributors to become ready for self certification on December 14, 2001. The market opening date has now been set for May 1, 2002 so the framework has been updated to focus on what is needed to open the electricity market to retail competition. This report describes the activities required for the opening of the retail electricity market with reference to the activities that the participants, distributors and retailers need to complete to properly interact at market opening. The measures that other organizations such as EBT hubs should take were also identified for cases where the measures involve cooperation and interaction with distributors and retailers to ensure a smooth transition to competition within the industry. While schedules of individual organizations will vary, market participants should try to align with the overall framework at key milestones. The mandatory requirements associated with milestones were included in Appendix B. These included requirements for: market opening baseline; market readiness activities; participant systems and organizational preparations; loading of new rates into systems; cutover to new systems by market participants; data scrubbing; multiple contract resolution; pre-market processing; distributor-retailer service agreement; retail prudential posting; inter-participant testing; contingency arrangements; stability period; and, market opening. Appendix A includes the Market Opening Gantt Chart. 1 tab

Teachers' Perspectives on Online Virtual Labs vs. Hands-On Labs in High School Science

Science.gov (United States)

Bohr, Teresa M.

This study of online science teachers' opinions addressed the use of virtual labs in online courses. A growing number of schools use virtual labs that must meet mandated laboratory standards to ensure they provide learning experiences comparable to hands-on labs, which are an integral part of science curricula. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine teachers' perceptions of the quality and effectiveness of high school virtual labs. The theoretical foundation was constructivism, as labs provide student-centered activities for problem solving, inquiry, and exploration of phenomena. The research questions focused on experienced teachers' perceptions of the quality of virtual vs. hands-on labs. Data were collected through survey questions derived from the lab objectives of The Next Generation Science Standards . Eighteen teachers rated the degree of importance of each objective and also rated how they felt virtual labs met these objectives; these ratings were reported using descriptive statistics. Responses to open-ended questions were few and served to illustrate the numerical results. Many teachers stated that virtual labs are valuable supplements but could not completely replace hands-on experiences. Studies on the quality and effectiveness of high school virtual labs are limited despite widespread use. Comprehensive studies will ensure that online students have equal access to quality labs. School districts need to define lab requirements, and colleges need to specify the lab experience they require. This study has potential to inspire positive social change by assisting science educators, including those in the local school district, in evaluating and selecting courseware designed to promote higher order thinking skills, real-world problem solving, and development of strong inquiry skills, thereby improving science instruction for all high school students.

17 CFR 274.11A - Form N-1A, registration statement of open-end management investment companies.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... statement of open-end management investment companies. 274.11A Section 274.11A Commodity and Securities...(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 by open-end management investment companies other than... registration under the Securities Act of 1933 of the securities of all open-end management investment companies...

Ultralow field emission from thinned, open-ended, and defected carbon nanotubes by using microwave hydrogen plasma processing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deng, Jian-Hua, E-mail: jhdeng1983@163.com [College of Physics and Materials Science, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387 (China); Cheng, Lin; Wang, Fan-Jie; Yu, Bin; Li, Guo-Zheng; Li, De-Jun [College of Physics and Materials Science, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387 (China); Cheng, Guo-An [Key Laboratory of Beam Technology and Material Modification of Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875 (China)

2015-01-01

Graphical abstract: Thinned, open-ended, and defected carbon nanotubes were prepared by using hydrogen plasma processing. The processed carbon nanotubes have far better field emission performance than that of the pristine ones. - Highlights: • CVD prepared CNT arrays were processed by microwave hydrogen plasma. • Thinned, open-ended, and defected CNTs were obtained. • Processed CNTs have far better field emission performance than the pristine ones. • Processed CNTs have applicable emission stability after being perfectly aged. - Abstract: Ultralow field emission is achieved from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by using microwave hydrogen plasma processing. After the processing, typical capped CNT tips are removed, with thinned, open-ended, and defected CNTs left. Structural analyses indicate that the processed CNTs have more SP{sup 3}-hybridized defects as compared to the pristine ones. The morphology of CNTs can be readily controlled by adjusting microwave powers, which change the shape of CNTs by means of hydrogen plasma etching. Processed CNTs with optimal morphology are found to have an ultralow turn-on field of 0.566 V/μm and threshold field of 0.896 V/μm, much better than 0.948 and 1.559 V/μm of the as-grown CNTs, respectively. This improved FE performance is ascribed to the structural changes of CNTs after the processing. The thinned and open-ended shape of CNTs can facilitate electron tunneling through barriers and additionally, the increased defects at tube walls can serve as new active emission sites. Furthermore, our plasma processed CNTs exhibit excellent field emission stability at a large emission current density of 10.36 mA/cm{sup 2} after being perfectly aged, showing promising prospects in applications as high-performance vacuum electron sources.

Machine vision method for online surface inspection of easy open can ends

Science.gov (United States)

Mariño, Perfecto; Pastoriza, Vicente; Santamaría, Miguel

2006-10-01

Easy open can end manufacturing process in the food canning sector currently makes use of a manual, non-destructive testing procedure to guarantee can end repair coating quality. This surface inspection is based on a visual inspection made by human inspectors. Due to the high production rate (100 to 500 ends per minute) only a small part of each lot is verified (statistical sampling), then an automatic, online, inspection system, based on machine vision, has been developed to improve this quality control. The inspection system uses a fuzzy model to make the acceptance/rejection decision for each can end from the information obtained by the vision sensor. In this work, the inspection method is presented. This surface inspection system checks the total production, classifies the ends in agreement with an expert human inspector, supplies interpretability to the operators in order to find out the failure causes and reduce mean time to repair during failures, and allows to modify the minimum can end repair coating quality.

78 FR 79298 - Securities Exempted; Distribution of Shares by Registered Open-End Management Investment Company...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-30

...] Securities Exempted; Distribution of Shares by Registered Open- End Management Investment Company...) 551-6792, Investment Company Rulemaking Office, Division of Investment Management, U.S. Securities and... Distribution of shares by registered open-end management investment company. * * * * * (g) If a plan covers...

Comparison of Open and Closed Hand Fractures and the Effect of Urgent Operative Intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Minhas, Shobhit V; Catalano, Louis W

2018-06-13

To establish and compare the incidence of 30-day postoperative infection in surgically managed open and closed metacarpal and phalangeal fractures, and to determine whether open fractures treated urgently had a lower incidence of postoperative infection. We conducted a retrospective analysis of patient demographics, comorbidities, and 30-day infection rates of patients undergoing operative fixation of metacarpal, proximal, or middle phalanx fractures from 2008 to 2015 using the American College of Surgeons' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. A total of 3,506 patients were identified and patient variables and infection incidence were compared between open and closed injuries, as well as open injuries managed within 1 day of admission and those treated on an elective basis or treated more than 1 day after admission. Bivariate analysis was used to determine independent risk factors for postoperative infection. Although 34.2% of open hand fractures were taken urgently to the operating room, the diagnosis of open fractures along with nonurgent surgical treatment for open fractures was associated with a low incidence of postoperative infection. In addition, smoking was a risk factor for postoperative infection although anatomic location (phalanx vs metacarpal) was not. Patients undergoing surgery for metacarpal or proximal/middle phalangeal fractures are not at greater risk for infection based on the diagnosis of open fracture alone. In addition, patients with open fractures who are taken to the operating room more than 1 day from presentation did not have a higher incidence of infection. Smoking is associated with increased 30-day infection rates after surgery, and surgeons should identify these patients for preoperative risk stratification, counseling, and postoperative wound monitoring. Prognostic II. Copyright © 2018 American Society for Surgery of the Hand. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Surface EMG in advanced hand prosthetics.

Science.gov (United States)

Castellini, Claudio; van der Smagt, Patrick

2009-01-01

One of the major problems when dealing with highly dexterous, active hand prostheses is their control by the patient wearing them. With the advances in mechatronics, building prosthetic hands with multiple active degrees of freedom is realisable, but actively controlling the position and especially the exerted force of each finger cannot yet be done naturally. This paper deals with advanced robotic hand control via surface electromyography. Building upon recent results, we show that machine learning, together with a simple downsampling algorithm, can be effectively used to control on-line, in real time, finger position as well as finger force of a highly dexterous robotic hand. The system determines the type of grasp a human subject is willing to use, and the required amount of force involved, with a high degree of accuracy. This represents a remarkable improvement with respect to the state-of-the-art of feed-forward control of dexterous mechanical hands, and opens up a scenario in which amputees will be able to control hand prostheses in a much finer way than it has so far been possible.

The Effects of Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Glove Pressure on Hand Strength

Science.gov (United States)

Mesloh, Miranda; England, Scott; Benson, Elizabeth; Thompson, Shelby; Rajulu, Sudhakar

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to characterize hand strength, while wearing a Phase VI Extravehicular Activity (EVA) glove in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) suit. Three types of data were collected: hand grip, lateral pinch, and pulp-2 pinch, wider three different conditions: bare-handed, gloved with no Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment (TMG), and glove with TMG. In addition, during the gloved conditions, subjects were tested when unpressurized and pressurized (43 psi). As a percentage of bare-hand strength, the TMG condition showed reduction in grip strength to 55% unpressurized and 46% pressurized. Without the TMG, grip strength increased to 66% unpressurized and 58% pressurized of bare-hand strength. For lateral pinch strength, the reduction in strength was the same for both pressure conditions and with and without the TMG, about 8.5% of bare-hand Pulp-2 pinch strength with no TMG showed an increase to 122% unpressurized and 115% pressurized of bare-hand strength. While wearing the TMG, pulp-2 pinch strength was 115% of bare-hand strength for both pressure conditions.

Hand aperture patterns in prehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Bongers, Raoul M; Zaal, Frank T J M; Jeannerod, Marc

2012-06-01

Although variations in the standard prehensile pattern can be found in the literature, these alternative patterns have never been studied systematically. This was the goal of the current paper. Ten participants picked up objects with a pincer grip. Objects (3, 5, or 7cm in diameter) were placed at 30, 60, 90, or 120cm from the hands' starting location. Usually the hand was opened gradually to a maximum immediately followed by hand closing, called the standard hand opening pattern. In the alternative opening patterns the hand opening was bumpy, or the hand aperture stayed at a plateau before closing started. Two participants in particular delayed the start of grasping with respect to start of reaching, with the delay time increasing with object distance. For larger object distances and smaller object sizes, the bumpy and plateau hand opening patterns were used more often. We tentatively concluded that the alternative hand opening patterns extended the hand opening phase, to arrive at the appropriate hand aperture at the appropriate time to close the hand for grasping the object. Variations in hand opening patterns deserve attention because this might lead to new insights into the coordination of reaching and grasping. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Radiation pattern of open ended waveguide in air core surrounded by annular plasma column

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, D.R.; Verma, J.S.

1977-01-01

Radiation pattern of open ended waveguide excited in circular symmetric mode (TM 01 ) in an air core having central conductor and surrounded by an annular plasma column is studied. The field distribution at the open end of the waveguide is considered to be equivalent to the vector sum of magnetic current rings of various radii, ranging from the outer radius of the inner conductor to the inner radius of the outer conductor of the waveguide at the open end. The radiation field is obtained as a vector sum of field components due to individual rings of current. Such a configuration gives rise to multiple narrow radiation beams away from the critical angle. (author)

Microwave Interferometry Based On Open-ended Coaxial Technique for High Sensitivity Liquid Sensing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Bakli

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a modified open-ended coaxial technique for microwave dielectric characterization in liquid media. A calibration model is developed to relate the measured transmission coefficient to the local properties of the sample under test. As a demonstration, the permittivity of different sodium chloride solutions is experimentally determined. Accuracies of 0.17% and 0.19% are obtained respectively for the real and imaginary parts of dielectric permittivity at 5.9 GHz.

An EMG-driven exoskeleton hand robotic training device on chronic stroke subjects: task training system for stroke rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, N S K; Tong, K Y; Hu, X L; Fung, K L; Wei, X J; Rong, W; Susanto, E A

2011-01-01

An exoskeleton hand robotic training device is specially designed for persons after stroke to provide training on their impaired hand by using an exoskeleton robotic hand which is actively driven by their own muscle signals. It detects the stroke person's intention using his/her surface electromyography (EMG) signals from the hemiplegic side and assists in hand opening or hand closing functional tasks. The robotic system is made up of an embedded controller and a robotic hand module which can be adjusted to fit for different finger length. Eight chronic stroke subjects had been recruited to evaluate the effects of this device. The preliminary results showed significant improvement in hand functions (ARAT) and upper limb functions (FMA) after 20 sessions of robot-assisted hand functions task training. With the use of this light and portable robotic device, stroke patients can now practice more easily for the opening and closing of their hands at their own will, and handle functional daily living tasks at ease. A video is included together with this paper to give a demonstration of the hand robotic system on chronic stroke subjects and it will be presented in the conference. © 2011 IEEE

17 CFR 274.11 - Form N-1, registration statement of open-end management investment companies.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... statement of open-end management investment companies. 274.11 Section 274.11 Commodity and Securities Exchanges SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (CONTINUED) FORMS PRESCRIBED UNDER THE INVESTMENT COMPANY ACT...(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 by open-end management investment companies that are...

At-risk children's use of reflection and revision in hands-on experimental activities

Science.gov (United States)

Petrosino, Anthony J., Jr.

The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of incorporating opportunities for reflection and revision in hands-on science instruction which emphasized experimentation using model rockets. The participants were low achieving sixth grade summer school students (n = 23) designated as at-risk for school failure by their district. The group was asked a series of interview questions based on work by Schauble et al. (1995) relating to experimentation. The interviews took place over three distinct time points corresponding to a "hands-on only" condition, a "hands-on with reflection and revision" condition and a "hands-on with repeated reflection and revision" condition. A Friedman's Two-Way Analysis of Variance by Ranks indicate students score low at first with traditional hands-on instruction but improve significantly with opportunities to reflect and revise their experiments. In addition, a sociocultural analysis was conducted during the summer school session to assess the model rocket activity as an apprenticeship, as guided participation and as participatory appropriation using a framework established by Rogoff (1994). Finally, a survey (the Classroom Environment Survey) was administered to the students measuring five constructs consistent with a constructivist classroom: participation, autonomy, relevance, commitment to learning and disruptions to learning. Analysis indicate students in the summer school model rocket intervention experienced a greater sense of constructivist principles during the activity than a similar comparison group utilizing reform minded instruction but not including opportunities for reflection and revision cycles. This research provides important evidence that, like scientists, students in school can learn effectively from extended practice in a varied context. Importantly, the data indicate that hands-on instruction is best utilized when opportunities for reflection and revision are made explicit. Implications are discussed related

Magnetic integration of the harmonic filter inductor for dual-converter fed open-end transformer topology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gohil, Ghanshyamsinh Vijaysinh; Bede, Lorand; Teodorescu, Remus

2016-01-01

Many high power converter systems are often connected to the medium voltage network using a step-up transformer. In such systems, the converter-side windings of the transformer can be configured as an open-end and multi-level voltage waveforms can be achieved by feeding these open-end windings from...

Determining the Response Behaviors of Middle School Students for Open-Ended Questions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neslihan Tuğçe ŞİMŞEK

2017-04-01

Full Text Available When the literature for measurement and evaluation in education is reviewed, research related to student achievement are mainly outcome-oriented rather than process-oriented. Researchers pay attention to the responses that a student constructs or chooses, and ignore the cognitive processes that forces students to construct or choose that specific response. Recognizing the cognitive processes a student uses in responding to a question affects the item construction process and psychometric audit on items. Response behavior is a result of a cognitive process used to respond to a question and is accepted as an indicator of student cognitive competence. This study aims to determine the students’ response behaviors for open-ended questions. The study group consisted of 70 students from the 5th grade studying during the 2015-2016 education year spring term in the Cankaya and Mamak districts of Ankara province, Turkey. An authentic achievement test which consisted of eight open-ended questions is used as the data collection tool. Students are asked to write in detail how they construct their response in their mind in the blank space set aside after each question. Data is analyzed via grouping students’ response behaviors and expert opinions. Research findings revealed that students perform 14 different response behaviors for open-ended questions. These behaviors are themed as responses constructed directly from the text, responses constructed by interpreting the text, and responses constructed by linking real life and the text.

Use of open-ended problems as the basis for the mathematical creativity growth disclosure of student

Science.gov (United States)

Suyitno, A.; Suyitno, H.; Rochmad; Dwijanto

2018-03-01

Mathematical creativity is the essence of learning in mathematics. However, mathematical creativity had not yet grown among students. Means there was a gap between needs and reality. This gap must be bridged through by scientific studies, and there were novelty findings, namely the discovery of stages to cultivate of Mathematical Creativity. The problem formulation: How to use of open-ended problems as the basis for the mathematical creativity growth disclosure of student? The goal was to use of open issues as the basis for the mathematical creativity growth disclosure of student. Research method with a qualitative approach. After data was collected then activity in data analysis, include data reduction, data presentation, data interpretation, and conclusion/verification. The results of the research: After the learning by applying the modification of RTTW learning model, then the students were trained to do the open-ended problems and by looking at the UTS and UAS values then qualitatively the results: (1) There was a significant increase of the student's final score. (2) The category of the growth of mathematical creativity of students, the Very Good there were three students, the Good there were six students, There were 17 students, and there were six students. The validation of these results was reinforced by interviews and triangulation. (3) Stage to cultivate mathematical creativity: lecturers should need to provide inputs on student work; Apply an appropriate learning model, and train students to work on the continuing problems.

CHIS – Opening hours of UNIQA offices during end-of-year closure

CERN Multimedia

2013-01-01

The office of UNIQA at CERN (Main Building) will be closed during the end-of-year closure.   During that period, the Geneva offices of UNIQA will be open on 23, 26, 27 and 30 December as well as on 2 and 3 January. Opening hours: 8 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and 1.30 p.m. to 5 p.m. During these hours, you can also call 022 718 63 00. Mail sent to uniqa.assurances@cern.ch will be handled only during these opening hours. For urgent medical assistance, you may call +43 512 224 22, 24h/day.  Please note that this service only provides medical advice and is not in a position to inform you on your administrative situation nor on the coverage by CHIS of medical expenses. HR Department Tel.: 74125

Expressivity in Open-ended Constructive Play: Building and Playing Musical Lego Instruments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Kasper; Stougaard, Jeppe; Petersen, Marianne Graves

2016-01-01

This paper presents the findings from a case study in designing for open-ended constructive play for children. The study is based on a workshop where more that 150 children in ages 3-13 built and played their own musical instruments from Lego. The children used different sensors for playing...

Learning autonomy in two or three steps: linking open-ended development, authority, and agency to motivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Andringa, Tjeerd C; van den Bosch, Kirsten A; Vlaskamp, Carla

2013-01-01

In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through (1) an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and (2) environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a coherent core from a wide range of contributing fields. Open-ended development is a structured three-step process in which the agent first learns to master the body and then aims to make the mind into a reliable tool. Preconditioned on success in step two, step three aims to effectively co-create an optimal living environment. We argue that these steps correspond to right-left-right hemispheric dominance, where the left hemisphere specializes in control and the right hemisphere in exploration. Control (e.g., problem solving) requires a closed and stable world that must be maintained by external authorities or, in step three, by the right hemisphere acting as internal authority. The three-step progression therefore corresponds to increasing autonomy and agency. Depending on how we appraise the environment, we formulate four qualitatively different motivational states: submission, control, exploration, and consolidation. Each of these four motivational states has associated reward signals of which the last three-successful control, discovery of novelty, and establishing new relations-form an open-ended development loop that, the more it is executed, helps the agent to become progressively more agentic and more able to co-create a pleasant-to-live-in world. We conclude that for autonomy to arise, the agent must exist in a (broad) transition region between order and disorder in which both danger and opportunity (and with that open-ended development and motivation) are defined. We conclude that a research agenda for artificial cognitive system research should include open-ended development through intrinsic motivations and ascribing more prominence to right hemispheric strengths.

Learning autonomy in two or three steps: linking open-ended development, authority, and agency to motivation

Science.gov (United States)

Andringa, Tjeerd C.; van den Bosch, Kirsten A.; Vlaskamp, Carla

2013-01-01

In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through (1) an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and (2) environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a coherent core from a wide range of contributing fields. Open-ended development is a structured three-step process in which the agent first learns to master the body and then aims to make the mind into a reliable tool. Preconditioned on success in step two, step three aims to effectively co-create an optimal living environment. We argue that these steps correspond to right-left-right hemispheric dominance, where the left hemisphere specializes in control and the right hemisphere in exploration. Control (e.g., problem solving) requires a closed and stable world that must be maintained by external authorities or, in step three, by the right hemisphere acting as internal authority. The three-step progression therefore corresponds to increasing autonomy and agency. Depending on how we appraise the environment, we formulate four qualitatively different motivational states: submission, control, exploration, and consolidation. Each of these four motivational states has associated reward signals of which the last three—successful control, discovery of novelty, and establishing new relations—form an open-ended development loop that, the more it is executed, helps the agent to become progressively more agentic and more able to co-create a pleasant-to-live-in world. We conclude that for autonomy to arise, the agent must exist in a (broad) transition region between order and disorder in which both danger and opportunity (and with that open-ended development and motivation) are defined. We conclude that a research agenda for artificial cognitive system research should include open-ended development through intrinsic motivations and ascribing more prominence to right hemispheric

Of Heart & Kidneys: Hands-On Activities for Demonstrating Organ Function & Repair

Science.gov (United States)

Kao, Robert M.

2014-01-01

A major challenge in teaching organ development and disease is deconstructing a complex choreography of molecular and cellular changes over time into a linear stepwise process for students. As an entry toward learning developmental concepts, I propose two inexpensive hands-on activities to help facilitate learning of (1) how to identify defects in…

Experimental Investigation of Damage and Fracture Mechanisms Controlling the Performance of Full Aperture Easy Open Ends for Food Containers

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, D. L. P.; Nagy, G. T.; Owen, D. R. J.

2011-05-01

Can manufacturers produce hundreds of millions of cans annually, increasingly, food cans are being opened by lifting a tab on the can end that initiates a fracture, which then propagates around a circumferential score. The damage and fracture mechanisms that lead to crack initiation and propagation in the opening process, however, are not fully understood, therefore optimisation of easy open end scores is largely based on trial and error. This paper presents an experimental analysis that concentrates on the combined shear and bending forces as applied to the particular industrial method concerning full aperture easy open ends. The influence of a gradually increasing gap measured between the score and shear force location on traditional groove geometries and depths are examined for two different packaging steels. Earlier studies have shown that the complete opening cycle depends on fracture modes I, II & III as well as their combination. Experimental results for Modes I, II & III will be presented, however attention will focus on the behaviour of the initial fracture point, whereby prior investigations have shown it to be influenced primarily by mode II shearing. After initial specimen manufacture, where the score is formed by pressing a punch into a thin steel sheet the predeformed scored specimens are loaded in shear to simulate the local stress field found during the initial opening phase. Experiments have been completed using a novel Mode II experimental technique that has been designed for use in the majority of commercially available tensile test machines. Experimental results indicate that opening forces can change radically with different gap sizes and that there is considerable potential for the industrialised process of can end manufacture to be optimised through the efficient management and control of the can ends dimensional parameters.

The Solving of Problems in Chemistry: the more open-ended problems

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Norman; Yang, Mei-Jung

2002-01-01

Most problem solving in chemistry tends to be algorithmic in nature, while problems in life tend to be very open ended. This paper offers a simple classification of problems and seeks to explore the many factors which may be important in the successful solving of problems. It considers the place of procedures and algorithms. It analyses the role of long-term memory, not only in terms of what is known, but how that knowledge was acquired. It notes the great importance of the limitations of working memory space and the importance of confidence which comes from experience. Finally, various psychological factors are discussed. This paper argues that solving open-ended problems is extremely important in education and that offering learners experience of this in a group work context is a helpful way forward.

Open-Ended Cases in Agroecology: Farming and Food Systems in the Nordic Region and the US Midwest

Science.gov (United States)

Francis, Charles; King, James; Lieblein, Geir; Breland, Tor Arvid; Salomonsson, Lennart; Sriskandarajah, Nadarajah; Porter, Paul; Wiedenhoeft, Mary

2009-01-01

Our aim is to describe open-ended case studies for learning real-life problem solving skills, and relate this approach to conventional, closed-ended decision case studies. Teaching methods are open-ended cases in agroecology, an alternative to traditional strategies that lead students through prepared materials and structured discussions to…

Text analysis of open-ended survey responses : a complementary method to preference mapping

NARCIS (Netherlands)

ten Kleij, F; Musters, PAD

The present study illustrates the use of computer-aided text analysis to evaluate the content of open-ended survey responses. During an in-hall test, different varieties of mayonnaise were evaluated by 165 respondents on a 10-point liking scale, with the option to freely comment on these

Open-Ended Behavioral Complexity for Evolved Virtual Creatures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lessin, Dan; Fussell, Don; Miikkulainen, Risto

2013-01-01

notable exception to this progress. Despite the potential benefits, there has been no clear increase in the behavioral complexity of evolved virtual creatures (EVCs) beyond the light following demonstrated in Sims' original work. This paper presents an open-ended method to move beyond this limit, making...... creature with behavioral complexity that clearly exceeds previously achieved levels. ESP thus demonstrates that EVCs may indeed have the potential to one day rival the behavioral complexity--and therefore the entertainment value--of their non-virtual counterparts....

The Different Role of Working Memory in Open-Ended versus Closed-Ended Creative Problem Solving: A Dual-Process Theory Account

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Wei-Lun; Lien, Yunn-Wen

2013-01-01

This study examined how working memory plays different roles in open-ended versus closed-ended creative problem-solving processes, as represented by divergent thinking tests and insight problem-solving tasks. With respect to the analysis of different task demands and the framework of dual-process theories, the hypothesis was that the idea…

Hands On Earth Science.

Science.gov (United States)

Weisgarber, Sherry L.; Van Doren, Lisa; Hackathorn, Merrianne; Hannibal, Joseph T.; Hansgen, Richard

This publication is a collection of 13 hands-on activities that focus on earth science-related activities and involve students in learning about growing crystals, tectonics, fossils, rock and minerals, modeling Ohio geology, geologic time, determining true north, and constructing scale-models of the Earth-moon system. Each activity contains…

Hands-On Calculus

Science.gov (United States)

Sutherland, Melissa

2006-01-01

In this paper we discuss manipulatives and hands-on investigations for Calculus involving volume, arc length, and surface area to motivate and develop formulae which can then be verified using techniques of integration. Pre-service teachers in calculus courses using these activities experience a classroom in which active learning is encouraged and…

Text mining in students' course evaluations: Relationships between open-ended comments and quantitative scores

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sliusarenko, Tamara; Clemmensen, Line Katrine Harder; Ersbøll, Bjarne Kjær

2013-01-01

Extensive research has been done on student evaluations of teachers and courses based on quantitative data from evaluation questionnaires, but little research has examined students' written responses to open-ended questions and their relationships with quantitative scores. This paper analyzes suc...

Developing new methods for the mono-end functionalization of living ring opening metathesis polymers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kilbinger, Andreas F M

2012-01-01

In this article we present a review of our recent results in one area of research we are involved in. All research efforts in our group focus on functional polymers and new ways of gaining higher levels of control with regard to the placement of functional groups within these polymers. Here, the living ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) will be reviewed for which end-functionalization methods had been rare until very recently. Polymers carrying particular functional groups only at the chain-ends are, however, very interesting for a variety of industrial and academic applications. Polymeric surfactants and polymer-protein conjugates are two examples for the former and polymer-β-sheet-peptide conjugates one example for the latter. The functionalization of macroscopic or nanoscopic surfaces often relies on mono-end functional polymers. Complex macromolecular architectures are often constructed from macromolecules carrying exactly one functional group at their chain- end. The ring opening metathesis polymerization is particularly interesting in this context as it is one of the most functional group tolerant polymerization methods known. Additionally, high molecular weight polymers are readily accessible with this technique, a feature that living radical polymerizations often struggle to achieve. Finding new ways of functionalizing the polymer chain-end of ROMP polymers has therefore been a task long overdue. Here, we present our contribution to this area of research.

Open-Source Development Experiences in Scientific Software: The HANDE Quantum Monte Carlo Project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. S. Spencer

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The HANDE quantum Monte Carlo project offers accessible stochastic algorithms for general use for scientists in the field of quantum chemistry. HANDE is an ambitious and general high-performance code developed by a geographically-dispersed team with a variety of backgrounds in computational science. In the course of preparing a public, open-source release, we have taken this opportunity to step back and look at what we have done and what we hope to do in the future. We pay particular attention to development processes, the approach taken to train students joining the project, and how a flat hierarchical structure aids communication.

On vortex-airfoil interaction noise including span-end effects, with application to open-rotor aeroacoustics

Science.gov (United States)

Roger, Michel; Schram, Christophe; Moreau, Stéphane

2014-01-01

A linear analytical model is developed for the chopping of a cylindrical vortex by a flat-plate airfoil, with or without a span-end effect. The major interest is the contribution of the tip-vortex produced by an upstream rotating blade in the rotor-rotor interaction noise mechanism of counter-rotating open rotors. Therefore the interaction is primarily addressed in an annular strip of limited spanwise extent bounding the impinged blade segment, and the unwrapped strip is described in Cartesian coordinates. The study also addresses the interaction of a propeller wake with a downstream wing or empennage. Cylindrical vortices are considered, for which the velocity field is expanded in two-dimensional gusts in the reference frame of the airfoil. For each gust the response of the airfoil is derived, first ignoring the effect of the span end, assimilating the airfoil to a rigid flat plate, with or without sweep. The corresponding unsteady lift acts as a distribution of acoustic dipoles, and the radiated sound is obtained from a radiation integral over the actual extent of the airfoil. In the case of tip-vortex interaction noise in CRORs the acoustic signature is determined for vortex trajectories passing beyond, exactly at and below the tip radius of the impinged blade segment, in a reference frame attached to the segment. In a second step the same problem is readdressed accounting for the effect of span end on the aerodynamic response of a blade tip. This is achieved through a composite two-directional Schwarzschild's technique. The modifications of the distributed unsteady lift and of the radiated sound are discussed. The chained source and radiation models provide physical insight into the mechanism of vortex chopping by a blade tip in free field. They allow assessing the acoustic benefit of clipping the rear rotor in a counter-rotating open-rotor architecture.

Presenting using Two-Handed Interaction in Open Space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vlaming, Luc; Smit, Jasper; Isenberg, Tobias

2008-01-01

Based on recent demonstrations of low-cost, infrared-based point tracking, we explore two-handed, surface-less interaction for presentation. On both hands, thumb and index finger are equipped with retro-reflective markers which are tracked by a Wiimote. We contribute a robust finger pairing and

Open-end tube dynamic flow model with an oscillatory extortion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tulwin Tytus

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a derivation of dynamic 2d mathematical model for open end tube with oscillatory extortion in the region of the closed end. The aim the research is to investigate possible uses of the increased pressure in the enclosed tube chamber, especially for energy efficient lift generation. The mathematical model allows to test and predict how flow modifications impact the resultant lifting force. A derivation of the proposed mathematical model is shown. The mathematical model is then compared to the computational fluid dynamics discrete model. The results prove the accuracy of the mathematical physical model.

Learning Autonomy in Two or Three Steps: Linking Motivation, Authority, and Agency, with Open-ended Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tjeerd C Andringa

2013-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through 1 an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and 2 environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a coherent core from a wide range of contributing fields. Open-ended development is a structured three-step process in which the agent first learns to master the body and then aims to make the mind into a reliable tool. Preconditioned on success in step two, step three aims to effectively co-create an optimal living environment. We argue that these steps correspond to right-left-right hemispheric dominance, where the left hemisphere specializes in control and the right hemisphere in exploration. Control (e.g., problem solving requires a closed and stable world that must be maintained by external authorities or, in step three, by the right hemisphere acting as internal authority. The three-step progression therefore corresponds to increasing autonomy and agency.Depending on how we appraise the environment, we formulate four qualitatively different motivational states: submission, control, exploration, and consolidation. Each of these four motivational states has associated reward signals of which the last three — successful control, discovery of novelty, and establishing new relations — form an open-ended development loop that, the more it is executed, helps the agent to become progressively more agentic and more able to co-create a pleasant-to-live-in world. We conclude that for autonomy to arise, the agent must exist in a (broad transition region between order and disorder in which both danger and opportunity (and with that open-ended development and motivation are defined. We conclude that a research agenda for artificial cognitive system research should include open-ended development through intrinsic motivations and ascribing more prominence to right

Comparison of Performance on Multiple-Choice Questions and Open-Ended Questions in an Introductory Astronomy Laboratory

Science.gov (United States)

Wooten, Michelle M.; Cool, Adrienne M.; Prather, Edward E.; Tanner, Kimberly D.

2014-01-01

When considering the variety of questions that can be used to measure students' learning, instructors may choose to use multiple-choice questions, which are easier to score than responses to open-ended questions. However, by design, analyses of multiple-choice responses cannot describe all of students' understanding. One method that can…

An Approach for Pattern Recognition of EEG Applied in Prosthetic Hand Drive

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiao-Dong Zhang

2011-12-01

Full Text Available For controlling the prosthetic hand by only electroencephalogram (EEG, it has become the hot spot in robotics research to set up a direct communication and control channel between human brain and prosthetic hand. In this paper, the EEG signal is analyzed based on multi-complicated hand activities. And then, two methods of EEG pattern recognition are investigated, a neural prosthesis hand system driven by BCI is set up, which can complete four kinds of actions (arm’s free state, arm movement, hand crawl, hand open. Through several times of off-line and on-line experiments, the result shows that the neural prosthesis hand system driven by BCI is reasonable and feasible, the C-support vector classifiers-based method is better than BP neural network on the EEG pattern recognition for multi-complicated hand activities.

Innovative hand exoskeleton design for extravehicular activities in space

CERN Document Server

Freni, Pierluigi; Randazzo, Luca; Ariano, Paolo

2014-01-01

Environmental conditions and pressurized spacesuits expose astronauts to problems of fatigue during lengthy extravehicular activities, with adverse impacts especially on the dexterity, force and endurance of the hands and arms. A state-of-the-art exploration in the field of hand exoskeletons revealed that available products are unsuitable for space applications because of their bulkiness and mass. This book proposes a novel approach to the development of hand exoskeletons, based on an innovative soft robotics concept that relies on the exploitation of electroactive polymers operating as sensors and actuators, on a combination of electromyography and mechanomyography for detection of the user’s will and on neural networks for control. The result is a design that should enhance astronauts’ performance during extravehicular activities. In summary, the advantages of the described approach are a low-weight, high-flexibility exoskeleton that allows for dexterity and compliance with the user’s will.

Front End Loader Operator. Open Pit Mining Job Training Series.

Science.gov (United States)

Savilow, Bill

This training outline for front end loader operators, one in a series of eight outlines, is designed primarily for company training foremen or supervisors and for trainers to use as an industry-wide guideline for heavy equipment operator training in open pit mining in British Columbia. Intended as a guide for preparation of lesson plans both for…

Cerebral Activations Related to Writing and Drawing with Each Hand

Science.gov (United States)

Potgieser, Adriaan R. E.; van der Hoorn, Anouk; de Jong, Bauke M.

2015-01-01

Background Writing is a sequential motor action based on sensorimotor integration in visuospatial and linguistic functional domains. To test the hypothesis of lateralized circuitry concerning spatial and language components involved in such action, we employed an fMRI paradigm including writing and drawing with each hand. In this way, writing-related contributions of dorsal and ventral premotor regions in each hemisphere were assessed, together with effects in wider distributed circuitry. Given a right-hemisphere dominance for spatial action, right dorsal premotor cortex dominance was expected in left-hand writing while dominance of the left ventral premotor cortex was expected during right-hand writing. Methods Sixteen healthy right-handed subjects were scanned during audition-guided writing of short sentences and simple figure drawing without visual feedback. Tapping with a pencil served as a basic control task for the two higher-order motor conditions. Activation differences were assessed with Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). Results Writing and drawing showed parietal-premotor and posterior inferior temporal activations in both hemispheres when compared to tapping. Drawing activations were rather symmetrical for each hand. Activations in left- and right-hand writing were left-hemisphere dominant, while right dorsal premotor activation only occurred in left-hand writing, supporting a spatial motor contribution of particularly the right hemisphere. Writing contrasted to drawing revealed left-sided activations in the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex, Broca’s area, pre-Supplementary Motor Area and posterior middle and inferior temporal gyri, without parietal activation. Discussion The audition-driven postero-inferior temporal activations indicated retrieval of virtual visual form characteristics in writing and drawing, with additional activation concerning word form in the left hemisphere. Similar parietal processing in writing and drawing pointed at a

Cerebral activations related to writing and drawing with each hand.

Science.gov (United States)

Potgieser, Adriaan R E; van der Hoorn, Anouk; de Jong, Bauke M

2015-01-01

Writing is a sequential motor action based on sensorimotor integration in visuospatial and linguistic functional domains. To test the hypothesis of lateralized circuitry concerning spatial and language components involved in such action, we employed an fMRI paradigm including writing and drawing with each hand. In this way, writing-related contributions of dorsal and ventral premotor regions in each hemisphere were assessed, together with effects in wider distributed circuitry. Given a right-hemisphere dominance for spatial action, right dorsal premotor cortex dominance was expected in left-hand writing while dominance of the left ventral premotor cortex was expected during right-hand writing. Sixteen healthy right-handed subjects were scanned during audition-guided writing of short sentences and simple figure drawing without visual feedback. Tapping with a pencil served as a basic control task for the two higher-order motor conditions. Activation differences were assessed with Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). Writing and drawing showed parietal-premotor and posterior inferior temporal activations in both hemispheres when compared to tapping. Drawing activations were rather symmetrical for each hand. Activations in left- and right-hand writing were left-hemisphere dominant, while right dorsal premotor activation only occurred in left-hand writing, supporting a spatial motor contribution of particularly the right hemisphere. Writing contrasted to drawing revealed left-sided activations in the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex, Broca's area, pre-Supplementary Motor Area and posterior middle and inferior temporal gyri, without parietal activation. The audition-driven postero-inferior temporal activations indicated retrieval of virtual visual form characteristics in writing and drawing, with additional activation concerning word form in the left hemisphere. Similar parietal processing in writing and drawing pointed at a common mechanism by which such visually

Comparisons of an open-ended vs. forced-choice 'mind reading' task: implications for measuring perspective-taking and emotion recognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tracy G Cassels

Full Text Available Perspective-taking and emotion recognition are essential for successful social development and have been the focus of developmental research for many years. Although the two abilities often overlap, they are distinct and our understanding of these abilities critically rests upon the efficacy of existing measures. Lessons from the literature differentiating recall versus recognition memory tasks led us to hypothesize that an open-ended emotion recognition measure would be less reliant on compensatory strategies and hence a more specific measure of emotion recognition abilities than a forced-choice task. To this end, we compared an open-ended version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task with the original forced-choice version in two studies: 118 typically-developing 4- to 8-year-olds (Study 1 and 139 5- to 12-year-olds; 85 typically-developing and 54 with learning disorders (Study 2. We found that the open-ended version of the task was a better predictor of empathy and more reliably discriminated typically-developing children from those with learning disorders. As a whole, the results suggest that the open-ended version is a more sensitive measure of emotion recognition specifically.

Enhancing Science Education through Extracurricular Activities: A Retrospective Study of "Suzy Science and the Whiz Kids[C]"

Science.gov (United States)

Kralina, Linda M.

2009-01-01

Extracurricular activities (ECA) are informal settings offering free-choice experiences that are generally voluntary, open-ended, non-sequential, self-directed, hands-on, and evaluation-free. This mixed methods study investigates participation in a high school science ECA by collecting the memories of former student members for their perceptions…

Hands-on Humidity.

Science.gov (United States)

Pankiewicz, Philip R.

1992-01-01

Presents five hands-on activities that allow students to detect, measure, reduce, and eliminate moisture. Students make a humidity detector and a hygrometer, examine the effects of moisture on different substances, calculate the percent of water in a given food, and examine the absorption potential of different desiccants. (MDH)

Ambiguity towards Multiple Historical Performance Information Signals: Evidence from Indonesian Open-Ended Mutual Fund Investors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haris Pratama Loeis

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This study focuses on the behavior of open-ended mutual fund investors when encountered with multiple information signals of mutual fund’s historical performance. The behavior of investors can be reflected on their decision to subscribe or redeem their funds from mutual funds. Moreover, we observe the presence of ambiguity within investors due to multiple information signals, and also their reaction towards it. Our finding shows that open-ended mutual fund investors do not only have sensitivity towards past performance information signals, but also have additional sensitivity towards the ambiguity of multiple information signals. Because of the presence of ambiguity, investors give more consideration to negative information signals and the worst information signal in their investment decisions. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

17 CFR 239.15A - Form N-1A, registration statement of open-end management investment companies.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... statement of open-end management investment companies. 239.15A Section 239.15A Commodity and Securities... Registration Statements § 239.15A Form N-1A, registration statement of open-end management investment companies... management investment companies other than separate accounts of insurance companies registered under the...

Percutaneous sclerotherapy of the internal spermatic vein for varicocele through an open ended guide wire

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wilms, G.; Oyen, R.; Casselman, J.; Baert, A.L.

1987-08-01

Percutaneous sclerotherapy of the internal spermatic vein through an open ended guide wire was performed in 50 patients with left sided variocele. The procedure was successful in 47 patients, without major complications. Percutaneous sclerotherapy through an open ended guide wire offers the advantage of very distal and superselective catheterization with complete embolization of the internal spermatic vein, its side branches and parallel collateral channels. Further follow-up hopefully will confirm the reduction of recurrence rate in our patients.

Multi-fingered robotic hand

Science.gov (United States)

Ruoff, Carl F. (Inventor); Salisbury, Kenneth, Jr. (Inventor)

1990-01-01

A robotic hand is presented having a plurality of fingers, each having a plurality of joints pivotally connected one to the other. Actuators are connected at one end to an actuating and control mechanism mounted remotely from the hand and at the other end to the joints of the fingers for manipulating the fingers and passing externally of the robot manipulating arm in between the hand and the actuating and control mechanism. The fingers include pulleys to route the actuators within the fingers. Cable tension sensing structure mounted on a portion of the hand are disclosed, as is covering of the tip of each finger with a resilient and pliable friction enhancing surface.

Extracting attempted hand movements from EEGs in people with complete hand paralysis following stroke

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abirami eMuralidharan

2011-03-01

Full Text Available This study examines the feasibility of using electroencephalograms (EEGs to rapidly detect the intent to open one’s hand in individuals with complete hand paralysis following a subcortical ischemic stroke. If detectable, this motor planning activity could be used in real time to trigger a motorized hand exoskeleton or an electrical stimulation device that opens/closes the hand. While EEG-triggered movement-assist devices could restore function, they may also promote recovery by reinforcing the use of remaining cortical circuits. EEGs were recorded while participants were cued to either relax or attempt to extend their fingers. Linear discriminant analysis was used to detect onset of finger extension from the EEGs in a leave-one-trial-out cross-validation process. In each testing trial, the classifier was applied in pseudo real time starting from an initial hand-relaxed phase, through movement planning, and into the initial attempted finger extension phase (finger extension phase estimated from typical time-to-movement-onset measured in the unaffected hand. The classifiers detected attempted finger-extension at a significantly higher rate during both motor planning and early attempted execution compared to rest. To reduce inappropriate triggering of a movement-assist device during rest, the classification threshold could be adjusted to require more certainty about one’s intent to move before triggering a device. Additionally, a device could be set to activate only after multiple time samples in a row were classified as finger extension events. These options resulted in some sessions with no false triggers while the person was resting, but moderate-to-high true trigger rates during attempted movements.

The analysis of student’s critical thinking ability on discovery learning by using hand on activity based on the curiosity

Science.gov (United States)

Sulistiani, E.; Waluya, S. B.; Masrukan

2018-03-01

This study aims to determine (1) the effectiveness of Discovery Learning model by using Hand on Activity toward critical thinking abilities, and (2) to describe students’ critical thinking abilities in Discovery Learning by Hand on Activity based on curiosity. This study is mixed method research with concurrent embedded design. Sample of this study are students of VII A and VII B of SMP Daarul Qur’an Ungaran. While the subject in this study is based on the curiosity of the students groups are classified Epistemic Curiosity (EC) and Perceptual Curiosity (PC). The results showed that the learning of Discovery Learning by using Hand on Activity is effective toward mathematics critical thinking abilities. Students of the EC type are able to complete six indicators of mathematics critical thinking abilities, although there are still two indicators that the result is less than the maximum. While students of PC type have not fully been able to complete the indicator of mathematics critical thinking abilities. They are only strong on indicators formulating questions, while on the other five indicators they are still weak. The critical thinking abilities of EC’s students is better than the critical thinking abilities of the PC’s students.

Programming of left hand exploits task set but that of right hand depends on recent history.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Rixin; Zhu, Hong

2017-07-01

There are many differences between the left hand and the right hand. But it is not clear if there is a difference in programming between left hand and right hand when the hands perform the same movement. In current study, we carried out two experiments to investigate whether the programming of two hands was equivalent or they exploited different strategies. In the first experiment, participants were required to use one hand to grasp an object with visual feedback or to point to the center of one object without visual feedback on alternate trials, or to grasp an object without visual feedback and to point the center of one object with visual feedback on alternating trials. They then performed the tasks with the other hand. The result was that previous pointing task affected current grasping when it was performed by the left hand, but not the right hand. In experiment 2, we studied if the programming of the left (or right) hand would be affected by the pointing task performed on the previous trial not only by the same hand, but also by the right (or left) hand. Participants pointed and grasped the objects alternately with two hands. The result was similar with Experiment 1, i.e., left-hand grasping was affected by right-hand pointing, whereas right-hand grasping was immune from the interference from left hand. Taken together, the results suggest that when open- and closed-loop trials are interleaved, motor programming of grasping with the right hand was affected by the nature of the online feedback on the previous trial only if it was a grasping trial, suggesting that the trial-to-trial transfer depends on sensorimotor memory and not on task set. In contrast, motor programming of grasping with the left hand can use information about the nature of the online feedback on the previous trial to specify the parameters of the movement, even when the type of movement that occurred was quite different (i.e., pointing) and was performed with the right hand. This suggests that

Developing Open-Ended Questions for Surface Area and Volume of Beam

Science.gov (United States)

Kurniawan, Henry; Putri, Ratu Ilma Indra; Hartono, Yusuf

2018-01-01

The purpose of this research was to show open-ended questions about surface area and beam volume which valid and practice, have potential effect. This research is research development which consists of two main phases: preliminary phase (preparation phase and problem design) and formative evaluation phase (evaluation and revision phases). The…

University Physics Students' Ideas of Thermal Radiation Expressed in Open Laboratory Activities Using Infrared Cameras

Science.gov (United States)

Haglund, Jesper; Melander, Emil; Weiszflog, Matthias; Andersson, Staffan

2017-01-01

Background: University physics students were engaged in open-ended thermodynamics laboratory activities with a focus on understanding a chosen phenomenon or the principle of laboratory apparatus, such as thermal radiation and a heat pump. Students had access to handheld infrared (IR) cameras for their investigations. Purpose: The purpose of the…

Hands-On Hydrology

Science.gov (United States)

Mathews, Catherine E.; Monroe, Louise Nelson

2004-01-01

A professional school and university collaboration enables elementary students and their teachers to explore hydrology concepts and realize the beneficial functions of wetlands. Hands-on experiences involve young students in determining water quality at field sites after laying the groundwork with activities related to the hydrologic cycle,…

Does the sequence of data collection influence participants' responses to closed and open-ended questions? A methodological study.

Science.gov (United States)

Covell, Christine L; Sidani, Souraya; Ritchie, Judith A

2012-06-01

The sequence used for collecting quantitative and qualitative data in concurrent mixed-methods research may influence participants' responses. Empirical evidence is needed to determine if the order of data collection in concurrent mixed methods research biases participants' responses to closed and open-ended questions. To examine the influence of the quantitative-qualitative sequence on responses to closed and open-ended questions when assessing the same variables or aspects of a phenomenon simultaneously within the same study phase. A descriptive cross-sectional, concurrent mixed-methods design was used to collect quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) data. The setting was a large multi-site health care centre in Canada. A convenience sample of 50 registered nurses was selected and participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two sequences for data collection, quantitative-qualitative or qualitative-quantitative. Independent t-tests were performed to compare the two groups' responses to the survey items. Directed content analysis was used to compare the participants' responses to the interview questions. The sequence of data collection did not greatly affect the participants' responses to the closed-ended questions (survey items) or the open-ended questions (interview questions). The sequencing of data collection, when using both survey and semi-structured interviews, may not bias participants' responses to closed or open-ended questions. Additional research is required to confirm these findings. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

End-to-end Cyberinfrastructure and Data Services for Earth System Science Education and Research: Unidata's Plans and Directions

Science.gov (United States)

Ramamurthy, M.

2005-12-01

A revolution is underway in the role played by cyberinfrastructure and data services in the conduct of research and education. We live in an era of an unprecedented data volume from diverse sources, multidisciplinary analysis and synthesis, and active, learner-centered education emphasis. For example, modern remote-sensing systems like hyperspectral satellite instruments generate terabytes of data each day. Environmental problems such as global change and water cycle transcend disciplinary as well as geographic boundaries, and their solution requires integrated earth system science approaches. Contemporary education strategies recommend adopting an Earth system science approach for teaching the geosciences, employing new pedagogical techniques such as enquiry-based learning and hands-on activities. Needless to add, today's education and research enterprise depends heavily on robust, flexible and scalable cyberinfrastructure, especially on the ready availability of quality data and appropriate tools to manipulate and integrate those data. Fortuitously, rapid advances in computing and communication technologies have also revolutionized how data, tools and services are being incorporated into the teaching and scientific enterprise. The exponential growth in the use of the Internet in education and research, largely due to the advent of the World Wide Web, is by now well documented. On the other hand, how some of the other technological and community trends that have shaped the use of cyberinfrastructure, especially data services, is less well understood. For example, the computing industry is converging on an approach called Web services that enables a standard and yet revolutionary way of building applications and methods to connect and exchange information over the Web. This new approach, based on XML - a widely accepted format for exchanging data and corresponding semantics over the Internet - enables applications, computer systems, and information processes to

A Possible Link between Supra-Second Open-Ended Timing Sensitivity and Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies.

Science.gov (United States)

Gilaie-Dotan, Sharon; Ashkenazi, Hamutal; Dar, Reuven

2016-01-01

One of the main characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the persistent feeling of uncertainty, affecting many domains of actions and feelings. It was recently hypothesized that OCD uncertainty is related to attenuated access to internal states. As supra-second timing is associated with bodily and interoceptive awareness, we examined whether supra-second timing would be associated with OC tendencies. We measured supra-second (~9 s) and sub-second (~450 ms) timing along with control non-temporal perceptual tasks in a group of 60 university students. Supra-second timing was measured either with fixed criterion tasks requiring to temporally discriminate between two predefined fixed interval durations (9 vs. 9.9 s), or with an open-ended task requiring to discriminate between 9 s and longer intervals which were of varying durations that were not a priori known to the participants. The open-ended task employed an adaptive Bayesian procedure that efficiently estimated the duration difference required to discriminate 9 s from longer intervals. We also assessed symptoms of OCD, depression, and anxiety. Open-ended supra-second temporal sensitivity was correlated with OC tendencies, as predicted (even after controlling for depression and anxiety), whereas the other tasks were not. Higher OC tendencies were associated with lower timing sensitivity to 9 s intervals such that participants with higher OC tendency scores required longer interval differences to discriminate 9 s from longer intervals. While these results need to be substantiated in future research, they suggest that open-ended timing tasks, as those encountered in real-life (e.g., estimating how long it would take to complete a task), might be adversely affected in OCD.

How do open-ended problems promote mathematical creativity? A reflection of bare mathematics problem and contextual problem

Science.gov (United States)

Wijaya, A.

2018-03-01

Creativity is often seen as one of the fundamental aspects of character education. As one of the 21st century skills, creativity has also been considered as an important goal of education across the world. This paper reports a study on promoting mathematical creativity through the use of open-ended mathematics problems. A total of 53 undergraduate students participated in the study. These students worked on open-ended problems in two types, i.e. bare mathematics problem and contextual problem. The contextual problem was presented in the form of paper-based and Geogebra-based. The students’ works were analysed qualitatively in order to describe how students’ mathematical creativity developed. It was found that the open-ended problems successfully promote students’ creativity as indicated by various solutions or strategies that were used by students to solve the problems. The analysis of students’ works show that students’ creativity developed through three kinds of exploration, i. e. (1) exploration of contexts, (2) exploration of software features, and (3) exploration of mathematics concepts. The use of metacognitive questioning was found to be helpful to develop the first two explorations into mathematical exploration.

Exploratory study on the effects of a robotic hand rehabilitation device on changes in grip strength and brain activity after stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Pinter, Daniela; Pegritz, Sandra; Pargfrieder, Christa; Reiter, Gudrun; Wurm, Walter; Gattringer, Thomas; Linderl-Madrutter, Regina; Neuper, Claudia; Fazekas, Franz; Grieshofer, Peter; Enzinger, Christian

2013-01-01

The brain mechanisms underlying successful recovery of hand fuenction after stroke are still not fully understood, although functional MRI (fMRI) studies underline the importance of neuronal plasticity. We explored potential changes in brain activity in 7 patients with subacute to chronic stroke (69 ± 8 years) with moderate- to high-grade distal paresis of the upper limb (Motricity Index: 59.4) after standardized robotic finger-hand rehabilitation training, in addition to conventional rehabilitation therapy for 3 weeks. Behavioral and fMRI assessments were carried out before and after training to characterize changes in brain activity and behavior. The Motricity Index (pre: 59.4, post: 67.2, P hand increased significantly after rehabilitation. On fMRI, active movement of the affected (left) hand resulted in contralesional (ie, ipsilateral) activation of the primary sensorimotor cortex prior to rehabilitation. After rehabilitation, activation appeared "normalized," including the ipsilesional primary sensorimotor cortex and supplementary motor area (SMA). No changes and no abnormalities of activation maps were seen during movement of the unaffected hand. Subsequent region-of-interest analyses showed no significant ipsilesional activation increases after rehabilitation. Despite behavioral improvements, we failed to identify consistent patterns of functional reorganization in our sample. This warrants caution in the use of fMRI as a tool to explore neural plasticity in heterogeneous samples lacking sufficient statistical power.

Advanced Myoelectric Control for Robotic Hand-Assisted Training: Outcome from a Stroke Patient.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Zhiyuan; Tong, Kai-Yu; Shin, Henry; Li, Sheng; Zhou, Ping

2017-01-01

A hand exoskeleton driven by myoelectric pattern recognition was designed for stroke rehabilitation. It detects and recognizes the user's motion intent based on electromyography (EMG) signals, and then helps the user to accomplish hand motions in real time. The hand exoskeleton can perform six kinds of motions, including the whole hand closing/opening, tripod pinch/opening, and the "gun" sign/opening. A 52-year-old woman, 8 months after stroke, made 20× 2-h visits over 10 weeks to participate in robot-assisted hand training. Though she was unable to move her fingers on her right hand before the training, EMG activities could be detected on her right forearm. In each visit, she took 4× 10-min robot-assisted training sessions, in which she repeated the aforementioned six motion patterns assisted by our intent-driven hand exoskeleton. After the training, her grip force increased from 1.5 to 2.7 kg, her pinch force increased from 1.5 to 2.5 kg, her score of Box and Block test increased from 3 to 7, her score of Fugl-Meyer (Part C) increased from 0 to 7, and her hand function increased from Stage 1 to Stage 2 in Chedoke-McMaster assessment. The results demonstrate the feasibility of robot-assisted training driven by myoelectric pattern recognition after stroke.

MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN BERPIKIR KREATIF MATEMATIS SISWA SMA MELALUI PEMBELAJARAN OPEN ENDED PADA MATERI SPLDV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Firdaus Firdaus

2016-02-01

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan kemampuan berpikir kreatif matematis siswa SMA melalui pembelajaran open ended problem materi SPLDV. Jenis penelitian ini, yaitu deskriptif kualitatif. Subjeknya adalah siswa kelas X.2 SMA Negeri 1 Woja Dompu. Tahap pembelajaran dalam penelitian ini adalah (1 Orientasi, (2 pembekalan materi, (3 penyajian dan pengerjaan soal open ended, (4 presentasi, (5 kesimpulan. Kemampuan berpikir kreatif matematis siswa meliputi: (a fluency, kemampuan siswa lancar dalam memberikan jawaban benar, (b flexibility, kemampuan siswa dalam menggunakan berbagai cara penyelesaian masalah, (c novelty, kemampuan siswa dalam memberikan jawaban yang baru dan berbeda dengan siswa lain. Penelitian ini hasilnya, bahwa siswa mempunyai kemampuan berpikir kreatif matematis.

Real-time feedback for improving compliance to hand sanitization among healthcare workers in an open layout ICU using radiofrequency identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Radhakrishna, Kedar; Waghmare, Abijeet; Ekstrand, Maria; Raj, Tony; Selvam, Sumithra; Sreerama, Sai Madhukar; Sampath, Sriram

2015-06-01

The aim of this study is to increase hand sanitizer usage among healthcare workers by developing and implementing a low-cost intervention using RFID and wireless mesh networks to provide real-time alarms for increasing hand hygiene compliance during opportune moments in an open layout Intensive Care Unit (ICU). A wireless, RFID based system was developed and implemented in the ICU. The ICU beds were divded into an intervention arm (n = 10) and a control arm (n = 14). Passive RFID tags were issued to the doctors, nurses and support staff of the ICU. Long range RFID readers were positioned strategically. Sensors were placed beneath the hand sanitizers to record sanitizer usage. The system would alert the HCWs by flashing a light if an opportune moment for hand sanitization was detected. A significant increase in hand sanitizer use was noted in the intervention arm. Usage was highest during the early part of the workday and decreased as the day progressed. Hand wash events per person hour was highest among the ancilliary staff followed by the doctors and nurses. Real-time feedback has potential to increase hand hygiene compliance among HCWs. The system demonstrates the possibility of automating compliance monitoring in an ICU with an open layout.

Designing to bring the field to the showroom through open-ended provocation.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kelly, J.; Wensveen, S.A.G.

2014-01-01

Engaging formats are required to communicate designerly understandings of field studies to a broader audience within organisations. Here we present a case where the format of an exhibition, consisting of a collection of open-ended provocative design concepts, has been used to disseminate knowledge

OPEN-ENDED APPROACH: AN EFFORT IN CULTIVATING STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICAL CREATIVE THINKING ABILITY AND SELF-ESTEEM IN MATHEMATICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Fatah

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The present study aims at examining the use of open-ended approach in cultivating senior high school students’ mathematical creative thinking ability (MCTA and self-esteem (SE in mathematics viewed from school category. The subjects of this research were the students grade XI at three schools; high, middle and low category in Kota Serang, Banten Province. In every school category, two classes were chosen; one class was the experimental group which was taught by open-ended approach, while another class was a control group which was taught by conventional way. This quasi-experimental research employed MCTA test and SE in mathematics scale as the instruments. In general, the research result shows that the MCTA improvement and SE level of the students who are taught by open-ended approach is better than those who are taught conventionally. The results of students’ MCTA and SE viewed from school category will be further discussed.Keywords: mathematical creative thinking ability, self-esteem, open-ended approach DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22342/jme.7.1.2813.9-18

Classification of brain signals associated with imagination of hand grasping, opening and reaching by means of wavelet-based common spatial pattern and mutual information.

Science.gov (United States)

Amanpour, Behzad; Erfanian, Abbas

2013-01-01

An important issue in designing a practical brain-computer interface (BCI) is the selection of mental tasks to be imagined. Different types of mental tasks have been used in BCI including left, right, foot, and tongue motor imageries. However, the mental tasks are different from the actions to be controlled by the BCI. It is desirable to select a mental task to be consistent with the desired action to be performed by BCI. In this paper, we investigated the detecting the imagination of the hand grasping, hand opening, and hand reaching in one hand using electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. The results show that the ERD/ERS patterns, associated with the imagination of hand grasping, opening, and reaching are different. For classification of brain signals associated with these mental tasks and feature extraction, a method based on wavelet packet, regularized common spatial pattern (CSP), and mutual information is proposed. The results of an offline analysis on five subjects show that the two-class mental tasks can be classified with an average accuracy of 77.6% using proposed method. In addition, we examine the proposed method on datasets IVa from BCI Competition III and IIa from BCI Competition IV.

Comments on open-ended magnetic systems for fusion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Post, R.F.

1990-01-01

Differentiating characteristics of magnetic confinement systems having externally generated magnetic fields that are ''open'' are listed and discussed in the light of their several potential advantages for fusion power systems. It is pointed out that at this stage of fusion research ''high-Q'' (as deduced from long energy confinement times) is not necessarily the most relevant criterion by which to judge the potential of alternate fusion approaches for the economic generation of fusion power. An example is given of a hypothetical open-geometry fusion power system where low-Q operation is essential to meeting one of its main objectives (low neutron power flux)

Microwave corrosion detection using open ended rectangular waveguide sensors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Qaddoumi, N.; Handjojo, L.; Bigelow, T.; Easter, J.; Bray, A.; Zoughi, R.

2000-02-01

The use of microwave and millimeter wave nondestructive testing methods utilizing open ended rectangular waveguide sensors has shown great potential for detecting minute thickness variations in laminate structures, in particular those backed by a conducting plate. Slight variations in the dielectric properties of materials may also be detected using a set of optimal parameters which include the standoff distance and the frequency of operation. In a recent investigation, on detecting rust under paint, the dielectric properties of rust were assumed to be similar to those of Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} powder. These values were used in an electromagnetic model that simulates the interaction of fields radiated by a rectangular waveguide aperture with layered structures to obtain optimal parameters. The dielectric properties of Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} were measured to be very similar to the properties of paint. Nevertheless, the presence of a simulated Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} layer under a paint layer was detected. In this paper the dielectric properties of several different rust samples from different environments are measured. The measurements indicate that the nature of real rust is quite diverse and is different from Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} and paint, indicating that the presence of rust under paint can be easily detected. The same electromagnetic model is also used (with the newly measured dielectric properties of real rust) to obtain an optimal standoff distance at a frequency of 24 GHz. The results indicate that variations in the magnitude as well as the phase of the reflection coefficient can be used to obtain information about the presence of rust. An experimental investigation on detecting the presence of very thin rust layers (2.5--5 x 10{sup {minus}2} mm [09--2.0 x 10{sup {minus}3} in.]) using an open ended rectangular waveguide probe is also conducted. Microwave images of rusted specimens, obtained at 24 GHz, are also presented.

Alignment of Hands-On STEM Engagement Activities with Positive STEM Dispositions in Secondary School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Christensen, Rhonda; Knezek, Gerald; Tyler-Wood, Tandra

2015-01-01

This study examines positive dispositions reported by middle school and high school students participating in programs that feature STEM-related activities. Middle school students participating in school-to-home hands-on energy monitoring activities are compared to middle school and high school students in a different project taking part in…

SPoRT - An End-to-End R2O Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Jedlovec, Gary J.

2009-01-01

Established in 2002 to demonstrate the weather and forecasting application of real-time EOS measurements, the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) program has grown to be an end-to-end research to operations activity focused on the use of advanced NASA modeling and data assimilation approaches, nowcasting techniques, and unique high-resolution multispectral observational data applications from EOS satellites to improve short-term weather forecasts on a regional and local scale. SPoRT currently partners with several universities and other government agencies for access to real-time data and products, and works collaboratively with them and operational end users at 13 WFOs to develop and test the new products and capabilities in a "test-bed" mode. The test-bed simulates key aspects of the operational environment without putting constraints on the forecaster workload. Products and capabilities which show utility in the test-bed environment are then transitioned experimentally into the operational environment for further evaluation and assessment. SPoRT focuses on a suite of data and products from MODIS, AMSR-E, and AIRS on the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites, and total lightning measurements from ground-based networks. Some of the observations are assimilated into or used with various versions of the WRF model to provide supplemental forecast guidance to operational end users. SPoRT is enhancing partnerships with NOAA / NESDIS for new product development and data access to exploit the remote sensing capabilities of instruments on the NPOESS satellites to address short term weather forecasting problems. The VIIRS and CrIS instruments on the NPP and follow-on NPOESS satellites provide similar observing capabilities to the MODIS and AIRS instruments on Terra and Aqua. SPoRT will be transitioning existing and new capabilities into the AWIIPS II environment to continue the continuity of its activities.

Relationship between speed and EEG activity during imagined and executed hand movements

Science.gov (United States)

Yuan, Han; Perdoni, Christopher; He, Bin

2010-04-01

The relationship between primary motor cortex and movement kinematics has been shown in nonhuman primate studies of hand reaching or drawing tasks. Studies have demonstrated that the neural activities accompanying or immediately preceding the movement encode the direction, speed and other information. Here we investigated the relationship between the kinematics of imagined and actual hand movement, i.e. the clenching speed, and the EEG activity in ten human subjects. Study participants were asked to perform and imagine clenching of the left hand and right hand at various speeds. The EEG activity in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (18-28 Hz) frequency bands were found to be linearly correlated with the speed of imagery clenching. Similar parametric modulation was also found during the execution of hand movements. A single equation relating the EEG activity to the speed and the hand (left versus right) was developed. This equation, which contained a linear independent combination of the two parameters, described the time-varying neural activity during the tasks. Based on the model, a regression approach was developed to decode the two parameters from the multiple-channel EEG signals. We demonstrated the continuous decoding of dynamic hand and speed information of the imagined clenching. In particular, the time-varying clenching speed was reconstructed in a bell-shaped profile. Our findings suggest an application to providing continuous and complex control of noninvasive brain-computer interface for movement-impaired paralytics.

Pre-Service Physics Teachers’ Perception toward Hands-on Lab Activity and 21st Century Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Putri, D. H.; Risdianto, E.; Sutarno, S.

2017-09-01

This study aimed to describe the hands-on lab activities and 21st century skills of pre-service physics teachers at a university in Bengkulu. The respondents of this study were 113 students who have been finished and were following the laboratory course. The research instrument was questionnaire. The explored aspects of laboratory activities were motivation, the importance of laboratory activities, equipment, laboratory activities process, suitability of curriculum, assessment, laboratory design, and the 21st century skills training. The 21st century skills explored consist of learning and innovation skills, life and careers skills, and media, information and technology skills. The data obtained will be analyzed descriptively. Based on the results of data analysis was obtained that they have a good perception toward the aspect of motivation, the importance of hands-on lab activities, and laboratory activities process; and the perception was fair for other aspects. The lowest perception score was obtained in the aspects of the 21st century skills training. This result was in accordance with the 21st century skills of pre-service physics teachers which were still in moderate category. So it is necessary to develop a model of laboratory activities design that can training and enhancing the 21st century skills for pre-service physics teachers.

Access to hands-on mathematics measurement activities using robots controlled via speech generating devices: three case studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Kim; Cook, Al

2014-07-01

To examine how using a robot controlled via a speech generating device (SGD) influences the ways students with physical and communication limitations can demonstrate their knowledge in math measurement activities. Three children with severe physical disabilities and complex communication needs used the robot and SGD system to perform four math measurement lessons in comparing, sorting and ordering objects. The performance of the participants was measured and the process of using the system was described in terms of manipulation and communication events. Stakeholder opinions were solicited regarding robot use. Robot use revealed some gaps in the procedural knowledge of the participants. Access to both the robot and SGD was shown to provide several benefits. Stakeholders thought the intervention was important and feasible for a classroom environment. The participants were able to participate actively in the hands-on and communicative measurement activities and thus meet the demands of current math instruction methods. Current mathematics pedagogy encourages doing hands-on activities while communicating about concepts. Adapted Lego robots enabled children with severe physical disabilities to perform hands-on length measurement activities. Controlling the robots from speech generating devices (SGD) enabled the children, who also had complex communication needs, to reflect and report on results during the activities. By using the robots combined with SGDs, children both exhibited their knowledge of and experienced the concepts of mathematical measurements.

EFEKTIVITAS PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA MENGGUNAKAN METODE TPS (THINK-PAIR-SHARE BERBASIS OPEN-ENDED-PROBLEM TERHADAP KREATIVITAS BELAJAR SISWA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sri Hudia Rohmatin

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This study was aimed at finding out whether or not Open-Ended-Problem Based TPS Method was effective on student’s mathematics learning creativity. The type of this research was quasi-eksperimental with one-group pretet posttest desaign. The sample of this research was 33 students. Instrument in form of 4 essay that was valid and reliable. Normality testing with Chi-kuadrat and homogeneity testing with Barlett-test  while hypotesis testing with paramteric statistical analysis t-test. Based on the data analysis average pre test was 44 and post test was 64. The results of the normality testing pre-test group obtained x2count < x2tabel or 4.452  < 11.070 and post test group obtained x2count < x2tabel or 5,946 < 11.070. Data homogeneity testing results obtained x2count < x2tabel 2,484  < 3,841. The results of hypothesis testing data was obtained tcount > ttabel or 12,317 > 2,001. Based on the test results concluded that the hypothesis Ho was rejected and Ha accepted. To sum up, Open-Ended-Problem-Based TPS was significantly effective on student’s mathematics learning creativity. Key words: effectiveness, TPS method, open-ended-problem, students creativity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22342/jpm.9.2.2085.178 - 187

Spouses of Military Members' Experiences and Insights: Qualitative Analysis of Responses to an Open-Ended Question in a Survey of Health and Wellbeing

Science.gov (United States)

Runge, Catherine E.; Waller, Michael; MacKenzie, Alison; McGuire, Annabel C. L.

2014-01-01

Introduction There are few studies on the experiences of spouses of military members, with most focused on adverse impacts of deployment. Responses to an open-ended question in a survey of spouses' health and wellbeing enabled access to perceptions and insights on a broad range of topics. The objective of this investigation was to examine how respondents used the open-ended question and what they discussed, in aim of informing support service agencies and spouses of military members. Methods Thematic analysis was conducted on responses to the open-ended question. Descriptive analysis was performed on the demographics, military member characteristics and self-reported health of respondents and non-respondents to the open-ended question. Findings Over a quarter (28.5%) of the 1,332 survey participants answered the open-ended question, with respondents having a significantly higher level of education than non–respondents. Respondents expressed negative and positive experiences and insights on military life, provided personal information, commented on the survey, and qualified their responses to closed-ended questions. Topics included ‘inadequate support’, ‘deployment impacts’, ‘suggestions for supporting agencies’, ‘appraisal of experiences’ and ‘coping strategies’. Conclusions This investigation uncovered issues of importance to spouses of military members that were not included or identified in a quantitative study. The findings provide a platform from which to explore these issues further, particularly the impact of military life on the non-serving spouse's career. The findings also provide support agencies with evidence to strengthen their services and they give spouses an opportunity to reflect on their own and others' feelings and evaluations of military life. PMID:25479135

Prediction Model and Principle of End-of-Life Threshold for Lithium Ion Batteries Based on Open Circuit Voltage Drifts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cui, Yingzhi; Yang, Jie; Du, Chunyu; Zuo, Pengjian; Gao, Yunzhi; Cheng, Xinqun; Ma, Yulin; Yin, Geping

2017-01-01

Highlights: •Open circuit voltage evolution over ageing of lithium ion batteries is deciphered. •The mechanism responsible for the end-of-life (EOL) threshold is elaborated. •A new prediction model of EOL threshold with improved accuracy is developed. •This EOL prediction model is promising for the applications in electric vehicles. -- Abstract: The end-of-life (EOL) of a lithium ion battery (LIB) is defined as the time point when the LIB can no longer provide sufficient power or energy to accomplish its intended function. Generally, the EOL occurs abruptly when the degradation of a LIB reaches the threshold. Therefore, current prediction methods of EOL by extrapolating the early degradation behavior often result in significant errors. To address this problem, this paper analyzes the reason for the EOL threshold of a LIB with shallow depth of discharge. It is found that the sudden appearance of EOL threshold results from the drift of open circuit voltage (OCV) at the end of both shallow depth and full discharges. Further, a new EOL threshold prediction model with highly improved accuracy is developed based on the OCV drifts and their evolution mechanism, which can effectively avoid the misjudgment of EOL threshold. The accuracy of this EOL threshold prediction model is verified by comparing with experimental results. The EOL threshold prediction model can be applied to other battery chemistry systems and its possible application in electric vehicles is finally discussed.

Mapping cortical thickness of the patients with unilateral end-stage open angle glaucoma on planar cerebral cortex maps.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Piotr Bogorodzki

Full Text Available PURPOSE: To estimate and compare cerebral cortex thickness in patients with unilateral end-stage glaucoma with that of age-matched individuals with unaffected vision. METHODS: 14 patients with unilateral end-stage primary open angle glaucoma (POAG and 12 age-matched control individuals with no problems with vision were selected for the study based on detailed ophthalmic examination. For each participant 3D high-resolution structural brain T1-weighted magnetization prepared MR images were acquired on a 3.0 T scanner. Brain cortex thickness was estimated using the FreeSurfer image analysis environment. After warping of subjects' cortical surfaces to FreeSurfer common space, differences between POAG and control groups were inferred at the group analysis level with the General Linear Model. RESULTS: The analysis performed revealed local thinning in the visual cortex areas in the POAG group. Statistically significant differences form 600 mm2 clusters located in the Brodmann area BA19 in the left and right hemisphere. CONCLUSION: Unilateral vision loss due to end-stage neuropathy from POAG is associated with significant thinning of cortical areas employed in vision.

Virtual and physical toys: open-ended features for non-formal learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersson, Eva; Brooks, Anthony

2006-04-01

This paper examines the integrated toy--both physical and virtual--as an essential resource for collaborative learning. This learning incorporates rehabilitation, training, and education. The data derived from two different cases. Pedagogical issues related to non-formal learning and open-ended features of design are discussed. Findings suggest that social, material, and expressive affordances constitute a base for an alterative interface to encourage children's play and learning.

Design of a Short/Open-Ended Slot Antenna with Capacitive Coupling Feed Strips for Hepta-Band Mobile Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kyoseung Keum

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a planar printed hybrid short/open-ended slot antenna with capacitive coupling feed strips is proposed for hepta-band mobile applications. The proposed antenna is comprised of a slotted ground plane on the top plane and two capacitive coupling feed strips with a chip inductor on the bottom plane. At the low frequency band, the short-ended long slot fed by strip 1 generates its half-wavelength resonance mode, whereas the T-shaped open ended slot fed by strip 2 generates its quarter-wavelength resonance mode for the high frequency band. The antenna provides a wide bandwidth covering GSM850/GSM900/DCS/PCS/UMTS/LTE2300/LTE2500 operation bands. Moreover, the antenna occupies a small volume of 15 mm × 50 mm × 1 mm. The operating principle of the proposed antenna and the simulation/measurement results are presented and discussed.

A qualitative evaluation of hand drying practices among Kenyans.

Science.gov (United States)

Person, Bobbie; Schilling, Katharine; Owuor, Mercy; Ogange, Lorraine; Quick, Rob

2013-01-01

Recommended disease prevention behaviors of hand washing, hygienic hand drying, and covering one's mouth and nose in a hygienic manner when coughing and sneezing appear to be simple behaviors but continue to be a challenge to successfully promote and sustain worldwide. We conducted a qualitative inquiry to better understand current hand drying behaviors associated with activities of daily living, and mouth and nose covering practices, among Kenyans. We conducted 7 focus group discussions; 30 in-depth interviews; 10 structured household observations; and 75 structured observations in public venues in the urban area of Kisumu; rural communities surrounding Kisumu; and a peri-urban area outside Nairobi, Kenya. Using a grounded theory approach, we transcribed and coded the narrative data followed by thematic analysis of the emergent themes. Hand drying, specifically on a clean towel, was not a common practice among our participants. Most women dried their hands on their waist cloth, called a leso, or their clothes whether they were cooking, eating or cleaning the nose of a young child. If men dried their hands, they used their trousers or a handkerchief. Children rarely dried their hands; they usually just wiped them on their clothes, shook them, or left them wet as they continued with their activities. Many people sneezed into their hands and wiped them on their clothes. Men and women used a handkerchief fairly often when they had a runny nose, cold, or the flu. Most people coughed into the air or their hand. Drying hands on dirty clothes, rags and lesos can compromise the benefits of handwashing. Coughing and sneezing in to an open hand can contribute to spread of disease as well. Understanding these practices can inform health promotion activities and campaigns for the prevention and control of diarrheal disease and influenza.

A qualitative evaluation of hand drying practices among Kenyans.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bobbie Person

Full Text Available Recommended disease prevention behaviors of hand washing, hygienic hand drying, and covering one's mouth and nose in a hygienic manner when coughing and sneezing appear to be simple behaviors but continue to be a challenge to successfully promote and sustain worldwide. We conducted a qualitative inquiry to better understand current hand drying behaviors associated with activities of daily living, and mouth and nose covering practices, among Kenyans.We conducted 7 focus group discussions; 30 in-depth interviews; 10 structured household observations; and 75 structured observations in public venues in the urban area of Kisumu; rural communities surrounding Kisumu; and a peri-urban area outside Nairobi, Kenya. Using a grounded theory approach, we transcribed and coded the narrative data followed by thematic analysis of the emergent themes. Hand drying, specifically on a clean towel, was not a common practice among our participants. Most women dried their hands on their waist cloth, called a leso, or their clothes whether they were cooking, eating or cleaning the nose of a young child. If men dried their hands, they used their trousers or a handkerchief. Children rarely dried their hands; they usually just wiped them on their clothes, shook them, or left them wet as they continued with their activities. Many people sneezed into their hands and wiped them on their clothes. Men and women used a handkerchief fairly often when they had a runny nose, cold, or the flu. Most people coughed into the air or their hand.Drying hands on dirty clothes, rags and lesos can compromise the benefits of handwashing. Coughing and sneezing in to an open hand can contribute to spread of disease as well. Understanding these practices can inform health promotion activities and campaigns for the prevention and control of diarrheal disease and influenza.

MAXIMUM AIR SUCTION INTO HORIZONTAL OPEN ENDED CYLINDRICAL LOUVERED PIPE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SAMEER RANJAN SAHU

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The main approach behind the present numerical investigation is to estimate the mass flow rate of air sucked into a horizontal open-ended louvered pipe from the surrounding atmosphere. The present numerical investigation has been performed by solving the conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy along with two equation based k-ɛ model for a louvered horizontal cylindrical pipe by finite volume method. It has been found from the numerical investigation that mass suction rate of air into the pipe increases with increase in louvered opening area and the number of nozzles used. Keeping other parameters fixed, for a given mass flow rate there exists an optimum protrusion of nozzle for highest mass suction into the pipe. It was also found from the numerical investigation that increasing the pipe diameter the suction mass flow rate of air was increased.

Study on oxygen transfer by solid jet aerator with multiple openings

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B.K. Shukla

2018-04-01

Full Text Available In the current study, two different sets of solid jet aerators having area of openings equal to 594.96 mm2 and 246.30 mm2 with rectangular nozzles having rounded ends were studied. Each set consisted of aerators having one, two, four and eight openings. The oxygenation performance of every model was studied for five different discharges of 1.11 l/s, 2.10 l/s, 2.96 l/s, 3.83 l/s and 4.69 l/s were studied. At low discharges, the aerator having lesser number of openings demonstrated more oxygen-transfer efficiency whereas at higher discharges, the aerator having more number of openings yielded more oxygenation-efficiency. Maximum value of oxygen-transfer efficiency of 21.53 kg-O2/kW-hr was obtained for the discharge of 1.11 l/s for single nozzle aerator; however the maximum oxygen-transfer factor of 2.0 × 10−2 s−1 was obtained at discharge of 4.69 l/s for aerator having eight numbers of openings having area of 594.96 mm2. On the other hand, maximum oxygen transfer efficiency of 10.93 kg-O2/kW-hr was demonstrated by aerator with single opening at a discharge of 1.11 l/s and maximum oxygen transfer factor of 7.83 × 10−3 s−1 was obtained from aerator with eight openings at a discharge of 4.69 l/s corresponding to set of aerators with area of openings equal to 246.30 mm2. Multiple non-linear regression modelling was applied to predict oxygen transfer of the aerators for different combinations of input parameters. At the end, the models were compared with conventional methods of aeration and were found to be competitive with traditional devices. Keywords: Plunging jet, Jet aerator, Oxygen transfer, Aeration, Dissolved oxygen

Enhancement of figural creativity by motor activation: effects of unilateral hand contractions on creativity are moderated by positive schizotypy.

Science.gov (United States)

Rominger, Christian; Papousek, Ilona; Fink, Andreas; Weiss, Elisabeth M

2014-01-01

Creativity is an important trait necessary to achieve innovations in science, economy, arts and daily life. Therefore, the enhancement of creative performance is a significant field of investigation. A recent experiment showed enhanced verbal creativity after unilateral left-hand contractions, which was attributed to elevated activation of the right hemisphere. The present study aimed to extend these findings to the domain of figural creativity. Furthermore, as creativity and positive schizotypy may share some neurobiological underpinnings associated with the right hemisphere, we studied the potential moderating effect of positive schizotypy on the effects of the experimental modification of relative hemispheric activation on creativity. In a gender-balanced sample (20 men and 20 women), squeezing a hand gripper with the left hand enhanced figural creativity on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking compared to squeezing the gripper with the right hand. However, this was only true when positive schizotypy was low. The moderating effect of schizotypy may be produced by relatively greater activity of certain parts of the right hemisphere being a shared neuronal correlate of creativity and positive schizotypy.

Hand activities in infantile masturbation: a video analysis of 13 cases.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Jonas Kjeldbjerg; Balslev, Thomas

2009-11-01

Infantile masturbation is considered a variant of normal behaviour. The abrupt and spontaneous onset, altered sensorium and autonomic phenomena during episodes may suggest an epileptic fit. Therefore, children with infantile masturbation are often admitted to hospital and undergo unnecessary tests. The purpose of the present study was to provide a detailed description of hand activities in infantile masturbation. The authors reviewed video recordings of 2 boys and 11 girls with infantile masturbation. Position, movements and activities of hands and fingers during episodes were registered. Five patterns of hand activities were registered: Fisting (four infants), grasping of toys, furniture or clothing (ten infants), chorea-like "piano playing" hand movements (two infants), pressure over the diaper/genital region (one infant) and bimanual manipulation of items (four infants). Fisting was primarily observed in the younger infants, and bimanual manipulation was primarily seen in the older infants. Recognizing one or more of the five distinct patterns of hand activities in infantile masturbation may help establishing the diagnosis.

Getting Their Hands Dirty: Qualitative Study on Hands-on Learning for Architectural Students in Design-build Course

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zunaibi B. Abdullah

2011-06-01

Full Text Available This qualitative study provides an in-depth perspective of hands-on learning through the observation and analysis of architectural students' views in a design-build program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln during the fall semester of 2008. Qualitative data was gathered from 14 participants involved in the construction of a low energy double-storey house in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. The study inventoried the requisite characteristics of a design-build course. Participants' views and activities were studied to ascribe the qualitative benefits of hands-on learning. In addition, students' motivation towards hands-on activities were evaluated in reference to student confidence and independence levels towards their future career as architects, designers or other design-build professionals. The findings showed the design-build course could offer a specific knowledge that link between theoretical subjects and the practical expect of building contractions.

The effect of improved hand hygiene on nosocomial MRSA control.

Science.gov (United States)

Marimuthu, Kalisvar; Pittet, Didier; Harbarth, Stephan

2014-01-01

The purpose of this review is to examine studies that have assessed the association between hand hygiene enhancement and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) rates and to explore controversies surrounding this association. Many studies have been published confirming the link between improved hand hygiene compliance and reduction in MRSA acquisition and infections, including bacteremia. These studies have also shown the cost-beneficial nature of these programmes. Despite considerable research some issues remain unanswered still, including the temporal relationship between hand hygiene enhancement strategies and decrease in MRSA rates, association between hand hygiene enhancement and MRSA-related surgical site infections, diminishing effect of hand hygiene compliance on MRSA rates after reaching a threshold and the role of instituting contact precautions in the setting of low MRSA rates and sufficient hand hygiene compliance. In conclusion, enhancement of hand hygiene compliance has been shown to reduce MRSA rates; however, some open issues warrant further investigation.

17 CFR 270.6c-10 - Exemption for certain open-end management investment companies to impose deferred sales loads.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... management investment companies to impose deferred sales loads. 270.6c-10 Section 270.6c-10 Commodity and... ACT OF 1940 § 270.6c-10 Exemption for certain open-end management investment companies to impose... purposes of this section: (1) Company means a registered open-end management investment company, other than...

Establishing CAD/CAM in Preclinical Dental Education: Evaluation of a Hands-On Module.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwindling, Franz Sebastian; Deisenhofer, Ulrich Karl; Porsche, Monika; Rammelsberg, Peter; Kappel, Stefanie; Stober, Thomas

2015-10-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate a hands-on computer-assisted design/computer-assisted manufacture (CAD/CAM) module in a preclinical dental course in restorative dentistry. A controlled trial was conducted by dividing a class of 56 third-year dental students in Germany into study and control groups; allocation to the two groups depended on student schedules. Prior information about CAD/CAM-based restorations was provided for all students by means of lectures, preparation exercises, and production of gypsum casts of prepared resin teeth. The study group (32 students) then participated in a hands-on CAD/CAM module in small groups, digitizing their casts and designing zirconia frameworks for single crowns. The digitization process was introduced to the control group (24 students) solely by means of a video-supported lecture. To assess the knowledge gained, a 20-question written examination was administered; 48 students took the exam. The results were analyzed with Student's t-tests at a significance level of 0.05. The results on the examination showed a significant difference between the two groups: the mean scores were 16.8 (SD 1.7, range 13-19) for the study group and 12.5 (SD 3, range 4-18) for the control group. After the control group had also experienced the hands-on module, a total of 48 students from both groups completed a questionnaire with 13 rating-scale and three open-ended questions evaluating the module. Those results showed that the module was highly regarded by the students. This study supports the idea that small-group hands-on courses are helpful for instruction in digital restoration design. These students' knowledge gained and satisfaction seemed to justify the time, effort, and equipment needed.

Comparison of Early Active Tension and Immobilization Protocols in Rehabilitation of the Hand, Following Zone 5-6 Extensor Tendon Repair

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fereidoun Layeghi

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Objective: The objective of the study was to assess and compare Early Active Tension and Immobilization Protocols in Rehabilitation of the Hand, Following Zone 5-6 Extensor Tendon Repair. Materials & Methods: From the 21 patients enrolled in a randomized controlled trial study, 18 cases with average age of 32. 43 years completed the protocol. A total of 41 extensor tendons from 27 fingers of the subjects were studied. A surgeon repaired all tendons in zone 5 and/or 6 by an end to end epitenon running technique using prolen 0.3. For rehabilitation, subjects were randomly assigned into two “Immobilization” and “early active tension” group. Edema, metacarpophalangeal flexion, combined flexion and extension of wrist and fingers, total active motion of fingers and metacarpal extensor lag were assessed 6 weeks after surgery. All aforementioned variables and grip strength were reassessed 12 weeks after surgery. Results: Compared to traditional immobilization protocol, early active tension could significantly improve hand edema, metacarpal flexion, combined flexion and extension of wrist and fingers, total active motion of fingers and grip strength (P0.05. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that in compliant patients, early active tension could be an alternative method for traditional immobilization protocol, after surgical repair of extensor tendon injuries in zone 5 and/or 6.

Predictors of stenosing tenosynovitis in the hand and hand-related activity limitations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ursum, J.; Horsten, N.C.; Hoeksma, A.F.; Dijkmans, B.A.; Knol, D.L.; Schaardenburg, D. van; Dekker, J.; Roorda, L.D.

2011-01-01

Objectives: To identify early predictors of stenosing tenosynovitis in the hand and hand-related activity limitations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Design: A longitudinal study of an inception cohort. Setting: A large outpatient clinic. Participants: Consecutive patients who attended

Using open-ended data to enrich survey results on the meanings of self-rated health: a study among women in underprivileged communities in Beirut, Lebanon.

Science.gov (United States)

Salem, Mylene Tewtel; Abdulrahim, Sawsan; Zurayk, Huda

2009-12-01

This study extends the debate on self-rated health by using different sources of data in the same study to explore the meanings of self-rated health among women who live in socio-economically disadvantaged communities in Beirut, Lebanon. Using data from the Urban Health Study, a cross-sectional household survey of 1,869 women between 15 and 59 years of age, multiple logistic regression models were developed to assess factors associated with self-rated health. Also, open-ended data was used to analyze women's explanations of their self-rated health ratings. Self-rated health was found to be a complex concept, associated not only with physical health but also with a combination of social, psychological, and behavioral factors. This open-ended analysis revealed new meanings of self-rated health that are often not included in self-rated health epidemiologic research, such as women's experiences with pain and fatigue, as well as exposure to financial stressors and the legacy of wars. We argue that triangulating survey and open-ended data provides a better understanding of the context-specific social and cultural meanings of self-rated health.

An Open-Ended Approach to Evaluating Android Faces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vlachos, Evgenios; Schärfe, Henrik

2015-01-01

relevant to the portrayed facial expressions for the emotions of Surprise, Fear, Anger, and Happiness, and less relevant for the emotions of Disgust, and Sadness. Statistical analysis indicated the existence of a moderate degree of correlation between the emotions of Fear-Surprise, and a high degree...... of correlation between the pair Disgust-Sadness. With a set of validated facial expressions prior to nonverbal emotional communication, androids and other humanoids can convey more accurate messages to their interaction partners, and overcome the limitations of their current limited affective interface.......Expectation and intention understanding through nonverbal behavior is a key topic of interest in socially embedded robots. This study presents the results of an open-ended evaluation method pertaining to the interpretation of Android facial expressions by adult subjects through an online survey...

Case series on tropical diabetic hand syndrome

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2013-10-24

Oct 24, 2013 ... called cheiroarthropathy), muscle wasting and sensory changes. ... she was subsequently discharged with fasting blood glucose of 96 mg/dl and she was .... of the may end up with permanent disability such as loss of the hand ...

Development of five-finger robotic hand using master-slave control for hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoshida, Koki; Yamada, Hiroshi; Kato, Ryu; Seki, Tatsuya; Yokoi, Hiroshi; Mukai, Masaya

2016-08-01

This study aims to develop a robotic hand as a substitute for a surgeon's hand in hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS). We determined the requirements for the proposed hand from a surgeon's motions in HALS. We identified four basic behaviors: "power grasp," "precision grasp," "open hand for exclusion," and "peace sign for extending peritoneum." The proposed hand had the minimum necessary DOFs for performing these behaviors, five fingers as in a human's hand, a palm that can be folded when a surgeon inserts the hand into the abdomen, and an arm for adjusting the hand's position. We evaluated the proposed hand based on a performance test and a physician's opinions, and we confirmed that it can grasp organs.

A Multimode Equivalent Network Approach for the Analysis of a 'Realistic' Finite Array of Open Ended Waveguides

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Neto, A.; Bolt, R.; Gerini, G.; Schmitt, D.

2003-01-01

In this contribution we present a theoretical model for the analysis of finite arrays of open-ended waveguides mounted on finite mounting platforms or having radome coverages. This model is based on a Multimode Equivalent Network (MEN) [1] representation of the radiating waveguides complete with

Upper Limb-Hand 3D Display System for Biomimetic Myoelectric Hand Simulator

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Jimenez, Gonzalo

2001-01-01

A graphics system displaying both upper limb posture and opening-closing of a prosthetic hand was developed for realtime operation of our biomimetic myoelectric hand simulator, Posture of the upper...

Predictors of Stenosing Tenosynovitis in the Hand and Hand-Related Activity Limitations in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ursum, J.; Horsten, N.C.; Hoeksma, A.F.; Dijkmans, B.A.C.; Knol, D.L.; van Schaardenburg, D.; Dekker, J.; Roorda, L.D.

2011-01-01

Ursum J, Horsten NC, Hoeksma AF, Dijkmans BA, Knol DL, van Schaardenburg D, Dekker J, Roorda LD. Predictors of stenosing tenosynovitis in the hand and hand-related activity limitations in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Objectives To identify early predictors of stenosing tenosynovitis in the

A Record Book of Open Heart Surgical Cases between 1959 and 1982, Hand-Written by a Cardiac Surgeon.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Won-Gon

2016-08-01

A book of brief records of open heart surgery underwent between 1959 and 1982 at Seoul National University Hospital was recently found. The book was hand-written by the late professor and cardiac surgeon Yung Kyoon Lee (1921-1994). This book contains valuable information about cardiac patients and surgery at the early stages of the establishment of open heart surgery in Korea, and at Seoul National University Hospital. This report is intended to analyze the content of the book.

End-to-end Cyberinfrastructure and Data Services for Earth System Science Education and Research: A vision for the future

Science.gov (United States)

Ramamurthy, M. K.

2006-05-01

We live in an era of an unprecedented data volumes, multidisciplinary analysis and synthesis, and active, learner-centered education emphasis. For instance, a new generation of satellite instruments is being designed for GOES-R and NPOESS programs to deliver terabytes of data each day. Similarly, high-resolution, coupled models run over a wide range of temporal scales are generating data at unprecedented rates. Complex environmental problems such as El Nino/Southern Oscillation, climate change, and water cycle transcend not only disciplinary but also geographic boundaries, with their impacts and implications touching every region and community of the world. The understanding and solution to these inherently global scientific and social problems requires integrated observations that cover all areas of the globe, international sharing and flow of data, and earth system science approaches. Contemporary education strategies recommend adopting an Earth system science approach for teaching the geosciences, employing new pedagogical techniques such as enquiry-based learning and hands-on activities. Needless to add, today's education and research enterprise depends heavily on easy to use, robust, flexible and scalable cyberinfrastructure, especially on the ready availability of quality data and appropriate tools to manipulate and integrate those data. Fortunately, rapid advances in computing, communication and information technologies have provided solutions that can are being applied to advance teaching, research, and service. The exponential growth in the use of the Internet in education and research, largely due to the advent of the World Wide Web, is well documented. On the other hand, how other technological and community trends have shaped the development and application of cyberinfrastructure, especially in the data services area, is less well understood. For example, the computing industry is converging on an approach called Web services that enables a standard and

Hand Monitor for Simultaneous Measurements of Alpha and Beta Contamination

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Andersson, I Oe; Braun, J; Soederlund, B

1960-11-15

An instrument is described which measures {alpha} and {beta} contamination of the hands simultaneously. This has been achieved by using as detectors 8 flow counters paired in 4 units of two chambers, one unit for each side of the hand. The inner chamber of every unit (adjacent to the hands) delivers {alpha}-pulses, the outer chambers deliver {beta}-pulses. When two finger contacts are pushed the detectors are closing around the hands and the measurement is started. Audible and visual warnings operate when the MPL is exceeded. Similar warnings ope.rate if hands are removed before the end of the counting period. The activity levels are logarithmically indicated on four pointer instruments, which are automatically zeroed when the next measurement is started. The instrument is now commercially available.

Hand Monitor for Simultaneous Measurements of Alpha and Beta Contamination

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andersson, I.Oe.; Braun, J.; Soederlund, B.

1960-11-01

An instrument is described which measures α and β contamination of the hands simultaneously. This has been achieved by using as detectors 8 flow counters paired in 4 units of two chambers, one unit for each side of the hand. The inner chamber of every unit (adjacent to the hands) delivers α-pulses, the outer chambers deliver β-pulses. When two finger contacts are pushed the detectors are closing around the hands and the measurement is started. Audible and visual warnings operate when the MPL is exceeded. Similar warnings ope.rate if hands are removed before the end of the counting period. The activity levels are logarithmically indicated on four pointer instruments, which are automatically zeroed when the next measurement is started. The instrument is now commercially available

Downtown Study Centre: An Open-Ended ABE Program in an Urban Shopping Mall

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, David

1976-01-01

Describes an adult basic education facility after one year of operation in an urban shopping mall in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The center is an informal open-ended classroom and advising center where part-time adult learners study an individualized curriculum. Summarizes the major findings of a program evaluation. (EM)

Space-based multifunctional end effector systems functional requirements and proposed designs

Science.gov (United States)

Mishkin, A. H.; Jau, B. M.

1988-01-01

The end effector is an essential element of teleoperator and telerobot systems to be employed in space in the next decade. The report defines functional requirements for end effector systems to perform operations that are currently only feasible through Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA). Specific tasks and functions that the end effectors must be capable of performing are delineated. Required capabilities for forces and torques, clearances, compliance, and sensing are described, using current EVA requirements as guidelines where feasible. The implications of these functional requirements on the elements of potential end effector systems are discussed. The systems issues that must be considered in the design of space-based manipulator systems are identified; including impacts on subsystems tightly coupled to the end effector, i.e., control station, information processing, manipulator arm, tool and equipment stowage. Possible end effector designs are divided into three categories: single degree-of-freedom end effectors, multiple degree of freedom end effectors, and anthropomorphic hands. Specific design alternatives are suggested and analyzed within the individual categories. Two evaluations are performed: the first considers how well the individual end effectors could substitute for EVA; the second compares how manipulator systems composed of the top performers from the first evaluation would improve the space shuttle Remote Manipulator System (RMS) capabilities. The analysis concludes that the anthropomorphic hand is best-suited for EVA tasks. A left- and right-handed anthropomorphic manipulator arm configuration is suggested as appropriate to be affixed to the RMS, but could also be used as part of the Smart Front End for the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV). The technical feasibility of the anthropomorphic hand and its control are demonstrated. An evolutionary development approach is proposed and approximate scheduling provided for implementing the suggested

Open-Ended Waveguide Measurement and Numerical Simulation of the Reflectivity of Petri Dish Supported Skin Cell Monolayers in the mm-wave Range

Science.gov (United States)

Beneduci, Amerigo; Chidichimo, Giuseppe

2012-05-01

Open-ended waveguide reflectometry is a promising tool for permittivity and other material properties calculation at mm-waves (30-300 GHz). Measurement of the reflection coefficient does not require sample manipulation, allowing in vivo and in vitro non destructive studies on cells. Here we used this technique for measuring the power reflection coefficient (reflectivity) of water and Petri dish supported human skin melanoma and keratinocyte cell cultures, in the 53-72 GHz frequency range. The dependence of the reflectivity on polystyrene or glass thickness of the Petri base plate and on the cell layer thickness was analyzed. Permittivity data were then easily retrieved by using a plane wave-dominant mode approach for formulating the reflectivity at the aperture of the flange-mounted open-ended rectangular waveguide probe. Limits and validity of such an approximate approach were analyzed and compared with full-wave near field formulations for which magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficient must be measured and solved using complicated systems of integral equations and extensive numerical calculation. Finally, Petri dish reflectivity measured by the open-ended waveguide method was compared with that numerically simulated under far-field exposure conditions used in a large number of in vitro studies. Such an analysis showed that, under certain conditions, open-ended reflectivity values approach the far field ones.

Epidural electrocorticography of phantom hand movement following long-term upper-limb amputation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alireza eGharabaghi

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Prostheses for upper-limb amputees are currently controlled by either myoelectric or peripheral neural signals. Performance and dexterity of these devices is still limited, particularly when it comes to controlling hand function. Movement-related brain activity might serve as a complementary bio-signal for motor control of hand prosthesis. Methods: We introduced a methodology to implant a cortical interface without direct exposure of the brain surface in an upper-limb amputee. This bi-directional interface enabled us to explore the cortical physiology following long-term transhumeral amputation. In addition, we investigated neurofeedback of electrocorticographic brain activity related to the patient’s motor imagery to open his missing hand, i.e. phantom hand movement, for real-time control of a virtual hand prosthesis.Results: Both event-related brain potentials and cortical stimulation revealed mutually overlapping cortical representations of the phantom hand. Phantom hand movements could be robustly classified and the patient required only three training sessions to gain reliable control of the virtual hand prosthesis in an online closed-loop paradigm that discriminated between hand opening and rest. Conclusion: Epidural implants may constitute a powerful and safe alternative communication pathway between the brain and external devices for upper-limb amputees, thereby facilitating the integrated use of different signal sources for more intuitive and specific control of multi-functional devices in clinical use.

Hand hygiene in reducing transient flora on the hands of healthcare workers: an educational intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Kapil, R; Bhavsar, H K; Madan, M

2015-01-01

Hand hygiene has now been recognised as one of the most effective intervention to control the transmission of infections in a hospital and education is an important tool to ensure its implementation. In order to convince the users and as a part of education, it is important to generate evidence on the role of hand hygiene in reducing the bacterial flora on their hands. The present study was undertaken in a tertiary care hospital to demonstrate the presence of bacterial flora on the hands of healthcare workers (HCW) in different categories, to teach them proper hand hygiene technique using alcohol-based hand rub and determine the outcome for reduction of bacteria. A total sample size of 60 subjects including resident doctors, medical students, nurses and hospital attendants were included in the study after obtaining informed consent. Each person was educated on the technique of hand hygiene with alcohol-based hand rub and hand impressions were cultured before and after hand hygiene. All the subjects were also given a questionnaire to assess their perception on hand hygiene. The WHO posters on proper hand hygiene were displayed in the appropriate areas of the hospital in addition, as an educational tool. Majority (42 out of 60) of the HCWs had bacterial count up to 100 colonies or more on both hands before the application of hand rub while working in the hospital. After use of alcohol hand rub with a proper hand hygiene technique, it was found that the percentage reduction was 95-99% among doctors and nurses, 70% among hospital attendants and 50% among sanitary attendants. Staphylococcus aureus was present on the hands of eight persons of which three were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The study demonstrates that transient bacteria are present on the hands of HCWs but majority could be removed by proper hand hygiene, which needs continuous education to be effective. It also shows that active education by demonstrating the proper hand hygiene technique

Radiation of Sawtooth Waves from the End of an Open Pipe

Science.gov (United States)

Bakaitis, Rachael; Bodon, Josh; Gee, Kent; Thomas, Derek

2012-10-01

It is known, that because of nonlinear propagation distortion, a sinusoidal wave is transformed into a sawtooth-like wave as it travels through a pipe. It has been observed that the sawtooth wave, when measured immediately after it exits a pipe, has a form similar to a delta function. Currently this behavior is not understood, but has potential application to radiation of sound from brass instruments and rocket motors. Building on previous work in the 1970s by Blackstock and Wright, the purpose of the current research is to better understand the radiation of sawtooth waves from the open end of a circular pipe. Nonlinear propagation theory, the experimental apparatus and considerations, and some preliminary results are described.

Hands on with ASP.NET MVC covering MVC 6

CERN Document Server

Sahay, Rahul

2014-01-01

MVC (Model-View-Controller) is the popular Microsoft technology which enables you to build dynamic, data-driven, mobile websites, TDD site. Hands-On with ASP.NET MVC is not only written for those who are going to have affair with MVC for the 1st time, rather it is written in such a way that even experienced professional will love reading this book. This book covers all the tiny steps on using MVC at its best. With complete practical tutorials to illustrate the concepts, you will step by step build one End to End application which covers below mentioned techniques - Controllers, Views, Models,

The Effect of Contextualized Conversational Feedback in a Complex Open-Ended Learning Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Segedy, James R.; Kinnebrew, John S.; Biswas, Gautam

2013-01-01

Betty's Brain is an open-ended learning environment in which students learn about science topics by teaching a virtual agent named Betty through the construction of a visual causal map that represents the relevant science phenomena. The task is complex, and success requires the use of metacognitive strategies that support knowledge acquisition,…

ModGrasp: An open-source rapid-prototyping framework for designing low-cost sensorised modular hands

OpenAIRE

Sanfilippo, Filippo; Zhang, Houxiang; Pettersen, Kristin Ytterstad; Salvietti, G.; Prattichizzo, Domenico

2014-01-01

This paper introduces ModGrasp, an open-source virtual and physical rapid-prototyping framework that allows for the design, simulation and control of low-cost sensorised modular hands. By combining the rapid-prototyping approach with the modular concept, different manipulator configurations can be modelled. A real-time one-to-one correspondence between virtual and physical prototypes is established. Different control algorithms can be implemented for the models. By using a low-cost sensing ap...

Effect of task-oriented activities on hand functions, cognitive functions and self-expression of elderly patients with dementia.

Science.gov (United States)

Son, Bo-Young; Bang, Yo-Soon; Hwang, Min-Ji; Oh, Eun-Ju

2017-08-01

[Purpose] This study investigates the effects of task-oriented activities on hand function, cognitive function, and self-expression of the elderly with dementia, and then identify the influencing factors on self-expression in sub-factors of dependent variables. [Subjects and Methods] Forty elderly persons were divided into two groups: intervention group (n=20) and control group (n=20). The interventions were applied to the subjects 3 times a week, 50 minutes per each time, for a total of five weeks. We measured the jamar hand dynamometer test for grip strength, the jamar hydraulic pinch gauge test for prehension test, nine-hole pegboard test for coordination test, and Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment-Geriatric Population for cognitive function, and self-expression rating scale for self-expression test. [Results] The task-oriented activities promoted hand function, cognitive function (visual perception, spatial perception, visuomotor organization, attention & concentration) and self-expression of the elderly with early dementia, and the factors influencing the self-expression were cognitive function (visual perception) and hand function (coordination). The study showed that the task-oriented program enabled self-expression by improving hand function and cognitive function. [Conclusion] This study suggested that there should be provided the task-oriented program for prevention and treatment of the elderly with early dementia in the clinical settings and it was considered that results have a value as basic data that can be verified relationship of hand function, cognitive function, and self-expression.

12 CFR 226.6 - Account-opening disclosures.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... SYSTEM TRUTH IN LENDING (REGULATION Z) Open-End Credit § 226.6 Account-opening disclosures. (a) Rules... for collection activity after default, attorney's fees whether or not automatically imposed, and post... post-judgment interest rates permitted by law. (C) Taxes imposed on the credit transaction by a state...

MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN PEMECAHAN MASALAH MATEMATIS DAN SELF-CONCEPT CALON GURU DI KABUPATEN KARAWANG MELALUI PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hendra Kartika

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This study aims to investigate open-ended learning approach in improving undergraduate students’ mathematical problem-solving ability and self-concept toward linear algebra subject. Population in this study is mathematics education students FKIP Unsika in four semesters that takes linear algebra courses while the sample is two classes became experiment class and control class. The research design that used in this study is non-equivalent control group design. Results show that undergraduate students’ mathematical problem-solving ability and self-concept who followed open-ended learning approach were fostered significantly compared to undergraduate students’ who received conventional teaching method.

Expression of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes during open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toft, P; Tønnesen, Else Kirstine; Zülow, I

1997-01-01

Open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and abdominal surgery are associated with lymphocytopenia. We measured a panel of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes to clarify possible association of CPB with increased expression of these molecules. Eight patients undergoing open...... open-heart and abdominal surgery. The proportion of CD11a/CD18-positive lymphocytes rose from 67.6 +/- 8% to 86.4 +/- 3% after aortic declamping (p ... was associated with increased expression of the adhesion molecule CD11a/CD18 on lymphocytes, while the expression of activation molecules on lymphocytes was unchanged....

Logarithmic corrections from ferromagnetic impurity ending bonds of open antiferromagnetic host chains

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lou Jizhong; Qin Shaojin; Su Zhaobin; Dai Jianhui; Yu Lu

2000-06-01

We analyze the logarithmic corrections due to ferromagnetic impurity ending bonds of open spin 1/2 antiferromagnetic chains, using the density matrix renormalization group technique. A universal finite size scaling ∼ 1/L log L for impurity contributions in the quasi-degenerate ground state energy is demonstrated for a zigzag spin 1/2 chain at the critical next nearest neighbor coupling and the standard Heisenberg spin 1/2 chain, in the long chain limit. Using an exact solution for the latter case it is argued that one can extract the impurity contributions to the entropy and specific heat from the scaling analysis. It is also shown that a pure spin 3/2 open Heisenberg chain belongs to the same universality class. (author)

Multisensory Integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with Active Movement.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Woong; Li, Liang; Satoh, Satoru; Hachimura, Kozaburo

2016-01-01

Improving the sense of immersion is one of the core issues in virtual reality. Perceptual illusions of ownership can be perceived over a virtual body in a multisensory virtual reality environment. Rubber Hand and Virtual Hand Illusions showed that body ownership can be manipulated by applying suitable visual and tactile stimulation. In this study, we investigate the effects of multisensory integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with active movement. A virtual xylophone playing system which can interactively provide synchronous visual, tactile, and auditory stimulation was constructed. We conducted two experiments regarding different movement conditions and different sensory stimulations. Our results demonstrate that multisensory integration with free active movement can improve the sense of immersion in virtual reality.

Radical nephrectomy performed by open, laparoscopy with or without hand-assistance or robotic methods by the same surgeon produces comparable perioperative results

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tanya Nazemi

2006-02-01

Full Text Available PURPOSE: Radical nephrectomy can be performed using open or laparoscopic (with or without hand assistance methods, and most recently using the da Vinci Surgical Robotic System. We evaluated the perioperative outcomes using a contemporary cohort of patients undergoing radical nephrectomy by one of the above 4 methods performed by the same surgeon. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The relevant clinical information on 57 consecutive patients undergoing radical nephrectomy from September 2000 until July 2004 by a single surgeon was entered in a Microsoft Access DatabaseTM and queried. Following appropriate statistical analysis, p values < 0.05 were considered significant. RESULTS: Of 57 patients, the open, robotic, laparoscopy with or without hand assistance radical nephrectomy were performed in 18, 6, 21, and 12 patients, respectively. The age, sex, body mass index (BMI, incidence of malignancy, specimen and tumor size, tumor stage, Fuhrman grade, hospital stay, change in postoperative creatinine, drop in hemoglobin, and perioperative complications were not significantly different between the methods. While the estimated median blood loss, postoperative narcotic use for pain control, and hospital stay were significantly higher in the open surgery method (p < 0.05, the median operative time was significantly shorter compared to the robotic method (p = 0.02. Operating room costs were significantly higher in the robotic and laparoscopic groups; however, there was no significant difference in total hospital costs between the 4 groups. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrates that radical nephrectomy can be safely performed either by open, robotic, or laparoscopic with or without hand assistance methods without significant difference in perioperative complication rates. A larger cohort and longer follow up are needed to validate our findings and establish oncological outcomes.

Blast a Biofilm: A Hands-On Activity for School Children and Members of the Public

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victoria L. Marlow

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Microbial biofilms are very common in nature and have both detrimental and beneficial effects on everyday life. Practical and hands-on activities have been shown to achieve greater learning and engagement with science by young people (1, 4, 5. We describe an interactive activity, developed to introduce microbes and biofilms to school age children and members of the public. Biofilms are common in nature and, as the favored mode of growth for microbes, biofilms affect many parts ofeveryday life. This hands-on activity highlights the key  concepts of biofilms by allowing participants to first build, then attempt to ‘blast,’ a biofilm, thus enabling the robust nature of biofilms to become apparent. We developed the blast-a-biofilm activity as part of our two-day Magnificent Microbes event, which took place at the Dundee Science Centre-Sensation in May 2010 (6. This public engagement event was run by scientists from the Division of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Dundee. The purpose of the event was to use fun and interesting activities to make both children and adults think about how fascinating microbes are. Additionally, we aimed to develop interactive resources that could be used in future events and learning environments, of which the blast-a-biofilm activity is one such resource. Scientists and policy makers in the UK believe engaging the public with research ensures that the work of universities and research institutes is relevant to society and wider social concerns and can also help scientists actively contribute to positive social change (2. The activity is aimed at junior school age children (9–11 years and adults with little or no knowledge of microbiology. The activity is suitable for use at science festivals, science clubs, and also in the classroom, where it can serve as a tool to enrich and enhance the school curriculum.

Exploring droplet impact near a millimetre-sized hole: comparing a closed pit with an open-ended pore

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Jong, Rianne; Enriquez Paz y Puente, O.R.; van der Meer, Roger M.

2015-01-01

We investigate drop impact dynamics near closed pits and open-ended pores experimentally. The resulting impact phenomena differ greatly in each case. For a pit, we observe three distinct phenomena, which we denote as a splash, a jet and an air bubble, whose appearance depends on the distance between

Comparative analysis of the end-joining activity of several DNA ligases.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert J Bauer

Full Text Available DNA ligases catalyze the repair of phosphate backbone breaks in DNA, acting with highest activity on breaks in one strand of duplex DNA. Some DNA ligases have also been observed to ligate two DNA fragments with short complementary overhangs or blunt-ended termini. In this study, several wild-type DNA ligases (phage T3, T4, and T7 DNA ligases, Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus 1 (PBCV1 DNA ligase, human DNA ligase 3, and Escherichia coli DNA ligase were tested for their ability to ligate DNA fragments with several difficult to ligate end structures (blunt-ended termini, 3'- and 5'- single base overhangs, and 5'-two base overhangs. This analysis revealed that T4 DNA ligase, the most common enzyme utilized for in vitro ligation, had its greatest activity on blunt- and 2-base overhangs, and poorest on 5'-single base overhangs. Other ligases had different substrate specificity: T3 DNA ligase ligated only blunt ends well; PBCV1 DNA ligase joined 3'-single base overhangs and 2-base overhangs effectively with little blunt or 5'- single base overhang activity; and human ligase 3 had highest activity on blunt ends and 5'-single base overhangs. There is no correlation of activity among ligases on blunt DNA ends with their activity on single base overhangs. In addition, DNA binding domains (Sso7d, hLig3 zinc finger, and T4 DNA ligase N-terminal domain were fused to PBCV1 DNA ligase to explore whether modified binding to DNA would lead to greater activity on these difficult to ligate substrates. These engineered ligases showed both an increased binding affinity for DNA and increased activity, but did not alter the relative substrate preferences of PBCV1 DNA ligase, indicating active site structure plays a role in determining substrate preference.

Dynamics, control and sensor issues pertinent to robotic hands for the EVA retriever system

Science.gov (United States)

Mclauchlan, Robert A.

1987-01-01

Basic dynamics, sensor, control, and related artificial intelligence issues pertinent to smart robotic hands for the Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) Retriever system are summarized and discussed. These smart hands are to be used as end effectors on arms attached to manned maneuvering units (MMU). The Retriever robotic systems comprised of MMU, arm and smart hands, are being developed to aid crewmen in the performance of routine EVA tasks including tool and object retrieval. The ultimate goal is to enhance the effectiveness of EVA crewmen.

Education for All Revisited: On Concepts of Sharing in the Open Educational Resources (OER Movement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Theo Hug

2014-11-01

Full Text Available  Relationships between the private and public sphere in education have been discussed repeatedly and in various ways. However, the role of media and media dynamics is widely underestimated in this context. It is only recently, since the digital turn, that the focus of the debates has changed. In the past few years, manifold initiatives have aimed at opening up education on various levels using digital communications technologies and Creative Commons licenses. Additionally, massive open online courses (moocs have been developed. Today, OER (Open Educational Resources is used widely as an umbrella term for free content creation initiatives: OER Commons (http://www.oercommons.org/, Open Courseware (OCW, OER repositories, OCW search facilities, University OCW initiatives, and related activities. Shared resource sites such as Connexions (http://cnx.org, WikiEducator (http://wikieducator.org, and Curriki (www.curriki.org have an increasing number of visitors and contributors.On one hand, the motif of ‘education for all’ is once again appearing in related debates and practices. On the other hand, notions of sharing play a crucial role in open content and open education strategies. This purpose of this paper isthreefold: It starts with an outline of selected understandings of sharing in educational contexts; it then addresses their relevance for OER development through examining contrasting and relational conceptual dimensions. Lastly, the contribution aims to sketch different forms of sharing related to media forms.

Transparency in Transcribing: Making Visible Theoretical Bases Impacting Knowledge Construction from Open-Ended Interview Records

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Audra Skukauskaite

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This article presents a reflexive analysis of two transcripts of an open-ended interview and argues for transparency in transcribing processes and outcomes. By analyzing ways in which a researcher's theories become consequential in producing and using transcripts of an open-ended interview, this paper makes visible the importance of examining and presenting theoretical bases of transcribing decisions. While scholars across disciplines have argued that transcribing is a theoretically laden process (GREEN, FRANQUIZ & DIXON, 1997; KVALE & BRINKMAN, 2009, few have engaged in reflexive analyses of the data history to demonstrate the consequences particular theoretical and methodological approaches pose in producing knowledge claims and inciting dialogues across traditions. The article demonstrates how theory-method-claim relationships in transcribing influence research transparency and warrantability. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201146

Computer-Assisted, Self-Interviewing (CASI Compared to Face-to-Face Interviewing (FTFI with Open-Ended, Non-Sensitive Questions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Fairweather PhD

2012-07-01

Full Text Available This article reports results from research on cultural models, and assesses the effects of computers on data quality by comparing open-ended questions asked in two formats—face-to-face interviewing (FTFI and computer-assisted, self-interviewing (CASI. We expected that for our non-sensitive topic, FTFI would generate fuller and richer accounts because the interviewer could facilitate the interview process. Although the interviewer indeed facilitated these interviews, which resulted in more words in less time, the number of underlying themes found within the texts for each interview mode was the same, thus resulting in the same models of national culture and innovation being built for each mode. Our results, although based on an imperfect research design, suggest that CASI can be beneficial when using open-ended questions because CASI is easy to administer, capable of reaching more efficiently a large sample, and able to avoid the need to transcribe the recorded responses.

Multisensory Integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with Active Movement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Woong Choi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Improving the sense of immersion is one of the core issues in virtual reality. Perceptual illusions of ownership can be perceived over a virtual body in a multisensory virtual reality environment. Rubber Hand and Virtual Hand Illusions showed that body ownership can be manipulated by applying suitable visual and tactile stimulation. In this study, we investigate the effects of multisensory integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with active movement. A virtual xylophone playing system which can interactively provide synchronous visual, tactile, and auditory stimulation was constructed. We conducted two experiments regarding different movement conditions and different sensory stimulations. Our results demonstrate that multisensory integration with free active movement can improve the sense of immersion in virtual reality.

Open magnetic fields in active regions

Science.gov (United States)

Svestka, Z.; Solodyna, C. V.; Howard, R.; Levine, R. H.

1977-01-01

Soft X-ray images and magnetograms of several active regions and coronal holes are examined which support the interpretation that some of the dark X-ray gaps seen between interconnecting loops and inner cores of active regions are foot points of open field lines inside the active regions. Characteristics of the investigated dark gaps are summarized. All the active regions with dark X-ray gaps at the proper place and with the correct polarity predicted by global potential extrapolation of photospheric magnetic fields are shown to be old active regions, indicating that field opening is accomplished only in a late phase of active-region development. It is noted that some of the observed dark gaps probably have nothing in common with open fields, but are either due to the decreased temperature in low-lying portions of interconnecting loops or are the roots of higher and less dense or cooler loops.

Instant Math Storymats with Hands-on Activities for Building Essential Primary Math Skills, Grades K-2.

Science.gov (United States)

Spann, Mary Beth

This book contains 18 reproducible Math Storymats which can be a refreshing addition to any early elementary math program. Each storymat is accompanied by two separate read-aloud story selections that guide children in using plastic disk-shaped markers to interact with the mats in specific and open-ended ways. Together the mats and the…

Oxygen plasma assisted end-opening and field emission enhancement in vertically aligned multiwall carbon nanotubes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mathur, A.; Roy, S.S.; Hazra, K.S.; Wadhwa, S.; Ray, S.C.; Mitra, S.K.; Misra, D.S.; McLaughlin, J.A.

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► We showed Ar/O 2 plasma can be effective for the end opening of aligned CNTs. ► The field emission property was dramatically enhanced after plasma modification. ► Microstructures were clearly understood by Raman and SEM analysis. ► Surface wet-ability at various functionalised conditions was studied. - Abstract: This paper highlights the changes in micro-structural and field emission properties of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) via oxygen plasma treatment. We find that exposure of very low power oxygen plasma (6 W) at 13.56 MHz for 15–20 min, opens the tip of vertically aligned CNTs. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy images were used to identify the quality and micro-structural changes of the nanotube morphology and surfaces. Raman spectra showed that the numbers of defects were increased throughout the oxygen plasma treatment process. In addition, the hydrophobic nature of the VACNTs is altered significantly and the contact angle decreases drastically from 110° to 40°. It was observed that the electron field emission (EFE) characteristics are significantly enhanced. The turn-on electric field (ETOE) of CNTs decreased from ∼0.80 V μm −1 (untreated) to ∼0.60 V μm −1 (oxygen treated). We believe that the open ended VACNTs would be immensely valuable for applications such as micro/nanofluidic based filtering elements and display devices.

Oxygen plasma assisted end-opening and field emission enhancement in vertically aligned multiwall carbon nanotubes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mathur, A. [NIBEC, School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Jordanstown, BT37 0QB (United Kingdom); Roy, S.S., E-mail: sinharoy@ualberta.ca [Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6T 2G8 (Canada); Hazra, K.S. [Department of Physics, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076 (India); Wadhwa, S. [NIBEC, School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Jordanstown, BT37 0QB (United Kingdom); Ray, S.C. [School of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand, WITS 2050, Johannesburg (South Africa); Mitra, S.K. [Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6T 2G8 (Canada); Misra, D.S. [Department of Physics, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076 (India); McLaughlin, J.A. [NIBEC, School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Jordanstown, BT37 0QB (United Kingdom)

2012-05-15

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We showed Ar/O{sub 2} plasma can be effective for the end opening of aligned CNTs. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The field emission property was dramatically enhanced after plasma modification. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Microstructures were clearly understood by Raman and SEM analysis. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Surface wet-ability at various functionalised conditions was studied. - Abstract: This paper highlights the changes in micro-structural and field emission properties of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) via oxygen plasma treatment. We find that exposure of very low power oxygen plasma (6 W) at 13.56 MHz for 15-20 min, opens the tip of vertically aligned CNTs. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy images were used to identify the quality and micro-structural changes of the nanotube morphology and surfaces. Raman spectra showed that the numbers of defects were increased throughout the oxygen plasma treatment process. In addition, the hydrophobic nature of the VACNTs is altered significantly and the contact angle decreases drastically from 110 Degree-Sign to 40 Degree-Sign . It was observed that the electron field emission (EFE) characteristics are significantly enhanced. The turn-on electric field (ETOE) of CNTs decreased from {approx}0.80 V {mu}m{sup -1} (untreated) to {approx}0.60 V {mu}m{sup -1} (oxygen treated). We believe that the open ended VACNTs would be immensely valuable for applications such as micro/nanofluidic based filtering elements and display devices.

Hands-on Experiments on Glycemia Regulation and Type 1 Diabetes

Science.gov (United States)

Mingueneau, M.; Chaix, A.; Scotti, N.; Chaix, J.; Reynders, A.; Hammond, C.; Thimonier, J.

2015-01-01

In the present article, we describe a 3-day experimental workshop on glycemia regulation and type 1 diabetes that engages students in open-ended investigations and guided experiments leading to results that are not already known to them. After an initial questioning phase during which students observe PowerPoint slides depicting the glycemia…

Open-ended Laboratory Investigations in a High School Physics Course: The difficulties and rewards of implementing inquiry-based learning in a physics lab

Science.gov (United States)

Szott, Aaron

2014-01-01

often closed-ended. The outcomes are known in advance and students replicate procedures recommended by the teacher. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the great opportunities created by allowing students investigative freedom in physics laboratories. I have realized that a laboratory environment in which students are free to conduct investigations using procedures of their own design can provide them with varied and rich opportunities for discovery. This paper describes what open-ended laboratory investigations have added to my high school physics classes. I will provide several examples of open-ended laboratories and discuss the benefits they conferred on students and teacher alike.

Automatic gain control of neural coupling during cooperative hand movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, F A; Dietz, V; Schrafl-Altermatt, M

2018-04-13

Cooperative hand movements (e.g. opening a bottle) are controlled by a task-specific neural coupling, reflected in EMG reflex responses contralateral to the stimulation site. In this study the contralateral reflex responses in forearm extensor muscles to ipsilateral ulnar nerve stimulation was analyzed at various resistance and velocities of cooperative hand movements. The size of contralateral reflex responses was closely related to the level of forearm muscle activation required to accomplish the various cooperative hand movement tasks. This indicates an automatic gain control of neural coupling that allows a rapid matching of corrective forces exerted at both sides of an object with the goal 'two hands one action'.

Mid-point for open-ended income category and the effect of equivalence scales on the income-health relationship.

Science.gov (United States)

Celeste, Roger Keller; Bastos, João Luiz

2013-12-01

To estimate the mid-point of an open-ended income category and to assess the impact of two equivalence scales on income-health associations. Data were obtained from the 2010 Brazilian Oral Health Survey (Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde Bucal--SBBrasil 2010). Income was converted from categorical to two continuous variables (per capita and equivalized) for each mid-point. The median mid-point was R$ 14,523.50 and the mean, R$ 24,507.10. When per capita income was applied, 53% of the population were below the poverty line, compared with 15% with equivalized income. The magnitude of income-health associations was similar for continuous income, but categorized equivalized income tended to decrease the strength of association.

Family Open House

Science.gov (United States)

Search Family Open House Join us for an afternoon of science fun. The Fermilab Family Open House is a party for children of all ages to learn about the world of physics. The Open House is supported by Open House? Check out our YouTube video to learn more! Explore physics concepts with hands-on

Acute Effects of Hand Elevation and Wrist Position on Mean Arterial Pressure and Pulse Rate Measured in the Hand

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Shibley, Lee

2000-01-01

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) to the wrist and hand are common among workers, and are associated with working conditions that use forceful, repetitive and extreme wrist joint postures that including end range flexion...

Effect of filling ratio on premixed methane/air explosion in an open-end pipe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Guo

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The propagation characteristics of premixed methane/air explosion under different filling ratios (20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 100% were studied using an experimental system. The results indicate that the peak overpressure showed a decreasing trend at the initial stage but then showed an increasing trend until reaching its maximum value under different filling ratios. As the explosion propagated to the open end, the overpressure showed a downtrend. At this point, the flame speed initially increased along the pipe but then dropped dramatically. In addition, the explosion overpressure and flame speed increased with the increase of filling ratio. However, when the filling ratio reached 50%, the explosion overpressure and flame speed tended to be stable and the increase was not obvious. These results will be of great importance in evaluating the explosive damage to equipment and human personnel working in coal mines or other chemical industries.

A hands-on activity for teaching product-process matrix: roadmap and application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciano Costa Santos

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The product-process matrix is a well-known framework proposed by Hayes and Wheelwright (1979 that is commonly used to identify processes types and to analyze the alignment of these processes with the products of a company. For didactic purposes, the matrix helps undergraduates beginners from Production Engineering to understand the logic of production systems, providing knowledge that will be essential for various course subjects. Considering the high level of abstraction of the concepts underlying the product-process matrix, this paper presents a way to facilitate the learning of them through the application of a hands-on activity which relies on the active learning philosophy. The proposed dynamic uses colored plastic sheets and PVC pipes as main materials, differing from the original proposal of Penlesky and Treleven (2005 . In addition to presenting an extremely simple exercise, which encourages its application in the classroom, another contribution of this paper is to define a complete roadmap for conducting the activity. This roadmap describes the assembly of fictitious products in customization and standardization scenarios for the comparison of two processes types of product-process matrix, job shop and assembly line. The activity revealed very successful after its application to two groups of Production Engineering undergraduates, confirmed with positive feedback from the students surveyed.

Effectiveness of an electronic hand hygiene monitoring system on healthcare workers' compliance to guidelines.

Science.gov (United States)

Al Salman, J M; Hani, S; de Marcellis-Warin, N; Isa, Sister Fatima

2015-01-01

Hand hygiene is a growing concern among populations and is a crucial element in ensuring patient safety in a healthcare environment. Numerous management efforts have been conducted in that regard, including education, awareness and observations. To better evaluate the possible impact of technology on a healthcare setting, we observed the impact of a particular niche technology developed as an answer to the growing hand hygiene concerns. A study was conducted at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) in Bahrain on a total of 16 Coronary Care Unit (CCU) beds where the system was installed, and the hand hygiene activity of healthcare workers (HCWs) in this area was monitored for a total period of 28 days. Comments, remarks and suggestions were noted, and improvements were made to the technology during the course of the trial. While resistance to change was significant, overall results were satisfactory. Compliance with hand hygiene techniques went from 38-42% to 60% at the beginning of the trial and then increased to an average of 75% at the end of the 28-day trial. In some cases, compliance peaked at 85% or even at 100%. Our case study demonstrates that technology can be used effectively in promoting and improving hand hygiene compliance in hospitals, which is one way to prevent cross-infections, especially in critical care areas. Copyright © 2014 King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

When familiar social partners are selected in open-ended situations: further tests of the socioemotional selectivity theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Dudley, Nikki M; Multhaup, Kristi S

2005-01-01

Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST; Carstensen, 1995, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4, 151-156) predicts that novel social partners are preferred in open-ended situations, whereas familiar social partners are preferred in future-limited situations. The authors attempted to generalize past research to new familiar and novel partner options. Studies 1 (N=144; undergraduates, community-dwelling adults ages 65 to 95) and 2 (N=336 community-dwelling participants ages 11 to 89) indicated that young and older participants in a future-limited situation preferred familiar partners. However, with different social partner options than have been used in previous research, young participants in an open-ended situation also preferred a familiar partner, contrary to the predictions of SST.

Open magnetic fields in active regions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svestka, Z.; Solodyna, C.V.; Levine, R.H.

1977-01-01

Soft X-ray observations confirm that some of the dark gaps seen between interconnecting loops and inner cores of active regions may be loci of open fields, as it has been predicted by global potential extrapolation of photospheric magnetic fields. It seems that the field lines may open only in a later state of the active region development. (Auth.)

Student Responses to a Hands-On Kinesthetic Lecture Activity for Learning about the Oxygen Carrying Capacity of Blood

Science.gov (United States)

Breckler, Jennifer; Yu, Justin R.

2011-01-01

This article describes a new hands-on, or "kinesthetic," activity for use in a physiology lecture hall to help students comprehend an important concept in cardiopulmonary physiology known as oxygen carrying capacity. One impetus for designing this activity was to address the needs of students who have a preference for kinesthetic…

The cortical activation pattern by a rehabilitation robotic hand: a functional NIRS study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Pyung-Hun; Lee, Seung-Hee; Gu, Gwang Min; Lee, Seung-Hyun; Jin, Sang-Hyun; Yeo, Sang Seok; Seo, Jeong Pyo; Jang, Sung Ho

2014-01-01

Clarification of the relationship between external stimuli and brain response has been an important topic in neuroscience and brain rehabilitation. In the current study, using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we attempted to investigate cortical activation patterns generated during execution of a rehabilitation robotic hand. Ten normal subjects were recruited for this study. Passive movements of the right fingers were performed using a rehabilitation robotic hand at a frequency of 0.5 Hz. We measured values of oxy-hemoglobin (HbO), deoxy-hemoglobin (HbR) and total-hemoglobin (HbT) in five regions of interest: the primary sensory-motor cortex (SM1), hand somatotopy of the contralateral SM1, supplementary motor area (SMA), premotor cortex (PMC), and prefrontal cortex (PFC). HbO and HbT values indicated significant activation in the left SM1, left SMA, left PMC, and left PFC during execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand (uncorrected, p < 0.01). By contrast, HbR value indicated significant activation only in the hand somatotopic area of the left SM1 (uncorrected, p < 0.01). Our results appear to indicate that execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand could induce cortical activation.

Grip Strength Survey Based on Hand Tool Usage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erman ÇAKIT

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Hand grip strength is broadly used for performing tasks involving equipment in production and processing activities. Most professionals in this field rely on grip strength to perform their tasks. There were three main aims of this study: i determining various hand grip strength measurements for the group of hand tool users, ii investigating the effects of height, weight, age, hand dominance, body mass index, previous Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD diagnosis, and hand tool usage experience on hand grip strength, and iii comparing the obtained results with existing data for other populations. The study groups comprised 71 healthy male facility workers. The values of subjects’ ages was observed between 26 and 74 years. The data were statistically analyzed to assess the normality of data and the percentile values of grip strength. The results of this study demonstrate that there were no significance differences noted between dominant and non-dominant hands. However, there were highly significant differences between the CTD group and the other group. Hand grip strength for the dominant hand was positively correlated to height, weight, and body mass index, and negatively correlated to age and tool usage experience. Hand dominance, height, weight, body mass index, age and tool usage experience should be considered when establishing normal values for grip strength.

KEEFEKTIFAN MODEL PBL DENGAN MIND MAP MELALUI HANDS ON ACTIVITY TERHADAP KEMAMPUAN BERPIKIR KREATIF SISWA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Istika Ramadhani

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui keefektifan pembelajaran model PBL dengan mind map melalui hands on activity terhadap kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas VII SMP Negeri 7 Semarang Tahun Ajaran 2014/2015. Pemilihan sampel dengan menggunakan cluster random sampling, diperoleh siswa kelas VII G sebagai kelas eksperimen1, kelas VII E sebagai kelas eksperimen 2, dan kelas VII C sebagai kelas kontrol. Kelas eksperimen 1 diberikan pembelajaran model PBL dengan mind map melalui hands on activity, kelas eksperimen 2 diberikan pembelajaran model PBL dengan mind map, dan kelas kontrol diberikan pembelajaran model ekspositori. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan adalah tes kemampuan berpikir kreatif dan lembar pengamatan aktivitas siswa. Data dianalisis dengan uji proporsi, uji beda rata dengan anava, uji lanjut LSD, dan uji regresi. Hasil penelitian adalah (1 kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa pada kelas eksperimen 1 dapat mencapai kriteria ketuntasan belajar; (2 kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa pada kelas eksperimen 2 dapat mencapai kriteria ketuntasan belajar; (3 terdapat perbedaan kemampuan berpikir kreatif antara siswa pada kelas eksperimen 1, eksperimen 2, dan kelas kontrol. (4 terdapat pengaruh positif dari aktivitas belajar siswa pada kelas eksperimen 1 terhadap kemampuan berpikir kreatif siswa

Synaptic and functional linkages between spinal premotor interneurons and hand-muscle activity during precision grip

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomohiko eTakei

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Grasping is a highly complex movement that requires the coordination of a number of hand joints and muscles. Previous studies showed that spinal premotor interneurons (PreM-INs in the primate cervical spinal cord have divergent synaptic effects on hand motoneurons and that they might contribute to hand-muscle synergies. However, the extent to which these PreM-IN synaptic connections functionally contribute to modulating hand-muscle activity is not clear. In this paper, we explored the contribution of spinal PreM-INs to hand-muscle activation by quantifying the synaptic linkage (SL and functional linkage (FL of the PreM-INs with hand-muscle activities. The activity of 23 PreM-INs was recorded from the cervical spinal cord (C6–T1, with EMG signals measured simultaneously from hand and arm muscles in two macaque monkeys performing a precision grip task. Spike-triggered averages (STAs of rectified EMGs were compiled for 456 neuron–muscle pairs; 63 pairs showed significant post-spike effects (i.e., SL. Conversely, 231 of 456 pairs showed significant cross-correlations between the IN firing rate and rectified EMG (i.e., FL. Importantly, a greater proportion of the neuron–muscle pairs with SL showed FL (43/63 pairs, 68% compared with the pairs without SL (203/393, 52%, and the presence of SL was significantly associated with that of FL. However, a significant number of pairs had SL without FL (SL∩!FL, n = 20 or FL without SL (!SL∩FL, n = 203, and the proportions of these incongruities exceeded the number expected by chance. These results suggested that spinal PreM-INs function to significantly modulate hand-muscle activity during precision grip, but the contribution of other neural structures is also needed to recruit an adequate combination of hand-muscle motoneurons.

The Effect of Antibacterial Formula Hand Cleaners on the Elimination of Microbes on Hands

Science.gov (United States)

Coleman, J. R.

2002-05-01

: The purpose of this project is to find out which one of the antibacterial hand cleanser (antibacterial bar soap, antibacterial liquid hand soap, and liquid hand sanitizer) is more effective in eliminating microbes. If antibacterial- formula liquid hand soap is used on soiled hands, then it will be more effective in eliminating microbes. Germs are microorganisms that cause disease and can spread from person-to-person. Bacteria are a kind of microbe, an example of which is Transient Flora that is often found on hands. Hand washing prevents germs from spreading to others. During the procedure, swabs were used to take samples before and after the soiled hands had been washed with one of the antibacterial hand cleansers. Nutrient Easygel was poured into petri dishes to harden for 1 day, and then samples were swabbed on the gel. The Petri dishes were placed in an incubator for 24 hours, and then data was recorded accordingly. The antibacterial liquid hand soap was sufficient in eliminating the majority of bacteria. The hands had 65% of the bacteria on them, and after the liquid hand soap was used only 37% of the bacteria remained.

The Healthy Heart Race: A Short-Duration, Hands-on Activity in Cardiovascular Physiology for Museums and Science Festivals

Science.gov (United States)

Pressley, Thomas A.; Limson, Melvin; Byse, Miranda; Matyas, Marsha Lakes

2011-01-01

The "Healthy Heart Race" activity provides a hands-on demonstration of cardiovascular function suitable for lay audiences. It was field tested during the United States of America Science and Engineering Festival held in Washington, DC, in October 2010. The basic equipment for the activity consisted of lengths of plastic tubing, a hand…

Using a Hands-On Hydrogen Peroxide Decomposition Activity to Teach Catalysis Concepts to K-12 Students

Science.gov (United States)

Cybulskis, Viktor J.; Ribeiro, Fabio H.; Gounder, Rajamani

2016-01-01

A versatile and transportable laboratory apparatus was developed for middle and high school (6th-12th grade) students as part of a hands-on outreach activity to estimate catalytic rates of hydrogen peroxide decomposition from oxygen evolution rates measured by using a volumetric displacement method. The apparatus was constructed with inherent…

A synergy-based hand control is encoded in human motor cortical areas

Science.gov (United States)

Leo, Andrea; Handjaras, Giacomo; Bianchi, Matteo; Marino, Hamal; Gabiccini, Marco; Guidi, Andrea; Scilingo, Enzo Pasquale; Pietrini, Pietro; Bicchi, Antonio; Santello, Marco; Ricciardi, Emiliano

2016-01-01

How the human brain controls hand movements to carry out different tasks is still debated. The concept of synergy has been proposed to indicate functional modules that may simplify the control of hand postures by simultaneously recruiting sets of muscles and joints. However, whether and to what extent synergic hand postures are encoded as such at a cortical level remains unknown. Here, we combined kinematic, electromyography, and brain activity measures obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging while subjects performed a variety of movements towards virtual objects. Hand postural information, encoded through kinematic synergies, were represented in cortical areas devoted to hand motor control and successfully discriminated individual grasping movements, significantly outperforming alternative somatotopic or muscle-based models. Importantly, hand postural synergies were predicted by neural activation patterns within primary motor cortex. These findings support a novel cortical organization for hand movement control and open potential applications for brain-computer interfaces and neuroprostheses. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13420.001 PMID:26880543

A Low-Cost Open Source 3D-Printable Dexterous Anthropomorphic Robotic Hand with a Parallel Spherical Joint Wrist for Sign Languages Reproduction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Bulgarelli

2016-06-01

Full Text Available We present a novel open-source 3D-printable dexterous anthropomorphic robotic hand specifically designed to reproduce Sign Languages’ hand poses for deaf and deaf-blind users. We improved the InMoov hand, enhancing dexterity by adding abduction/adduction degrees of freedom of three fingers (thumb, index and middle fingers and a three-degrees-of-freedom parallel spherical joint wrist. A systematic kinematic analysis is provided. The proposed robotic hand is validated in the framework of the PARLOMA project. PARLOMA aims at developing a telecommunication system for deaf-blind people, enabling remote transmission of signs from tactile Sign Languages. Both hardware and software are provided online to promote further improvements from the community.

Mid-point for open-ended income category and the effect of equivalence scales on the income-health relationship

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roger Keller Celeste

2013-12-01

Full Text Available To estimate the mid-point of an open-ended income category and to assess the impact of two equivalence scales on income-health associations. Data were obtained from the 2010 Brazilian Oral Health Survey ( Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde Bucal – SBBrasil 2010. Income was converted from categorical to two continuous variables ( per capita and equivalized for each mid-point. The median mid-point was R$ 14,523.50 and the mean, R$ 24,507.10. When per capita income was applied, 53% of the population were below the poverty line, compared with 15% with equivalized income. The magnitude of income-health associations was similar for continuous income, but categorized equivalized income tended to decrease the strength of association.

Open-Ended Science Inquiry in Lower Secondary School: Are Students' Learning Needs Being Met?

Science.gov (United States)

Whannell, Robert; Quinn, Fran; Taylor, Subhashni; Harris, Katherine; Cornish, Scott; Sharma, Manjula

2018-01-01

Australian science curricula have promoted the use of investigations that allow secondary students to engage deeply with the methods of scientific inquiry, through student-directed, open-ended investigations over an extended duration. This study presents the analysis of data relating to the frequency of completion and attitudes towards long…

A Case Study for Comparing the Effectiveness of a Computer Simulation and a Hands-on Activity on Learning Electric Circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Ekmekci, Adem; Gulacar, Ozcan

2015-01-01

Science education reform emphasizes innovative and constructivist views of science teaching and learning that promotes active learning environments, dynamic instructions, and authentic science experiments. Technology-based and hands-on instructional designs are among innovative science teaching and learning methods. Research shows that these two…

Associations of work activities requiring pinch or hand grip or exposure to hand-arm vibration with finger and wrist osteoarthritis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hammer, Paula E C; Shiri, Rahman; Kryger, Ann I

2014-01-01

OBJECTIVE: We systematically reviewed the epidemiologic evidence linking finger and wrist osteoarthritis (OA) with work activities requiring pinch or hand grip or exposure to hand-arm vibration (HAV). METHODS: PubMed and Embase databases were searched up to June 2013. We selected studies assessing...

Home-end and activity-end preferences for access to and egress from train stations in the Copenhagen region

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Halldórsdóttir, Katrín; Nielsen, Otto Anker; Prato, Carlo Giacomo

2017-01-01

. Moreover, model results emphasize the role of bicycle parking in terms of the sheer number of spaces to be increased as well as covered places to be offered at the activity end, de facto giving the possibility to leave a bicycle at that end during the night. Lastly, model results show that it is a matter......Increasing public transport use with the aim of improving the sustainability of cities should focus not only on enhancing level and quality of the service offered, but also on understanding determinants of the choice of access and egress modes to and from the railway network. This study analyzes...... the difference in preferences at the home-end and activity-end for travelers who have chosen train as their main travel mode while investigating the effect of policy variables such as car parking availability, bicycle parking availability and type, and bicycle on train possibility. Specifically, this study...

Recognizing the Operating Hand and the Hand-Changing Process for User Interface Adjustment on Smartphones.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Hansong; Huang, He; Huang, Liusheng; Sun, Yu-E

2016-08-20

As the size of smartphone touchscreens has become larger and larger in recent years, operability with a single hand is getting worse, especially for female users. We envision that user experience can be significantly improved if smartphones are able to recognize the current operating hand, detect the hand-changing process and then adjust the user interfaces subsequently. In this paper, we proposed, implemented and evaluated two novel systems. The first one leverages the user-generated touchscreen traces to recognize the current operating hand, and the second one utilizes the accelerometer and gyroscope data of all kinds of activities in the user's daily life to detect the hand-changing process. These two systems are based on two supervised classifiers constructed from a series of refined touchscreen trace, accelerometer and gyroscope features. As opposed to existing solutions that all require users to select the current operating hand or confirm the hand-changing process manually, our systems follow much more convenient and practical methods and allow users to change the operating hand frequently without any harm to the user experience. We conduct extensive experiments on Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones, and the evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed systems can recognize the current operating hand and detect the hand-changing process with 94.1% and 93.9% precision and 94.1% and 93.7% True Positive Rates (TPR) respectively, when deciding with a single touchscreen trace or accelerometer-gyroscope data segment, and the False Positive Rates (FPR) are as low as 2.6% and 0.7% accordingly. These two systems can either work completely independently and achieve pretty high accuracies or work jointly to further improve the recognition accuracy.

The Effects of Industrial Protective Gloves and Hand Skin Temperatures on Hand Grip Strength and Discomfort Rating.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramadan, Mohamed Z

2017-12-04

Daily working activities and functions require a high contribution of hand and forearm muscles in executing grip force. To study the effects of wearing different gloves on grip strength, under a variety of hand skin temperatures, an assessment of the maximum grip strength was performed with 32 healthy male workers with a mean age (standard deviation) of 30.44 (5.35) years wearing five industrial gloves at three hand skin temperatures. Their ages and anthropometric characteristics including body mass index (BMI), hand length, hand width, hand depth, hand palm, and wrist circumference were measured. The hand was exposed to different bath temperatures (5 °C, 25 °C, and 45 °C) and hand grip strength was measured using a Jamar hydraulic hand dynamometer with and without wearing the gloves (chemical protection glove, rubber insulating glove, anti-vibration impact glove, cotton yarn knitted glove, and RY-WG002 working glove). The data were analyzed using the Shapiro-Wilk test, Pearson correlation coefficient, Tukey test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the within-subject design analysis. The results showed that wearing gloves significantly affected the maximum grip strength. Wearing the RY-WG002 working glove produced a greater reduction on the maximum grip when compared with the bare hand, while low temperatures (5 °C) had a significant influence on grip when compared to medium (25 °C) and high (45 °C) hand skin temperatures. In addition, participants felt more discomfort in both environmental extreme conditions. Furthermore, they reported more discomfort while wearing neoprene, rubber, and RY-WG002 working gloves.

Expression of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes during open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toft, P; Tønnesen, Else Kirstine; Zülow, I

1997-01-01

Open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and abdominal surgery are associated with lymphocytopenia. We measured a panel of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes to clarify possible association of CPB with increased expression of these molecules. Eight patients undergoing open...

Circuits and electronics hands-on learning with analog discovery

CERN Document Server

Okyere Attia, John

2018-01-01

The book provides instructions on building circuits on breadboards, connecting the Analog Discovery wires to the circuit under test, and making electrical measurements. Various measurement techniques are described and used in this book, including: impedance measurements, complex power measurements, frequency response measurements, power spectrum measurements, current versus voltage characteristic measurements of diodes, bipolar junction transistors, and Mosfets. The book includes end-of-chapter problems for additional exercises geared towards hands-on learning, experimentation, comparisons between measured results and those obtained from theoretical calculations.

The effect of human activity noise on the acoustic quality in open plan office

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dehlbæk, Tania Stenholt; Jeong, Cheol-Ho; Brunskog, Jonas

2016-01-01

A disadvantage of open plan offices is the noise annoyance. Noise problems in open plan offices have been dealt with in several studies, and standards have been set up. Still, what has not been taken into account is the effect of human activity noise on acoustic conditions. In this study......, measurements of the general office noise levels and the room acoustic conditions according to ISO 3382-3 have been carried out in five open plan offices. Probability density functions of the sound pressure level have been obtained, and the human activity noise has been identified. Results showed a decrease...... in STI-values including the human activity noise compared to STI-values including only technical background noise as the standard recommends. Furthermore, at 500 Hz a regression analysis showed that the density of people in an room, absorption area, reverberation time as well as the ISO 3382-3 parameter...

OpenNFT: An open-source Python/Matlab framework for real-time fMRI neurofeedback training based on activity, connectivity and multivariate pattern analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Koush, Yury; Ashburner, John; Prilepin, Evgeny; Sladky, Ronald; Zeidman, Peter; Bibikov, Sergei; Scharnowski, Frank; Nikonorov, Artem; De Ville, Dimitri Van

2017-08-01

Neurofeedback based on real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) is a novel and rapidly developing research field. It allows for training of voluntary control over localized brain activity and connectivity and has demonstrated promising clinical applications. Because of the rapid technical developments of MRI techniques and the availability of high-performance computing, new methodological advances in rt-fMRI neurofeedback become possible. Here we outline the core components of a novel open-source neurofeedback framework, termed Open NeuroFeedback Training (OpenNFT), which efficiently integrates these new developments. This framework is implemented using Python and Matlab source code to allow for diverse functionality, high modularity, and rapid extendibility of the software depending on the user's needs. In addition, it provides an easy interface to the functionality of Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) that is also open-source and one of the most widely used fMRI data analysis software. We demonstrate the functionality of our new framework by describing case studies that include neurofeedback protocols based on brain activity levels, effective connectivity models, and pattern classification approaches. This open-source initiative provides a suitable framework to actively engage in the development of novel neurofeedback approaches, so that local methodological developments can be easily made accessible to a wider range of users. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Expression of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes during open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toft, P; Tønnesen, Else Kirstine; Zülow, I

1997-01-01

Open-heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and abdominal surgery are associated with lymphocytopenia. We measured a panel of adhesion and activation molecules on lymphocytes to clarify possible association of CPB with increased expression of these molecules. Eight patients undergoing open-heart...... open-heart and abdominal surgery. The proportion of CD11a/CD18-positive lymphocytes rose from 67.6 +/- 8% to 86.4 +/- 3% after aortic declamping (p open-heart as well as abdominal operations. Thus CPB...

Fabrication of nickel hydroxide electrodes with open-ended hexagonal nanotube arrays for high capacitance supercapacitors.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Mao-Sung; Huang, Kuo-Chih

2011-11-28

A nickel hydroxide electrode with open-ended hexagonal nanotube arrays, prepared by hydrolysis of nickel chloride in the presence of hexagonal ZnO nanorods, shows a very high capacitance of 1328 F g(-1) at a discharge current density of 1 A g(-1) due to the significantly improved ion transport.

Multiple Problem-Solving Strategies Provide Insight into Students' Understanding of Open-Ended Linear Programming Problems

Science.gov (United States)

Sole, Marla A.

2016-01-01

Open-ended questions that can be solved using different strategies help students learn and integrate content, and provide teachers with greater insights into students' unique capabilities and levels of understanding. This article provides a problem that was modified to allow for multiple approaches. Students tended to employ high-powered, complex,…

Association between blood cholinesterase activity, organophosphate pesticide residues on hands, and health effects among chili farmers in Ubon Ratchathani Province, northeastern Thailand

Science.gov (United States)

Nganchamung, Thitirat; Robson, Mark G; Siriwong, Wattasit

Use of pesticides has been documented to lead to several adverse health effects. Farmers are likely to be exposed to pesticides through dermal exposure as a result of mixing, loading, and spraying. Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are widely used in most of the agricultural areas throughout Thailand. OPs are cholinesterase inhibitors and blood cholinesterase activity is used as a biomarker of OP effects. This study aims to determine the association between blood cholinesterase activity and organophosphate pesticide residues on chili farmer’s hands and their adverse health effects. Ninety chili farmers directly involved with pesticide applications (e.g. mixing, loading, spraying) were recruited and were interviewed face to face. Both enzymes, erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and plasma cholinesterase (PChE), were tested with the EQM Test-mate Cholinesterase Test System (Model 400). Hand wipe samples were used for collecting residues on both hands and OP residues for chlorpyrifos and profenofos were quantified using gas chromatography equipped with a flame photometric detector (GC-FPD). The average activity (±SD) of AChE and PChE was 2.73 (±0.88) and 1.58 (±0.56) U/mL, respectively. About 80.0% of the participants had detectable OP residues on hands. The median residues of chlorpyrifos and profenofos were found to be 0.02 and 0.03 mg/kg/two hands, respectively. Half of participants reported having some acute health symptoms within 48 hours after applying pesticides. When adjusted for gender, number of years working in chili farming, and frequency of pesticide use, AChE activity (Adjusted OR = 0.03, 95%CI: 0.01-0.13) and detected OP residues on hands (Adjusted OR = 0.15, 95%CI: 0.02-0.95) were significantly associated with having health effects, but no significant association was found in PChE activity (Adjusted OR = 2.09, 95%CI: 0.63-6.99). This study suggests that regular monitoring for blood cholinesterase and effective interventions to reduce pesticide

Wakefield radiation from the open end of an internally coated metallic tube

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Ivanyan

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this paper the problem of radiation from the open end of a semi-infinite circular metallic waveguide with perfectly conducting walls and a thin internal low-conducting metal coating is considered. Electromagnetic fields are generated by the ultrarelativistic point charge moving along the axis of the waveguide. The far fields of radiation are obtained using the near-field to far-field recovery technique. The technique is extended for the nonmonochromatic waves. It is shown that the radiation has a narrow-band and narrow-directional character.

PEMBELAJARAN KONTEKSTUAL OPEN ENDED PROBLEM SOLVING DENGAN KOMIK MATEMATIKA UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN PEMECAHAN MASALAH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lenny Kurniati

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT The aim of this research to develop a mathematics learning instrument using contextual open ended problem solving with mathematic comic to increase the problem solving skill which valid, practical and effective. The type of research used in this study is development research using modification of Plomp model. Learning instrumen that have been develop are: syllabus, Lesson plan, worksheet, mathematics comic, and problem solving ability test. The results showed: (1 device developed valid; (2 practical learning is characterized by the positive response of students and good teachers ability, (3 Effectiveness characterized by (a problem solving ability score of the experimental class higher than minimum completeness criterion, (b learn interest and problem solving skill, both affected the problem solving ability positively,  (c problem solving ability of the experimental class score is higher than the control class, (d problem solving skill of the experimental class is increasing by 31%, the problem solving ability of the experimental class higher than the control class.. Because of the learning instrument develope are valid, practice and effective, it is shows that the research has ben reach out. Keywords: contextual teaching and learning, open ended problem solving, mathematics comic, problem solving.

[Disinfection efficacy of hand hygiene based on chlorhexidine gluconate content and usage of alcohol-based hand-rubbing solution].

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, Ippei; Watanabe, Kiyoshi; Nakaminami, Hidemasa; Azuma, Chihiro; Noguchi, Norihisa

2014-01-01

Recently, the procedure for surgical hand hygiene has been switching to a two-stage method and hand-rubbing method from the traditional hand-scrubbing method. Both the two-stage and hand-rubbing methods use alcohol-based hand-rubbing after hand washing. The former requires 5 min of antiseptic hand washing, and the latter 1 min of nonantiseptic hand washing. For a prolonged bactericidal effect in terms of surgical hand hygiene, chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) has been noted due to its residual activity. However, no detailed study comparing the disinfection efficacy and prolonged effects according to different contents of CHG and the usage of alcohol-based hand-rubbing has been conducted. The glove juice method is able to evaluate disinfection efficacy and prolonged effects of the disinfectants more accurately because it can collect not only transitory bacteria but also normal inhabitants on hands. In the present study, we examined the disinfection efficacy and prolonged effects on alcohol-based hand-rubbing containing CHG by six hand-rubbing methods and three two-stage methods using the glove juice method. In both methods, 3 mL (one pump dispenser push volume) alcohol-based hand-rubbing solution containing 1% (w/v) CHG showed the highest disinfection efficacy and prolonged effects, and no significant difference was found between the hand-rubbing and two-stage methods. In the two methods of hand hygiene, the hand-rubbing method was able to save time and cost. Therefore, the data strongly suggest that the hand-rubbing method using a one pump dispenser push volume of alcohol-based hand-rubbing solution containing 1% (w/v) CHG is suitable for surgical hand hygiene.

The fight-to-die: older people and death activism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naomi Richards

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This article explores the activities and convictions of older right-to-die activists who belong to a small but very active interest group based in Scotland, UK, called Friends at the End (FATE. The analysis presented here is based on knowledge gained through seventeen months of ethnographic research with the organisation. While FATE activists currently campaign for a legal right to a medically assisted death, many are also open to taking matters into their own hands, either by travelling to the Swiss organisation Dignitas or by opting for what is known as ‘‘self-deliverance’’. FATE members’ openness to different means of securing a hastened death contrasts sharply with the more limited demands of the UK’s main right-to-die organisation, Dignity in Dying, and highlights their specific orientation to freedom, which, it is argued here, results from the organisation’s older demographic.

Fuel cell integral bundle assembly including ceramic open end seal and vertical and horizontal thermal expansion control

Science.gov (United States)

Zafred, Paolo R [Murrysville, PA; Gillett, James E [Greensburg, PA

2012-04-24

A plurality of integral bundle assemblies contain a top portion with an inlet fuel plenum and a bottom portion containing a base support, the base supports a dense, ceramic air exhaust manifold having four supporting legs, the manifold is below and connects to air feed tubes located in a recuperator zone, the air feed tubes passing into the center of inverted, tubular, elongated, hollow electrically connected solid oxide fuel cells having an open end above a combustion zone into which the air feed tubes pass and a closed end near the inlet fuel plenum, where the open end of the fuel cells rest upon and within a separate combination ceramic seal and bundle support contained in a ceramic support casting, where at least one flexible cushion ceramic band seal located between the recuperator and fuel cells protects and controls horizontal thermal expansion, and where the fuel cells operate in the fuel cell mode and where the base support and bottom ceramic air exhaust manifolds carry from 85% to all of the weight of the generator.

Ethics roundtable: 'Open-ended ICU care: can we afford it?'.

Science.gov (United States)

Crippen, David; Burrows, Dick; Stocchetti, Nino; Mayer, Stephan A; Andrews, Peter; Bleck, Tom; Whetstine, Leslie

2010-01-01

The patient is a 27-year-old previously healthy male with a diagnosis of viral encephalitis with a lymphocytic pleocytosis on cerebrospinal fluid examination. For 3 months, he has been in status epilepticus (SE) on high doses of barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and ketamine and a ketogenic feeding-tube formula. He remains in burst suppression on continuous electroencephalography (EEG). He is trached and has a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tube. He has been treated several times for pneumonia, and he is on a warming blanket and is on vasopressors to maintain his blood pressure. His vitals are stable and his lab work is within limits. The sedation is decreased under EEG guidance every 72 hours, after which he goes back into SE and heavy sedation is resumed. The latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows edema but otherwise no obvious permanent cortical damage. The family wants a realistic assessment of the likely outcome. The neurologist tells them the literature suggests the outlook is poor but not 100% fatal. As long as all of his other organs are functioning on life support, there is always a chance the seizures will stop at some time in the future, and so the neurologist recommends an open-ended intensive care unit (ICU) plan and hopes for that outcome.

A Hands-On Approach To Teaching Microcontroller

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Che Fai Yeong

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Practice and application-oriented approach in education is important, and some research on active learning and cooperative problem-solving have shown that a student will learn faster and develop communication skill, leadership and team work through these methods. This paper presents a study of student preference and performance while learning the microcontroller subject with a 2-day curriculum that emphasized on hands-on approach. The curriculum uses the PIC16F877A microcontroller and participants learned to develop basic circuits and several other applications. Programming was completed on the MPLAB platform. Results show that participants had better understanding in this subject after attending the hands-on course.

The Effects of Industrial Protective Gloves and Hand Skin Temperatures on Hand Grip Strength and Discomfort Rating

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamed Z. Ramadan

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Daily working activities and functions require a high contribution of hand and forearm muscles in executing grip force. To study the effects of wearing different gloves on grip strength, under a variety of hand skin temperatures, an assessment of the maximum grip strength was performed with 32 healthy male workers with a mean age (standard deviation of 30.44 (5.35 years wearing five industrial gloves at three hand skin temperatures. Their ages and anthropometric characteristics including body mass index (BMI, hand length, hand width, hand depth, hand palm, and wrist circumference were measured. The hand was exposed to different bath temperatures (5 °C, 25 °C, and 45 °C and hand grip strength was measured using a Jamar hydraulic hand dynamometer with and without wearing the gloves (chemical protection glove, rubber insulating glove, anti-vibration impact glove, cotton yarn knitted glove, and RY-WG002 working glove. The data were analyzed using the Shapiro–Wilk test, Pearson correlation coefficient, Tukey test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA of the within-subject design analysis. The results showed that wearing gloves significantly affected the maximum grip strength. Wearing the RY-WG002 working glove produced a greater reduction on the maximum grip when compared with the bare hand, while low temperatures (5 °C had a significant influence on grip when compared to medium (25 °C and high (45 °C hand skin temperatures. In addition, participants felt more discomfort in both environmental extreme conditions. Furthermore, they reported more discomfort while wearing neoprene, rubber, and RY-WG002 working gloves.

Recognizing the Operating Hand and the Hand-Changing Process for User Interface Adjustment on Smartphones

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hansong Guo

2016-08-01

Full Text Available As the size of smartphone touchscreens has become larger and larger in recent years, operability with a single hand is getting worse, especially for female users. We envision that user experience can be significantly improved if smartphones are able to recognize the current operating hand, detect the hand-changing process and then adjust the user interfaces subsequently. In this paper, we proposed, implemented and evaluated two novel systems. The first one leverages the user-generated touchscreen traces to recognize the current operating hand, and the second one utilizes the accelerometer and gyroscope data of all kinds of activities in the user’s daily life to detect the hand-changing process. These two systems are based on two supervised classifiers constructed from a series of refined touchscreen trace, accelerometer and gyroscope features. As opposed to existing solutions that all require users to select the current operating hand or confirm the hand-changing process manually, our systems follow much more convenient and practical methods and allow users to change the operating hand frequently without any harm to the user experience. We conduct extensive experiments on Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones, and the evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed systems can recognize the current operating hand and detect the hand-changing process with 94.1% and 93.9% precision and 94.1% and 93.7% True Positive Rates (TPR respectively, when deciding with a single touchscreen trace or accelerometer-gyroscope data segment, and the False Positive Rates (FPR are as low as 2.6% and 0.7% accordingly. These two systems can either work completely independently and achieve pretty high accuracies or work jointly to further improve the recognition accuracy.

The Effect of Reading Involvement through Open-Ended Strategy vs. Fill-in- the- Blanks Strategy on Young EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension Ability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rita Salehi Sepehr

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The present study investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of integrating strategy instruction (open-ended strategy and fill-in-the blanks strategy with motivation- support affected on reading result for young EFL learners. The central area of exploration included a comparison among three approaches to reading instruction: First, fill-in-the blanks strategy intervention; second, open-ended strategy intervention; and last, a control group which received the conventional reading strategies. The participants were sampled from amongst a group of seventy-seven pre-intermediate EFL learners in a language school in Tehran- Iran based on convenient sampling technique. For the sake of measurement, the researchers administered PET and CELT along with reading strategy based-test to quantify the participants’ current level of knowledge as well as the degree of achievement after treatment. For measurement’s sake, different types of tests such as PET, reading comprehension test (CELT, and reading strategy based- test were employed to quantify the participants’ current level of knowledge as well as the degree of achievement before and after instruction. The result of the present study indicated that the experimental groups had a significant improvement over the control group. Also, the level of learners’ reading engagement during classroom work mediated the instructional effects on reading outcomes. The results of this study can be to the benefit of both EFL and ESL teachers to teach reading comprehension using the student's critical mind as well as critical involvement in the reading tasks.

Validation of a questionnaire on hand hygiene in the construction industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Timmerman, Johan G; Zilaout, Hicham; Heederik, Dick; Spee, Ton; Smit, Lidwien A M

2014-10-01

Construction workers are at risk of developing occupational contact dermatitis. Gloves, when used properly, may protect against chemicals and coarse materials. We investigated the prevalence and determinants of contact dermatitis in a population of Dutch construction workers and aimed at validating questionnaire items on hand hygiene. A cross-sectional study was conducted at 13 construction sites, yielding data of 177 subjects (95% response rate). A questionnaire covering questions on hand hygiene and contact dermatitis symptoms was used. Agreement between workplace observations and a number of questionnaire items was assessed by calculating Cohen's kappa. Log-binomial regression analysis was used to assess the association between contact dermatitis and various hand hygiene-related determinants. The 1-year prevalence of self-reported contact dermatitis in our study sample was 46.9%. Multiple regression analysis showed a positive association with difficulties with hand cleaning (prevalence ratio [PR]: 1.26, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05-1.52), hand contamination at the end of the working day (PR: 2.30, 95% CI: 1.14-4.65), and intensive hand cream use (PR: 2.07, 95% CI: 1.42-3.01). Observations of hand contamination, glove use, and glove types were found to agree well with the self-reported data from the questionnaire (Cohen's kappa's 0.75, 0.97, and 0.88). Self-reported contact dermatitis prevalence in construction workers was high and related to hand hygiene. A strong agreement was found between workplace observations and self-reported questionnaire data. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society.

The cortical activation pattern by a rehabilitation robotic hand : A functional NIRS study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pyung Hun eChang

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Clarification of the relationship between external stimuli and brain response has been an important topic in neuroscience and brain rehabilitation. In the current study, using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS, we attempted to investigate cortical activation patterns generated during execution of a rehabilitation robotic hand. Methods: Ten normal subjects were recruited for this study. Passive movements of the right fingers were performed using a rehabilitation robotic hand at a frequency of 0.5 Hz. We measured values of oxy-hemoglobin(HbO, deoxy-hemoglobin(HbR and total-hemoglobin(HbT in five regions of interest: the primary sensory-motor cortex (SM1, hand somatotopy of the contralateral SM1, supplementary motor area (SMA, premotor cortex (PMC, and prefrontal cortex (PFC. Results: HbO and HbT values indicated significant activation in the left SM1, left SMA, left PMC, and left PFC during execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand(uncorrected, pConclusions: Our results appear to indicate that execution of the rehabilitation robotic hand could induce cortical activation.

Open-Ended versus Guided Laboratory Activities: Impact on Students' Beliefs about Experimental Physics

Science.gov (United States)

Wilcox, Bethany R.; Lewandowski, H. J.

2016-01-01

Improving students' understanding of the nature of experimental physics is often an explicit or implicit goal of undergraduate laboratory physics courses. However, lab activities in traditional lab courses are typically characterized by highly structured, guided labs that often do not require or encourage students to engage authentically in the…

Calculator-Controlled Robots: Hands-On Mathematics and Science Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

Tuchscherer, Tyson

2010-01-01

The Calculator Controlled Robots activities are designed to engage students in hands-on inquiry-based missions. These activities address National science and technology standards, as well as specifically focusing on mathematics content and process standards. There are ten missions and three exploration extensions that provide activities for up to…

Eco-Dialogical Learning and Translanguaging in Open-Ended 3D Virtual Learning Environments: Where Place, Time, and Objects Matter

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Dongping; Schmidt, Matthew; Hu, Ying; Liu, Min; Hsu, Jesse

2017-01-01

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationships between design, learning, and translanguaging in a 3D collaborative virtual learning environment for adolescent learners of Chinese and English. We designed an open-ended space congruent with ecological and dialogical perspectives on second language acquisition. In such a space,…

Learning autonomy in two or three steps : linking open-ended development, authority, and agency to motivation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Andringa, Tjeerd; van den Bosch, Kirsten; Vlaskamp, Carla

2013-01-01

In this paper we connect open-ended development, authority, agency, and motivation through (1) an analysis of the demands of existing in a complex world and (2) environmental appraisal in terms of affordance content and the complexity to select appropriate behavior. We do this by identifying a

Observation of enhanced electric field in an RF-plugged sheet plasma in the RFC-XX-M open-ended machine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oda, T.; Takiyama, K.; Kadota, K.

1987-12-01

We report nonperturbing observation of the electric field in the sheet plasma for RF end-plugging on the RFC XX-M open-ended machine by using the Stark effect with a combined technique of beam-probe and laser-induced fluorescence. Under the optimum condition for the RF plugging, enhanced electric field is found in the sheet plasma by about 2.5 times with respect to the electric field when no plasma is produced. The field spatial profile is also measured, which is discussed in connection with the electrostatic eigenmode. (author)

Relationship between touch sensation of the affected hand and performance of valued activities in individuals with chronic stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Valerie A; Fisher, Thomas; Schmid, Arlene A; Crabtree, Jeffrey; Page, Stephen J

2014-01-01

To investigate the association between touch sensation of the affected hand and performance and satisfaction with performance of valued activities in individuals with chronic stroke. Using a cross-sectional study design, this study correlated factors related to hand sensation and activity performance in individuals with chronic stroke. The Touch Test Evaluators and Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) were used. Correlations were used to determine the relationships between touch sensation of the affected hand and individuals' performance and satisfaction with performance of valued activities. There was a good to excellent relationship between sensation and performance and satisfaction with performance of valued activities for individuals with intact touch sensation of the affected hand who scored higher on the COPM. There was little to no relationship between touch sensation of the affected hand and performance of valued activities for individuals with impaired sensation. This is the first study to relate touch sensation of the affected hand and performance and satisfaction with performance of valued activities in individuals with stroke. The findings suggest that rehabilitation therapists need to continue to address sensory function in evaluation and intervention as it relates to performance in valued activities. This study serves as a foundation for future research in sensation and performance of valued activities in individuals with chronic stroke.

Multi-geohazards of Ende city area

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Igan Supriatman Sutawidjaja

2014-06-01

Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.17014/ijog.vol2no4.20073The Ende City is a steep mountainous area, of which the height of their peaks are above 1500 m asl. It has the limited extent of plain places, without coastal plains. Due to this condition, large parts of the area are vulnerable to mass-movements mainly debris flows, rock-falls and shallow translational and rotational landslides. On the other hand, Flores Island is a segment of the Banda Arc that contains eleven very active volcanoes and numerous inactive volcanic cones. Two of them, Mount Iya and Mount Kelimutu are included to Ende Regency. The northern foot of Mount Iya is only about 1 km away from the southern outskirts of Ende city. But the presence of Mount Meja and Mount Roja as the barrier, and the orientation of the active crater (K2, the highly explosive eruption of Iya Volcano may not directly endanger the city of Ende. Most pyroclastic flows of previous eruptions and other eruptive material emplaced into the sea, but due to a short horizontal distance between Mount Iya and Ende City, the ejected rock fragments can endanger the city of Ende especially its southern parts. A crack has developed around the active crater (K2 of Iya Volcano. It seems that the crack indicates a major weakness within the volcano, which could result in a giant landslide, entering the sea in future eruptions of Iya Volcano. The kinetic energy which is transmitted through the water may probably generate a tsunami. The Ende City also experienced significant damages in the 1992 earthquake. Luckily this city is located on a solid rock instead of alluvial sediments which can potentially undergo liquefaction.  

Recognizing the Operating Hand and the Hand-Changing Process for User Interface Adjustment on Smartphones †

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Hansong; Huang, He; Huang, Liusheng; Sun, Yu-E

2016-01-01

As the size of smartphone touchscreens has become larger and larger in recent years, operability with a single hand is getting worse, especially for female users. We envision that user experience can be significantly improved if smartphones are able to recognize the current operating hand, detect the hand-changing process and then adjust the user interfaces subsequently. In this paper, we proposed, implemented and evaluated two novel systems. The first one leverages the user-generated touchscreen traces to recognize the current operating hand, and the second one utilizes the accelerometer and gyroscope data of all kinds of activities in the user’s daily life to detect the hand-changing process. These two systems are based on two supervised classifiers constructed from a series of refined touchscreen trace, accelerometer and gyroscope features. As opposed to existing solutions that all require users to select the current operating hand or confirm the hand-changing process manually, our systems follow much more convenient and practical methods and allow users to change the operating hand frequently without any harm to the user experience. We conduct extensive experiments on Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones, and the evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed systems can recognize the current operating hand and detect the hand-changing process with 94.1% and 93.9% precision and 94.1% and 93.7% True Positive Rates (TPR) respectively, when deciding with a single touchscreen trace or accelerometer-gyroscope data segment, and the False Positive Rates (FPR) are as low as 2.6% and 0.7% accordingly. These two systems can either work completely independently and achieve pretty high accuracies or work jointly to further improve the recognition accuracy. PMID:27556461

A four-dimensional virtual hand brain-machine interface using active dimension selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Rouse, Adam G

2016-06-01

Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) traditionally rely on a fixed, linear transformation from neural signals to an output state-space. In this study, the assumption that a BMI must control a fixed, orthogonal basis set was challenged and a novel active dimension selection (ADS) decoder was explored. ADS utilizes a two stage decoder by using neural signals to both (i) select an active dimension being controlled and (ii) control the velocity along the selected dimension. ADS decoding was tested in a monkey using 16 single units from premotor and primary motor cortex to successfully control a virtual hand avatar to move to eight different postures. Following training with the ADS decoder to control 2, 3, and then 4 dimensions, each emulating a grasp shape of the hand, performance reached 93% correct with a bit rate of 2.4 bits s(-1) for eight targets. Selection of eight targets using ADS control was more efficient, as measured by bit rate, than either full four-dimensional control or computer assisted one-dimensional control. ADS decoding allows a user to quickly and efficiently select different hand postures. This novel decoding scheme represents a potential method to reduce the complexity of high-dimension BMI control of the hand.

Classification of right-hand grasp movement based on EMOTIV Epoc+

Science.gov (United States)

Tobing, T. A. M. L.; Prawito, Wijaya, S. K.

2017-07-01

Combinations of BCT elements for right-hand grasp movement have been obtained, providing the average value of their classification accuracy. The aim of this study is to find a suitable combination for best classification accuracy of right-hand grasp movement based on EEG headset, EMOTIV Epoc+. There are three movement classifications: grasping hand, relax, and opening hand. These classifications take advantage of Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD) phenomenon that makes it possible to differ relaxation, imagery, and movement state from each other. The combinations of elements are the usage of Independent Component Analysis (ICA), spectrum analysis by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), maximum mu and beta power with their frequency as features, and also classifier Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) and Radial Basis Function (RBF). The average values of classification accuracy are ± 83% for training and ± 57% for testing. To have a better understanding of the signal quality recorded by EMOTIV Epoc+, the result of classification accuracy of left or right-hand grasping movement EEG signal (provided by Physionet) also be given, i.e.± 85% for training and ± 70% for testing. The comparison of accuracy value from each combination, experiment condition, and external EEG data are provided for the purpose of value analysis of classification accuracy.

Survey of attitudes on the end-use efficiency of promotional activities of producers styrofoam

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jovičić Dragoljub

2017-01-01

Full Text Available More energy prices, on the one hand, and the increasing use of insulating materials in the construction industry, on the other hand, contributed to intensifying competition in the business market. In order to attract and retain a greater number of customers, manufacturers of styrofoam must constantly work on the quality of their offerings, and integrated marketing communications. In conditions when competitors offer a relatively homogeneous, right promotional activities have become one of the main factors of competitive advantage. The aim was to investigate the relative importance of certain promotional tools in marketing of styrofoam on the market of Vojvodina. In accordance with these goals were used value of the arithmetic mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation at promotional instruments. Data were collected through unstructured personal communication with a sample of 20 of the respondents. The research results indicate that there is a very strong and positive impact of promotional activities on the placement of styrofoam. At the same time, by far the most powerful influence of the advertising, then personal selling, and sales promotion, and the last place relations with the public. These results indicate that none of the instruments of promotional mix should not be ignored, but also emphasize the need to focus on those instruments that are of major influence on the placement of styrofoam. In this way, the findings of this research can be of benefit management companies operating in the market of Vojvodina styrofoam.

Open Genetic Code: on open source in the life sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Deibel, Eric

2014-01-01

The introduction of open source in the life sciences is increasingly being suggested as an alternative to patenting. This is an alternative, however, that takes its shape at the intersection of the life sciences and informatics. Numerous examples can be identified wherein open source in the life sciences refers to access, sharing and collaboration as informatic practices. This includes open source as an experimental model and as a more sophisticated approach of genetic engineering. The first section discusses the greater flexibly in regard of patenting and the relationship to the introduction of open source in the life sciences. The main argument is that the ownership of knowledge in the life sciences should be reconsidered in the context of the centrality of DNA in informatic formats. This is illustrated by discussing a range of examples of open source models. The second part focuses on open source in synthetic biology as exemplary for the re-materialization of information into food, energy, medicine and so forth. The paper ends by raising the question whether another kind of alternative might be possible: one that looks at open source as a model for an alternative to the commodification of life that is understood as an attempt to comprehensively remove the restrictions from the usage of DNA in any of its formats.

The Impact of Entry and Competition by Open Source Software on Innovation Activity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schröder, Philipp J.H.; Bitzer, Jürgen

2006-01-01

This chapter presents the stylized facts of open source software innovation and provides empirical evidence on the impact of increased competition by OSS on the innovative activity in the software industry. Furthermore, we introduce a simple formal model that captures the innovation impact of OSS...

The end-state comfort effect in bimanual grip selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Fischman, Mark G; Stodden, David F; Lehman, Davana M

2003-03-01

During a unimanual grip selection task in which people pick up a lightweight dowel and place one end against targets at variable heights, the choice of hand grip (overhand vs. underhand) typically depends on the perception of how comfortable the arm will be at the end of the movement: an end-state comfort effect. The two experiments reported here extend this work to bimanual tasks. In each experiment, 26 right-handed participants used their left and right hands to simultaneously pick up two wooden dowels and place either the right or left end against a series of 14 targets ranging from 14 to 210 cm above the floor. These tasks were performed in systematic ascending and descending orders in Experiment 1 and in random order in Expiment 2. Results were generally consistent with predictions of end-state comfort in that, for the extreme highest and lowest targets, participants tended to select opposite grips with each hand. Taken together, our findings are consistent with the concept of constraint hierarchies within a posture-based motion-planning model.

How can the curation of hands-on STEM activities power successful mobile apps and websites?

Science.gov (United States)

Porcello, D.; Peticolas, L. M.; Schwerin, T. G.

2015-12-01

The Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) is University of California, Berkeley's public science center. Over the last decade, the Center for Technology Innovation at LHS has partnered with many institutions to establish a strong track record of developing successful technology solutions to support STEM teaching and learning within informal environments. Curation by subject-matter experts has been at the heart of many educational technology products from LHS and its partners that are directed at educators and families. This work includes: (1) popular digital libraries for inquiry-based activities at Howtosmile.org (NSF DRL #0735007) and NASA Earth and Space science education resources at NASAwavelength.org; and novel mobile apps like DIY Sun Science (NASA NNX10AE05G) and DIY Human Body (NIH 5R25OD010543) designed to scaffold exploration of STEM phenomena at home. Both NASA Wavelength and DIY Sun Science arose out of long-term collaborations with the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), and other NASA-funded organizations, in partnership with NASA through cooperative agreements. This session will review the development, formative evaluation, and usage metrics for these two Earth and Space science-themed educational technology products directly relevant to the AGU community. Questions reviewed by presenters will include: What makes a good hands-on activity, and what essential information do educators depend on when searching for programming additions? What content and connections do families need to explore hands-on activities? How can technology help incorporate educational standards into the discovery process for learning experiences online? How do all these components drive the design and user experience of websites and apps that showcase STEM content?

The Use of Molecular Modeling as "Pseudoexperimental" Data for Teaching VSEPR as a Hands-On General Chemistry Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Christopher B.; Vandehoef, Crissie; Cook, Allison

2015-01-01

A hands-on activity appropriate for first-semester general chemistry students is presented that combines traditional VSEPR methods of predicting molecular geometries with introductory use of molecular modeling. Students analyze a series of previously calculated output files consisting of several molecules each in various geometries. Each structure…

End-to-End Security for Personal Telehealth

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koster, R.P.; Asim, M.; Petkovic, M.

2011-01-01

Personal telehealth is in rapid development with innovative emerging applications like disease management. With personal telehealth people participate in their own care supported by an open distributed system with health services. This poses new end-to-end security and privacy challenges. In this

Open Source Opens Opportunities for Army's Simulation System

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Parsons, Douglas J; Wittman, Jr, Robert L

2005-01-01

.... Postured as an open-architecture, open-source application, the OneSAF program will put this software into the hands of a vast number of developers throughout the Department of Defense with the intent...

Effect of hand sanitizer location on hand hygiene compliance.

Science.gov (United States)

Cure, Laila; Van Enk, Richard

2015-09-01

Hand hygiene is the most important intervention to prevent infection in hospitals. Health care workers should clean their hands at least before and after contact with patients. Hand sanitizer dispensers are important to support hand hygiene because they can be made available throughout hospital units. The aim of this study was to determine whether the usability of sanitizer dispensers correlates with compliance of staff in using the sanitizer in a hospital. This study took place in a Midwest, 404-bed, private, nonprofit community hospital with 15 inpatient care units in addition to several ambulatory units. The usability and standardization of sanitizers in 12 participating inpatient units were evaluated. The hospital measured compliance of staff with hand hygiene as part of their quality improvement program. Data from 2010-2012 were analyzed to measure the relationship between compliance and usability using mixed-effects logistic regression models. The total usability score (P = .0046), visibility (P = .003), and accessibility of the sanitizer on entrance to the patient room (P = .00055) were statistically associated with higher observed compliance rates. Standardization alone showed no significant impact on observed compliance (P = .37). Hand hygiene compliance can be influenced by visibility and accessibility of dispensers. The sanitizer location should be part of multifaceted interventions to improve hand hygiene. Copyright © 2015 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

HOME Participating Jurisdictions Open Activities Reports

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Housing and Urban Development — This report is an MS Excel spreadsheet broken up by state. Participating Jurisdictions can use this report to view open activities in IDIS including activities with...

Hand washing with soap and water together with behavioural recommendations prevents infections in common work environment: an open cluster-randomized trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Savolainen-Kopra, Carita; Haapakoski, Jaason; Peltola, Piia A; Ziegler, Thedi; Korpela, Terttu; Anttila, Pirjo; Amiryousefi, Ali; Huovinen, Pentti; Huvinen, Markku; Noronen, Heikki; Riikkala, Pia; Roivainen, Merja; Ruutu, Petri; Teirilä, Juha; Vartiainen, Erkki; Hovi, Tapani

2012-01-16

Hand hygiene is considered as an important means of infection control. We explored whether guided hand hygiene together with transmission-limiting behaviour reduces infection episodes and lost days of work in a common work environment in an open cluster-randomized 3-arm intervention trial. A total of 21 clusters (683 persons) were randomized to implement hand hygiene with soap and water (257 persons), with alcohol-based hand rub (202 persons), or to serve as a control (224 persons). Participants in both intervention arms also received standardized instructions on how to limit the transmission of infections. The intervention period (16 months) included the emergence of the 2009 influenza pandemic and the subsequent national hand hygiene campaign influencing also the control arm. In the total follow-up period there was a 6.7% reduction of infection episodes in the soap-and water arm (p = 0.04). Before the onset of the anti-pandemic campaign, a statistically significant (p = 0.002) difference in the mean occurrence of infection episodes was observed between the control (6.0 per year) and the soap-and-water arm (5.0 per year) but not between the control and the alcohol-rub arm (5.6 per year). Neither intervention had a decreasing effect on absence from work. We conclude that intensified hand hygiene using water and soap together with behavioural recommendations can reduce the occurrence of self-reported acute illnesses in common work environment. Surprisingly, the occurrence of reported sick leaves also increased in the soap-and water-arm. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00981877 The Finnish Work Environment Fund and the National Institute for Health and Welfare.

Effects of electromyography-driven robot-aided hand training with neuromuscular electrical stimulation on hand control performance after chronic stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Rong, Wei; Tong, Kai Yu; Hu, Xiao Ling; Ho, Sze Kit

2015-03-01

An electromyography-driven robot system integrated with neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) was developed to investigate its effectiveness on post-stroke rehabilitation. The performance of this system in assisting finger flexion/extension with different assistance combinations was evaluated in five stroke subjects. Then, a pilot study with 20-sessions training was conducted to evaluate the training's effectiveness. The results showed that combined assistance from the NMES-robot could improve finger movement accuracy, encourage muscle activation of the finger muscles and suppress excessive muscular activities in the elbow joint. When assistances from both NMES and the robot were 50% of their maximum assistances, finger-tracking performance had the best results, with the lowest root mean square error, greater range of motion, higher voluntary muscle activations of the finger joints and lower muscle co-contraction in the finger and elbow joints. Upper limb function improved after the 20-session training, indicated by the increased clinical scores of Fugl-Meyer Assessment, Action Research Arm Test and Wolf Motor Function Test. Muscle co-contraction was reduced in the finger and elbow joints reflected by the Modified Ashworth Scale. The findings demonstrated that an electromyography-driven NMES-robot used for chronic stroke improved hand function and tracking performance. Further research is warranted to validate the method on a larger scale. Implications for Rehabilitation The hand robotics and neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) techniques are still separate systems in current post-stroke hand rehabilitation. This is the first study to investigate the combined effects of the NMES and robot on hand rehabilitation. The finger tracking performance was improved with the combined assistance from the EMG-driven NMES-robot hand system. The assistance from the robot could improve the finger movement accuracy and the assistance from the NMES could reduce the

Highly Active N,O Zinc Guanidine Catalysts for the Ring-Opening Polymerization of Lactide.

Science.gov (United States)

Schäfer, Pascal M; Fuchs, Martin; Ohligschläger, Andreas; Rittinghaus, Ruth; McKeown, Paul; Akin, Enver; Schmidt, Maximilian; Hoffmann, Alexander; Liauw, Marcel A; Jones, Matthew D; Herres-Pawlis, Sonja

2017-09-22

New zinc guanidine complexes with N,O donor functionalities were prepared, characterized by X-Ray crystallography, and examined for their catalytic activity in the solvent-free ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of technical-grade rac-lactide at 150 °C. All complexes showed a high activity. The fastest complex [ZnCl 2 (DMEGasme)] (C1) produced colorless poly(lactide) (PLA) after 90 min with a conversion of 52 % and high molar masses (M w =69 100, polydispersity=1.4). The complexes were tested with different monomer-to-initiator ratios to determine the rate constant k p . Furthermore, a polymerization with the most active complex C1 was monitored by in situ Raman spectroscopy. Overall, conversion of up to 90 % can be obtained. End-group analysis was performed to clarify the mechanism. All four complexes combine robustness against impurities in the lactide with high polymerization rates, and they represent the fastest robust lactide ROP catalysts to date, opening new avenues to a sustainable ROP catalyst family for industrial use. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

OLS Dialog: An open-source front end to the Ontology Lookup Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eidhammer Ingvar

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background With the growing amount of biomedical data available in public databases it has become increasingly important to annotate data in a consistent way in order to allow easy access to this rich source of information. Annotating the data using controlled vocabulary terms and ontologies makes it much easier to compare and analyze data from different sources. However, finding the correct controlled vocabulary terms can sometimes be a difficult task for the end user annotating these data. Results In order to facilitate the location of the correct term in the correct controlled vocabulary or ontology, the Ontology Lookup Service was created. However, using the Ontology Lookup Service as a web service is not always feasible, especially for researchers without bioinformatics support. We have therefore created a Java front end to the Ontology Lookup Service, called the OLS Dialog, which can be plugged into any application requiring the annotation of data using controlled vocabulary terms, making it possible to find and use controlled vocabulary terms without requiring any additional knowledge about web services or ontology formats. Conclusions As a user-friendly open source front end to the Ontology Lookup Service, the OLS Dialog makes it straightforward to include controlled vocabulary support in third-party tools, which ultimately makes the data even more valuable to the biomedical community.

Opinions of Female Juvenile Delinquents on Language-Based Literacy Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Sanger, Dixie; Ritzman, Mitzi; Stremlau, Aliza; Fairchild, Lindsey; Brunken, Cindy

2009-01-01

A mixed methods study was conducted to examine female juvenile delinquents' opinions and reactions on nine language-based literacy activities. Forty-one participants ranging in age from 13 to 18 years responded to a survey consisting of nine multiple-choice items and one open-ended question concerning the usefulness of activities. Quantitative and…

Computer-Assisted, Self-Interviewing (CASI) Compared to Face-to-Face Interviewing (FTFI) with Open-Ended, Non-Sensitive Questions

OpenAIRE

John Fairweather PhD; Tiffany Rinne PhD; Gary Steel PhD

2012-01-01

This article reports results from research on cultural models, and assesses the effects of computers on data quality by comparing open-ended questions asked in two formats—face-to-face interviewing (FTFI) and computer-assisted, self-interviewing (CASI). We expected that for our non-sensitive topic, FTFI would generate fuller and richer accounts because the interviewer could facilitate the interview process. Although the interviewer indeed facilitated these interviews, which resulted in more w...

Simple Ontology of Manipulation Actions based on Hand-Object Relations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wörgötter, Florentin; Aksoy, E. E.; Krüger, Norbert

2013-01-01

and time. For this we use as temporal anchor points those moments where two objects (or hand and object) touch or un-touch each other during a manipulation. We show that by this one can define a relatively small tree-like manipulation ontology. We find less than 30 fundamental manipulations. The temporal...... and encoded. Examples of manipulations recognition and execution by a robot based on this representation are given at the end of this study....

Ballooning modes on open magnetic field lines

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hameiri, E.

1999-01-01

The ballooning instability on open magnetic field lines is given a thorough mathematical analysis. It is shown that resistive bounding ends (endplates) induce the same stability properties as insulating ends. When unstable, the maximal growth rate increases monotonically with boundary resistivity. An interchange instability may be present, and one necessary condition for its stability is that ∫dl/B be constant on pressure surfaces. (This is an equilibrium existence condition for systems with closed magnetic field lines.) Another necessary condition for interchange stability has the same form as in the closed line case. Precise necessary and sufficient stability criteria are given for various types of bounding ends, including insulating, resistive, and perfectly conducting. copyright 1999 American Institute of Physics

Open innovations, innovation communities and firm's innovative activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Getejanc Vesna

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The open innovation paradigm emphasizes the fact that firms can improve their performance by opening their business models and reduce their R&D costs by effective incorporation of external knowledge. In other words, companies are able to capture value through knowledge that exists outside the boundaries of their organization. The shift from closed to open model of innovation has imposed the necessity to adopt more open approach to innovation within traditional academic view of business strategy. The adoption of this innovative approach is emphasized even more, by the necessity for stronger connection and cooperation among the participants of the innovation process. Free will and collaboration are the main characteristics of open source software, which is recognized in literature as the role model of open innovation and is a rapidly growing method of technology development. Furthermore, innovative communities represent a great opportunity for improvement of the companies' innovation activities, since they have become an important source for identifying the needs and problems of the users. Their development has been fostered by information technologies and recent social changes in user behavior. Recognizing and better understanding the motivation of the members of the innovation communities that guide them to participate in the process of idea generation, can have significant influence on their incorporation within the innovation process. Equally important is to define the incentives that are suited for stimulating and fostering innovative user activities. Taking this topic in consideration, the purpose of this article is to address the following questions: In what way does the collaboration in open source software projects have positive effect on companies' innovation performance? What are the innovation communities and how can companies establish successful interaction with them? Why does the interaction with innovation communities lead to

Welding nuclear reactor fuel rod end plugs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yeo, D.

1984-01-01

Apparatus for applying a vacuum to a nuclear fuel rod cladding tube's interior through its open end while girth welding an inserted end plug to its other end. An airtight housing has an orifice with a seal which can hermetically engage the tube's open end. A vacuum hose has one end connected to the housing and the other end connected to a vacuum pump. A mechanized device which moves the housing to engage or disengage its seal with the tube's open end includes at least one arm having one end attached to the housing and the other end pivotally attached to a movable table; an arm rotating device to coaxially align the housing's orifice with the welding-positioned tube; and a table moving device to engage the seal of the coaxially aligned orifice with the tube's open end. (author)

Effects of nutmeg consumption on the open field locomotor activities ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... was a steady significant difference (p < 0.05) in the behaviours of line crossing and walling. There was no much significant changes (P<0.05) in the behaviours of hinding, grooming and defeacation between the Treatments and Control groups of animals. Keywords: Nutmeg, Wistar rats, Open field, Locomotor activities ...

Hand biometric recognition based on fused hand geometry and vascular patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, GiTae; Kim, Soowon

2013-02-28

A hand biometric authentication method based on measurements of the user's hand geometry and vascular pattern is proposed. To acquire the hand geometry, the thickness of the side view of the hand, the K-curvature with a hand-shaped chain code, the lengths and angles of the finger valleys, and the lengths and profiles of the fingers were used, and for the vascular pattern, the direction-based vascular-pattern extraction method was used, and thus, a new multimodal biometric approach is proposed. The proposed multimodal biometric system uses only one image to extract the feature points. This system can be configured for low-cost devices. Our multimodal biometric-approach hand-geometry (the side view of the hand and the back of hand) and vascular-pattern recognition method performs at the score level. The results of our study showed that the equal error rate of the proposed system was 0.06%.

An Open-Source Data Storage and Visualization Back End for Experimental Data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Kenneth; Andersen, Thomas; Jensen, Robert

2014-01-01

and to interfere with the experiment if needed. The data stored consist both of specific measurements and of continuously logged system parameters. The latter is crucial to a variety of automation and surveillance features, and three cases of such features are described: monitoring system health, getting status......In this article, a flexible free and open-source software system for data logging and presentation will be described. The system is highly modular and adaptable and can be used in any laboratory in which continuous and/or ad hoc measurements require centralized storage. A presentation component...... for the data back end has furthermore been written that enables live visualization of data on any device capable of displaying Web pages. The system consists of three parts: data-logging clients, a data server, and a data presentation Web site. The logging of data from independent clients leads to high...

Efficient photocatalytic degradation of gaseous N,N-dimethylformamide in tannery waste gas using doubly open-ended Ag/TiO2 nanotube array membranes

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yang; Ma, Lin; Chang, Wenkai; Huang, Zhiding; Feng, Xugen; Qi, Xiaoxia; Li, Zenghe

2018-06-01

Gaseous N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), typical volatile organic compound exhausted from manufacturing factories, may damage the health of workers under long-term exposure even at low levels. The defined geometry, porous surface and highly ordered channels make the free-standing anodic TiO2 nanotube (TiNT) arrays particularly suitable for applications of practical air purification by flow-through photocatalysis. In the present work, crystallized doubly open-ended Ag/TiNT array membranes were designed and prepared by employing a lift-off process based on an anodization-annealing-anodization-etching sequence, followed by uniform Ag nanoparticles decoration. For the photocatalytic degradation of gaseous DMF at low concentration levels close to that found in realistic pollutant air, an analytical methodology for the monitoring and determination of degradation process was developed based on the coupling of headspace sampling with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS). The doubly open-ended Ag/TiNT arrays exhibited higher removal efficiency of gaseous DMF from air compared with conventional bottom-closed Ag/TiNT arrays and pure bottomless TiNT arrays. These results indicated that the photocatalytic properties of TiNT arrays were improved with the open-bottom morphology and the Ag nanoparticles decoration. Based on the analysis with GC-MS and high performance ion chromatography (HPIC), it was found that demethylation is the main pathway of DMF degradation in photocatalytic reactions. Furthermore, decontamination of actual polluted tannery waste gas collected in leather factory proved that the photocatalysis on doubly open-ended Ag/TiNT array membrane is an efficient way and a promising application to treat air contaminated by DMF despite the complexity of various volatile organic compounds.

Early intensive hand rehabilitation after spinal cord injury ("Hands On": a protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsueh Ya-Seng

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Loss of hand function is one of the most devastating consequences of spinal cord injury. Intensive hand training provided on an instrumented exercise workstation in conjunction with functional electrical stimulation may enhance neural recovery and hand function. The aim of this trial is to compare usual care with an 8-week program of intensive hand training and functional electrical stimulation. Methods/design A multicentre randomised controlled trial will be undertaken. Seventy-eight participants with recent tetraplegia (C2 to T1 motor complete or incomplete undergoing inpatient rehabilitation will be recruited from seven spinal cord injury units in Australia and New Zealand and will be randomised to a control or experimental group. Control participants will receive usual care. Experimental participants will receive usual care and an 8-week program of intensive unilateral hand training using an instrumented exercise workstation and functional electrical stimulation. Participants will drive the functional electrical stimulation of their target hands via a behind-the-ear bluetooth device, which is sensitive to tooth clicks. The bluetooth device will enable the use of various manipulanda to practice functional activities embedded within computer-based games and activities. Training will be provided for one hour, 5 days per week, during the 8-week intervention period. The primary outcome is the Action Research Arm Test. Secondary outcomes include measurements of strength, sensation, function, quality of life and cost effectiveness. All outcomes will be taken at baseline, 8 weeks, 6 months and 12 months by assessors blinded to group allocation. Recruitment commenced in December 2009. Discussion The results of this trial will determine the effectiveness of an 8-week program of intensive hand training with functional electrical stimulation. Trial registration NCT01086930 (12th March 2010 ACTRN12609000695202 (12th August 2009

Early intensive hand rehabilitation after spinal cord injury ("Hands On"): a protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Harvey, Lisa A; Dunlop, Sarah A; Churilov, Leonid; Hsueh, Ya-Seng Arthur; Galea, Mary P

2011-01-17

Loss of hand function is one of the most devastating consequences of spinal cord injury. Intensive hand training provided on an instrumented exercise workstation in conjunction with functional electrical stimulation may enhance neural recovery and hand function. The aim of this trial is to compare usual care with an 8-week program of intensive hand training and functional electrical stimulation. A multicentre randomised controlled trial will be undertaken. Seventy-eight participants with recent tetraplegia (C2 to T1 motor complete or incomplete) undergoing inpatient rehabilitation will be recruited from seven spinal cord injury units in Australia and New Zealand and will be randomised to a control or experimental group. Control participants will receive usual care. Experimental participants will receive usual care and an 8-week program of intensive unilateral hand training using an instrumented exercise workstation and functional electrical stimulation. Participants will drive the functional electrical stimulation of their target hands via a behind-the-ear bluetooth device, which is sensitive to tooth clicks. The bluetooth device will enable the use of various manipulanda to practice functional activities embedded within computer-based games and activities. Training will be provided for one hour, 5 days per week, during the 8-week intervention period. The primary outcome is the Action Research Arm Test. Secondary outcomes include measurements of strength, sensation, function, quality of life and cost effectiveness. All outcomes will be taken at baseline, 8 weeks, 6 months and 12 months by assessors blinded to group allocation. Recruitment commenced in December 2009. The results of this trial will determine the effectiveness of an 8-week program of intensive hand training with functional electrical stimulation. NCT01086930 (12th March 2010)ACTRN12609000695202 (12th August 2009).

Effects of Smoking on Hand Tendon Repair: Scientific Study & Literature Review

OpenAIRE

Samona J; Samona S; Gilin M; Carwile D; Persons S; AG Dass

2017-01-01

Purpose: The clinical effect of smoking on after tendon repair in smokers vs non-smokers was investigated, via exploring effects on flexor and tendon repair, and incidence of wound complications. Methods: Retrospective review of patients treated by 1 orthopedic surgeon, fellowship trained in hand surgery, and 3 occupational therapists working together in 1 physical therapy institution. 56 patients (20 smokers and 36 non-smokers) with acute traumatic tendon lacerations, fixed via direct (end-t...

Detection of pathogenic micro-organisms on children's hands and toys during play.

Science.gov (United States)

Martínez-Bastidas, T; Castro-del Campo, N; Mena, K D; Castro-del Campo, N; León-Félix, J; Gerba, C P; Chaidez, C

2014-06-01

This study aimed to determine if the children's leisure activities impact the presence of pathogens on their hands and toys. To assess the microbiological hazard in playground areas, a pilot study that included 12 children was conducted. We then conducted an intervention study; children's hands and toys were washed before playing. Faecal coliforms, pathogenic bacteria and Giardia lamblia were quantified by membrane filtration, selective media and flotation techniques, respectively; rotavirus, hepatitis A and rhinovirus by RT-PCR. Pilot study results revealed faecal contamination on children's hands and toys after playing on sidewalks and in public parks. Pathogenic bacteria, hepatitis A and G. lamblia on children's hands were also found. In the intervention study, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae were found on children's hands at concentrations up to 2·5 × 10(4) and 1 × 10(4) CFU hands(-1), respectively. E. coli and Kl. pneumoniae were detected on toys (2·4 × 10(3) and 2·7 × 10(4) CFU toy(-1), respectively). Salmonella spp, Serratia spp and G. lamblia cysts were also present on toys. Children's play activities influence microbial presence on hands and toys; the transfer seems to occur in both ways. Control strategy needs to be implemented to protect children from infectious diseases. © 2014 The Society for Applied Microbiology.

Hand washing with soap and water together with behavioural recommendations prevents infections in common work environment: an open cluster-randomized trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Savolainen-Kopra Carita

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Hand hygiene is considered as an important means of infection control. We explored whether guided hand hygiene together with transmission-limiting behaviour reduces infection episodes and lost days of work in a common work environment in an open cluster-randomized 3-arm intervention trial. Methods A total of 21 clusters (683 persons were randomized to implement hand hygiene with soap and water (257 persons, with alcohol-based hand rub (202 persons, or to serve as a control (224 persons. Participants in both intervention arms also received standardized instructions on how to limit the transmission of infections. The intervention period (16 months included the emergence of the 2009 influenza pandemic and the subsequent national hand hygiene campaign influencing also the control arm. Results In the total follow-up period there was a 6.7% reduction of infection episodes in the soap-and water arm (p = 0.04. Before the onset of the anti-pandemic campaign, a statistically significant (p = 0.002 difference in the mean occurrence of infection episodes was observed between the control (6.0 per year and the soap-and-water arm (5.0 per year but not between the control and the alcohol-rub arm (5.6 per year. Neither intervention had a decreasing effect on absence from work. Conclusions We conclude that intensified hand hygiene using water and soap together with behavioural recommendations can reduce the occurrence of self-reported acute illnesses in common work environment. Surprisingly, the occurrence of reported sick leaves also increased in the soap-and water-arm. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00981877 Source of funding The Finnish Work Environment Fund and the National Institute for Health and Welfare.

Comprehensive bactericidal activity of an ethanol-based hand gel in 15 seconds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kampf Günter

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Some studies indicate that the commonly recommended 30 s application time for the post contamination treatment of hands may not be necessary as the same effect may be achieved with some formulations in a shorter application time such as 15 s. Method We evaluated the bactericidal activity of an ethanol-based hand gel (Sterillium® Comfort Gel within 15 s in a time-kill-test against 11 Gram-positive, 16 Gram-negative bacteria and 11 emerging bacterial pathogens. Each strain was evaluated in quadruplicate. Results The hand gel (85% ethanol, w/w was found to reduce all 11 Gram-positive and all 16 Gram-negative bacteria by more than 5 log10 steps within 15 s, not only against the ATCC test strains but also against corresponding clinical isolates. In addition, a log10 reduction > 5 was observed against all tested emerging bacterial pathogens. Conclusion The ethanol-based hand gel was found to have a broad spectrum of bactericidal activity in only 15 s which includes the most common species causing nosocomial infections and the relevant emerging pathogens. Future research will hopefully help to find out if a shorter application time for the post contamination treatment of hands provides more benefits or more risks.

Open source tools for ATR development and performance evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Baumann, James M.; Dilsavor, Ronald L.; Stubbles, James; Mossing, John C.

2002-07-01

Early in almost every engineering project, a decision must be made about tools; should I buy off-the-shelf tools or should I develop my own. Either choice can involve significant cost and risk. Off-the-shelf tools may be readily available, but they can be expensive to purchase and to maintain licenses, and may not be flexible enough to satisfy all project requirements. On the other hand, developing new tools permits great flexibility, but it can be time- (and budget-) consuming, and the end product still may not work as intended. Open source software has the advantages of both approaches without many of the pitfalls. This paper examines the concept of open source software, including its history, unique culture, and informal yet closely followed conventions. These characteristics influence the quality and quantity of software available, and ultimately its suitability for serious ATR development work. We give an example where Python, an open source scripting language, and OpenEV, a viewing and analysis tool for geospatial data, have been incorporated into ATR performance evaluation projects. While this case highlights the successful use of open source tools, we also offer important insight into risks associated with this approach.

Co-regulated expression of HAND2 and DEIN by a bidirectional promoter with asymmetrical activity in neuroblastoma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Berthold Frank

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background HAND2, a key regulator for the development of the sympathetic nervous system, is located on chromosome 4q33 in a head-to-head orientation with DEIN, a recently identified novel gene with stage specific expression in primary neuroblastoma (NB. Both genes are expressed in primary NB as well as most NB cell lines and are separated by a genomic sequence of 228 bp. The similar expression profile of both genes suggests a common transcriptional regulation mediated by a bidirectional promoter. Results Northern Blot analysis of DEIN and HAND2 in 20 primary NBs indicated concurrent expression levels of the two genes, which was confirmed by microarray analysis of 236 primary NBs (Pearson's correlation coefficient r = 0.65. While DEIN expression in the latter cohort was associated with stage 4S (p = 0.02, HAND2 expression was not associated with tumor stage. In contrast, both HAND2 and DEIN transcript levels were highly associated with age at diagnosis DEIN orientation, an average 3.4 fold increase in activity was observed as compared to the promoterless vector, whereas an average 15.4 fold activation was detected in HAND2 orientation. The presence of two highly conserved putative regulatory elements, one of which was shown to enhance HAND2 expression in branchial arches previously, displayed weak repressor activity for both genes. Conclusion HAND2 and DEIN represent a gene pair that is tightly linked by a bidirectional promoter in an evolutionary highly conserved manner. Expression of both genes in NB is co-regulated by asymmetrical activity of this promoter and modulated by the activity of two cis-regulatory elements acting as weak repressors. The concurrent quantitative and tissue specific expression of HAND2 and DEIN suggests a functional link between both genes.

Advanced Camera Image Cropping Approach for CNN-Based End-to-End Controls on Sustainable Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yunsick Sung

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Recent research on deep learning has been applied to a diversity of fields. In particular, numerous studies have been conducted on self-driving vehicles using end-to-end approaches based on images captured by a single camera. End-to-end controls learn the output vectors of output devices directly from the input vectors of available input devices. In other words, an end-to-end approach learns not by analyzing the meaning of input vectors, but by extracting optimal output vectors based on input vectors. Generally, when end-to-end control is applied to self-driving vehicles, the steering wheel and pedals are controlled autonomously by learning from the images captured by a camera. However, high-resolution images captured from a car cannot be directly used as inputs to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs owing to memory limitations; the image size needs to be efficiently reduced. Therefore, it is necessary to extract features from captured images automatically and to generate input images by merging the parts of the images that contain the extracted features. This paper proposes a learning method for end-to-end control that generates input images for CNNs by extracting road parts from input images, identifying the edges of the extracted road parts, and merging the parts of the images that contain the detected edges. In addition, a CNN model for end-to-end control is introduced. Experiments involving the Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS, a sustainable computing environment for cars, confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method for self-driving by comparing the accumulated difference in the angle of the steering wheel in the images generated by it with those of resized images containing the entire captured area and cropped images containing only a part of the captured area. The results showed that the proposed method reduced the accumulated difference by 0.839% and 0.850% compared to those yielded by the resized images and cropped images

Hand Biometric Recognition Based on Fused Hand Geometry and Vascular Patterns

Science.gov (United States)

Park, GiTae; Kim, Soowon

2013-01-01

A hand biometric authentication method based on measurements of the user's hand geometry and vascular pattern is proposed. To acquire the hand geometry, the thickness of the side view of the hand, the K-curvature with a hand-shaped chain code, the lengths and angles of the finger valleys, and the lengths and profiles of the fingers were used, and for the vascular pattern, the direction-based vascular-pattern extraction method was used, and thus, a new multimodal biometric approach is proposed. The proposed multimodal biometric system uses only one image to extract the feature points. This system can be configured for low-cost devices. Our multimodal biometric-approach hand-geometry (the side view of the hand and the back of hand) and vascular-pattern recognition method performs at the score level. The results of our study showed that the equal error rate of the proposed system was 0.06%. PMID:23449119

Using Stepwise Reality Check to Analyze Open-end Fund Investors’Herding Redemption in Taiwan

OpenAIRE

Nan-Yu Wang; Chih-Jen Huang; Ying-Lin Hsu; Shian-Chang Huang

2015-01-01

This study aims to examine whether funds with illiquid assets exhibit stronger sensitivity of redemption outflows to bad past performance than funds with liquid assets. An important aspect of our study is whether large outflows should damage future fund performance in illiquid funds more than in liquid funds. When redeemed in a large scale, the liquidity risk of open-end funds will increase, which in turn leads to a vicious circle between fund redemption and the net asset value decline. Accor...

Feedback from operational experience in front-end transportation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mondonel, J.L.; Parison, C.

1998-01-01

Transport forms an integral part of the nuclear fuel cycle, representing the strategic link between each stage of the cycle. In a way there is a transport cycle that parallels the nuclear fuel cycle. This concerns particularly the front-end of the cycle whose steps - mining conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication - require numerous transports. Back-end shipments involve a handful of countries, but front-end transports involve all five continents, and many exotic countries. All over Europe such transports are routinely performed with an excellent safety track record. Transnucleaire dominates the French nuclear transportation market and carries out both front and back-end transports. For instance in 1996 more than 28,400 front-end packages were transported as well as more than 3,600 back-end packages. However front-end transport is now a business undergoing much change. A nuclear transportation company must now cope with an evolving picture including new technical requirements, new transportation schemes and new business conditions. This paper describes the latest evolutions in terms of front-end transportation and the way this activity is carried out by Transnucleaire, and goes on to discuss future prospects. (authors)

The surfacing of past assessment strategies within interdisciplinary teams when encountering an open-ended assignment in an undergraduate sustainability course

Science.gov (United States)

Hartman, K.; Dzulkifli, D. D. B.; Moynihan, M. A.; Salman, R.; Goodkin, N.

2017-12-01

267 undergraduate students in an interdisciplinary environmental sustainability course were divided into 66 groups for the duration of the semester. The formation of the groups proceeded by first assigning all of the science majors to groups in a random order. This was followed by assigning the engineering majors, the liberal arts majors, and finally the business majors in turn. After all of the students had been assigned to a group, every group had at least one engineering student and one science student. 11 groups had a liberal arts student but no business student. 26 groups had a business student but no liberal arts student. 29 groups were composed of students from all four majors. During the semester, the groups created an environmental action plan to address one of Singapore's major sustainability concerns: food. In service of the course's emphasis on interdisciplinary communication, the groups were required to create a video to support their environmental action plan. The evaluation method for the videos built on our prior work with rubrics (Hartman & Goodkin, 2016). While we provided a number of examples of videos communicating environmental action plans, students were not prescribed a particular format for their video. To the consternation of some students, the instructor deliberately left the video assessment open-ended. After the semester ended, a researcher coded all 66 videos for the food sustainability issues they identified, their proposed solutions, and their video approach. Approaches included animations, virtual handwriting/drawing, role-playing, PowerPoint presentations, and picture slideshows. Given the open-ended nature of the video project, we hypothesized that groups would converge on approaches that at least one team member was familiar with. We knew from prior work with the business school, that its students engage in role-play activities fairly frequently. Teams with a business major and without a liberal arts major adopted the role

Nitrate supplementation improves physical performance specifically in non-athletes during prolonged open-ended tests: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Campos, Helton O; Drummond, Lucas R; Rodrigues, Quezia T; Machado, Frederico S M; Pires, Washington; Wanner, Samuel P; Coimbra, Cândido C

2018-03-01

Nitrate (NO3 -) is an ergogenic nutritional supplement that is widely used to improve physical performance. However, the effectiveness of NO3 - supplementation has not been systematically investigated in individuals with different physical fitness levels. The present study analysed whether different fitness levels (non-athletes v. athletes or classification of performance levels), duration of the test used to measure performance (short v. long duration) and the test protocol (time trials v. open-ended tests v. graded-exercise tests) influence the effects of NO3 - supplementation on performance. This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted and reported according to the guidelines outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. A systematic search of electronic databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus and ProQuest, was performed in August 2017. On the basis of the search and inclusion criteria, fifty-four and fifty-three placebo-controlled studies evaluating the effects of NO3 - supplementation on performance in humans were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, respectively. NO3 - supplementation was ergogenic in non-athletes (mean effect size (ES) 0·25; 95 % CI 0·11, 0·38), particularly in evaluations of performance using long-duration open-ended tests (ES 0·47; 95 % CI 0·23, 0·71). In contrast, NO3 - supplementation did not enhance the performance of athletes (ES 0·04; 95 % CI -0·05, 0·15). After objectively classifying the participants into different performance levels, the frequency of trials showing ergogenic effects in individuals classified at lower levels was higher than that in individuals classified at higher levels. Thus, the present study indicates that dietary NO3 - supplementation improves physical performance in non-athletes, particularly during long-duration open-ended tests.

Post-stroke Rehabilitation Training with a Motor-Imagery-Based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)-Controlled Hand Exoskeleton: A Randomized Controlled Multicenter Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Frolov, Alexander A; Mokienko, Olesya; Lyukmanov, Roman; Biryukova, Elena; Kotov, Sergey; Turbina, Lydia; Nadareyshvily, Georgy; Bushkova, Yulia

2017-01-01

Repeated use of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) providing contingent sensory feedback of brain activity was recently proposed as a rehabilitation approach to restore motor function after stroke or spinal cord lesions. However, there are only a few clinical studies that investigate feasibility and effectiveness of such an approach. Here we report on a placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial that investigated whether stroke survivors with severe upper limb (UL) paralysis benefit from 10 BCI training sessions each lasting up to 40 min. A total of 74 patients participated: median time since stroke is 8 months, 25 and 75% quartiles [3.0; 13.0]; median severity of UL paralysis is 4.5 points [0.0; 30.0] as measured by the Action Research Arm Test, ARAT, and 19.5 points [11.0; 40.0] as measured by the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment, FMMA. Patients in the BCI group ( n = 55) performed motor imagery of opening their affected hand. Motor imagery-related brain electroencephalographic activity was translated into contingent hand exoskeleton-driven opening movements of the affected hand. In a control group ( n = 19), hand exoskeleton-driven opening movements of the affected hand were independent of brain electroencephalographic activity. Evaluation of the UL clinical assessments indicated that both groups improved, but only the BCI group showed an improvement in the ARAT's grasp score from 0 [0.0; 14.0] to 3.0 [0.0; 15.0] points ( p exoskeleton-assisted physical therapy can improve post-stroke rehabilitation outcomes. Both maximum and mean values of the percentage of successfully decoded imagery-related EEG activity, were higher than chance level. A correlation between the classification accuracy and the improvement in the upper extremity function was found. An improvement of motor function was found for patients with different duration, severity and location of the stroke.

A Prosthetic Hand Body Area Controller Based on Efficient Pattern Recognition Control Strategies.

Science.gov (United States)

Benatti, Simone; Milosevic, Bojan; Farella, Elisabetta; Gruppioni, Emanuele; Benini, Luca

2017-04-15

Poliarticulated prosthetic hands represent a powerful tool to restore functionality and improve quality of life for upper limb amputees. Such devices offer, on the same wearable node, sensing and actuation capabilities, which are not equally supported by natural interaction and control strategies. The control in state-of-the-art solutions is still performed mainly through complex encoding of gestures in bursts of contractions of the residual forearm muscles, resulting in a non-intuitive Human-Machine Interface (HMI). Recent research efforts explore the use of myoelectric gesture recognition for innovative interaction solutions, however there persists a considerable gap between research evaluation and implementation into successful complete systems. In this paper, we present the design of a wearable prosthetic hand controller, based on intuitive gesture recognition and a custom control strategy. The wearable node directly actuates a poliarticulated hand and wirelessly interacts with a personal gateway (i.e., a smartphone) for the training and personalization of the recognition algorithm. Through the whole system development, we address the challenge of integrating an efficient embedded gesture classifier with a control strategy tailored for an intuitive interaction between the user and the prosthesis. We demonstrate that this combined approach outperforms systems based on mere pattern recognition, since they target the accuracy of a classification algorithm rather than the control of a gesture. The system was fully implemented, tested on healthy and amputee subjects and compared against benchmark repositories. The proposed approach achieves an error rate of 1.6% in the end-to-end real time control of commonly used hand gestures, while complying with the power and performance budget of a low-cost microcontroller.

Doing R&D in a closed or open mode : dynamics and impacts on productivity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rosa, J.; Mohnen, P.

2013-01-01

On the one hand, firms prefer to perform R&D in an open mode (letting R&D be performed extramurally or even selling their R&D services) to benefit from knowledge spillovers and complementarities between internal and external R&D. On the other hand, they may also like to perform R&D in a closed mode

Introducing computational thinking through hands-on projects using R with applications to calculus, probability and data analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Benakli, Nadia; Kostadinov, Boyan; Satyanarayana, Ashwin; Singh, Satyanand

2017-04-01

The goal of this paper is to promote computational thinking among mathematics, engineering, science and technology students, through hands-on computer experiments. These activities have the potential to empower students to learn, create and invent with technology, and they engage computational thinking through simulations, visualizations and data analysis. We present nine computer experiments and suggest a few more, with applications to calculus, probability and data analysis, which engage computational thinking through simulations, visualizations and data analysis. We are using the free (open-source) statistical programming language R. Our goal is to give a taste of what R offers rather than to present a comprehensive tutorial on the R language. In our experience, these kinds of interactive computer activities can be easily integrated into a smart classroom. Furthermore, these activities do tend to keep students motivated and actively engaged in the process of learning, problem solving and developing a better intuition for understanding complex mathematical concepts.

A note on the perverse effects of actively open-minded thinking on climate-change polarization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan M. Kahan

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This research note presents evidence that political polarization over the reality of human-caused climate change increases in tandem with individuals’ scores on a standard measure of actively open-minded thinking. This finding is at odds with the position that attributes political conflict over facts to a personality trait of closed-mindedness associated with political conservatism.

The Cultural Evolution of Structured Languages in an Open-Ended, Continuous World.

Science.gov (United States)

Carr, Jon W; Smith, Kenny; Cornish, Hannah; Kirby, Simon

2017-05-01

Language maps signals onto meanings through the use of two distinct types of structure. First, the space of meanings is discretized into categories that are shared by all users of the language. Second, the signals employed by the language are compositional: The meaning of the whole is a function of its parts and the way in which those parts are combined. In three iterated learning experiments using a vast, continuous, open-ended meaning space, we explore the conditions under which both structured categories and structured signals emerge ex nihilo. While previous experiments have been limited to either categorical structure in meanings or compositional structure in signals, these experiments demonstrate that when the meaning space lacks clear preexisting boundaries, more subtle morphological structure that lacks straightforward compositionality-as found in natural languages-may evolve as a solution to joint pressures from learning and communication. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society.

Information security threats in web-portals on the open journal systems platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anton A. Abramov

2018-05-01

Full Text Available This article addresses the problem of security threats while working with web portals built on the Open Journal Systems platform. The Open Journal Systems (OJS platform was originally developed as part of the Public Knowledge Project and it is one of the most popular open-source platforms for web journals today. Based on the data available in the Public Knowledge Project, there were more than 10,000 active journals using the open journal systems platform by the end of 2016. A migration of a journal to such advanced and complex platform helps to handle the entire workflow over a single web portal. Therefore it is an important move and only peer-reviewed journals that are part of Russian and Worldwide citation systems go for it. At the same time the problem of keeping privacy for a manuscript before it is published is very important for these journals and for authors who submit it to the journal. The paper describes the most common threats for the web portals on the OJS platform as well as a particular model of the security threats, and suggests the measures that could help to neutralize these threats.

Perceived Effects of Pornography on the Couple Relationship: Initial Findings of Open-Ended, Participant-Informed, "Bottom-Up" Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Kohut, Taylor; Fisher, William A; Campbell, Lorne

2017-02-01

The current study adopted a participant-informed, "bottom-up," qualitative approach to identifying perceived effects of pornography on the couple relationship. A large sample (N = 430) of men and women in heterosexual relationships in which pornography was used by at least one partner was recruited through online (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and offline (e.g., newspapers, radio, etc.) sources. Participants responded to open-ended questions regarding perceived consequences of pornography use for each couple member and for their relationship in the context of an online survey. In the current sample of respondents, "no negative effects" was the most commonly reported impact of pornography use. Among remaining responses, positive perceived effects of pornography use on couple members and their relationship (e.g., improved sexual communication, more sexual experimentation, enhanced sexual comfort) were reported frequently; negative perceived effects of pornography (e.g., unrealistic expectations, decreased sexual interest in partner, increased insecurity) were also reported, albeit with considerably less frequency. The results of this work suggest new research directions that require more systematic attention.

Physics 30 Program Machine-Scorable Open-Ended Questions: Unit 2: Electric and Magnetic Forces. Diploma Examinations Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Alberta Dept. of Education, Edmonton.

This document outlines the use of machine-scorable open-ended questions for the evaluation of Physics 30 in Alberta. Contents include: (1) an introduction to the questions; (2) sample instruction sheet; (3) fifteen sample items; (4) item information including the key, difficulty, and source of each item; (5) solutions to items having multiple…

Human-like Compliance for Dexterous Robot Hands

Science.gov (United States)

Jau, Bruno M.

1995-01-01

This paper describes the Active Electromechanical Compliance (AEC) system that was developed for the Jau-JPL anthropomorphic robot. The AEC system imitates the functionality of the human muscle's secondary function, which is to control the joint's stiffness: AEC is implemented through servo controlling the joint drive train's stiffness. The control strategy, controlling compliant joints in teleoperation, is described. It enables automatic hybrid position and force control through utilizing sensory feedback from joint and compliance sensors. This compliant control strategy is adaptable for autonomous robot control as well. Active compliance enables dual arm manipulations, human-like soft grasping by the robot hand, and opens the way to many new robotics applications.

Communicate science: an example of food related hands-on laboratory approach

Science.gov (United States)

D'Addezio, Giuliana; Marsili, Antonella; Vallocchia, Massimiliano

2014-05-01

The Laboratorio Didattica e Divulgazione Scientifica of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV's Educational and Outreach Laboratory) organized activity with kids to convey scientific knowledge and to promote research on Earth Science, focusing on volcanic and seismic hazard. The combination of games and learning in educational activity can be a valuable tool for study of complex phenomena. Hands-on activity may help in engage kids in a learning process through direct participation that significantly improves the learning performance of children. Making learning fun motivate audience to pay attention on and stay focused on the subject. We present the experience of the hand-on laboratory "Laboratorio goloso per bambini curiosi di scienza (a delicious hands-on laboratory for kids curious about science)", performed in Frascati during the 2013 European Researchers' Night, promoted by the European Commission, as part of the program organized by the Laboratorio Didattica e Divulgazione Scientifica in the framework of Associazione Frascati Scienza (http://www.frascatiscienza.it/). The hand-on activity were designed for primary schools to create enjoyable and unusual tools for learning Earth Science. During this activity kids are involved with something related to everyday life, such as food, through manipulation, construction and implementation of simple experiments related to Earth dynamics. Children become familiar with scientific concepts such as composition of the Earth, plates tectonic, earthquakes and seismic waves propagation and experience the effect of earthquakes on buildings, exploring their important implications for seismic hazard. During the activity, composed of several steps, participants were able to learn about Earth inner structure, fragile lithosphere, waves propagations, impact of waves on building ecc.., dealing with eggs, cookies, honey, sugar, polenta, flour, chocolate, candies, liquorice sticks, bread, pudding and sweets. The

Values and motivations of private forest owners in the United States: a framework based on open-ended responses in the national woodland owner survey

Science.gov (United States)

David N. Bengston; Brett J. Butler; Stanley T. Asah

2009-01-01

The National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) is a recurring and comprehensive national survey of private forest landowners in the United States, and is a social complement to the U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program's biologic resource inventory. An open-ended question in the NWOS explores private forest owners' motivations and values...

Open-Ended Approach: An Effort in Cultivating Students' Mathematical Creative Thinking Ability and Self-Esteem in Mathematics

Science.gov (United States)

Fatah, Abdul; Suryadi, Didi; Sabandar, Jozua; Turmudi

2016-01-01

The present study aims at examining the use of open-ended approach in cultivating senior high school students' mathematical creative thinking ability (MCTA) and self-esteem (SE) in mathematics viewed from school category. The subjects of this research were the students grade XI at three schools; high, middle and low category in Kota Serang, Banten…

The dark and the bright side of liquidity risks: evidence from open-end real estate funds in Germany

OpenAIRE

Fecht, Falko; Wedow, Michael

2009-01-01

We use a unique and comprehensive data set on open-end real estate funds in Germany to study a liquidity crisis that hit this industry between 2005 and 2006. Since this industry is comparably unregulated our data set permits us to contrast competing explanations of liquidity crisis. We find that fundamental factors matter for the liquidity outflow in normal times. During the crisis, however, they do not play a role. During the panic only strategic complementarities drive withdrawals. Furtherm...

Robot hands and extravehicular activity

Science.gov (United States)

Marcus, Beth

1987-01-01

Extravehicular activity (EVA) is crucial to the success of both current and future space operations. As space operations have evolved in complexity so has the demand placed on the EVA crewman. In addition, some NASA requirements for human capabilities at remote or hazardous sites were identified. One of the keys to performing useful EVA tasks is the ability to manipulate objects accurately, quickly and without early or excessive fatigue. The current suit employs a glove which enables the crewman to perform grasping tasks, use tools, turn switches, and perform other tasks for short periods of time. However, the glove's bulk and resistance to motion ultimately causes fatigue. Due to this limitation it may not be possible to meet the productivity requirements that will be placed on the EVA crewman of the future with the current or developmental Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) hardware. In addition, this hardware will not meet the requirements for remote or hazardous operations. In an effort to develop ways for improving crew productivity, a contract was awarded to develop a prototype anthromorphic robotic hand (ARH) for use with an extravehicular space suit. The first step in this program was to perform a a design study which investigated the basic technology required for the development of an ARH to enhance crew performance and productivity. The design study phase of the contract and some additional development work is summarized.

Implementing OpenShift

CERN Document Server

Miller, Adam

2013-01-01

A standard tutorial-based approach to using OpenShift and deploying custom or pre-built web applications to the OpenShift Online cloud.This book is for software developers and DevOps alike who are interested in learning how to use the OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service for developing and deploying applications, how the environment works on the back end, and how to deploy their very own open source Platform-as-a-Service based on the upstream OpenShift Origin project.

Determination of calcium in foot, hand and vertebrae of man by neutron activation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zajchik, V.E.; Kondrashev, A.E.; Dubrovin, A.P.; Korelo, A.M.; Morukov, B.V.; Orlov, O.I.

1990-01-01

Methods and devices for in vivo neutron activation determination of calcium content in human foot, hand and vertebrae were developed. It is ascertained that calcium content in skeleton is subjected to seasonal cyclicity. Bones of foot have the minimum content of the element in winter-spring period and the maximum one in summer-autumn period. For vertebrae and hand the inverse dependence is characteristic. Average level of seasonal variations in calcium content in the bones of hand and vertebrae is 10-11%, that of foot - 18-19%. Amplitudes of seasonal variations in the content of calcium in vertebrae, hand and foot are interrelated. 5 refs.; 1 tab

Physical activity, sleep pattern and energy expenditure in double-handed offshore sailing.

Science.gov (United States)

Galvani, C; Ardigò, L P; Alberti, M; Daniele, F; Capelli, C

2015-12-01

The aim of the present study was to quantify total energy expenditure, activity energy expenditure and time spent at three levels of physical activity (low, moderate, high intensity) in four two-person crews during a 500-mile double-handed sailing regatta. Physical activity intensity and energy expenditure were assessed during a 500-nautical-mile double-handed offshore competition in eight male sailors (46.3±3.4 years; 180±13 cm; 85.4±12.5 kg). During the whole regatta, they wore an activity monitor that estimated energy expenditure and minutes spent at each level of intensity (sedentary, 6.0 METs). The sailors spent longer periods (Penergy expenditure was 14.26±1.89 MJ/day and the activity energy expenditure was 5.06±1.42 MJ/day. Activity energy expenditure was significantly correlated with total sleep time, boat speed, and distance covered each day (Penergy expenditure was more likely a consequence of the short and rare periods of sleep during the competition rather than of the bouts of moderate and vigorous physical activities.

A soft robotic exomusculature glove with integrated sEMG sensing for hand rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Delph, Michael A; Fischer, Sarah A; Gauthier, Phillip W; Luna, Carlos H Martinez; Clancy, Edward A; Fischer, Gregory S

2013-06-01

Stroke affects 750,000 people annually, and 80% of stroke survivors are left with weakened limbs and hands. Repetitive hand movement is often used as a rehabilitation technique in order to regain hand movement and strength. In order to facilitate this rehabilitation, a robotic glove was designed to aid in the movement and coordination of gripping exercises. This glove utilizes a cable system to open and close a patients hand. The cables are actuated by servomotors, mounted in a backpack weighing 13.2 lbs including battery power sources. The glove can be controlled in terms of finger position and grip force through switch interface, software program, or surface myoelectric (sEMG) signal. The primary control modes of the system provide: active assistance, active resistance and a preprogrammed mode. This project developed a working prototype of the rehabilitative robotic glove which actuates the fingers over a full range of motion across one degree-of-freedom, and is capable of generating a maximum 15N grip force.

Research of a New 6-Dof Force Feedback Hand Controller System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xin Gao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The field of teleoperation with force telepresence has expanded its scope to include manipulation at different scales and in virtual worlds, and the key component of which is force feedback hand controller. This paper presents a novel force feedback hand controller system, including a 3-dof translational and 3-dof rotational hand controllers, respectively, to implement position and posture teleoperation of the robot end effector. The 3-dof translational hand controller adopts innovative three-axes decoupling structure based on the linear motor; the 3-dof rotational hand controller adopts serial mechanism based on three-axes intersecting at one point, improving its overall stiffness. Based on the kinematics, statics, and dynamics analyses for two platforms separately, the system applies big closed-loop force control method based on the zero force/torque, improving the feedback force/torque accuracy effectively. Experimental results show that self-developed 6-dof force feedback hand controller has good mechanical properties. The translational hand controller has the following advantages: simple kinematics solver, fast dynamic response, and better than 0.05 mm accuracy of three-axis end positioning, while the advantages of the rotational hand controller are wide turning space, larger than 1 Nm feedback, greater than 180 degrees of operating space of three axes, respectively, and high operation precision.

Premotor activations in response to visually presented single letters depend on the hand used to write: a study on left-handers.

Science.gov (United States)

Longcamp, Marieke; Anton, Jean-Luc; Roth, Muriel; Velay, Jean-Luc

2005-01-01

In a previous fMRI study on right-handers (Rhrs), we reported that part of the left ventral premotor cortex (BA6) was activated when alphabetical characters were passively observed and that the same region was also involved in handwriting [Longcamp, M., Anton, J. L., Roth, M., & Velay, J. L. (2003). Visual presentation of single letters activates a premotor area involved in writing. NeuroImage, 19, 1492-1500]. We therefore suggested that letter-viewing may induce automatic involvement of handwriting movements. In the present study, in order to confirm this hypothesis, we carried out a similar fMRI experiment on a group of left-handed subjects (Lhrs). We reasoned that if the above assumption was correct, visual perception of letters by Lhrs might automatically activate cortical motor areas coding for left-handed writing movements, i.e., areas located in the right hemisphere. The visual stimuli used here were either single letters, single pseudoletters, or a control stimulus. The subjects were asked to watch these stimuli attentively, and no response was required. The results showed that a ventral premotor cortical area (BA6) in the right hemisphere was specifically activated when Lhrs looked at letters and not at pseudoletters. This right area was symmetrically located with respect to the left one activated under the same circumstances in Rhrs. This finding supports the hypothesis that visual perception of written language evokes covert motor processes. In addition, a bilateral area, also located in the premotor cortex (BA6), but more ventrally and medially, was found to be activated in response to both letters and pseudoletters. This premotor region, which was not activated correspondingly in Rhrs, might be involved in the processing of graphic stimuli, whatever their degree of familiarity.

An intention driven hand functions task training robotic system.

Science.gov (United States)

Tong, K Y; Ho, S K; Pang, P K; Hu, X L; Tam, W K; Fung, K L; Wei, X J; Chen, P N; Chen, M

2010-01-01

A novel design of a hand functions task training robotic system was developed for the stroke rehabilitation. It detects the intention of hand opening or hand closing from the stroke person using the electromyography (EMG) signals measured from the hemiplegic side. This training system consists of an embedded controller and a robotic hand module. Each hand robot has 5 individual finger assemblies capable to drive 2 degrees of freedom (DOFs) of each finger at the same time. Powered by the linear actuator, the finger assembly achieves 55 degree range of motion (ROM) at the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint and 65 degree range of motion (ROM) at the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint. Each finger assembly can also be adjusted to fit for different finger length. With this task training system, stroke subject can open and close their impaired hand using their own intention to carry out some of the daily living tasks.

Two-handed assisted laparoscopic surgery: Evaluation in an animal model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo Sanchez-de-Badajoz

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Purposes To evaluate in an animal model the feasibility of a novel concept of hand-assisted surgery consisting of inserting two hands into the abdomen instead of one. The chosen procedure was retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (L-RPLND that was performed in five pigs. Surgical Technique A Pfannestiel and a transverse epigastric incisions were made through which both hands were introduced. The scope was inserted through the umbilicus. The colon was moved medially and the dissection was performed as in open surgery using short conventional surgical instruments. Comments The surgery was fulfilled easily and safely in quite a similar way as in open surgery. Two-handed laparoscopy may be indicated in cases that still today require an open approach as apparently makes the operation easier and significantly shortens the surgery time. However, new opinions and trials are required.

Effects of a single inhalative exposure to formaldehyde on the open field behavior of mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Malek, Fathi A; Möritz, Klaus-Uwe; Fanghänel, Jochen

2004-02-01

The effects of formaldehyde on the explorative behavior and locomotor activity of mice after a single inhalative exposure were examined in an open field. Adult male mice were exposed to approximately 1.1 ppm, 2.3 ppm, or 5.2 ppm formaldehyde vapour for 2 hours and the open field test was carried out two hours after the end of exposure (trial 1) and repeated 24 hours thereafter (trial 2). The following behavioral parameters were quantitatively examined: numbers of crossed floor squares (inner, peripheral, total), sniffing, grooming, rearing, climbing, and incidence of fecal boli. The results of the first trial revealed that the motion activity was significantly reduced in all exposed groups. In the 1.1 ppm group, the frequency of rearing was reduced and that of floor sniffing increased. The exposure to the two higher formaldehyde concentrations caused a significant decrease in total numbers of floor squares crossed by the subjects, air sniffing, and rearing. The open field test on the next day (trial 2) showed that the frequencies of floor sniffing, grooming, and rearing in all formaldehyde groups were significantly altered. In the 2.5 ppm group, an increased incidence of fecal boli was observed. From the results obtained, we conclude that the exposure of male mice to formaldehyde vapour affects their locomotor and explorative activity in the open field, and that some open field parameters are still altered in the exposed animals even after 24 hours.

Rates of ubiquitin conjugation increase when muscles atrophy, largely through activation of the N-end rule pathway

Science.gov (United States)

Solomon, V.; Baracos, V.; Sarraf, P.; Goldberg, A. L.

1998-01-01

The rapid loss of muscle mass that accompanies many disease states, such as cancer or sepsis, is primarily a result of increased protein breakdown in muscle, and several observations have suggested an activation of the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Accordingly, in extracts of atrophying muscles from tumor-bearing or septic rats, rates of 125I-ubiquitin conjugation to endogenous proteins were found to be higher than in control extracts. On the other hand, in extracts of muscles from hypothyroid rats, where overall proteolysis is reduced below normal, the conjugation of 125I-ubiquitin to soluble proteins decreased by 50%, and treatment with triiodothyronine (T3) restored ubiquitination to control levels. Surprisingly, the N-end rule pathway, which selectively degrades proteins with basic or large hydrophobic N-terminal residues, was found to be responsible for most of these changes in ubiquitin conjugation. Competitive inhibitors of this pathway that specifically block the ubiquitin ligase, E3alpha, suppressed most of the increased ubiquitin conjugation in the muscle extracts from tumor-bearing and septic rats. These inhibitors also suppressed ubiquitination in normal extracts toward levels in hypothyroid extracts, which showed little E3alpha-dependent ubiquitination. Thus, the inhibitors eliminated most of the differences in ubiquitination under these different pathological conditions. Moreover, 125I-lysozyme, a model N-end rule substrate, was ubiquitinated more rapidly in extracts from tumor-bearing and septic rats, and more slowly in those from hypothyroid rats, than in controls. Thus, the rate of ubiquitin conjugation increases in atrophying muscles, and these hormone- and cytokine-dependent responses are in large part due to activation of the N-end rule pathway.

Open Source Software Success Model for Iran: End-User Satisfaction Viewpoint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Niknafs

2012-03-01

Full Text Available The open source software development is notable option for software companies. Recent years, many advantages of this software type are cause of move to that in Iran. National security and international restrictions problems and also software and services costs and more other problems intensified importance of use of this software. Users and their viewpoints are the critical success factor in the software plans. But there is not an appropriate model for open source software case in Iran. This research tried to develop a measuring open source software success model for Iran. By use of data gathered from open source users and online survey the model was tested. The results showed that components by positive effect on open source success were user satisfaction, open source community services quality, open source quality, copyright and security.

How a smiley protects health: A pilot intervention to improve hand hygiene in hospitals by activating injunctive norms through emoticons

Science.gov (United States)

Tsivrikos, Dimitrios; Dollinger, Daniel; Lermer, Eva

2018-01-01

Hand hygiene practice in hospitals is unfortunately still widely insufficient, even though it is known that transmitting pathogens via hands is the leading cause of healthcare-associated infections. Previous research has shown that improving knowledge, providing feedback on past behaviour and targeting social norms are promising approaches to improve hand hygiene practices. The present field experiment was designed to direct people on when to perform hand hygiene and prevent forgetfulness. This intervention is the first to examine the effect of inducing injunctive social norms via an emoticon-based feedback system on hand hygiene behaviour. Electronic monitoring and feedback devices were installed in hospital patient rooms on top of hand-rub dispensers, next to the doorway, for a period of 17 weeks. In the emoticon condition, screens at the devices activated whenever a person entered or exited the room. Before using the alcohol-based hand-rub dispenser, a frowny face was displayed, indicating that hand hygiene should be performed. If the dispenser was subsequently used, this picture changed to a smiley face to positively reinforce the correct behaviour. Hand hygiene behaviour in the emoticon rooms significantly outperformed the behaviour in three other tested conditions. The strong effect in this field experiment indicates that activating injunctive norms may be a promising approach to improve hand hygiene behaviour. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. PMID:29782516

Ability of Hand Hygiene Interventions Using Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers and Soap To Reduce Microbial Load on Farmworker Hands Soiled during Harvest.

Science.gov (United States)

de Aceituno, Anna Fabiszewski; Bartz, Faith E; Hodge, Domonique Watson; Shumaker, David J; Grubb, James E; Arbogast, James W; Dávila-Aviña, Jorgé; Venegas, Fabiola; Heredia, Norma; García, Santos; Leon, Juan S

2015-11-01

Effective hand hygiene is essential to prevent the spread of pathogens on produce farms and reduce foodborne illness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act Proposed Rule for Produce Safety recommends the use of soap and running water for hand hygiene of produce handlers. The use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer (ABHS) may be an effective alternative hygiene intervention where access to water is limited. There are no published data on the efficacy of either soap or ABHS-based interventions to reduce microbial contamination in agricultural settings. The goal of this study was to assess the ability of two soap-based (traditional or pumice) and two ABHS-based (label-use or two-step) hygiene interventions to reduce microbes (coliforms, Escherichia coli, and Enterococcus spp.) and soil (absorbance of hand rinsate at 600 nm [A600]) on farmworker hands after harvesting produce, compared with the results for a no-hand-hygiene control. With no hand hygiene, farmworker hands were soiled (median A600, 0.48) and had high concentrations of coliforms (geometric mean, 3.4 log CFU per hand) and Enterococcus spp. (geometric mean, 5.3 log CFU per hand) after 1 to 2 h of harvesting tomatoes. Differences in microbial loads in comparison to the loads in the control group varied by indicator organism and hygiene intervention (0 to 2.3 log CFU per hand). All interventions yielded lower concentrations of Enterococcus spp. and E. coli (P hands (P hand washing with soap at reducing indicator organisms on farmworker hands. Based on these results, ABHS is an efficacious hand hygiene solution for produce handlers, even on soiled hands.

Results of correlation of values of individual behaviour of rats with liver tryptophan pyrrolase activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Tikal, K; Kunz, K

1976-01-01

A significant negative correlation was found between the individual animal's horizontal activity in an open field and liver tryptophan pyrrolase (LTP) activity. On the other hand, the duration of immobility in an open field correlated postively and significantly with liver tryptophan pyrrolase activity.

THE ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL BANK OF UKRAINE ON THE OPEN MARKET: OPERATION WITH CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSITS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuliia Harkusha

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In the article investigated the activities of the National Bank of Ukraine on the open market. The analysis of operations of the National Bank of Ukraine banks to raise funds placing deposit certificates. Defined impact operations of the central bank's own debt securities to trading volumes deposit certificates of the National Bank of Ukraine on the stock market and the credit activity of banks. Identified problems interest rate policy and the ways to overcome them. Key words: National Bank of Ukraine, certificates of deposits, open market, interest rate policy, banks, stock exchange. JEL: E 58

Machine Shop I. Learning Activity Packets (LAPs). Section C--Hand and Bench Work.

Science.gov (United States)

Oklahoma State Board of Vocational and Technical Education, Stillwater. Curriculum and Instructional Materials Center.

This document contains two learning activity packets (LAPs) for the "hand and bench work" instructional area of a Machine Shop I course. The two LAPs cover the following topics: hand and bench work and pedestal grinder. Each LAP contains a cover sheet that describes its purpose, an introduction, and the tasks included in the LAP;…

Using mockups for hands-on training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morris, A.R.

1991-01-01

The presentation of Using Mockups for Hands-on Training will be a slide presentation showing slides of mockups that are used by the Westinghouse Hanford Company in Maintenance Training activities. This presentation will compare mockups to actual plant equipment. It will explain the advantages and disadvantages of using mockups. The presentation will show students using the mockups in the classroom environment and slides of the actual plant equipment. The presentation will discuss performance-based training. This part of the presentation will show slides of students doing hands-on training on aerial lifts, fork trucks, and crane and rigging applications. Also shown are mockups that are used for basic hydraulics; hydraulic torquing; refrigeration and air conditioning; valve seat repair; safety relief valve training; and others. The presentation will discuss functional duplicate equipment and simulated nonfunctional equipment. The presentation will discuss the acquisition of mockups from spare parts inventory or from excess parts inventory. The presentation will show attendees how the mockups are used to enhance the training of the Hanford Site employees and how similar mockups could be used throughout the nuclear industry

Active Involvement of End Users When Developing Web-Based Mental Health Interventions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Derek de Beurs

2017-05-01

Full Text Available BackgroundAlthough many web-based mental health interventions are being released, the actual uptake by end users is limited. The marginal level of engagement of end users when developing these interventions is recognized as an important cause for uptake problems. In this paper, we offer our perceptive on how to improve user engagement. By doing so, we aim to stimulate a discourse on user involvement within the field of online mental health interventions.MethodsWe shortly describe three different methods (the expert-driven method, intervention mapping, and scrum that were currently used to develop web-based health interventions. We will focus to what extent the end user was involved in the developmental phase, and what the additional challenges were. In the final paragraph, lessons learned are summarized, and recommendations provided.ResultsEvery method seems to have its trade-off: if end users are highly involved, availability of end users and means become problematic. If end users are less actively involved, the product may be less appropriate for the end user. Other challenges to consider are the funding of the more active role of technological companies, and the time it takes to process the results of shorter development cycles.ConclusionThinking about user-centered design and carefully planning, the involvement of end users should become standard in the field of web-based (mental health. When deciding on the level of user involvement, one should balance the need for input from users with the availability of resources such as time and funding.

Awareness on Open R and D of the Concerned Parties and Proposal for the Future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Geun-soon; Park, Chan; Shim, Beom-soo

2016-01-01

Open innovation refers to ‘innovation activities that maximize application of technology by speeding up the technological innovation and purposefully externalizing the internal technology by diversifying the source of innovation through active usage of outside ideas and technology.’ In other words, it is the businesses’ actions of innovation that reduce the time and cost for R&D by applying diverse outside sources of technology and not internal. This paper attempts to 1) research and analyze the awareness of internal researchers and outside parties on open R&D and 2) suggest a desirable path for open R&D which improves productivity and collaboration among industry, university and institute. The biggest obstacle to openness in the survey turned out to be ‘lack of disclosed information,’ which calls for a need to reset the standards of information disclosure and change of awareness that consider technology security. I would like to suggest the following to push for more open R and D and improve achievements. First of all, a clear understanding on open innovation is needed. It is imperative that the members know well about what open innovation is and why it is needed, and how to go through with it. Second, policy and system-wise, the policy direction of researchers for open innovation should be included in regulations, guidelines and procedures. To this end, one should consider including the open R and D (including internal cooperation) performance in organizational and individual evaluation indexes. Third is about disclosing the information. The status of internal manpower, physical and technological assets and information on outside organizations should be systematically disclosed at the right time for the members

Awareness on Open R and D of the Concerned Parties and Proposal for the Future

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Geun-soon; Park, Chan; Shim, Beom-soo [KHNP CRI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

Open innovation refers to ‘innovation activities that maximize application of technology by speeding up the technological innovation and purposefully externalizing the internal technology by diversifying the source of innovation through active usage of outside ideas and technology.’ In other words, it is the businesses’ actions of innovation that reduce the time and cost for R&D by applying diverse outside sources of technology and not internal. This paper attempts to 1) research and analyze the awareness of internal researchers and outside parties on open R&D and 2) suggest a desirable path for open R&D which improves productivity and collaboration among industry, university and institute. The biggest obstacle to openness in the survey turned out to be ‘lack of disclosed information,’ which calls for a need to reset the standards of information disclosure and change of awareness that consider technology security. I would like to suggest the following to push for more open R and D and improve achievements. First of all, a clear understanding on open innovation is needed. It is imperative that the members know well about what open innovation is and why it is needed, and how to go through with it. Second, policy and system-wise, the policy direction of researchers for open innovation should be included in regulations, guidelines and procedures. To this end, one should consider including the open R and D (including internal cooperation) performance in organizational and individual evaluation indexes. Third is about disclosing the information. The status of internal manpower, physical and technological assets and information on outside organizations should be systematically disclosed at the right time for the members.

Effect of hand sanitizer on the performance of fingermark detection techniques.

Science.gov (United States)

Chadwick, Scott; Neskoski, Melissa; Spindler, Xanthe; Lennard, Chris; Roux, Claude

2017-04-01

Hand sanitizers have seen a rapid increase in popularity amongst the general population and this increased use has led to the belief that hand sanitizers may have an effect on subsequent fingermark detection. Based on this hypothesis, three alcoholic and two non-alcoholic hand sanitizers were evaluated to determine the effect they had on the detection of fingermarks deposited after their use. The following fingermark detection methods were applied: 1,2-indanedione-zinc, ninhydrin, physical developer (porous substrate); and cyanoacrylate, rhodamine 6G, magnetic powder (non-porous substrate). Comparison between hand sanitized fingermarks and non-hand sanitized fingermarks showed that the alcohol-based hand sanitizers did not result in any visible differences in fingermark quality. The non-alcoholic hand sanitizers, however, improved the quality of fingermarks developed with 1,2-indanedione-zinc and ninhydrin, and marginally improved those developed with magnetic powder. Different parameters, including time since hand sanitizer application prior to fingermark deposition and age of deposited mark, were tested to determine the longevity of increased development quality. The non-alcoholic hand sanitized marks showed no decrease in quality when aged for up to two weeks. The time since sanitizer application was determined to be an important factor that affected the quality of non-alcoholic hand sanitized fingermarks. It was hypothesized that the active ingredient in non-alcoholic hand sanitizers, benzalkonium chloride, is responsible for the increase in fingermark development quality observed with amino acid reagents, while the increased moisture content present on the ridges resulted in better powdered fingermarks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Web Server Security on Open Source Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Gkoutzelis, Dimitrios X.; Sardis, Manolis S.

Administering critical resources has never been more difficult that it is today. In a changing world of software innovation where major changes occur on a daily basis, it is crucial for the webmasters and server administrators to shield their data against an unknown arsenal of attacks in the hands of their attackers. Up until now this kind of defense was a privilege of the few, out-budgeted and low cost solutions let the defender vulnerable to the uprising of innovating attacking methods. Luckily, the digital revolution of the past decade left its mark, changing the way we face security forever: open source infrastructure today covers all the prerequisites for a secure web environment in a way we could never imagine fifteen years ago. Online security of large corporations, military and government bodies is more and more handled by open source application thus driving the technological trend of the 21st century in adopting open solutions to E-Commerce and privacy issues. This paper describes substantial security precautions in facing privacy and authentication issues in a totally open source web environment. Our goal is to state and face the most known problems in data handling and consequently propose the most appealing techniques to face these challenges through an open solution.

Open Innovation Challenge in Healthcare. Role for Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Dimitriu, Rodica; Lungeanu, Diana; Mãnescu, Cristina; Pantazi, Mirela; Mihalas, George I

2015-01-01

The vision of this paper is that collaboration creates new openings for engagement of non-commercial actors, such as universities, in innovation networks on the one hand, while opening up for collaborative innovation, and getting valuable real life anchors on the other hand, all these underpinned by greater connectivity and globalization. We present our approach in re-designing the courses on medical informatics and data processing to meet these challenges by employing public Internet services and media facilitation.

Effect of electronic real-time prompting on hand hygiene behaviors in health care workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Pong, Steven; Holliday, Pamela; Fernie, Geoff

2018-03-02

Poor hand hygiene by health care workers is a major cause of nosocomial infections. This research evaluated the ability of an electronic monitoring system with real-time prompting capability to change hand hygiene behaviors. Handwashing activity was measured by counting dispenser activations on a single nursing unit before, during, and after installation of the system. The effect of changing the prompt duration on hand hygiene performance was determined by a cluster-randomized trial on 3 nursing units with 1 acting as control. Sustainability of performance and participation was observed on 4 nursing units over a year. All staff were eligible to participate. Between June 2015 and December 2016, a total of 459,376 hand hygiene opportunities and 330,740 handwashing events from 511 staff members were recorded. Dispenser activation counts were significantly influenced by use of the system (χ 2 [3] = 75.76; P Hand hygiene performance dropped from 62.61% to 24.94% (odds ratio, 0.36; 95% confidence interval, 0.34-0.38) when the prompting feature was removed. Staff participation had a negative trajectory of -0.72% (P Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Analysis of flame acceleration in open or vented obstructed pipes

Science.gov (United States)

Bychkov, Vitaly; Sadek, Jad; Akkerman, V'yacheslav

2017-01-01

While flame propagation through obstacles is often associated with turbulence and/or shocks, Bychkov et al. [V. Bychkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 164501 (2008), 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.164501] have revealed a shockless, conceptually laminar mechanism of extremely fast flame acceleration in semiopen obstructed pipes (one end of a pipe is closed; a flame is ignited at the closed end and propagates towards the open one). The acceleration is devoted to a powerful jet flow produced by delayed combustion in the spaces between the obstacles, with turbulence playing only a supplementary role in this process. In the present work, this formulation is extended to pipes with both ends open in order to describe the recent experiments and modeling by Yanez et al. [J. Yanez et al., arXiv:1208.6453] as well as the simulations by Middha and Hansen [P. Middha and O. R. Hansen, Process Safety Prog. 27, 192 (2008) 10.1002/prs.10242]. It is demonstrated that flames accelerate strongly in open or vented obstructed pipes and the acceleration mechanism is similar to that in semiopen ones (shockless and laminar), although acceleration is weaker in open pipes. Starting with an inviscid approximation, we subsequently incorporate hydraulic resistance (viscous forces) into the analysis for the sake of comparing its role to that of a jet flow driving acceleration. It is shown that hydraulic resistance is actually not required to drive flame acceleration. In contrast, this is a supplementary effect, which moderates acceleration. On the other hand, viscous forces are nevertheless an important effect because they are responsible for the initial delay occurring before the flame acceleration onset, which is observed in the experiments and simulations. Accounting for this effect provides good agreement between the experiments, modeling, and the present theory.

A system of innovation to activate practices on open data: The Open4Citizens project

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Morelli, Nicola; Götzen, Amalia De; Simeone, Luca

2018-01-01

The increasing production of data is encouraging government institutions to consider the potential of open data as a public resource and to publish a large number of public datasets. This is configuring a new scenario in which open data are likely to play an important role for democracy...... and transparen-cy and for new innovation possibilities, in relation to the creation of a new generation of public services based on open data. In this context, though, it is possible to observe an asymmetry between the supply side of open data and the demand side. While more and more insti-tutions are producing...... and publishing data, there is no public awareness of the way in which such data can be used, nor is there a diffuse practice to work with those data. The definition of a practice for a large use of data is the aim of the Open4Citizens project, which promoted initiatives at different levels: at the level...

Physically coupling two objects in a bimanual task alters kinematics but not end-state comfort.

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Charmayne M L; Haddad, Jeffrey M; Franz, Elizabeth A; Zelaznik, Howard N; Ryu, Joong Hyun

2011-06-01

People often grasp objects with an awkward grip to ensure a comfortable hand posture at the end of the movement. This end-state comfort effect is a predominant constraint during unimanual movements. However, during bimanual movements the tendency for both hands to satisfy end-state comfort is affected by factors such as end-orientation congruency and task context. Although bimanual end-state comfort has been examined when the hands manipulate two independent objects, no research has examined end-state comfort when the hands are required to manipulate two physically-coupled objects. In the present experiment, kinematics and grasp behavior during a unimanual and bimanual reaching and placing tasks were examined, when the hands manipulate two physically-connected objects. Forty-five participants were assigned to one of three groups; unimanual, bimanual no-spring (the objects were not physically connected), and bimanual spring (the objects were connected by a spring), and instructed to grasp and place objects in various end-orientations, depending on condition. Physically connecting the objects did not affect end-state comfort prevalence. However, it resulted in decreased interlimb coupling. This finding supports the notion of a flexible constraint hierarchy, in which action goals guide the selection of lower level action features (i.e., hand grip used for grasping), and the particular movements used to accomplish that goal (i.e., interlimb coupling) are controlled throughout the movement.

Explicit knowledge about the availability of visual feedback affects grasping with the left but not the right hand.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Rixin; Whitwell, Robert L; Goodale, Melvyn A

2014-01-01

Previous research (Whitwell et al. in Exp Brain Res 188:603-611, 2008; Whitwell and Goodale in Exp Brain Res 194:619-629, 2009) has shown that trial history, but not anticipatory knowledge about the presence or absence of visual feedback on an upcoming trial, plays a vital role in determining how that feedback is exploited when grasping with the right hand. Nothing is known about how the non-dominant left hand behaves under the same feedback regimens. In present study, therefore, we compared peak grip aperture (PGA) for left- and right-hand grasps executed with and without visual feedback (i.e., closed- vs. open-loop conditions) in right-handed individuals under three different trial schedules: the feedback conditions were blocked separately, they were randomly interleaved, or they were alternated. When feedback conditions were blocked, the PGA was much larger for open-loop trials as compared to closed-loop trials, although this difference was more pronounced for right-hand grasps than left-hand grasps. Like Whitwell et al., we found that mixing open- and closed-loop trials together, compared to blocking them separately, homogenized the PGA for open- and closed-loop grasping in the right hand (i.e., the PGAs became smaller on open-loop trials and larger on closed-loop trials). In addition, the PGAs for right-hand grasps were entirely determined by trial history and not by knowledge of whether or not visual feedback would be available on an upcoming trial. In contrast to grasps made with the right hand, grasps made by the left hand were affected both by trial history and by anticipatory knowledge of the upcoming visual feedback condition. But these effects were observed only on closed-loop trials, i.e., the PGAs of grasps made with the left hand on closed-loop trials were smaller when participants could anticipate the availability of feedback on an upcoming trial (alternating trials) than when they could not (randomized trials). In contrast, grasps made with the

Open-ended response theory with polarizable embedding: multiphoton absorption in biomolecular systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Steindal, Arnfinn Hykkerud; Beerepoot, Maarten T P; Ringholm, Magnus; List, Nanna Holmgaard; Ruud, Kenneth; Kongsted, Jacob; Olsen, Jógvan Magnus Haugaard

2016-10-12

We present the theory and implementation of an open-ended framework for electric response properties at the level of Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham density functional theory that includes effects from the molecular environment modeled by the polarizable embedding (PE) model. With this new state-of-the-art multiscale functionality, electric response properties to any order can be calculated for molecules embedded in polarizable atomistic molecular environments ranging from solvents to complex heterogeneous macromolecules such as proteins. In addition, environmental effects on multiphoton absorption (MPA) properties can be studied by evaluating single residues of the response functions. The PE approach includes mutual polarization effects between the quantum and classical parts of the system through induced dipoles that are determined self-consistently with respect to the electronic density. The applicability of our approach is demonstrated by calculating MPA strengths up to four-photon absorption for the green fluorescent protein. We show how the size of the quantum region, as well as the treatment of the border between the quantum and classical regions, is crucial in order to obtain reliable MPA predictions.

End-to-side and end-to-end anastomoses give similar results in cervical oesophagogastrostomy.

Science.gov (United States)

Pierie, J P; De Graaf, P W; Poen, H; Van Der Tweel, I; Obertop, H

1995-12-01

To find out if there were any differences in healing between end-to-end and end-to-side anastomoses for oesophagogastrostomy. Open study with historical controls. University hospital, The Netherlands. 28 patients with end-to-end and 90 patients with end-to-side anastomoses after transhiatal oesophagectomy and partial gastrectomy for cancer of the oesophagus or oesophagogastric junction, with gastric tube reconstruction and cervical anastomosis. Leak and stricture rates, and the number of dilatations needed to relieve dysphagia. There were no significant differences in leak rates (end-to-end 4/28, 14%, and end-to-side 13/90, 14%) or anastomotic strictures (end-to-end 9/28, 32%, and end-to-side 26/90, 29%). The median number of dilatations needed to relieve dysphagia was 7 (1-33) after end-to-end and 9 (1-113) after end-to-side oesophagogastrostomy. There were no differences between the two methods of suture of cervical oesophagogastrostomy when leakage, stricture, and number of dilatations were used as criteria of good healing.

Nitroxide-mediated radical ring-opening copolymerization: chain-end investigation and block copolymer synthesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Delplace, Vianney; Harrisson, Simon; Tardy, Antoine; Gigmes, Didier; Guillaneuf, Yohann; Nicolas, Julien

2014-02-01

Well-defined, degradable copolymers are successfully prepared by nitroxide-mediated radical ring opening polymerization (NMrROP) of oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (OEGMA) or methyl methacrylate (MMA), a small amount of acrylonitrile (AN) and cyclic ketene acetals (CKAs) of different structures. Phosphorous nuclear magnetic resonance allows in-depth chain-end characterization and gives crucial insights into the nature of the copoly-mer terminal sequences and the living chain fractions. By using a small library of P(OEGMA-co-AN-co-CKA) and P(MMA-co-AN-co-CKA) as macroinitiators, chain extensions with styrene are performed to furnish (amphiphilic) block copolymers comprising a degradable segment. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Questões discursivas para avaliação escolar = Open-ended questions in school tests

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Auxiliadora Bezerra

2008-07-01

Full Text Available O objetivo deste artigo é descrever questões discursivas presentes em atividades escolares do Ensino Médio para avaliação da aprendizagem. Foram estudadas, à luz de teorias sobre atividades e tarefas escolares (Chartrand, 2002, sobre elaboração de provas eexercícios (Moretto, 2005; Bloom, 1973 e sobre perguntas de compreensão (Marcuschi, 1996, 93 questões recolhidas nas disciplinas Literatura Brasileira, História e Geografia. Foram descritas questões (descontextualizadas, propondo, do ponto de vista cognitivo,tarefas funcionais (predominantes, seguidas de formativas e metacognitivas. Seus comandos são dados por meio de pronomes interrogativos (principalmente e de verbos no imperativo ou no infinitivo. As questões focalizam os conteúdos específicos das disciplinas, privilegiando seus conceitos, e enfatizam o desenvolvimento cognitivo dos alunos, sem relação com aspectos sociais. Parece ser suficiente a demonstração passiva de conhecimentoscomo resultado de uma aprendizagem correspondente a acúmulo de informações e de um ensino entendido como repasse de dados.Open-ended questions in high school activities are described to evaluate the learning process. Ninety-three questions fromBrazilian Literature, History and Geography were analyzed, based on school activity and task theories (Chartrand, 2002, test and exercise theories (Moretto, 2005; Bloom, 1973, and comprehension question theories (Marcuschi, 1996. (Decontextualized questions,which propose (predominantly functional, formative and metacognitive tasks, were described from the cognitive point-of-view. Question instructions were given by using (mainly interrogative pronouns and verbs either in the infinitive or in the imperative. Questions focus on the specific contents of the subject matter, emphasizing concepts and the students’ cognitive development, regardless of social aspects. Passive demonstration of knowledge as a result of learning related to collected passive

An electromyographic study of the effect of hand grip sizes on forearm muscle activity and golf performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Sorbie, Graeme G; Hunter, Henry H; Grace, Fergal M; Gu, Yaodong; Baker, Julien S; Ugbolue, Ukadike Chris

2016-01-01

The study describes the differences in surface electromyography (EMG) activity of two forearm muscles in the lead and trail arm at specific phases of the golf swing using a 7-iron with three different grip sizes among amateur and professional golfers. Fifteen right-handed male golfers performed five golf swings using golf clubs with three different grip sizes. Surface EMG was used to measure muscle activity of the extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) and flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) on both forearms. There were no significant differences in forearm muscle activity when using the three golf grips within the group of 15 golfers (p > 0.05). When using the undersize grip, club head speed significantly increased (p = 0.044). During the backswing and downswing phases, amateurs produced significantly greater forearm muscle activity with all three grip sizes (p < 0.05). In conclusion, forearm muscle activity is not affected by grip sizes. However, club head speed increases when using undersize grips.

Analysis of Information Remaining on Hand Held Devices Offered for Sale on the Second Hand Market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andy Jones

2008-06-01

resellers.The study was carried out by the security research team at the BT IT Futures Centre in conjunction with Edith Cowan University in Australia and the University of Glamorgan in the UK. The basis of the research was to acquire a number of second hand held devices from a diverse range of sources and then determine whether they still contained information relating to a previous owner or whether the information had been effectively removed. The devices that were obtained for the research were supplied blind to the researchers through a third party. The ‘blind’ supply of the devices meant that the people undertaking the research were provided with no information about the device and that the source of the devices and any external markings were hidden from them. This process was put in place to ensure that any findings of the research were based solely on the information that could be recovered from the digital storage media that was contained within the device.The underlying methodology that was used in the research was based on the forensic imaging of the devices. A forensic image of a device is a copy of the digital media that has been created in a scientifically sound manner to a standard that is acceptable to the courts. This procedure was implemented to ensure that the evidential integrity of the devices was maintained, with the devices also then being stored in a secure manner.  All subsequent research was then conducted on the image of the device. This was considered to be a sensible precaution against the possibility that information discovered on a device might indicate criminal activity and require the involvement of law enforcement.  Following the forensic imaging of the devices, the images that were created were then analyzed to determine whether any information remained and whether it could be easily recovered using commonly available tools and techniques that anyone who had purchased the device could acquire.

Open active cloaking and illusion devices for the Laplace equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ma, Qian; Yang, Fan; Jin, Tian Yu; Mei, Zhong Lei; Cui, Tie Jun

2016-01-01

We propose open active cloaking and illusion devices for the Laplace equation. Compared with the closed configurations of active cloaking and illusion devices, we focus on improving the distribution schemes for the controlled sources, which do not have to surround the protected object strictly. Instead, the controlled sources can be placed in several small discrete clusters, and produce the desired voltages along the controlled boundary, to actively hide or disguise the protected object. Numerical simulations are performed with satisfactory results, which are further validated by experimental measurements. The open cloaking and illusion devices have many advantages over the closed configurations in various potential applications. (paper)

Effects of prenatal ethanol exposure and early experience on home-cage and open-field activity in mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Mothes, H K; Opitz, B; Werner, R; Clausing, P

1996-01-01

-C57BL/6 mice were intubated from gestational day 14-18 twice daily with 1.58 g/kg ethanol, 4.2 g/kg sucrose, or remained untreated. Offspring of ethanol treated or lab chow control groups were raised either by group-housed dams and weaned on postnatal day (PND) 28 or by individually housed dams and weaned on PND 21. Offspring of the sucrose control group were raised by individually housed dams and weaned on PND 21. Groups did not differ in pup weight or litter size. Offspring were assessed for home-cage activity (PND 36-38) and open-field behavior (PND 40-42). Mice prenatally exposed to ethanol showed increased activity in their home cages, whereas open-field behavior was generally not different from that of control groups. Conversely, different preweaning rearing conditions had affected open-field behavior, but not home-cage activity. In conclusion, home-cage behavior was a sensitive paradigm for detecting hyperactivity subsequent to a relatively low dose of prenatal ethanol in mice, and communal nesting/late weaning vs. individual nesting/ standard weaning may be a useful preweaning environmental manipulation to study possible modifications of prenatal neurobehavioral effects.

iHand: an interactive bare-hand-based augmented reality interface on commercial mobile phones

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Junyeong; Park, Jungsik; Park, Hanhoon; Park, Jong-Il

2013-02-01

The performance of mobile phones has rapidly improved, and they are emerging as a powerful platform. In many vision-based applications, human hands play a key role in natural interaction. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the interaction between human hands and the mobile phone. Thus, we propose a vision- and hand gesture-based interface in which the user holds a mobile phone in one hand but sees the other hand's palm through a built-in camera. The virtual contents are faithfully rendered on the user's palm through palm pose estimation, and reaction with hand and finger movements is achieved that is recognized by hand shape recognition. Since the proposed interface is based on hand gestures familiar to humans and does not require any additional sensors or markers, the user can freely interact with virtual contents anytime and anywhere without any training. We demonstrate that the proposed interface works at over 15 fps on a commercial mobile phone with a 1.2-GHz dual core processor and 1 GB RAM.

Exploring the gap between hand washing knowledge and practices in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional comparative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Rabbi, Sifat E; Dey, Nepal C

2013-01-30

Hand washing is considered as one of the most effective hygiene promotion activities for public health in developing countries. This study compared hand washing knowledge and practices in BRAC's water; sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programme areas over time. This study is a cross-sectional comparative study between baseline (2006), midline (2009) and end-line (2011) surveys in 50 sub-districts from the first phase of the programme. Thirty thousand households from 50 sub-districts were selected in two steps: i) 30 villages were selected from each sub-district by cluster sampling, and ii) 20 households were chosen systematically from each village. The matched households were considered (26,404 in each survey) for analysis. Data were collected from households through face-to-face interview using a pre-tested questionnaire. Respondents were the adult female members of the same households, who had knowledge of day-to-day household activities related to water, sanitation and hygiene. A gap between perception and practice of proper hand washing practices with soap was identified in the study areas. Hand washing practice with soap before eating was much lower than after defecation. In baseline data, 8% reported to wash their hands with soap which significantly increased to 22% in end line. Hand washing knowledge and practices before cooking food, before serving food and while handling babies is considerably limited than other critical times. A multivariate analysis shows that socio-economic factors including education of household head and respondent, water availability and access to media have strong positive association with hand washing with soap. Gap between knowledge and practice still persists in hand washing practices. Long term and extensive initiatives can aware people about the effectiveness of hand washing.

Exploring the gap between hand washing knowledge and practices in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional comparative study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rabbi Sifat E

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Hand washing is considered as one of the most effective hygiene promotion activities for public health in developing countries. This study compared hand washing knowledge and practices in BRAC’s water; sanitation and hygiene (WASH programme areas over time. Methods This study is a cross-sectional comparative study between baseline (2006, midline (2009 and end-line (2011 surveys in 50 sub-districts from the first phase of the programme. Thirty thousand households from 50 sub-districts were selected in two steps: i 30 villages were selected from each sub-district by cluster sampling, and ii 20 households were chosen systematically from each village. The matched households were considered (26,404 in each survey for analysis. Data were collected from households through face-to-face interview using a pre-tested questionnaire. Respondents were the adult female members of the same households, who had knowledge of day-to-day household activities related to water, sanitation and hygiene. Results A gap between perception and practice of proper hand washing practices with soap was identified in the study areas. Hand washing practice with soap before eating was much lower than after defecation. In baseline data, 8% reported to wash their hands with soap which significantly increased to 22% in end line. Hand washing knowledge and practices before cooking food, before serving food and while handling babies is considerably limited than other critical times. A multivariate analysis shows that socio-economic factors including education of household head and respondent, water availability and access to media have strong positive association with hand washing with soap. Conclusion Gap between knowledge and practice still persists in hand washing practices. Long term and extensive initiatives can aware people about the effectiveness of hand washing.

Teaching radio astrophysics the hand-on way

Science.gov (United States)

Joshi, Bhal Chandra

Astronomy and space sciences have always been instrumental in attracting young students to physical sciences. While the lectures/demonstrations and exhibitions pertaining to space sci-ences capture the imagination of young students, these alone are not sufficient to induce them to join scientific research. In countries like India, where a large number of students take to physical sciences for under-graduate education, complex sociological factors are key issues in translating this large body of students to potential researchers. While lectures and exhibition lead to an increase in scientific awareness for these students, these do not give a feel for scien-tific research and bridge the gap between high school/college science education and high end research. In this context, a hands-on approach to astronomy education, in science research environments or closely connected to scientific institutions, offers a promising alternative. This approach has been used in optical astronomy, where inexpensive small telescopes are available, often coupling a vast network of amateur astronomy clubs to leading astronomy institutes. The non-visual and relatively more technical nature of radio astronomy has limited a similar approach in past for connecting students to space sciences using radio waveband. The tech-nological explosion in communication industry and radio connectivity in the last decade along with an expansion in engineering education makes this possible now using a hands-on approach in teaching radio astrophysics. In this presentation, the sociological factors affecting the student choice are discussed followed by a review of the efforts to bridge the above mentioned gap by various groups in the world in the last decade with a view to enumerate the best practices in a hands-on approach. A program using this approach at National Center for Radio Astrophysics is described, where the students are exposed to simple hands-on radio astronomy experiments such as spectral line

Active living : the impact of renovating urban open spaces on increasing the level of physical activity among social groups

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wiggers, Hiske; Shokoohi, Roya

2017-01-01

Introduction The provision of active parks/public open space is the key factor in promoting active living, because people and specially low-income and elderlies are being more interested in doing non-organized/informal, and no-cost sports/physical activities in outdoor spaces in recent decades

Effects of action observation therapy on hand dexterity and EEG-based cortical activation patterns in patients with post-stroke hemiparesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuk, Eun-Ju; Kim, Jong-Man; Oh, Duck-Won; Hwang, Han-Jeong

2016-10-01

Previous reports have suggested that action observation training (AOT) is beneficial in enhancing the early learning of new motor tasks; however, EEG-based investigation has received little attention for AOT. The purpose of this study was to illustrate the effects of AOT on hand dexterity and cortical activation in patients with post-stroke hemiparesis. Twenty patients with post-stroke hemiparesis were randomly divided into either the experimental group (EG) or control group (CG), with 10 patients in each group. Prior to the execution of motor tasks (carrying wooden blocks from one box to another), subjects in the EG and CG observed a video clip displaying the execution of the same motor task and pictures showing landscapes, respectively. Outcome measures included the box and block test (BBT) to evaluate hand dexterity and EEG-based brain mapping to detect changes in cortical activation. The BBT scores (EG: 20.50 ± 6.62 at pre-test and 24.40 ± 5.42 at post-test; CG: 20.20 ± 6.12 at pre-test and 20.60 ± 7.17 at post-test) revealed significant main effects for the time and group and significant time-by-group interactions (p < 0.05). For the subjects in the EG, topographical representations obtained with the EEG-based brain mapping system were different in each session of the AOT and remarkable changes occurred from the 2nd session of AOT. Furthermore, the middle frontal gyrus was less active at post-test than at pre-test. These findings support that AOT may be beneficial in altering cortical activation patterns and hand dexterity.

Hand Rehabilitation Robotics on Poststroke Motor Recovery

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

The recovery of hand function is one of the most challenging topics in stroke rehabilitation. Although the robot-assisted therapy has got some good results in the latest decades, the development of hand rehabilitation robotics is left behind. Existing reviews of hand rehabilitation robotics focus either on the mechanical design on designers' view or on the training paradigms on the clinicians' view, while these two parts are interconnected and both important for designers and clinicians. In this review, we explore the current literature surrounding hand rehabilitation robots, to help designers make better choices among varied components and thus promoting the application of hand rehabilitation robots. An overview of hand rehabilitation robotics is provided in this paper firstly, to give a general view of the relationship between subjects, rehabilitation theories, hand rehabilitation robots, and its evaluation. Secondly, the state of the art hand rehabilitation robotics is introduced in detail according to the classification of the hardware system and the training paradigm. As a result, the discussion gives available arguments behind the classification and comprehensive overview of hand rehabilitation robotics. PMID:29230081

Open Ephys electroencephalography (Open Ephys  +  EEG): a modular, low-cost, open-source solution to human neural recording.

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Christopher; Voigts, Jakob; Agrawal, Uday; Ladow, Max; Santoyo, Juan; Moore, Christopher; Jones, Stephanie

2017-06-01

Electroencephalography (EEG) offers a unique opportunity to study human neural activity non-invasively with millisecond resolution using minimal equipment in or outside of a lab setting. EEG can be combined with a number of techniques for closed-loop experiments, where external devices are driven by specific neural signals. However, reliable, commercially available EEG systems are expensive, often making them impractical for individual use and research development. Moreover, by design, a majority of these systems cannot be easily altered to the specification needed by the end user. We focused on mitigating these issues by implementing open-source tools to develop a new EEG platform to drive down research costs and promote collaboration and innovation. Here, we present methods to expand the open-source electrophysiology system, Open Ephys (www.openephys.org), to include human EEG recordings. We describe the equipment and protocol necessary to interface various EEG caps with the Open Ephys acquisition board, and detail methods for processing data. We present applications of Open Ephys  +  EEG as a research tool and discuss how this innovative EEG technology lays a framework for improved closed-loop paradigms and novel brain-computer interface experiments. The Open Ephys  +  EEG system can record reliable human EEG data, as well as human EMG data. A side-by-side comparison of eyes closed 8-14 Hz activity between the Open Ephys  +  EEG system and the Brainvision ActiCHamp EEG system showed similar average power and signal to noise. Open Ephys  +  EEG enables users to acquire high-quality human EEG data comparable to that of commercially available systems, while maintaining the price point and extensibility inherent to open-source systems.

Open Ephys electroencephalography (Open Ephys  +  EEG): a modular, low-cost, open-source solution to human neural recording

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Christopher; Voigts, Jakob; Agrawal, Uday; Ladow, Max; Santoyo, Juan; Moore, Christopher; Jones, Stephanie

2017-06-01

Objective. Electroencephalography (EEG) offers a unique opportunity to study human neural activity non-invasively with millisecond resolution using minimal equipment in or outside of a lab setting. EEG can be combined with a number of techniques for closed-loop experiments, where external devices are driven by specific neural signals. However, reliable, commercially available EEG systems are expensive, often making them impractical for individual use and research development. Moreover, by design, a majority of these systems cannot be easily altered to the specification needed by the end user. We focused on mitigating these issues by implementing open-source tools to develop a new EEG platform to drive down research costs and promote collaboration and innovation. Approach. Here, we present methods to expand the open-source electrophysiology system, Open Ephys (www.openephys.org), to include human EEG recordings. We describe the equipment and protocol necessary to interface various EEG caps with the Open Ephys acquisition board, and detail methods for processing data. We present applications of Open Ephys  +  EEG as a research tool and discuss how this innovative EEG technology lays a framework for improved closed-loop paradigms and novel brain-computer interface experiments. Main results. The Open Ephys  +  EEG system can record reliable human EEG data, as well as human EMG data. A side-by-side comparison of eyes closed 8-14 Hz activity between the Open Ephys  +  EEG system and the Brainvision ActiCHamp EEG system showed similar average power and signal to noise. Significance. Open Ephys  +  EEG enables users to acquire high-quality human EEG data comparable to that of commercially available systems, while maintaining the price point and extensibility inherent to open-source systems.

Design and Development of a Hand Exoskeleton Robot for Active and Passive Rehabilitation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oscar Sandoval-Gonzalez

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The present work, which describes the mechatronic design and development of a novel rehabilitation robotic exoskeleton hand, aims to present a solution for neuromusculoskeletal rehabilitation. It presents a full range of motion for all hand phalanges and was specifically designed to carry out position and force-position control for passive and active rehabilitation routines. System integration and preliminary clinical tests are also presented.

Lab Safety and Bioterrorism Readiness Curricula Using Active Learning and Hands-on Strategies as Continuing Education for Medical Technologists

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven Fiester

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Frequent reports of laboratory- (and hospital- acquired infection suggest a deficiency in safety training or lack of compliance. To assess the need for continuing education (CE addressing this problem, an original education needs assessment survey was designed and administered to medical technologists (med-techs in Northeast Ohio. Survey results were used to design a learner-centered training curriculum (for example, Lab Safety and Bioterrorism Readiness trainings that engaged med-techs in active learning, integrative peer-to-peer teaching, and hands-on exercises in order to improve microbiology safety knowledge and associated laboratory techniques. The Lab Safety training was delivered six times and the Bioterrorism Readiness training was delivered five times. Pre/posttesting revealed significant gains in knowledge and techniques specific to laboratory safety, security, risk assessment, and bioterrorism readiness amongst the majority of med-techs completing the CE trainings. The majority of participants felt that the hands-on exercises met their needs and that their personal laboratory practices would change as a result of the training course, as measured by attitudinal surveys. We conclude that active learning techniques and peer education significantly enhance microbiology learning amongst participating med-techs.

The International Registry on Hand and Composite Tissue Transplantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Petruzzo, Palmina; Lanzetta, Marco; Dubernard, Jean-Michel; Landin, Luis; Cavadas, Pedro; Margreiter, Raimund; Schneeberger, Stephan; Breidenbach, Warren; Kaufman, Christina; Jablecki, Jerzy; Schuind, Frédéric; Dumontier, Christian

2010-12-27

The International Registry on Hand and Composite Tissue Transplantation was founded in May 2002, and the analysis of all cases with follow-up information up to July 2010 is presented here. From September 1998 to July 2010, 49 hands (17 unilateral and 16 bilateral hand transplantations, including 1 case of bilateral arm transplantation) have been reported, for a total of 33 patients. They were 31 men and 2 women (median age 32 years). Time since hand loss ranged from 2 months to 34 years, and in 46% of cases, the level of amputation was at wrist. Immunosuppressive therapy included tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, sirolimus, and steroids; polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies were used for induction. Topical immunosuppression was also used in several cases. Follow-up ranges from 1 month to 11 years. One patient died on day 65. Three patients transplanted in the Western countries have lost their graft, whereas until September 2009, seven hand grafts were removed for noncompliance to the immunosuppressive therapy in China. Eighty-five percent of recipients experienced at least one episode of acute rejection within the first year, and they were reversible when promptly treated. Side effects included opportunistic infections, metabolic complications, and malignancies. All patients developed protective sensibility, 90% of them developed tactile sensibility, and 82.3% also developed a discriminative sensibility. Motor recovery enabled patients to perform most daily activities. Hand transplantation is a complex procedure, and its success is based on patient's compliance and his or her careful evaluation before and after transplantation.

How Did Ca. 300 Years of Explosive Activity at Kilauea End?

Science.gov (United States)

Swanson, D. A.

2013-12-01

.5-2 cm thick and inversely graded across a depositional area of >40 km2 south of the caldera. Mean grain size along the dispersal axis decreases from 7 mm on the rim of the caldera to 2 mm 7 km south of the caldera, where the deposit disappears into forest. This subplinian eruption records interaction of groundwater with both conduit wallrock and magma, probably during renewed collapse. A few ballistic blocks fell near the caldera soon thereafter, recording separate explosive events after the main eruption. The last Keanakāko';i eruption, erupted some time before 1823, was a lava fountain that deposited golden pumice up to 3 m thick west of the caldera. The eruption clearly indicates that the caldera was filling and on its way to its present status. Thus the ca. 300 years of explosive activity ended with a bumpy transition from a deep to a relatively full caldera. The duration of the transition is unknown but shorter than about 30 years. During that time, at least two small collapses interrupted a generally rising magma column, which finally gained the upper hand and culminated in the mostly effusive activity of Kilauea ever since.

Image Quality Improvement on OpenGL-Based Animations by Using CUDA Architecture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taner UÇKAN

2016-04-01

Full Text Available 2D or 3D rendering technology is used for graphically modelling many physical phenomena occurring in real life by means of the computers. On the other hand, the ever-increasing intensity of the graphics applications require that the image quality of the so-called modellings is enhanced and they are performed more quickly. In this direction, a new software and hardware-based architecture called CUDA has been introduced by Nvidia at the end of 2006. Thanks to this architecture, larger number of graphics processors has started contributing towards the parallel solutions of the general-purpose problems. In this study, this new parallel computing architecture is taken into consideration and an animation application consisting of humanoid robots with different behavioral characteristics is developed using the OpenGL library in C++. This animation is initially implemented on a single serial CPU and then parallelized using the CUDA architecture. Eventually, the serial and the parallel versions of the same animation are compared against each other on the basis of the number of image frames per second. The results reveal that the parallel application is by far the best yielding high quality images.

On the Other Hand : Nondominant Hand Use Increases Sense of Agency

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Damen, Tom G. E.; Dijksterhuis, Ap; van Baaren, Rick B.

In two studies, we investigated the influence of hand dominance on the sense of self-causation or agency. Participants alternately used their dominant or nondominant hand to cause the occurrence of an effect (a tone) in a task in which agency was made ambiguous. Participants were subsequently asked

Open BIM in course on advanced building design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karlshøj, Jan

2016-01-01

shall hand in BIM models in open BIM, specifically in IFC-format. The paper describes how the course and use of BIM is evaluated by the students, and the finding correcting the delivered BIM models in IFC-format. Use of model servers and BCF are briefly described. Issues regarding challenges...... in coordination, teamwork building and mutual dependencies were registered from students’ evaluation of the course. Overall, the students reported becoming familiar with open BIM and experienced the freedom to choose their preferred BIM tool for each specific job to see if it was possible to coordinate a building...... design project using open BIM. Graduate students working in the building construction industry expressed satisfaction with the course....

Trade Openness and Bank Risk-Taking Behavior: Evidence from Emerging Economies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Badar Nadeem Ashraf

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we examine the impact of trade openness on bank risk-taking behavior. Using a panel dataset of 291 banks from 37 emerging countries over the period from 1998 to 2012, we find that higher trade openness decreases bank risk-taking. The results are robust when we use alternative bank risk-taking proxies and alternative estimation methods. We argue that trade openness provides diversification opportunities to banks in lending activities, which decrease overall bank risk. Further to this end, we observe that higher trade openness helps domestic banks to smooth out income volatility and decreases the impact of a financial crisis on banks.

HEART TRANSPLANTATION IN PATIENTS WITH PREVIOUS OPEN HEART SURGERY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Sh. Saitgareev

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Heart Transplantation (HTx to date remains the most effective and radical method of treatment of patients with end-stage heart failure. The defi cit of donor hearts is forcing to resort increasingly to the use of different longterm mechanical circulatory support systems, including as a «bridge» to the follow-up HTx. According to the ISHLT Registry the number of recipients underwent cardiopulmonary bypass surgery increased from 40% in the period from 2004 to 2008 to 49.6% for the period from 2009 to 2015. HTx performed in repeated patients, on the one hand, involves considerable technical diffi culties and high risks; on the other hand, there is often no alternative medical intervention to HTx, and if not dictated by absolute contradictions the denial of the surgery is equivalent to 100% mortality. This review summarizes the results of a number of published studies aimed at understanding the immediate and late results of HTx in patients, previously underwent open heart surgery. The effect of resternotomy during HTx and that of the specifi c features associated with its implementation in recipients previously operated on open heart, and its effects on the immediate and long-term survival were considered in this review. Results of studies analyzing the risk factors for perioperative complications in repeated recipients were also demonstrated. Separately, HTx risks after implantation of prolonged mechanical circulatory support systems were examined. The literature does not allow to clearly defi ning the impact factor of earlier performed open heart surgery on the course of perioperative period and on the prognosis of survival in recipients who underwent HTx. On the other hand, subject to the regular fl ow of HTx and the perioperative period the risks in this clinical situation are justifi ed as a long-term prognosis of recipients previously conducted open heart surgery and are comparable to those of patients who underwent primary HTx. Studies

Field-oriented control of five-phase induction motor with open-end stator winding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Listwan Jacek

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The mathematical model of the five-phase squirrel-cage induction motor and the system of the dual five-phase voltage source inverter have been presented. The control methods and control systems of the field-oriented control of the five-phase induction motor with an open-end stator winding are described. The structures of the direct fieldoriented control system (DFOC and the Indirect Field-oriented control system (IFOC with PI controllers in outer and inner control loops are analyzed. A method of space vector modulation used to control the system of the dual five-phase voltage source inverter has been discussed. The results of simulation studies of the field-oriented control methods are presented. Comparative analysis of the simulation results was carried out.

A threat to a virtual hand elicits motor cortex activation.

Science.gov (United States)

González-Franco, Mar; Peck, Tabitha C; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Slater, Mel

2014-03-01

We report an experiment where participants observed an attack on their virtual body as experienced in an immersive virtual reality (IVR) system. Participants sat by a table with their right hand resting upon it. In IVR, they saw a virtual table that was registered with the real one, and they had a virtual body that substituted their real body seen from a first person perspective. The virtual right hand was collocated with their real right hand. Event-related brain potentials were recorded in two conditions, one where the participant's virtual hand was attacked with a knife and a control condition where the knife only struck the virtual table. Significantly greater P450 potentials were obtained in the attack condition confirming our expectations that participants had a strong illusion of the virtual hand being their own, which was also strongly supported by questionnaire responses. Higher levels of subjective virtual hand ownership correlated with larger P450 amplitudes. Mu-rhythm event-related desynchronization in the motor cortex and readiness potential (C3-C4) negativity were clearly observed when the virtual hand was threatened-as would be expected, if the real hand was threatened and the participant tried to avoid harm. Our results support the idea that event-related potentials may provide a promising non-subjective measure of virtual embodiment. They also support previous experiments on pain observation and are placed into context of similar experiments and studies of body perception and body ownership within cognitive neuroscience.

Effects of combining 2 weeks of passive sensory stimulation with active hand motor training in healthy adults.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aija Marie Ladda

Full Text Available The gold standard to acquire motor skills is through intensive training and practicing. Recent studies have demonstrated that behavioral gains can also be acquired by mere exposure to repetitive sensory stimulation to drive the plasticity processes. Single application of repetitive electric stimulation (rES of the fingers has been shown to improve tactile perception in young adults as well as sensorimotor performance in healthy elderly individuals. The combination of repetitive motor training with a preceding rES has not been reported yet. In addition, the impact of such a training on somatosensory tactile and spatial sensitivity as well as on somatosensory cortical activation remains elusive. Therefore, we tested 15 right-handed participants who underwent repetitive electric stimulation of all finger tips of the left hand for 20 minutes prior to one hour of motor training of the left hand over the period of two weeks. Overall, participants substantially improved the motor performance of the left trained hand by 34%, but also showed a relevant transfer to the untrained right hand by 24%. Baseline ipsilateral activation fMRI-magnitude in BA 1 to sensory index finger stimulation predicted training outcome for somatosensory guided movements: those who showed higher ipsilateral activation were those who did profit less from training. Improvement of spatial tactile discrimination was positively associated with gains in pinch grip velocity. Overall, a combination of priming rES and repetitive motor training is capable to induce motor and somatosensory performance increase and representation changes in BA1 in healthy young subjects.

A pilot study of robotic-assisted exercise for hand weakness after stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Stein, Joel; Bishop, Joel; Gillen, Glen; Helbok, Raimund

2011-01-01

Upper limb paresis is a major source of disability in stroke survivors, and robotic aided exercise therapy is a promising approach to enhance motor abilities. Few devices have been available to provide robotic therapy to the fingers and hand. We report an open-label pilot study of 12 individuals with chronic moderate hemiparesis after stroke who underwent a six-week training program using a hand robotic device. Participants received a total of 18 hours of robotic therapy. Improvements were found in multiple measures of motor performance, including the Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer, the Motor Activity Log, the Manual Ability Measure-36, and the Jebsen Hand Function Test. All subjects tolerated the treatment well and no complications were observed. We conclude that robotic therapy for hand paresis after stroke is safe and feasible, and that further studies of efficacy are justified by these preliminary results. © 2011 IEEE

Hydrogen Sulfide Prevents Advanced Glycation End-Products Induced Activation of the Epithelial Sodium Channel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qiushi Wang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs are complex and heterogeneous compounds implicated in diabetes. Sodium reabsorption through the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC at the distal nephron plays an important role in diabetic hypertension. Here, we report that H2S antagonizes AGEs-induced ENaC activation in A6 cells. ENaC open probability (PO in A6 cells was significantly increased by exogenous AGEs and that this AGEs-induced ENaC activity was abolished by NaHS (a donor of H2S and TEMPOL. Incubating A6 cells with the catalase inhibitor 3-aminotriazole (3-AT mimicked the effects of AGEs on ENaC activity, but did not induce any additive effect. We found that the expression levels of catalase were significantly reduced by AGEs and both AGEs and 3-AT facilitated ROS uptake in A6 cells, which were significantly inhibited by NaHS. The specific PTEN and PI3K inhibitors, BPV(pic  and LY294002, influence ENaC activity in AGEs-pretreated A6 cells. Moreover, after removal of AGEs from AGEs-pretreated A6 cells for 72 hours, ENaC PO remained at a high level, suggesting that an AGEs-related “metabolic memory” may be involved in sodium homeostasis. Our data, for the first time, show that H2S prevents AGEs-induced ENaC activation by targeting the ROS/PI3K/PTEN pathway.

Open-Ended Measurement of Whole-Body Movement: A Feasibility Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Finn, Michael T. M.

2018-02-01

Full Text Available As the importance of embodiment emerges for psychology, there is a need to advance methodology for measuring the dynamics of movement in an open-ended fashion. Such a tool should be versatile across contexts and track spontaneous and natural movement with minimal constraints. We test the feasibility of a method for measuring whole-body movement over time that attempts to meet this need. We use a motion capture system comprised of two Microsoft Kinect version 2.0 cameras and iPiSoft Motion Capture software, and compare its estimates of magnitude rotational velocity and whole-body movement complexity (multivariate multiscale sample entropy; MMSE to that of a gold standard motion capture system across a variety of movement sequences. The candidate system satisfactorily estimated the instantaneous velocity of 13 body segments in agreement with the gold standard system across movement sequences demonstrating initial feasibility of this process. Summary calculations of velocity by sequence and MMSE calculations were also in high agreement with the gold standard, crucially suggesting that the candidate system could pick up on the complex dynamics of movement over time. The candidate system was feasible and demonstrates preliminary validity for general use in the tracking of continuous human movement for clinical and experimental psychology. We also provide R code and sample data for the importing and processing of movement data exported from iPiSoft Motion Capture Studio.

Teaching genetics using hands-on models, problem solving, and inquiry-based methods

Science.gov (United States)

Hoppe, Stephanie Ann

Teaching genetics can be challenging because of the difficulty of the content and misconceptions students might hold. This thesis focused on using hands-on model activities, problem solving, and inquiry-based teaching/learning methods in order to increase student understanding in an introductory biology class in the area of genetics. Various activities using these three methods were implemented into the classes to address any misconceptions and increase student learning of the difficult concepts. The activities that were implemented were shown to be successful based on pre-post assessment score comparison. The students were assessed on the subjects of inheritance patterns, meiosis, and protein synthesis and demonstrated growth in all of the areas. It was found that hands-on models, problem solving, and inquiry-based activities were more successful in learning concepts in genetics and the students were more engaged than tradition styles of lecture.

Effect of gender and hand laterality on pain processing in human neonates.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozawa, Mio; Kanda, Katsuya; Hirata, Michio; Kusakawa, Isao; Suzuki, Chieko

2011-01-01

Previous studies in adults have reported that handedness and gender can affect pain perception. However, it is currently unclear when these differences emerge in human development. Therefore, we examined prefrontal responses to pain stimulation among newborns during their first acute pain experience after birth. Forty newborns at 4-6 days postnatal age were observed during clinically required blood sampling while prefrontal activation was measured with near infrared spectroscopy. Blood sampling in this study was the first experience of a procedure involving skin breaking for these infants. We divided subjects into a right-hand stimulation group (n=21) and a left-hand stimulation group (n=19), depending on whether blood was sampled from the right or the left hand. A three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the effects of several variables on the magnitude of the oxy-Hb value in response to pain stimulus, including stimulus side (right hand or left hand), gender (male or female), recording side (right prefrontal area or left prefrontal area) and interactions between these variables. The data revealed a significant effect of stimulus side (F (1, 72)=9.892, P=0.002), showing that the right-hand stimulation induced a greater prefrontal activation than the left-hand stimulation. No significant gender difference or interactions were found. Our findings suggest that hand laterality affects pain perception even in neonates. However, gender differences in pain perception did not appear to occur during the neonatal period. Further investigations using brain-imaging techniques are required to identify laterality- or gender-related differences in pain processing in humans. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Hands-On Mathematics: Two Cases from Ancient Chinese Mathematics

Science.gov (United States)