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Sample records for response poor readers

  1. Low self-concept in poor readers: prevalence, heterogeneity, and risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McArthur, Genevieve; Castles, Anne; Kohnen, Saskia; Banales, Erin

    2016-01-01

    There is evidence that poor readers are at increased risk for various types of low self-concept-particularly academic self-concept. However, this evidence ignores the heterogeneous nature of poor readers, and hence the likelihood that not all poor readers have low self-concept. The aim of this study was to better understand which types of poor readers have low self-concept. We tested 77 children with poor reading for their age for four types of self-concept, four types of reading, three types of spoken language, and two types of attention. We found that poor readers with poor attention had low academic self-concept, while poor readers with poor spoken language had low general self-concept in addition to low academic self-concept. In contrast, poor readers with typical spoken language and attention did not have low self-concept of any type. We also discovered that academic self-concept was reliably associated with reading and receptive spoken vocabulary, and that general self-concept was reliably associated with spoken vocabulary. These outcomes suggest that poor readers with multiple impairments in reading, language, and attention are at higher risk for low academic and general self-concept, and hence need to be assessed for self-concept in clinical practice. Our results also highlight the need for further investigation into the heterogeneous nature of self-concept in poor readers.

  2. Low self-concept in poor readers: prevalence, heterogeneity, and risk

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castles, Anne; Kohnen, Saskia; Banales, Erin

    2016-01-01

    There is evidence that poor readers are at increased risk for various types of low self-concept—particularly academic self-concept. However, this evidence ignores the heterogeneous nature of poor readers, and hence the likelihood that not all poor readers have low self-concept. The aim of this study was to better understand which types of poor readers have low self-concept. We tested 77 children with poor reading for their age for four types of self-concept, four types of reading, three types of spoken language, and two types of attention. We found that poor readers with poor attention had low academic self-concept, while poor readers with poor spoken language had low general self-concept in addition to low academic self-concept. In contrast, poor readers with typical spoken language and attention did not have low self-concept of any type. We also discovered that academic self-concept was reliably associated with reading and receptive spoken vocabulary, and that general self-concept was reliably associated with spoken vocabulary. These outcomes suggest that poor readers with multiple impairments in reading, language, and attention are at higher risk for low academic and general self-concept, and hence need to be assessed for self-concept in clinical practice. Our results also highlight the need for further investigation into the heterogeneous nature of self-concept in poor readers. PMID:27867764

  3. Echoic memory processes in good and poor readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sipe, S; Engle, R W

    1986-07-01

    Four experiments were conducted to determine whether echoic memory plays a role in differences between good and poor readers. The first two experiments used a suffix procedure in which the subject is read a list of digits with either a tone control or the word go appended to the list. For lists that exceeded the length of the subjects memory span by one digit (i.e., that avoided ceiling effects), the poor readers showed a larger decrement in the suffix condition than did the good readers. The third experiment was directed at the question of whether the duration of echoic memory is different for good and poor readers. Children shadowed words presented to one ear at a rate determined to give 75-85% shadowing accuracy. The items presented to the nonattended ear were words and an occasional digit. At various intervals after the presentation of the digit, a light signaled that the subject was to cease shadowing and attempt to recall any digit that had occurred in the nonattended ear recently. Whereas good and poor readers recalled the digit equally if tested immediately after presentation, the poor readers showed a faster decline in recall of the digit as retention interval increased. A fourth experiment was conducted to determine whether the differences in echoic memory were specific to speech stimuli or occurred at a more basic level of aural persistence. Bursts of white noise were separated by 9-400 ms of silence and the subject was to say whether there were one or two sounds presented. There were no differences in detectability functions for good and poor readers.

  4. Semantic and phonological coding in poor and normal readers.

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    Vellutino, F R; Scanlon, D M; Spearing, D

    1995-02-01

    Three studies were conducted evaluating semantic and phonological coding deficits as alternative explanations of reading disability. In the first study, poor and normal readers in second and sixth grade were compared on various tests evaluating semantic development as well as on tests evaluating rapid naming and pseudoword decoding as independent measures of phonological coding ability. In a second study, the same subjects were given verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks using high and low meaning words as verbal stimuli and Chinese ideographs as visual stimuli. On the semantic tasks, poor readers performed below the level of the normal readers only at the sixth grade level, but, on the rapid naming and pseudoword learning tasks, they performed below the normal readers at the second as well as at the sixth grade level. On both the verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks, performance in poor readers approximated that of normal readers when the word stimuli were high in meaning but not when they were low in meaning. These patterns were essentially replicated in a third study that used some of the same semantic and phonological measures used in the first experiment, and verbal memory and visual-verbal learning tasks that employed word lists and visual stimuli (novel alphabetic characters) that more closely approximated those used in learning to read. It was concluded that semantic coding deficits are an unlikely cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers at the beginning stages of reading skills acquisition, but accrue as a consequence of prolonged reading difficulties in older readers. It was also concluded that phonological coding deficits are a probable cause of reading difficulties in most poor readers.

  5. Evidence for deficits in the temporal attention span of poor readers.

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    Troy A W Visser

    Full Text Available While poor reading is often associated with phonological deficits, many studies suggest that visual processing might also be impaired. In particular, recent research has indicated that poor readers show impaired spatial visual attention spans in partial and whole report tasks. Given the similarities between competition-based accounts for reduced visual attention span and similar explanations for impairments in sequential object processing, the present work examined whether poor readers show deficits in their "temporal attention span"--that is, their ability to rapidly and accurately process sequences of consecutive target items.Poor and normal readers monitored a sequential stream of visual items for two (TT condition or three (TTT condition consecutive target digits. Target identification was examined using both unconditional and conditional measures of accuracy in order to gauge the overall likelihood of identifying a target and the likelihood of identifying a target given successful identification of previous items. Compared to normal readers, poor readers showed small but consistent deficits in identification across targets whether unconditional or conditional accuracy was used. Additionally, in the TTT condition, final-target conditional accuracy was poorer than unconditional accuracy, particularly for poor readers, suggesting a substantial cost arising from processing the previous two targets that was not present in normal readers.Mirroring the differences found between poor and normal readers in spatial visual attention span, the present findings suggest two principal differences between the temporal attention spans of poor and normal readers. First, the consistent pattern of reduced performance across targets suggests increased competition amongst items within the same span for poor readers. Second, the steeper decline in final target performance amongst poor readers in the TTT condition suggests a reduction in the extent of their

  6. Evidence for deficits in the temporal attention span of poor readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Visser, Troy A W

    2014-01-01

    While poor reading is often associated with phonological deficits, many studies suggest that visual processing might also be impaired. In particular, recent research has indicated that poor readers show impaired spatial visual attention spans in partial and whole report tasks. Given the similarities between competition-based accounts for reduced visual attention span and similar explanations for impairments in sequential object processing, the present work examined whether poor readers show deficits in their "temporal attention span"--that is, their ability to rapidly and accurately process sequences of consecutive target items. Poor and normal readers monitored a sequential stream of visual items for two (TT condition) or three (TTT condition) consecutive target digits. Target identification was examined using both unconditional and conditional measures of accuracy in order to gauge the overall likelihood of identifying a target and the likelihood of identifying a target given successful identification of previous items. Compared to normal readers, poor readers showed small but consistent deficits in identification across targets whether unconditional or conditional accuracy was used. Additionally, in the TTT condition, final-target conditional accuracy was poorer than unconditional accuracy, particularly for poor readers, suggesting a substantial cost arising from processing the previous two targets that was not present in normal readers. Mirroring the differences found between poor and normal readers in spatial visual attention span, the present findings suggest two principal differences between the temporal attention spans of poor and normal readers. First, the consistent pattern of reduced performance across targets suggests increased competition amongst items within the same span for poor readers. Second, the steeper decline in final target performance amongst poor readers in the TTT condition suggests a reduction in the extent of their temporal attention

  7. Developmental Trajectories for Children With Dyslexia and Low IQ Poor Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Reading difficulties are found in children with both high and low IQ and it is now clear that both groups exhibit difficulties in phonological processing. Here, we apply the developmental trajectories approach, a new methodology developed for studying language and cognitive impairments in developmental disorders, to both poor reader groups. The trajectory methodology enables identification of atypical versus delayed development in datasets gathered using group matching designs. Regarding the cognitive predictors of reading, which here are phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and rapid automatized naming (RAN), the method showed that trajectories for the two groups diverged markedly. Children with dyslexia showed atypical development in phonological awareness, while low IQ poor readers showed developmental delay. Low IQ poor readers showed atypical PSTM and RAN development, but children with dyslexia showed developmental delay. These divergent trajectories may have important ramifications for supporting each type of poor reader, although all poor readers showed weakness in all areas. Regarding auditory processing, the developmental trajectories were very similar for the two poor reader groups. However, children with dyslexia demonstrated developmental delay for auditory discrimination of Duration, while the low IQ children showed atypical development on this measure. The data show that, regardless of IQ, poor readers have developmental trajectories that differ from typically developing children. The trajectories approach enables differences in trajectory classification to be identified across poor reader group, as well as specifying the individual nature of these trajectories. PMID:27110928

  8. Planning Behaviour in Good and Poor Readers

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    Mahapatra, Shamita

    2016-01-01

    A group of 50 good readers and a group of 50 poor readers of Grade 5 matched for age and intelligence and selected on the basis of their proficiency in reading comprehension were tested for their competence in word reading and the process of planning at three different levels, namely, perceptual, memory and conceptual in order to study the…

  9. How Do Fluent and Poor Readers' Endurance Differ in Reading?

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    Bastug, Muhammet; Keskin, Hasan Kagan; Akyol, Mustafa

    2017-01-01

    It was observed in this research how endurance status of fluent readers and poor readers changed as the text became longer. 40 students of the primary school 4th-grade, 20 were fluent readers and other 20 were poor readers, participated in the research. A narrative text was utilised in the data collection process. Students' oral readings were…

  10. Subgrouping Poor Readers on the Basis of Individual Differences in Reading-Related Abilities

    OpenAIRE

    Catts, Hugh W.; Hogan, Tiffany; Fey, Marc E.

    2003-01-01

    The present study investigated the use of the Reading Component Model to subgroup poor readers. A large sample of poor readers was identified in second grade and subgrouped on the basis of relative strengths and weaknesses in word recognition and listening comprehension. Although homogeneous subgroups were not identified, poor readers could be classified into four subgroups that differed significantly in reading-related abilities. Further analyses showed that poor readers' strengths and weakn...

  11. Is It Lateralization, Processing Strategies, or Both That Distinguishes Good And Poor Readers?

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    Watson, E. Selman; Engle, Randall W.

    1982-01-01

    Two experiments investigated whether poor readers eventually establish a dichotic right ear advantage as predicted by a maturational lag theory. The first studied developmental differences in dichotic listening for normal and poor readers when the order of reporting simultaneously presented items was unconstrained; the second controlled for order…

  12. Do good and poor readers make use of morphemic structure in English word recognition?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lynne G. Duncan

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available The links between oral morphological awareness and the use of derivational morphology are examined in the English word recognition of 8-year-old good and poor readers. Morphological awareness was assessed by a sentence completion task. The role of morphological structure in lexical access was examined by manipulating the presence of embedded words and suffixes in items presented for lexical decision. Good readers were more accurate in the morphological awareness task but did not show facilitation for real derivations even though morpho-semantic information appeared to inform their lexical decisions. The poor readers, who were less accurate, displayed a strong lexicality effect in lexical decision and the presence of an embedded word led to facilitation for words and inhibition for pseudo-words. Overall, the results suggest that both good and poor readers of English are sensitive to the internal structure of written words, with the better readers showing most evidence of morphological analysis.

  13. Poor readers but compelled to read: Stroop effects in developmental dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Faccioli, Chiara; Peru, Andrea; Rubini, Elena; Tassinari, Giancarlo

    2008-05-01

    We studied a group of 24 children with dyslexia in second to fifth primary school grades by using a discrete-trial computerized version of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Since the classic Stroop effect depends on the interference of reading with color naming, one would expect these children to show no interference or, at least, less interference than normal readers. Children with dyslexia showed, however, a Stroop effect larger than normal readers of the same age. This suggests that reading, although difficult and slow, is an inescapable step that precedes naming both in poor and in normal readers.

  14. A comparison of the language skills of ELLs and monolinguals who are poor decoders, poor comprehenders, or normal readers.

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    Geva, Esther; Massey-Garrison, Angela

    2013-01-01

    The overall objective of this article is to examine how oral language abilities relate to reading profiles in English language learners (ELLs) and English as a first language (EL1) learners, and the extent of similarities and differences between ELLs and EL1s in three reading subgroups: normal readers, poor decoders, and poor comprehenders. The study included 100 ELLs and 50 EL1s in Grade 5. The effect of language group (ELL/EL1) and reading group on cognitive and linguistic skills was examined. Except for vocabulary, there was no language group effect on any measure. However, within ELL and EL1 alike, significant differences were found between reading groups: Normal readers outperformed the two other groups on all the oral language measures. Distinct cognitive and linguistic profiles were associated with poor decoders and poor comprehenders, regardless of language group. The ELL and EL1 poor decoders outperformed the poor comprehenders on listening comprehension and inferencing. The poor decoders displayed phonological-based weaknesses, whereas the poor comprehenders displayed a more generalized language processing weakness that is nonphonological in nature. Regardless of language status, students with poor decoding or comprehension problems display difficulties with various aspects of language.

  15. Verbal Processing Reaction Times in "Normal" and "Poor" Readers.

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    Culbertson, Jack; And Others

    After it had been determined that reaction time (RT) was a sensitive measure of hemispheric dominance in a verbal task performed by normal adult readers, the reaction times of three groups of subjects (20 normal reading college students, 12 normal reading third graders and 11 poor reading grade school students) were compared. Ss were exposed to…

  16. Developmental Trajectories for Children with Dyslexia and Low IQ Poor Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuppen, Sarah E. A.; Goswami, Usha

    2016-01-01

    Reading difficulties are found in children with both high and low IQ and it is now clear that both groups exhibit difficulties in phonological processing. Here, we apply the developmental trajectories approach, a new methodology developed for studying language and cognitive impairments in developmental disorders, to both poor reader groups. The…

  17. Conceptual versus Perceptual Text Processing Strategies: Differences between Good and Poor Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shepard, Charlene R.; Reynolds, Ralph E.

    Investigating the selective attention strategy, a study examined the type of attention allocated to important information by good and poor readers. Also tested was the methodological validity of using a conceptual (word recognition) perceptual (tachistoscopic word flash) task as a means of investigating the types of information processing that may…

  18. Reader responses to literary depictions of rape

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    E.M. Koopman (Emy); M. Hilscher (Michelle); G.C. Cupchik (Gerald)

    2012-01-01

    textabstractThis study explored reader responses to different literary depictions of rape. Four literary excerpts were used and divided as aesthetic versus nonaesthetic (style) and allusive versus explicit (detail). The general question was how readers would react to literary fragments depicting

  19. Processamento cognitivo em crianças com e sem dificuldades de leitura Cognitive skills in children: comparing good readers and poor readers

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    Alessandra Gotuzo Seabra Capovilla

    2004-12-01

    Full Text Available Para buscar identificar habilidades cognitivas mais freqüentemente prejudicadas nas dificuldades de leitura, 90 crianças de pré-escola e 1ª Série foram avaliadas em leitura, escrita, consciência fonológica, memória fonológica, vocabulário, aritmética, processamento visual e seqüenciamento. Comparando as habilidades de bons e maus leitores (acima e abaixo de 1 desvio-padrão em relação à média, respectivamente, observou-se que bons leitores foram significativamente superiores em escrita, consciência fonológica, vocabulário, memória fonológica e memória visual. Resultados sugerem uma relação funcional e forte entre processamento fonológico e leitura; funcional e moderada entre processamento seqüencial, aritmética e leitura; e fraca e correlacional entre processamento visual e leitura.To identify cognitive skills that may be diminished in reading difficulties, 90 preschoolers and first graders were tested in reading, spelling, phonological awareness, phonological memory, vocabulary, arithmetic, visual processing, and sequential processing. Comparison between good readers and poor readers (above and below one standard deviation, respectively, revealed that good readers were significantly superior to poor readers in spelling, phonological awareness, vocabulary, phonological memory and visual memory. Results suggest strong functional relationship between phonological processing and reading, moderate functional relationships between sequential processing and arithmetic on one hand and reading on the other, and weak correlation between visual processing and reading.

  20. Imitated prosodic fluency predicts reading comprehension ability in good and poor high school readers

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    Mara Breen

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Researchers have established a relationship between beginning readers’ silent comprehension ability and their prosodic fluency, such that readers who read aloud with appropriate prosody tend to have higher scores on silent reading comprehension assessments. The current study was designed to investigate this relationship in two groups of high school readers: Specifically Poor Comprehenders (SPCs, who have adequate word level and phonological skills but poor reading comprehension ability, and a group of age- and decoding skill-matched controls. We compared the prosodic fluency of the two groups by determining how effectively they produced prosodic cues to syntactic and semantic structure in imitations of a model speaker’s production of syntactically and semantically varied sentences. Analyses of pitch and duration patterns revealed that speakers in both groups produced the expected prosodic patterns; however, controls provided stronger durational cues to syntactic structure. These results demonstrate that the relationship between prosodic fluency and reading comprehension continues past the stage of early reading instruction. Moreover, they suggest that prosodically fluent speakers may also generate more fluent implicit prosodic representations during silent reading, leading to more effective comprehension.

  1. Synthetic phonics and decodable instructional reading texts: How far do these support poor readers?

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    Price-Mohr, Ruth Maria; Price, Colin Bernard

    2018-05-01

    This paper presents data from a quasi-experimental trial with paired randomisation that emerged during the development of a reading scheme for children in England. This trial was conducted with a group of 12 children, aged 5-6, and considered to be falling behind their peers in reading ability and a matched control group. There were two intervention conditions (A: using mixed teaching methods and a high percentage of non-phonically decodable vocabulary; P: using mixed teaching methods and low percentage of non-decodable vocabulary); allocation to these was randomised. Children were assessed at pre- and post-test on standardised measures of receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, word reading, and comprehension. Two class teachers in the same school each selected 6 children, who they considered to be poor readers, to participate (n = 12). A control group (using synthetic phonics only and phonically decodable vocabulary) was selected from the same 2 classes based on pre-test scores for word reading (n = 16). Results from the study show positive benefits for poor readers from using both additional teaching methods (such as analytic phonics, sight word vocabulary, and oral vocabulary extension) in addition to synthetic phonics, and also non-decodable vocabulary in instructional reading text. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  2. Reading Ability and Memory Span: Long-Term Memory Contributions to Span for Good and Poor Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDougall, Sine J. P.; Donohoe, Rachael

    2002-01-01

    Investigates the extent to which differences in memory span for good and poor readers can be explained by differences in a long-term memory component to span as well as by differences in short-term memory processes. Discusses the nature of the interrelationships between memory span, reading and measures of phonological awareness. (SG)

  3. Towards a Culturally Situated Reader Response Theory

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    Brooks, Wanda; Browne, Susan

    2012-01-01

    This article describes a theory of how culture enables literary interpretations of texts. We begin with a brief overview of the reader response field. From there, we introduce the theory and provide illustrative participant data examples. These data examples illustrate the four cultural positions middle grade students in our research assumed when…

  4. One text, many stories: The (irrelevance of reader-response criticism for apocryphal literature in the Septuagint

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    S. Philip Nolte

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This article investigated the value of reader-response theory for the reading of apocryphal texts in the Septuagint. The groundbreaking work on reader-response theory developed by Wolfgang Iser in his book The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, written in 1978 served as the theoretical point of departure. Although the reader-response theory has been scrutinised and criticised heavily during the last three decades, Iser made a very valuable contribution to the reading of literature. My assumption is that religious texts have to be read in the same way as other literature and therefore literary theories such as Iser’s can be conducive for responsible interpretation. The article consists of the following parts: introductory remarks on the value of reader-response theory for the interpretation of apocryphal texts; a short overview of reader-response criticism; a discussion and evaluation of three different aspects of Iser’s theory, namely ‘gaps’ in texts, ‘asymmetry’ between readers and texts and the concept of ‘the implied reader’. The findings of the investigation will be given in part five (Findings.

  5. Eye-Movement Patterns and Reader Characteristics of Students with Good and Poor Performance When Reading Scientific Text with Diagrams

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    Jian, Yu-Cin

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the cognitive processes and reader characteristics of sixth graders who had good and poor performance when reading scientific text with diagrams. We first measured the reading ability and reading self-efficacy of sixth-grade participants, and then recorded their eye movements while they were reading an illustrated…

  6. Reading Comprehension: A Computerized Intervention with Primary-age Poor Readers.

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    Horne, Joanna Kathryn

    2017-05-01

    The current study investigates the effectiveness of a computerized reading comprehension programme on the reading accuracy, reading comprehension and reading rate of primary-age poor readers. There is little published literature relating to computerized reading interventions in UK primary schools, and no previous studies have investigated the Comprehension Booster programme. Thirty-eight children (26 boys and 12 girls; aged 6:7 to 11:0) from two schools in East Yorkshire, UK, took part. Half of the participants (the intervention group) undertook the Comprehension Booster programme for a 6-week period, whilst the other half (the control group) continued with their usual teaching. Significant effects of the intervention were found, with increases in reading accuracy and reading comprehension for the intervention group. It is concluded that computerized reading programmes can be effective in improving reading skills, and these are particularly useful for pupils with reading difficulties in disadvantaged areas, where resources are limited and family support in reading is lower. However, such programmes are not a replacement for good teaching, and regular monitoring of children with reading difficulties is required. Further research is necessary to compare the programme used here to other conventional and computerized intervention programmes, using a larger sample. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  7. Reading in Two Orthographies: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Dutch Average and Poor Readers Who Learn English as a Second Language

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    Morfidi, Eleni; van der Leij, Aryan; de Jong, Peter F.; Scheltinga, Femke; Bekebrede, Judith

    2007-01-01

    The present study investigated the reading of secondary school students in their first and second language (L1, L2). Twenty-six average and twenty-six poor readers matched on age, gender, listening and reading comprehension participated. They were native Dutch speakers who started learning English at secondary school (grade 7). We examined whether…

  8. Reader-Responses of Pregnant Adolescents and Teenage Mothers to Young Adult Novels Portraying Protagonists with Problems Similar and Dissimilar to the Readers'.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poe, Elizabeth Ann

    Applying reader response theory, a study explored the responses of 19 pregnant adolescents and teenage mothers to two dissimilar young adult novels, one about teenage pregnancy and one about adolescent alcoholism. Quantitative analysis, using a modified version of the Purves-Rippere (1968) system, and qualitative analysis of written answers to…

  9. Improving the Performance of Poor Readers through Autogenic Relaxation Training.

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    Frey, Herbert

    1980-01-01

    Reports that the addition of 15 minutes of relaxation training to weekly remedial reading periods for disabled readers throughout a school year raised concentration levels and decreased anxiety, neuroticism, and number of reading errors. Describes a few types of relaxation exercises that may be helpful. (ET)

  10. Reader Response and the Verbal Icon: Implications for English Education.

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    Harker, W. John

    During the past 15 years, a fundamental change has taken place in literary criticism, with a decline in New Criticism (literature viewed as a public object) and an increase in reader response criticism (literature viewed as a private experience). New Critics considered the meaning of a literary text to exist within the text as an independent and…

  11. Effectiveness of Critical Thinking Skills for English Literature Study with Reader Response Theory: Review of Literature

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    Farah Qamar

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Since Socrates’ time, reasoning is considered valuable for the justification of speaker’s belief along with Thomas Aquinas’ testing of his thinking to answer his own thinking. Critical thinking has been part of discussion among the educators for its significance and application for last many decades. Many educators have conducted researches on the assessment of critical thinking within a domain or across the domain in order to test students’ critical thinking skills and its effect on their learning. Similarly, critical thinking is highly valuable for the study of literature as it explicitly asked for learners’ beliefs, perceptions, and judgments in order to remove the ambiguity of thought. Perfection of thought can be achieved with the use of critical thinking skills while training of mind needs interaction between literary text and the reader as literature has the capacity to achieve mental traits specified to critical thinking. Accordingly, this report presents a relationship between critical thinking skills and English literature study along with reader response theory techniques considering that without the use of critical thinking skills and reader response theory, study of literature is haphazard hence for the application of reader response theory, literary text is inevitable. In essence, I aim to highlight the effectiveness of critical thinking skills for the study of literature while emphasizing the significance of reader response theory which is also inevitable for the study of literature and for the use of critical thinking skills.

  12. Historical imagination, narrative learning and nursing practice: graduate nursing students' reader-responses to a nurse's storytelling from the past.

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    Wood, Pamela J

    2014-09-01

    Storytelling and narrative are widely used in nurse education and the value of narrative-based curricula, such as those governed by narrative pedagogy, is well recognised. Storytelling stimulates students' imagination, a central feature of narrative learning. One form of story and imagination yet to be fully considered by educators is the historical story and historical imagination. The use of historical storytelling creates a temporal dissonance between the story and reader that stimulates readers' imagination and response, and enables them to gain rich insights which can be applied to the present. Reader-response theory can support educators when using narrative and storytelling. This article presents an analysis of graduate nursing students' reader-responses to a nurse's story from the past. This narrative learning group used their historical imagination in responding to the story and prompted and challenged each other in their interpretation and in translating their responses to their current nursing practice. The article discusses this analysis within the context of reader-response theory and its potential application to narrative-based learning in nurse education. Historical stories stimulate historical imagination and offer a different frame of reference for students' development of textual competence and for applying insights to the present. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Outcome of poor response Paediatric AML using early SCT

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wareham, Neval E; Heilmann, Carsten; Abrahamsson, Jonas

    2013-01-01

    ) or > 5% blasts after AM (n = 14, refractory disease). Poor response patients received intensively timed induction and proceeded to SCT when a donor was available. RESULTS: Thirty-one of 267 evaluable patients (12%) had a poor response. SCT was performed in 25; using matched unrelated donors in 13......BACKGROUND: Children with poor response acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) generally have a very poor outcome. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) is often recommended for these children but the benefit is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate survival for poor response AML patients...... treated with SCT. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Treatment was given according to the NOPHO-AML 2004 protocol. All patients received AIET (Cytarabine, Idarubicin, Etoposide, Thioguanine) and AM (Cytarabine, Mitoxantrone) as induction. We included poor response defined as > 15% blasts on day 15 after AIET (n = 17...

  14. The Effects of Music on Students Engaged in Reader Response Strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kagan, Susan C.

    This study examined the effects of background classical music on silent reading in a sixth grade class, in order to determine the amount and type of influence it would have on the reader's written response to what was read. Thirty-four suburban sixth graders from two history classes were selected for this study. The data was obtained over a period…

  15. Outcome of poor response paediatric AML using early SCT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wareham, Neval E; Heilmann, Carsten; Abrahamsson, Jonas; Forestier, Erik; Gustafsson, Britt; Ha, Shau-Yin; Heldrup, Jesper; Jahnukainen, Kirsi; Jónsson, Ólafur G; Lausen, Birgitte; Palle, Josefine; Zeller, Bernward; Hasle, Henrik

    2013-03-01

    Children with poor response acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) generally have a very poor outcome. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) is often recommended for these children but the benefit is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate survival for poor response AML patients treated with SCT. Treatment was given according to the NOPHO-AML 2004 protocol. All patients received AIET (Cytarabine, Idarubicin, Etoposide, Thioguanine) and AM (Cytarabine, Mitoxantrone) as induction. We included poor response defined as > 15% blasts on day 15 after AIET (n = 17) or > 5% blasts after AM (n = 14, refractory disease). Poor response patients received intensively timed induction and proceeded to SCT when a donor was available. Thirty-one of 267 evaluable patients (12%) had a poor response. SCT was performed in 25; using matched unrelated donors in 13, matched sibling donors in 6, cord blood donor in 4, and haploidentical donor in two. The median follow-up for the 31 poor responding patients was 2.6 years (range 0.4 - 8.1 years) and 3-year probability of survival 70% (95% CI 59-77%). The poor responders in the NOPHO-AML 2004 protocol had a favourable prognosis treated with time-intensive induction followed by SCT. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

  16. Text comprehension strategy instruction with poor readers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Van den Bos, K.P.; Aarnoudse, C.C.; Brand-Gruwel, S.

    1998-01-01

    The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of teaching text comprehension strategies to children with decoding and reading comprehension problems and with a poor or normal listening ability. Two experiments are reported. Four text comprehension strategies, viz., question generation,

  17. Executive Functioning and Reading Achievement in School: A study of Brazilian Children Assessed by Their Teachers as Poor Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pascale M. J. Engel de Abreu

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This study examined executive functioning and reading achievement in 106 6- to 8-year-old Brazilian children from a range of social backgrounds of whom approximately half lived below the poverty line. A particular focus was to explore the executive function profile of children whose classroom reading performance was judged below standard by their teachers and who were carefully matched to controls on chronological age, sex, school type (Private or Public, domicile (Salvador/BA or São Paulo/SP, and socioeconomic status. Children completed a battery of 12 executive function tasks that were conceptually tapping cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibition, and selective attention. Each executive function domain was assessed by several tasks. Principal component analysis extracted four factors that were labeled Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility, Interference Suppression, Selective Attention, and Response Inhibition. Individual differences in executive functioning components made differential contributions to early reading achievement. The Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility factor emerged as the best predictor of reading. Group comparisons on computed factor scores showed that the struggling readers presented limitations in Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility, but not in other executive function components, compared to more skilled readers. These results validate the account that working memory capacity provides a crucial building block for the development of early literacy skills and extends it to a population of early readers of Portuguese from Brazil. The study suggests that deficits in working memory/cognitive flexibility might represent one contributing factor to reading difficulties in early readers which might have important implications for interventions for children at risk of school failure.

  18. Reader-Response Theory: An Analysis of a Work of Chinese Post Modern Art.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Yan

    1995-01-01

    Illustrates reader-response theory by discussing a piece of Chinese art, "A Book from the Sky." Examines the relationship between and among viewer, text or artwork, and artist; and attempts to determine the meanings viewers of different ages, genders, ethnicity, and professions construct in reaction to the work of art and to postmodern…

  19. Readers and Texts in the Primary Years. Rethinking Reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, Tony; Leather, Bob

    Exploring the responses of a variety of readers from three-year-old Dominic sharing a picture book with his father to adults reading a poem by Ted Hughes, this book examines the ways in which various readers respond to different texts. The aim of the book is to develop an awareness of the issues involved in readers' responses for primary teachers.…

  20. Cyber Literature: A Reader – Writer Interactivity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fathu Rahman

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Cyber Literature is a term known since the coming of the internet which brings a convenience, changing habit and world view. This study is a survey-based on respondents’ opinion about the existence of cyber literature on social media; of its benefit and impact to the reader. This study limits to the poems on Facebook group. The reason is simple; it favors the short form. For the study of a reader-writer interactivity in cyber literature is more likely on poetry. The approach is reader response literary theory with focus on the reader-writer interactivity on Facebook. This research aimed at uncovering the motivation of readers to response the uploaded text, the reasons why they love it and what its advantages. The results showed that cyber literature is successfully to introduce a new literary genre as well as to raise motivation and creativity of authors to make use the internet space.

  1. [Survey among readers of the Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandt-Dominicus, J C; van Harten, P N

    2006-01-01

    The editorial board has defined the objectives of this journal as follows: to provide its readers with refreshing information, to report the results of scientific research and to build bridges between research and everyday practice. To find out what readers want and whether they support the board's objectives, and to use this information in planning the contents of future issues of the journal. All readers were invited to complete a questionnaire either on paper or via the website. Questionnaires were completed by 255 readers (response rate 5.7%). The average rating on a 5-point Likert scale was 3.8. Thematic issues and issues devoted to book reviews were given a high rating. There seems to be a demandfor evidence-based medicine, the inclusion of scientific results reported in other journals and practice-based articles. No significant differences were found between the views expressed by readers who had previously submitted an article for publication and those who had not, nor between Flemish readers and Dutch readers. The website was not visited very often. The Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie is greatly appreciated by its readers. They are largely in agreement with the objectives formulated by the editorial board. Thematic issues are highly rated and many subjects are mentioned by the readers for future issues. The low response to the survey can affect its representativity. The editorial board will take readers' wishes into consideration when selecting material for future issues of the journal.

  2. Postmodern theories about readers in electronic environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivanka Kuić

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Introductory part of the paper discusses theories about readers in the last decades of the 20th century. In particular, two big theoretical schools are discussed: aesthetic reception theory and reader-response-criticism movement. Readers are a subject of very different scientific disciplines: literature theory, sociology, anthropology, book history and library science. The idea that a reader is an essential subject for future life of a literary work is common to all theorists. By constructing the theory about a reader, theorists have thought about the reader who uses the conventions of printed text. The issue whether these concepts correspond to electronic surroundings is discussed. Characteristics of the hypertext are emphasized as a new paradigm, and also the issue weather readers enjoys in hypertextual fiction. In conclusion, paper expands the virtual dimension of Isers's theory about interaction between the text and the reader, and also Fish's concept of “interpretative community” which may be constituted on the Internet as a flexible virtual community.

  3. Reader-Response Theory: A Path Towards Wolfgang Iser (La teoría de la recepción: una ruta hacia Wolfgang Iser

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alejandra Giangiulio Lobo

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Se estudia la teoría de la recepción a partir de diferentes autores y críticos literarios, para caracterizar los distintos tipos de lectores, según cada aproximación y los procesos de lectura y creación de significado. El ensayo se centra en el enfoque fenomenológico de Wolfgang Iser sobre la recepción del lector, la generación de significado y los tipos de lectores. Reader-response theory is studied from the perspective of different authors and literary critics to characterize the different types of readers, according to each approach, the reading process and the creation of meaning. The essay centers on Wolfgang Iser’s phenomenological approach to reader response, creation of meaning and types of readers.

  4. RTI and the Adolescent Reader: Responsive Literacy Instruction in Secondary Schools (Middle and High School). Language & Literacy Series Practitioners Bookshelf

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brozo, William G.

    2011-01-01

    "RTI and the Adolescent Reader" focuses exclusively on Response to Intervention (RTI) for literacy at the secondary level. In this accessible guide, William Brozo defines RTI and explains why and how it is considered a viable intervention model for adolescent readers. He analyzes the authentic structural, political, cultural, and teacher…

  5. Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, and Unpopular?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Paul L.; Farkas, George; Wu, Qiong

    2012-01-01

    We investigated whether being poorly skilled in reading contributes to children's reported feelings of anger, distractibility, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and social isolation. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal subsample of children (N = 3,308) participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Multilevel logistic…

  6. Mathematics skills in good readers with hydrocephalus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnes, Marcia A; Pengelly, Sarah; Dennis, Maureen; Wilkinson, Margaret; Rogers, Tracey; Faulkner, Heather

    2002-01-01

    Children with hydrocephalus have poor math skills. We investigated the nature of their arithmetic computation errors by comparing written subtraction errors in good readers with hydrocephalus, typically developing good readers of the same age, and younger children matched for math level to the children with hydrocephalus. Children with hydrocephalus made more procedural errors (although not more fact retrieval or visual-spatial errors) than age-matched controls; they made the same number of procedural errors as younger, math-level matched children. We also investigated a broad range of math abilities, and found that children with hydrocephalus performed more poorly than age-matched controls on tests of geometry and applied math skills such as estimation and problem solving. Computation deficits in children with hydrocephalus reflect delayed development of procedural knowledge. Problems in specific math domains such as geometry and applied math, were associated with deficits in constituent cognitive skills such as visual spatial competence, memory, and general knowledge.

  7. Metacognition and Reading: Comparing Three Forms of Metacognition in Normally Developing Readers and Readers with Dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Furnes, Bjarte; Norman, Elisabeth

    2015-08-01

    Metacognition refers to 'cognition about cognition' and includes metacognitive knowledge, strategies and experiences (Efklides, 2008; Flavell, 1979). Research on reading has shown that better readers demonstrate more metacognitive knowledge than poor readers (Baker & Beall, 2009), and that reading ability improves through strategy instruction (Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 2001). The current study is the first to specifically compare the three forms of metacognition in dyslexic (N = 22) versus normally developing readers (N = 22). Participants read two factual texts, with learning outcome measured by a memory task. Metacognitive knowledge and skills were assessed by self-report. Metacognitive experiences were measured by predictions of performance and judgments of learning. Individuals with dyslexia showed insight into their reading problems, but less general knowledge of how to approach text reading. They more often reported lack of available reading strategies, but groups did not differ in the use of deep and surface strategies. Learning outcome and mean ratings of predictions of performance and judgments of learning were lower in dyslexic readers, but not the accuracy with which metacognitive experiences predicted learning. Overall, the results indicate that dyslexic reading and spelling problems are not generally associated with lower levels of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive strategies or sensitivity to metacognitive experiences in reading situations. 2015 The Authors. Dyslexia Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  8. A New Kind of Research Paper: Bridging the Gap between Reader Response and Formal Critical Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamilton-Johnson, Lisa

    1997-01-01

    Explores how two-year college students may be assisted in the transition from reader response criticism to literary analysis and research paper writing. Proposes a heuristic that requires student researchers to draw on previous student essays on their topic. (TB)

  9. E-Book Readers in Higher Education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arthur N. Olsen

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available This article reports on a research project at the University of Agder that has studied the use of e-readers as a tool for academic study. E-readers (Kindle DX and iPad were loaded with texts from required reading lists in five courses with 94 participating students. Initially, 87 students responded to the invitation to participate in a survey, but eventually 13 of these submissions had to be removed, as the degree of completion was not sufficient. The final response rate achieved was 79%. Students were in general positive to the use of e-readers but still show a preference for print on paper as the best medium for serious academic study. When reading books, 54% preferred print, 28% a combination of print and e-reader, and finally only 11% were satisfied solely using an e-reader. The iPad scored significantly better than the Kindle DX on tasks that required active interaction with the texts such as highlighting and note taking.

  10. Metformin in gestational diabetes mellitus: predictors of poor response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gante, Inês; Melo, Luís; Dores, Jorge; Ruas, Luísa; Almeida, Maria do Céu

    2018-01-01

    Metformin can be regarded as a first-line treatment in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) due to its safety and effectiveness. However, a proportion of women do not achieve adequate glycemic control with metformin alone. We aim to identify predictors of this poor response to metformin. Retrospective multicentre cohort study of women with GDM who started metformin as first-line treatment. The assessed cohort was divided into a metformin group and metformin plus insulin group. Biometric and demographic characteristics, glycemic control data, obstetric, neonatal and postpartum outcomes were compared between groups and analysed in order to identify predictors of poor response to metformin. Data were analysed using STATA, version 13.1. Of the 388 women enrolled in the study, 135 (34.8%) required additional insulin therapy to achieve the glycemic targets. Higher age (aOR: 1.08 (1.03-1.13), P  = 0.003), higher pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) (1.06 (1.02-1.10), P  = 0.003) and earlier introduction of metformin (0.89 (0.85-0.94), P  metformin, insulin supplementation was not associated with poor neonatal outcomes. Higher age, higher pre-pregnancy BMI and earlier introduction of metformin could be used as predictors of poor response to metformin. © 2018 European Society of Endocrinology.

  11. Age- and ability-related differences in young readers' use of conjunctions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cain, Kate; Patson, Nikole; Andrews, Leanne

    2005-11-01

    Two studies investigating young readers' use of conjunctions are reported. In Study One, 145 eight- to ten-year-olds completed one of two narrative cloze tasks in which different types of conjunction were deleted. Performance for additive conjunctions was not affected by age in this study, but older children were more likely to select the target conjunction than were younger children for temporal, causal, and adversative terms. Performance was superior in the cloze task in which they were given a restricted choice of responses (three vs. seven). In Study Two, 35 eight- and nine-year-old good and poor comprehenders completed the three-choice cloze task. The poor comprehenders were less likely to select the target terms in general. Sentence-level comprehension skills did not account for their poor performance. The results indicate that understanding of the semantic relations expressed by conjunctions is still developing long after these terms are used correctly in children's speech. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of conjunctions in text comprehension.

  12. Computer-aided detection of lung nodules on multidetector CT in concurrent-reader and second-reader modes: A comparative study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matsumoto, Sumiaki; Ohno, Yoshiharu; Aoki, Takatoshi; Yamagata, Hitoshi; Nogami, Munenobu; Matsumoto, Keiko; Yamashita, Yoshiko; Sugimura, Kazuro

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: To compare the reading times and detection performances of radiologists in concurrent-reader and second-reader modes of computer-aided detection (CAD) for lung nodules on multidetector computed tomography (CT). Materials and Methods: Fifty clinical multidetector CT datasets containing nodules up to 20 mm in diameter were retrospectively collected. For the detection and rating of non-calcified nodules larger than 4 mm in diameter, 6 radiologists (3 experienced radiologists and 3 resident radiologists) independently interpreted these datasets twice, once with concurrent-reader CAD and once with second-reader CAD. The reference standard of nodules in the datasets was determined by the consensus of two experienced chest radiologists. The reading times and detection performances in the two modes of CAD were statistically compared, where jackknife free-response receiver operating characteristic (JAFROC) analysis was used for the comparison of detection performances. Results: Two hundreds and seven nodules constituted the reference standard. Reading time was significantly shorter in the concurrent-reader mode than in the second-reader mode, with the mean reading time for the 6 radiologists being 132 s with concurrent-reader CAD and 210 s with second-reader CAD (p < 0.01). JAFROC analysis revealed no significant difference between the detection performances in the two modes, with the average figure-of-merit value for the 6 radiologists being 0.70 with concurrent-reader CAD and 0.72 with second-reader CAD (p = 0.35). Conclusion: In CAD for lung nodules on multidetector CT, the concurrent-reader mode is more time-efficient than the second-reader mode, and there can be no significant difference between the two modes in terms of detection performance of radiologists

  13. Excessive biologic response to IFNβ is associated with poor treatment response in patients with multiple sclerosis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard A Rudick

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Interferon-beta (IFNβ is used to inhibit disease activity in multiple sclerosis (MS, but its mechanisms of action are incompletely understood, individual treatment response varies, and biological markers predicting response to treatment have yet to be identified. METHODS: The relationship between the molecular response to IFNβ and treatment response was determined in 85 patients using a longitudinal design in which treatment effect was categorized by brain magnetic resonance imaging as good (n = 70 or poor response (n = 15. Molecular response was quantified using a customized cDNA macroarray assay for 166 IFN-regulated genes (IRGs. RESULTS: The molecular response to IFNβ differed significantly between patients in the pattern and number of regulated genes. The molecular response was strikingly stable for individuals for as long as 24 months, however, suggesting an individual 'IFN response fingerprint'. Unexpectedly, patients with poor response showed an exaggerated molecular response. IRG induction ratios demonstrated an exaggerated molecular response at both the first and 6-month IFNβ injections. CONCLUSION: MS patients exhibit individually unique but temporally stable biological responses to IFNβ. Poor treatment response is not explained by the duration of biological effects or the specific genes induced. Rather, individuals with poor treatment response have a generally exaggerated biological response to type 1 IFN injections. We hypothesize that the molecular response to type I IFN identifies a pathogenetically distinct subset of MS patients whose disease is driven in part by innate immunity. The findings suggest a strategy for biologically based, rational use of IFNβ for individual MS patients.

  14. Microfluidic point-of-care diagnostics for resource-poor environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laksanasopin, Tassaneewan; Chin, Curtis D.; Moore, Hannah; Wang, Jennifer; Cheung, Yuk Kee; Sia, Samuel K.

    2009-05-01

    Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics have tremendous potential to improve human health in remote and resource-poor settings. However, the design criteria for diagnostic tests appropriate in settings with limited infrastructure are unique and challenging. Here we present a custom optical reader which quantifies silver absorbance from heterogeneous immunoassays. The reader is simple and low-cost and suited for POC diagnostics.

  15. Reception theory and the Christian reader: A preliminary perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. L. Comhrink

    1983-03-01

    Full Text Available In recent years there has been a significant shift in emphasis from text- centred criticism in literature to reader-centred criticism. This new field of criticism, called Reception Theory or Reader Response Criticism, denies the immutable nature of the "text” and regards as its object of study the work of literature that is created through the co-constituent creative and interpre­tive acts o f both writer and reader.

  16. Making a Commitment to Strategic-Reader Training

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    FREDRICKA L. STOLLER; REIKO KOMIYAMA

    2013-01-01

    Skilled readers by definition are strategic; they are able to use a repertoire of reading strategies , flexibly and in meaningful combinations , to achieve their reading comprehension goals . Thus , one of the aims of foreign and second language (L2) reading curricula should be to move students toward becoming more strategic readers . This curricular orientation can be best achieved when a strong commitment is made to strategic-reader training as a regular and consistent component of instruction across the curriculum . To explore this stance , we examine the reading strategies used by skilled readers , contrast teaching strategies with training strategic readers ( i .e . , strategic-reader training) , and examine five strategic-reader training approaches from first language contexts that can be adapted by L2 professionals to enhance the reading instruction offered in their L 2 classes . The five approaches targeted for exploration include Directed Reading-Thinking Activity , Reciprocal Teaching , Transactional Strategies Instruction , Questioning the Author , and Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction . Though distinct from one another , they all acknowledge the importance of explicit explanations about strategies (or reminders about the use of select strategies) , teacher modeling , scaffolded tasks , active student engagement , student practice , classroom discussions of strategy use , and the gradual release of responsibility to students who eventually decide for themselves (and/or with peers) when , where , and why to use which strategies to achieve their comprehension goals . We conclude with a discussion of the challenges , and suggestions for overcoming them , that L 2 teachers and students often face in making a commitment to strategic-reader training .

  17. What Can Readers Read after Graded Readers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    McQuillan, Jeff

    2016-01-01

    Nation (2014) concluded that most of the vocabulary one needs to read challenging texts in English can be acquired incidentally through voluminous reading. This study examines possible texts that second language (L2) readers can use to move from controlled-vocabulary materials such as graded readers, which go up through approximately the…

  18. A Rhythmic Musical Intervention for Poor Readers: A Comparison of Efficacy with a Letter-Based Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhide, Adeetee; Power, Alan; Goswami, Usha

    2013-01-01

    There is growing evidence that children with reading difficulties show impaired auditory rhythm perception and impairments in musical beat perception tasks. Rhythmic musical interventions with poorer readers may thus improve rhythmic entrainment and consequently improve reading and phonological skills. Here we compare the effects of a musical…

  19. The Effects of a Reader's Theater Instructional Intervention on Second Grade Students' Reading Fluency and Comprehension Skills

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Diane D.

    2011-01-01

    An estimated 75% of students who are poor readers in third grade continue to be lower achieving readers in ninth grade. The National Reading Panel has identified fluency as a prominent cause of reading comprehension problems which ultimately affect overall reading development. The purpose of this study was to test the theoretical framework of…

  20. Reader error during CT colonography: causes and implications for training

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Slater, Andrew; Tam, Emily; Gartner, Louise; Scarth, Julia; Peiris, Chand; Gupta, Arun; Marshall, Michele; Burling, David; Taylor, Stuart A.; Halligan, Steve

    2006-01-01

    This study investigated the variability in baseline computed tomography colonography (CTC) performance using untrained readers by documenting sources of error to guide future training requirements. Twenty CTC endoscopically validated data sets containing 32 polyps were consensus read by three unblinded radiologists experienced in CTC, creating a reference standard. Six readers without prior CTC training [four residents and two board-certified subspecialty gastrointestinal (GI) radiologists] read the 20 cases. Readers drew a region of interest (ROI) around every area they considered a potential colonic lesion, even if subsequently dismissed, before creating a final report. Using this final report, reader ROIs were classified as true positive detections, true negatives correctly dismissed, true detections incorrectly dismissed (i.e., classification error), or perceptual errors. Detection of polyps 1-5 mm, 6-9 mm, and ≥10 mm ranged from 7.1% to 28.6%, 16.7% to 41.7%, and 16.7% to 83.3%, respectively. There was no significant difference between polyp detection or false positives for the GI radiologists compared with residents (p=0.67, p=0.4 respectively). Most missed polyps were due to failure of detection rather than characterization (range 82-95%). Untrained reader performance is variable but generally poor. Most missed polyps are due perceptual error rather than characterization, suggesting basic training should focus heavily on lesion detection. (orig.)

  1. Differences in autonomic physiological responses between good and poor inductive reasoners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Melis, C; van Boxtel, A

    2001-11-01

    We investigated individual- and task-related differences in autonomic physiological responses induced by time limited figural and verbal inductive reasoning tasks. In a group of 52 participants, the percentage of correctly responded task items was evaluated together with nine different autonomic physiological response measures and respiration rate (RR). Weighted multidimensional scaling analyses of the physiological responses revealed three underlying dimensions, primarily characterized by RR, parasympathetic, and sympathetic activity. RR and sympathetic activity appeared to be relatively more important response dimensions for poor reasoners, whereas parasympathetic responsivity was relatively more important for good reasoners. These results suggest that poor reasoners showed higher levels of cognitive processing intensity than good reasoners. Furthermore, for the good reasoners, the dimension of sympathetic activity was relatively more important during the figural than during the verbal reasoning task, which was explained in terms of hemispheric lateralization in autonomic function.

  2. Extending the E-Z Reader Model of Eye Movement Control to Chinese Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Keith; Li, Xingshan; Pollatsek, Alexander

    2007-01-01

    Chinese readers' eye movements were simulated in the context of the E-Z Reader model, which was developed to account for the eye movements of readers of English. Despite obvious differences between English and Chinese, the model did a fairly good job of simulating the eye movements of Chinese readers. The successful simulation suggests that the…

  3. Thermoluminescence dosimeter reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Robertson, M.E.A.; Marshall, J.; Brabants, J.A.P.; Davies, M.E.

    1975-01-01

    An electric circuit arrangement is described including a photomultiplier tube and a high voltage source therefor also includes a feedback loop from the output of the tube to the high voltage source, and loop providing automatic gain stabilization for the tube. The arrangement is used in a dosimeter reader to provide sensitivity correction for the reader each time the reader is to be used

  4. Does Feeling Come First? How Poetry Can Help Readers Broaden Their Understanding of Metacognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eva-Wood, Amy L.

    2008-01-01

    Assuming that readers' emotional responses can enhance readers' metacognitive experiences and inform literary analysis, this study of 11th-grade poetry readers features instruction that models both cognitive and affective reading processes. The author: (1) Presents a case for more explicit attention to emotion in language arts classrooms; (2)…

  5. An IoT Reader for Wireless Passive Electromagnetic Sensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galindo-Romera, Gabriel; Carnerero-Cano, Javier; Martínez-Martínez, José Juan; Herraiz-Martínez, Francisco Javier

    2017-03-28

    In the last years, many passive electromagnetic sensors have been reported. Some of these sensors are used for measuring harmful substances. Moreover, the response of these sensors is usually obtained with laboratory equipment. This approach highly increases the total cost and complexity of the sensing system. In this work, a novel low-cost and portable Internet-of-Things (IoT) reader for passive wireless electromagnetic sensors is proposed. The reader is used to interrogate the sensors within a short-range wireless link avoiding the direct contact with the substances under test. The IoT functionalities of the reader allows remote sensing from computers and handheld devices. For that purpose, the proposed design is based on four functional layers: the radiating layer, the RF interface, the IoT mini-computer and the power unit. In this paper a demonstrator of the proposed reader is designed and manufactured. The demonstrator shows, through the remote measurement of different substances, that the proposed system can estimate the dielectric permittivity. It has been demonstrated that a linear approximation with a small error can be extracted from the reader measurements. It is remarkable that the proposed reader can be used with other type of electromagnetic sensors, which transduce the magnitude variations in the frequency domain.

  6. Beyond Phonological and Morphological Processing: Pure Copying as a Marker of Dyslexia in Chinese but Not Poor Reading of English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalindi, Sylvia Chanda; McBride, Catherine; Tong, Xiuhong; Wong, Natalie Lok Lee; Chung, Kien Hoa Kevin; Lee, Chia-Ying

    2015-01-01

    To examine cognitive correlates of dyslexia in Chinese and reading difficulties in English as a foreign language, a total of 14 Chinese dyslexic children (DG), 16 poor readers of English (PE), and 17 poor readers of both Chinese and English (PB) were compared to a control sample (C) of 17 children, drawn from a statistically representative sample…

  7. Systematical and statistical errors in using reference light sources to calibrate TLD readers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Burgkhardt, B.; Piesch, E.

    1981-01-01

    Three light sources, namely an NaI(Tl) scintillator + Ra, an NaI(Tl) scintillator + 14 C and a plastic scintillator + 14 C, were used during a period of 24 months for a daily check of two TLD readers: the Harshaw 2000 A + B and the Toledo 651. On the basis of light source measurements long-term changes and day-to-day fluctuations of the reader response were investigated. Systematical changes of the Toledo reader response of up to 6% during a working week are explained by nitrogen effects in the plastic scintillator light source. It was found that the temperature coefficient of the light source intensity was -0.05%/ 0 C for the plastic scintillator and -0.3%/ 0 C for the NaI(Tl) scintillator. The 210 Pb content in the Ra activated NaI(Tl) scintillator caused a time-dependent decrease in light source intensity of 3%/yr for the light source in the Harshaw reader. The internal light sources revealed a relative standard deviation of 0.5% for the Toledo reader and the Harshaw reader after respective reading times of 0.45 and 100 sec. (author)

  8. DEAFNESS, RETELLING AND READER FOMATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Marcos Rosendo de Souza

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Research on formation of readers has raised some discussions and change of atitudes, to the development of full readers. But, the methodologies that strive for proficiency of Deaf readers there are scarse. We intend to discuss in this article the formation of a reader Deaf through from an interventional research, with cognitive approach. The reader formation of Deaf will be possible with appropriate method to their peculiarities.

  9. JAPANESE READERS (TITLE SUPPLIED).

    Science.gov (United States)

    THREE JAPANESE READERS ARE PRESENTED WHICH CONTAIN VOCABULARY, NOTES, AND DRILL SENTENCES. THE THREE READERS--(1) ARU SARARIIMAN NO ITI-NITI, (2) OTOOSAN WA KAMI-SAMA, AND (3) ARU GAKUSEI NO HANNITI--ARE WRITTEN IN THE ROMAJI ALPHABET. EACH READER HAS A VOCABULARY LISTING WITH ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS AND DRILL SENTENCES. AN ENGLISH WORD DEFINITION…

  10. Severity of Emotional and Behavioral Problems among Poor and Typical Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arnold, Elizabeth Mayfield; Goldston, David B.; Walsh, Adam K.; Reboussin, Beth A.; Daniel, Stephanie Sergent; Hickman, Enith; Wood, Frank B.

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the severity of behavioral and emotional problems among adolescents with poor and typical single word reading ability (N = 188) recruited from public schools and followed for a median of 2.4 years. Youth and parents were repeatedly assessed to obtain information regarding the severity and course of symptoms…

  11. Texts and Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iser, Wolfgang

    1980-01-01

    Notes that, since fictional discourse need not reflect prevailing systems of meaning and norms or values, readers gain detachment from their own presuppositions; by constituting and formulating text-sense, readers are constituting and formulating their own cognition and becoming aware of the operations for doing so. (FL)

  12. An Analysis of Differential Response Patterns on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB in Struggling Adult Readers and Third-Grade Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pae, Hye K.; Greenberg, Daphne; Williams, Rihana S.

    2012-01-01

    This study examines the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB (PPVT-IIIB) performance of 130 adults identified as struggling readers, in comparison to 175 third-grade children. Response patterns to the items on the PPVT-IIIB by these two groups were investigated, focusing on items, semantic categories, and lexical features, including word length,…

  13. Doctors' stress responses and poor communication performance in simulated bad-news consultations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Rhonda; Dunn, Stewart; Byrnes, Karen; Morris, Richard; Heinrich, Paul; Shaw, Joanne

    2009-11-01

    No studies have previously evaluated factors associated with high stress levels and poor communication performance in breaking bad news (BBN) consultations. This study determined factors that were most strongly related to doctors' stress responses and poor communication performance during a simulated BBN task. In 2007, the authors recruited 24 doctors comprising 12 novices (i.e., interns/residents with 1-3 years' experience) and 12 experts (i.e., registrars, medical/radiation oncologists, or cancer surgeons, with more than 4 years' experience). Doctors participated in simulated BBN consultations and a number of control tasks. Five-minute-epoch heart rate (HR), HR variability, and communication performance were assessed in all participants. Subjects also completed a short questionnaire asking about their prior experience BBN, perceived stress, psychological distress (i.e., anxiety, depression), fatigue, and burnout. High stress responses were related to inexperience with BBN, fatigue, and giving bad versus good news. Poor communication performance in the consultation was related to high burnout and fatigue scores. These results suggest that BBN was a stressful experience for doctors even in a simulated encounter, especially for those who were inexperienced and/or fatigued. Poor communication performance was related to burnout and fatigue, but not inexperience with BBN. These results likely indicate that burnout and fatigue contributed to stress and poor work performance in some doctors during the simulated BBN task.

  14. Rhetoric and Etiological Beliefs About Sexuality: Reader Responses to Cynthia Nixon's New York Times Interview.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jowett, Adam; Barker, Sophie

    2017-08-04

    In 2012, the U.S. actress Cynthia Nixon was quoted in the New York Times Magazine as having stated that "for me, it [being gay] is a choice. I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me." The interview attracted international media attention and public criticism by lesbian and gay activists. This article suggests a rhetorical approach to understanding etiological beliefs and provides a discursive analysis of 198 online comments by readers of Pink News, a gay news Web site that reported on Nixon's controversial interview. This article explores common arguments used in readers' comments about Nixon and examines the rhetorical construction of sexuality. The analysis examines three themes within the data. First, biological essentialism was treated by many readers as common knowledge; second, readers suggested that only bisexuals have "choice"; and, third, it was suggested by both Nixon's critics and her supporters that counterarguments colluded with homophobia. The article suggests that there is an ideological dilemma whereby both "born-this-way" and "choice" arguments can be understood as colluding with anti-gay prejudice.

  15. The e-Reader — an Educational or an Entertainment Tool? e-Readers in an Academic Setting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Ahlroos

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper the authors will discuss a pilot project conducted at the Tritonia Academic Library, Vaasa, in Finland, from September 2010 until May 2011. The project was designed to investigate the application of e-readers in academic settings and to learn how teachers and students experience the use of e-readers in academic education. Four groups of students and one group of teachers used Kindle readers for varied periods of time in different courses. The course material and the textbooks were downloaded on the e-readers. The feedback from the participants was collected through questionnaires and teacher interviews. The results suggest that the e-reader is a future tool for learning, though some features need to be improved before e-readers can really enable efficient learning and researching.

  16. Morpho-phonemic analysis boosts word reading for adult struggling readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gray, Susan H; Ehri, Linnea C; Locke, John L

    2018-01-01

    A randomized control trial compared the effects of two kinds of vocabulary instruction on component reading skills of adult struggling readers. Participants seeking alternative high school diplomas received 8 h of scripted tutoring to learn forty academic vocabulary words embedded within a civics curriculum. They were matched for language background and reading levels, then randomly assigned to either morpho-phonemic analysis teaching word origins, morpheme and syllable structures, or traditional whole word study teaching multiple sentence contexts, meaningful connections, and spellings. Both groups made comparable gains in learning the target words, but the morpho-phonemic group showed greater gains in reading unfamiliar words on standardized tests of word reading, including word attack and word recognition. Findings support theories of word learning and literacy that promote explicit instruction in word analysis to increase poor readers' linguistic awareness by revealing connections between morphological, phonological, and orthographic structures within words.

  17. What Reader-Oriented Literary and Cognitive Theories Have to Give to Composing Theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liebman-Kleine, JoAnne

    In developing an interactive model of composing, this paper discusses three groups of reader-oriented theories, each of which provides composing theorists with some research and theory to use in developing such a model. First the paper discusses the main principle of the literary reader-response theorists--that the meaning and value of texts do…

  18. Cognitive Development in Early Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Briggs, Chari; Elkind, David

    Some studies of early readers are discussed. It is pointed out that study of early readers has relevance for practical and theoretical issues in psychology and education. Of interest in this document are the following questions: (1) Are there any special talents or traits distinguishing early from non-early readers? (2) Do children who read early…

  19. Preliteracy signatures of poor-reading abilities in resting-state EEG

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giuseppina eSchiavone

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The hereditary character of dyslexia suggests the presence of putative underlying neural anomalies already in preliterate age. Here, we investigated whether early neurophysiological correlates of future reading difficulties—a hallmark of dyslexia—could be identified in the resting-state EEG of preliterate children. The children in this study were recruited at birth and classified on the basis of parents’ performance on reading tests to be at-risk of becoming poor readers (n = 48 or not (n = 14. Eyes-open rest EEG was measured at the age of 3 years, and the at-risk children were divided into fluent readers (n = 24 and non-fluent readers (n = 24 after reading assessment at their third grade of school. We found that fluent readers and non-fluent readers differed in normalized spectral amplitude. Non-fluent readers were characterized by lower amplitude in the delta-1 frequency band (0.5–2 Hz and higher amplitude in the alpha-1 band (6–8 Hz in multiple scalp regions compared to control and at-risk fluent readers. Interestingly, across groups these EEG biomarkers correlated with several behavioral test scores measured in the third grade. Specifically, the performance on reading fluency, phonological and orthographic tasks and rapid automatized naming task correlated positively with delta-1 and negatively with alpha-1. Together, our results suggest that combining family-risk status, neurophysiological testing and behavioral test scores in a longitudinal setting may help uncover physiological mechanisms implicated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as the predisposition to reading disabilities.

  20. E-book Reader Devices and Libraries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pažur, I.

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available Most library studies thematically related to electronic books don't consider readers of electronic books. Only in recent years librarians conduct studies in which they want to find out readers' opinions about the possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of reading using e-readers, as well as their possible application in the libraries.User studies of e-readers have shown that their opinion is generally positive, but great attachment to traditional books is still present, e-readers are still seen only as an additional tool for reading. Sony with its e-reader (the latest Reader model Daily and Reader Store online bookstore (http://ebookstore.sony.com/is the only one who cooperate with libraries and has made lending electronic books possible. Cooperation was launched in 2009th,and the New York Public Library was the first library that offered such a service.Cooperation between Sony and libraries, indicates clearly what the near future could be if other online booksellers / publishers begin to follow the model of lending e-books through the libraries over the network. However it is possible that a large online bookstores / publishers consider that the further price reduction of e-readers and electronic books will constantly increase their sales, and in that case lending e-books will be unnecessary.Are the libraries ready for this scenario?

  1. Reader survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1993-01-01

    Many, thanks to the hundreds of people who took the time to reply to the CERN Courier readership survey questionnaire published in our May issue. Bringing out a monthly journal is a lonely business. Issue after issue goes out, and the only response is when there's an occasional factual error. Send out a readership survey and a faint echo comes back. Most striking was the sheer enthusiasm of the replies. Despite the current erosion of support in the US (see page 2), subatomic physics has significant world-wide box-office appeal. Most important was to find out who our readers are. 61% of the replies came from Europe, 21% from the USA, 14% from elsewhere, (including the former Soviet Union), and 4% from inside CERN. Not surprisingly, the main audience (37%) is in the high energy physics sector. Then comes teaching (31%), followed closely by accelerators operations and design (12%) and industry (11%). Apart from detailed breakdowns of readership and feedback on the journal's content and style, the replies revealed several major features. Firstly, the CERN Courier is widely read and appreciated. There are a lot of people outside the immediate research field who want to keep broadly up to date with the latest developments in high energy physics and related fields, without getting too involved in details. It was gratifying to receive replies from far-flung places (Nepal, Indonesia,....), and learn how much distant readers appreciate getting such regular information. 'It helps us feel part of the world scene,' was a typical such reply, from Australia. Despite jet airplanes, fax and electronic mail, our planet is still big

  2. Reader survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anon.

    1993-10-15

    Many, thanks to the hundreds of people who took the time to reply to the CERN Courier readership survey questionnaire published in our May issue. Bringing out a monthly journal is a lonely business. Issue after issue goes out, and the only response is when there's an occasional factual error. Send out a readership survey and a faint echo comes back. Most striking was the sheer enthusiasm of the replies. Despite the current erosion of support in the US (see page 2), subatomic physics has significant world-wide box-office appeal. Most important was to find out who our readers are. 61% of the replies came from Europe, 21% from the USA, 14% from elsewhere, (including the former Soviet Union), and 4% from inside CERN. Not surprisingly, the main audience (37%) is in the high energy physics sector. Then comes teaching (31%), followed closely by accelerators operations and design (12%) and industry (11%). Apart from detailed breakdowns of readership and feedback on the journal's content and style, the replies revealed several major features. Firstly, the CERN Courier is widely read and appreciated. There are a lot of people outside the immediate research field who want to keep broadly up to date with the latest developments in high energy physics and related fields, without getting too involved in details. It was gratifying to receive replies from far-flung places (Nepal, Indonesia,....), and learn how much distant readers appreciate getting such regular information. 'It helps us feel part of the world scene,' was a typical such reply, from Australia. Despite jet airplanes, fax and electronic mail, our planet is still big.

  3. How Specific are Specific Comprehension Difficulties? An Investigation of Poor Reading Comprehension in Nine-Year-Olds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rønberg, Louise; Petersen, Dorthe Klint

    2015-01-01

    comprehenders, the poor comprehenders’ orthographic coding and daily reading of literary texts were significantly below those of average readers. This study indicates that a lack of reading experience, and likewise, a lack of fluent word reading, may be important factors in understanding 9-year-old poor...

  4. The role of working memory and fluency practice on the reading comprehension of students who are dysfluent readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swanson, H Lee; O'Connor, Rollanda

    2009-01-01

    The authors investigated whether practice in reading fluency had a causal influence on the relationship between working memory (WM) and text comprehension for 155 students in Grades 2 and 4 who were poor or average readers. Dysfluent readers were randomly assigned to repeated reading or continuous reading practice conditions and compared with untreated dysfluent and fluent readers on posttest measures of fluency, word identification, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Three main findings emerged: (a) The influence of WM on text comprehension was not related to fluency training, (b) dysfluent readers in the continuous-reading condition had higher posttest scores than dysfluent readers in the other conditions on measures of text comprehension but not on vocabulary, and (c) individual differences in WM better predicted posttest comprehension performance than word-attack skills. In general, the results suggested that although continuous reading increased comprehension, fluency practice did not compensate for WM demands. The results were interpreted within a model that viewed reading comprehension processes as competing for a limited supply of WM resources that operate independent of fluency.

  5. Poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas responsive to combination therapy with gemcitabine and S-1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Mitsuyoshi; Miyagawa, Koichiro; Hiura, Masaaki; Taguchi, Masashi; Kihara, Yasuyuki; Abe, Shintaro; Shimajiri, Shohei; Harada, Masaru

    2012-01-01

    Poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma is a very rare malignancy, but it is characterized by agressive histological features and a poor clinical prognosis. We report a 42-year-old man who had poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas with multiple liver metastases. We administrated combined chemotherapy with S-1 and gemcitabine. This treatment was efficacious and well tolerated, and then this patient obtained objective partial response for 7 months and survived for 13 months after the diagnosis. This case suggests that S-1 and gemcitabine combination produce beneficial responses for patients with this disease.

  6. Reader practice in mammography screen reporting in Australia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Reed, W.; Poulos, A.; Brennan, P.

    2009-01-01

    Full text: Reader variability is a problem in mammography image reporting and compromises the efficacy of screening programmes. The purpose of this exploratory study was to survey reader practice in reporting screening mammograms in Australia to identify aspects of practice that warrant further investigation. Mammography reporting practice and influences on concentration and attention were investigated by using an original questionnaire distributed to screen readers in Australia. A response rate of 71% (83 out of 117) was achieved. Demographic data indicated that the majority of readers were over 46 years of age (73%), have been reporting on screening mammograms for over 10 years (61%), take less than 1 min to report upon a screening mammogram examination (66%), report up to 200 examinations in a single session (83%) and take up to 2 h to report one session (61%). A majority report on more than 5000 examinations annually (66%); 93% of participants regard their search strategy as systematic, 87% agreed that their concentration can vary throughout a session, 64% agreed that the relatively low number of positives can lead to lapses in concentration and attention and almost all (94%) participants agreed that methods to maximise concentration should be explored. Participants identified a range of influences on concentration within their working environment including volume of images reported in one session, image types and aspects of the physical environment. This study has provided important evidence of the need to investigate adverse influences on concentration during mammography screen reporting

  7. Reader performance in visual assessment of breast density using visual analogue scales: Are some readers more predictive of breast cancer?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Millicent; Harkness, Elaine F.; Foden, Philip; Wilson, Mary; Gadde, Soujanya; Beetles, Ursula; Lim, Yit Y.; Jain, Anil; Bundred, Sally; Barr, Nicky; Evans, D. Gareth; Howell, Anthony; Maxwell, Anthony; Astley, Susan M.

    2018-03-01

    Mammographic breast density is one of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer, and is used in risk prediction and for deciding appropriate imaging strategies. In the Predicting Risk Of Cancer At Screening (PROCAS) study, percent density estimated by two readers on Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) has shown a strong relationship with breast cancer risk when assessed against automated methods. However, this method suffers from reader variability. This study aimed to assess the performance of PROCAS readers using VAS, and to identify those most predictive of breast cancer. We selected the seven readers who had estimated density on over 6,500 women including at least 100 cancer cases, analysing their performance using multivariable logistic regression and Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analysis. All seven readers showed statistically significant odds ratios (OR) for cancer risk according to VAS score after adjusting for classical risk factors. The OR was greatest for reader 18 at 1.026 (95% Cl 1.018-1.034). Adjusted Area Under the ROC Curves (AUCs) were statistically significant for all readers, but greatest for reader 14 at 0.639. Further analysis of the VAS scores for these two readers showed reader 14 had higher sensitivity (78.0% versus 42.2%), whereas reader 18 had higher specificity (78.0% versus 46.0%). Our results demonstrate individual differences when assigning VAS scores; one better identified those with increased risk, whereas another better identified low risk individuals. However, despite their different strengths, both readers showed similar predictive abilities overall. Standardised training for VAS may improve reader variability and consistency of VAS scoring.

  8. Poor Response to Periodontal Treatment May Predict Future Cardiovascular Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holmlund, A; Lampa, E; Lind, L

    2017-07-01

    Periodontal disease has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), but whether the response to the treatment of periodontal disease affects this association has not been investigated in any large prospective study. Periodontal data obtained at baseline and 1 y after treatment were available in 5,297 individuals with remaining teeth who were treated at a specialized clinic for periodontal disease. Poor response to treatment was defined as having >10% sites with probing pocket depth >4 mm deep and bleeding on probing at ≥20% of the sites 1 y after active treatment. Fatal/nonfatal incidence rate of CVD (composite end point of myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure) was obtained from the Swedish cause-of-death and hospital discharge registers. Poisson regression analysis was performed to analyze future risk of CVD. During a median follow-up of 16.8 y (89,719 person-years at risk), those individuals who did not respond well to treatment (13.8% of the sample) had an increased incidence of CVD ( n = 870) when compared with responders (23.6 vs. 15.3%, P 4 mm, and number of teeth, the incidence rate ratio for CVD among poor responders was 1.28 (95% CI, 1.07 to 1.53; P = 0.007) as opposed to good responders. The incidence rate ratio among poor responders increased to 1.39 (95% CI, 1.13 to 1.73; P = 0.002) for those with the most remaining teeth. Individuals who did not respond well to periodontal treatment had an increased risk for future CVD, indicating that successful periodontal treatment might influence progression of subclinical CVD.

  9. Novel processing of Barkhausen noise signal for assessment of residual stress in surface ground components exhibiting poor magnetic response

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vashista, M.; Paul, S.

    2011-01-01

    The Barkhausen Noise Analysis (BNA) technique has been utilised to assess surface integrity of steels. But the BNA technique is not very successful in evaluating surface integrity of ground steels that exhibit poor micro-magnetic response. A new approach has been proposed for the processing of BN signal and two newly proposed parameters, namely 'count' and 'event', have been shown to correlate linearly with the residual stress upon grinding, with judicious choice of user defined 'threshold', even when the micro-magnetic response of the work material is poor. In the present study, residual stress induced upon conventional plunge surface grinding of hardened bearing steel has been investigated along with unhardened bearing steel for benchmarking. Moreover, similar correlation has been established, when primarily compressive stress is induced upon high speed grinding using cBN wheel with moderately deep cut suppressing the micro-magnetic response from the ground medium carbon steel as the work material. - Highlights: → The problem of work materials exhibiting poor BN response and poor Barkhausen Noise response is identified. → A novel signal processing strategy is introduced to address the issue of poor micro-magnetic response of some ferromagnetic material. → Potential of newly introduced BN parameters has been studied. → These two BN parameters exhibited linear correlation with residual stress for work material with poor micro-magnetic response.

  10. Crash course in readers' advisory

    CERN Document Server

    Orr, Cynthia

    2014-01-01

    One of the key services librarians provide is helping readers find books they'll enjoy. This ""crash course"" will furnish you with the basic, practical information you need to excel at readers' advisory (RA) for adults and teens.

  11. The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Li, Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader" is an essential collection of readings for students of Applied Linguistics. Divided into five sections: Language Teaching and Learning, Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, Identity and Power and Language Use in Professional Contexts, the "Reader" takes a broad…

  12. A new fully automated TLD badge reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kannan, S.; Ratna, P.; Kulkarni, M.S.

    2003-01-01

    At present personnel monitoring in India is being carried out using a number of manual and semiautomatic TLD badge Readers and the BARC TL dosimeter badge designed during 1970. Of late the manual TLD badge readers are almost completely replaced by semiautomatic readers with a number of performance improvements like use of hot gas heating to reduce the readout time considerably. PC based design with storage of glow curve for every dosimeter, on-line dose computation and printout of dose reports, etc. However the semiautomatic system suffers from the lack of a machine readable ID code on the badge and the physical design of the dosimeter card not readily compatible for automation. This paper describes a fully automated TLD badge Reader developed in the RSS Division, using a new TLD badge with machine readable ID code. The new PC based reader has a built-in reader for reading the ID code, in the form of an array of holes, on the dosimeter card. The reader has a number of self-diagnostic features to ensure a high degree of reliability. (author)

  13. The differential effects of position, ad and reader characteristics on readers' processing of newspaper ads

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Smit, E.G.; Neijens, P.C.; Heath, R.

    2013-01-01

    Building on previous research on the processing of newspaper ads, this comprehensive field study, with 26,556 newspaper readers and 290 unique advertisements, investigated the combined effects of position in the newspaper, ad characteristics and reader characteristics. The results show a

  14. Orthographic learning and the role of text-to-speech software in Dutch disabled readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Staels, Eva; Van den Broeck, Wim

    2015-01-01

    In this study, we examined whether orthographic learning can be demonstrated in disabled readers learning to read in a transparent orthography (Dutch). In addition, we tested the effect of the use of text-to-speech software, a new form of direct instruction, on orthographic learning. Both research goals were investigated by replicating Share's self-teaching paradigm. A total of 65 disabled Dutch readers were asked to read eight stories containing embedded homophonic pseudoword targets (e.g., Blot/Blod), with or without the support of text-to-speech software. The amount of orthographic learning was assessed 3 or 7 days later by three measures of orthographic learning. First, the results supported the presence of orthographic learning during independent silent reading by demonstrating that target spellings were correctly identified more often, named more quickly, and spelled more accurately than their homophone foils. Our results support the hypothesis that all readers, even poor readers of transparent orthographies, are capable of developing word-specific knowledge. Second, a negative effect of text-to-speech software on orthographic learning was demonstrated in this study. This negative effect was interpreted as the consequence of passively listening to the auditory presentation of the text. We clarify how these results can be interpreted within current theoretical accounts of orthographic learning and briefly discuss implications for remedial interventions. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2013.

  15. A Sign Language Screen Reader for Deaf

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Ghoul, Oussama; Jemni, Mohamed

    Screen reader technology has appeared first to allow blind and people with reading difficulties to use computer and to access to the digital information. Until now, this technology is exploited mainly to help blind community. During our work with deaf people, we noticed that a screen reader can facilitate the manipulation of computers and the reading of textual information. In this paper, we propose a novel screen reader dedicated to deaf. The output of the reader is a visual translation of the text to sign language. The screen reader is composed by two essential modules: the first one is designed to capture the activities of users (mouse and keyboard events). For this purpose, we adopted Microsoft MSAA application programming interfaces. The second module, which is in classical screen readers a text to speech engine (TTS), is replaced by a novel text to sign (TTSign) engine. This module converts text into sign language animation based on avatar technology.

  16. Report Card on Basal Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodman, Kenneth S.; And Others

    This report examines the nature of the modern basal reader, its economics, and use. First, the report provides a history showing how the confluence of business principles, positivistic science, and behavioral psychology led to the transformation of reading textbooks into basal readers. Next, the report examines objectives and subjective factors…

  17. When High-Capacity Readers Slow Down and Low-Capacity Readers Speed Up: Working Memory and Locality Effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nicenboim, Bruno; Logačev, Pavel; Gattei, Carolina; Vasishth, Shravan

    2016-01-01

    We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008) and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions.

  18. 21 CFR 886.5800 - Ophthalmic bar reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Ophthalmic bar reader. 886.5800 Section 886.5800...) MEDICAL DEVICES OPHTHALMIC DEVICES Therapeutic Devices § 886.5800 Ophthalmic bar reader. (a) Identification. An ophthalmic bar reader is a device that consists of a magnifying lens intended for use by a...

  19. Phonological Working Memory in German Children with Poor Reading and Spelling Abilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steinbrink, Claudia; Klatte, Maria

    2008-01-01

    Deficits in verbal short-term memory have been identified as one factor underlying reading and spelling disorders. However, the nature of this deficit is still unclear. It has been proposed that poor readers make less use of phonological coding, especially if the task can be solved through visual strategies. In the framework of Baddeley's…

  20. Inter-Reader Reliability of Early FDG-PET/CT Response Assessment Using the Deauville Scale after 2 Cycles of Intensive Chemotherapy (OEPA) in Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Kluge, Regine

    2016-01-01

    The five point Deauville (D) scale is widely used to assess interim PET metabolic response to chemotherapy in Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients. An International Validation Study reported good concordance among reviewers in ABVD treated advanced stage HL patients for the binary discrimination between score D1,2,3 and score D4,5. Inter-reader reliability of the whole scale is not well characterised.

  1. Optimised to Fail: Card Readers for Online Banking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drimer, Saar; Murdoch, Steven J.; Anderson, Ross

    The Chip Authentication Programme (CAP) has been introduced by banks in Europe to deal with the soaring losses due to online banking fraud. A handheld reader is used together with the customer’s debit card to generate one-time codes for both login and transaction authentication. The CAP protocol is not public, and was rolled out without any public scrutiny. We reverse engineered the UK variant of card readers and smart cards and here provide the first public description of the protocol. We found numerous weaknesses that are due to design errors such as reusing authentication tokens, overloading data semantics, and failing to ensure freshness of responses. The overall strategic error was excessive optimisation. There are also policy implications. The move from signature to PIN for authorising point-of-sale transactions shifted liability from banks to customers; CAP introduces the same problem for online banking. It may also expose customers to physical harm.

  2. CUZCO READER.

    Science.gov (United States)

    SOLA, DONALD F.

    WRITTEN TO ACCOMPANY THE SPOKEN CUZCO QUECHUA MATERIALS, THIS READER CONSISTS OF SHORT SELECTIONS ACTUALLY RECORDED IN THE FIELD AND REPRESENTING SEVERAL SUBDIALECTS SPOKEN IN RURAL SECTIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CUZCO, PERU. INCLUDED ARE DIALOGS, STORIES, SONGS, CULTURAL SELECTIONS, AND INTERVIEWS. THE FORMAT GIVES THE CUZCO QUECHUA DIALECT AND…

  3. The active reader: what is active?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Woerkum, van C.

    2012-01-01

    How writers can adapt to their readers is an important issue in effective communication strategies, and certainly crucial in the case of functional texts. Therefore, it is necessary to look at how readers are constructed as partners in a communication co-production. This article explores the concept

  4. Poor CD4 response despite viral suppression is associated with increased non-AIDS related mortality among HIV patients and their parents

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Helleberg, Marie; Kronborg, Gitte; Larsen, Carsten S

    2012-01-01

    association between poor CD4 response and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer (IRR 1.6 (95%CI 0.8-3.2) and 1.6 (95%CI 0.6-4.8)). CONCLUSIONS:: poor CD4 increase after HAART is associated with adverse prognosis even in absence of severe immunosuppression. CD4 response in HIV patients......INTRODUCTION:: poor CD4 response to antiretroviral treatment (HAART) is associated with increased mortality. We analyzed the impact of CD4 increase on non-AIDS related morbidity and on mortality in HIV patients and their parents. METHODS:: mortality rates were estimated among 1,758 virally...... is associated with mortality among their parents, thus poor CD4 response may be caused by genetic factors, which might also affect morbidity and mortality in the HIV negative population....

  5. When high-capacity readers slow down and low-capacity readers speed up: Working memory and locality effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruno eNicenboim

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German, while taking into account readers’ working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008 and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slow-down produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005. Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions.

  6. Dissociation predicts poor response to Dialectial Behavioral Therapy in female patients with Borderline Personality Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleindienst, Nikolaus; Limberger, Matthias F; Ebner-Priemer, Ulrich W; Keibel-Mauchnik, Jana; Dyer, Anne; Berger, Mathias; Schmahl, Christian; Bohus, Martin

    2011-08-01

    A substantial proportion of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients respond by a marked decrease of psychopathology when treated with Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). To further enhance the rate of DBT-response, it is useful to identify characteristics related to unsatisfactory response. As DBT relies on emotional learning, we explored whether dissociation-which is known to interfere with learning- predicts poor response to DBT. Fifty-seven Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients (DSM-IV) were prospectively observed during a three-month inpatient DBT program. Pre-post improvements in general psychopathology (SCL-90-R) were predicted from baseline scores of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) by regression models accounting for baseline psychopathology. High DES-scores were related to poor pre-post improvement (β = -0.017 ± 0.006, p = 0.008). The data yielded no evidence that some facets of dissociation are more important in predicting DBT-response than others. The results suggest that dissociation in borderline-patients should be closely monitored and targeted during DBT. At this stage, research on treatment of dissociation (e.g., specific skills training) is warranted.

  7. «Reader! Bruder!»: The Rhetoric of Narration and the Rhetoric of Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Federico Bertoni

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper deals with the relation of power established by narrative texts, exploring the many-sided field of articulation among the related subjects: the narrator as a subject of power, the text as a rhetorical device, and the reader as an ultimate guarantor of meaning. After a brief introduction on the “rebirth of rhetoric” in the second half of the Twentieth century, drawing attention to its links with Reader-response criticism, the paper  focuses on the “power of words” and analyzes three case-studies: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955, Money by Martin Amis (1984 and The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (2006. These novels depend for their rhetorical effect on the invention of a special narrating voice and on the relationship that it establishes with the reader – an odd mixture of antagonism and complicity, seduction and persuasion. The reader is thus invoked as a brother, but an ambiguous and untrustworthy one, as archetypally described in last verse of the opening poem from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal: «hypocrite lecteur – mon semblable, mon frère».

  8. Using Readers' Theater with Multicultural Literature

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weisenburger, Stephanie

    2009-01-01

    The author needed a way to engage her students in the reading process and found one extremely successful strategy: using Readers' Theater. Readers' Theater "dramatizes" literature through a classroom performance and provides visual and oral stimulus to students who are not used to using imagination to appreciate literary texts. It involves a…

  9. Process Synchronization with Readers and Writers Revisited

    OpenAIRE

    Kawash, Jalal

    2005-01-01

    The readers-writers problem is one of the very well known problems in concurrency theory. It was first introduced by Courtois et.al. in 1971 [1] and requires the synchronization of processes trying to read and write a shared resource. Several readers are allowed to access the resource simultaneously, but a writer must be given exclusive access to that resource. Courtois et.al. gave semaphore-based solutions to what they called the first and second readers-writers problems. Both of their solut...

  10. Added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis combined with digital mammography according to reader experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomassin-Naggara, Isabelle; Perrot, Nicolas; Dechoux, Sophie; Ribeiro, Carine; Chopier, Jocelyne; de Bazelaire, Cedric

    2015-02-01

    To retrospectively evaluate the added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography to characterize breast lesions. Our institutional ethics committees approved the study and granted a waiver of informed consent. One hundred fifty-five women (mean age, 51.3 years, range: 24-92 years) who systematically underwent mammography and breast tomosynthesis with subsequent percutaneous biopsy were analyzed. Four radiologists (two seniors, R1 and R2, and two juniors, R3 and R4 with 30, 10, 3 and 1 years of experience in breast imaging, respectively) independently reviewed exams in two steps: mammography alone and tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography. The lesions in the cohort included 39.3% (61/155) cancers, 2.5% (4/155) high-risk lesions and 58.1% (90/155) benign lesions. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to compare the results of the two readings. There was almost perfect agreement irrespective of reader experience for the reading of the mammography in adjunct with tomosynthesis, whereas agreement was poor between junior and senior readers for the reading of mammography alone. Area under the ROC (Az) values for the tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography were significantly better than Az values for mammography alone for all readers except the most experienced, for whom only a tendency was noted. The proportion of cancers undiagnosed by mammography alone that were well diagnosed by tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography was 6.5% (4/61), 13.1% (8/61), 27.8% (17/61) and 26.2% (16/61) for Readers 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The proportion of false positive cases induced by the addition of breast tomosynthesis to mammography was 2.1% (2/94), 2.1% (2/94), 9.5% (9/94) and 12.7% (12/94) for Readers 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Adding breast tomosynthesis to mammography improved sensitivity and negative predictive value for all readers except for the most experienced one, in whom only a tendency for improvement

  11. LESS SKILLED READERS HAVE LESS EFFICIENT SUPPRESSION MECHANISMS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gernsbacher, Morton Ann

    1993-09-01

    One approach to understanding the component processes and mechanisms underlying adult reading skill is to compare the performance of more skilled and less skilled readers on laboratory experiments. The results of some recent experiments employing this approach demonstrate that less skilled adult readers suppress less efficiently the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs. garden tool meanings of spade ), the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs. patience ), the typical-but-absent members of scenes (e.g., a tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures. Less skilled readers are not less efficient in activating contextually appropriate information; in fact, they activate contextually appropriate information more strongly than more skilled readers do. Therefore, one conclusion that can be drawn from these experiments is that less skilled adult readers suffer from less efficient suppression mechanisms.

  12. "It Makes Me Really Want To Read": Struggling Readers Discover Literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Primeaux, Joan

    2001-01-01

    Presents a project where the teacher, rather than teaching the students how to read using a remedial, isolated skills approach, concerned herself with getting them to read by "falling into the literature" and getting involved in the characters' lives. Describes a reader response approach that was designed to motivate the students to engage with…

  13. How to diagnose any type of TLD Reader?; Como diagnosticar cualquier tipo de TLD Reader?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rodriguez, Manuel Lopez; Garcia, Jose A. Tamayo; Gil, Alex Vergara; Lores, Stefan Gutierrez; Acosta, Andry Romero; Villanueva, Gilberto Alonso, E-mail: manolo@cphr.edu.cu, E-mail: jotag@cphr.edu.cu, E-mail: alex@cphr.edu.cu, E-mail: stefan@cphr.edu.cu, E-mail: andy@cphr.edu.cu, E-mail: gilberto@cphr.edu.cu [Centro de Proteccion e Higiene de las Radiaciones (CPHR), La Habana (Cuba)

    2013-07-01

    The acquisition of know how of practical experiences obtained in the repair and maintenance of readers TLD RADOS for five years of work and the request by the International Atomic Energy for signing new Research Contracts (CRP), made possible the CRP 13328, in which the specialist is committed in the course of a year, to deliver educational software in order to train personnel associated with the operation of the TLD readers RADOS. Due to the importance of continuous transfer of knowledge for new generations of technicians and specialists who join our laboratories, the idea came when the first interactive CD that grouped 19 videos, divided into three blocks was ready: learning, repair and maintenance; it was suggested to expand the training for any TLD reader. Thus a much more complete than the first version package emerged. 7 cases were subsequently published in an IAEA TECDOC, 1599 were included.

  14. Oosorption in response to poor food: complexity in the trade-off between reproduction and survival

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Patricia J; Attisano, Alfredo

    2011-01-01

    Plasticity in reproductive physiology is one avenue by which environmental signals, such as poor quality food, can be coordinated with adaptive responses. Insects have the ability to resorb oocytes that are not oviposited. Oosorption is proposed to be an adaptive mechanism to optimize fitness in hostile environments, recouping resources that might otherwise be lost, and reinvesting them into future reproductive potential. We tested the hypothesis that oosorption is an evolved mechanism by which females can reallocate resources from current reproductive effort to survival and future reproduction, when conditions for reproduction are poor, by examining the reproductive physiology and life-history outcome under poor quality food in populations of the milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) that have adapted to live on sunflower seed. Females fed a diet of pumpkin seeds, known to be a poor host food, had higher levels of ovarian apoptosis (oosorption), lower reproductive output, but no reduction in life span under poor nutrition, as predicted under the oosorption hypothesis. However, the schedule of reproduction was surprising given the “wait to reproduce” assumption of oosorption as early fecundity was unaffected. PMID:22393481

  15. The response of common building construction technologies to the urban poor and their environment

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Wekesa, BW

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available of the technologies are not responsive in the regional context. That is, the technologies cannot provide a good quality dwelling unit and at the same time address the socio-economic needs of the urban poor while minimising the negative impact on the environment....

  16. E-Books on the Mobile E-Reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chulyun Kim

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The market for e-books has been established during the past several years. Many e-book readers are commercially available, and millions of e-book titles are available for purchase or free download. E-paper technology has matured enough to be used as the screen for dedicated e-book readers which make reading possible with the familiar feel of reading printed books. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the status of the e-book, including the architecture and features of e-book readers, market adoption and e-book industry ecosystem.

  17. Responses to Struggling, K-2 Readers and Writers: Early Literacy Intervention in Three Urban Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mooney, Kathleen C.

    2009-01-01

    An abundance of research on early literacy intervention indicates that struggling, K-2 readers and writers can be effectively supported through the receipt of intervention services in school; however, research in the area has not yet addressed study of the unique, contextualized design and implementation of early literacy intervention in different…

  18. Text World Theory and real world readers: From literature to life in a Belfast prison.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Canning, Patricia

    2017-05-01

    Cognitive stylistics offers a range of frameworks for understanding (amongst other things) what producers of literary texts 'do' with language and how they 'do' it. Less prevalent, however, is an understanding of the ways in which these same frameworks offer insights into what readers 'do' (and how they 'do' it). Text World Theory (Werth, 1999; Gavins, 2007; Whiteley, 2011) has proved useful for understanding how and why readers construct mental representations engendered by the act of reading. However, research on readers' responses to literature has largely focused on an 'idealised' reader or an 'experimental' subject-reader often derived from within the academy and conducted using contrived or amended literary fiction. Moreover, the format of traditional book groups (participants read texts privately and discuss them at a later date) as well as online community forums such as Goodreads, means that such studies derive data from post-hoc, rather than real-time textual encounters and discussions. The current study is the first of its kind in analysing real-time reading contexts with real readers during a researcher-led literary project ('read.live.learn') in Northern Ireland's only female prison. In doing so, the study is unique in addressing experimental and post hoc bias. Using Text World Theory, the paper considers the personal and social impact of reader engagement in the talk of the participants. As such, it has three interrelated aims: to argue for the social and personal benefits of reading stylistically rich literature in real-time reading groups; to demonstrate the efficacy of stylistics for understanding how those benefits come about, and to demonstrate the inter-disciplinary value of stylistics, particularly its potential for traversing traditional research parameters.

  19. Reader-Response Theory: A Path Towards Wolfgang Iser (La teoría de la recepción: una ruta hacia Wolfgang Iser)

    OpenAIRE

    Giangiulio Lobo, Alejandra

    2015-01-01

    Se estudia la teoría de la recepción a partir de diferentes autores y críticos literarios, para caracterizar los distintos tipos de lectores, según cada aproximación y los procesos de lectura y creación de significado. El ensayo se centra en el enfoque fenomenológico de Wolfgang Iser sobre la recepción del lector, la generación de significado y los tipos de lectores.Reader-response theory is studied from the perspective of different authors and literary critics to characterize the different t...

  20. Reader Engagement in English and Persian Applied Linguistics Articles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ansarin, Ali Akbar; Tarlani-Aliabdi, Hassan

    2011-01-01

    There is an increasing interest in the way academic writers establish the presence of their readers over the past few years. Establishing the presence of readers or what Kroll (1984, p.181) calls imagining "a second voice" is accomplished when a writer refers "explicitly" to their readers using explicit linguistic resources…

  1. A new microcontroller-based RADFET dosimeter reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vasović, Nikola D.; Ristić, Goran S.

    2012-01-01

    A new reader for radiation dose measurements using RADFET (pMOSFET) dosemeters has been developed. The threshold voltage (V T ) of the pMOSFETs is measured using a “one-point” method that determines V T as the gate voltage for a given drain current. Using V T , the absorbed dose, which is directly proportional to the threshold voltage shift, is calculated. The reader is based on a low cost 8-bit PIC 18F4520 microcontroller (MCU), and works independently of a personal computer, uses a touch screen and stores the data in microcontroller memory. Good agreement in threshold voltage values, obtained using a high-quality source-measure unit and the reader, was obtained. In addition, the reader can be used for threshold voltage measurement with other types of MOSFETs, especially in long duration experiments, as well as for the real-time measurements in radiotherapy, either as an autonomous system or integrated in a larger monitoring configuration.

  2. Lesion type and reader experience affect the diagnostic accuracy of breast MRI: A multiple reader ROC study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Baltzer, Pascal A.T., E-mail: patbaltzer@gmail.com [Department of Biomedical Imaging and Imge-guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna (Austria); Kaiser, Werner Alois [Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Jena, Erlanger Allee 101, 07740 Jena (Germany); Dietzel, Matthias, E-mail: dietzelmatthias2@hotmail.com [Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054 Erlangen (Germany)

    2015-01-15

    Highlights: • The main findings of our study are, that reader experience and lesion type (i.e., mass versus non-mass enhancement) are independent predictors of the diagnostic accuracy of breast MRI. • Specifically, benign and malignant non-mass lesions cannot be differentiated with sufficient accuracy, especially if readers are not experienced. • We conclude that future research in breast MRI should focus on non-mass lesions, as these are the problem makers in modern breast MRI. - Abstract: Purpose: To evaluate the influence of lesion type (mass versus non-mass) and reader experience on the diagnostic performance of breast MRI (BMRI) in a non-screening setting. Materials and methods: Consecutive patients (mean age, 55 ± 12 years) with breast lesions that were verified by biopsy or surgery, and who had had BMRI as part of their diagnostic workup, were eligible for this retrospective single-center study. Cancers diagnosed by biopsy before BMRI were excluded to eliminate biological and interpretation bias due to biopsy or chemotherapy effects (n = 103). Six blinded readers (experience level, high (HE, n = 2); intermediate (IE, n = 2); and low (LE, n = 2)) evaluated all examinations and assigned independent MRI BI-RADS ratings. Lesion type (mass, non-mass, focal) was noted. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and logistic regression analysis was performed to compare diagnostic accuracies. Results: There were 259 histologically verified lesions (123 malignant, 136 benign) investigated. There were 169 mass (103 malignant, 66 benign) and 48 non-mass lesions (19 malignant, 29 benign). Another 42 lesions that met the inclusion criteria were biopsied due to conventional findings (i.e., microcalcifications, architectural distortions), but did not enhance on MRI (41 benign, one DCIS). ROC analysis revealed a total area under the curve (AUC) between 0.834 (LE) and 0.935 (HI). Logistic regression identified a significant effect of non-mass lesions (P < 0.0001) and

  3. The Monolingual Cataloging Monolith: A Barrier to Library Access for Readers of Spanish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jensen, Bruce

    2003-01-01

    Asserts that despite growing awareness of frontline public service concerns in accommodating Spanish speakers, little care is invested in the technical processing side of the library's responsibility to Spanish speakers. Examines the usefulness and accessibility of online public access catalogs for monolingual Spanish readers, focusing on records…

  4. Face-to-face with the reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana KAIGORODOVA

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Thank you for inviting me to this meeting. I understood that it is a meeting of the editorial board with readers. But I would like to note that there is still such a small layer between the editors and readers, which is called the printing house. So it is the typography that materially embodies the ideas, thoughts and innovations of the editorial staff and the authors.

  5. Readers Theatre plus Comprehension and Word Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Chase; Stokes, Faida; Rasinski, Timothy

    2017-01-01

    Readers Theatre has been used to introduce critical issues, promote fluency among English learners and non-English learners, teach vocabulary, and integrate content in the classroom. Previous studies of Readers Theatre application have demonstrated an increase in student reading fluency, motivation, and confidence. The focus of this systemic…

  6. Increasing Word-Reading Speed in Poor Readers: No Additional Benefits of Explicit Letter-Cluster Training

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marinus, Eva; de Jong, Peter; van der Leij, Aryan

    2012-01-01

    The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training…

  7. Our Readers Write ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    IAS Admin

    This concerns the article 'Ashoke Sen and S-duality'. The article omits an important fact: there is absolutely no experimental evidence for string theory. Without this information, readers may think they are reading about established facts, not speculation. A string theorist, Witten, was awarded a Fields Medal, which shows that ...

  8. Choosing the Adequate Level of Graded Readers--Preliminary Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prtljaga, Jelena; Palinkaševic, Radmila; Brkic, Jovana

    2015-01-01

    Graded readers have been used as second language teaching material since the end of the Second World War. They are an important source of simplified material which provides comprehensible input on all levels. It is of crucial importance for a successful usage of graded readers in the classroom and in studies which focus on graded readers, that an…

  9. Practicum Training for Teachers of Struggling Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morris, Darrell

    2011-01-01

    Teachers who work with struggling beginning readers need a supervised training experience that leads them to understand both how reading ability develops and how to adapt instruction to meet the needs of individual children. The practicum, in which a teacher works with one struggling reader under the supervision of an experienced and expert…

  10. Examining College Students’ Reading Behaviors and Needs for Ebook Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei-Jane Lin

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates college students’ reading behaviors and attitudes toward print and electronic carriers of books. With the prosperity and variety of ebook readers currently, it is important to understand the genuine needs of the users to better leverage the features and functions of the ebook readers. The methodology of survey research is conducted to explore 76 undergraduate students’ experiences, preferences and appraisals toward reading via the print books and ebook readers. Generally the college students possess positive attitudes toward and are willing to take advantage of the ebook and ebook reader services provided by libraries, but the current rate of use is low. The results suggested that student adoption of ebook readers are affected by their goals of reading. The college students prefer ebook readers significantly for leisure reading, and highly demand the functionality of multimedia presentations and file management. When reading academic contexts, the college students preferred hardcovers and online ebooks via the Web browser, and they value the functions of searching, marking and file management on ebook readers especially. [Article content in Chinese

  11. Skilled deaf readers have an enhanced perceptual span in reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bélanger, Nathalie N; Slattery, Timothy J; Mayberry, Rachel I; Rayner, Keith

    2012-07-01

    Recent evidence suggests that, compared with hearing people, deaf people have enhanced visual attention to simple stimuli viewed in the parafovea and periphery. Although a large part of reading involves processing the fixated words in foveal vision, readers also utilize information in parafoveal vision to preprocess upcoming words and decide where to look next. In the study reported here, we investigated whether auditory deprivation affects low-level visual processing during reading by comparing the perceptual span of deaf signers who were skilled and less-skilled readers with the perceptual span of skilled hearing readers. Compared with hearing readers, the two groups of deaf readers had a larger perceptual span than would be expected given their reading ability. These results provide the first evidence that deaf readers' enhanced attentional allocation to the parafovea is used during complex cognitive tasks, such as reading.

  12. Teaching the Total Language with Readers Theatre.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodman, Jess A., Jr.

    Reading, writing, speech assignments for special education classes, English as a second language and many other classroom projects can be taught through the involvement created by Readers Theatre. Readers Theatre is the presentation of dialogue-type material in play form. The actors hold the script as they move through it and a narrator's voice…

  13. Reader characteristics linked to detection of pulmonary nodules on radiographs: ROC vs. JAFROC analyses of performance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kohli, Akshay; Robinson, John W.; Ryan, John; McEntee, Mark F.; Brennan, Patrick C.

    2011-03-01

    The purpose of this study is to explore whether reader characteristics are linked to heightened levels of diagnostic performance in chest radiology using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and jackknife free response ROC (JAFROC) methodologies. A set of 40 postero-anterior chest radiographs was developed, of which 20 were abnormal containing one or more simulated nodules, of varying subtlety. Images were independently reviewed by 12 boardcertified radiologists including six chest specialists. The observer performance was measured in terms of ROC and JAFROC scores. For the ROC analysis, readers were asked to rate their degree of suspicion for the presence of nodules by using a confidence rating scale (1-6). JAFROC analysis required the readers to locate and rate as many suspicious areas as they wished using the same scale and resultant data were used to generate Az and FOM scores for ROC and JAFROC analyses respectively. Using Pearson methods, scores of performance were correlated with 7 reader characteristics recorded using a questionnaire. JAFROC analysis showed that improved reader performance was significantly (pchest specialty (pchest radiographs (pchest readings per year (pchest radiographs (pchest specialty, hours reading per week and number of radiographs read per year. Also, JAFROC is a more powerful predictor of performance as compared to ROC.

  14. Journal of Clipped Words in Reader's Digest Magazine

    OpenAIRE

    Simanjuntak, Lestari

    2012-01-01

    This study deals with Clipped Words in the “Laughter, the Best Medicine” of Reader's Digest. The objectives of the study are to find out the types of clipped words which are used in the “Laughter, the Best Medicine” of Reader's Digest, to find out sthe dominantly used in the whole story and to reason the dominant clipped word use in the text. The study use descriptive qualitative method. The data were collected from seventeen selected Reader's Digest which contains the clipped word by applie...

  15. Next Generation Model 8800 Automatic TLD Reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Velbeck, K.J.; Streetz, K.L.; Rotunda, J.E.

    1999-01-01

    BICRON NE has developed an advanced version of the Model 8800 Automatic TLD Reader. Improvements in the reader include a Windows NT TM -based operating system and a Pentium microprocessor for the host controller, a servo-controlled transport, a VGA display, mouse control, and modular assembly. This high capacity reader will automatically read fourteen hundred TLD Cards in one loading. Up to four elements in a card can be heated without mechanical contact, using hot nitrogen gas. Improvements in performance include an increased throughput rate and more precise card positioning. Operation is simplified through easy-to-read Windows-type screens. Glow curves are displayed graphically along with light intensity, temperature, and channel scaling. Maintenance and diagnostic aids are included for easier troubleshooting. A click of a mouse will command actions that are displayed in easy-to-understand English words. Available options include an internal 90 Sr irradiator, automatic TLD calibration, and two different extremity monitoring modes. Results from testing include reproducibility, reader stability, linearity, detection threshold, residue, primary power supply voltage and frequency, transient voltage, drop testing, and light leakage. (author)

  16. Microcomputer control of automated TL reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bjarland, B.

    1980-01-01

    An automatic TL reader has been developed for use within a TLD based personal monitoring service. A 6800 based microcomputer is used for system control, operator communication, calibration and checking of reader operation, and for output of data. The dosimeter identity code is printed in human readable characters on the dosimeter card, and is read by using an optical character recognition unit. The code may include individual sensitivity correction coefficients for the TL chips on the card. The chips are heated with hot nitrogen gas and the thermoluminescence is recorded by a photomultiplier tube circuit, the gain and offset of which are continuously monitored and, when necessary, adjusted, to maintain calibration. The reader may operate in any of seven modes, i.e. reading modes for three types of dosimeters, semiautomatic modes for production of the three types of dosimeters, and a monitor mode. (Auth.)

  17. "Spaces Invested with Content": Crossing the "Gaps" in Comics with Readers in Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Low, David

    2012-01-01

    In recent years, reading scholars have increasingly attended to children's responses to picturebook page breaks, reasoning that the inferences young readers make during the turning of the page are central to understanding how children construct continuous narratives in semiotically rich texts. In this paper I argue that comics (including comic…

  18. The Role of Critical Thinking in Reader Perceptions of Leadership in Comic Books

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krusemark, Renee

    2015-01-01

    This study qualitatively explored how readers use critical thinking to perceive leadership in "The Walking Dead" comic books. Sixty-nine participants gave responses regarding their thoughts about leadership in the comic via an online survey. A majority of the participants indicated a wide range of values for comics as a learning…

  19. Environmental dose measurement with microprocessor based portable TLD reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deme, S.; Apathy, I.; Feher, I.

    1996-01-01

    Application of TL method for environmental gamma-radiation dosimetry involves uncertainty caused by the dose collected during the transport from the point of annealing to the place of exposure and back to the place of evaluation. Should an accident occur read out is delayed due to the need to transport to a laboratory equipped with a TLD reader. A portable reader capable of reading out the TL dosemeter at the place of exposure ('in situ TLD reader') eliminates the above mentioned disadvantages. We have developed a microprocessor based portable TLD reader for monitoring environmental gamma-radiation doses and for on board reading out of doses on space stations. The first version of our portable, battery operated reader (named Pille - 'butterfly') was made at the beginning of the 80s. These devices used CaSO 4 bulb dosemeters and the evaluation technique was based on analogue timing circuits and analogue to digital conversion of the photomultiplier current with a read out precision of 1 μGy and a measuring range up to 10 Gy. The measured values were displayed and manually recorded. The version with an external power supply was used for space dosimetry as an onboard TLD reader

  20. Sexism Springs Eternal--in the Reader's Digest.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zimbardo, Philip G.; Meadow, Wendy

    This document reports on an empirical investigation of anti-women humor appearing in the Reader's Digest over three decades, revealing the operation of an unconscious sexist ideology. A systematic analysis was made of 1,069 jokes appearing in two featured columns of the Reader's Digest for the two-year periods 1947-48, 1957-58, and 1967-68.…

  1. The Interplay of Reader Goals, Working Memory, and Text Structure During Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bohn-Gettler, Catherine M.; Kendeou, Panayiota

    2014-01-01

    In the current study we examined the complex interactions of instructional context, text properties, and reader characteristics during comprehension. College students were tasked with the goal of reading for study versus entertainment (instructional context) while thinking-aloud about four different expository text structures (text properties). Working memory also was assessed (reader characteristics). Reading goals and working memory interacted to influence paraphrasing and non-coherence processes when thinking aloud. Reading goals, working memory, and text structure all interacted to influence text-based inferences. Text structure also influenced knowledge-based inferences. Post-reading recall was highest for those with the instructional goal of reading for study (compared to entertainment), as well as for problem-response and compare-contrast texts (compared to descriptive and chronological texts). Implications of the findings are discussed. PMID:25018581

  2. Assessing Learned Helplessness in Poor Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winograd, Peter; Niquette, Garland

    1988-01-01

    Feelings of helplessness can impact on learning to read. This research review illustrates problems in assessing learned helplessness, including instrumentation inadequacies, lack of comprehensive causal schemes, context specificity, etc. Observations of and discussions with the child are recommended in the assessment process. Guidelines for…

  3. Readers Theatre : Dramatising environment issues for oral skills development

    OpenAIRE

    Paatrick Ng Chin Leong

    2009-01-01

    Readers Theatre was introduced to a class of Japanese students studying intermediate-level English in an international university in Japan. The aim of the study is to investingate whether Readers Theatre enhances the oral skills of Japanese students as they negotiate an environmental issue in English. In my presentation, I will demonstrate how Readers Theatre is implemented in class and the comments by students will be analysed and discussed during the presentation.

  4. Visual consequences of electronic reader use: a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maducdoc, Marlon M; Haider, Asghar; Nalbandian, Angèle; Youm, Julie H; Morgan, Payam V; Crow, Robert W

    2017-04-01

    With the increasing prevalence of electronic readers (e-readers) for vocational and professional uses, it is important to discover if there are visual consequences in the use of these products. There are no studies in the literature quantifying the incidence or severity of eyestrain, nor are there clinical characteristics that may predispose to these symptoms with e-reader use. The primary objective of this pilot study was to assess the degree of eyestrain associated with e-reader use compared to traditional paper format. The secondary outcomes of this study were to assess the rate of eyestrain associated with e-reader use and identify any clinical characteristics that may be associated with the development of eyestrain. Forty-four students were randomly assigned to study (e-reader iPAD) and control (print) groups. Participant posture, luminosity of the room, and reading distance from reading device were measured during a 1-h session for both groups. At the end of the session, questionnaires were administered to determine symptoms. Significantly higher rates of eyestrain (p = 0.008) and irritation (p = 0.011) were found among the iPAD study group as compared to the print 'control' group. The study group was also 4.9 times more likely to report severe eyestrain (95 % CI [1.4, 16.9]). No clinical characteristics predisposing to eyestrain could be identified. These findings conclude that reading on e-readers may induce increased levels of irritation and eyestrain. Predisposing factors, etiology, and potential remedial interventions remain to be determined.

  5. Reading and Spelling Error Analysis of Native Arabic Dyslexic Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abu-rabia, Salim; Taha, Haitham

    2004-01-01

    This study was an investigation of reading and spelling errors of dyslexic Arabic readers ("n"=20) compared with two groups of normal readers: a young readers group, matched with the dyslexics by reading level ("n"=20) and an age-matched group ("n"=20). They were tested on reading and spelling of texts, isolated…

  6. Gifted Male Readers: Current Understandings and Suggestions for Future Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pagnani, Alexander R.

    2013-01-01

    Research literature concerning gifted male readers relies primarily on more extensive bodies of work regarding gifted males and male readers. Studied as a whole, the two halves portray a worrisome state of affairs for gifted male readers, who lag behind their female counterparts in the same patterns found across the ability spectrum. This literacy…

  7. Rereading Multicultural Readers: What Definition of Multicultural Are We Buying?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, Nancy

    A flood of new multicultural readers and textbooks are hitting the market for writing and literature courses at the college level. Yet there has been no systematic examination of how these readers are being used, the purposes and audiences for which they are written, or the critical reception they have received. Multicultural readers distinguish…

  8. Reader construction in interactive online journalism

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartley, Jannie Møller

    how online journalists are constructing their readers, seeking to explain how these views affect practices of journalism. Gans idea of the “constructed public” is re-visited, by analyzing the newsroom negotiations between one hand enabling the user participation and on the other hand their very...... be seen as journalistic positioning strategies and interactivity and mediated connectivity as both vital and challenging for the very field of journalism. This indicates that not only do the different kinds of interactivity seem to imply different kind of readers – they also seem to imply different ideals...

  9. Passive microfluidic array card and reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dugan, Lawrence Christopher [Modesto, CA; Coleman, Matthew A [Oakland, CA

    2011-08-09

    A microfluidic array card and reader system for analyzing a sample. The microfluidic array card includes a sample loading section for loading the sample onto the microfluidic array card, a multiplicity of array windows, and a transport section or sections for transporting the sample from the sample loading section to the array windows. The microfluidic array card reader includes a housing, a receiving section for receiving the microfluidic array card, a viewing section, and a light source that directs light to the array window of the microfluidic array card and to the viewing section.

  10. New IoT proximity service based heterogeneous RFID readers collision control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jose Ignacio Tamayo Segarra

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Purpose – Internet of Things’ (IoT’s first wave started with tracking services for better inventory management mainly using radio frequency identification (RFID technology. Later on, monitoring services became one of the major interests, including sensing technologies, and then more actuation for remote control-type of IoT applications such as smart homes, smart cities and Industry 4.0. In this paper, the authors focus on the RFID technology impairment. They propose to take advantage of the mature IoT technologies that offer native service discovery such as blutooth or LTE D2D ProSe or Wifi Direct. Using the automatic service discovery in the new framework will make heterogeneous readers aware of the presence of other readers and this will be used by the proposed distributed algorithm to better control the multiple RFID reader interference problem. The author clearly considers emerging Industry 4.0 use case, where RFID technology is of major interest for both identification and tracking. To enhance the RFID tag reading performance, collisions in the RFID frequency should be minimized with reader-to-reader coordination protocols. In this paper, the author proposes a simple distributed reader anti-collision protocol named DiSim that makes use of proximity services of IoT network and is compliant with the current RFID standards. The author evaluates the efficiency of the proposal via simulation. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the author proposes a simple distributed reader anti-collision protocol named DiSim that makes use of proximity services of IoT network and is compliant with the current RFID standards. The author evaluates the efficiency of the proposal via simulation to study its behavior in very dense and heterogeneous RFID environments. Specifically, the author explores the coexistence of powerful static readers and small mobile readers, comparing the proposal with a standard ETSI CSMA method. The proposal reduces

  11. Using Randomized Clinical Trials to Determine the Impact of Reading Intervention on Struggling Adolescent Readers: Reports of Research from Five Nationally Funded Striving Readers Grants

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loadman, William; Sprague, Kim; Hamilton, Jennifer; Coffey, Deb; Faddis, Bonnie

    2010-01-01

    In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education awarded eight Striving Readers grants to projects around the country. The goal of Striving Readers is to improve literacy skills and achievement for struggling readers in middle and high school and to increase the research base using randomized clinical research to address improvement in adolescent…

  12. A Comparative Review of Stratification Texts and Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peoples, Clayton D.

    2012-01-01

    Social stratification is a core substantive area within sociology. There are a number of textbooks and readers available on the market that deal with this central topic. In this article, I conduct a comparative review of (a) four stratification textbooks and (b) four stratification readers. (Contains 2 tables.)

  13. Development of optically stimulated luminescence reader systems in BARC

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kulkarni, M.S.

    2008-01-01

    BARC has very vast experience in the development of thermoluminescence (TL) reader systems both for routine personnel monitoring and research application. However, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) related instrumentation is a recent development in BARC. The increasing popularity of OSL technique in the radiation dosimetry applications in the recent past has driven investigation and developmental programme in the OSL measurement facilities at BARC. As the consequence of the efforts directed towards the indigenous development of OSL reader system, OSL readers with various readout modes like continuous wave (CW) OSL mode, linear intensity modulated OSL (LM-OSL), pulsed OSL (POSL) have been developed. In addition to these conventional modes of operation a novel non-linear OSL mode (NL-OSL) has also been developed for the OSL measurements. This paper reviews the details of the development of OSL reader system including experience with high intensity blue/green LED stimulation light source and detection system. Also discussed are recently developed versatile integrated TL/OSL reader systems for TL and OSL measurements. (author)

  14. Bytes, Books and Readers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rasmussen, Krista Stinne Greve

    2016-01-01

    In diesem Beitrag werden Ergebnisse aus der Dissertation der Autorin Bytes, Books, and Readers. A Historical Analysis of the Transition from Printed to Digital Scholarly Editions Focusing on ‘The Writings of Søren Kierkegaard’ (2015) vorgestellt. Dabei wird dem Wechselverhältnis zwischen der...

  15. WRITER'S STRATEGIES IN THE INTERCOURSE WITH THE READER IN BELLES-LETTRES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander S. Komarov

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to some strategies aimed at involving the reader into the writer's book by means of making the reader's attitude to its content personal or subjective. In the article it is stated that there are two components which are intrinsic to virtual intercourse between writer and reader. One of the components is the content of the writer's publication while the other is the reader's attitude towards the content suggested. The article shows that the reader's attitude encompasses two processes: the process of self-estrangement from the writer's content and the process of self-involvement into it. In the article, the author analyses these two processes in relation to the content of the book. In the article, the author singles out and gives descriptions of such dimensions of the book's content as its topical and emotional dimension, its depth, human nature dimension and interpersonal relations dimension as well as of strategies used by the writer in order to involve the reader into his writings. The author argues that a successful strategy is based on managing to touch the reader to the quick, i.e. his or her subjectivity, and the result of successfulness can be measured by the reader's readiness and willingness to sink into one of the dimensions suggested. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that signs of the successful strategy can be traced in the reader's return to the intercourse with the writer when he or she rereads the writer's books, repeats or makes references to words, situations or ideas suggested or described by the writer who has grasped the reader's attention in one or several content dimensions.

  16. RAC-Multi: Reader Anti-Collision Algorithm for Multichannel Mobile RFID Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kwangcheol Shin

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available At present, RFID is installed on mobile devices such as mobile phones or PDAs and provides a means to obtain information about objects equipped with an RFID tag over a multi-channeled telecommunication networks. To use mobile RFIDs, reader collision problems should be addressed given that readers are continuously moving. Moreover, in a multichannel environment for mobile RFIDs, interference between adjacent channels should be considered. This work first defines a new concept of a reader collision problem between adjacent channels and then suggests a novel reader anti-collision algorithm for RFID readers that use multiple channels. To avoid interference with adjacent channels, the suggested algorithm separates data channels into odd and even numbered channels and allocates odd-numbered channels first to readers. It also sets an unused channel between the control channel and data channels to ensure that control messages and the signal of the adjacent channel experience no interference. Experimental results show that suggested algorithm shows throughput improvements ranging from 29% to 46% for tag identifications compared to the GENTLE reader anti-collision algorithm for multichannel RFID networks.

  17. Geometric Distribution-Based Readers Scheduling Optimization Algorithm Using Artificial Immune System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Litian Duan

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available In the multiple-reader environment (MRE of radio frequency identification (RFID system, multiple readers are often scheduled to interrogate the randomized tags via operating at different time slots or frequency channels to decrease the signal interferences. Based on this, a Geometric Distribution-based Multiple-reader Scheduling Optimization Algorithm using Artificial Immune System (GD-MRSOA-AIS is proposed to fairly and optimally schedule the readers operating from the viewpoint of resource allocations. GD-MRSOA-AIS is composed of two parts, where a geometric distribution function combined with the fairness consideration is first introduced to generate the feasible scheduling schemes for reader operation. After that, artificial immune system (including immune clone, immune mutation and immune suppression quickly optimize these feasible ones as the optimal scheduling scheme to ensure that readers are fairly operating with larger effective interrogation range and lower interferences. Compared with the state-of-the-art algorithm, the simulation results indicate that GD-MRSOA-AIS could efficiently schedules the multiple readers operating with a fairer resource allocation scheme, performing in larger effective interrogation range.

  18. Accelerated Reader Program: What Do Teachers Really Think?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Amy Frances; Westberg, Karen; Hejny, Anne

    2017-01-01

    What do teachers really think about the Accelerated Reader program, a widely used supplemental, independent reading program in which their students read fiction and non-fiction books of their choice and take brief online comprehension quizzes about the books? The Accelerated Reader (AR) program was designed by Renaissance Learning Company to…

  19. Added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis combined with digital mammography according to reader experience

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thomassin-Naggara, Isabelle; Perrot, Nicolas; Dechoux, Sophie; Ribeiro, Carine; Chopier, Jocelyne; Bazelaire, Cedric de

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • Breast tomosynthesis improves diagnostic performance especially for radiologists with lower experience in mammography. • Adding only one-view digital breast tomosynthesis to mammography improves the cancer detection rate. • Breast tomosynthesis is mainly useful for helping radiologists to detect architectural distortion. - Abstract: Purpose: To retrospectively evaluate the added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography to characterize breast lesions. Materials and methods: Our institutional ethics committees approved the study and granted a waiver of informed consent. One hundred fifty-five women (mean age, 51.3 years, range: 24–92 years) who systematically underwent mammography and breast tomosynthesis with subsequent percutaneous biopsy were analyzed. Four radiologists (two seniors, R1 and R2, and two juniors, R3 and R4 with 30, 10, 3 and 1 years of experience in breast imaging, respectively) independently reviewed exams in two steps: mammography alone and tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography. The lesions in the cohort included 39.3% (61/155) cancers, 2.5% (4/155) high-risk lesions and 58.1% (90/155) benign lesions. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to compare the results of the two readings. Results: There was almost perfect agreement irrespective of reader experience for the reading of the mammography in adjunct with tomosynthesis, whereas agreement was poor between junior and senior readers for the reading of mammography alone. Area under the ROC (Az) values for the tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography were significantly better than Az values for mammography alone for all readers except the most experienced, for whom only a tendency was noted. The proportion of cancers undiagnosed by mammography alone that were well diagnosed by tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography was 6.5% (4/61), 13.1% (8/61), 27.8% (17/61) and 26.2% (16/61) for Readers 1, 2, 3 and 4

  20. Added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis combined with digital mammography according to reader experience

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thomassin-Naggara, Isabelle, E-mail: isabelle.thomassin@tnn.aphp.fr [Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, IUC, 75005 Paris (France); INSERM, UMR970, Equipe 2, Imagerie de l’angiogenèse, 75005 Paris (France); AP-HP, Hôpital Tenon, Department of Radiology, 4 rue de la Chine, 75020 Paris (France); Perrot, Nicolas [AP-HP, Hôpital Tenon, Department of Radiology, 4 rue de la Chine, 75020 Paris (France); Centre Pyramides, Paris (France); Dechoux, Sophie [Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, IUC, 75005 Paris (France); AP-HP, Hôpital Tenon, Department of Radiology, 4 rue de la Chine, 75020 Paris (France); Ribeiro, Carine [Centre Pyramides, Paris (France); Chopier, Jocelyne [AP-HP, Hôpital Tenon, Department of Radiology, 4 rue de la Chine, 75020 Paris (France); Bazelaire, Cedric de [APHP, Department of Radiology, Hôpital Saint Louis, 75010 Paris (France)

    2015-02-15

    Highlights: • Breast tomosynthesis improves diagnostic performance especially for radiologists with lower experience in mammography. • Adding only one-view digital breast tomosynthesis to mammography improves the cancer detection rate. • Breast tomosynthesis is mainly useful for helping radiologists to detect architectural distortion. - Abstract: Purpose: To retrospectively evaluate the added value of one-view breast tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography to characterize breast lesions. Materials and methods: Our institutional ethics committees approved the study and granted a waiver of informed consent. One hundred fifty-five women (mean age, 51.3 years, range: 24–92 years) who systematically underwent mammography and breast tomosynthesis with subsequent percutaneous biopsy were analyzed. Four radiologists (two seniors, R1 and R2, and two juniors, R3 and R4 with 30, 10, 3 and 1 years of experience in breast imaging, respectively) independently reviewed exams in two steps: mammography alone and tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography. The lesions in the cohort included 39.3% (61/155) cancers, 2.5% (4/155) high-risk lesions and 58.1% (90/155) benign lesions. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to compare the results of the two readings. Results: There was almost perfect agreement irrespective of reader experience for the reading of the mammography in adjunct with tomosynthesis, whereas agreement was poor between junior and senior readers for the reading of mammography alone. Area under the ROC (Az) values for the tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography were significantly better than Az values for mammography alone for all readers except the most experienced, for whom only a tendency was noted. The proportion of cancers undiagnosed by mammography alone that were well diagnosed by tomosynthesis in adjunct with mammography was 6.5% (4/61), 13.1% (8/61), 27.8% (17/61) and 26.2% (16/61) for Readers 1, 2, 3 and 4

  1. An Analysis of Modular Instruction of Newspaper Reading Skills to Poor Readers in Junior High School.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berryman, Charles

    Fifty instructional modules designed to improve newspaper reading skills were field tested in this study. During a 50-day period, modules were used by Wilkes County, Georgia teachers as they saw fit in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade classes primarily for 338 students with poor reading skills. In summary, the effectiveness of the instructional…

  2. Fast and slow readers of the Hebrew language show divergence in brain response ∼200 ms post stimulus: an ERP study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian Peter Korinth

    Full Text Available Higher N170 amplitudes to words and to faces were recently reported for faster readers of German. Since the shallow German orthography allows phonological recoding of single letters, the reported speed advantages might have their origin in especially well-developed visual processing skills of faster readers. In contrast to German, adult readers of Hebrew are forced to process letter chunks up to whole words. This dependence on more complex visual processing might have created ceiling effects for this skill. Therefore, the current study examined whether also in the deep Hebrew orthography visual processing skills as reflected by N170 amplitudes explain reading speed differences. Forty university students, native speakers of Hebrew without reading impairments, accomplished a lexical decision task (i.e., deciding whether a visually presented stimulus represents a real or a pseudo word and a face decision task (i.e., deciding whether a face was presented complete or with missing facial features while their electroencephalogram was recorded from 64 scalp positions. In both tasks stronger event related potentials (ERPs were observed for faster readers in time windows at about 200 ms. Unlike in previous studies, ERP waveforms in relevant time windows did not correspond to N170 scalp topographies. The results support the notion of visual processing ability as an orthography independent marker of reading proficiency, which advances our understanding about regular and impaired reading development.

  3. Organizing Instruction for Struggling Readers in Tutorial Settings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mokhtari, Kouider; Hutchison, Amy C.; Edwards, Patricia A.

    2010-01-01

    In this article, the authors suggest that many of the problems struggling readers encounter while reading stem from distinct yet fundamental sources of difficulty related to the types of text read (print or online), the task or activity readers engage in, and the sociocultural context of reading. The authors further argue that although these…

  4. Effects of Topic Familiarity and Training in Generative Learning Activities on Poor Readers' Comprehension of Comparison/Contrast Expository Text Structure: Transfer to Real-World Materials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weisberg, Renee; Balajthy, Ernest

    A study investigated transfer effects of training below average high school readers in the use of graphic organizers and summary writing on their recognition of compare/contrast text structure. Subjects, 32 high school students with below-expectancy standardized test scores, were placed in two groups: an experimental group (five males and 11…

  5. Local Failure in Parameningeal Rhabdomyosarcoma Correlates With Poor Response to Induction Chemotherapy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ladra, Matthew M. [Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (United States); Mandeville, Henry C. [The Royal Marsden Hospital, London (United Kingdom); Niemierko, Andrzej; Padera, Timothy P.; Friedmann, Alison M.; MacDonald, Shannon M.; Ebb, David; Chen, Yen-Lin; Tarbell, Nancy J. [Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (United States); Yock, Torunn I., E-mail: tyock@partners.org [Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (United States)

    2015-06-01

    Background: Local control remains a challenge in pediatric parameningeal rhabdomyosarcoma (PM-RMS), and survival after local failure (LF) is poor. Identifying patients with a high risk of LF is of great interest to clinicians. In this study, we examined whether tumor response to induction chemotherapy (CT) could predict LF in embryonal PM-RMS. Methods: We identified 24 patients with embryonal PM-RMS, age 2 to 18 years, with complete magnetic resonance imaging and gross residual disease after surgical resection. All patients received proton radiation therapy (RT), median dose 50.4 Gy{sub RBE} (50.4-55.8 Gy{sub RBE}). Tumor size was measured before initial CT and before RT. Results: With a median follow-up time of 4.1 years for survivors, LF was seen in 9 patients (37.5%). The median time from the initiation of CT to the start of RT was 4.8 weeks. Patients with LF had a similar initial (pre-CT) tumor volume compared with patients with local controlled (LC) (54 cm{sup 3} vs 43 cm{sup 3}, P=.9) but a greater median volume before RT (pre-RT) (40 cm{sup 3} vs 7 cm{sup 3}, P=.009) and a smaller median relative percent volume reduction (RPVR) in tumor size (0.4% vs 78%, P<.001). Older age (P=.05), larger pre-RT tumor volume (P=.03), and smaller RPVR (P=.003) were significantly associated with actuarial LF on univariate Cox analysis. Conclusions: Poor response to induction CT appears to be associated with an increased risk of LF in pediatric embryonal PM-RMS.

  6. Flexible electronics enters the e-reader market

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banks, Michael

    2010-02-01

    A company that was spun off from the physics department at the University of Cambridge in the UK 10 years ago released its first product last month. Plastic Logic, founded by Henning Sirringhaus and Richard Friend, launched an electronic reader that can display books, magazines and newspapers on a flexible, lightweight plastic display. The reader commercializes pioneering work first started over 20 years ago at the lab by the two physicists, who are based in the department's optoelectronics group.

  7. Overview of PADC nuclear track readers. Recent trends and solutions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hulber, E.

    2009-01-01

    The development of automated track readers dates back to the first routine dosimetry applications of solid state nuclear track detectors. Many research-laboratory track readers and a few commercial systems were introduced in the past 25 years. The traditional application area for high-throughput track readers is radon testing in buildings and fast neutron dosimetry. The latter application, in particular, has considerably increased the need for efficient polyallyldiglycol carbonate (PADC) track reader systems with high throughput. The paper provides an overview of recent trends in the development of high-throughput PADC track readers and it gives a glimpse into the practice of designing this category of devices. A general overview is provided of the technical aspects relating to the optics, the hardware and the track recognition approaches. Ultimate theoretical limits in the performance as well as promising new approaches are addressed. Requirements and practical solutions are illustrated with reference to a commercially available system.

  8. The struggling reader: Identifying and addressing reading problems successfully at an early stage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Le Cordeur, Michael

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available The standard of reading of learners in the intermediate phase is cause for considerable concern. In this article, the intermediate phase refers to grades 4, 5 and 6 (roughly ages 10 – 12. According to the 2008 Evaluation Assessment Tests for Reading, only 15% of learners in Grade 6 achieved the required literacy level. Clearly, reading achievement is a problem in South Africa. Although approximately 4% of any given population experience neurological reading problems, the focus of this article is on the significant number of learners in the intermediate phase who experience reading problems and the generic causes of reading problems for learners in general. The intent is to alert teachers and parents to the characteristics of a struggling reader so that the problem can be identified and addressed early. Firstly, ways in which learning problems are manifested are described. Secondly, a discussion of various types of reading problems, of which four, namely poor reading comprehension, inadequate reading fluency, a lack of vocabulary and a negative attitude towards reading, are discussed in depth. Strategies for struggling readers are presented and recommendations are made. The conclusion is that learners who experience reading problems can learn to read successfully when given the necessary support.

  9. Perceptions of the Concerned Reader: An Analysis of the Subscribers of E/The Environmental Magazine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labbe, Colleen P.; Fortner, Rosanne W.

    2001-01-01

    Describes a study aimed at determining if 'E/The Environmental Magazine' has met two goals: (1) its subscribers' need for environmental information and (2) its publishers' goal of inspiring environmentally responsible behavior. Results indicate that the level of the magazine's influence varied according to the reader's behavior category.…

  10. A general audiovisual temporal processing deficit in adult readers with dyslexia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Francisco, A.A.; Jesse, A.; Groen, M.A.; McQueen, J.M.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Because reading is an audiovisual process, reading impairment may reflect an audiovisual processing deficit. The aim of the present study was to test the existence and scope of such a deficit in adult readers with dyslexia. Method: We tested 39 typical readers and 51 adult readers with

  11. Neutral vs positive oral contrast in diagnosing acute appendicitis with contrast-enhanced CT: sensitivity, specificity, reader confidence and interpretation time

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naeger, D M; Chang, S D; Kolli, P; Shah, V; Huang, W; Thoeni, R F

    2011-01-01

    Objective The study compared the sensitivity, specificity, confidence and interpretation time of readers of differing experience in diagnosing acute appendicitis with contrast-enhanced CT using neutral vs positive oral contrast agents. Methods Contrast-enhanced CT for right lower quadrant or right flank pain was performed in 200 patients with neutral and 200 with positive oral contrast including 199 with proven acute appendicitis and 201 with other diagnoses. Test set disease prevalence was 50%. Two experienced gastrointestinal radiologists, one fellow and two first-year residents blindly assessed all studies for appendicitis (2000 readings) and assigned confidence scores (1=poor to 4=excellent). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated. Total interpretation time was recorded. Each reader's interpretation with the two agents was compared using standard statistical methods. Results Average reader sensitivity was found to be 96% (range 91–99%) with positive and 95% (89–98%) with neutral oral contrast; specificity was 96% (92–98%) and 94% (90–97%). For each reader, no statistically significant difference was found between the two agents (sensitivities p-values >0.6; specificities p-values>0.08), in the area under the ROC curve (range 0.95–0.99) or in average interpretation times. In cases without appendicitis, positive oral contrast demonstrated improved appendix identification (average 90% vs 78%) and higher confidence scores for three readers. Average interpretation times showed no statistically significant differences between the agents. Conclusion Neutral vs positive oral contrast does not affect the accuracy of contrast-enhanced CT for diagnosing acute appendicitis. Although positive oral contrast might help to identify normal appendices, we continue to use neutral oral contrast given its other potential benefits. PMID:20959365

  12. Resource-poor settings: response, recovery, and research: care of the critically ill and injured during pandemics and disasters: CHEST consensus statement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geiling, James; Burkle, Frederick M; West, T Eoin; Uyeki, Timothy M; Amundson, Dennis; Dominguez-Cherit, Guillermo; Gomersall, Charles D; Lim, Matthew L; Luyckx, Valerie; Sarani, Babak; Christian, Michael D; Devereaux, Asha V; Dichter, Jeffrey R; Kissoon, Niranjan

    2014-10-01

    Planning for mass critical care in resource-poor and constrained settings has been largely ignored, despite large, densely crowded populations who are prone to suffer disproportionately from natural disasters. As a result, disaster response has been suboptimal and in many instances hampered by lack of planning, education and training, information, and communication. The Resource-Poor Settings panel developed five key question domains; defining the term resource poor and using the traditional phases of the disaster cycle (mitigation/preparedness/response/recovery). Literature searches were conducted to identify evidence to answer the key questions in these areas. Given a lack of data on which to develop evidence-based recommendations, expert-opinion suggestions were developed, and consensus was achieved using a modified Delphi process. The five key questions were as follows: definition, capacity building and mitigation, what resources can we bring to bear to assist/surge, response, and reconstitution and recovery of host nation critical care capabilities. Addressing these led the panel to offer 33 suggestions. Because of the large number of suggestions, the results have been separated into two sections: part I, Infrastructure/Capacity in the accompanying article, and part II, Response/Recovery/Research in this article. A lack of rudimentary ICU resources and capacity to enhance services plagues resource-poor or constrained settings. Capacity building therefore entails preventative strategies and strengthening of primary health services. Assistance from other countries and organizations is often needed to mount a surge response. Moreover, the disengagement of these responding groups and host country recovery require active planning. Future improvements in all phases require active research activities.

  13. French Immersion Experience and Reading Skill Development in At-Risk Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kruk, Richard S.; Reynolds, Kristin A. A.

    2012-01-01

    We tracked the developmental influences of exposure to French on developing English phonological awareness, decoding and reading comprehension of English-speaking at-risk readers from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Teacher-nominated at-risk readers were matched with not-at-risk readers in French immersion and English language programs. Exposure to spoken…

  14. Addressing Learning Disabilities with UDL and Technology: Strategic Reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Tracey E.; Cohen, Nicole; Vue, Ge; Ganley, Patricia

    2015-01-01

    CAST created "Strategic Reader," a technology-based system blending Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) in a digital learning environment to improve reading comprehension instruction. This experimental study evaluates the effectiveness of Strategic Reader using two treatment conditions for measuring…

  15. Postdecisional counterfactual thinking by actors and readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Girotto, Vittorio; Ferrante, Donatella; Pighin, Stefania; Gonzalez, Michel

    2007-06-01

    How do individuals think counterfactually about the outcomes of their decisions? Most previous studies have investigated how readers think about fictional stories, rather than how actors think about events they have actually experienced. We assumed that differences in individuals' roles (actor vs. reader) can make different information available, which in turn can affect counterfactual thinking. Hence, we predicted an effect of role on postdecisional counterfactual thinking. Reporting the results of eight studies, we show that readers undo the negative outcome of a story by undoing the protagonist's choice to tackle a given problem, rather than the protagonist's unsuccessful attempt to solve it. But actors who make the same choice and experience the same negative outcome as the protagonist undo this outcome by altering features of the problem. We also show that this effect does not depend on motivational factors. These results contradict current accounts of counterfactual thinking and demonstrate the necessity of investigating the counterfactual thoughts of individuals in varied roles.

  16. Selecting literature for beginner readers in South Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hibbert, Liesel

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available This article explores complexities of choosing appropriate reading material which may provide maximum engagement for beginner readers in Southern Africa, with the aim of instilling a lifelong love of reading. The article presents a case in favour of literary criteria as base line for choices of reading material for beginner readers. Furthermore, the article outlines general characteristics of reading material for beginner readers, as well as specific criteria to be considered in the Southern African context, taking into account the linguistic diversity which exists in formal education and the vast literacy backlog in the region. Furthermore, it is argued that translated children’s stories should ideally be adapted rather than literally translated, in order to meet the requirements of what is universally regarded as good children’s literature for beginner readers. A culture of reading can only be instilled by adhering to the following criteria, i.e. ensuring affective engagement, maximum meaning-making potential, delight, the engagement of the imagination for the purposes of developing the creative mind, and strong identification with the material for the purposes of developing a sense of agency.

  17. Resolving Struggling Readers' Homework Difficulties: A Social Cognitive Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Margolis, Howard; Mccabe, Patrick

    2004-01-01

    Struggling readers often fail to complete homework or complete it in a slipshod, haphazard fashion. Often, this adversely affects grades, erodes motivation for academics, and causes conflict between readers, parents, and school personnel. To help teachers and educational consultants (e.g., reading specialists, school psychologists) help struggling…

  18. A General Audiovisual Temporal Processing Deficit in Adult Readers with Dyslexia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Francisco, Ana A.; Jesse, Alexandra; Groen, Margriet A.; McQueen, James M.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Because reading is an audiovisual process, reading impairment may reflect an audiovisual processing deficit. The aim of the present study was to test the existence and scope of such a deficit in adult readers with dyslexia. Method: We tested 39 typical readers and 51 adult readers with dyslexia on their sensitivity to the simultaneity of…

  19. Low Access Delay Anti-Collision Algorithm for Reader in RFID systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Galiotto, Carlo; Marchetti, Nicola; Prasad, Neeli R.

    2010-01-01

    Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology which is spreading more and more as a medium to identify, locate and track assets through the productive chain. As all the wireless communication devices sharing the same transmission channel, RFID readers and tags experience collisions whenever...... deployed over the same area. In this work, the RFID reader collision problem is studied and a centralized scheduling-based algorithm is proposed as possible candidate solution, especially for those scenarios involving static or low mobility readers. Taking into account the circuitry limitations of the tags......, which do not allow to use frequency or code division multiple access schemes in the RFID systems, this paper proposes an algorithm aiming to prevent the readers collisions, while keeping the access delay of the readers to the channel possibly low. The simulation results show that this algorithm performs...

  20. Growing Young Gifted Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Patricia F.

    2009-01-01

    There is great pressure on parents to teach children to read as early as possible. In reality, precocious (early advanced) readers seem to almost master the skill on their own, without the assistance of highly touted, commercially available programs. The 18-month-old toddler who names the letters on alphabet blocks; or the 26-month-old who can…

  1. Usability and Accessibility of eBay by Screen Reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buzzi, Maria Claudia; Buzzi, Marina; Leporini, Barbara; Akhter, Fahim

    The evolution of Information and Communication Technology and the rapid growth of the Internet have fuelled a great diffusion of eCommerce websites. Usually these sites have complex layouts crowded with active elements, and thus are difficult to navigate via screen reader. Interactive environments should be properly designed and delivered to everyone, including the blind, who usually use screen readers to interact with their computers. In this paper we investigate the interaction of blind users with eBay, a popular eCommerce website, and discuss how using the W3C Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) suite could improve the user experience when navigating via screen reader.

  2. Policy Reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1985-09-01

    This policy reader comprises: Correspondence; Memorandum of Understanding between the US Department of Transportation and the US Department of Energy for the Transportation of Radioactive Materials under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act; Internal Guidelines for Interactions with Communities and Local Governments; Statement by Ben C. Rusche before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, US House of Representatives, September 13, 1985; Speech presented by Ben C. Rusche before the ANS/CNS/AESJ/ENS Topical Meeting, Pasco, Washington, September 24, 1985 - ''Status of the United States' High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal Program''; and ''DOE Seeks Comments on Nuclear Transportation Planning,'' DOE News, September 30, 1985

  3. Teaching Early Readers to Self-Monitor and Self-Correct

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pratt, Sharon M.; Urbanowski, Melena

    2016-01-01

    Proficient readers self-monitor and self-correct to derive meaning from text. This article reviews research on how students learn to self-monitor and self-correct and describes a Reciprocal Teaching (RT) instructional routine that was successfully used with early readers to build their metacognitive processes. The RT routine included teacher…

  4. Soft Tissue Sarcoma Response to Two Cycles of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy: A Multireader Analysis of MRI Findings and Agreement with RECIST Criteria and Change in SUVmax.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Favinger, Jennifer L; Hippe, Daniel S; Davidson, Darin J; Elojeimy, Saeed; Roth, Eira S; Lindberg, Antoinette W; Ha, Alice S

    2018-04-01

    When soft tissue sarcomas are treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the number of cycles of chemotherapy is usually dependent on the tumor's initial response. Popular methods to assess tumor response include Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria, which rely solely on tumor size, and maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) reduction in positron emission tomography (PET), which requires an expensive and high radiation test. We hypothesized that contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may offer a good alternative by providing additional information beyond tumor size. Following IRB approval, a retrospective review identified patients with soft tissue sarcomas who underwent both PET and MRI before and after two cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Five readers independently examined the MRI exams for: changes in size, T2 or T1 signal, necrosis and degree of enhancement. Readers then made a subjective binary assessment of tumor response to therapy. Each reader repeated the anonymized randomized reading at least 2 weeks apart. 18 F-FDG PET exams were interpreted by a nuclear medicine specialist. The maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) for pre and post-chemotherapy exams were compared. Intra- and inter-reader agreement was assessed using Cohen's kappa and Light's kappa, respectively. . Twenty cases were selected for this multireader study, of which 9 (45%) were responders and 11 were nonresponders by SUVmax. Using all MRI criteria, 43% were classified as responders based on MRI and 1.5% were classified as responders by RECIST criteria. Using PET as the reference, the sensitivity and the specificity of the MRI diagnosis for response using all findings were 50% and 63%, respectively. There was fair to moderate intrareader (kappa = 0.37) and inter-reader (kappa = 0.48) agreement for the MRI diagnosis of response. None of the individual MRI signal characteristics were significantly different between the PET responders and

  5. Using Twitter to Teach Reader-Oriented Biblical Interpretation: "Tweading" the Gospel of Mark

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williamson, Robert, Jr.

    2013-01-01

    Twitter offers an engaging way to introduce students to reader-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The exercise described here introduces students to the idea that the reader has a role in the production of a text's meaning, which thus varies from reader to reader. Twitter enables us to capture the real-time thoughts of a variety of…

  6. Chinese Deaf Readers Have Early Access to Parafoveal Semantics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Ming; Pan, Jinger; Bélanger, Nathalie N.; Shu, Hua

    2015-01-01

    In the present study, we manipulated different types of information available in the parafovea during the reading of Chinese sentences and examined how deaf readers make use of the parafoveal information. Results clearly indicate that although the reading-level matched hearing readers make greater use of orthographic information in the parafovea,…

  7. Eye Movements Reveal Readers' Lexical Quality and Reading Experience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Jessica Nelson; Perfetti, Charles A.

    2016-01-01

    Two experiments demonstrate that individual differences among normal adult readers, including lexical quality, are expressed in silent reading at the word level. In the first of two studies we identified major dimensions of variability among college readers and among words using factor analysis. We then examined the effects of these dimensions of…

  8. Finding versus Fixing: Self-Monitoring for Readers Who Struggle

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Nancy L.; Kaye, Elizabeth L.

    2017-01-01

    This article explains how teachers can understand, notice, and supportively respond to readers who struggle with self-monitoring during text reading. The unique strategic processing demands for readers who struggle support the argument that teaching children to find and notice errors is different than fixing a word, or getting it right. Three…

  9. MRI interrReader and intra-reader reliabilities for assessing injury morphology and posterior ligamentous complex integrity of the spine according to the thoracolumbar injury classification system and severity score

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Guen Young; Lee, Joon Woo; Choi, Seung Woo; Lim, Hyun Jin; Sun, Hye Young; Kang, Yu Suhn; Kang, Heung Sik; Chai, Jee Won; Kim, Su Jin

    2015-01-01

    To evaluate spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) inter-reader and intra-reader reliabilities using the thoracolumbar injury classification system and severity score (TLICS) and to analyze the effects of reader experience on reliability and the possible reasons for discordant interpretations. Six radiologists (two senior, two junior radiologists, and two residents) independently scored 100 MRI examinations of thoracolumbar spine injuries to assess injury morphology and posterior ligamentous complex (PLC) integrity according to the TLICS. Inter-reader and intra-reader agreements were determined and analyzed according to the number of years of radiologist experience. Inter-reader agreement between the six readers was moderate (k = 0.538 for the first and 0.537 for the second review) for injury morphology and fair to moderate (k = 0.440 for the first and 0.389 for the second review) for PLC integrity. No significant difference in inter-reader agreement was observed according to the number of years of radiologist experience. Intra-reader agreements showed a wide range (k = 0.538-0.822 for injury morphology and 0.423-0.616 for PLC integrity). Agreement was achieved in 44 for the first and 45 for the second review about injury morphology, as well as in 41 for the first and 38 for the second review of PLC integrity. A positive correlation was detected between injury morphology score and PLC integrity. The reliability of MRI for assessing thoracolumbar spinal injuries according to the TLICS was moderate for injury morphology and fair to moderate for PLC integrity, which may not be influenced by radiologist' experience

  10. Crohn's Disease Evaluated with Magnetic Resonance Enteroclysis: Diagnostic Performance of Experienced and Inexperienced Readers before and after Training

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Negaard, A.; Mulahasanovic, A.; Reisaeter, L.A.; Aasekjaer, K.; Sandvik, L.; Klow, N.E.

    2008-01-01

    Background: Magnetic resonance enteroclysis (MRE) is suggested to become the preferred radiological method in small-bowel Crohn's disease (CD). However, the performance of inexperienced readers may influence the diagnostic value of the method and has not been previously investigated. Purpose: To compare readings of MRE in small-bowel CD performed by experienced and inexperienced readers before and after training.Material and Methods: One experienced radiologist (observer 1) and two trainees (observers 2 and 3) reviewed 60 MRE examinations. A second reading was performed after training. Bowel wall thickness (BWT), ulcers (BWU), stenosis (BWS), fistulas (FIS), and abscesses (ABS) were evaluated. A reference standard based on clinical records was established. Results: BWT in the terminal ileum was evaluated with high diagnostic performance (sensitivity: observer 1, 83%; observer 2, 72%; observer 3, 78%). Only BWU was diagnosed with a higher sensitivity by observer 1 (78% vs. 33% and 39%, respectively; P=0.02). False-positive findings for BWT in the jejunum (observer 2: 7; observer 3: 4) and fistulas and abscesses (observer 2: 11/5; observer 3: 5/4) were made by the trainees. Interobserver agreement in the jejunum was poor (observer 1/observer 2: κ=0.23; observer 1/observer 3: κ=-0.03) and in the ileum good (observer 1/observer 2: κ=0.78; observer 1/observer 3: κ=0.73). After training, evaluation of BWU (observer 2: 56%, P=0.22; observer 3: 44%, P=0.03), BWT (observer 2: 2; observer 3: 2), and interobserver agreement in the jejunum improved (observer 1/observer 2: κ=0.66; observer 1/observer 3: κ=0.66). However, the number of diagnosed fistulas and abscesses remained high. Conclusion: Before training, most findings of Crohn's disease in the terminal ileum were evaluated with high diagnostic performance by all readers. However, the inexperienced readers evaluated BWU with a low sensitivity and overestimated the number of FIS, number of ABS, and increased BWT in

  11. Computer incident response and forensics team management conducting a successful incident response

    CERN Document Server

    Johnson, Leighton

    2013-01-01

    Computer Incident Response and Forensics Team Management provides security professionals with a complete handbook of computer incident response from the perspective of forensics team management. This unique approach teaches readers the concepts and principles they need to conduct a successful incident response investigation, ensuring that proven policies and procedures are established and followed by all team members. Leighton R. Johnson III describes the processes within an incident response event and shows the crucial importance of skillful forensics team management, including when and where the transition to forensics investigation should occur during an incident response event. The book also provides discussions of key incident response components. Provides readers with a complete handbook on computer incident response from the perspective of forensics team management Identify the key steps to completing a successful computer incident response investigation Defines the qualities necessary to become a succ...

  12. LESS SKILLED READERS HAVE LESS EFFICIENT SUPPRESSION MECHANISMS

    OpenAIRE

    Gernsbacher, Morton Ann

    1993-01-01

    One approach to understanding the component processes and mechanisms underlying adult reading skill is to compare the performance of more skilled and less skilled readers on laboratory experiments. The results of some recent experiments employing this approach demonstrate that less skilled adult readers suppress less efficiently the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs. garden tool meanings of spade), the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs. patien...

  13. Computer Games versus Maps before Reading Stories: Priming Readers' Spatial Situation Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Glenn Gordon; Majchrzak, Dan; Hayes, Shelley; Drobisz, Jack

    2011-01-01

    The current study investigated how computer games and maps compare as preparation for readers to comprehend and retain spatial relations in text narratives. Readers create situation models of five dimensions: spatial, temporal, causal, goal, and protagonist (Zwaan, Langston, & Graesser 1995). Of these five, readers mentally model the spatial…

  14. The Usefulness Metrics of The Most Popular eReader Used by Higher Education Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dwi Puspita Sari

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available In the digital technology era, mobile devices have an important rule to deploy a copy of data and information through the network. An electronic reader (eReader allows readers to read written materials in an electronic manner that is available in many models. The objective of this study is to evaluate the usage of eReader by higher education students. We firstly identified the most frequently used eReader by surveying higher education students. The survey results showed that Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, and Samsung Tablet are the most popular eReader devices used by higher education students. We presented these results, and then we analyzed the surveyed results in detail in order to develop an evaluation metric of the eReader in a mobile platform that clearly allows the selection of the most suitable eReader for higher education students. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a set of criteria that can be used by students in the selection of an eReader that matches their specific needs and requirements.

  15. AUSES AND GRATIFICTIONS RESEARCH ON READING MOTIVATIONSE AND GRATIFICATIONS OFNEWSPAPER READERS

    OpenAIRE

    Fatih Bayram

    2008-01-01

    Giving information is one of the main function of mass communication tools. Newspaper readers are using newspaper for different motivations. Gaining information, entertainment, leisure time activities, social integration is some motivations of media. Uses and gratifications theory asserts that reader is active part of communication process and reading habits figure on social and psychological needs. Items from readers’gratifications are categorized by using factor analysis from questionnair...

  16. Are You Ready for E-Readers in Your Library?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gustafson, Chris

    2012-01-01

    This article discusses some things to consider when thinking about adding e-readers to one's collection. These include: (1) What is the purpose?; (2) Which device?; (3) How will one keep track of his or her e-readers and their contents?; (4) What are some potential pitfalls?; (5) Is there a positive impact on student learning?; and (6) Are…

  17. Cultural Journalism Publications for Reluctant Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hatcher, Barbara

    1980-01-01

    Provides a list of cultural journalism publications (based on oral history interviews) written, edited, and produced by students around the country that provide good easy reading for older reluctant readers. (MKM)

  18. How to diagnose any type of TLD Reader?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rodriguez, Manuel Lopez; Garcia, Jose A. Tamayo; Gil, Alex Vergara; Lores, Stefan Gutierrez; Acosta, Andry Romero; Villanueva, Gilberto Alonso

    2013-01-01

    The acquisition of know how of practical experiences obtained in the repair and maintenance of readers TLD RADOS for five years of work and the request by the International Atomic Energy for signing new Research Contracts (CRP), made possible the CRP 13328, in which the specialist is committed in the course of a year, to deliver educational software in order to train personnel associated with the operation of the TLD readers RADOS. Due to the importance of continuous transfer of knowledge for new generations of technicians and specialists who join our laboratories, the idea came when the first interactive CD that grouped 19 videos, divided into three blocks was ready: learning, repair and maintenance; it was suggested to expand the training for any TLD reader. Thus a much more complete than the first version package emerged. 7 cases were subsequently published in an IAEA TECDOC, 1599 were included

  19. Thomas Hardy and His Readers: Contradictions of the Rebellious Serial Writer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adelina Sánchez Espinosa

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This contribution explores the relationship between Thomas Hardy and his contemporary readers from The Poor Man and the Lady, his first, unpublished, novel, to The Well- Beloved, his last one. It discovers a writer split into two, with Hardy, the artist, striving to cohabitate with Hardy-the serial writer for the three decades his career as a novelist lasted. In order to fully appreciate Hardy's novels as they have reached us nowadays, after the 1912 Wessex edition, we should focus on the contradictions between their initial manuscripts, their edited versions for the family magazines and their final reconstructions into volume forms. Although Hardy certainly wanted quick success with the Victorian masses he never let go of his "higher aspirations" to be received differently by a more select readership, even if this alternative reading had to be done between the lines at a later stage.

  20. The value of 18F-FDG PET before and after induction chemotherapy for the early prediction of a poor pathologic response to subsequent preoperative chemoradiotherapy in oesophageal adenocarcinoma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rossum, Peter S.N. van; Fried, David V.; Zhang, Lifei; Court, Laurence E.; Hofstetter, Wayne L.; Ho, Linus; Meijer, Gert J.; Carter, Brett W.; Lin, Steven H.

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of our study was to determine the value of 18 F-FDG PET before and after induction chemotherapy in patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma for the early prediction of a poor pathologic response to subsequent preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT). In 70 consecutive patients receiving a three-step treatment strategy of induction chemotherapy and preoperative chemoradiotherapy for oesophageal adenocarcinoma, 18 F-FDG PET scans were performed before and after induction chemotherapy (before preoperative CRT). SUV max , SUV mean , metabolic tumour volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were determined at these two time points. The predictive potential of (the change in) these parameters for a poor pathologic response, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) was assessed. A poor pathologic response after induction chemotherapy and preoperative CRT was found in 27 patients (39 %). Patients with a poor pathologic response experienced less of a reduction in TLG after induction chemotherapy (p < 0.01). The change in TLG was predictive for a poor pathologic response at a threshold of -26 % (sensitivity 67 %, specificity 84 %, accuracy 77 %, PPV 72 %, NPV 80 %), yielding an area-under-the-curve of 0.74 in ROC analysis. Also, patients with a decrease in TLG lower than 26 % had a significantly worse PFS (p = 0.02), but not OS (p = 0.18). 18 F-FDG PET appears useful to predict a poor pathologic response as well as PFS early after induction chemotherapy in patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma undergoing a three-step treatment strategy. As such, the early 18 F-FDG PET response after induction chemotherapy could aid in individualizing treatment by modification or withdrawal of subsequent preoperative CRT in poor responders. (orig.)

  1. Peace Pilgrim: A Readers Theatre Approach to Peace Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curran, Joanne M.

    Readers theater is a dramatic art that directs attention to the words of a text. During a performance, a reader (rather than an actor) presents and interprets the work within a narrative context intended by the author. In this project, the text, a collection of the words and writings of a woman known as the Peace Pilgrim, tells the story of her…

  2. Effect of computer-aided detection as a second reader in multidetector-row CT colonography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mang, Thomas; Peloschek, Philipp; Plank, Christina; Maier, Andrea; Weber, Michael; Herold, Christian; Schima, Wolfgang; Graser, Anno; Bogoni, Luca

    2007-01-01

    Our purpose was to assess the effect of computer-aided detection (CAD) on lesion detection as a second reader in computed tomographic colonography, and to compare the influence of CAD on the performance of readers with different levels of expertise. Fifty-two CT colonography patient data-sets (37 patients: 55 endoscopically confirmed polyps ≥0.5 cm, seven cancers; 15 patients: no abnormalities) were retrospectively reviewed by four radiologists (two expert, two nonexpert). After primary data evaluation, a second reading augmented with findings of CAD (polyp-enhanced view, Siemens) was performed. Sensitivities and reading time were calculated for each reader without CAD and supported by CAD findings. The sensitivity of expert readers was 91% each, and of nonexpert readers, 76% and 75%, respectively, for polyp detection. CAD increased the sensitivity of expert readers to 96% (P = 0.25) and 93% (P = 1), and that of nonexpert readers to 91% (P = 0.008) and 95% (P = 0.001), respectively. All four readers diagnosed 100% of cancers, but CAD alone only 43%. CAD increased reading time by 2.1 min (mean). CAD as a second reader significantly improves sensitivity for polyp detection in a high disease prevalence population for nonexpert readers. CAD causes a modest increase in reading time. CAD is of limited value in the detection of cancer. (orig.)

  3. Power Efficient Gurumukhi Unicode Reader Design and Implementation on FPGA

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kaur, Amanpreet; Singh, Sunny; Pandey, Bishwajeet

    2017-01-01

    Gurumukhi is found to be the most widely used language of Pakistan, and it is ranked 3rd in Canada, 7th in India and almost 4th most spoken language in U.K. This Unicode Reader is cost effective solution for learning as well as understanding the Punjabi language by the people across the globe .This...... reader helps the user to understand, whether written text is consonants, vowels or digits of Gurumukhi scripts. This paper can also be the solution to the various problems occurred in research of Punjabi natural language processing. Hardware is designed for Gurumukhi Unicode Reader (GUR...

  4. Readers' Knowledge of Popular Genre

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixon, Peter; Bortolussi, Marisa

    2009-01-01

    This research examined readers' knowledge of popular genres. Participants wrote short essays on fantasy, science fiction, or romance. The similarities among the essays were measured using latent semantic analysis (LSA) and were then analyzed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. The clusters and scales were interpreted by searching…

  5. Cognitive Processes in Discourse Comprehension: Passive Processes, Reader-Initiated Processes, and Evolving Mental Representations

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Broek, Paul; Helder, Anne

    2017-01-01

    As readers move through a text, they engage in various types of processes that, if all goes well, result in a mental representation that captures their interpretation of the text. With each new text segment the reader engages in passive and, at times, reader-initiated processes. These processes are strongly influenced by the readers'…

  6. Cross-language modulation of visual attention span: An Arabic-French-Spanish comparison in adult skilled readers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faris Haroon Rasheed Awadh

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available In delineating the amount of orthographic information that can be processed in parallel during a single fixation, the visual attention (VA span acts as a key component of the reading system. Previous studies focused on the contribution of VA span to normal and pathological reading in monolingual and bilingual children from different European languages, without direct cross-language comparison. In the current paper, we explored modulations of VA span abilities in three languages --French, Spanish and Arabic-- that differ in transparency, reading direction and writing systems. The participants were adult skilled readers who were native speakers of French, Spanish or Arabic. They were administered tasks of global and partial letter report, single letter identification and text reading. Their VA span abilities were assessed using tasks that require the processing of briefly presented 5 consonant strings (e.g., R S H F T. All five consonants had to be reported in global report but a single cued letter in partial report. Results showed that the VA span was reduced in Arabic readers as compared to French or Spanish readers who otherwise show a similar high performance in the two report tasks. The analysis of VA span response patterns in global report showed a left-right asymmetry in all three languages. A leftward letter advantage was found in French and Spanish but a rightward advantage in Arabic. The response patterns were symmetric in partial report, regardless of the language. Last, a significant relationship was found between visual attention span abilities and reading speed but only for French. The overall findings suggest that the size of VA span, the shape of VA span response patterns and the VA Span-reading relationship are modulated by language-specific features.

  7. Cross-Language Modulation of Visual Attention Span: An Arabic-French-Spanish Comparison in Skilled Adult Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Awadh, Faris H R; Phénix, Thierry; Antzaka, Alexia; Lallier, Marie; Carreiras, Manuel; Valdois, Sylviane

    2016-01-01

    In delineating the amount of orthographic information that can be processed in parallel during a single fixation, the visual attention (VA) span acts as a key component of the reading system. Previous studies focused on the contribution of VA span to normal and pathological reading in monolingual and bilingual children from different European languages, without direct cross-language comparison. In the current paper, we explored modulations of VA span abilities in three languages -French, Spanish, and Arabic- that differ in transparency, reading direction and writing systems. The participants were skilled adult readers who were native speakers of French, Spanish or Arabic. They were administered tasks of global and partial letter report, single letter identification and text reading. Their VA span abilities were assessed using tasks that require the processing of briefly presented five consonant strings (e.g., R S H F T). All five consonants had to be reported in global report but a single cued letter in partial report. Results showed that VA span was reduced in Arabic readers as compared to French or Spanish readers who otherwise show a similar high performance in the two report tasks. The analysis of VA span response patterns in global report showed a left-right asymmetry in all three languages. A leftward letter advantage was found in French and Spanish but a rightward advantage in Arabic. The response patterns were symmetric in partial report, regardless of the language. Last, a significant relationship was found between VA span abilities and reading speed but only for French. The overall findings suggest that the size of VA span, the shape of VA span response patterns and the VA Span-reading relationship are modulated by language-specific features.

  8. Migrant readers and wordless books: visual narratives’ inclusive experience

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giorgia Grilli

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The research here told is the Italian contribution to the international project Visual Journeys: Understanding Immigrant Children’s Response to Visual Images in Picturebooks, Conducted in Scotland, Arizona, Spain and Australia as an Observation of the Response of Migrant ten-eleven years old Readers to the Wordless Book The Arrival by Shaun Tan (2006. Reflections are made about co-construction and negotiation of meaning in a shared reading; wordless book is experienced as occasion of empowerment for those involved, giving value to individual stories and showing a positive outcome in school life, as for self-esteem and reciprocal relationships; it promotes discussion and increases interest in books, it shows an important effect on learning a foreign language and creating a group. The perspective of the whole experience is an interdisciplinary approach. The reading of wordless or silent book can be a true practice of right and belonging to the international community, and therefore a precious means for an education to global citizenship.

  9. Triage for Struggling Adolescent Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diamond, Linda J.

    2006-01-01

    To improve achievement for struggling readers in particular, secondary schools must design programs and curricula to address students' lack of background knowledge, delayed English language development, and limited success in reading. In this article, the author presents a systems approach that offers intensive care for the most at-risk students…

  10. The automated Risoe TL dating reader system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boetter-Jensen, L.

    1988-01-01

    The features of the new modified Riso TL dating reader system are described. A vacuum chamber that accommodates the entire 24-position sample changer unit has been designed. The vacuum and N 2 -gas functions are software-controlled. A newly designed heater system is capable of repeated heating cycles to 700 0 C. The sample changer system accommodates fine-grain discs as well as planchettes for coarse grains. Two software-controlled beta irradiators can be attached to the reader, e.g. for predose measurement. The software allows a user without programming expertise to create any desired measuring sequence, and to store and recall data and glow curves for making analyses. (author)

  11. How the Relationship between Text and Headings Influences Readers' Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ritchey, Kristin; Schuster, Jonathan; Allen, Jaryn

    2008-01-01

    Two questions regarding signals' influence on memory were examined. First, the relationship between headings and text was manipulated to determine whether headings serve as visual cues, directing readers to recall all subsequent information, or content-specific cues, directing readers to recall only to certain information. Second, distance between…

  12. Breaking the Silence: Toward Improving LGBTQ Representation in Composition Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudson, John

    2014-01-01

    Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer (LGBTQ) representation in composition readers remains limited and is frequently nonexistent. In addition, the LGBTQ-related materials that do find their way into composition readers are often problematic. In this essay I explain why WPAs and composition teachers should be concerned about LGBTQ representation…

  13. Infographics for Educational Purposes: Their Structure, Properties and Reader Approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yildirim, Serkan

    2016-01-01

    Infographics are one of the new educational environments used to provide information to their readers in a visual way. Infographics are designed to provide information to their readers using various visuals such as texts, pictures, drawings, diagrams, graphs, etc. The use of infographics becomes increasingly widespread both in advertising…

  14. Accelerated Reader[R]: What Are the Lasting Effects on the Reading Habits of Middle School Students Exposed to Accelerated Reader[R] in Elementary Grades?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pavonetti, Linda M.; Brimmer, Kathryn M.; Cipielewski, James F.

    Promoted by effective advertising and disseminated by word of mouth, many schools have adopted Accelerated Reader[R] as a supplementary reading program or as their primary reading program. Accelerated Reader[R]'s philosophy is that by using the system, students are motivated to read more and better books. A study investigated whether seventh grade…

  15. Journeys toward Textual Relevance: Male Readers of Color and the Significance of Malcolm X and Harry Potter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sciurba, Katie

    2017-01-01

    This article combines interview data from a group of boys of color at an urban single-sex school and content analysis of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to demonstrate the complexities of readers' responses to literature. Textual relevance, or the ability to construct personal…

  16. Reader's Response: What Is a SoTL?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Griebenow, Kai

    2010-01-01

    In this response to, "SoTL Commons Conference: A Spirit of Inquiry" (Margaret Davis, Kera Watkins, and Deborah Allen, "International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,"v3 n2 Jul 2009), Griebenow adds his personal impressions as an "SOTL newbie." He states that many scientists have an idea of…

  17. Elevated ratio of MMP2/MMP9 activity is associated with poor response to chemotherapy in osteosarcoma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kunz, Pierre; Sähr, Heiner; Lehner, Burkhard; Fischer, Christian; Seebach, Elisabeth; Fellenberg, Jörg

    2016-01-01

    = 0.006). In contrast to mRNA or protein levels MMP and TIMP activities showed significant differences between the analyzed good and poor responder groups. A shift from MMP9 to predominant MMP2 activity is associated with poor response to chemotherapy suggesting that the ratio of MMP2/MMP9 activity might be a valuable and easily accessible marker to predict the response to chemotherapy in osteosarcoma

  18. Semantic, syntactic, and phonological processing of written words in adult developmental dyslexic readers: an event-related brain potential study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Johannes Sönke

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The present study used event-related brain potentials to investigate semantic, phonological and syntactic processes in adult German dyslexic and normal readers in a word reading task. Pairs of German words were presented one word at a time. Subjects had to perform a semantic judgment task (house – window; are they semantically related?, a rhyme judgment task (house – mouse; do they rhyme? and a gender judgment task (das – Haus [the – house]; is the gender correct? [in German, house has a neutral gender: das Haus]. Results Normal readers responded faster compared to dyslexic readers in all three tasks. Onset latencies of the N400 component were delayed in dyslexic readers in the rhyme judgment and in the gender judgment task, but not in the semantic judgment task. N400 and the anterior negativity peak amplitudes did not differ between the two groups. However, the N400 persisted longer in the dyslexic group in the rhyme judgment and in the semantic judgment tasks. Conclusion These findings indicate that dyslexics are phonologically impaired (delayed N400 in the rhyme judgment task but that they also have difficulties in other, non-phonological aspects of reading (longer response times, longer persistence of the N400. Specifically, semantic and syntactic integration seem to require more effort for dyslexic readers and take longer irrespective of the reading task that has to be performed.

  19. Bimodal Reading: Benefits of a Talking Computer for Average and Less Skilled Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montali, Julie; Lewandowski, Lawrence

    1996-01-01

    Eighteen average readers and 18 less-skilled readers (grades 8 and 9) were presented with social studies and science passages via a computer either visually (on screen), auditorily (read by digitized voice), or bimodally (on screen, highlighted while being voiced). Less-skilled readers demonstrated comprehension in the bimodal condition equivalent…

  20. Some dosimetric properties of the LiF:Mg,Ti evaluated by the automatic 6600 thermoluminescent reader

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ben-Shachar, B; Weinstein, M; German, U [Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Beersheba (Israel). Nuclear Research Center-Negev

    1996-12-01

    Some dosimetric properties of the new LiF:Mg,Ti TLD cards were checked, when evaluated by the new automatic 6600 TLD reader. The cards were calibrated to a dose of 1.0 mGy by five identical irradiations, and the TL-dose response was measured for a range of 75 - 1100 mGy. A very high accuracy was found for the three kind of chips measured (TLD-100, TLD-700 and TLD-600) and a low minimum measurable dose (MMD) was found, too. There is a good fit between the analytical evaluation and the theoretical calculation of the MMD. The results obtained are much better than those of the LiF:Mg,Ti cards evaluated by the older automatic 2271 reader used in the last two decades (authors).

  1. The Narratological Style and the Reader of Evelyn Waugh’s Early Satires

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roksana Zgierska

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the role of the implied reader in Evelyn Waugh’s novels. An attempt will be made to define who the implied reader is and what is his position and role in fictional realm. By analysing narrative strategies and techniques within a selection of Waugh’s works, I attempt to discuss the changing relationship between author/narrator and the implied reader. I try to point that within Evelyn Waugh’s writing one can observe a simultaneous evolution of the narrator voice and the role ascribed to the implied reader. What is more, I discuss the limits of interpretation. I try to present and analyse how both the author/narrator and the text can impose limitations on the implied reader allowing him to move freely, however, within a set frame. Intertextuality is one of the focal points of the article, as I try to propose that the use of specific intertextual references in several different novels enhances the reader’s understanding of  Waugh’s fictional world. An attempt is made to prove that through analysis of different levels of understanding intertextual relation the reader takes on himself a role of creator. Furthermore, I draw attention to the places of indeterminacy. In this discussion I include both structures of indeterminacy proposed by Roman Ingarden i.e. blanks and negations, as both are needed not only to establish the interaction that takes place between text and the implied reader, but also to try to regulate such relation. An attempt will be made to explain how important filling the gaps within the text is and how completing the blanks affects the reader and the process of reading as such.

  2. Development of LEDs-based microplate reader for bioanalytical assay measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alaruri, Sami D; Katzlinger, Michael; Schinwald, Bernhard; Kronberger, Georg; Atzler, Joseph

    2013-01-01

    The optical design for an LEDs-based microplate reader that can perform fluorescence intensity (top and bottom), absorbance, luminescence and time-resolved fluorescence measurements is described. The microplate reader is the first microplate reader in the marketplace that incorporates LEDs as excitation light sources. Absorbance measurements over the 0–3.5 optical density range for caffeine solution are presented. Additionally, fluorescence intensity readings collected at 535 and 625 nm from a green and a red RediPlate TM are reported. Furthermore, fluorescence decay lifetime measurements obtained for Eu (europium) and Sm (samarium) standard solutions using 370 nm excitation are presented. The microplate reader detection limits for the fluorescence intensity top, fluorescence intensity bottom, fluorescence polarization and time-resolved fluorescence modes are 1.5 fmol 100 µL −1 fluorescein (384-well plate), 25 fmol 100 µL −1 fluorescein (384-well plate), 5 mP at 10 nM fluorescein (black 384-well plate) and 30 amol 100 µL −1 europium solution (white 384-well plate), respectively. (paper)

  3. Development of LEDs-based microplate reader for bioanalytical assay measurements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alaruri, Sami D.; Katzlinger, Michael; Schinwald, Bernhard; Kronberger, Georg; Atzler, Joseph

    2013-10-01

    The optical design for an LEDs-based microplate reader that can perform fluorescence intensity (top and bottom), absorbance, luminescence and time-resolved fluorescence measurements is described. The microplate reader is the first microplate reader in the marketplace that incorporates LEDs as excitation light sources. Absorbance measurements over the 0-3.5 optical density range for caffeine solution are presented. Additionally, fluorescence intensity readings collected at 535 and 625 nm from a green and a red RediPlateTM are reported. Furthermore, fluorescence decay lifetime measurements obtained for Eu (europium) and Sm (samarium) standard solutions using 370 nm excitation are presented. The microplate reader detection limits for the fluorescence intensity top, fluorescence intensity bottom, fluorescence polarization and time-resolved fluorescence modes are 1.5 fmol 100 µL-1 fluorescein (384-well plate), 25 fmol 100 µL-1 fluorescein (384-well plate), 5 mP at 10 nM fluorescein (black 384-well plate) and 30 amol 100 µL-1 europium solution (white 384-well plate), respectively.

  4. Social  reading - the reader on digital margins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivona Despot

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Electronic books enrich the reading experience through a range of possibilities digital technology offers, such as commenting or adding content at the margin space, marking interesting chapters and sharing the content with other readers. The phenomenon of social reading emerges with the influence of technology in the sphere of reading books and creates interactions for readers with the content and other readers. The great potential of enriching the reading experience is visible in the digital platforms for social reading, where the interaction and the creation of new content encourages the development of new way of reading and creativity. These activities may contribute to better understanding of the text. This enhances the communication about the text thus revitalizing the content and moves the reading itself from private to public sphere. This paper will show how are the activities in the digital margins transformed into a good indicator of the reading behavior, as well as the importance and usefulness of such for publishers to create new publishing products and services.

  5. A Dual-Route Perspective on Eye Movements of Dyslexic Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hawelka, Stefan; Gagl, Benjamin; Wimmer, Heinz

    2010-01-01

    This study assessed eye movement abnormalities of adolescent dyslexic readers and interpreted the findings by linking the dual-route model of single word reading with the E-Z Reader model of eye movement control during silent sentence reading. A dysfunction of the lexical route was assumed to account for a reduced number of words which received…

  6. 21 CFR 866.2850 - Automated zone reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ...) MEDICAL DEVICES IMMUNOLOGY AND MICROBIOLOGY DEVICES Microbiology Devices § 866.2850 Automated zone reader... surface of certain culture media used in disc-agar diffusion antimicrobial susceptibility tests. The...

  7. CT colonography: effect of experience and training on reader performance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Taylor, Stuart A.; Burling, David; Morley, Simon; Bartram, Clive I.; Halligan, Steve; Bassett, Paul; Atkin, Wendy

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effect of radiologist experience and increasing exposure to CT colonography on reader performance. Three radiologists of differing general experience (consultant, research fellow, trainee) independently analysed 100 CT colonographic datasets. Readers had no prior experience of CT colonography and received feedback and training after the first 50 cases from an independent experienced radiologist. Diagnostic performance and reporting times were compared for the first and second 50 datasets and compared with the results of a radiologist experienced in CT colonography. Before training only the consultant reader achieved statistical equivalence with the reference standard for detection of larger polyps. After training, detection rates ranged between 25 and 58% for larger polyps. Only the trainee significantly improved after training (P=0.007), with performance of other readers unchanged or even worse. Reporting times following training were reduced significantly for the consultant and fellow (P<0.001 and P=0.03, respectively), but increased for the trainee (P<0.001). In comparison to the consultant reader, the odds of detection of larger polyps was 0.36 (CI 0.16, 0.82) for the fellow and 0.36 (CI 0.14, 0.91) for the trainee. There is considerable variation in the ability to report CT colonography. Prior experience in gastrointestinal radiology is a distinct advantage. Competence cannot be assumed even after directed training via a database of 50 cases. (orig.)

  8. The value of {sup 18}F-FDG PET before and after induction chemotherapy for the early prediction of a poor pathologic response to subsequent preoperative chemoradiotherapy in oesophageal adenocarcinoma

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rossum, Peter S.N. van [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Radiation Oncology, Houston, TX (United States); University Medical Center Utrecht, Department of Radiation Oncology, Utrecht (Netherlands); Fried, David V.; Zhang, Lifei; Court, Laurence E. [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Radiation Physics, Houston, TX (United States); Hofstetter, Wayne L. [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Houston, TX (United States); Ho, Linus [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, Houston, TX (United States); Meijer, Gert J. [University Medical Center Utrecht, Department of Radiation Oncology, Utrecht (Netherlands); Carter, Brett W. [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Houston, TX (United States); Lin, Steven H. [The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Radiation Oncology, Houston, TX (United States)

    2017-01-15

    The purpose of our study was to determine the value of {sup 18}F-FDG PET before and after induction chemotherapy in patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma for the early prediction of a poor pathologic response to subsequent preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT). In 70 consecutive patients receiving a three-step treatment strategy of induction chemotherapy and preoperative chemoradiotherapy for oesophageal adenocarcinoma, {sup 18}F-FDG PET scans were performed before and after induction chemotherapy (before preoperative CRT). SUV{sub max}, SUV{sub mean}, metabolic tumour volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were determined at these two time points. The predictive potential of (the change in) these parameters for a poor pathologic response, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) was assessed. A poor pathologic response after induction chemotherapy and preoperative CRT was found in 27 patients (39 %). Patients with a poor pathologic response experienced less of a reduction in TLG after induction chemotherapy (p < 0.01). The change in TLG was predictive for a poor pathologic response at a threshold of -26 % (sensitivity 67 %, specificity 84 %, accuracy 77 %, PPV 72 %, NPV 80 %), yielding an area-under-the-curve of 0.74 in ROC analysis. Also, patients with a decrease in TLG lower than 26 % had a significantly worse PFS (p = 0.02), but not OS (p = 0.18). {sup 18}F-FDG PET appears useful to predict a poor pathologic response as well as PFS early after induction chemotherapy in patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma undergoing a three-step treatment strategy. As such, the early {sup 18}F-FDG PET response after induction chemotherapy could aid in individualizing treatment by modification or withdrawal of subsequent preoperative CRT in poor responders. (orig.)

  9. Follow the Reader: An Effective Strategy to Support Students Reading More Complex Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klvacek, Michelle L.; Monroe, Eula Ewing; Wilcox, Brad; Hall-Kenyon, Kendra M.; Morrison, Timothy G.

    2017-01-01

    This article describes how one second-grade teacher implemented Follow the Reader, her term for dyad reading. Common Core expects students to read increasingly complex texts. Teachers can implement dyad reading with this end in mind. It is a modified version of the neurological impress method in which a lead reader and an assisted reader sit side…

  10. Blind Braille readers mislocate tactile stimuli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sterr, Annette; Green, Lisa; Elbert, Thomas

    2003-05-01

    In a previous experiment, we observed that blind Braille readers produce errors when asked to identify on which finger of one hand a light tactile stimulus had occurred. With the present study, we aimed to specify the characteristics of this perceptual error in blind and sighted participants. The experiment confirmed that blind Braille readers mislocalised tactile stimuli more often than sighted controls, and that the localisation errors occurred significantly more often at the right reading hand than at the non-reading hand. Most importantly, we discovered that the reading fingers showed the smallest error frequency, but the highest rate of stimulus attribution. The dissociation of perceiving and locating tactile stimuli in the blind suggests altered tactile information processing. Neuroplasticity, changes in tactile attention mechanisms as well as the idea that blind persons may employ different strategies for tactile exploration and object localisation are discussed as possible explanations for the results obtained.

  11. Design and trial evaluation of the user interface for MusicReader

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Leoné, Marco; van Dijk, Elisabeth M.A.G.; van Beijnum, Bernhard J.F.

    2008-01-01

    This paper describes the design and trial results of MusicReader, a networked application realizing sheet music related services for the support of ensemble and orchestra rehearsals and performances. To this end, MusicReader presents sheet music on computer screens and supports annotations, sheet

  12. Techno-Literacy Practices of Emergent Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Razeale G. Fernandez

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available – This research explored the techno-literacy practices of emergent readers. The study found that young children experienced a multi-literate practices in their homes that comprised not only print and paper-based literacies but also techno-literacies. That television, games on tablets and phones are the sources of textual pleasure of young children.Families reported that children watched television and play games on tablets/phones regularly. This is due to the limited options of leisure activities available to younger children. Emergent readers are highly focused to televisual text as they demonstrate meaningmaking practices when they constantly ask questions and talk about what they are watching,hence they are active meaning-makers. The learning opportunities which include hand eye coordination, parallel processing, and problem solving skills young children acquired through playing computer games and games on tablet/iPad . Aside from these, they also developed a number of literacy skills as well as how to behave as players.It can be concluded thatexposure to imagery in electronic technologies contributed to the children’s literacy development. The literate identities of emergent readers can be further enhanced as they begin formal schooling. Data indicated that young children are developing techno-literacy practices and this concurs to the findings of Marsh (2010. Therefore, technology serves as a tool for the literacy development of young children. That techno-literacy practices of young children should be valued in school. Future research should also consider attitude, behavior and practices of parents towards the use of technology by children.

  13. Novel versatile smart phone based Microplate readers for on-site diagnoses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Qiangqiang; Wu, Ze; Li, Xiuqing; Yao, Cuize; Yu, Shiting; Xiao, Wei; Tang, Yong

    2016-07-15

    Microplate readers are important diagnostic instruments, used intensively for various readout test kits (biochemical analysis kits and ELISA kits). However, due to their expensive and non-portability, commercial microplate readers are unavailable for home testing, community and rural hospitals, especially in developing countries. In this study, to provide a field-portable, cost-effective and versatile diagnostic tool, we reported a novel smart phone based microplate reader. The basic principle of this devise relies on a smart phone's optical sensor that measures transmitted light intensities of liquid samples. To prove the validity of these devises, developed smart phone based microplate readers were applied to readout results of various analytical targets. These targets included analanine aminotransferase (ALT; limit of detection (LOD) was 17.54 U/L), alkaline phosphatase (AKP; LOD was 15.56 U/L), creatinine (LOD was 1.35μM), bovine serum albumin (BSA; LOD was 0.0041mg/mL), prostate specific antigen (PSA; LOD was 0.76pg/mL), and ractopamine (Rac; LOD was 0.31ng/mL). The developed smart phone based microplate readers are versatile, portable, and inexpensive; they are unique because of their ability to perform under circumstances where resources and expertize are limited. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Diagnostic accuracy of mammography readers and their memory performance have no correlation with each other

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kok, P.; Cawson, J.N.; Mercuri, V.; Pitman, A.G.; Gledhill, S.; Shnier, D.; Taft, R.; Zentner, L.

    2010-01-01

    Full text: The study aims to determine if any association exists between visual memory performance and diagnostic accuracy performance in a group of radiologist mammogram readers. Materials and Methods: One hundred proven mammograms (23 with cancers) were grouped into 5 sets of 20 cases, with sets being of equal difficulty. Pairs of sets were presented in 5 reads (40 cases per read, order random) to a panel of 8 radiologist readers (either present or past screening readers, with experience range from 20 years). The readers were asked to either 'clear' or 'call back' cases depending on need for further workup, and at post-baseline reads to indicate whether each case was 'new' or 'old' (i .e. remembered from prior read). Two sets were presented only at baseline (40 cases per reader), and were used to calculate the reader's false recollection rate. Three sets were repeated post-baseline once or twice (100 cases per reader). Reading conditions were standardised. Results: Memory performance differed markedly between readers. The number of correctly remembered cases (of 100 'old' cases) had a median of 10.5 and range of 0-58. The observed number of false recollections (of 40 'totally new' cases) had a median of 2 and range of 0-17. Diagnostic performance measures were mean (range): sensitivity 0.68 (0.54-0.81); specificity 0.82 (0.74-0.91); positive predictive value (PPV) 0.55 (0.500.65); negative predictive value (NPV) 0.89 (0.86-0.93) and accuracy 0.78 (0.76-0.83). Confidence intervals (CIs; 95%) for each reader overlapped for all the diagnostic parameters, indicating a lack of statistically significant difference between the readers at the 5% level. The most sensitive and the most specific reader showed a trend away from each other on sensitivity, specificity, NPV and PPV; their accuracies were 0.76 and 0.82, respectively, and their accuracy 95% CIs overlapped considerably. Correlation analysis by reader showed no association between observed memory performance and

  15. The association between reading abilities and visual-spatial attention in Hong Kong Chinese children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Sisi; Liu, Duo; Pan, Zhihui; Xu, Zhengye

    2018-03-25

    A growing body of research suggests that visual-spatial attention is important for reading achievement. However, few studies have been conducted in non-alphabetic orthographies. This study extended the current research to reading development in Chinese, a logographic writing system known for its visual complexity. Eighty Hong Kong Chinese children were selected and divided into poor reader and typical reader groups, based on their performance on the measures of reading fluency, Chinese character reading, and reading comprehension. The poor and typical readers were matched on age and nonverbal intelligence. A Posner's spatial cueing task was adopted to measure the exogenous and endogenous orienting of visual-spatial attention. Although the typical readers showed the cueing effect in the central cue condition (i.e., responses to targets following valid cues were faster than those to targets following invalid cues), the poor readers did not respond differently in valid and invalid conditions, suggesting an impairment of the endogenous orienting of attention. The two groups, however, showed a similar cueing effect in the peripheral cue condition, indicating intact exogenous orienting in the poor readers. These findings generally supported a link between the orienting of covert attention and Chinese reading, providing evidence for the attentional-deficit theory of dyslexia. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  16. Serving Boys through Readers' Advisory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sullivan, Michael

    2010-01-01

    Based on more than twenty years' experience working to get boys interested in reading, the author now offers his first readers' advisory volume. With an emphasis on nonfiction and the boy-friendly categories of genre fiction, the work offers a wealth of material including: (1) Suggestions for how to booktalk one-on-one as well as in large groups;…

  17. The printerless office. A study on the use of e-readers to replace printed paper; Het printerloos kantoor. Een studie naar het gebruik van e-readers ter vervanging van geprint papier

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bijleveld, M.M.; Sevenster, M.N.

    2011-03-15

    A life-cycle analysis was conducted to compare the environmental burden of e-readers with printed paper. The turning point when the e-reader starts to offer environmental benefits over printed paper, at an operational life of two years, lies between 3,000 and 13,000 prints per year. [Dutch] Door middel van levenscyclusanalyse is de milieubelasting van e-readers en geprint papier bepaald en met elkaar vergeleken. Het kantelpunt waarop een e-reader, bij gebruiksduur van 2 jaar, milieuvoordeel gaat bieden boven papieren prints, ligt tussen de 3.000 en 13.000 printjes per jaar.

  18. Chipless RFID reader architecture

    CERN Document Server

    Karmakar, Nemai Chandra; Kalansuriya, Prasanna

    2013-01-01

    In the era of information communication technology (ICT), radio frequency identification (RFID) has been going through tremendous development. RFID technology has the potential of replacing barcodes due to its large information carrying capacity, flexibility in operations, and applications. The deployment of RFID has been hindered by its cost. However, with the advent of low powered ICs, energy scavenging techniques, and low-cost chipless tags, RFID technology has achieved significant development. This book addresses the new reader architecture, presents fundamentals of chipless RFID systems,

  19. Professional writers and empathy: Exploring the barriers to anticipating reader problems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Jong, Menno D.T.; Lentz, Leo

    2007-01-01

    Research has shown that professional writers cannot accurately predict the problems readers will experience when using functional documents. In this paper, we give an overview of reasons why it can be so hardfor writers to anticipate reader problems. We elaborate on the concept of empathy, and

  20. Neutralizing antibodies explain the poor clinical response to Interferon beta in a small proportion of patients with Multiple Sclerosis: a retrospective study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cefaro Luca

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Neutralizing antibodies (NAbs against Interferon beta (IFNβ are reported to be associated with poor clinical response to therapy in multiple sclerosis (MS patients. We aimed to quantify the contribution of NAbs to the sub-optimal response of IFNβ treatment. Methods We studied the prevalence of NAbs in MS patients grouped according to their clinical response to IFNβ during the treatment period. Patients were classified as: group A, developing ≥ 1 relapse after the first 6 months of therapy; group B, exhibiting confirmed disability progression after the first 6 months of therapy, with or without superimposed relapses; group C, presenting a stable disease course during therapy. A cytopathic effect assay tested the presence of NAbs in a cohort of ambulatory MS patients treated with one of the available IFNβ formulations for at least one year. NAbs positivity was defined as NAbs titre ≥ 20 TRU. Results Seventeen patients (12.1% were NAbs positive. NAbs positivity correlated with poorer clinical response (p Conclusion The majority of patients with poor clinical response are NAbs negative suggesting that NAbs explains only partially the sub-optimal response to IFNβ.

  1. Scoring sacroiliac joints by magnetic resonance imaging. A Multiple-reader reliability experiment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Landewé, RB; Hermann, KG; van der Heijde, DM

    2005-01-01

    Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the sacroiliac (SI) joints and the spine is increasingly important in the assessment of inflammatory activity and structural damage in clinical trials with patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). We investigated inter-reader reliability and sensitivity...... for 'depth' and 'intensity,' and the fifth method included the SPARCC slice with the maximum score. Inter-reader reliability was investigated by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for all readers together and for all possible reader pairs. Sensitivity to change was investigated...... values close to zero (no agreement) and highest observed values over 0.80 (excellent agreement). In general, agreement of status scores was somewhat better than agreement of change scores, and agreement of the comprehensive SPARCC scoring system was somewhat better than agreement of the more condensed...

  2. Training readers at school: the educational project, the school library and the mediation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rovilson José da Silva

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Discusses the formation of readers in the first years of elementary school and proposes the integration between the school pedagogical project, teachers, reading practices and the school library. Objective: To analyze the basic assumptions to train readers in school. Methods: Bibliographic research based on a literature review on the subject. Results: Initial elements that may be used to structure readers-training projects at any schools are presented. Conclusion: Training readers at school consists in having procedures and pedagogical actions performed in combination with guided and free usage of the library, borrowing books and time to hear stories and talk about them.

  3. EDMC: An enhanced distributed multi-channel anti-collision algorithm for RFID reader system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, YuJing; Cui, Yinghua

    2017-05-01

    In this paper, we proposes an enhanced distributed multi-channel reader anti-collision algorithm for RFID environments which is based on the distributed multi-channel reader anti-collision algorithm for RFID environments (called DiMCA). We proposes a monitor method to decide whether reader receive the latest control news after it selected the data channel. The simulation result shows that it improves interrogation delay.

  4. INQUIRING THE NEO-IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CURRICULUM: TEACHING FOR READING AGAINST THE GRAIN USING READER-RESPONSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dewi Candraningrum Soekirno

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The spread of the so-called ‘indispensable language’ for the immersion of English in the global world has mesmerized its victims in the classrooms through the operation of curriculum, material, and teaching methodology. Since the perspective of the traditional/structuralism school could not provide enough ‘reader involvement’, reader-response is one of the alternatives that support teaching against the grain. It provides the

  5. Cancer on a mammogram is not memorable: readers remember their recalls and not cancers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pitman, Alexander G.; Kok, Phebe; Zentner, Lucila

    2012-01-01

    To determine if presence of cancer on a mammogram makes that mammogram more memorable. A total of 100 mammograms (25 cancers) were grouped into 5 sets of 20 cases. Set pairs were presented in five reads to eight radiologist readers. Readers were asked to 'clear' or 'call back' cases, and at post-baseline reads to indicate whether each case was 'new' or 'old ' (remembered from prior read). Two sets were presented only at baseline, to calculate each reader's false recollection rate. For cases presented more than once ('old' cases, 100 presentations) readers could have 'correct memory' or 'memory loss'. Memory performance was defined as odds ratio of correct memory to memory loss. Multivariate logistic data regression analysis identified predictors of memory performance from: reader, set, time since last read, presence of cancer, and whether the case was called back at the last read. Memory performance differed markedly between readers and reader identity was a highly significant predictor of memory performance. Presence of cancer was not a significant predictor of memory performance (odds ratio 0.77, 95% CI: 0.49–1.21). Whether the case was called back at the last read was a highly significant predictor (odds ratio 4.22, 95% CI: 2.70–6.61) for the model incorporating reader variability, and also the model without reader variability (odds ratio 2.67, 95% CI: 1.74–4.08). The only statistically significant predictor of radiologist memory for a mammogram was whether the radiologist 'called it back' at a prior reading round. Presence of cancer on a mammogram did not make it memorable.

  6. So Long, Robot Reader! A Superhero Intervention Plan for Improving Fluency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcell, Barclay; Ferraro, Christine

    2013-01-01

    This article presents an engaging means for turning disfluent readers into prosody superstars. Each week students align with Poetry Power Man and his superhero friends to battle the evil Robot Reader and his sidekicks. The Fluency Foursome helps students adhere to the multidimensional aspects of fluency where expression and comprehension are…

  7. Good phonetic errors in poor spellers are associated with right-handedness and possible weak utilisation of visuospatial abilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eglinton, Elizabeth; Annett, Marian

    2008-06-01

    Poor spellers in normal schools, who were not poor readers, were studied for handedness, visuospatial and other cognitive abilities in order to explore contrasts between poor spellers with and without good phonology. It was predicted by the right shift (RS) theory of handedness and cerebral dominance that those with good phonology would have strong bias to dextrality and relative weakness of the right hemisphere, while those without good phonology would have reduced bias to dextrality and relative weakness of the left hemisphere. Poor spellers with good phonetic equivalent spelling errors (GFEs) included fewer left-handers (2.4%) than poor spellers without GFEs (24.4%). Differences for hand skill were as predicted. Tests of visuospatial processing found no differences between the groups in levels of ability, but there was a marked difference in pattern of correlations between visuospatial test scores and homophonic word discrimination. Whereas good spellers (GS) and poor spellers without GFEs showed positive correlations between word discrimination and visuospatial ability, there were no significant correlations for poor spellers with GFEs. The differences for handedness and possibly for the utilisation of visuospatial skills suggest that surface dyslexics differ from phonological dyslexics in cerebral specialisation and perhaps in the quality of inter-hemispheric relations.

  8. Mind the Gap: Bridging the Divide between Non-Readers and Lifelong Readers with Hi-Lo Books

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gleason, Carrie

    2011-01-01

    In the past few years, there has been increasing demand from school librarians for books for "reluctant readers"--despite the impressive offering of children's literature published each year and the success of blockbuster series like "Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Twilight," and "Hunger Games," among others. This is also in addition to all…

  9. Every reader his book – every book its reader?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kann-Christensen, Nanna; Balling, Gitte

    2014-01-01

    ’ advisory and audience development. This is achieved through an analysis of opinions and reflections expressed by 13 managers and librarians in all six county libraries in Denmark. The interviews are analysed through the model which merges three concepts: cultural policy, new public management......Collections are no longer the main attraction in libraries, and libraries are working to find new paths to tread. One strategy is to focus on reading and literature in new and surprising ways. The aim of this article is to enrich an understanding of activities situated in the span between readers...... and professional logics. Our findings show that Danish librarians’ views on readers’ advisory and audience development strike a balance between the experience and empowerment rationales with a prevailing focus on users. A user orientation and focus on user experiences have created a situation wherein the notions...

  10. Parietotemporal Stimulation Affects Acquisition of Novel Grapheme-Phoneme Mappings in Adult Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessica W. Younger

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Neuroimaging work from developmental and reading intervention research has suggested a cause of reading failure may be lack of engagement of parietotemporal cortex during initial acquisition of grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound mappings. Parietotemporal activation increases following grapheme-phoneme learning and successful reading intervention. Further, stimulation of parietotemporal cortex improves reading skill in lower ability adults. However, it is unclear whether these improvements following stimulation are due to enhanced grapheme-phoneme mapping abilities. To test this hypothesis, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS to manipulate parietotemporal function in adult readers as they learned a novel artificial orthography with new grapheme-phoneme mappings. Participants received real or sham stimulation to the left inferior parietal lobe (L IPL for 20 min before training. They received explicit training over the course of 3 days on 10 novel words each day. Learning of the artificial orthography was assessed at a pre-training baseline session, the end of each of the three training sessions, an immediate post-training session and a delayed post-training session about 4 weeks after training. Stimulation interacted with baseline reading skill to affect learning of trained words and transfer to untrained words. Lower skill readers showed better acquisition, whereas higher skill readers showed worse acquisition, when training was paired with real stimulation, as compared to readers who received sham stimulation. However, readers of all skill levels showed better maintenance of trained material following parietotemporal stimulation, indicating a differential effect of stimulation on initial learning and consolidation. Overall, these results indicate that parietotemporal stimulation can enhance learning of new grapheme-phoneme relationships in readers with lower reading skill. Yet, while parietotemporal function is critical to new

  11. Parietotemporal Stimulation Affects Acquisition of Novel Grapheme-Phoneme Mappings in Adult Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Younger, Jessica W.; Booth, James R.

    2018-01-01

    Neuroimaging work from developmental and reading intervention research has suggested a cause of reading failure may be lack of engagement of parietotemporal cortex during initial acquisition of grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) mappings. Parietotemporal activation increases following grapheme-phoneme learning and successful reading intervention. Further, stimulation of parietotemporal cortex improves reading skill in lower ability adults. However, it is unclear whether these improvements following stimulation are due to enhanced grapheme-phoneme mapping abilities. To test this hypothesis, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to manipulate parietotemporal function in adult readers as they learned a novel artificial orthography with new grapheme-phoneme mappings. Participants received real or sham stimulation to the left inferior parietal lobe (L IPL) for 20 min before training. They received explicit training over the course of 3 days on 10 novel words each day. Learning of the artificial orthography was assessed at a pre-training baseline session, the end of each of the three training sessions, an immediate post-training session and a delayed post-training session about 4 weeks after training. Stimulation interacted with baseline reading skill to affect learning of trained words and transfer to untrained words. Lower skill readers showed better acquisition, whereas higher skill readers showed worse acquisition, when training was paired with real stimulation, as compared to readers who received sham stimulation. However, readers of all skill levels showed better maintenance of trained material following parietotemporal stimulation, indicating a differential effect of stimulation on initial learning and consolidation. Overall, these results indicate that parietotemporal stimulation can enhance learning of new grapheme-phoneme relationships in readers with lower reading skill. Yet, while parietotemporal function is critical to new learning, its role in

  12. Struggling Readers: Assessment and Instruction in Grades K-6. Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balajthy, Ernest; Lipa-Wade, Sally

    This book focuses on three distinct types of struggling readers that teachers will instantly recognize from their own classrooms--the "Catch-On Reader," the "Catch-Up Reader," and the "Stalled Reader." The book provides detailed case studies which bring to life the specific problems these students are likely to face…

  13. Two ways of constructing the reader`s subject position: a discursive analysis of the newspaper language of the newspapers Diário Catarinense and Hora de Santa Catarina

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandro Braga

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available We analyze, based on French Discourse Analysis, how the newspapers Diário Catarinense and Hora de Santa Catarina produce different reader`s subject positions. This research is justified by the fact that both newspapers are products of the same media company. The starting point was the hypothesis that there would be in the market two types of readers, thus the two products do not compete with each other, but they would complement each other in the coverage of a reading area. Reading here is treated as a process of production of sense effects. The work is based on Orlandi`s thinking about the conception of reading, as well as in the distinction between real and virtual reader. We do also present the clues included in the statements which inferences are essential to apprehend the said and the unsaid which, by means of a comparative analysis, was used to understand the production of different reader’s subject position. The analysis points out that the newspapers DC and Hora present similar characteristics in regard to the process of transmitting information, howevereach newspaper interrelates with its target public in a different way through the use of language and in the manner of production of news. It leads to the construction of different positions of these readers in relation to the information which is transmitted, because, making use of uttering strategies, these newspapers ideologically mark the readers of DC as being more lettered than the ones of Hora.

  14. Predicting Text Comprehension, Processing, and Familiarity in Adult Readers: New Approaches to Readability Formulas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crossley, Scott A.; Skalicky, Stephen; Dascalu, Mihai; McNamara, Danielle S.; Kyle, Kristopher

    2017-01-01

    Research has identified a number of linguistic features that influence the reading comprehension of young readers; yet, less is known about whether and how these findings extend to adult readers. This study examines text comprehension, processing, and familiarity judgment provided by adult readers using a number of different approaches (i.e.,…

  15. Networks of reader and country status: an analysis of Mendeley reader statistics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robin Haunschild

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The number of papers published in journals indexed by the Web of Science core collection is steadily increasing. In recent years, nearly two million new papers were published each year; somewhat more than one million papers when primary research papers are considered only (articles and reviews are the document types where primary research is usually reported or reviewed. However, who reads these papers? More precisely, which groups of researchers from which (self-assigned scientific disciplines and countries are reading these papers? Is it possible to visualize readership patterns for certain countries, scientific disciplines, or academic status groups? One popular method to answer these questions is a network analysis. In this study, we analyze Mendeley readership data of a set of 1,133,224 articles and 64,960 reviews with publication year 2012 to generate three different networks: (1 The network based on disciplinary affiliations of Mendeley readers contains four groups: (i biology, (ii social sciences and humanities (including relevant computer sciences, (iii bio-medical sciences, and (iv natural sciences and engineering. In all four groups, the category with the addition “miscellaneous” prevails. (2 The network of co-readers in terms of professional status shows that a common interest in papers is mainly shared among PhD students, Master’s students, and postdocs. (3 The country network focusses on global readership patterns: a group of 53 nations is identified as core to the scientific enterprise, including Russia and China as well as two thirds of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

  16. An Investigation of the Effects of Reader Characteristics on Reading Comprehension Of a General Chemistry Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neiles, Kelly Y.

    There is great concern in the scientific community that students in the United States, when compared with other countries, are falling behind in their scientific achievement. Increasing students' reading comprehension of scientific text may be one of the components involved in students' science achievement. To investigate students' reading comprehension this quantitative study examined the effects of different reader characteristics, namely, students' logical reasoning ability, factual chemistry knowledge, working memory capacity, and schema of the chemistry concepts, on reading comprehension of a chemistry text. Students' reading comprehension was measured through their ability to encode the text, access the meanings of words (lexical access), make bridging and elaborative inferences, and integrate the text with their existing schemas to make a lasting mental representation of the text (situational model). Students completed a series of tasks that measured the reader characteristic and reading comprehension variables. Some of the variables were measured using new technologies and software to investigate different cognitive processes. These technologies and software included eye tracking to investigate students' lexical accessing and a Pathfinder program to investigate students' schema of the chemistry concepts. The results from this study were analyzed using canonical correlation and regression analysis. The canonical correlation analysis allows for the ten variables described previously to be included in one multivariate analysis. Results indicate that the relationship between the reader characteristic variables and the reading comprehension variables is significant. The resulting canonical function accounts for a greater amount of variance in students' responses then any individual variable. Regression analysis was used to further investigate which reader characteristic variables accounted for the differences in students' responses for each reading comprehension

  17. Selecting "App"ealing and "App"ropriate Book Apps for Beginning Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cahill, Maria; McGill-Franzen, Anne

    2013-01-01

    Beginning with a brief rationale for selecting quality digital picture book apps for beginning readers, the authors describe the elements of digital picture books and provide a brief review of the instructional benefits of digital picture book use for beginning readers. They then present a detailed taxonomy for selecting quality picture book apps.…

  18. The Experiences in Processing Policies and Contracts by Adult ESL Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abiog, Evalyn B.

    2017-01-01

    The present study describes the experiences of adult English as a Second Language (ESL) readers in processing legal texts prior to entering a financial agreement. A preliminary survey was conducted to determine the commonly read policies and contracts of adult ESL reader-consumers, which revealed those of banks and life-insurance companies; hence,…

  19. Measuring the Reader Self-Perceptions of Adolescents: Introducing the RSPS2

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henk, William A.; Marinak, Barbara A.; Melnick, Steven A.

    2013-01-01

    This paper introduces a new affective instrument for assessing the reader self-perceptions of students in grades seven through ten. The Reader Self-Perception Scale 2 (RSPS2) builds upon its predecessor, the RSPS, a tool that measures the reading efficacy beliefs of children in grades four through six. New items were created for the RSPS2 to…

  20. Guiding Young Readers to Multicultural Literature

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinton-Johnson, KaaVonia; Dickinson, Gail

    2005-01-01

    Stocking the shelves of library media centers with multicultural literature is not enough, it is important that children are helped to choose the ones that would interest them as reading about various cultures is of great benefit to young readers. The importance of accurately representing to children a multicultural society is emphasized and…

  1. Microcomputer-Controlled Reader Systems for Archaeological and Geological TL Dating

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bøtter-Jensen, Lars; Mejdahl, V.

    1984-01-01

    Two fully automated TL reader systems for TL dating and a manually operated reader for research purpose were put into operation during 1982-3. All systems are controlled by HP-85 or HP-86 microcomputers; thus flexibility in selection of measurement parameters, calculation of TL signals and displa...... the archaeological and geological ages. The principle of the measurement procedures are described, and dating results are presented to illustrate the performance of the systems...

  2. Smartphone, tablet computer and e-reader use by people with vision impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crossland, Michael D; Silva, Rui S; Macedo, Antonio F

    2014-09-01

    Consumer electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, and e-book readers have become far more widely used in recent years. Many of these devices contain accessibility features such as large print and speech. Anecdotal experience suggests people with vision impairment frequently make use of these systems. Here we survey people with self-identified vision impairment to determine their use of this equipment. An internet-based survey was advertised to people with vision impairment by word of mouth, social media, and online. Respondents were asked demographic information, what devices they owned, what they used these devices for, and what accessibility features they used. One hundred and thirty-two complete responses were received. Twenty-six percent of the sample reported that they had no vision and the remainder reported they had low vision. One hundred and seven people (81%) reported using a smartphone. Those with no vision were as likely to use a smartphone or tablet as those with low vision. Speech was found useful by 59% of smartphone users. Fifty-one percent of smartphone owners used the camera and screen as a magnifier. Forty-eight percent of the sample used a tablet computer, and 17% used an e-book reader. The most frequently cited reason for not using these devices included cost and lack of interest. Smartphones, tablet computers, and e-book readers can be used by people with vision impairment. Speech is used by people with low vision as well as those with no vision. Many of our (self-selected) group used their smartphone camera and screen as a magnifier, and others used the camera flash as a spotlight. © 2014 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2014 The College of Optometrists.

  3. Vibrotactile masking experiments reveal accelerated somatosensory processing in congenitally blind braille readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhattacharjee, Arindam; Ye, Amanda J; Lisak, Joy A; Vargas, Maria G; Goldreich, Daniel

    2010-10-27

    Braille reading is a demanding task that requires the identification of rapidly varying tactile patterns. During proficient reading, neighboring characters impact the fingertip at ∼100 ms intervals, and adjacent raised dots within a character at 50 ms intervals. Because the brain requires time to interpret afferent sensorineural activity, among other reasons, tactile stimuli separated by such short temporal intervals pose a challenge to perception. How, then, do proficient Braille readers successfully interpret inputs arising from their fingertips at such rapid rates? We hypothesized that somatosensory perceptual consolidation occurs more rapidly in proficient Braille readers. If so, Braille readers should outperform sighted participants on masking tasks, which demand rapid perceptual processing, but would not necessarily outperform the sighted on tests of simple vibrotactile sensitivity. To investigate, we conducted two-interval forced-choice vibrotactile detection, amplitude discrimination, and masking tasks on the index fingertips of 89 sighted and 57 profoundly blind humans. Sighted and blind participants had similar unmasked detection (25 ms target tap) and amplitude discrimination (compared with 100 μm reference tap) thresholds, but congenitally blind Braille readers, the fastest readers among the blind participants, exhibited significantly less masking than the sighted (masker, 50 Hz, 50 μm; target-masker delays, ±50 and ±100 ms). Indeed, Braille reading speed correlated significantly and specifically with masking task performance, and in particular with the backward masking decay time constant. We conclude that vibrotactile sensitivity is unchanged but that perceptual processing is accelerated in congenitally blind Braille readers.

  4. An Effective Scheduling-Based RFID Reader Collision Avoidance Model and Its Resource Allocation via Artificial Immune Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shanjin Wang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Radio frequency identification, that is, RFID, is one of important technologies in Internet of Things. Reader collision does impair the tag identification efficiency of an RFID system. Many developed methods, for example, the scheduling-based series, that are used to avoid RFID reader collision, have been developed. For scheduling-based methods, communication resources, that is, time slots, channels, and power, are optimally assigned to readers. In this case, reader collision avoidance is equivalent to an optimization problem related to resource allocation. However, the existing methods neglect the overlap between the interrogation regions of readers, which reduces the tag identification rate (TIR. To resolve this shortage, this paper attempts to build a reader-to-reader collision avoidance model considering the interrogation region overlaps (R2RCAM-IRO. In addition, an artificial immune network for resource allocation (RA-IRO-aiNet is designed to optimize the proposed model. For comparison, some comparative numerical simulations are arranged. The simulation results show that the proposed R2RCAM-IRO is an effective model where TIR is improved significantly. And especially in the application of reader-to-reader collision avoidance, the proposed RA-IRO-aiNet outperforms GA, opt-aiNet, and PSO in the total coverage area of readers.

  5. Collaboration between SSMJ and its readers

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    All of us in the healthcare professions throughout the world can learn much from each other. This has been demonstrated so well by the collaboration between the editors, authors, medical experts and readers of the South Sudan Medical Journal. The Editor-in-Chief recently sent out a request for photographs and received a ...

  6. Rights of Postsecondary Readers and Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greenbaum, JoAnne; Angus, Kathryn Bartle

    2018-01-01

    A position statement on the rights of adult readers and learners was adopted by the CRLA board in 2002 and published with a theoretical rationale in ["Journal of College Reading and Learning"] "JCRL," Spring 2003. The statement was a guideline for educators seeking to improve the quality of adult education. In 2016, at the…

  7. A digital reader for condenser ionization chambers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stuermer, K.

    1978-01-01

    A reader for condenser chambers is described which has a completely automatic reading/charging operation, a modern digital readout presentation, and two full decades of exposure readout for each dosimeter type. The calibration and operation of the instrument are given

  8. Assessing reader performance in radiology, an imperfect science: Lessons from breast screening

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Soh, B.P., E-mail: bsoh6456@uni.sydney.edu.au [Medical Image Optimisation and Perception Group (MIOPeG), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW (Australia); Lee, W.; Kench, P.L.; Reed, W.M.; McEntee, M.F.; Poulos, A.; Brennan, P.C. [Medical Image Optimisation and Perception Group (MIOPeG), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW (Australia)

    2012-07-15

    The purpose of this article is to review the limitations associated with current methods of assessing reader accuracy in mammography screening programmes. Clinical audit is commonly used as a quality-assurance tool to monitor the performance of screen readers; however, a number of the metrics employed, such as recall rate as a surrogate for specificity, do not always accurately measure the intended clinical feature. Alternatively, standardized screening test sets, which benefit from ease of application, immediacy of results, and quicker assessment of quality improvement plans, suffer from experimental confounders, thus questioning the relevance of these laboratory-type screening test sets to clinical performance. Four key factors that impact on the external validity of screening test sets were identified: the nature and extent of scrutiny of one's action, the artificiality of the environment, the over-simplification of responses, and prevalence of abnormality. The impact of these factors on radiological and other contexts is discussed, and although it is important to acknowledge the benefit of standardized screening test sets, issues relating to the relevance of test sets to clinical activities remain. The degree of correlation between performance based on real-life clinical audit and performances at screen read test sets must be better understood and specific causal agents for any lack of correlation identified.

  9. News in online and print newspapers: Differences in reader consumption and recall

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    d'Haenens, Leen; Jankowski, Nicholas; Heuvelman, A.

    2004-01-01

    How readers consume and recall news presented in online and print versions of two newspapersin the Netherlands are investigated in this experimental study. Few differences are found between the online and print versions in terms of news supply. Reader attention to the news stories varies, depending

  10. Computational Sensing Using Low-Cost and Mobile Plasmonic Readers Designed by Machine Learning

    KAUST Repository

    Ballard, Zachary S.

    2017-01-27

    Plasmonic sensors have been used for a wide range of biological and chemical sensing applications. Emerging nanofabrication techniques have enabled these sensors to be cost-effectively mass manufactured onto various types of substrates. To accompany these advances, major improvements in sensor read-out devices must also be achieved to fully realize the broad impact of plasmonic nanosensors. Here, we propose a machine learning framework which can be used to design low-cost and mobile multispectral plasmonic readers that do not use traditionally employed bulky and expensive stabilized light sources or high-resolution spectrometers. By training a feature selection model over a large set of fabricated plasmonic nanosensors, we select the optimal set of illumination light-emitting diodes needed to create a minimum-error refractive index prediction model, which statistically takes into account the varied spectral responses and fabrication-induced variability of a given sensor design. This computational sensing approach was experimentally validated using a modular mobile plasmonic reader. We tested different plasmonic sensors with hexagonal and square periodicity nanohole arrays and revealed that the optimal illumination bands differ from those that are “intuitively” selected based on the spectral features of the sensor, e.g., transmission peaks or valleys. This framework provides a universal tool for the plasmonics community to design low-cost and mobile multispectral readers, helping the translation of nanosensing technologies to various emerging applications such as wearable sensing, personalized medicine, and point-of-care diagnostics. Beyond plasmonics, other types of sensors that operate based on spectral changes can broadly benefit from this approach, including e.g., aptamer-enabled nanoparticle assays and graphene-based sensors, among others.

  11. [Impact on reading scientific articles:an attempt to dialogue with "my reader"].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akerman, Marco

    2016-03-01

    This article discusses the concept of "impact" and is based on the scientific output of the author that is examined for the analysis of impacts from the qualitative standpoint. It is done not as an end in itself, but under the aegis of the author/text/reader relationship. Seeking to establish this relationship, the way in which the author is quoted in a selected article, entering each of the quotes and identifying what aspects were emphasized by the readers who referenced the quote is explored in detail. This qualitative observation of each of the quotes provided an indication of how each author/reader perceived the original text. This personal experience of this finite and delicate dialogue with "my reader" is presented here as a recommendation, to anyone who may be interested, of a viable device that can be repeated by authors in order to re-visit their writings based on the acknowledgement of the impact that it has on others.

  12. The Role of Reader in Felpo Filva, by Eva Furnari

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Elvira L. Gebara

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available In order to analyze the relationship between writer-reader and mediation of the text, it is necessary to identify the positions they occupy. Before the Internet, it was not common for the reader to approach the writer directly, except though letters. This virtual (but not digital contact is modelling to understand the reader’s relationship with the author because, in the written lines, he ends up indicating how he understands himself and the other – in a game of faces, understood in this work as Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2006 it characterizes in conversation. In this hyper-gender, without socio-historical restrictions or of categorization (MAINGUENEAU, 2010, there is a mandatory provision that constrains the sender to identify his position from the moment he chooses how to address the recipient. In these forms of treatment, the relationships of preservation or threat to the in the light of what is extended or made explicit in the treatment given to the theme of the letter to be outlined. This article aims to identify the concepts of the reader in the correspondence exchanged by the main characters, Charlô and Felpo, core of the development of the narrative (FURNARI, 2006. These concepts allow us to comprehend, in a discursive and dialogical perspective, which boundaries remain for the reader towards the text and which are outdated.

  13. Students Attendance Management System Based On RFID And Fingerprint Reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moth Moth Myint Thein

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Today students class attendance is become more important part for any organizationsinstitutions. The conventional method of taking attendance by calling names or signing on paper is very time consuming and insecure hence inefficient. This paper presents the manual students attendance management into computerized system for convenience or data reliability. So the system is developed by the integration of ubiquitous computing systems into classroom for managing the students attendance using RFID and fingerprint reader. The system is designed to implement an attendance management system based on RFID and fingerprint reader which students need to use their student identification card ID and their finger ID to success the attendance where only authentic student can be recorded the attendance during the class. In this system passive RFID tag and reader pairs are used to register the student ID cards individually and fingerprint reader is used for attendance. This system takes attendance electronically with the help of the RFID and finger print device and the records of the attendance are stored in a database. Students roll call percentages and their details are easily seenvia Graphical User Interface GUI. This system will have the required databases for students attendance teachers subjects and students details. This application is implemented by Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft SQL Server as IDE. C language is used to implement this system.

  14. Association of poor metabolizers of cytochrome P450 2C19 with head and neck cancer and poor treatment response

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yadav, Sunishtha S.; Ruwali, Munindra; Shah, Parag P. [Developmental Toxicology Division, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, CSIR P.O. Box 80, M.G. Marg, Lucknow 226001 (India); Mathur, Neeraj [Environmental Epidemiology Division, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, CSIR P.O. Box 80, M.G. Marg, Lucknow 226001 (India); Singh, Ram L. [Department of Biochemistry, Dr. R.M.L. Awadh University, Faizabad 224 001, U.P. (India); Pant, Mohan C. [Department of Radiotherapy, C.S.M. Medical University, Shahmina Road, Lucknow 226 001 (India); Parmar, Devendra [Developmental Toxicology Division, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, CSIR P.O. Box 80, M.G. Marg, Lucknow 226001 (India)], E-mail: parmar_devendra@hotmail.com

    2008-09-26

    A case-control study consisting of 300 patients and an equal number of healthy controls was carried out to investigate the association of polymorphism in cytochrome P450 2C19 (CYP2C19), which results in poor and extensive metabolizers (PMs and EMs) genotypes, with squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (HNSCC) and treatment response in patients receiving combination of chemo-radiotherapy. A higher frequency of CYP2C19*2 variants was observed in the cases resulting in significantly higher risk to HNSCC (Ad OR 3.36, 95% CI 1.94-5.82, p-value < 0.05). The PM genotype of CYP2C19*3 was also found to be slightly increased in the cases, though the increase in risk was not significant when analyzed by multivariate logistic regression model. Tobacco chewing amongst the cases resulted in almost 13-fold increase in the risk with CYP2C19*2 (OR: 12.39) and 3-fold with CYP2C19*3 genotype (OR: 2.90) when compared to the tobacco chewers amongst the controls. Likewise, cigarette smoking in the cases increased the risk approximately 9-fold and 3-fold with CYP2C19*2 (OR: 8.93) and CYP2C19*3 (OR: 2.18) genotypes respectively when compared to smokers amongst the controls. Similar increase in risk was associated with alcohol use amongst the cases carrying variant genotypes of CYP2C19*2 (OR: 7.75) or CYP2C19*3 (OR: 2.60), demonstrating the importance of gene-environment interaction in modifying susceptibility to HNSCC. Interestingly, patients with PMs of CYP2C19 (CYP2C19*2 and CYP2C19*3) exhibited little response to the respective chemotherapy than the patients carrying wild-type genotype demonstrating that functional enzyme deficiencies due to polymorphism in CYPs may not only be important in modifying the susceptibility to HNSCC but also in determining chemotherapeutic response.

  15. Dose reader CD-02

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jakowiuk, A.; Kaluska, I.; Machaj, B.

    2005-01-01

    Dose Reader CD-02 is designed for measurement of dose from a long narrow band of dosimetric foil used for check up and control of electron beam dose during sterilization of materials and products on conveyor belt. Irradiated foil after processing (heating) is inserted into foil driving (moving) system and when the foil is moved across focused light beam the absorbed dose is measured and displayed at the same time at computer monitor (in form of a diagram). The absorbed dose is measured on the principle of light attenuation at selected light wavelength (foil absorbance is measured). (author)

  16. Social Imaginary in web advertising of e-readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvina Marcela Angelozzi

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the imaginary meanings that appear in the advertising discourses on e-book reading devices commonly known as e-readers. It starts from the assumption that imaginary meanings are associated with both: the imaginary associated to digital technologies (Cabrera, 2006, 2011 and to the imaginary of "order of books" (Chartier, 2000, 2005. In order to carry out the exploration, the advertising discourses in the homepages of three cases are analized: The Amazon Kindle, Kobo and MovistarBq brands. The conclusion is that e-readers are devices that participate of the imaginary of the digital technologies as other devices in the complex of digital technologies in everyday life, and also refers strongly to the imaginary meanings related to printed books.

  17. BOOK REVIEW: Astrophysics (Advanced Physics Readers)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kibble, Bob

    2000-07-01

    Here is a handy and attractive reader to support students on post-16 courses. It covers the astrophysics, astronomy and cosmology that are demanded at A-level and offers anyone interested in these fields an interesting and engaging reference book. The author and the production team deserve credit for producing such an attractive book. The content, in ten chapters, covers what one would expect at this level but it is how it is presented that struck me as the book's most powerful asset. Each chapter ends with a summary of key ideas. Line drawings are clear and convey enough information to make them more than illustrations - they are as valuable as the text in conveying information. Full colour is used throughout to enhance illustrations and tables and to lift key sections of the text. A number of colour photographs complement the material and serve to maintain interest and remind readers that astrophysics is about real observable phenomena. Included towards the end is a set of tables offering information on physical and astronomical data, mathematical techniques and constellation names and abbreviations. This last table puzzled me as to its value. There is a helpful bibliography which includes society contacts and a website related to the text. Perhaps my one regret is that there is no section where students are encouraged to actually do some real astronomy. Astrophysics is in danger of becoming an armchair and calculator interest. There are practical projects that students could undertake either for school assessment or for personal interest. Simple astrophotography to capture star trails, observe star colours and estimate apparent magnitudes is an example, as is a simple double-star search. There are dozens more. However, the author's style is friendly and collaborative. He befriends the reader as they journey together through the ideas. There are progress questions at the end of each chapter. Their style tends to be rather closed and they emphasize factual recall

  18. Oral formulation strategies to improve solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Abhishek; Worku, Zelalem Ayenew; Van den Mooter, Guy

    2011-10-01

    In the past two decades, there has been a spiraling increase in the complexity and specificity of drug-receptor targets. It is possible to design drugs for these diverse targets with advances in combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening. Unfortunately, but not entirely unexpectedly, these advances have been accompanied by an increase in the structural complexity and a decrease in the solubility of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. Therefore, the importance of formulation strategies to improve the solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs is inevitable, thus making it crucial to understand and explore the recent trends. Drug delivery systems (DDS), such as solid dispersions, soluble complexes, self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS), nanocrystals and mesoporous inorganic carriers, are discussed briefly in this review, along with examples of marketed products. This article provides the reader with a concise overview of currently relevant formulation strategies and proposes anticipated future trends. Today, the pharmaceutical industry has at its disposal a series of reliable and scalable formulation strategies for poorly soluble drugs. However, due to a lack of understanding of the basic physical chemistry behind these strategies, formulation development is still driven by trial and error.

  19. Tactile spatial resolution in blind braille readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Boven, R W; Hamilton, R H; Kauffman, T; Keenan, J P; Pascual-Leone, A

    2000-06-27

    To determine if blind people have heightened tactile spatial acuity. Recently, studies using magnetic source imaging and somatosensory evoked potentials have shown that the cortical representation of the reading fingers of blind Braille readers is expanded compared to that of fingers of sighted subjects. Furthermore, the visual cortex is activated during certain tactile tasks in blind subjects but not sighted subjects. The authors hypothesized that the expanded cortical representation of fingers used in Braille reading may reflect an enhanced fidelity in the neural transmission of spatial details of a stimulus. If so, the quantitative limit of spatial acuity would be superior in blind people. The authors employed a grating orientation discrimination task in which threshold performance is accounted for by the spatial resolution limits of the neural image evoked by a stimulus. The authors quantified the psychophysical limits of spatial acuity at the middle and index fingers of 15 blind Braille readers and 15 sighted control subjects. The mean grating orientation threshold was significantly (p = 0.03) lower in the blind group (1.04 mm) compared to the sighted group (1.46 mm). The self-reported dominant reading finger in blind subjects had a mean grating orientation threshold of 0.80 mm, which was significantly better than other fingers tested. Thresholds at non-Braille reading fingers in blind subjects averaged 1.12 mm, which were also superior to sighted subjects' performances. Superior tactile spatial acuity in blind Braille readers may represent an adaptive, behavioral correlate of cortical plasticity.

  20. Analytical validation of an ultra low-cost mobile phone microplate reader for infectious disease testing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Li-Ju; Naudé, Nicole; Demissie, Misganaw; Crivaro, Anne; Kamoun, Malek; Wang, Ping; Li, Lei

    2018-07-01

    Most mobile health (mHealth) diagnostic devices for laboratory tests only analyze one sample at a time, which is not suitable for large volume serology testing, especially in low-resource settings with shortage of health professionals. In this study, we developed an ultra-low-cost clinically-accurate mobile phone microplate reader (mReader), and clinically validated this optical device for 12 infectious disease tests. The mReader optically reads 96 samples on a microplate at one time. 771 de-identified patient samples were tested for 12 serology assays for bacterial/viral infections. The mReader and the clinical instrument blindly read and analyzed all tests in parallel. The analytical accuracy and the diagnostic performance of the mReader were evaluated across the clinical reportable categories by comparison with clinical laboratorial testing results. The mReader exhibited 97.59-99.90% analytical accuracy and envision the mReader can benefit underserved areas/populations and low-resource settings in rural clinics/hospitals at a low cost (~$50 USD) with clinical-level analytical quality. It has the potential to improve health access, speed up healthcare delivery, and reduce health disparities and education disparities by providing access to a low-cost spectrophotometer. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Developing Historical Reading and Writing with Adolescent Readers: Effects on Student Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    De La Paz, Susan; Felton, Mark; Monte-Sano, Chauncey; Croninger, Robert; Jackson, Cara; Deogracias, Jeehye Shim; Hoffman, Benjamin Polk

    2014-01-01

    In this study, the effects of a disciplinary reading and writing curriculum intervention with professional development are shared. We share our instructional approach and provide writing outcomes for struggling adolescent readers who read at or below basic proficiency levels, as well as writing outcomes for proficient and advanced readers.…

  2. Literature Discussion: Encouraging Reading Interest and Comprehension in Struggling Middle School Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pittman, Pamela; Honchell, Barbara

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how literature discussion affects middle school struggling readers. The focus was on 16 middle school struggling readers in a rural Title I school in the southeastern United States. Findings indicated that (a) literature discussion increased student enjoyment of reading, and (b) students…

  3. The StorySpinner Sculptural Reader

    OpenAIRE

    Hooper, Clare; Weal, Mark

    2005-01-01

    This demo is of a hypertext reading system called StorySpinner. It follows the sculptural hypertext methodology and has been used as a test bed for experimenting with the authoring of narrative flow in automatically generated stories. Readers are able to select and read one of two available stories. Reading a story involves selecting tarot cards which are mapped to chunks of story text based on possible interpretations of the cards and information concerning current story state.

  4. URBAN PRO-POOR REGISTRATIONS: COMPLEX-SIMPLE

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    New Win User

    registrations for the poor and low-literate / corporate social responsibility); ..... legal textbooks, statutory texts, case law texts, customary texts (from a largely ...... by speaking directly to the prosecutor, or an academic who specialises in ethics.

  5. WellReader: a MATLAB program for the analysis of fluorescence and luminescence reporter gene data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boyer, Frédéric; Besson, Bruno; Baptist, Guillaume; Izard, Jérôme; Pinel, Corinne; Ropers, Delphine; Geiselmann, Johannes; de Jong, Hidde

    2010-05-01

    Fluorescent and luminescent reporter gene systems in combination with automated microplate readers allow real-time monitoring of gene expression on the population level at high precision and sampling density. This generates large amounts of data for the analysis of which computer tools are missing to date. We have developed WellReader, a MATLAB program for the analysis of fluorescent and luminescent reporter gene data. WellReader allows the user to load the output files of microplate readers, remove outliers, correct for background effects and smooth and fit the data. Moreover, it computes biologically relevant quantities from the measured signals, notably promoter activities and protein concentrations, and compares the resulting expression profiles of different genes under different conditions. WellReader is available under a LGPL licence at http://prabi1.inrialpes.fr/trac/wellreader.

  6. Patterns of Analogical Reasoning among Beginning Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farrington-Flint, Lee; Wood, Clare; Canobi, Katherine H.; Faulkner, Dorothy

    2004-01-01

    Despite compelling evidence that analogy skills are available to beginning readers, few studies have actually explored the possibility of identifying individual differences in young children's analogy skills in early reading. The present study examined individual differences in children's use of orthographic and phonological relations between…

  7. Evaluating the effect of a reader worker program on team performance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hahn, H.A.; Alvarez, Y.P.

    1994-01-01

    When safety, security, or other logistical concerns prevent direct objective assessment of team performance, other evaluation techniques become necessary. In this paper, the effect of a Department of Energy-mandated reader worker program on team performance at a particular DOE facility was evaluated using unstructured observations, informal discussions with technicians, and human reliability analysis. The reader worker program is intended to enhance nuclear explosive safety by improving the reliability of team performance. The three methods used for the evaluation combine to provide a strong indication that team performance is in fact enhanced by a properly implemented reader worker procedure. Because direct quantitative data on dependent variables particular to the task of interest is not available, however, there has been some skepticism regarding the results by staff at the facility

  8. Contributions of syntactic awareness to reading in Chinese-speaking adolescent readers with and without dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Kevin K H; Ho, Connie S-H; Chan, David W; Tsang, Suk-Man; Lee, Suk-Han

    2013-02-01

    This study investigated the relative contribution of syntactic awareness to Chinese reading among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers with and without dyslexia. A total of 78 junior high school students in Hong Kong, 26 dyslexic adolescent readers, 26 average adolescent readers of the same age (chronological age control group) and 26 younger readers matched with the same reading level (reading-level group) participated and were administered measures of IQ, syntactic awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, working memory, word reading, and reading comprehension. Results showed that dyslexic readers scored significantly lower than chronological age but similarly to reading level control groups in most measures, especially in the areas of syntactic skills. Analyses of individual data also revealed that over half of the dyslexic readers exhibited certain aspects of deficits in syntactic skills. In regression analyses, syntactic skills were the strongest predictors of ability in word reading and reading comprehension measures. This study highlights the uniquely important correlates of syntactic skills in Chinese reading acquisition and impairment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  9. Acquisition of Malay Word Recognition Skills: Lessons from Low-Progress Early Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Lay Wah; Wheldall, Kevin

    2011-01-01

    Malay is a consistent alphabetic orthography with complex syllable structures. The focus of this research was to investigate word recognition performance in order to inform reading interventions for low-progress early readers. Forty-six Grade 1 students were sampled and 11 were identified as low-progress readers. The results indicated that both…

  10. Automatic spent fuel ID number reader (I)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tanabe, S.; Kawamoto, H.; Fujimaki, K.; Kobe, A.

    1991-01-01

    An effective and efficient technique has been developed for facilitating identification works of LWR spent fuel stored in large scale spent fuel storage pools of such as processing plants. Experience shows that there are often difficulties in the implementation of operator's nuclear material accountancy and control works as well as safeguards inspections conducted on spent fuel assemblies stored in deep water pool. This paper reports that the technique is realized as an automatic spent fuel ID number reader system installed on fuel handling machine. The ID number reader system consists of an optical sub-system and an image processing sub-system. Thousands of spent fuel assemblies stored in under water open racks in each storage pool could be identified within relatively short time (e.g. within several hours) by using this combination. Various performance tests were carried out on image processing sub-system in 1990 using TV images obtained from different types of spent fuel assemblies stored in various storage pools of PWR and BWR power stations

  11. An MILP-Based Cross-Layer Optimization for a Multi-Reader Arbitration in the UHF RFID System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Jinchul; Lee, Chaewoo

    2011-01-01

    In RFID systems, the performance of each reader such as interrogation range and tag recognition rate may suffer from interferences from other readers. Since the reader interference can be mitigated by output signal power control, spectral and/or temporal separation among readers, the system performance depends on how to adapt the various reader arbitration metrics such as time, frequency, and output power to the system environment. However, complexity and difficulty of the optimization problem increase with respect to the variety of the arbitration metrics. Thus, most proposals in previous study have been suggested to primarily prevent the reader collision with consideration of one or two arbitration metrics. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-layer optimization design based on the concept of combining time division, frequency division, and power control not only to solve the reader interference problem, but also to achieve the multiple objectives such as minimum interrogation delay, maximum reader utilization, and energy efficiency. Based on the priority of the multiple objectives, our cross-layer design optimizes the system sequentially by means of the mixed-integer linear programming. In spite of the multi-stage optimization, the optimization design is formulated as a concise single mathematical form by properly assigning a weight to each objective. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization design. PMID:22163743

  12. An MILP-Based Cross-Layer Optimization for a Multi-Reader Arbitration in the UHF RFID System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chaewoo Lee

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available In RFID systems, the performance of each reader such as interrogation range and tag recognition rate may suffer from interferences from other readers. Since the reader interference can be mitigated by output signal power control, spectral and/or temporal separation among readers, the system performance depends on how to adapt the various reader arbitration metrics such as time, frequency, and output power to the system environment. However, complexity and difficulty of the optimization problem increase with respect to the variety of the arbitration metrics. Thus, most proposals in previous study have been suggested to primarily prevent the reader collision with consideration of one or two arbitration metrics. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-layer optimization design based on the concept of combining time division, frequency division, and power control not only to solve the reader interference problem, but also to achieve the multiple objectives such as minimum interrogation delay, maximum reader utilization, and energy efficiency. Based on the priority of the multiple objectives, our cross-layer design optimizes the system sequentially by means of the mixed-integer linear programming. In spite of the multi-stage optimization, the optimization design is formulated as a concise single mathematical form by properly assigning a weight to each objective. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization design.

  13. Sleep disruption is related to poor response inhibition in individuals with obsessive-compulsive and repetitive negative thought symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nota, Jacob A; Schubert, Jessica R; Coles, Meredith E

    2016-03-01

    Obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and repetitive negative thinking (RNT) are associated with poor inhibitory control. Sleep disruptions may partially mediate these relations and/or act as a "second hit" to individuals with OC symptoms and RNT. Models including habitual (past month) hours slept and bedtimes were tested. We employed a go/no-go task that allowed us to examine the relation between sleep and inhibition with various task contingencies. Sixty-seven unselected individuals were recruited from the participant pool at a public university. Bias-corrected bootstrap estimates did not show that sleep disruption mediated the relation between OC symptoms and response inhibition nor the relation between RNT and response inhibition. Multiple linear regression analyses found significant interactions between hours slept and OC symptom severity and between RNT and hours slept to predict poor response inhibition. Hours slept significantly negatively predicted commission errors when OC symptoms and RNT levels were relatively heightened but not when OC symptoms and RNT levels were relatively low. These effects were present in blocks where task contingencies were designed to shape a no-go bias. No significant relations were found with habitual bedtimes. The cross-sectional study design precludes testing the temporal precedence of symptoms in the "second hit" model. The unselected sample also limits generalization to clinical samples. These findings support a "second hit" model of interaction between sleep disruption and perseverative thoughts and behaviors. Further research on the mechanisms of the relation between sleep disruption and perseverative thought symptoms (OC and RNT) is warranted. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. WebCómic: readers, authors and publishers to a click

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fabiola Alejandra Aldana Bravo

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This article presents a profile of the reader and producer of current webcomic. It analyzes how changes that both characters have experienced, thanks to the possibilities of publishing that the web offers, have resulted, besides the emergence of new roles, to a refreshed relationship between authors and readers based on dialogue and expression of opinions. It reviews how the legitimation obtained in the virtual environment becomes in a way of access to the publication of print books, which yields new tools and challenges to the traditional publishing market actors.

  15. Does one report design suit all sorts of readers in the forest sector?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hartebrodt, C.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Description of the subject. In the past two decades, new types of reports, such as sustainability reports, have become more important. Normally, issuing reports is a cost-intensive activity; however, the effectivity in terms of communicational success is often unknown. Research about forest reporting has often focused on general acceptance of different reporting concepts. Analysis about the perception of published reports is either uncommon or results may not be published for several internal reasons. Objectives. This double case study aims to identify if conceptual elements of sustainability reporting (SR meet the expectations of different target groups of public forest enterprises in two German provinces. Method. A three sphere model derived from communication theory is introduced and used to analyze the success of reports in different stakeholder groups. A set of hypotheses is derived from the state of knowledge on sustainability as well as corporate social responsibility reporting and is structured according to the model. The hypotheses are tested on the basis of a double case study. Results. It can be shown that satisfaction with traditional reports is already high; however, structural components of SR are also accepted. Readers want shorter reports and printed versions. Results indicate that the SR concept can be transferred to the readers of forest reports. Differences between stakeholder groups are mainly related to contents and different means of verification. Conclusions. The concept of SR can be basically applied in forest enterprises and meets the expectations of most readers. However, it must be kept in mind that traditional reporting concepts already meet most of the expectations of the relevant target groups. Any effort to implement a new reporting instrument should be supported by an ex ante evaluation of the expectations of the target readership.

  16. Shakespeare and Reader's Theatre: Fellow Traveling Companions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ratliff, Gerald Lee

    2010-01-01

    Whether constructed on literary analysis models or inspired by conventional acting theories, Reader's Theatre performance techniques are an invaluable instructional tool available to teachers who want their students to see, hear and feel Shakespeare texts in classroom discussion and performance. These exercises are designed to promote both a…

  17. Lexical Reading in Dysfluent Readers of German

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gangl, Melanie; Moll, Kristina; Jones, Manon W.; Banfi, Chiara; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Landerl, Karin

    2018-01-01

    Dyslexia in consistent orthographies like German is characterized by dysfluent reading, which is often assumed to result from failure to build up an orthographic lexicon and overreliance on decoding. However, earlier evidence indicates effects of lexical processing at least in some German dyslexic readers. We investigated variations in reading…

  18. Trade Related Reading Packets for Disabled Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Beverly; Woodruff, Nancy S.

    Six trade-related reading packets for disabled readers are provided for these trades: assemblers, baking, building maintenance, data entry, interior landscaping, and warehousing. Each packet stresses from 9 to 14 skills. Those skills common to most packets include context clues, fact or opinion, details, following directions, main idea,…

  19. Reading speed, comprehension and eye movements while reading Japanese novels: evidence from untrained readers and cases of speed-reading trainees.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiromitsu Miyata

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: A growing body of evidence suggests that meditative training enhances perception and cognition. In Japan, the Park-Sasaki method of speed-reading involves organized visual training while forming both a relaxed and concentrated state of mind, as in meditation. The present study examined relationships between reading speed, sentence comprehension, and eye movements while reading short Japanese novels. In addition to normal untrained readers, three middle-level trainees and one high-level expert on this method were included for the two case studies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In Study 1, three of 17 participants were middle-level trainees on the speed-reading method. Immediately after reading each story once on a computer monitor, participants answered true or false questions regarding the content of the novel. Eye movements while reading were recorded using an eye-tracking system. Results revealed higher reading speed and lower comprehension scores in the trainees than in the untrained participants. Furthermore, eye-tracking data by untrained participants revealed multiple correlations between reading speed, accuracy and eye-movement measures, with faster readers showing shorter fixation durations and larger saccades in X than slower readers. In Study 2, participants included a high-level expert and 14 untrained students. The expert showed higher reading speed and statistically comparable, although numerically lower, comprehension scores compared with the untrained participants. During test sessions this expert moved her eyes along a nearly straight horizontal line as a first pass, without moving her eyes over the whole sentence display as did the untrained students. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: In addition to revealing correlations between speed, comprehension and eye movements in reading Japanese contemporary novels by untrained readers, we describe cases of speed-reading trainees regarding relationships between these variables

  20. Distinguishing between Poor/Dysfunctional Parenting and Child Emotional Maltreatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, David A.; McIsaac, Caroline

    2011-01-01

    Objective: This paper was intended to distinguish between poor parenting and child emotional maltreatment (CEM), to inform child welfare and public health policymakers of the need for differentiated responses. Methods: Scientific literature was integrated with current practice and assumptions relating to poor/dysfunctional parenting and child…

  1. Playing [with] multiple roles: Readers, authors, and characters in "Who Is Blaise Zabini?" [symposium

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne Collins Smith

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available Fans who produce fan works in genres such as fiction, music, and music video take on dual roles in the process, as readers of the original canon and as creators of their own products. These roles—and more—are creatively explored in the Parselmouths' wizard rock composition "Who Is Blaise Zabini?". Like many works of fan fiction, the Parselmouths' songs move beyond a reader's ordinary role, taking on an authorial role to generate new characters and events in the Harry Potter universe. What makes this particular work unusual is that at the same time that they are adopting the roles of authors, and even of participants, the Parselmouths also restrict their own authorial and participatory power, claiming that the Slytherin characters they portray could not perceive their classmate Blaise Zabini until J. K. Rowling provided a complete description of him. To untangle their multiple roles and to recognize the creativity exercised by the Parselmouths in collapsing the boundaries among them, it will be helpful to turn to a theory of audience response that delineates specific roles and that specifies the limitations and the powers inherent in them.

  2. Comparison of microdose GnRH agonist protocol with GnRH antagonist / letrazole protocol in patients with poor ovarian response

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yiğit Çakıroğlu

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To compare microdose GnRH agonist (MDL protocol with GnRH antagonist/letrazole (AL protocol in patients with poor ovarian response. Design: Randomised clinical trial. Setting: Kocaeli University Assisted Reproductive Centre Interventions: POR was diagnosed according to ESHRE Bologna criteria in case of presence of 2 out of 3 criteria. In the MDL group (n=27, 40µg/0.2 cc subcutaneous leuprolid acetate was given two times a day starting on the first day of menstrual cycle. On the second day of the cycle, gonadotrophin stimulation was started at 450-600 IU and/or 150 IU human menopausal gonadotrophin (hMG along with leuprolid. In the AL group (n=28, 5 mg letrazole was given for 5 days starting on the second day of the spontaneous cycle and after the 5th day of the cycle, 450-600 IU and/or 150 IU hMG was given. Main Outcome Measures: To compare the outcomes of MDL protocol with AL protocol in patients with poor ovarian response. Results: Stimulation days, total gonadotrophin dose (IU, peak E2 (pg/ml levels, and endometrial thickness were found to be statistically significantly lower in the AL group. While no cases of cycle cancellation was detected in the MDL group, statistically significantly higher rates of cycle cancellation (%35.7, p<0.001 was detected in the AL group. No statistically significant differences were detected in total oocyte numbers (3.7±2.9 vs 2.7±2.2, number of transferred embryos (1.4±0.5 vs 1.4±1.9, pregnancy rates (3/27 (%11.1 vs 2/28 (%7.1 and implantation rates (3/36 (%8.3 vs 2/22 (%9.1 in between the groups. Comment: Although AL protocol is not superior to MDL protocol in poor ovarian response patients, it may be used as an alternative protocol.

  3. Instant responsive web design

    CERN Document Server

    Simmons, Cory

    2013-01-01

    A step-by-step tutorial approach which will teach the readers what responsive web design is and how it is used in designing a responsive web page.If you are a web-designer looking to expand your skill set by learning the quickly growing industry standard of responsive web design, this book is ideal for you. Knowledge of CSS is assumed.

  4. Featured Article: Genotation: Actionable knowledge for the scientific reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagahawatte, Panduka; Willis, Ethan; Sakauye, Mark; Jose, Rony; Chen, Hao; Davis, Robert L

    2016-06-01

    We present an article viewer application that allows a scientific reader to easily discover and share knowledge by linking genomics-related concepts to knowledge of disparate biomedical databases. High-throughput data streams generated by technical advancements have contributed to scientific knowledge discovery at an unprecedented rate. Biomedical Informaticists have created a diverse set of databases to store and retrieve the discovered knowledge. The diversity and abundance of such resources present biomedical researchers a challenge with knowledge discovery. These challenges highlight a need for a better informatics solution. We use a text mining algorithm, Genomine, to identify gene symbols from the text of a journal article. The identified symbols are supplemented with information from the GenoDB knowledgebase. Self-updating GenoDB contains information from NCBI Gene, Clinvar, Medgen, dbSNP, KEGG, PharmGKB, Uniprot, and Hugo Gene databases. The journal viewer is a web application accessible via a web browser. The features described herein are accessible on www.genotation.org The Genomine algorithm identifies gene symbols with an accuracy shown by .65 F-Score. GenoDB currently contains information regarding 59,905 gene symbols, 5633 drug-gene relationships, 5981 gene-disease relationships, and 713 pathways. This application provides scientific readers with actionable knowledge related to concepts of a manuscript. The reader will be able to save and share supplements to be visualized in a graphical manner. This provides convenient access to details of complex biological phenomena, enabling biomedical researchers to generate novel hypothesis to further our knowledge in human health. This manuscript presents a novel application that integrates genomic, proteomic, and pharmacogenomic information to supplement content of a biomedical manuscript and enable readers to automatically discover actionable knowledge. © 2016 by the Society for Experimental Biology and

  5. Meeting the Needs of Struggling Adolescent Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stover, Katie; O'Rear, Allison; Morris, Carolyn

    2015-01-01

    Research suggests that additional reading instruction is necessary to support struggling adolescent readers. In addition to time allocated for reading and access to appropriately leveled texts, many students need teacher support in learning and implementing a range of reading strategies. As a high school English teacher and a middle school Social…

  6. ReaderBench: An Integrated Cohesion-Centered Framework

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dascalu, Mihai; Stavarache, Lucia Larise; Dessus, Philippe; Trausan-Matu, Stefan; McNamara, Danielle S.; Bianco, Maryse

    2015-01-01

    Dascalu, M., Stavarache, L.L., Dessus, P., Trausan-Matu, S., McNamara, D.S., & Bianco, M. (2015). ReaderBench: An Integrated Cohesion-Centered Framework. In G. Conole, T. Klobucar, C. Rensing, J. Konert & É. Lavoué (Eds.), 10th European Conf. on Technology Enhanced Learning (pp. 505–508). Toledo,

  7. Understanding Deaf Readers: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelstone, Aaron Weir

    2013-01-01

    The development of reading skills, beyond a functional level, is difficult for most deaf readers. Standardized testing demonstrates a median 4th grade reading level that remains consistent even after national norming of the Stanford Achievement test on the population of deaf school children. Deaf education continues to generate various educational…

  8. The Emergent Reader's Working Kit of Stereotypes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mackey, Margaret

    2013-01-01

    This article draws on a careful study of series fiction read in the 1950s to explore how stereotypes feature in the development of a young reader's competence in learning to process stories in print. Five categories of stereotype are teased out: "embodied stereotypes," understood through physical experience; "working stereotypes," discerned…

  9. Satisfying the Needs of the Serious Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hopkins, Richard

    1987-01-01

    An examination of how well the Canadian public library is meeting the needs of the serious reader interested in self education, as compared to new and secondhand book stores and academic libraries, found that the public library is the most important and effective agency in providing materials for this group. (CLB)

  10. Readerly and Writerly "Letters from the Park."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conde, Susana

    1993-01-01

    Discusses in depth the film "Cartas del parque" ("Letters from the Park"), the first of six films in the "Amores Dificiles" series. Notes that the film is pervaded by the traditional overdetermination of gender roles. Suggests that an intrusive and authoritative narrator makes of this both a "readerly" and a…

  11. The Effect of Technology-Based Altered Readability Levels on Struggling Readers' Science Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marino, Matthew T.; Coyne, Michael; Dunn, Michael

    2010-01-01

    This article reports findings from a study examining how altered readability levels affected struggling readers' (N = 288) comprehension of scientific concepts and vocabulary. Specifically, the researchers were interested in learning what effect altered readability levels have when low ability readers participate in a technology-based science…

  12. Insulin resistance is associated with a poor response to intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calleja, Ana I; García-Bermejo, Pablo; Cortijo, Elisa; Bustamante, Rosa; Rojo Martínez, Esther; González Sarmiento, Enrique; Fernández-Herranz, Rosa; Arenillas, Juan F

    2011-11-01

    Insulin resistance (IR) may not only increase stroke risk, but could also contribute to aggravate stroke prognosis. Mainly through a derangement in endogenous fibrinolysis, IR could affect the response to intravenous thrombolysis, currently the only therapy proved to be efficacious for acute ischemic stroke. We hypothesized that high IR is associated with more persistent arterial occlusions and poorer long-term outcome after stroke thrombolysis. We performed a prospective, observational, longitudinal study in consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients presenting with middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion who received intravenous thrombolysis. Patients with acute hyperglycemia (≥155 mg/dL) receiving insulin were excluded. IR was determined during admission by the homeostatic model assessment index (HOMA-IR). Poor long-term outcome, as defined by a day 90 modified Rankin scale score ≥ 3, was considered the primary outcome variable. Transcranial Duplex-assessed resistance to MCA recanalization and symptomatic hemorrhagic transformation were considered secondary end points. A total of 109 thrombolysed MCA ischemic stroke patients were included (43.1% women, mean age 71 years). The HOMA-IR was higher in the group of patients with poor outcome (P = 0.02). The probability of good outcome decreased gradually with increasing HOMA-IR tertiles (80.6%, 1st tertile; 71.4%, 2nd tertile; and 55.3%, upper tertile). A HOMA-IR in the upper tertile was independently associated with poor outcome when compared with the lower tertile (odds ratio [OR] 8.54 [95% CI 1.67-43.55]; P = 0.01) and was associated with more persistent MCA occlusions (OR 8.2 [1.23-54.44]; P = 0.029). High IR may be associated with more persistent arterial occlusions and worse long-term outcome after acute ischemic stroke thrombolysis.

  13. THE CRITICAL READER IN THE POETRY OF MANUEL GUSM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marleide Anchieta de Lima

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available In the poetry of Manuel Gusmão, the reader is invited to actively partici­pate in writing and reading scenes. To the poet-critic, the act of reading, understood as emancipatory and political practice, is sharing the aesthe­tic experience and the development of our sensitive-cognitive instances, beyond the world learning outside and inside the text. In this sense, our article aims to examine the critical reader configuration from three aspects present in that poetry – act of co-motion, epistemological construction and erratic tissue habitation. With this perspective, we turn to the theoretical­-critical of Roland Bathes, Jacques Rancière and Eduardo Prado Coelho.

  14. Diffusion tensor imaging of the median nerve: intra-, inter-reader agreement, and agreement between two software packages

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guggenberger, Roman; Nanz, Daniel; Puippe, Gilbert; Andreisek, Gustav; Rufibach, Kaspar; White, Lawrence M.; Sussman, Marshall S.

    2012-01-01

    To assess intra-, inter-reader agreement, and the agreement between two software packages for magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of the median nerve. Fifteen healthy volunteers (seven men, eight women; mean age, 31.2 years) underwent DTI of both wrists at 1.5 T. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the median nerve were measured by three readers using two commonly used software packages. Measurements were repeated by two readers after 6 weeks. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis were used for statistical analysis. ICCs for intra-reader agreement ranged from 0.87 to 0.99, for inter-reader agreement from 0.62 to 0.83, and between the two software packages from 0.63 to 0.82. Bland-Altman analysis showed no differences for intra- and inter-reader agreement and agreement between software packages. The intra-, inter-reader, and agreement between software packages for DTI measurements of the median nerve were moderate to substantial suggesting that user- and software-dependent factors contribute little to variance in DTI measurements. (orig.)

  15. STARtorialist: Astronomy Fashion & Culture Blog and Reader Survey Results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ash, Summer; Rice, Emily L.; Jarreau, Paige B.

    2016-01-01

    STARtorialist (startorialist.com) is a Tumblr-based blog that curates the proliferation of "Astro Fashion" - clothing accessories, decor, and more - with the goal of celebrating the beauty of the universe and highlighting the science behind the astronomical imagery. Since launching in January 2013, we have written over 1000 unique posts about everything from handmade and boutique products to mass-produced commercial items to haute couture seen on fashion runways. Each blog post features images and descriptions of the products with links to the original astronomical images or other relevant science content. We also feature profiles of astronomers, scientists, students, and communicators wearing, making, or decorating with "startorial" items. Our most popular posts accumulate hundreds or thousands of notes (faves or reblogs, in Tumblr parlance), and one post has nearly 150,000 notes. In our second year, we have grown from 1,000 to just shy of 20,000 followers on Tumblr, with an increased audience on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as well. We present preliminary results from a reader survey conducted September-October 2015 in collaboration with science communication researcher Dr. Paige Jarreau. The survey provides data on reader habits, motivations, attitudes, and demographics in order to assess how STARtorialist has influenced our readers' views on science, scientists, and the scientific community as a whole.

  16. An Effective Scheduling-Based RFID Reader Collision Avoidance Model and Its Resource Allocation via Artificial Immune Network

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Shanjin; Li, Zhonghua; He, Chunhui; Li, Jianming

    2016-01-01

    Radio frequency identification, that is, RFID, is one of important technologies in Internet of Things. Reader collision does impair the tag identification efficiency of an RFID system. Many developed methods, for example, the scheduling-based series, that are used to avoid RFID reader collision, have been developed. For scheduling-based methods, communication resources, that is, time slots, channels, and power, are optimally assigned to readers. In this case, reader collision avoidance is equ...

  17. The suitability of gray-scale electronic readers for dermatology journals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Jae Eun; Kim, Dai Hyun; Seo, Soo Hong; Kye, Young Chul; Ahn, Hyo Hyun

    2014-12-01

    The rapid development of information and communication technology has replaced traditional books by electronic versions. Most print dermatology journals have been replaced with electronic journals (e-journals), which are readily used by clinicians and medical students. The objectives of this study were to determine whether e-readers are appropriate for reading dermatology journals, to conduct an attitude study of both medical personnel and students, and to find a way of improving e-book use in the field of dermatology. All articles in the Korean Journal of Dermatology published from January 2010 to December 2010 were utilized in this study. Dermatology house officers, student trainees in their fourth year of medical school, and interns at Korea University Medical Center participated in the study. After reading the articles with Kindle 2, their impressions and evaluations were recorded using a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. The results demonstrated that gray-scale e-readers might not be suitable for reading dermatology journals, especially for case reports compared to the original articles. Only three of the thirty-one respondents preferred e-readers to printed papers. The most common suggestions from respondents to encourage usage of e-books in the field of dermatology were the introduction of a color display, followed by the use of a touch screen system, a cheaper price, and ready-to-print capabilities. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that current e-readers might not be suitable for reading dermatology journals. However, they may be utilized in selected situations according to the type and topic of the papers.

  18. Communication: Learning to Write for the Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Todd, Mavis M.

    1980-01-01

    A new approach to teaching students to write effective business letters is presented. It uses class members as resources, writers, and readers for the assignment. Four stages are described: the interview, discussion of models and format, revision, and the reply. Results of the exercise and suggestions for continued application are included. (CT)

  19. Improvements of RGD3 TLD reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhao Jianxing; Wang Jiaqi; Li Yuanfang; Wu Furong; Xiao Wuyun

    1999-01-01

    The author summarized the main features of the improved RGD3 TLD reader. Through a large number of experiments some persuasive data are obtained, which show that an remarkable improvement has been achieved, especially in its stability to the standard illuminates, data dispersivity, and effectiveness to glow curves analysis. Working with the newly developed data processing software, the comprehensive performance of the whole system will be enhanced greatly

  20. Plastic Logic quits e-reader market

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perks, Simon

    2012-07-01

    A UK firm spun out from the University of Cambridge that sought to be a world leader in flexible organic electronic circuits and displays has pulled out of the competitive e-reader market as it struggles to find a commercial outlet for its technology. Plastic Logic announced in May that it is to close its development facility in Mountain View, California, with the loss of around 40 jobs.

  1. Novel biomarkers in primary breast core biopsies to predict poor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and appearance of metastases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novell, Anna; Morales, Serafin; Valls, Joan; Panadés, Maria José; Salud, Antonieta; Iglesias, Edelmiro; Vilardell, Felip; Matias-Guiu, Xavier; Llombart-Cussac, Antonio

    2017-09-01

    Drug resistance has been one of the major obstacles limiting the success of cancer chemotherapy. In two thirds of breast cancer patients, large (>1cm) residual tumors are present after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT). The residual tumor and involved nodes have been indicators of relapse and survival very important in breast cancer. The goal of this preliminary study was to assess the predictive significance of a panel of molecular biomarkers, related with the response to treatment or drug resistance to NCT, as determined on the diagnostic tumor. The expression of 22 proteins was examined using immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays (TMA) from 115 patients of stage II-III breast cancer, treated with NCT. Among studied proteins, there are some that are anti-apoptotic, pro-proliferative, cancer stem cell markers and the Vitamin D Receptor. Other proteins are involved in the identification of molecular subtype, cell cycle regulation or DNA repair. Next, a predictive signature of poor response was generated from independent markers of predictive value. Tumors that expressed four or five conditions (biomarkers of chemoresistance with a determinated cutoff) were associated with a 9-fold increase in the chances of these patients of having a poor response to NCT. Additionally, we also found a worse prognostic signature, generated from independent markers of prognostic value. Tumors which expressed two or three conditions of worst prognostic, were associated with a 6-fold reduction in Distant Disease Free Survival. In conclusion, finding biomarkers of chemoresitance (ypTNM II-III) and metastases can become a stepping stone for future studies that will need to be assessed in a bigger scale.

  2. The Impact of Morphological Awareness on Word Reading and Dictation in Chinese Early Adolescent Readers With and Without Dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalindi, Sylvia Chanda; Chung, Kevin Kien Hoa

    2018-01-01

    This study investigated the role of morphological awareness in understanding Chinese word reading and dictation among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers in Hong Kong as well as the cognitive-linguistic profile of early adolescent readers with dyslexia. Fifty-four readers with dyslexia in Grades 5 and 6 were compared with 54 chronological age-matched (CA) typical readers on the following measures of cognitive-linguistic and literacy skills: morphological awareness, phonological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, vocabulary knowledge, verbal short-term memory (STM), Chinese word reading, and dictation (or spelling). The results indicated that early adolescent readers with dyslexia performed less well than the typical readers on all cognitive-linguistic and literacy measures except the phonological measures. Both groups' scores showed substantial correlations between morphological awareness and Chinese word reading and dictation. Visual-orthographic knowledge and rapid naming were also associated with dictation in early adolescent readers with and without dyslexia, respectively. Moderated multiple regression analyses further revealed that morphological awareness and rapid naming explained unique variance in word reading and dictation for the readers with dyslexia and typical readers separately after controlling readers' age and group effect. These results highlight the potential importance of morphological awareness and rapid naming in Chinese word reading and writing in Chinese early adolescents' literacy development and impairment.

  3. Care of the Postcolonial Self: Cultivating Nationalisms in The Philippine Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ronald Sintos Coloma

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The article examines the cultivation of revolutionary nationalisms and the construction of postcolonial subjectivities under a foreign regime. The analysis centers on The Philippine Readers, one of the longest published and most widely adopted reading series for elementary students in grades 1 to 7 in the Philippines from the 1920s to the 1960s. Due to its use and scope, the Readers significantly impacted the development of Filipino mind, character, teaching, and learning for generations. The article mobilizes Michel Foucault’s notion of care of the self, whereby individuals undergo intensive self-scrutiny through texts that serve as manuals for living. It contends that the Readers functioned as a crucial guide that enabled Filipinos to care for themselves in instilling furtive yet subversive forms of nationalism under United States rule. More specifically, two forms of nationalism are discussed, and the concepts of covert and hybrid nationalisms are situated within scholarly discussions regarding colonial complicity and opposition as well as Western and indigenous influences.

  4. Breast cancer MRI radiomics: An overview of algorithmic features and impact of inter-reader variability in annotating tumors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saha, Ashirbani; Harowicz, Michael R; Mazurowski, Maciej A

    2018-04-16

    To review features used in MRI radiomics of breast cancer and study the inter-reader stability of the features METHODS: We implemented 529 algorithmic features that can be extracted from tumor and fibroglandular tissue (FGT) in breast MRIs. The features were identified based on a review of the existing literature with consideration of their usage, prognostic ability, and uniqueness. The set was then extended so that it comprehensively describes breast cancer imaging characteristics. The features were classified into 10 groups based on the type of data used to extract them and the type of calculation being performed. For the assessment of inter-reader variability, 4 fellowship-trained readers annotated tumors on pre-operative dynamic contrast enhanced MRIs for 50 breast cancer patients. Based on the annotations, an algorithm automatically segmented the image and extracted all features resulting in one set of features for each reader. For a given feature, the inter-reader stability was defined as the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) computed using the feature values obtained through all readers for all cases. The average inter-reader stability for all features was 0.8474 (95% CI: 0.8068-0.8858). The mean inter-reader stability was lower for tumor-based features (0.6348, 95% CI: 0.5391-0.7257) than FGT-based features (0.9984, 95% CI: 0.9970-0.9992). The feature group with the highest inter-reader stability quantifies breast and FGT volume. The feature group with the lowest inter-reader stability quantifies variations in tumor enhancement. Breast MRI radiomics features widely vary in terms of their stability in the presence of inter-reader variability. Appropriate measures need to be taken for reducing this variability in tumor-based radiomics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  5. Readers' Tellings: Narrators, Settings, Flashbacks and Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kucer, Stephen B.

    2010-01-01

    This research explores the impact of flashbacks and changes in settings and narrators on reader comprehension. Individually, 34 fourth graders (9 and 10 years of age), mostly with above average reading abilities (5.0), orally read the first chapter of a novel. Both publisher and readability formulae estimated the text to be at a fourth- grade…

  6. Altmetrics for the Humanities: Comparing Goodreads reader ratings with citations to history books

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zuccala, Alesia Ann; Verleysen, Frederik; Cornacchia, Roberto

    2015-01-01

    for the subset of 997 books indicated a similar weak correlation (0.190). Further correlations between citations, reader ratings, written reviews, and library holdings indicate that a reader rating was more likely to be given to a book on Goodreads if the book was held in an international library, including both...... public and academic libraries. Originality/Value: Altmetrics research has focused almost exclusively on scientific journal articles appearing on social media services (e.g., Twitter, Facebook). In this paper we show the potential of Goodreads reader ratings to identify the impact of books beyond academia....... As a unique altmetric tool Goodreads can allow scholarly authors from the social sciences and humanities to measure the wider impact of their books....

  7. Quantifying the Impacts of Digital Rights Management and E-Book Pricing on the E-Book Reader Market

    OpenAIRE

    Jin-Hyuk Kim; Tin Cheuk Leung

    2013-01-01

    The demand for electronic books (e-books) and the e-book readers are complementary. On the one hand, the emergence of e-book readers such as Amazon's Kindle has triggered the recent growth of the e-book market. On the other hand, several issues in the e-book market can affect the future of the e-book reader market. Considering this complementarity, this paper quantifies the impact of digital rights management (DRM) and discounted e-book pricing on the demand for e-book readers. We collect con...

  8. Syntactic and Discourse Skills in Chinese Adolescent Readers with Dyslexia: A Profiling Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Kevin K. H.; Lo, Jason C. M.; Ho, Connie S.-H.; Xiao, Xiaoyun; Chan, David W.

    2014-01-01

    This study aims to investigate the relation of syntactic and discourse skills to morphological skills, rapid naming, and working memory in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and to examine their cognitive-linguistic profiles. Fifty-two dyslexic readers (mean age, 13;42) from grade 7 to 9 in Hong Kong high schools were compared with 52…

  9. Metacognitive Online Reading Strategy Use: Readers' Perceptions in L1 and L2

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taki, Saeed

    2016-01-01

    This study aimed to explore whether first-language (L1) readers of different language backgrounds would employ similar metacognitive online reading strategies and whether reading online in a second language (L2) could be influenced by L1 reading strategies. To this end, 52 Canadian college students as English L1 readers and 38 Iranian university…

  10. Text Mining in Python through the HTRC Feature Reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Organisciak

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available We introduce a toolkit for working with the 13.6 million volume Extracted Features Dataset from the HathiTrust Research Center. You will learn how to peer at the words and trends of any book in the collection, while developing broadly useful Python data analysis skills. The HathiTrust holds nearly 15 million digitized volumes from libraries around the world. In addition to their individual value, these works in aggregate are extremely valuable for historians. Spanning many centuries and genres, they offer a way to learn about large-scale trends in history and culture, as well as evidence for changes in language or even the structure of the book. To simplify access to this collection the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC has released the Extracted Features dataset (Capitanu et al. 2015: a dataset that provides quantitative information describing every page of every volume in the collection. In this lesson, we introduce the HTRC Feature Reader, a library for working with the HTRC Extracted Features dataset using the Python programming language. The HTRC Feature Reader is structured to support work using popular data science libraries, particularly Pandas. Pandas provides simple structures for holding data and powerful ways to interact with it. The HTRC Feature Reader uses these data structures, so learning how to use it will also cover general data analysis skills in Python.

  11. Making Connections: Linking Cognitive Psychology and Intervention Research to Improve Comprehension of Struggling Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    McMaster, Kristen L.; Espin, Christine A.; van den Broek, Paul

    2014-01-01

    Many studies have demonstrated the efficacy of reading comprehension interventions for struggling readers, including students with learning disabilities. Yet, some readers continue to struggle with comprehension despite receiving these interventions. In this article, we argue that an explicit link between cognitive psychology and intervention…

  12. Survey of reader preferences concerning the format of NASA technical reports

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinelli, T. E.; Glassman, M.; Cordle, V. M.

    1982-01-01

    A survey was conducted to determine the opinions of readers concerning the format (organization) of NASA technical reports and usage of technical report components. A survey questionnaire was sent to 513 LaRC engineers and scientists and 600 engineers and scientists from three (3) professional/technical societies. The response rates were 74 and 85 percent, respectively. The questionnaire included the order in which users read report components, the components reviewed or read to determine whether to read a report, report components which could be deleted, the desirability of a table of contents, the desirability of both a summary and abstract, the location of the symbols list and glossary, the integration of illustrative material, the preferred format for reference citations, column layout and right margin treatment, and person/voice. The results of the reader preference survey indicated that the conclusion was the component most often ready by survey respondents. The summary, conclusion, abstract, title page, and introduction were the components used most frequently to determine if a report would actually be read. Respondents indicated that a summary as well as an abstract should be included, that the definition of symbols and glossary of terms should be located in the front of the report, and that illustrative material should be integrated with the text rather than grouped at the end of the report. Citation by number was the preferred format for references. A one-column, ragged right margin was preferred. Third person, passive voice was the style of writing preferred by the respondents.

  13. Multilevel Analysis of Multiple-Baseline Data Evaluating Precision Teaching as an Intervention for Improving Fluency in Foundational Reading Skills for at Risk Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brosnan, Julie; Moeyaert, Mariola; Brooks Newsome, Kendra; Healy, Olive; Heyvaert, Mieke; Onghena, Patrick; Van den Noortgate, Wim

    2018-01-01

    In this article, multiple-baseline across participants designs were used to evaluate the impact of a precision teaching (PT) program, within a Tier 2 Response to Intervention framework, targeting fluency in foundational reading skills with at risk kindergarten readers. Thirteen multiple-baseline design experiments that included participation from…

  14. the management of writer-reader interaction in newspaper editorials

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Ntsane

    how dialogically expansive and contractive resources are used in this respect in editorials from different ... adopts a particular position and how they interact with potential readers. Engagement ..... An introductory tour through Appraisal Theory.

  15. Computer-aided detection of pulmonary embolism at CT pulmonary angiography: can it improve performance of inexperienced readers?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Blackmon, Kevin N.; McCain, Joshua W.; Koonce, James D.; Costello, Philip; Florin, Charles; Bogoni, Luca; Salganicoff, Marcos; Lee, Heon; Bastarrika, Gorka; Thilo, Christian; Joseph Schoepf, U.

    2011-01-01

    To evaluate the effect of a computer-aided detection (CAD) algorithm on the performance of novice readers for detection of pulmonary embolism (PE) at CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA). We included CTPA examinations of 79 patients (50 female, 52 ± 18 years). Studies were evaluated by two independent inexperienced readers who marked all vessels containing PE. After 3 months all studies were reevaluated by the same two readers, this time aided by CAD prototype. A consensus read by three expert radiologists served as the reference standard. Statistical analysis used χ 2 and McNemar testing. Expert consensus revealed 119 PEs in 32 studies. For PE detection, the sensitivity of CAD alone was 78%. Inexperienced readers' initial interpretations had an average per-PE sensitivity of 50%, which improved to 71% (p < 0.001) with CAD as a second reader. False positives increased from 0.18 to 0.25 per study (p = 0.03). Per-study, the readers initially detected 27/32 positive studies (84%); with CAD this number increased to 29.5 studies (92%; p = 0.125). Our results suggest that CAD significantly improves the sensitivity of PE detection for inexperienced readers with a small but appreciable increase in the rate of false positives. (orig.)

  16. Computer-aided detection of pulmonary embolism at CT pulmonary angiography: can it improve performance of inexperienced readers?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Blackmon, Kevin N.; McCain, Joshua W.; Koonce, James D.; Costello, Philip [Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Charleston, SC (United States); Florin, Charles; Bogoni, Luca; Salganicoff, Marcos [Siemens AG, H IM SYNGO CAD Research and Development, Malvern, PA (United States); Lee, Heon [Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Charleston, SC (United States); Seoul Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Bastarrika, Gorka [Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Charleston, SC (United States); University of Navarra, Department of Radiology, Pamplona (Spain); Thilo, Christian; Joseph Schoepf, U. [Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Charleston, SC (United States); Medical University of South Carolina, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Charleston, SC (United States)

    2011-06-15

    To evaluate the effect of a computer-aided detection (CAD) algorithm on the performance of novice readers for detection of pulmonary embolism (PE) at CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA). We included CTPA examinations of 79 patients (50 female, 52 {+-} 18 years). Studies were evaluated by two independent inexperienced readers who marked all vessels containing PE. After 3 months all studies were reevaluated by the same two readers, this time aided by CAD prototype. A consensus read by three expert radiologists served as the reference standard. Statistical analysis used {chi}{sup 2} and McNemar testing. Expert consensus revealed 119 PEs in 32 studies. For PE detection, the sensitivity of CAD alone was 78%. Inexperienced readers' initial interpretations had an average per-PE sensitivity of 50%, which improved to 71% (p < 0.001) with CAD as a second reader. False positives increased from 0.18 to 0.25 per study (p = 0.03). Per-study, the readers initially detected 27/32 positive studies (84%); with CAD this number increased to 29.5 studies (92%; p = 0.125). Our results suggest that CAD significantly improves the sensitivity of PE detection for inexperienced readers with a small but appreciable increase in the rate of false positives. (orig.)

  17. Optimized Lateral Flow Immunoassay Reader for the Detection of Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pilavaki, Evdokia; Demosthenous, Andreas

    2017-11-20

    Detection and control of infectious diseases is a major problem, especially in developing countries. Lateral flow immunoassays can be used with great success for the detection of infectious diseases. However, for the quantification of their results an electronic reader is required. This paper presents an optimized handheld electronic reader for developing countries. It features a potentially low-cost, low-power, battery-operated device with no added optical accessories. The operation of this proof of concept device is based on measuring the reflected light from the lateral flow immunoassay and translating it into the concentration of the specific analyte of interest. Characterization of the surface of the lateral flow immunoassay has been performed in order to accurately model its response to the incident light. Ray trace simulations have been performed to optimize the system and achieve maximum sensitivity by placing all the components in optimum positions. A microcontroller enables all the signal processing to be performed on the device and a Bluetooth module allows transmission of the results wirelessly to a mobile phone app. Its performance has been validated using lateral flow immunoassays with influenza A nucleoprotein in the concentration range of 0.5 ng/mL to 200 ng/mL.

  18. Optimized Lateral Flow Immunoassay Reader for the Detection of Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Evdokia Pilavaki

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Detection and control of infectious diseases is a major problem, especially in developing countries. Lateral flow immunoassays can be used with great success for the detection of infectious diseases. However, for the quantification of their results an electronic reader is required. This paper presents an optimized handheld electronic reader for developing countries. It features a potentially low-cost, low-power, battery-operated device with no added optical accessories. The operation of this proof of concept device is based on measuring the reflected light from the lateral flow immunoassay and translating it into the concentration of the specific analyte of interest. Characterization of the surface of the lateral flow immunoassay has been performed in order to accurately model its response to the incident light. Ray trace simulations have been performed to optimize the system and achieve maximum sensitivity by placing all the components in optimum positions. A microcontroller enables all the signal processing to be performed on the device and a Bluetooth module allows transmission of the results wirelessly to a mobile phone app. Its performance has been validated using lateral flow immunoassays with influenza A nucleoprotein in the concentration range of 0.5 ng/mL to 200 ng/mL.

  19. Microcomputer control of automated TLD reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bjarland, Bert.

    1979-10-01

    The interfacing electronics, the control algorithms and the developed programs of a 6800 microcomputer controlled automated TLD reader are described. The TL reading system is implemented with a photomultiplier tube and a charge-to-pulse converter. The gain of the TL reading system is controlled through the use of a temperature compensated LED reference light source. Automatic compensation of PM tube dark current is optional. The short term stability of TL readings is better than 3 %. (author)

  20. Movie reviews: Who are the readers?

    OpenAIRE

    Jose Ignacio Azuela Flores; Victor Fernandez-Blanco; Maria Jose Sanzo-Perez

    2012-01-01

    The analysis of the relationship between movie reviews and consumer's decision process has focused mainly on the side of critics, who have been defined as "influencers" or as "predictors" (Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997). Also, new ways to measure the impact of the critic have been introduced (Gemser, van Oostrum & Leenders, 2007) and the consistency of their opinions over time has been proved (Ginsburgh & Weyers, 1999). However, there is scarce evidence about the readers of movie reviews: who are...

  1. Studi Komparasi Modul Kimia Berbasis Media Screen Reader Jaws dan Braille Terhadap Prestasi, Motivasi, dan Kemandirian Belajar Peserta Didik Difabel Netra

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jamil Suprihatiningrum

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed to compare the achievement, motivation, and independent learning of blind students who use screen reader JAWS and braille module.This research was conducted at MAN Maguwoharjo Yogyakarta involving 5 blind students in the chemistry subject of academic year 2013/2014. One student is as an instrument validation test subject, two students as subjects in the experimental class and two students as subjects in the control class. The instruments used in this study are the observation sheet,multiple choice test, questionnaire responses, motivation scale, and independent learning scale. Data of student achievement, motivation and independence scale were analyzed using nonparametric statistical test of independent samples. The result shows that no significant difference between the achievement, motivation, and independence of blind students who use screen reader JAWS module and braille module.

  2. How Readers and Advertisers Benefit from Local Newspaper Competition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Everett, Shu-Ling Chen; Everett, Stephen E.

    1989-01-01

    Explores relations among three competitive schemes with respect to newspapers' price structures, including advertising rates and prices to consumers. Finds that readers get some benefit from greater competition, but that advertisers do not. (MM)

  3. Decomposing the gap in missed opportunities for vaccination between poor and non-poor in sub-Saharan Africa: A multicountry analyses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ndwandwe, Duduzile; Uthman, Olalekan A; Adamu, Abdu; Sambala, Evanson Z; Wiyeh, Alison B; Olukade, Tawa; Bishwajit, Ghose; Yaya, Sanni; Okwo-Bele, Jean-Marie; Wiysonge, Charles S

    2018-04-24

    Understanding the gaps in missed opportunities for vaccination (MOV) between poor and non-poor in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) would enable an understanding of factors associated with interventions for improving immunisation coverage to achieving universal childhood immunisation. We aimed to conduct a multicountry analyses to decompose the gap in MOV between poor and non-poor in SSA. We used cross-sectional data from 35 Demographic and Health Surveys in SSA conducted between 2007 and 2016. Descriptive statistics used to understand the gap in MOV between the urban poor and non-poor, and across the selected covariates. Out of the 35 countries included in this analysis, 19 countries showed pro-poor inequality, 5 showed pro-non-poor inequality and remaining 11 countries showed no statistically significant inequality. Among the countries with statistically significant pro-illiterate inequality, the risk difference ranged from 4.2% in DR Congo to 20.1% in Kenya. Important factors responsible for the inequality varied across countries. In Madagascar, the largest contributors to inequality in MOV were media access, number of under-five children, and maternal education. However, in Liberia media access narrowed inequality in MOV between poor and non-poor households. The findings indicate that in most SSA countries, children belonging to poor households are most likely to have MOV and that socio-economic inequality in is determined not only by health system functions, but also by factors beyond the scope of health authorities and care delivery system. The findings suggest the need for addressing social determinants of health.

  4. Slabí čtenáři

    OpenAIRE

    Rusnáková, Kristýna

    2014-01-01

    The bachelor thesis deals with the topic of poor readers in the context of reading comprehension. Poor readers are diverse group of readers, who are inferior to normal-reading peers in various aspects of reading. Reading comprehension is crucial skill in the process of acquiring, learning and using informations from every area of human activity. The aim of this thesis is to generally map the concept of poor readers and to identify specific problems shown by poor readers in reading comprehensi...

  5. Comparative Method for Indirect Sensitivity Measurement of UHF RFID Reader with Respect to Interoperability and Conformance Requirements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lukas Kypus

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available There is never-ending race for the competitive advantage that forces RFID technology service integrators to focus more on used technology qualitative aspects and theirs impacts inside RFID ecosystem. This paper contributes to UHF RFID reader qualitative parameters evaluation and assessment problematic. It presents and describes in details indirect method and procedure of sensitivity measurement created for UHF RFID readers. We applied this method on RFID readers within prepared test environment and confirmed long term intention and recognized trend. Due to regulations limitations, there is not possible to increase output power over defined limits, but there are possibilities to influence reader sensitivity. Our proposal is to use customized comparative measurement method with insertion loss compensation for return link. Beside the main goal achievement, results show as well the qualitative status of development snapshot of reader. Method and following experiment helped us to gain an external view, current values of important parameters and motivation we want to follow up on as well as compared developed reader with its commercial competitors.

  6. Thermoluminescent accident dose reader with photodiode; Termoluminiscencni litalnik akcidentnih doz s fotodiodo

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miklavzic, U; Mihelic, M [Institut Jozef Stefan, Ljubljana (Yugoslavia)

    1982-07-01

    The field version of TL reader for accident dose region 0.01-20 Gy is described. For light detection, the thermostated photodiode was used permitting measurements at the ambient temperatures from -20 C degrees to 50 C degrees, and a new mode of the glow curve integration. Results can be presented as integral or peak values of the glow curve. The reader was adapted for dosemeters IJS-TLD08 from sintered CaF2:Mn pellets. (author)

  7. ELISA reader does not interfere by mobile phone radiofrequency radiation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mortazavi, Seyyed Mohammad Javad; Baradaran-Ghahfarokhi, Hamid Reza; Abdi, Mohammad Reza; Baradaran-Ghahfarokhi, Milad; Mostafavi, Nayyer Sadat; Mahmoudi, Golshan; Berenjkoub, Nafiseh; Akmali, Zahra; Hossein-Beigi, Fahimeh; Arsang, Vajiheh

    2016-01-01

    Background: The increasing number of mobile phones can physically cause electromagnetic interference (EMI) in medical environments; can also cause errors in immunoassays in laboratories. The ELISA readers are widely used as a useful diagnostic tool for Enzymun colorimetric assay in medicine. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the ELISA reader could be interfered by the exposure to the 900 MHz cell phones in the laboratory. Materials and Methods: Human serum samples were collected from 14 healthy donors (9 women and 5 men) and each sample was divided into four aliquots and was placed into four batches for the in-vitro quantitative determination of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). During colorimetric reading of the first, second, and third batches, the ELISA reader (Stat Fax 2100, Awareness Technology, Inc., USA) was exposed to 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 W exposure of 900 MHz radiation, respectively. For the forth batch (control group), no radiation was applied. All experiments were performed comparing ELISA read out results of the I, II, and III batches with the control batch, using the Wilcoxon test with criterion level of P = 0.050. Results: The final scores in the exposed batches I, II, and III were not statistically significant relative to the control batch (P > 0.05). The results showed that 900 MHz radiation exposure did not alter the ELISA measured levels of hCG hormone in I (P = 0.219), II (P = 0.909), and III (P = 0.056) batches compared to the control batch. Conclusion: This study showed that ELISA reader does not interfere by mobile phone RF radiation at a closed contact (less than 5 cm distance). However, we recommend that medical institutions discuss these issues in the context of their specific use of technologies and frame a policy that is clear and straightforward to guide staff, patients, and visitors. PMID:27376040

  8. Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian Wallot

    Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

  9. How do e-book readers enhance learning opportunities for distance work-based learners?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabi Witthaus

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available We report on the incorporation of e-book readers into the delivery of two distance-taught master's programmes in Occupational Psychology (OP and one in Education at the University of Leicester, UK. The programmes attract work-based practitioners in OP and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, respectively. Challenges in curriculum delivery included the need for more flexibility in the curricula, better access to essential readings and maximising the benefit of learners' limited study time. As part of a suite of pilot changes to curriculum design and delivery, 28 Sony PRS-505™ e-book readers were pre-loaded with course materials and sent out to students. The evidence suggests that the students' learning experiences improved as a result of four key benefits afforded by the e-book readers: enhanced flexibility in curriculum delivery to accommodate the mobile lifestyle of our learners, improved efficiency in the use of study time, especially short breaks during the working day, new strategies for reading course materials and cost. We discuss the opportunities and limitations associated with the e-book readers used and the challenges encountered in the study.

  10. Multi-reader ROC studies with split-plot designs: a comparison of statistical methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Obuchowski, Nancy A; Gallas, Brandon D; Hillis, Stephen L

    2012-12-01

    Multireader imaging trials often use a factorial design, in which study patients undergo testing with all imaging modalities and readers interpret the results of all tests for all patients. A drawback of this design is the large number of interpretations required of each reader. Split-plot designs have been proposed as an alternative, in which one or a subset of readers interprets all images of a sample of patients, while other readers interpret the images of other samples of patients. In this paper, the authors compare three methods of analysis for the split-plot design. Three statistical methods are presented: the Obuchowski-Rockette method modified for the split-plot design, a newly proposed marginal-mean analysis-of-variance approach, and an extension of the three-sample U-statistic method. A simulation study using the Roe-Metz model was performed to compare the type I error rate, power, and confidence interval coverage of the three test statistics. The type I error rates for all three methods are close to the nominal level but tend to be slightly conservative. The statistical power is nearly identical for the three methods. The coverage of 95% confidence intervals falls close to the nominal coverage for small and large sample sizes. The split-plot multireader, multicase study design can be statistically efficient compared to the factorial design, reducing the number of interpretations required per reader. Three methods of analysis, shown to have nominal type I error rates, similar power, and nominal confidence interval coverage, are available for this study design. Copyright © 2012 AUR. All rights reserved.

  11. A simple scoring system for breast MRI interpretation: does it compensate for reader experience?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marino, Maria Adele; Clauser, Paola; Woitek, Ramona; Wengert, Georg J.; Kapetas, Panagiotis; Bernathova, Maria; Pinker-Domenig, Katja; Helbich, Thomas H.; Baltzer, Pascal A.T.; Preidler, Klaus

    2016-01-01

    To investigate the impact of a scoring system (Tree) on inter-reader agreement and diagnostic performance in breast MRI reading. This IRB-approved, single-centre study included 100 patients with 121 consecutive histopathologically verified lesions (52 malignant, 68 benign). Four breast radiologists with different levels of MRI experience and blinded to histopathology retrospectively evaluated all examinations. Readers independently applied two methods to classify breast lesions: BI-RADS and Tree. BI-RADS provides a reporting lexicon that is empirically translated into likelihoods of malignancy; Tree is a scoring system that results in a diagnostic category. Readings were compared by ROC analysis and kappa statistics. Inter-reader agreement was substantial to almost perfect (kappa: 0.643-0.896) for Tree and moderate (kappa: 0.455-0.657) for BI-RADS. Diagnostic performance using Tree (AUC: 0.889-0.943) was similar to BI-RADS (AUC: 0.872-0.953). Less experienced radiologists achieved AUC: improvements up to 4.7 % using Tree (P-values: 0.042-0.698); an expert's performance did not change (P = 0.526). The least experienced reader improved in specificity using Tree (16 %, P = 0.001). No further sensitivity and specificity differences were found (P > 0.1). The Tree scoring system improves inter-reader agreement and achieves a diagnostic performance similar to that of BI-RADS. Less experienced radiologists, in particular, benefit from Tree. (orig.)

  12. Ultra-low current biosensor output detection using portable electronic reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yahaya, N. A. N.; Rajapaksha, R. D. A. A.; Uda, M. N. Afnan; Hashim, U.

    2017-09-01

    Generally, the electrical biosensor usually shows extremely low current signal output around pico ampere to microampere range. In this research, electronic reader with amplifier has been demonstrated to detect ultra low current via the biosensor. The operational amplifier Burr-Brown OPA 128 and Arduino Uno board were used to construct the portable electronic reader. There are two cascaded inverting amplifier were used to detect ultra low current through the biosensor from pico amperes (pA) to nano amperes ranges (nA). A small known input current was form by applying variable voltage between 0.1V to 5.0V across a 5GΩ high resistor to check the amplifier circuit. The amplifier operation was measured with the high impedance current source and has been compared with the theoretical measurement. The Arduino Uno was used to convert the analog signal to digital signal and process the data to display on reader screen. In this project, Proteus software was used to design and test the circuit. Then it was implemented together with Arduino Uno board. Arduino board was programmed using C programming language to make whole circuit communicate each order. The current was measured then it shows a small difference values compared to theoretical values, which is approximately 14pA.

  13. Prosodic Awareness and Punctuation Ability in Adult Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heggie, Lindsay; Wade-Woolley, Lesly

    2018-01-01

    We examined the relationship between two metalinguistic tasks: prosodic awareness and punctuation ability. Specifically, we investigated whether adults' ability to punctuate was related to the degree to which they are aware of and able to manipulate prosody in spoken language. English-speaking adult readers (n = 115) were administered a receptive…

  14. Medical Readers' Theater: Relevance to Geriatrics Medical Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shapiro, Johanna; Cho, Beverly

    2011-01-01

    Medical Readers' Theater (MRT) is an innovative and simple way of helping medical students to reflect on difficult-to-discuss topics in geriatrics medical education, such as aging stereotypes, disability and loss of independence, sexuality, assisted living, relationships with adult children, and end-of-life issues. The authors describe a required…

  15. Supporting Struggling Readers in Secondary School Science Classes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Kelly D.; Takahashi, Kiriko; Park, Hye-Jin; Stodden, Robert A.

    2012-01-01

    Many secondary school students struggle to read complex expository text such as science textbooks. This article provides step-by-step guidance on how to foster expository reading for struggling readers in secondary school science classes. Two strategies are introduced: Text-to-Speech (TTS) Software as a reading compensatory strategy and the…

  16. Evaluation of Screening for Retinopathy of Prematurity by ROPtool or a Lay Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbey, Ashkan M; Besirli, Cagri G; Musch, David C; Andrews, Chris A; Capone, Antonio; Drenser, Kimberly A; Wallace, David K; Ostmo, Susan; Chiang, Michael; Lee, Paul P; Trese, Michael T

    2016-02-01

    To determine if (1) tortuosity assessment by a computer program (ROPtool, developed at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Duke University, and licensed by FocusROP) that traces retinal blood vessels and (2) assessment by a lay reader are comparable with assessment by a panel of 3 retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) experts for remote clinical grading of vascular abnormalities such as plus disease. Validity and reliability analysis of diagnostic tools. Three hundred thirty-five fundus images of prematurely born infants. Three hundred thirty-five fundus images of prematurely born infants were obtained by neonatal intensive care unit nurses. A panel of 3 ROP experts graded 84 images showing vascular dilatation, tortuosity, or both and 251 images showing no evidence of vascular abnormalities. These images were sent electronically to an experienced lay reader who independently graded them for vascular abnormalities. The images also were analyzed using the ROPtool, which assigns a numerical value to the level of vascular abnormality and tortuosity present in each of 4 quadrants or sectors. The ROPtool measurements of vascular abnormalities were graded and compared with expert panel grades with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Grades between human readers were cross-tabulated. The area under the ROC curve was calculated for the ROPtool, and sensitivity and specificity were computed for the lay reader. Measurements of vascular abnormalities by ROPtool and grading of vascular abnormalities by 3 ROP experts and 1 experienced lay reader. The ROC curve for ROPtool's tortuosity assessment had an area under the ROC curve of 0.917. Using a threshold value of 4.97 for the second most tortuous quadrant, ROPtool's sensitivity was 91% and its specificity was 82%. Lay reader sensitivity and specificity were 99% and 73%, respectively, and had high reliability (κ, 0.87) in repeated measurements. ROPtool had very good accuracy for detection of vascular

  17. The specific role of inhibition in reading comprehension in good and poor comprehenders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borella, Erika; Carretti, Barbara; Pelegrina, Santiago

    2010-01-01

    Difficulties in inhibitory processes have been shown to characterize the performance of poor comprehenders. However, the inhibitory inefficiency of poor comprehenders is most often assessed by their resistance to proactive interference, that is, the ability to suppress off-goal task information from working memory (WM). In two studies tasks assessing resistance to proactive interference (intrusion errors), response to distracters (Text With Distracters task) and prepotent response inhibition (Stroop and Hayling tests), along with WM measures, were administered to children aged 10 to 11, both good and poor comprehenders. The aim of the study was to specifically determine whether general or specific inhibitory factors affect poor comprehenders' reading difficulties. Results showed that poor comprehenders, compared to good ones, are impaired in WM tasks and in inhibitory tasks that assess resistance to proactive interference. This suggests that reading comprehension difficulties of poor comprehenders are related to specific inhibitory problems.

  18. An Interview with Crosby Bonsall: A Writer for Beginning Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, Carole

    1985-01-01

    Crosby Bonsall, a prolific author-illustrator for young readers, comments on many topics related to writing, illustrating, and young children's initial independent encounters with print in books. (HOD)

  19. Caveats and limitations of plate reader-based high-throughput kinetic measurements of intracellular calcium levels

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Heusinkveld, Harm J.; Westerink, Remco H.S.

    2011-01-01

    Calcium plays a crucial role in virtually all cellular processes, including neurotransmission. The intracellular Ca 2+ concentration ([Ca 2+ ] i ) is therefore an important readout in neurotoxicological and neuropharmacological studies. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for high-throughput measurements of [Ca 2+ ] i , e.g. using multi-well microplate readers, in hazard characterization, human risk assessment and drug development. However, changes in [Ca 2+ ] i are highly dynamic, thereby creating challenges for high-throughput measurements. Nonetheless, several protocols are now available for real-time kinetic measurement of [Ca 2+ ] i in plate reader systems, though the results of such plate reader-based measurements have been questioned. In view of the increasing use of plate reader systems for measurements of [Ca 2+ ] i a careful evaluation of current technologies is warranted. We therefore performed an extensive set of experiments, using two cell lines (PC12 and B35) and two fluorescent calcium-sensitive dyes (Fluo-4 and Fura-2), for comparison of a linear plate reader system with single cell fluorescence microscopy. Our data demonstrate that the use of plate reader systems for high-throughput real-time kinetic measurements of [Ca 2+ ] i is associated with many pitfalls and limitations, including erroneous sustained increases in fluorescence, limited sensitivity and lack of single cell resolution. Additionally, our data demonstrate that probenecid, which is often used to prevent dye leakage, effectively inhibits the depolarization-evoked increase in [Ca 2+ ] i . Overall, the data indicate that the use of current plate reader-based strategies for high-throughput real-time kinetic measurements of [Ca 2+ ] i is associated with caveats and limitations that require further investigation. - Research highlights: → The use of plate readers for high-throughput screening of intracellular Ca 2+ is associated with many pitfalls and limitations. → Single cell

  20. Glycan Reader: Automated Sugar Identification and Simulation Preparation for Carbohydrates and Glycoproteins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jo, Sunhwan; Song, Kevin C.; Desaire, Heather; MacKerell, Alexander D.; Im, Wonpil

    2011-01-01

    Understanding how glycosylation affects protein structure, dynamics, and function is an emerging and challenging problem in biology. As a first step toward glycan modeling in the context of structural glycobiology, we have developed Glycan Reader and integrated it into the CHARMM-GUI, http://www.charmm-gui.org/input/glycan. Glycan Reader greatly simplifies the reading of PDB structure files containing glycans through (i) detection of carbohydrate molecules, (ii) automatic annotation of carbohydrates based on their three-dimensional structures, (iii) recognition of glycosidic linkages between carbohydrates as well as N-/O-glycosidic linkages to proteins, and (iv) generation of inputs for the biomolecular simulation program CHARMM with the proper glycosidic linkage setup. In addition, Glycan Reader is linked to other functional modules in CHARMM-GUI, allowing users to easily generate carbohydrate or glycoprotein molecular simulation systems in solution or membrane environments and visualize the electrostatic potential on glycoprotein surfaces. These tools are useful for studying the impact of glycosylation on protein structure and dynamics. PMID:21815173

  1. Phonological-Lexical Feedback during Early Abstract Encoding: The Case of Deaf Readers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuel Perea

    Full Text Available In the masked priming technique, physical identity between prime and target enjoys an advantage over nominal identity in nonwords (GEDA-GEDA faster than geda-GEDA. However, nominal identity overrides physical identity in words (e.g., REAL-REAL similar to real-REAL. Here we tested whether the lack of an advantage of the physical identity condition for words was due to top-down feedback from phonological-lexical information. We examined this issue with deaf readers, as their phonological representations are not as fully developed as in hearing readers. Results revealed that physical identity enjoyed a processing advantage over nominal identity not only in nonwords but also in words (GEDA-GEDA faster than geda-GEDA; REAL-REAL faster than real-REAL. This suggests the existence of fundamental differences in the early stages of visual word recognition of hearing and deaf readers, possibly related to the amount of feedback from higher levels of information.

  2. Modeling individual differences in text reading fluency: a different pattern of predictors for typically developing and dyslexic readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pierluigi eZoccolotti

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN. Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The model, which was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69% and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is

  3. Spongelike Acquisition of Sight Vocabulary in Beginning Readers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stuart, Morag; Masterson, Jackie; Dixon, Maureen

    2000-01-01

    Investigates the relation between phonological awareness, sound-to-letter mapping knowledge, and printed word learning in novice five-year-old readers. Explores effects of visual memory and of teaching methods. Finds mental representations of printed words are more easily formed by beginners who are able to match at least some of the phonological…

  4. Factors associated with poor sleep during menopause: results from the Midlife Women's Health Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Rebecca L; Flaws, Jodi A; Mahoney, Megan M

    2018-05-01

    Poor sleep is one of the most common problems reported during menopause, and is known to vary throughout the menopause transition. The objective of this study was to describe the dynamics of poor sleep among participants of the Midlife Women's Health Study and to identify risk factors associated with poor sleep during the menopausal transition. Annual responses to surveys that included questions about the frequency of sleep disturbances and insomnia were analyzed to determine the likelihood of persistent poor sleep throughout the menopausal transition and the correlation of responses to the different sleep-related questions, including frequency of restless sleep during the first year of the study. Responses to questions about a large number of potential risk factors were used to identify risk factors for poor sleep. Poor sleep in premenopause was not predictive of poor sleep in perimenopause, and poor sleep in perimenopause was not predictive of poor sleep in postmenopause. Frequencies of each of the measures of poor sleep were highly correlated. For all sleep outcomes, high frequency of depression was related to a high frequency of poor sleep. Vasomotor symptoms were also significantly related with a higher frequency of all poor sleep outcomes. A history of smoking was also associated with higher frequencies of insomnia and sleep disturbances. The risk factors identified for poor sleep, depression and vasomotor symptoms, were consistently associated with poor sleep throughout the menopausal transition. The likelihood of these risk factors changed from premenopause, through perimenopause, and into postmenopause, however, which could explain changes in sleep difficulties across the menopausal transition. Treatment of these risk factors should be considered when addressing sleep difficulties in menopausal women. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. A polymorphism at the 3'-UTR region of the aromatase gene defines a subgroup of postmenopausal breast cancer patients with poor response to neoadjuvant letrozole

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Garcia-Casado, Zaida; Cervera-Deval, Jose; Campos, Josefina; Albaladejo, Carlos Vazquez; Llombart-Bosch, Antonio; Guillem, Vicente; Lopez-Guerrero, Jose A; Guerrero-Zotano, Angel; Llombart-Cussac, Antonio; Calatrava, Ana; Fernandez-Serra, Antonio; Ruiz-Simon, Amparo; Gavila, Joaquin; Climent, Miguel A; Almenar, Sergio

    2010-01-01

    Aromatase (CYP19A1) regulates estrogen biosynthesis. Polymorphisms in CYP19A1 have been related to the pathogenesis of breast cancer (BC). Inhibition of aromatase with letrozole constitutes the best option for treating estrogen-dependent BC in postmenopausal women. We evaluate a series of polymorphisms of CYP19A1 and their effect on response to neoadjuvant letrozole in early BC. We analyzed 95 consecutive postmenopausal women with stage II-III ER/PgR [+] BC treated with neoadjuvant letrozole. Response to treatment was measured by radiology at 4 th month by World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Three polymorphisms of CYP19A1, one in exon 7 (rs700519) and two in the 3'-UTR region (rs10046 and rs4646) were evaluated on DNA obtained from peripheral blood. Thirty-five women (36.8%) achieved a radiological response to letrozole. The histopathological and immunohistochemical parameters, including hormonal receptor status, were not associated with the response to letrozole. Only the genetic variants (AC/AA) of the rs4646 polymorphism were associated with poor response to letrozole (p = 0.03). Eighteen patients (18.9%) reported a progression of the disease. Those patients carrying the genetic variants (AC/AA) of rs4646 presented a lower progression-free survival than the patients homozygous for the reference variant (p = 0.0686). This effect was especially significant in the group of elderly patients not operated after letrozole induction (p = 0.009). Our study reveals that the rs4646 polymorphism identifies a subgroup of stage II-III ER/PgR [+] BC patients with poor response to neoadjuvant letrozole and poor prognosis. Testing for the rs4646 polymorphism could be a useful tool in order to orientate the treatment in elderly BC patients

  6. Varying performance in mammographic interpretation across two countries: Do results indicate reader or population variances?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soh, BaoLin P.; Lee, Warwick B.; Wong, Jill; Sim, Llewellyn; Hillis, Stephen L.; Tapia, Kriscia A.; Brennan, Patrick C.

    2016-03-01

    Aim: To compare the performance of Australian and Singapore breast readers interpreting a single test-set that consisted of mammographic examinations collected from the Australian population. Background: In the teleradiology era, breast readers are interpreting mammographic examinations from different populations. The question arises whether two groups of readers with similar training backgrounds, demonstrate the same level of performance when presented with a population familiar only to one of the groups. Methods: Fifty-three Australian and 15 Singaporean breast radiologists participated in this study. All radiologists were trained in mammogram interpretation and had a median of 9 and 15 years of experience in reading mammograms respectively. Each reader interpreted the same BREAST test-set consisting of sixty de-identified mammographic examinations arising from an Australian population. Performance parameters including JAFROC, ROC, case sensitivity as well as specificity were compared between Australian and Singaporean readers using a Mann Whitney U test. Results: A significant difference (P=0.036) was demonstrated between the JAFROC scores of the Australian and Singaporean breast radiologists. No other significant differences were observed. Conclusion: JAFROC scores for Australian radiologists were higher than those obtained by the Singaporean counterparts. Whilst it is tempting to suggest this is down to reader expertise, this may be a simplistic explanation considering the very similar training and audit backgrounds of the two populations of radiologists. The influence of reading images that are different from those that radiologists normally encounter cannot be ruled out and requires further investigation, particularly in the light of increasing international outsourcing of radiologic reporting.

  7. Compact mobile-reader system for two-way wireless communication, tracking and status monitoring for transport safety and security

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Han-Chung; Liu, Yung Y.; Lee, Hok L.; Craig, Brian; Byrne, Kevin; Mittal, Ketan; Scherer, Justin C.

    2016-12-06

    A system for monitoring a plurality radio frequency identification tags is described. The system uses at least one set of radio frequency identification tags. Each tag is attached to a container and includes several sensors for detecting physical conditions of said container. The system includes at least one autonomous intermediate reader in wireless communication with the frequency identification tags. The intermediate reader includes external wireless communication system, intermediate reader logic controller, and a self-contained rechargeable power supply. The system uses a central status reporting system in communication the intermediate reader.

  8. Negotiating new literacies in science: An examination of at-risk and average-achieving ninth-grade readers' online reading comprehension strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sevensma, Kara

    that students employed a variety of online reading comprehension strategies in complex and dynamic ways. Among the many strategies revealed, the group of self-regulatory strategies (planning, predicting, monitoring, and evaluating) played a significant role, influencing students' use of all other strategies for locating and generating meaning from science websites. Second, the results also suggested that patterns of strategy use could be examined as unique navigational profiles. Rather than remaining fixed, the navigational profiles of each student altered in response to tasks and research methods. Importantly, all at-risk readers revealed more effective navigational profiles on Day 3 when they were forced by design of the task to attend to project goals and employ more self-regulatory strategies. Third, the results revealed that traditional reading comprehension strategies and prior knowledge of the rainforest also influenced online reading comprehension. Specifically, the at-risk readers with the lowest reading comprehension, oral reading fluency, and prior knowledge scores were more likely than the average-achieving readers to encounter issues in online texts that resulted in constructing ineffective traversals, or online reading paths, and spending significant time investing in online reading that was irrelevant to the research project. Ultimately, this study advanced the understanding about online reading comprehension for average-achieving and at-risk readers in science classrooms, contributing to a gap in the research, suggesting implications for practice, and promoting future research questions.

  9. Black Hole Sign Predicts Poor Outcome in Patients with Intracerebral Hemorrhage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Qi; Yang, Wen-Song; Chen, Sheng-Li; Lv, Fu-Rong; Lv, Fa-Jin; Hu, Xi; Zhu, Dan; Cao, Du; Wang, Xing-Chen; Li, Rui; Yuan, Liang; Qin, Xin-Yue; Xie, Peng

    2018-01-01

    In spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), black hole sign has been proposed as a promising imaging marker that predicts hematoma expansion in patients with ICH. The aim of our study was to investigate whether admission CT black hole sign predicts hematoma growth in patients with ICH. From July 2011 till February 2016, patients with spontaneous ICH who underwent baseline CT scan within 6 h of symptoms onset and follow-up CT scan were recruited into the study. The presence of black hole sign on admission non-enhanced CT was independently assessed by 2 readers. The functional outcome was assessed using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at 90 days. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the association between the presence of the black hole sign and functional outcome. A total of 225 patients (67.6% male, mean age 60.3 years) were included in our study. Black hole sign was identified in 32 of 225 (14.2%) patients on admission CT scan. The multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that age, intraventricular hemorrhage, baseline ICH volume, admission Glasgow Coma Scale score, and presence of black hole sign on baseline CT independently predict poor functional outcome at 90 days. There are significantly more patients with a poor functional outcome (defined as mRS ≥4) among patients with black hole sign than those without (84.4 vs. 32.1%, p black hole sign independently predicts poor outcome in patients with ICH. Early identification of black hole sign is useful in prognostic stratification and may serve as a potential therapeutic target for anti-expansion clinical trials. © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  10. Examining the Effects of School-Provided E-Readers on Middle School Students' Reading Ability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, H. Quincy

    2016-01-01

    Nationwide, the increasing popularity of e-books is undeniable; sales of e-books increased an astounding 4,456% over a 5-year period. Researchers, Miranda, Johnson, and Rossi-Williams, determined that e-readers have a positive impact on students' desire to read. This study attempted to determine if the use of institution issued e-readers would…

  11. A TLD reader for wide range in situ dose measurement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deme, S; Apathy, I.; Bodnar, L.; Csoeke, A.; Hejja, I.

    1998-01-01

    A portable thermoluminescent dosemeter reader suitable for reading at the site of exposure is described. The instrument consists of a glass bulb containing the CaSO 4 :Dy thermoluminescent material laminated to the surface of an electrically heated resistive metal plate. The bulb is encapsulated in a cylindrical, pen-like metal holder made of aluminium. A one-wire-port integrated electronic programmable memory chip mounted inside the holder contains the identification code and the individual calibration parameters of the dosemeter. The aperture of the holder is normally covered by a stainless steel tube to protect the bulb from light and mechanical shocks. The tube slips backwards automatically when the dosemeter is inserted into the reader. The system is used by the Hungarian nuclear power plant. (M.D.)

  12. Guiding the Gifted Reader. ERIC Digest #E481.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halsted, Judith Wynn

    This digest offers guidelines in providing challenging reading opportunities for gifted students. Research findings concerning the characteristics of the gifted child as reader (e.g., they read earlier, better and more) are noted. Specific needs of gifted learners can be met by: using literature as a supplement to the readings in basal texts;…

  13. The influence of reading motives on the responses after reading blogs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Li-Shia; Chou, Yu-Jen; Lin, Che-Hung

    2008-06-01

    As the number of blogs increases dramatically, these online forums have become important media people use to share feelings and information. Previous research of blogs focuses on writers (i.e., bloggers), but the influence of blogs also requires investigations from readers' perspectives. This study therefore explores motives for reading blogs and discusses their effects on the responses after reading blogs. According to a factor analysis of 204 respondents in Taiwan, motives for reading blogs consist of affective exchange, information search, entertainment, and getting on the bandwagon. A regression analysis suggests the effects of these motives on three major responses--opinion acceptance, interaction intentions, and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions--reflect the influence of blogs. Specifically, readers who focus on affective exchanges believe blog messages, interact with bloggers, and spread messages to others. Information search and entertainment motives positively affect opinion acceptance; blog readers who focus on information and those who read for fun both view blogs as trustworthy sources. Getting on the bandwagon also positively influences interaction and WOM intentions; these readers interact with bloggers and transmit messages to others.

  14. Enhanced TDMA Based Anti-Collision Algorithm with a Dynamic Frame Size Adjustment Strategy for Mobile RFID Readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kwang Cheol Shin

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available In the fields of production, manufacturing and supply chain management, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID is regarded as one of the most important technologies. Nowadays, Mobile RFID, which is often installed in carts or forklift trucks, is increasingly being applied to the search for and checkout of items in warehouses, supermarkets, libraries and other industrial fields. In using Mobile RFID, since the readers are continuously moving, they can interfere with each other when they attempt to read the tags. In this study, we suggest a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA based anti-collision algorithm for Mobile RFID readers. Our algorithm automatically adjusts the frame size of each reader without using manual parameters by adopting the dynamic frame size adjustment strategy when collisions occur at a reader. Through experiments on a simulated environment for Mobile RFID readers, we show that the proposed method improves the number of successful transmissions by about 228% on average, compared with Colorwave, a representative TDMA based anti-collision algorithm.

  15. Enhanced TDMA Based Anti-Collision Algorithm with a Dynamic Frame Size Adjustment Strategy for Mobile RFID Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Kwang Cheol; Park, Seung Bo; Jo, Geun Sik

    2009-01-01

    In the fields of production, manufacturing and supply chain management, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is regarded as one of the most important technologies. Nowadays, Mobile RFID, which is often installed in carts or forklift trucks, is increasingly being applied to the search for and checkout of items in warehouses, supermarkets, libraries and other industrial fields. In using Mobile RFID, since the readers are continuously moving, they can interfere with each other when they attempt to read the tags. In this study, we suggest a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based anti-collision algorithm for Mobile RFID readers. Our algorithm automatically adjusts the frame size of each reader without using manual parameters by adopting the dynamic frame size adjustment strategy when collisions occur at a reader. Through experiments on a simulated environment for Mobile RFID readers, we show that the proposed method improves the number of successful transmissions by about 228% on average, compared with Colorwave, a representative TDMA based anti-collision algorithm.

  16. Schizophrenia in the News: The Role of News Frames in Shaping Online Reader Dialogue about Mental Illness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gwarjanski, Anna Rae; Parrott, Scott

    2018-08-01

    A quantitative content analysis examined the portrayal of schizophrenia in eight of the most read online news publications in the United States. The analysis documented the prevalence of stigma frames, which communicate stereotypes concerning schizophrenia, and stigma-challenge frames, which contradict stereotypes, in 558 articles related to schizophrenia. The study also examined the relationship between media framing and reader commentary, including the likelihood of readers posting stigmatizing comments, stigma-challenging comments, and comments in which they disclosed personal experience with mental illness. Stigma frames were prevalent in the sample, suggesting the news media continue associating schizophrenia with violent and criminal behavior. Stigma frames stood greater chance of being accompanied by stigmatizing comments from readers when compared to stigma-challenging frames. Conversely, stigma-challenging frames stood greater chance of being accompanied by stigma-challenging comments from readers. Readers were more likely to disclose personal experience with mental illness when they encountered a stigma-challenging frame. Recommendations are made for journalists and health communicators.

  17. Dynamic hyperinflation is associated with a poor cardiovascular response to exercise in COPD patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tzani Panagiota

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Pulmonary hyperinflation has the potential for significant adverse effects on cardiovascular function in COPD. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between dynamic hyperinflation and cardiovascular response to maximal exercise in COPD patients. Methods We studied 48 patients (16F; age 68 yrs ± 8; BMI 26 ± 4 with COPD. All patients performed spirometry, plethysmography, lung diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (TLco measurement, and symptom-limited cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET. The end-expiratory lung volume (EELV was evaluated during the CPET. Cardiovascular response was assessed by change during exercise in oxygen pulse (ΔO2Pulse and double product, i.e. the product of systolic blood pressure and heart rate (DP reserve, and by the oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES, i.e. the relation between oxygen uptake and ventilation. Results Patients with a peak exercise EELV (%TLC ≥ 75% had a significantly lower resting FEV1/VC, FEF50/FIF50 ratio and IC/TLC ratio, when compared to patients with a peak exercise EELV (%TLC 2Pulse (r = - 0.476, p = 0.001, OUES (r = - 0.452, p = 0.001 and DP reserve (r = - 0.425, p = 0.004. Furthermore, according to the ROC curve method, ΔO2Pulse and DP reserve cut-off points which maximized sensitivity and specificity, with respect to a EELV (% TLC value ≥ 75% as a threshold value, were ≤ 5.5 mL/bpm (0.640 sensitivity and 0.696 specificity and ≤ 10,000 Hg · bpm (0.720 sensitivity and 0.783 specificity, respectively. Conclusion The present study shows that COPD patients with dynamic hyperinflation have a poor cardiovascular response to exercise. This finding supports the view that in COPD patients, dynamic hyperinflation may affect exercise performance not only by affecting ventilation, but also cardiac function.

  18. Individualized controlled ovarian stimulation in expected poor-responders: an update.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haahr, Thor; Esteves, Sandro C; Humaidan, Peter

    2018-03-09

    Controlled ovarian stimulation with subsequent multi-follicular development continues to be a keystone in ART. Evidence supports an individualized approach to ovarian stimulation, usually involving combinations of ovarian reserve tests, body mass index and age to tailor the exogenous gonadotropin dose, and potentially adjuvant treatment aiming for high safety and a shortening of time to live birth. While stimulation and trigger concepts have been developed successfully in normo- and hyperresponder patients, the poor responder patient remains difficult to manage. However, recent advances in definition and classification of the expected poor ovarian responder patient might enable a more accurate and clinically useful interpretation of new treatment concepts in a more homogenous study population. In the present review, we discuss the classification of the expected poor ovarian responder patient as well as clinically useful measurements of efficacy for controlled ovarian stimulation, and finally, we discuss the evidence for clinical management of patients with expected poor ovarian response, including adjuvant treatments such as growth hormone, androgens, and LH activity.In conclusion, the best available evidence supports that the treatment of the expected poor ovarian response patient should be individualized in all steps of ART, including the choice of GnRH analogue, the gonadotropin type and dose, ovulation trigger, and the possible use of adjuvant therapies.

  19. Automated processing of leucocyte-poor platelet concentrates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tandy, N P; Seghatchian, M J; Bessos, H

    1992-10-01

    In view of transfusion reactions and alloimmunization associated with leucocyte contamination of platelet concentrates (PC), there is a general move towards the production of leuco-poor PC. This goal is currently pursued by the production of various PC using buffy coat and apheresis techniques. Although there is no overall consensus on the meaning of 'leuco-poor', by assuming that this refers to a level of 5-50 x 10(7) leucocytes per PC, we were able to make comparisons with available systems used in Europe. In addition to platelet and white cell counts, other markers of PC quality were assessed in some cases. These included traditional markers (such as hypotonic stress response, pH, and lactate and beta-thromboglobulin levels) and newer markers (such as glycocalicin and plasma von Willebrand factor levels). Our preliminary results showed appreciable differences in platelet and white cell content of PC prepared by various types of apheresis equipment. Appreciable differences in the quality of stored PC were also observed between routine PC (non-leuco-poor and buffy coat and apheresed PC (leuco-poor).

  20. Young Skilled Deaf Readers Have an Enhanced Perceptual Span in Reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bélanger, Nathalie N; Lee, Michelle; Schotter, Elizabeth R

    2017-04-27

    Recently, Bélanger, Slattery, Mayberry and Rayner (2012) showed, using the moving window paradigm, that profoundly deaf adults have a wider perceptual span during reading relative to hearing adults matched on reading level. This difference might be related to the fact that deaf adults allocate more visual attention to simple stimuli in the parafovea (Bavelier, Dye & Hauser, 2006). Importantly, this reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals is already manifesting in deaf children (Dye, Hauser & Bavelier, 2009). This leads to questions about the time course of the emergence of an enhanced perceptual span (which is under attentional control; Rayner, 2014; Miellet, O'Donnell, & Sereno, 2009) in young deaf readers. The present research addressed this question by comparing the perceptual spans of young deaf readers (age 7-15) and young hearing children (age 7-15). Young deaf readers, like deaf adults, were found to have a wider perceptual span relative to their hearing peers matched on reading level, suggesting that strong and early reorganization of visual attention in deaf individuals goes beyond the processing of simple visual stimuli and emerges into more cognitively complex tasks, such as reading.

  1. Gut hormones, early dumping and resting energy expenditure in patients with good and poor weight loss response after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dirksen, C; Jørgensen, N B; Bojsen-Møller, K N

    2013-01-01

    Objective:To identify factors contributing to the variation in weight loss after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB).Design:Cross-sectional study of patients with good (excess body mass index lost (EBL) >60%) and poor weight loss response (EBL 12 months after RYGB and a lean control group matched for...

  2. The effect of computer-aided detection markers on visual search and reader performance during concurrent reading of CT colonography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Helbren, Emma; Taylor, Stuart A.; Fanshawe, Thomas R.; Mallett, Susan; Phillips, Peter; Boone, Darren; Gale, Alastair; Altman, Douglas G.; Manning, David; Halligan, Steve

    2015-01-01

    We aimed to identify the effect of computer-aided detection (CAD) on visual search and performance in CT Colonography (CTC) of inexperienced and experienced readers. Fifteen endoluminal CTC examinations were recorded, each with one polyp, and two videos were generated, one with and one without a CAD mark. Forty-two readers (17 experienced, 25 inexperienced) interpreted the videos during infrared visual search recording. CAD markers and polyps were treated as regions of interest in data processing. This multi-reader, multi-case study was analysed using multilevel modelling. CAD drew readers' attention to polyps faster, accelerating identification times: median 'time to first pursuit' was 0.48 s (IQR 0.27 to 0.87 s) with CAD, versus 0.58 s (IQR 0.35 to 1.06 s) without. For inexperienced readers, CAD also held visual attention for longer. All visual search metrics used to assess visual gaze behaviour demonstrated statistically significant differences when ''with'' and ''without'' CAD were compared. A significant increase in the number of correct polyp identifications across all readers was seen with CAD (74 % without CAD, 87 % with CAD; p < 0.001). CAD significantly alters visual search and polyp identification in readers viewing three-dimensional endoluminal CTC. For polyp and CAD marker pursuit times, CAD generally exerted a larger effect on inexperienced readers. (orig.)

  3. The effect of computer-aided detection markers on visual search and reader performance during concurrent reading of CT colonography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Helbren, Emma; Taylor, Stuart A. [University College London, Centre for Medical Imaging, London (United Kingdom); Fanshawe, Thomas R.; Mallett, Susan [University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Oxford (United Kingdom); Phillips, Peter [University of Cumbria, Health and Medical Sciences Group, Lancaster (United Kingdom); Boone, Darren [Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and Anglia University, Colchester (United Kingdom); Gale, Alastair [Loughborough University, Applied Vision Research Centre, Loughborough (United Kingdom); Altman, Douglas G. [University of Oxford, Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford (United Kingdom); Manning, David [Lancaster University, Lancaster Medical School, Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster (United Kingdom); Halligan, Steve [University College London, Centre for Medical Imaging, London (United Kingdom); University College Hospital, Gastrointestinal Radiology, University College London, Centre for Medical Imaging, Podium Level 2, London, NW1 2BU (United Kingdom)

    2015-06-01

    We aimed to identify the effect of computer-aided detection (CAD) on visual search and performance in CT Colonography (CTC) of inexperienced and experienced readers. Fifteen endoluminal CTC examinations were recorded, each with one polyp, and two videos were generated, one with and one without a CAD mark. Forty-two readers (17 experienced, 25 inexperienced) interpreted the videos during infrared visual search recording. CAD markers and polyps were treated as regions of interest in data processing. This multi-reader, multi-case study was analysed using multilevel modelling. CAD drew readers' attention to polyps faster, accelerating identification times: median 'time to first pursuit' was 0.48 s (IQR 0.27 to 0.87 s) with CAD, versus 0.58 s (IQR 0.35 to 1.06 s) without. For inexperienced readers, CAD also held visual attention for longer. All visual search metrics used to assess visual gaze behaviour demonstrated statistically significant differences when ''with'' and ''without'' CAD were compared. A significant increase in the number of correct polyp identifications across all readers was seen with CAD (74 % without CAD, 87 % with CAD; p < 0.001). CAD significantly alters visual search and polyp identification in readers viewing three-dimensional endoluminal CTC. For polyp and CAD marker pursuit times, CAD generally exerted a larger effect on inexperienced readers. (orig.)

  4. Integrated Rapid-Diagnostic-Test Reader Platform on a Cellphone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mudanyali, Onur; Dimitrov, Stoyan; Sikora, Uzair; Padmanabhan, Swati; Navruz, Isa; Ozcan, Aydogan

    2012-01-01

    We demonstrate a cellphone based Rapid-Diagnostic-Test (RDT) reader platform that can work with various lateral flow immuno-chromatographic assays and similar tests to sense the presence of a target analyte in a sample. This compact and cost-effective digital RDT reader, weighing only ~65 grams, mechanically attaches to the existing camera unit of a cellphone, where various types of RDTs can be inserted to be imaged in reflection or transmission modes under light-emitting-diode (LED) based illumination. Captured raw images of these tests are then digitally processed (within less than 0.2 sec/image) through a smart application running on the cellphone for validation of the RDT as well as for automated reading of its diagnostic result. The same smart application running on the cellphone then transmits the resulting data, together with the RDT images and other related information (e.g., demographic data) to a central server, which presents the diagnostic results on a world-map through geo-tagging. This dynamic spatio-temporal map of various RDT results can then be viewed and shared using internet browsers or through the same cellphone application. We tested this platform using malaria, tuberculosis (TB) as well as HIV RDTs by installing it on both Android based smart-phones as well as an iPhone. Providing real-time spatio-temporal statistics for the prevalence of various infectious diseases, this smart RDT reader platform running on cellphones might assist health-care professionals and policy makers to track emerging epidemics worldwide and help epidemic preparedness. PMID:22596243

  5. Short Vowels versus Word Familiarity in the Reading Comprehension of Arab Readers: A Revisited Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seraye, Abdullah M.

    2016-01-01

    Arab readers, both beginning and advanced, are encouraged to read and accustomed to unvowelized and undiacriticized texts. Previous literature claimed that the presence of short vowels in the text would facilitate the reading comprehension of both beginning and advanced Arab readers. However, with a claimed strict controlling procedure, different…

  6. Relations among Metamemory, Rehearsal Activity and Word Recall of Learning Disabled and Non-Disabled Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swanson, H.L.

    1983-01-01

    In free recall of word lists involving different rehearsal strategies, more words were recalled by older (as against younger) children and by nondisabled (as against learning disabled) readers. Disabled readers tended to be nonstrategic recallers and less accurate estimators of their memory capacity. Recall differences were attributed to semantic…

  7. Course Reader: Food Concept Design, mapping strategic and service-oriented possibilities within food businesses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Tenna Doktor

    This course reader is a guide to the content of the last series of FOOD DESIGN lectures and design workshops given with the course: ‘Food Concept Design: Mapping Strategic and Service‐Oriented possibilities within Food Businesses', offered at the Masters education 'Integrated Food Studies......' at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. The course reader first of all guide the students through the overall purpose and content of the course, but also give a short introduction to the various literature used in the course, as well as the demands for the final assignment and evaluation criteria...... for the individual exams. Together with the course programmes provided at the two previous semesters, this course reader is thus attempts to begin develop af theoratical framework for teaching Food Design Thinking....

  8. LH Pretreatment as a Novel Strategy for Poor Responders

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Pia Ferraretti

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Poor response to ovarian stimulation is still a major problem in IVF. The study presents a new stimulation protocol evaluated in a suppopulation of very difficult young poor ovarian responders. Material and Methods. The study consists in two sections. The first includes data from a randomized controlled study involving forty-three young patients with a poor ovarian response in at least two previous cycles (intended as cycle cancellation or with ≤3 collected oocytes. Patients were randomized in two groups: group A (control received FSH (400 IU/day, while group B received the new stimulation protocol consisting in a sequential association of 150 IU r-LH for 4 days followed by 400 IU r-FSH/after downregulation with daily GnRh agonist. The second includes data from the overall results in 65 patients treated with the new protocol compared to their previous performance with conventional cycles (historical control. Results. Both in the RCT and in the historical control study, LH pretreatment was able to decrease the cancellation rate, to improve the in vitro performance, and to significantly increase the live birth rates. Conclusions. LH pretreatment improved oocyte quantity and quality in young repeated poor responders selected in accordance with the Bologna criteria.

  9. 3,000 Paper Cranes: Children's Literature for Remedial Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shumaker, Marjorie P.; Shumaker, Ronald C.

    1988-01-01

    Describes how the educational experience of sixth grade remedial readers was revitalized and enriched through a project that grew out of reading "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." Suggests using "real" books (literature) to liberate remedial students from skill drills and reading games. (NH)

  10. Poor mental health status and aggression are associated with poor driving behavior among male traffic offenders

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdoli N

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Nasrin Abdoli,1,2 Vahid Farnia,3 Ali Delavar,4 Alirez Esmaeili,5 Fariborz Dortaj,4 Noorali Farrokhi,4 Majid Karami,6 Jalal Shakeri,3 Edith Holsboer-Trachsler,7 Serge Brand7,8 1International University of Imam Reza, Mashhad, 2Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, 3Substance Abuse Prevention Research Center, Psychiatry Department, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, 4Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, 5Police University, Tehran, 6Baharestan Research Center, Kermanshah Transportation Terminal, Kermanshah, Iran, 7Center for Affective, Stress and Sleep Disorders, Psychiatric Clinics of the University of Basel, Basel, 8Department of Sport and Health Science, Sport Science Section, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Background: In Iran, traffic accidents and deaths from traffic accidents are among the highest in the world, and generally driver behavior rather than either technical failures or environmental conditions are responsible for traffic accidents. In the present study, we explored the extent to which aggressive traits, health status, and sociodemographic variables explain driving behavior among Iranian male traffic offenders. Method: A total of 443 male driving offenders (mean age: M =31.40 years, standard deviation =9.56 from Kermanshah (Iran took part in the study. Participants completed a questionnaire booklet covering sociodemographic variables, traits of aggression, health status, and driving behavior. Results: Poor health status, such as symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and social dysfunction, and also higher levels of trait aggression explained poor driving behavior. Multiple regressions indicated that poor health status, but not aggression, independently predicted poor driving behavior. Conclusion: Results suggest that health status concerns are associated with poor driving behavior. Prevention and intervention might therefore focus on drivers reporting poor mental health status

  11. "This Is Not For You": Reader Agency and Intimacy in Contemporary Horror Fiction

    OpenAIRE

    Hauglid, Aslak Rustad

    2016-01-01

    This thesis examines how recent/contemporary horror fiction uses the establishment of reader intimacy and challenges to reader agency in order to create experiences of horror. The discussion focuses on a selection of horror texts from different media published between 2000 and 2016. The thesis argues that these two techniques have come to be increasingly important horror tropes over this period, and examines how they are applied in order to propose a new perspective for understanding how cont...

  12. The influence of reading expertise in mirror-letter perception: Evidence from beginning and expert readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni; Dimitropoulou, María; Estévez, Adelina; Carreiras, Manuel

    2013-01-01

    The visual word recognition system recruits neuronal systems originally developed for object perception which are characterized by orientation insensitivity to mirror reversals. It has been proposed that during reading acquisition beginning readers have to “unlearn” this natural tolerance to mirror reversals in order to efficiently discriminate letters and words. Therefore, it is supposed that this unlearning process takes place in a gradual way and that reading expertise modulates mirror-letter discrimination. However, to date no supporting evidence for this has been obtained. We present data from an eye-movement study that investigated the degree of sensitivity to mirror-letters in a group of beginning readers and a group of expert readers. Participants had to decide which of the two strings presented on a screen corresponded to an auditorily presented word. Visual displays always included the correct target word and one distractor word. Results showed that those distractors that were the same as the target word except for the mirror lateralization of two internal letters attracted participants’ attention more than distractors created by replacement of two internal letters. Interestingly, the time course of the effects was found to be different for the two groups, with beginning readers showing a greater tolerance (decreased sensitivity) to mirror-letters than expert readers. Implications of these findings are discussed within the framework of preceding evidence showing how reading expertise modulates letter identification. PMID:24273596

  13. From Reader to Writer: Citizen Journalism as News Produsage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruns, Axel

    Today, participatory or citizen journalism - journalism which enables readers to become writers - exists online and offline in a variety of forms and formats, operates under a number of editorial schemes, and focuses on a wide range of topics from the specialist to the generic and the micro-local to the global. Key models in this phenomenon include veteran sites Slashdot and Indymedia, as well as news-related weblogs; more recent additions into the mix have been the South Korean OhmyNews, which in 2003 was “the most influential online news site in that country, attracting an estimated 2 million readers a day” (Gillmor, 2003a, p. 7), with its new Japanese and international offshoots, as well as the Wikipedia with its highly up-to-date news and current events section and its more recent offshoot Wikinews, and even citizen-produced video news as it is found in sites such as YouTube and Current.tv.

  14. Using the ovarian sensitivity index to define poor, normal, and high response after controlled ovarian hyperstimulation in the long gonadotropin-releasing hormone-agonist protocol: suggestions for a new principle to solve an old problem.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huber, Malin; Hadziosmanovic, Nermin; Berglund, Lars; Holte, Jan

    2013-11-01

    To explore the utility of using the ratio between oocyte yield and total dose of FSH, i.e., the ovarian sensitivity index (OSI), to define ovarian response patterns. Retrospective cross-sectional study. University-affiliated private center. The entire unselected cohort of 7,520 IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatments (oocyte pick-ups [OPUs]) during an 8-year period (long GnRH agonist-recombinant FSH protocol). None. The distribution of the OSI (oocytes recovered × 1,000/total dose of FSH), the cutoff levels for poor and high response, set at ±1 SD, and the relationship between OSI and treatment outcome. OSI showed a log-normal distribution with cutoff levels for poor and high response at 1.697/IU and 10.07/IU, respectively. A nomogram is presented. Live-birth rates per OPU were 10.5 ± 0.1%, 26.9 ± 0.6%, and 36.0 ± 1.4% for poor, normal, and high response treatments, respectively. The predictive power (C-statistic) for OSI to predict live birth was superior to that of oocyte yield. The OSI improves the definition of ovarian response patterns because it takes into account the degree of stimulation. The nomogram presents evidence-based cutoff levels for poor, normal, and high response and could be used for unifying study designs involving ovarian response patterns. Copyright © 2013 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Training readers to improve their accuracy in grading Crohn's disease activity on MRI

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tielbeek, Jeroen A.W.; Bipat, Shandra; Boellaard, Thierry N.; Nio, C.Y.; Stoker, Jaap

    2014-01-01

    To prospectively evaluate if training with direct feedback improves grading accuracy of inexperienced readers for Crohn's disease activity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Thirty-one inexperienced readers assessed 25 cases as a baseline set. Subsequently, all readers received training and assessed 100 cases with direct feedback per case, randomly assigned to four sets of 25 cases. The cases in set 4 were identical to the baseline set. Grading accuracy, understaging, overstaging, mean reading times and confidence scores (scale 0-10) were compared between baseline and set 4, and between the four consecutive sets with feedback. Proportions of grading accuracy, understaging and overstaging per set were compared using logistic regression analyses. Mean reading times and confidence scores were compared by t-tests. Grading accuracy increased from 66 % (95 % CI, 56-74 %) at baseline to 75 % (95 % CI, 66-81 %) in set 4 (P = 0.003). Understaging decreased from 15 % (95 % CI, 9-23 %) to 7 % (95 % CI, 3-14 %) (P < 0.001). Overstaging did not change significantly (20 % vs 19 %). Mean reading time decreased from 6 min 37 s to 4 min 35 s (P < 0.001). Mean confidence increased from 6.90 to 7.65 (P < 0.001). During training, overall grading accuracy, understaging, mean reading times and confidence scores improved gradually. Inexperienced readers need training with at least 100 cases to achieve the literature reported grading accuracy of 75 %. (orig.)

  16. Implications of unchanged detection criteria with CAD as second reader of mammograms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bornefalk, Hans

    2006-01-01

    In this paper we address the use of computer-aided detection (CAD) systems as second readers in mammography. The approach is based on Bayesian decision theory and its implication for the choice of optimal operating points. The choice of a certain operating point along an ROC curve corresponds to a particular tradeoff between false positives and missed cancers. By minimizing a total risk function given this tradeoff, we determine optimal decision thresholds for the radiologist and CAD system when CAD is used as a second reader. We show that under very general circumstances, the performance of the sequential system is improved if the decision threshold of the latent human decision variable is increased compared to what it would have been in the absence of the CAD system. This means that an initial stricter decision criterion should be applied by the radiologist when CAD is used as a second reader than otherwise. First and foremost, the results in this paper should be interpreted qualitatively, but an attempt is made at quantifying the effect by tuning the model to a prospective study evaluating the use of CAD as a second reader. By making some necessary and plausible assumptions, we are able to estimate the effect of the resulting suboptimal operating point. In this study of 12 860 women, we estimate that a 15% reduction in callbacks for masses could have been achieved with only about a 1.5% relative decrease in sensitivity compared to that without using a stricter initial criterion by the radiologist. For microcalcifications the corresponding values are 7% and 0.2%

  17. Aripiprazole augmentation in poor insight obsessive-compulsive disorder: a case report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vinciguerra Valentina

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Obsessive-compulsive disorder is associated with a relevant impairment in social and interpersonal functioning and severe disability. This seems to be particularly true for the poor insight subtype, characterised by a lack of consciousness of illness and, consequently, compliance with treatment. Poor responsiveness to serotonergic drugs in poor insight obsessive-compulsive patients may also require an augmentation therapy with atypical antipsychotics. Methods We reviewed a case in which a patient with a long history of poor insight obsessive-compulsive disorder was treated with a high dosage of serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Results The treatment resulted in a poor outcome. This patient was therefore augmentated with aripiprazole. Conclusion Doctors should consider aripiprazole as a possible augmentation strategy for serotonergic poor responder obsessive-compulsive patients, but further research on these subjects is needed.

  18. Predictors of Reading Comprehension among Struggling Readers Who Exhibit Differing Levels of Inattention and Hyperactivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swanson, Elizabeth; Barnes, Marcia; Fall, Anna-Mari; Roberts, Greg

    2018-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of inference making, decoding, memory, and vocabulary on reading comprehension among 7th- through 12th-grade struggling readers with varying levels of inattention and hyperactivity. We categorized a group of 414 struggling readers into 3 groups based on results from factor mixture modeling:…

  19. The Development of Visual Search Strategies in Biscriptal Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liow, Susan Rikard; Green, David; Tam, Melissa

    1999-01-01

    To test whether cognitive processing in bilingual depends on script combinations and language proficiency, this study investigated the development of alphabetic and logographic visual search strategies in two kinds of biscriptals: (1) Malay-English and (2) Chinese-English readers. Results support the view that there are script implications of…

  20. Expository Text Comprehension in Secondary School: For Which Readers Does Knowledge of Connectives Contribute the Most?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Welie, Camille; Schoonen, Rob; Kuiken, Folkert; Bergh, Huub

    2017-01-01

    The present study examined whether knowledge of connectives contributes uniquely to expository text comprehension above and beyond reading fluency, general vocabulary knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, it was examined whether this contribution differs for readers with different language backgrounds or readers who vary in reading…

  1. [Exogenous luteinizing hormone for assisted reproduction techniques in poor response patients].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spremović-Radjenović, Svetlana; Gudović, Aleksandra; Lazović, Gordana

    2010-07-01

    Two gonadotrophins, two cell theory refers to necessity of both gonadotrophin activities for theca and granulose cells steroidogenesis of dominant follicle. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of recombinant LH in women qualified as poor responders in the first assisted reproduction procedure (IVF), on fertility results, expressed as percentage of clinical pregnancies. The study included 12 women, 35 years and older who were their own controls. The next trial of IVF was with the same dose of recombinant FSH and GnRH agonist, and with the same, long protocol. Recombinant LH was added in the dose of 75 IU from the 2nd to 7th day of the cycle, and 150 IU from the 8th day of the cycle to the aspiration of oocytes. Within the two different protocols: there was no significant difference between LH concentration in 8th and 12th day of cycle; there was no significant difference between E2 concentration on day 2nd and day 8th; there was a significant difference between E2 concentrations on day 12th; endometrial thickness was not significantly different on the day of aspiration, neither was the number of follicles and embryos. In the two patients, clinical pregnancy was detected (pregnancy rate 17%), and they delivered in term. So, a statistically significant difference between the two protocols was in the rate of clinical pregnancies. The patients with low response to a long protocol in IVF procedures had significantly better results according to the clinical pregnancy rate when the recombinant LH was added to recombinant FSH in the stimulation protocol.

  2. Dewitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund National Library Power Program.

    Science.gov (United States)

    School Library Media Annual (SLMA), 1993

    1993-01-01

    Describes the National Library Power Program, a collaborative effort sponsored by the Dewitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund in cooperation with local education funds and public school districts that was designed to create public elementary and middle school library programs that are central to the education program of the school. (LRW)

  3. English for Mass Communications and for Other Purposes-Readers ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study was an investigation into the way readers perceive the use of English, for different purposes, and in particular, for mass communication in a second language setting. For this purpose, a simple questionnaire in form of the Likert rating scale was used to generate data. The study involved 337 respondents.

  4. Scaffolding or Distracting: CD-ROM Storybooks and Young Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pearman, Cathy J.; Chang, Ching-Wen

    2010-01-01

    CD-ROM storybooks, often referred to as electronic texts, e-books, and interactive stories, are learning tools with supplemental features such as automatic reading of text, sound effects, word pronunciations, and graphic animations which support the development of reading skills and comprehension in beginning readers. Some CD-ROM storybooks also…

  5. Video Vortex reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lovink, G.; Somers Miles, R.

    2011-01-01

    Video Vortex Reader II is the Institute of Network Cultures' second collection of texts that critically explore the rapidly changing landscape of online video and its use. With the success of YouTube ('2 billion views per day') and the rise of other online video sharing platforms, the moving image

  6. Building the Foundation for Close Reading with Developing Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Sheila F.; McEnery, Lillian

    2017-01-01

    Close Reading utilizes several strategies to help readers think more critically about a text. Close reading can be performed within the context of shared readings, read-alouds by the teacher, literature discussion groups, and guided reading groups. Students attempting to more closely read difficult texts may benefit from technologies and platforms…

  7. Tracking the emergence of the consonant bias in visual-word recognition: evidence with developing readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Ana Paula; Perea, Manuel; Comesaña, Montserrat

    2014-01-01

    Recent research with skilled adult readers has consistently revealed an advantage of consonants over vowels in visual-word recognition (i.e., the so-called "consonant bias"). Nevertheless, little is known about how early in development the consonant bias emerges. This work aims to address this issue by studying the relative contribution of consonants and vowels at the early stages of visual-word recognition in developing readers (2(nd) and 4(th) Grade children) and skilled adult readers (college students) using a masked priming lexical decision task. Target words starting either with a consonant or a vowel were preceded by a briefly presented masked prime (50 ms) that could be the same as the target (e.g., pirata-PIRATA [pirate-PIRATE]), a consonant-preserving prime (e.g., pureto-PIRATA), a vowel-preserving prime (e.g., gicala-PIRATA), or an unrelated prime (e.g., bocelo -PIRATA). Results revealed significant priming effects for the identity and consonant-preserving conditions in adult readers and 4(th) Grade children, whereas 2(nd) graders only showed priming for the identity condition. In adult readers, the advantage of consonants was observed both for words starting with a consonant or a vowel, while in 4(th) graders this advantage was restricted to words with an initial consonant. Thus, the present findings suggest that a Consonant/Vowel skeleton should be included in future (developmental) models of visual-word recognition and reading.

  8. Stressful working conditions and poor self-rated health among financial services employees

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luiz Sérgio Silva

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between exposure to adverse psychosocial working conditions and poor self-rated health among bank employees. METHODS: A cross-sectional study including a sample of 2,054 employees of a government bank was conducted in 2008. Self-rated health was assessed by a single question: "In general, would you say your health is (...." Exposure to adverse psychosocial working conditions was evaluated by the effort-reward imbalance model and the demand-control model. Information on other independent variables was obtained through a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. A multiple logistic regression analysis was performed and odds ratio calculated to assess independent associations between adverse psychosocial working conditions and poor self-rated health. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of poor self-rated health was 9%, with no significant gender difference. Exposure to high demand and low control environment at work was associated with poor self-rated health. Employees with high effort-reward imbalance and overcommitment also reported poor self-rated health, with a dose-response relationship. Social support at work was inversely related to poor self-rated health, with a dose-response relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Exposure to adverse psychosocial work factors assessed based on the effort-reward imbalance model and the demand-control model is independently associated with poor self-rated health among the workers studied.

  9. Development of a Handheld Line Information Reader and Generator for Efficient Management of Optical Communication Lines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jaeyul; Kwon, Hyungwoo; Song, Jaewon; Jeon, Mansik; Kim, Jeehyun

    2017-08-24

    A handheld line information reader and a line information generator were developed for the efficient management of optical communication lines. The line information reader consists of a photo diode, trans-impedance amplifier, voltage amplifier, microcontroller unit, display panel, and communication modules. The line information generator consists of a laser diode, laser driving circuits, microcontroller unit, and communication modules. The line information reader can detect the optical radiation field of the test line by bending the optical fiber. To enhance the sensitivity of the line information reader, an additional lens was used with a focal length of 4.51 mm. Moreover, the simulation results obtained through BeamPROP ® software from Synopsys, Inc. demonstrated a stronger optical radiation field of the fiber due to a longer transmission wavelength and larger bending angle of the fiber. Therefore, the developed devices can be considered as useful tools for the efficient management of optical communication lines.

  10. Designs of Concept Maps and Their Impacts on Readers' Performance in Memory and Reasoning while Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tzeng, Jeng-Yi

    2010-01-01

    From the perspective of the Fuzzy Trace Theory, this study investigated the impacts of concept maps with two strategic orientations (comprehensive and thematic representations) on readers' performance of cognitive operations (such as perception, verbatim memory, gist reasoning and syntheses) while the readers were reading two history articles that…

  11. The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (Linda Kalof y Amy Fitzgerald, Eds.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beto Vianna

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Las propuestas explicativas de la sociobiología y, aún más recientemente, de la psicología evolucionista han suscitado la queja, entre los científicos humanos, de una “colonización de las ciencias sociales” (término de Rose, 2000 desde la biología. La queja es legítima, si no por otros motivos, por una lamentable tendencia a la simplificación de las intricadas redes conductuales humanas a través de “explicaciones evolutivas”. Pero no podemos olvidar que hay un movimiento de igual tamaño e impacto desde las ciencias sociales que, a ejemplo de Bruno Latour, Tim Ingold y tantos otros, “colonizan” los estudios y objetos naturales (ver, por ejemplo, Latour, 1996 e Ingold, 2008. En The Animals Reader, dos sociólogas - Linda Kalof, de la Universidad del Estado de Michigan, y Amy Fitzgerald, de la Universidade de Windsor, Canada - son las responsables de hacer una incursión en un territorio tradicionalmente natural y, por tanto, perteneciente a las ciencias de la naturaleza: las descripciones que hacemos y las relaciones que mantenemos con los animales. The Animals Reader es una compilación bien cuidada, pienso que la primera de su tipo, que da forma a una preocupación multidisciplinar: los “estudios animales”.

  12. Oligoclonal CD8+ T-cell expansion in patients with chronic hepatitis C is associated with liver pathology and poor response to interferon-alpha therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manfras, Burkhard J; Weidenbach, Hans; Beckh, Karl-Heinz; Kern, Peter; Möller, Peter; Adler, Guido; Mertens, Thomas; Boehm, Bernhard O

    2004-05-01

    The role of CD8(+) T lymphocytes in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and in liver injury with subsequent development of fibrosis and cirrhosis is poorly understood. To address this question, we performed a follow-up study including 27 chronically HCV-infected individuals. We determined clonality and phenotypes of circulating CD8(+) T cells employing TCRBV spectratyping. Antigen specificity was tested by rMHC-peptide tetramer staining and stimulation with recombinant HCV antigens. In addition, T-cell clonality and phenotypes were followed during the variable clinical response of interferon- (IFN) alpha treatment. We could demonstrate that CD8(+) T-cell expansions were significantly associated with liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. Likewise, increased oligoclonality of circulating CD8(+) T cells in chronic HCV infection was identified as an indicator for poor clinical response to IFN-alpha therapy. Moreover, we also found that IFN-alpha therapy enhanced the differentiation of CD8(+) T cells towards a late differentiation phenotype (CD28(-) CD57(+)). In cases of virus elimination the disappearance of expanded terminally differentiated CD8(+) cells was observed. Thus, this study identifies an association of clonal expansions of circulating CD8(+) T cells with liver pathology and provides a possible explanation for the fact that response to IFN-alpha therapy diminishes with the duration of infection.

  13. Dose reader of dosimetric foil; Czytnik dawki folii dozymetrycznej

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Machaj, B.; Strzalkowski, J.; Smolko, K.

    1997-12-31

    Read out the absorbance of a dosimetric foil is accomplished by two beam spectrophotometer. Such a solution makes possible the compensation of light source instabilities and ensures higher stability of the dose reader. The error of absorbance measurement caused by the instabilities does not exceed 0.0004 A. (author). 3 refs, 3 figs.

  14. SSR: What's in "School Science Review" for "PSR" Readers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lakin, Liz

    2004-01-01

    This article summarises ideas and developments in teaching and learning in science of relevance to "Primary Science Review" ("PSR") readers from three recent issues (309, 310, and 311) of "School Science Review" ("SSR"), the ASE journal for science education 11-19. The themes running through these are: ICT, the implications for science education…

  15. The Lazy Reader: Labor, Books, and Disease in Nineteenth-Century Germany.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aselmeyer, Norman

    Looking at nineteenth-century Germany, this article investigates the origin of the idea that fiction causes disease, among both the bourgeoisie and the working class. I argue that the socially constructed notions of reading addiction, which were consistent with medical concepts at that time, touched the bourgeois virtues of industriousness and health. However, little has been written about the transfer of the bourgeois attitudes towards reading to the German working class. The study of workers' autobiographies shows that social circumstances and the emulation of bourgeois values and attitudes resulted in appropriating the concept of lazy readers in the working class. The paper follows the paths from the early nineteenth century accusation of readers to the working class's perception of novels causing disease around 1900.

  16. O Globo´s new website and the sudden change of authority in the relationship with readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Larissa de Morais Ribeiro Mendes

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available This essay addresses O Globo’s campaign to reaffirm its authority in relation to its readers, starting with the launching of its new site in November 2011. In this space, some instruments of public participation were removed – some temporarily, others not – and all commentary on material prior to the change disappeared. The reader´s articles area was also excluded. We tried to understand what this and other changes incorporated in the site project represented for the relationship of O Globo and its readers.

  17. Nasal nitric oxide is associated with exhaled NO, bronchial responsiveness and poor asthma control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krantz, C; Janson, C; Borres, M P; Nordvall, L; Alving, K; Malinovschi, A

    2014-06-01

    The fraction of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is an established marker of airway inflammation in asthma. Nasal nitric oxide (nNO) has initially been regarded as a promising marker of inflammation of nasal mucosa. However, due to its dual origins, paranasal sinuses and nasal mucosa, the clinical use of nNO is controversial. There is an inflammatory link between inflammation in the upper and lower airways within the united airways' paradigm, but the study of the clinical value of nNO in asthma has been limited. The objective of this study is to analyse nNO in asthmatics and its relationship to FeNO, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, allergic sensitization and asthma control. A total of 371 children and young adults from an asthma cohort were included in this study, which performed measurements of nNO (through aspiration at 5 mL s(-1)), FeNO, bronchial responsiveness to methacholine, blood eosinophil count (B-Eos) and IgE sensitization. The asthma control test (ACT) and a questionnaire regarding medical treatment, symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and chronic rhinosinusitis were completed by all subjects. An association was found between higher nNO levels and increased bronchial responsiveness (p < 0.001), FeNO (p < 0.001) and B-Eos (p = 0.002). Sensitization to furry animals related to higher levels of nNO (p < 0.001). Subjects with poorly controlled asthma (ACT < 15) had lower levels of nNO than subjects with a higher ACT score (619 ± 278 ppb, versus 807 ± 274 ppb, p = 0.002). Loss of smell showed the strongest association with lower nNO levels among the upper airway symptoms recorded. In patients with asthma, nNO was positively correlated with exhaled NO, bronchial responsiveness and asthma control. This study suggests clinical utility of nNO in subjects with asthma, but in order to get better understanding of the nNO determinants, simultaneous mapping of upper airway comorbidities by clinical examination is appropriate.

  18. Articulation of young adult readers in a digitalized and medialized landscape of texts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Henkel, Ayoe Qvist

    The digital turn does not bring about changes in young adultliterature considered as aesthetic artifacts and literary works but it changes the perception and reception of the reader. Digital young adult literature is increasingly multimodal, including interactivity and the integration of elements...... of game aesthetics. The way the young person is articulated within such texts must be presumed to be new, and the pivotal point of this paper will be to explore how the young adult reader is thematized in content, form, and medium in digital young adult literature....

  19. Readers' opinion about English original articles in Ugeskrift for Laeger

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jan; Rosberg, Hanne Mohr; Rosenberg, J.

    2010-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: The Danish Medical Association performed a survey together with TNS Gallup Denmark among the readers of Ugeskrift for Laeger (Journal of the Danish Medical Association). The main motivation for the questionnaire was to evaluate the acceptability of changing the publication language...

  20. Cantilever biosensor reader using a common-path, holographic optical interferometer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Henrik Chresten; Jakobsen, Michael Linde; Hanson, Steen Grüner

    2010-01-01

    We demonstrate an optical reader principle aimed at monitoring biologically induced deflections of microcantilevers often used in biosensor systems. The principle is based on a so-called common-path optical interferometer in which the two interfering optical beams are copropagating,which makes...

  1. The Role of Hand Dominance in Beginning Braille Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Tessa

    2009-01-01

    In this article, the author examines the role of "hand dominance" in beginning braille readers. "Hand dominance" refers to whether an individual is "right handed" or "left handed." The data for these analyses were taken from the Alphabetic Braille and Contracted Braille Study (ABC Braille Study). The ABC Braille Study was a five-year nonrandomized…

  2. Clofarabine in the treatment of poor risk acute myeloid leukaemia.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Krawczyk, Janusz

    2010-09-01

    Clofarabine is a second generation nucleoside analogue. It inhibits DNA repair and activates the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway leading to cell death. In vitro clofarabine has demonstrated synergy with daunorubicin and Ara-C and in phase II clinical trials has shown promising activity in poor risk Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients. In our institution over a 24 month period 22 AML patients (11 M, 11 F) with poor risk features, deemed unsuitable for standard therapy, were treated with clofarabine, alone (eight patients) or in combination (14 patients) for up to three cycles of treatment. The median age was 67.5 years (24-76) with 16 patients > 60 years. At the time of treatment 18 patients had active AML. Four patients intolerant of standard induction received clofarabine as consolidation. The overall response rate (ORR) for the 18 patients with active AML was 61%, nine patients (50%) achieving a complete response (CR). Induction and consolidation were well tolerated with no unexpected toxicities. Predictably, all patients developed grade 4 neutropenia but the median duration was only 20 days (17-120). Induction mortality was acceptable at 17%. In conclusion, clofarabine (alone or in combination) is active in poor risk AML with an acceptable safety profile and should be considered a potential option in poor risk AML patients.

  3. Trickling Down: Are Rural and Rural Poor Family Incomes Responsive to Regional Economic Growth? Institute for Research on Poverty, Discussion Papers No. 210-74.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber, Bruce A.

    The past decade has seen a number of studies of how the poverty incidence (the percentage of families below the poverty line) of certain demographic groups changes in response to economic growth. The question of whether regional economic growth trickles down to rural and rural poor families was examined by statistically estimating the relationship…

  4. Solar Energy Education. Reader, Part IV. Sun schooling

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1981-05-01

    A collection of magazine articles which focus on solar energy is presented. This is the final book of the four part series of the Solar Energy Reader. The articles include brief discussions on energy topics such as the sun, ocean energy, methane gas from cow manure, and solar homes. Instructions for constructing a sundial and a solar stove are also included. A glossary of energy related terms is provided. (BCS)

  5. Reading anxiety, classroom anxiety, language motivation, reader self-perception, and arabic achievement of Arab-American students learning arabic as a second language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alkhateeb, Haitham M

    2014-12-01

    The present study assessed the relations between reading anxiety, classroom anxiety, language motivation, and readers' self-perception for a sample of Arab-American students in Arabic classes. The effects of sex, grade, and years studying Arabic on academic achievement were examined as well. Measures were administered to 118 middle school students (56 boys, 62 girls; M age = 13.0 yr., SD = 0.8), and teachers reported academic grades in Arabic. Reading anxiety was significantly correlated with classroom anxiety and reader self-perception. Classroom anxiety scores were significantly correlated with motivation and reader self-perception. Significant positive correlations were found between language motivation and reader self-perception scores, and between years studying Arabic and reader self-perception scores. Boys in the second year of Arabic had significantly lower classroom anxiety than girls, and students in Grade 7 had higher reader self-perception than those in Grade 8. Classroom anxiety, language motivation, and reader self-perception significantly predicted Arabic achievement. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

  6. Development Of The Drexler Optical-Card Reader/Writer System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pierce, Gerald A.

    1988-06-01

    An optical-card reader/writer optical and electronic breadboard system, developed by SRI International under contract to Drexler Technology, is described. The optical card, which is the same size as a credit card, can contain more than 2 megabytes of digital user data, which may also include preformatted tracking information and preformatted data. The data layout on the card is similar to that on a floppy disk, with each track containing a header and clocking information. The design of this optical reader/writer system for optical cards is explained. Design of the optical card system entails a number of unique issues: To accommodate both laser-recorded and mass-duplicated information, the system must be compatible with preencoded information, which implies a larger-than-normal spot size (5 gm) and a detection system that can read both types of optical patterns. Cost-reduction considerations led to selection of a birefringent protection layer, which dictated a nonstandard optical system. The non-polarization-sensitive optics use an off-axis approach to detection. An LED illumination system makes it possible to read multiple tracks.

  7. A Minkowski Fractal Circularly Polarized Antenna for RFID Reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanzhong Yu

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available A design of fractal-like antenna with circular polarization for radio frequency identification (RFID reader applications is presented in this article. The modified Minkowski fractal structure is adopted as radiating patch for size reduction and broadband operation. A corner-truncated technology and a slot-opened method are employed to realize circular polarization and improve the gain of the proposed antenna, respectively. The proposed antenna is analyzed and optimized by HFSS. Return loss and maximum gain of the optimized antenna achieve to -22.2 dB and 1.12 dB at 920 MHz, respectively. The optimized design has an axial ratio (AR of 1.2 dB at central frequency of 920 MHz and impedance bandwidth (S11<=-10 dB of 40 MHz (4.3 %. Its input impedance is (57.9-j2.6 W that is close to input impedance of coaxial line (50 W. Numerical results demonstrate that the optimized antenna exhibits acceptable performances and may satisfy requirements of RFID reader applications.

  8. Semiquantitative visual approach to scoring lung cancer treatment response using computed tomography: a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gottlieb, Ronald H; Kumar, Prasanna; Loud, Peter; Klippenstein, Donald; Raczyk, Cheryl; Tan, Wei; Lu, Jenny; Ramnath, Nithya

    2009-01-01

    Our objective was to compare a newly developed semiquantitative visual scoring (SVS) method with the current standard, the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) method, in the categorization of treatment response and reader agreement for patients with metastatic lung cancer followed by computed tomography. The 18 subjects (5 women and 13 men; mean age, 62.8 years) were from an institutional review board-approved phase 2 study that evaluated a second-line chemotherapy regimen for metastatic (stages III and IV) non-small cell lung cancer. Four radiologists, blinded to the patient outcome and each other's reads, evaluated the change in the patients' tumor burden from the baseline to the first restaging computed tomographic scan using either the RECIST or the SVS method. We compared the numbers of patients placed into the partial response, the stable disease (SD), and the progressive disease (PD) categories (Fisher exact test) and observer agreement (kappa statistic). Requiring the concordance of 3 of the 4 readers resulted in the RECIST placing 17 (100%) of 17 patients in the SD category compared with the SVS placing 9 (60%) of 15 patients in the partial response, 5 (33%) of the 15 patients in the SD, and 1 (6.7%) of the 15 patients in the PD categories (P < 0.0001). Interobserver agreement was higher among the readers using the SVS method (kappa, 0.54; P < 0.0001) compared with that of the readers using the RECIST method (kappa, -0.01; P = 0.5378). Using the SVS method, the readers more finely discriminated between the patient response categories with superior agreement compared with the RECIST method, which could potentially result in large differences in early treatment decisions for advanced lung cancer.

  9. A new luminescence detection and stimulation head for the Risø TL/OSL reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lapp, T.; Kook, M.; Murray, A.S.; Thomsen, K.J.; Buylaert, J.-P.; Jain, M.

    2015-01-01

    A new automated Detection And Stimulation Head (DASH) has been developed for the Risø TL/OSL luminescence reader to provide easy access to new technologies, new signals and new measurement methods. The automated DASH includes a filter changer and a detector changer that makes it possible to change stimulation filters (4 × 4 filter combinations possible) and detectors (3 detectors possible) as part of a measurements sequence. The new automated DASH with dedicated driver electronics does not affect the use of other attachments, and can be retrospectively fitted to existing Risø TL/OSL readers. - Highlights: • A new detection and stimulation head for the Risø TL/OSL reader is described. • An example of the use of the filter changer is presented. • The power and spatial uniformity of blue, green and IR stimulation are characterised. • The potential of an EMCCD camera detector is described.

  10. Greater pre-stimulus effective connectivity from the left inferior frontal area to other areas is associated with better phonological decoding in dyslexic readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard E Frye

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Functional neuroimaging studies suggest that neural networks that subserve reading are organized differently in dyslexic readers (DRs and typical readers (TRs, yet the hierarchical structure of these networks has not been well studied. We used Granger Causality (GC to examine the effective connectivity of the preparatory network that occurs prior to viewing a non-word stimulus that requires phonological decoding in 7 DRs and 10 TRs who were young adults. The neuromagnetic activity that occurred 500 ms prior to each rhyme trial was analyzed from sensors overlying the left and right inferior frontal areas (IFA, temporoparietal areas (TPA, and ventral occipitotemporal areas (VOTA within the low, medium, and high beta and gamma sub-bands. A mixed-model analysis determined whether connectivity to or from the left and right IFAs differed across connectivity direction (into vs. out of the IFAs, brain areas, reading group, and/or performance. Results indicated that greater connectivity in the low beta sub-band from the left IFA to other cortical areas was significantly related to better non-word rhyme discrimination in DRs but not TRs. This suggests that the left IFA is an important cortical area involved in compensating for poor phonological function in DRs. We suggest that the left IFA activates a wider-than usual network prior to each trial in the service of supporting otherwise effortful phonological decoding in DRs. The fact that the left IFA provides top-down activation to both posterior left hemispheres areas used by typical readers for phonological decoding and homologous right hemisphere areas is discussed. In contrast, within the high gamma sub-band, better performance was associated with decreased connectivity between the left IFA and other brain areas, in both reading groups. Overly strong gamma connectivity during the pre-stimulus period may interfere with subsequent transient activation and deactivation of sub-networks once the non

  11. Short Vowels Versus Word Familiarity in the Reading Comprehension of Arab Readers: A Revisited Issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdullah M. SERAYE

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Arab readers, both beginning and advanced, are encouraged to read and accustomed to unvowelized and undiacriticized texts. Previous literature claimed that the presence of short vowels in the text would facilitate the reading comprehension of both beginning and advanced Arab readers. However, with a claimed strict controlling procedure, different results emerged, revealing that the only variable that affected the reading process of Arab adult skilled readers was word frequency, and its effect was limited to the time load of the reading process; this result raised the question of whether the neutral role of short vowels in the text reading process of experienced Arab readers would be maintained for less experienced readers, as represented by fourth graders, or whether word frequency would be the only variable that plays a role in their reading process. In experiment, 1,141 fourth-grade students were randomly assigned to 5 reading conditions: plain, only shaddah, short vowels plus shaddah, only short vowels, and finally the wrong short vowels plus shaddah. In experiment 2, 38 participants from the same population were assigned to a fully vowelized and diacriticized reading condition. Each participant was asked to read two texts, of high and low frequency words and then given recall and multiple-choice tests. In general, the multivariate analysis showed that the only manipulated variable that was found to affect their reading process in terms of reading time load and, to some degree, reading comprehension was word frequency, although its effect was marginal. Accordingly, pedagogical recommendations and future research were proposed.

  12. Short vowels versus word familiarity in the reading comprehension of arab readers: A revisited issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdullah M. Seraye

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Arab readers, both beginning and advanced, are encouraged to read and accustomed to unvowelized and undiacriticized texts. Previous literature claimed that the presence of short vowels in the text would facilitate the reading comprehension of both beginning and advanced Arab readers. However, with a claimed strict controlling procedure, different results emerged, revealing that the only variable that affected the reading process of Arab adult skilled readers was word frequency, and its effect was limited to the time load of the reading process; this result raised the question of whether the neutral role of short vowels in the text reading process of experienced Arab readers would be maintained for less experienced readers, as represented by fourth graders, or whether word frequency would be the only variable that plays a role in their reading process. In experiment, 1,141 fourth-grade students were randomly assigned to 5 reading conditions: plain, only shaddah, short vowels plus shaddah, only short vowels, and finally the wrong short vowels plus shaddah. In experiment 2, 38 participants from the same population were assigned to a fully vowelized and diacriticized reading condition. Each participant was asked to read two texts, of high and low frequency words and then given recall and multiple-choice tests. In general, the multivariate analysis showed that the only manipulated variable that was found to affect their reading process in terms of reading time load and, to some degree, reading comprehension was word frequency, although its effect was marginal. Accordingly, pedagogical recommendations and future research were proposed.

  13. Prereader to beginning reader: changes induced by reading acquisition in print and speech brain networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chyl, Katarzyna; Kossowski, Bartosz; Dębska, Agnieszka; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Banaszkiewicz, Anna; Żelechowska, Agata; Frost, Stephen J; Mencl, William Einar; Wypych, Marek; Marchewka, Artur; Pugh, Kenneth R; Jednoróg, Katarzyna

    2018-01-01

    Literacy acquisition is a demanding process that induces significant changes in the brain, especially in the spoken and written language networks. Nevertheless, large-scale paediatric fMRI studies are still limited. We analyzed fMRI data to show how individual differences in reading performance correlate with brain activation for speech and print in 111 children attending kindergarten or first grade and examined group differences between a matched subset of emergent-readers and prereaders. Across the entire cohort, individual differences analysis revealed that reading skill was positively correlated with the magnitude of activation difference between words and symbol strings in left superior temporal, inferior frontal and fusiform gyri. Group comparisons of the matched subset of pre- and emergent-readers showed higher activity for emergent-readers in left inferior frontal, precentral, and postcentral gyri. Individual differences in activation for natural versus vocoded speech were also positively correlated with reading skill, primarily in the left temporal cortex. However, in contrast to studies on adult illiterates, group comparisons revealed higher activity in prereaders compared to readers in the frontal lobes. Print-speech coactivation was observed only in readers and individual differences analyses revealed a positive correlation between convergence and reading skill in the left superior temporal sulcus. These results emphasise that a child's brain undergoes several modifications to both visual and oral language systems in the process of learning to read. They also suggest that print-speech convergence is a hallmark of acquiring literacy. © 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

  14. Face-to-face with the reader

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas SCHMITZ

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available From the scientific perspective this review is very interesting. It is well-structured, has an attractive lay-out and typography and serves as an important forum for the scientific debate on public administration in the Republic of Moldova. Furthermore, there is a special website with several subwebsites for the review. This makes it easy for every interested reader to get an idea of the review. Finally, the websites allows free downloads even of the newest issue. This allows everybody to read it, even students (because it is free and foreign researchers (who otherwise would not have access to Moldovan scientific reviews.

  15. PC-based car license plate reader

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hwang, Chung-Mu; Shu, Shyh-Yeong; Chen, Wen-Yu; Chen, Yie-Wern; Wen, Kuang-Pu

    1992-11-01

    A car license plate reader (CLPR) using fuzzy inference and neural network algorithm has been developed in Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and installed in highway toll stations to identify stolen cars. It takes an average of 0.7 seconds to recognize a car license plate by using a PC with 80486-50 CPU. The recognition rate of the system is about 97%. The techniques of CLPR include vehicle sensing, image grab control, optic pre- processing, lighting, and optic character recognition (OCR). The CLPR can be used in vehicle flow statistics, the checking of stolen vehicles, automatic charging systems in parking lots or garage management, and so on.

  16. Children's Responses to Heroism in Roald Dahl's "Matilda"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pope, James; Round, Julia

    2015-01-01

    The paper presents findings from a reader response study conducted in February 2013 with 150 children aged 7-11 in which they discussed extracts and clips from Roald Dahl's "Matilda" (1988) and its cinematic adaptation (1996). Dahl and "Matilda" were chosen because they provoke emphatic responses from adults, often commenting…

  17. MSiReader v1.0: Evolving Open-Source Mass Spectrometry Imaging Software for Targeted and Untargeted Analyses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bokhart, Mark T.; Nazari, Milad; Garrard, Kenneth P.; Muddiman, David C.

    2018-01-01

    A major update to the mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) software MSiReader is presented, offering a multitude of newly added features critical to MSI analyses. MSiReader is a free, open-source, and vendor-neutral software written in the MATLAB platform and is capable of analyzing most common MSI data formats. A standalone version of the software, which does not require a MATLAB license, is also distributed. The newly incorporated data analysis features expand the utility of MSiReader beyond simple visualization of molecular distributions. The MSiQuantification tool allows researchers to calculate absolute concentrations from quantification MSI experiments exclusively through MSiReader software, significantly reducing data analysis time. An image overlay feature allows the incorporation of complementary imaging modalities to be displayed with the MSI data. A polarity filter has also been incorporated into the data loading step, allowing the facile analysis of polarity switching experiments without the need for data parsing prior to loading the data file into MSiReader. A quality assurance feature to generate a mass measurement accuracy (MMA) heatmap for an analyte of interest has also been added to allow for the investigation of MMA across the imaging experiment. Most importantly, as new features have been added performance has not degraded, in fact it has been dramatically improved. These new tools and the improvements to the performance in MSiReader v1.0 enable the MSI community to evaluate their data in greater depth and in less time. [Figure not available: see fulltext.

  18. Moral Choices in Contemporary Society: A Courses by Newspaper Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rieff, Philip, Ed.; Finkle, Isaac, Ed.

    This reader, which contains 135 primary source readings about morality, is one of several college-level instructional materials developed to supplement a nationwide newspaper course on moral issues in contemporary society. The authors represent a diverse group including theologians, psychologists, politicians, professional athletes, lawyers, and…

  19. Computer-aided detection of colorectal polyps: can it improve sensitivity of less-experienced readers? Preliminary findings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Mark E; Bogoni, Luca; Obuchowski, Nancy A; Dass, Chandra; Kendzierski, Renee M; Remer, Erick M; Einstein, David M; Cathier, Pascal; Jerebko, Anna; Lakare, Sarang; Blum, Andrew; Caroline, Dina F; Macari, Michael

    2007-10-01

    To determine whether computer-aided detection (CAD) applied to computed tomographic (CT) colonography can help improve sensitivity of polyp detection by less-experienced radiologist readers, with colonoscopy or consensus used as the reference standard. The release of the CT colonographic studies was approved by the individual institutional review boards of each institution. Institutions from the United States were HIPAA compliant. Written informed consent was waived at all institutions. The CT colonographic studies in 30 patients from six institutions were collected; 24 images depicted at least one confirmed polyp 6 mm or larger (39 total polyps) and six depicted no polyps. By using an investigational software package, seven less-experienced readers from two institutions evaluated the CT colonographic images and marked or scored polyps by using a five-point scale before and after CAD. The time needed to interpret the CT colonographic findings without CAD and then to re-evaluate them with CAD was recorded. For each reader, the McNemar test, adjusted for clustered data, was used to compare sensitivities for readers without and with CAD; a Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze the number of false-positive results per patient. The average sensitivity of the seven readers for polyp detection was significantly improved with CAD-from 0.810 to 0.908 (P=.0152). The number of false-positive results per patient without and with CAD increased from 0.70 to 0.96 (95% confidence interval for the increase: -0.39, 0.91). The mean total time for the readings was 17 minutes 54 seconds; for interpretation of CT colonographic findings alone, the mean time was 14 minutes 16 seconds; and for review of CAD findings, the mean time was 3 minutes 38 seconds. Results of this feasibility study suggest that CAD for CT colonography significantly improves per-polyp detection for less-experienced readers. Copyright (c) RSNA, 2007.

  20. Kindling: The Amazon e-Reader as an Educational Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brezicki, Colin

    2011-01-01

    The revolutionary electronic reading device, Amazon's Kindle, is already obsolete. Such is the breakneck speed of technology that the machine touted to spell the death of printed books is already heading for the scrap heap, replaced by e-readers like the iPad that access the Internet, make phone calls, download movies, and connect users with all…

  1. [Physiological and hygienic assessment of perception of the information from electronic device for reading (reader)].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuchma, V R; Teksheva, L M; Vyatleva, O A; Kurgansky, A M

    2013-01-01

    A comparison of the legibility of the three different media: paper personal computer (LCD) and the e-reader in schoolchildren (12-14 years of age) was performed. Comprehensive assessment of the reading performance (speed of reading aloud, the number of errors in reading, and integral indicator of the degree of difficulty of visual task), its physiological value (according to data of EEG, EOG and ECG), and subjective preference of type of media by the schoolchildren showed that by the sum of signs e-reader occupies an intermediate position between printed text and the computer screen. The effect of increased emotional intensity of using e-reader (increased motivation), which is manifested in the preservation of the sympathetic nervous system activation after the reading, was obtained. The necessity of additional research has been shown.

  2. Mandated empowerment: handing antipoverty policy back to the poor?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banerjee, Abhijit V; Duflo, Esther

    2008-01-01

    The current trend in antipoverty policy emphasizes mandated empowerment: the poor are being handed the responsibility for making things better for themselves, largely without being asked whether this is what they want. Beneficiary control is now being built into public service delivery, while microcredit and small business promotion are seen as better ways to help the poor. The clear presumption is that the poor are both able and happy to exercise these new powers. This essay uses two examples to raise questions about these strategies. The first example is about entrepreneurship among the poor. Using data from a number of countries, we argue that there is no evidence that the median poor entrepreneur is trying his best to expand his existing businesses, even if we take into account the many constraints he faces. While many poor people own businesses, this seems to be more a survival strategy than something they want to do. The second example comes from an evaluation of a program in India that aims to involve poor rural parents in improving local public schools. The data suggest that despite being informed that they now have both the right to intervene in the school and access to funds for that purpose, and despite being made aware of how little the children were learning, parents opt to not get involved. Both examples raise concerns about committing ourselves entirely to antipoverty strategies that rely on the poor doing a lot of the work.

  3. Performance evaluation of vertical feed fully automated TLD badge reader using 0.8 and 0.4 mm teflon embedded CaSO4:Dy dosimeters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ratna, P.; More, Vinay; Kulkarni, M.S.

    2012-01-01

    The personnel monitoring of more than 80,000 radiation workers in India is at present carried out by semi-automated TLD badge Reader systems (TLDBR-7B) developed by Radiation Safety Systems Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. More than 60 such reader systems are in use in all the personnel monitoring centers in the country. Radiation Safety Systems Division also developed the fully automated TLD badge reader based on a new TLD badge having built-in machine readable ID code (in the form of 16x3 hole pattern). This automated reader is designed with minimum of changes in the electronics and mechanical hardware in the semiautomatic version (TLDBR-7B) so that such semi-automatic readers can be easily upgraded to the fully automated versions by using the new TLD badge with ID code. The reader was capable of reading 50 TLD cards in 90 minutes. Based on the feedback from the users, a new model of frilly automated TLD badge Reader (model VEFFA-10) is designed which is an improved version of the previously reported fully Automated TLD badge reader. This VEFFA-10 PC based Reader incorporates vertical loading of TLD bards having machine readable ID code. In this new reader, a vertical rack, which can hold 100 such cards, is mounted from the right side of the reader system. The TLD card falls into the channel by gravity from where it is taken to the reading position by rack and pinion method. After the readout, the TLD card is dropped in a eject tray. The reader employs hot N 2 gas heating method and the gas flow is controlled by a specially designed digital gas flow meter on the front panel of the reader system. The system design is very compact and simple and card stuck up problem is totally eliminated in the reader system. The reader has a number of self-diagnostic features to ensure a high degree of reliability. This paper reports the performance evaluation of the Reader using 0.4 mm thick Teflon embedded CaSO 4 :Dy TLD cards instead of 0.8 mm cards

  4. Dosimetric properties of the 'Pille' portable, wide dose range TLD reader

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Szabo, P.P.; Feher, I.; Deme, S.; Szabo, B.; Vagvoelgyi, J.

    1986-01-01

    The dosimetric properties of a portable TLD reader are described. The TLD system named 'Pille' or 'moth' consists of a lightweight battery-operated portable TLD reader and its CaSO 4 :Dy bulb dosemeters. The reproducibility of the TLD system at constant temperature was found to be better than + -2%, and the mean time between failures exceeded 5 years. The dose range of the system is wide, covering more than 6 orders of magnitude, from 5 μGy to 10 Gy. The energy dependence of the CaSO 4 :Dy bulb dosemeters is less than + - 20% above 100 keV in the energy compensation capsules. Without additional annealing, the bulb dosemeters can be re-used at least 100 times, which is an important aspect during in situ measurements. (author)

  5. Is American business working for the poor?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bane, M J; Ellwood, D T

    1991-01-01

    At first glance, poverty seems to have little to do with business. When most people--managers included--think about poverty, they assume that people are poor because they are isolated from the mainstream economy, not productive participants in it. But according to Harvard University professors Mary Jo Bane and David Ellwood, this is a misleading image of the true face of poverty in the United States today. Most poor adults--and a full 90% of poor children--live in families where work is the norm, not the exception. Poor people often work or want to work. But at the low-wage end of the American economy, having a job is no guarantee of avoiding poverty. Poverty is a business issue, then, because the American poor are part of the American work force. And this poses a problem for managers. In a more competitive and fast-changing economic environment, the performance of companies increasingly depends on the capabilities of their employees. In response to this human-resource challenge, more and more managers are embracing the language of "empowerment". And yet how can low-wage employees believe empowerment when their experience of work is, quite literally, impoverishment? It is unlikely that American companies can create the work force of the future with the poverty policies of the past. Fortunately, there are some simple policy mechanisms that can assist the working poor without putting an undue burden on business. Enacting them, however, requires managers to see poverty policy as one part of a national human-resource strategy that links the strategic concerns of companies to a broad social agenda.

  6. Processos logográficos, alfabéticos e lexicais na leitura silenciosa por surdos e ouvintes Silent reading by deaf and hearing readers: logographic, alphabetical and lexical processes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernando Capovilla

    2005-04-01

    Full Text Available O estudo empregou o Teste de Competência de Leitura de Palavras (TCLP para analisar estratégias ideovisuais, perilexicais e lexicais de leitura por 805 escolares surdos de 6-45 anos, da 1ª série do ensino fundamental à 1ª série do médio. Identificou aumento sistemático na competência de leitura de 1ª a 5ª séries, além de aumentos assistemáticos até a 1ª série do ensino médio, e comparou padrões de erros nos subtestes. Resultados revelaram dissociações duplas entre leitores surdos e ouvintes quanto ao padrão de erros nos subtestes: enquanto ouvintes se deixam enganar mais pela semelhança fonológica, surdos se deixam enganar mais pela visual. Enquanto ouvintes privilegiam a forma ortográfica em detrimento da correção semântica, surdos fazem o oposto. Devido à dificuldade de surdos em fazer conferência perilexical, sua leitura mostrou-se dependente de mecanismos visuais diretos de reconhecimento e acesso ao significado. O TCLP revelou-se instrumento válido para avaliar a leitura de surdos.The study used Word Reading Competence Test to analyze ideovisual, perilexical and lexical reading strategies by 805 6-45 year-old deaf students from 1st to 9th grade (1st grade elementary school to 1st grade high school. It identified a systematic increase in reading competence from 1st to 5th grade, and non-systematic increases until 9th grade. Results revealed double dissociation between deaf and hearing readers regarding error patterns across subtests: Hearing readers tended to be fooled more by phonological similarity than by visual similarity, whereas the opposite was found with deaf readers. Also, the hearing readers relied more on orthographic form than on semantic adequacy, whereas deaf readers did the opposite. Therefore, deaf reading was shown to depend essentially upon visual direct word recognition and semantic access mechanisms due to poor efficacy of perilexical checking mechanisms. Word Reading Competence Test was

  7. The Feasibility of E-Ink Readers in Distance Learning: A Field Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guy Janssens

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available — E-book readers based on E-ink mimic paper very closely and are an emerging technology. Despite the slow acceptance of this novel technology, The Open University of the Netherlands (OU is preparing to offer study material for this new medium. This paper reports the first experiences with the introduction of the new technology, both from a content producer’s perspective as well as from a consumer’s viewpoint. As it turned out, a significant amount of effort had to be spent on reformatting the already available A4 sized standard study material to accommodate the small 6’’ screen sizes of today’s E-ink readers. Our experience suggests that the classic A4 study material production process has to be replaced by a media-agnostic process, allowing for a flexible formatting and sizing of the content at the end of the process. In addition, since much of the content originates from external publishers, their “reformatting” capabilities have to be taken into account as well. To obtain firsthand experience from our students, the first 14 students who received an E-ink reader were subjected to a questionnaire. In general, the students responded positively to the new reading experience. The E-reader was most popular at home, but could also be used during travelling due to the small form factor, low weight and good battery longevity. The students were also positive about the legibility, but missed the possibility to take notes and underline sections of the texts. Despite all challenges, we expect that the E-ink technology is here to stay and as this technology matures, many of the problems identified will be solved.

  8. A Novel Marking Reader for Progressive Addition Lenses Based on Gabor Holography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perucho, Beatriz; Picazo-Bueno, José Angel; Micó, Vicente

    2016-05-01

    Progressive addition lenses (PALs) are marked with permanent engraved marks (PEMs) at standardized locations. Permanent engraved marks are very useful through the manufacturing and mounting processes, act as locator marks to re-ink the removable marks, and contain useful information about the PAL. However, PEMs are often faint and weak, obscured by scratches, partially occluded, and difficult to recognize on tinted lenses or with antireflection or scratch-resistant coatings. The aim of this article is to present a new generation of portable marking reader based on an extremely simplified concept for visualization and identification of PEMs in PALs. Permanent engraved marks on different PALs are visualized using classical Gabor holography as underlying principle. Gabor holography allows phase sample visualization with adjustable magnification and can be implemented in either classical or digital versions. Here, visual Gabor holography is used to provide a magnified defocused image of the PEMs onto a translucent visualization screen where the PEM is clearly identified. Different types of PALs (conventional, personalized, old and scratched, sunglasses, etc.) have been tested to visualize PEMs with the proposed marking reader. The PEMs are visible in every case, and variable magnification factor can be achieved simply moving up and down the PAL in the instrument. In addition, a second illumination wavelength is also tested, showing the applicability of this novel marking reader for different illuminations. A new concept of marking reader ophthalmic instrument has been presented and validated in the laboratory. The configuration involves only a commercial-grade laser diode and a visualization screen for PEM identification. The instrument is portable, economic, and easy to use, and it can be used for identifying patient's current PAL model and for marking removable PALs again or finding test points regardless of the age of the PAL, its scratches, tints, or coatings.

  9. Economic crisis promotes fertility decline in poor areas: Evidence from Colombia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eleonora Davalos

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Background: The effects of an economic recession extend beyond financial spheres and spill over into present and future family decisions via income restrictions and expectations. Hardly any research on the effects of economic recession on fertility outcomes has taken place in developing countries. Objective: This study seeks to explain the effects of economic cycles on fertility outcomes in poor areas. Methods: This paper analyzes fertility trends from the third largest economy in Latin America - Colombia - from 1998 to 2013. We estimate a panel data regression model with state and year fixed effects. Results: On average, periods of recession are associated with fertility decline in poor areas and fertility growth in well-off areas. During an economic crisis, fertility in poor states decreases by 0.002 children per woman, while in well-off states fertility increases by 0.007 children per woman. Conclusions: The impact of an economic crisis on fertility varies depending on poverty. Poor states have procyclical responses while well-off states tend to have countercyclical reactions to economic downturns. Contribution: This study illuminates the procyclical and countercyclical debate, showing that within a country there can be two different responses to an economic downturn.

  10. Prefrontal mediation of the reading network predicts intervention response in dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aboud, Katherine S; Barquero, Laura A; Cutting, Laurie E

    2018-04-01

    A primary challenge facing the development of interventions for dyslexia is identifying effective predictors of intervention response. While behavioral literature has identified core cognitive characteristics of response, the distinction of reading versus executive cognitive contributions to response profiles remains unclear, due in part to the difficulty of segregating these constructs using behavioral outputs. In the current study we used functional neuroimaging to piece apart the mechanisms of how/whether executive and reading network relationships are predictive of intervention response. We found that readers who are responsive to intervention have more typical pre-intervention functional interactions between executive and reading systems compared to nonresponsive readers. These findings suggest that intervention response in dyslexia is influenced not only by domain-specific reading regions, but also by contributions from intervening domain-general networks. Our results make a significant gain in identifying predictive bio-markers of outcomes in dyslexia, and have important implications for the development of personalized clinical interventions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Literature, ciberliterature and the instruction of a student-reader: dialogues with canon and fan fiction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Claudia Silva Fidelis

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Contemporary texts have been re-signified by the development of online technology so that such texts favor collaboration and interaction between authors and readers thus reconfiguring their roles. The current paper aims at revisiting the place of reading and the reader position by discussing the place occupied by the canon and the fanon (neologism to fan texts in scholar literacies at the present days. 

  12. Agreement among readers on what is relevant in self-help psychology books.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forest, James J; Del Ben, Kevin; Toews, Stuart B

    2003-12-01

    It was hypothesized that text marking in self-help psychology books would indicate that readers agree on which pages and lines contain relevant information. Previously owned copies of two self-help book titles (n=48, n=38), all with marked text, were collected from second-hand book stores and scored for line and page marking. Chi-squares for goodness-of-fit yielded significant differences between observed and chance agreement in marking behavior. Intraclass and KR-20 correlations were significantly different from zero, suggesting that readers agreed on what information was relevant and irrelevant. Actual users of self-help books may have similar standards because of cultural values, social group relations, or common problem experiences.

  13. CAC on a MAC: setting up a DOD Common Access Card reader on the Macintosh OS X operating system

    OpenAIRE

    Hopfner, Phil

    2006-01-01

    The Naval Postgraduate School, along with many other Department of Defense (DOD) organizations, utilizes the ActivCard USB Common Access Card (CAC) readers. The CAC readers in conjunction with the user's Smart Card enables access to DOD PKI-enabled websites and allows the user to send signed and encrypted email utilizing the DOD Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Microsoft Windows systems utilize the ActivCard Gold middleware software to enable CAC reader functionality. This software packag...

  14. Superconducting Super Collider: Final environmental impact statement: Volume 2, Comment/response document: Summary and index

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1988-12-01

    This volume is divided into five parts as follows: Summary and Index; Letters submitted by commenters in response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) from date of issue through October 17, 1988; Transcripts of testimony at the public hearings conducted by the DOE in the vicinity of each site alternative; Letters postmarked after October 17, 1988; and Comment responses to both the letters and the testimony. This summary and index is published as a guide to the reader in reviewing this document. The summary is of the approximately 7000 comments received by the DOE from a total of about 5700 commenters. It was prepared as a general reference and guide to the readers of this volume. The Index follows the summary. The first index is an alphabetical listing of commenters (of both letters and transcripts) and indicates the number each commenter was assigned. The commenter numbers guide the reader to DOE comment responses in Volume 2B which are in numerical order

  15. N2 gas station and gas distribution system for TLD personnel monitoring gas based semi-automatic badge readers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chourasiya, G.; Pradhan, S.M.; Kher, R.K.; Bhatt, B.C

    2003-01-01

    Full text: New improvised hot gas based Auto TLD badge reader has several advantages over the earlier contact heating based manual badge reader. It requires constant supply of N 2 gas for its operation; The gas supplied using replaceable individual gas cylinders may have some safety hazards in their handling. It was therefore considered worthwhile to setup a N 2 gas assembly/ station outside the lab area and to bring regulated gas supply through network of tubes with proper regulation to the individual readers. The paper presents detailed description of the gas station and distribution system. The system is quite useful and offers several practical advantages for readout of TLD badges on the semiautomatic badge readers based on gas heating. Important advantage from dosimetric point of view is avoidance of gas flow rate fluctuations and corresponding variations in TL readouts

  16. Child Readers and the Worlds of the Picture Book

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baird, Adela; Laugharne, Janet; Maagerø, Eva; Tønnessen, Elise Seip

    2016-01-01

    Children as readers of picture books and the ways they respond to, and make meaning from, such texts are the focus of this article, which reports on a small-scale study undertaken in Norway and Wales, UK. The theoretical framing of the research draws on concepts of the multimodal ensemble in picture books and of the reading event as part of a…

  17. Decoding Skills Acquired by Low Readers Taught in Regular Classrooms Using Clinical Techniques. Research Report No. 35.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallistel, Elizabeth; Fischer, Phyllis

    This study evaluated the decoding skills acquired by low readers in an experimental project that taught low readers in regular class through the use of clinical procedures based on a synthetic phonic, multisensory approach. An evaluation instrument which permitted the tabulation of specific decoding skills was administered as a pretest and…

  18. New security features and their impact on low-cost note readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernardini, Ronald R.

    2004-06-01

    Banknote security features are evolving and changing. New features are constantly being developed and slowly being incorporated into banknotes. The assumption is that these features make the notes more secure for everyone; but do they? This paper looks at some of the features incorporated in today's banknotes and how (or if) they add security to banknotes processed by low cost banknote readers. The sensing technology used in low cost note readers has changed somewhat in the last few years but the industry is still faced by the cost constraints of a very competitive market. Some of the new note features require high-resolution image capture, complex optical measurements or expensive emission/detection devices. Paper watermarks, digital watermarks, OVI, Holograms, Stokes conversion, IR and magnetic features are examined, as well as the technologies used and the relative cost/benefit developed for these note features.

  19. Assessment of the Incremental Benefit of Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) for Interpretation of CT Colonography by Experienced and Inexperienced Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boone, Darren; Mallett, Susan; McQuillan, Justine; Taylor, Stuart A.; Altman, Douglas G.; Halligan, Steve

    2015-01-01

    Objectives To quantify the incremental benefit of computer-assisted-detection (CAD) for polyps, for inexperienced readers versus experienced readers of CT colonography. Methods 10 inexperienced and 16 experienced radiologists interpreted 102 colonography studies unassisted and with CAD utilised in a concurrent paradigm. They indicated any polyps detected on a study sheet. Readers’ interpretations were compared against a ground-truth reference standard: 46 studies were normal and 56 had at least one polyp (132 polyps in total). The primary study outcome was the difference in CAD net benefit (a combination of change in sensitivity and change in specificity with CAD, weighted towards sensitivity) for detection of patients with polyps. Results Inexperienced readers’ per-patient sensitivity rose from 39.1% to 53.2% with CAD and specificity fell from 94.1% to 88.0%, both statistically significant. Experienced readers’ sensitivity rose from 57.5% to 62.1% and specificity fell from 91.0% to 88.3%, both non-significant. Net benefit with CAD assistance was significant for inexperienced readers but not for experienced readers: 11.2% (95%CI 3.1% to 18.9%) versus 3.2% (95%CI -1.9% to 8.3%) respectively. Conclusions Concurrent CAD resulted in a significant net benefit when used by inexperienced readers to identify patients with polyps by CT colonography. The net benefit was nearly four times the magnitude of that observed for experienced readers. Experienced readers did not benefit significantly from concurrent CAD. PMID:26355745

  20. Technology for the Struggling Reader: Free and Easily Accessible Resources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berkeley, Sheri; Lindstrom, Jennifer H.

    2011-01-01

    A fundamental problem for many struggling readers, their parents, and their teachers is that there are few benchmarks to guide decision making about assistive technological supports when the nature of a disability is cognitive (e.g., specific learning disability, SLD) rather than physical. However, resources such as the National Center on…

  1. Morpho-Phonemic Analysis Boosts Word Reading for Adult Struggling Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gray, Susan H.; Ehri, Linnea C.; Locke, John L.

    2018-01-01

    A randomized control trial compared the effects of two kinds of vocabulary instruction on component reading skills of adult struggling readers. Participants seeking alternative high school diplomas received 8 h of scripted tutoring to learn forty academic vocabulary words embedded within a civics curriculum. They were matched for language…

  2. Trends in Teacher Certification: Equipping Teachers to Prepare Proficient Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rowland, Julie

    2015-01-01

    Ensuring that students are reading proficiently by third grade is a key component of keeping students on track to graduate high school and pursue college and careers. Because of the magnitude of this academic milestone, states typically pursue policies that promote early identification and intervention for struggling readers. However, teachers are…

  3. Semantic processing in deaf and hard-of-hearing children: Large N400 mismatch effects in brain responses, despite poor semantic ability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petter Kallioinen

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Difficulties in auditory and phonological processing affect semantic processing in speech comprehension of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH children. However, little is known about brain responses of semantic processing in this group. We investigated event-related potentials (ERPs in DHH children with cochlear implants (CI and/or hearing aids (HA, and in normally hearing controls (NH. We used a semantic priming task with spoken word primes followed by picture targets. In both DHH children and controls, response differences between matching and mismatching targets revealed a typical N400-effect associated with semantic processing. Children with CI had the largest mismatch response despite poor semantic abilities overall, children with CI also had the largest ERP differentiation between mismatch types, with small effects of within-category mismatches (target from same category as prime and large effects between-category mismatches (were target is from a different category than prime. NH and HA children had similar responses to both mismatch types. While the large and differentiated ERP responses in the CI group were unexpected and should be interpreted with caution, the results could reflect less precision in semantic processing among children with CI, or a stronger reliance on predictive processing.

  4. Optimal cutoff value of basal anti-mullerian hormone in iranian infertile women for prediction of ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome and poor response to stimulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aghssa, Malek Mansour; Tarafdari, Azam Manshadi; Tehraninejad, Ensieh Shahrokh; Ezzati, Mohammad; Bagheri, Maryam; Panahi, Zahra; Mahdavi, Saeed; Abbasi, Mehrshad

    2015-09-10

    We intended to establish the threshold of Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) for detection of Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS) and poor response to treatment in Iranian infertile women. Pre-stimulation menstrual cycle day-3 hormonal indices including basal AMH values were measured in 105 infertile women aged 32.5 ± 4.3 years. Patients underwent long GnRH agonist Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation (COH) in a referral infertility center (Tehran, Iran). The gonadotropin dose was determined based on the age and basal serum Follicular Stimulating Hormone (FSH) level. The IVF/ICSI cycles were followed and the clinical and sonographic data were recorded. Sixteen cases developed OHSS. The prevalence of PCOS was higher in subjects with OHSS [62.5 % (38.8-86.2) vs. 17 % (9.2-24.9)]. The patients with OHSS had higher ovarian follicular count [23.7 (3.2) vs. 9.1 (0.5); p Basal AMH level and oocyte yields (but not age, BMI, and PCOS) correlated with occurrence of OHSS; and only the AMH levels were associated with poor ovarian response (oocytes yield ≤ 4). The optimal cutoff value for the prediction of OHSS was 6.95 ng/ml (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve: 0.86; CI: 0.78-0.95; sensitivity: 75 %; specificity: 84 %; odds ratio for occurrence of OHSS: 9 and p basal AMH level > 6.95 ng/ml are at high risk of developing OHSS and those with AMH level < 1.65 ng/ml are poor responders.

  5. Reading for pleasure and reading circles for adult emergent readers insights in adult learning

    CERN Document Server

    Duncan, Sam

    2014-01-01

    In the UK, the adult literacy provision has become more functional and more assessment driven over the last decade, largely due to funding requirements. However, one result of this is that the clear benefits of reading for pleasure in adult skills development have become less apparent. This book addresses the need to support teachers in the development of adults' skills through reading for pleasure, by incorporating the activity into the curriculum. It focuses on reading for pleasure for adult emergent readers - those who consider themselves non-readers, either because they feel they cannot or

  6. Do Supplemental Remedial Reading Programs Address the Motivational Issues of Struggling Readers? An Analysis of Five Popular Programs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quirk, Matthew P; Schwanenflugel, Paula J

    2004-04-01

    Five popular, but distinctly different, remedial reading programs were reviewed regarding the potential to motivate children to read. It is argued that current remedial reading program designs and research on program effectiveness ignore the impact that motivation has on struggling readers. In addition, we develop a theory of reading motivation specific to struggling readers that highlights motivational constructs we feel are important to the improvement of reading skill for this population of students. The three aspects of reading motivation most relevant to the instruction of remedial readers include: (a) improving reading self-efficacy; (b) making internal and controllable outcome attributions for successes and failures associated with reading; and (c) establishing personally relevant value in becoming a better reader. We conclude that, while most programs address some motivational issues and other issues not at all, most programs could make minor modifications that would greatly enhance their motivational impact.

  7. CT Colonography: Role of a second reader CAD paradigm in the initial training of radiologists

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Neri, Emanuele; Faggioni, Lorenzo; Regge, Daniele; Vagli, Paola; Turini, Francesca; Cerri, Francesca; Picano, Eugenia; Giusti, Sabina; Bartolozzi, Carlo

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: To evaluate the influence of CAD for the evaluation of CT colonography (CTC) datasets by inexperienced readers during the attendance of a dedicated hands-on training course. Method and materials: Twenty-seven radiologists inexperienced in CTC (11 with no CTC training at all, 16 having previously reviewed no more than 10 CTC cases overall) attended a hands-on training course based on direct teaching on fifteen workstations (four Advantage Windows 4.4 with Colon VCAR software, GE; six CADCOLON, Im3D; five ColonScreen (Toshiba/Voxar) with ColonCAD TM API, Medicsight). During the course, readers were instructed to analyze 26 CTC cases including 38 colonic lesions obtained through low-dose MDCT acquisitions, consisting of 12 polyps sized less than 6 mm, 9 polyps sized between 6 and 10 mm, 12 polyps sized between 11 mm and 30 mm, and 5 colonic masses sized >3 cm. CTC images were reviewed by each reader both in 2D and 3D mode, respectively by direct evaluation of native axial images and MPR reconstructions, and virtual endoscopy or dissected views. Each reader had 15 min time for assessing each dataset without CAD, after which results were compared with those provided by CAD software. Global rater sensitivity for each lesion size before and after CAD usage was compared by means of two-tailed Student's t test, while sensitivity of each single reader before and after CAD usage was assessed with the McNemar test. Results: For lesions sized 30 mm, sensitivity before CAD-assisted reading was 0.3556 ± 0.3105 and did not change after CAD usage (p = 1). Sensitivity of each single rater did not significantly differ before and after CAD for any lesion size category (McNemar test, p > 0.05). Specificity was not significantly different before and after CAD for any lesion size (>96% for all size categories). Conclusion: CAD usage led to increased overall sensitivity of inexperienced readers for all polyps sizes, except for lesions >30 mm, but sensitivity of individual raters

  8. Understanding Preclerkship Medical Students' Poor Performance in Prescription Writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Henry; Al Khaja, Khalid A J; Tayem, Yasin I; Veeramuthu, Sindhan; Sequeira, Reginald P

    2016-05-01

    This study aimed to explore reasons for poor performance in prescription writing stations of the objective structured practical examination (OSPE) and absenteeism in prescription writing sessions among preclerkship medical students at the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) in Manama, Bahrain. This descriptive study was carried out between September 2014 and June 2015 among 157 preclerkship medical students at AGU. Data were collected using focus group discussions and a questionnaire with closed- and open-ended items. All 157 students participated in the study (response rate: 100.0%). The most frequently cited reasons for poor performance in OSPE stations were an inability to select the correct drugs (79.6%), treatment duration (69.4%), drug quantity (69.4%) and drug formulation (68.2%). Additionally, students reported inadequate time for completing the stations (68.8%). During focus group discussions, students reported other reasons for poor performance, including examination stress and the difficulty of the stations. Absenteeism was attributed to the length of each session (55.4%), lack of interest (50.3%), reliance on peers for information (48.4%) and optional attendance policies (47.1%). Repetitive material, large group sessions, unmet student expectations and the proximity of the sessions to summative examinations were also indicated to contribute to absenteeism according to open-ended responses or focus group discussions. This study suggests that AGU medical students perform poorly in prescription writing OSPE stations because of inadequate clinical pharmacology knowledge. Participation in prescription writing sessions needs to be enhanced by addressing the concerns identified in this study. Strategies to improve attendance and performance should take into account the learner-teacher relationship.

  9. The relationship between two visual communication systems: reading and lipreading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, A

    1982-12-01

    To explore the relationship between reading and lipreading and to determine whether readers and lipreaders use similar strategies to comprehend verbal messages, 60 female junior and sophomore high school students--30 good and 30 poor readers--were given a filmed lipreading test, a test to measure eye-voice span, a test of cloze ability, and a test of their ability to comprehend printed material presented one word at a time in the absence of an opportunity to regress or scan ahead. The results of this study indicated that (a) there is a significant relationship between reading and lipreading ability; (b) although good readers may be either good or poor lipreaders, poor readers are more likely to be poor than good lipreaders; (c) there are similarities in the strategies used by readers and lipreaders in their approach to comprehending spoken and written material; (d) word-by-word reading of continuous prose appears to be a salient characteristic of both poor reading and poor lipreading ability; and (c) good readers and lipreaders do not engage in word-by-word reading but rather use a combination of visual and linguistic cues to interpret written and spoken messages.

  10. Annotating a "Reader's Digest" Article--'The NEA: A Washington Lobby Run Rampant.'

    Science.gov (United States)

    Methvin, Eugene H.; Herndon, Terry

    1979-01-01

    The copy of a "Reader's Digest" article critical of the political activities of the National Education Association (NEA) is run with marginal comments written by Terry Herndon, NEA executive director. (IRT)

  11. A cross-linguistic evaluation of script-specific effects on fMRI lateralization in late second language readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maki Sophia Koyama

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that reading is strongly left lateralized, and this pattern of functional lateralization can be indicative of reading competence. However, it remains unclear whether functional lateralization differs between the first (L1 and second (L2 languages in bilingual L2 readers. This question is particularly important when the particular script, or orthography, learned by the L2 readers is markedly different from their L1 script. In this study, we quantified functional lateralization in brain regions involved in visual word recognition for participants’ L1 and L2 scripts, with a particular focus on the effects of L1-L2 script differences in the visual complexity and orthographic depth of the script. Two different groups of late L2 learners participated in an fMRI experiment: L1 readers of Japanese who learnt to read alphabetic English and L1 readers of English who learnt to read both Japanese syllabic Kana and logographic Kanji. The results showed weaker leftward lateralization in the posterior lateral occipital complex (pLOC for logographic Kanji compared with syllabic and alphabetic scripts in both L1 and L2 readers of Kanji. When both L1 and L2 scripts were non-logographic, where symbols are mapped onto sounds, functional lateralization did not significantly differ between L1 and L2 scripts in any region, in any group. Our findings indicate that weaker leftward lateralization for logographic reading reflects greater requirement of the right hemisphere for processing visually complex logographic Kanji symbols, irrespective of whether Kanji is the readers’ L1 or L2, rather than characterizing the efforts of L2 readers to accommodate to the L2 script Finally, brain-behavior analysis revealed that functional lateralization for L2 reading predicted L2 reading competency.

  12. Shared-Book Experience Using Science-Themed Books to Develop Scientific Literacy: An Interactive Approach with Struggling Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Mi-Hyun; Keckler, Barbara

    2016-01-01

    This paper will explain what a reading teacher learned from working with a group of first-grade struggling readers in a series of shared-book experience classes. The shared-book experience approach used a variety of science-themed books that were aligned with the first-grade curriculum and appropriate for beginning readers. Considering the…

  13. The influence of psychological type preferences on readers trying To ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Around 65% could do so ('imaginers') and 35% could not. The likelihood of being an imaginer was higher among (i) women than among men, (ii) those who preferred intuition to sensing or feeling to thinking, and (iii) those who were most charismatically active. Readers with intuition as their dominant function were most ...

  14. E-Books and E-Book Apps: Considerations for Beginning Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bates, Celeste C.; Klein, Adria; Schubert, Barbara; McGee, Lea; Anderson, Nancy; Dorn, Linda; McClure, Erin; Ross, Rachael Huber

    2017-01-01

    This article highlights considerations for teachers when selecting and using e-books and e-book applications (apps) with beginning readers during guided and independent reading. A framework for examining e-books and e-book apps is suggested, and several apps and related digital features are described. The article also includes an overview of…

  15. The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butcher, Neil; Hoosen, Sarah; Levey, Lisbeth; Moore, Derek

    2016-01-01

    The Impact of Open Licensing on the Early Reader Ecosystem examines how to use open licensing to promote quality learning resources for young children that are relevant and interesting. Research in early reading tends to focus on traditional publishing value and supply chains, without taking much consideration of new approaches and solutions…

  16. Empowering Adolescent Readers: Intertextuality in Three Novels by David Almond

    Science.gov (United States)

    Latham, Don

    2008-01-01

    In "Skellig," "Kit's Wilderness," and "Clay", David Almond employs various types of intertextuality to enrich his narratives. Through the use of allusion, adaptation, collage, and mise-en-abyme, he encourages his adolescent readers to seek out precursor texts and to consider the interrelationships between these texts and his own. By so doing, he…

  17. The Role of Phonological versus Morphological Skills in the Development of Arabic Spelling: An Intervention Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taha, Haitham; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor

    2016-06-01

    The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological intervention and a non-intervention control group. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and spelling abilities were tested before and after the intervention. Participants from both linguistic intervention programs and in all grades made significant progress in linguistic awareness and spelling after the intervention. The results showed that both intervention programs were successful in promoting children's spelling skills in both groups. Also, older poor readers showed a stronger response to the morphological intervention than the older skilled readers. A transfer effect was found with the phonological training contributing to the morphological skills and vice versa. The results of the current study were discussed in the light of developmental and psycholinguistic views of spelling acquisition as well as the characteristics of Arabic language and orthography.

  18. Lexical Decision and Oral Reading by Poor and Normal Readers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bon, W.H.J. van; Tooren, P.H.; Eekelen, K.W.J.M. van

    2000-01-01

    The primary goal of this study was to compare a paper-and-pencil version of the lexical decision task, which can be administered groupwise, with reading aloud a differently ordered list of the same words and pseudowords. Participants were first and second graders (“normal readers”) and students from

  19. The Use of English Collocations in Reader's Digest

    OpenAIRE

    Sinaga, Yudita Putri Nurani; Sinaga, Lidiman Sahat Martua

    2014-01-01

    This descriptive qualitative study is aimed at identifying and describing the types of free collocations found in the articles of Reader's Digest. By taking a sample of ten articles from different months for each year since 2003 up to 2012, it was found all the four productive free collocations were in the data. Type 4 (Determiner + Adjective + Noun) was the dominant type (53.92 %). This was possible because the adjective in the pattern included the present participle and past participle of v...

  20. Reader-taylor: sewing and plotting the “text”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luciane Bernardi Souza

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses the presence of the ‘empty slots in the text’ in the short story "Imagens desabrigadas" of the writer Luci Collin. Investigates, therefore, the importance of these ‘openings to the textual’ embodiment of literary writing and also contributes to the emancipation of the reader in his encounter with the text. To this end, we raised some theoretic support brought by Wolfgang Iser and Terry Eagleton, as well as the reception theory of the literary text.

  1. Reader-Centered Technical Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Narayanan, M.

    2012-12-01

    Technical writing is an essential part of professional communication and in recent years it has shifted from a genre-based approach. Formerly, technical writing primarily focused on generating templates of documents and sometimes it was creating or reproducing traditional forms with minor modifications and updates. Now, technical writing looks at the situations surrounding the need to write. This involves deep thinking about the goals and objectives of the project on hand. Furthermore, one observes that it is very important for any participatory process to have the full support of management. This support needs to be well understood and believed by employees. Professional writing may be very persuasive in some cases. When presented in the appropriate context, technical writing can persuade a company to improve work conditions ensuring employee safety and timely production. However, one must recognize that lot of professional writing still continues to make use of reports and instruction manuals. Normally, technical and professional writing addresses four aspects. Objective: The need for generating a given professionally written technical document and the goals the document is expected to achieve and accomplish. Clientele: The clientele who will utilize the technical document. This may include the people in the organization. This may also include "unintended readers." Customers: The population that may be affected by the content of the technical document generated. This includes the stakeholders who will be influenced. Environment: The background in which the document is created. Also, the nature of the situation that warranted the generation of the document. Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget's view of Learning focuses on three aspects. The author likes to extend Jean Piaget's ideas to students, who are asked to prepare and submit Reader-Centered Technical Writing reports and exercises. Assimilation: Writers may benefit specifically, by assimilating a new object into

  2. Detection of cut-off point for rapid automized naming test in good readers and dyslexics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zahra Soleymani

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: Rapid automized naming test is an appropriate tool to diagnose learning disability even before teaching reading. This study aimed to detect the cut-off point of this test for good readers and dyslexics.Methods: The test has 4 parts including: objects, colors, numbers and letters. 5 items are repeated on cards randomly for 10 times. Children were asked to name items rapidly. We studied 18 dyslexic students and 18 age-matched good readers between 7 and 8 years of age at second and third grades of elementary school; they were recruited by non-randomize sampling into 2 groups: children with developmental dyslexia from learning disabilities centers with mean age of 100 months, and normal children with mean age of 107 months from general schools in Tehran. Good readers selected from the same class of dyslexics.Results: The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.849 for letter naming, 0.892 for color naming, 0.971 for number naming, 0.887 for picture naming, and 0.965 totally. The overall sensitivity and specificity was 1 and was 0.79, respectively. The highest sensitivity and specificity were related to number naming (1 and 0.90, respectively.Conclusion: Findings showed that the rapid automized naming test could diagnose good readers from dyslexics appropriately.

  3. Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Metacognition: Research and Instructional Implications for Disabled Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balajthy, Ernest

    1990-01-01

    The article examines the potential impact of computer-based text technologies, called hypermedia, on disabled readers. Discussed are hypertext, the hypercard, and implications of metacognitive research (such as author versus user control over text manipulations), instructional implications, and instructional text engineering. (DB)

  4. Technology disaster response and recovery planning a LITA guide

    CERN Document Server

    Mallery, Mary

    2015-01-01

    Featuring contributions from librarians who offer hard-won advice gained from personal experience, this compendium leads readers through a step-by-step process of creating a library technology disaster response and recovery plan.

  5. Poor response to antidepressants predicts new suicidal ideas and behavior in depressed outpatients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courtet, Philippe; Jaussent, Isabelle; Lopez-Castroman, Jorge; Gorwood, Philip

    2014-10-01

    Only a few studies have investigated the factors associated with suicidal behavior after antidepressant treatment onset in adults. We examined the specific predictors of de novo suicidal ideas or attempts among depressed patients in the community, including subjects potentially at risk of suicidal behaviors, who initiated a new antidepressant treatment. A large set of GPs and psychiatrists throughout France followed-up, for 6 weeks, 4357 outpatients for whom an antidepressant drug was prescribed. Dimensions related with antidepressant-induced suicidal events, such as depression, anxiety or hopelessness, were assessed longitudinally using univariate and multivariate approaches among subjects with treatment-emergent suicide ideation or attempts. New suicidal ideas were observed in 9% of patients with no suicidal ideation at baseline (n=81), while suicidal attempts were reported for 1.7% of the sample during the 6-week observation period (n=75). The onset of suicidal ideas and attempts was associated with the initial features of the patients (baseline level of anxiety, past history of suicide attempts and alcohol misuse) and the non-improvement of depression. Worsening of depressive symptoms during the follow-up increased the onset of new suicidal ideas (OR=5.67, pideas or attempts, the link between antidepressants and suicide risk might be more adequately explained by a poor response to antidepressant treatment rather than by a direct trigger-effect. This naturalistic study is limited by the use of non-structured diagnoses and self-report outcomes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

  6. Presence of Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome Predicts a Poor Clinical Outcome in Dogs with a Primary Hepatitis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Scott Kilpatrick

    Full Text Available Primary hepatopathies are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in dogs. The underlying aetiology of most cases of canine hepatitis is unknown. Consequently, treatments are typically palliative and it is difficult to provide accurate prognostic information to owners. In human hepatology there is accumulating data which indicates that the presence of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS is a common and debilitating event in patients with liver diseases. For example, the presence of SIRS has been linked to the development of complications such as hepatic encephalopathy (HE and is associated with a poor clinical outcome in humans with liver diseases. In contrast, the relationship between SIRS and clinical outcome in dogs with a primary hepatitis is unknown. Seventy dogs with histologically confirmed primary hepatitis were enrolled into the study. Additional clinical and clinicopathological information including respiratory rate, heart rate, temperature, white blood cell count, sodium, potassium, sex, presence of ascites, HE score, alanine aminotransferase (ALT, alkaline phosphatase (ALP, bilirubin and red blood cell concentration were available in all cases. The median survival of dogs with a SIRS score of 0 or 1 (SIRS low was 231 days compared to a median survival of 7 days for dogs with a SIRS score of 2, 3 or 4 (SIRS high (p<0.001. A Cox proportional hazard model, which included all other co-variables, revealed that a SIRS high score was an independent predictor of a poor clinical outcome. The effect of modulating inflammation on treatment outcomes in dogs with a primary hepatitis is deserving of further study.

  7. Effects of Training in Constructing Graphic Organizers on Disabled Readers' Summarization and Recognition of Expository Text Structure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weisberg, Renee; Balajthy, Ernest

    A study investigated the effects of training in the use of graphic organizers on the summarization strategies of disabled readers. Subjects, 21 disabled readers (with a mean age of 13 years, 7 months) from a reading clinic, received 5 hours of training in the use of graphic organizers to map expository passages. Instruction included training in…

  8. High production of llama variable heavy-chain antibody fragment (VHH) fused to various reader proteins by Aspergillus oryzae.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hisada, Hiromoto; Tsutsumi, Hiroko; Ishida, Hiroki; Hata, Yoji

    2013-01-01

    Llama variable heavy-chain antibody fragment (VHH) fused to four different reader proteins was produced and secreted in culture medium by Aspergillus oryzae. These fusion proteins consisted of N-terminal reader proteins, VHH, and a C-terminal his-tag sequence which facilitated purification using one-step his-tag affinity chromatography. SDS-PAGE analysis of the deglycosylated purified fusion proteins confirmed that the molecular weight of each corresponded to the expected sum of VHH and the respective reader proteins. The apparent high molecular weight reader protein glucoamylase (GlaB) was found to be suitable for efficient VHH production. The GlaB-VHH-His protein bound its antigen, human chorionic gonadotropin, and was detectable by a new ELISA-based method using a coupled assay with glucoamylase, glucose oxidase, peroxidase, maltose, and 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine as substrates. Addition of potassium phosphate to the culture medium induced secretion of 0.61 mg GlaB-VHH-His protein/ml culture medium in 5 days.

  9. The Fluid Reading Primer: Animated Decoding Support for Emergent Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zellweger, Polle T.; Mackinlay, Jock D.

    A prototype application called the Fluid Reading Primer was developed to help emergent readers with the process of decoding written words into their spoken forms. The Fluid Reading Primer is part of a larger research project called Fluid Documents, which is exploring the use of interactive animation of typography to show additional information in…

  10. Learning Strategies in Proficient and Less Proficient Readers in Medicine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nemati, Majid; Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali Salmani; Ashrafzadeh, Anis

    2010-01-01

    The current study aimed to diagnose the probable significant differences in the use of language learning strategies among medical-text readers of opposite sex from different levels of proficiency. 120 (N = 120) participants were randomly selected from Azad Medical University of Mashhad: 60 medical students (age range 23-25; 30 = male and 30 =…

  11. An Design of HF-Band RFID System with Multiple Readers and Passive Tags for Indoor Mobile Robot Self-Localization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Mi

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Radio frequency identification (RFID technology has already been explored for efficient self-localization of indoor mobile robots. A mobile robot equipped with RFID readers detects passive RFID tags installed on the floor in order to locate itself. The Monte-Carlo localization (MCL method enables the localization of a mobile robot equipped with an RFID system with reasonable accuracy, sufficient robustness and low computational cost. The arrangements of RFID readers and tags and the size of antennas are important design parameters for realizing accurate and robust self-localization using a low-cost RFID system. The design of a likelihood model of RFID tag detection is also crucial for the accurate self-localization. This paper presents a novel design and arrangement of RFID readers and tags for indoor mobile robot self-localization. First, by considering small-sized and large-sized antennas of an RFID reader, we show how the design of the likelihood model affects the accuracy of self-localization. We also design a novel likelihood model by taking into consideration the characteristics of the communication range of an RFID system with a large antenna. Second, we propose a novel arrangement of RFID tags with eight RFID readers, which results in the RFID system configuration requiring much fewer readers and tags while retaining reasonable accuracy of self-localization. We verify the performances of MCL-based self-localization realized using the high-frequency (HF-band RFID system with eight RFID readers and a lower density of RFID tags installed on the floor based on MCL in simulated and real environments. The results of simulations and real environment experiments demonstrate that our proposed low-cost HF-band RFID system realizes accurate and robust self-localization of an indoor mobile robot.

  12. Using miscue analysis to assess comprehension in deaf college readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albertini, John; Mayer, Connie

    2011-01-01

    For over 30 years, teachers have used miscue analysis as a tool to assess and evaluate the reading abilities of hearing students in elementary and middle schools and to design effective literacy programs. More recently, teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing students have also reported its usefulness for diagnosing word- and phrase-level reading difficulties and for planning instruction. To our knowledge, miscue analysis has not been used with older, college-age deaf students who might also be having difficulty decoding and understanding text at the word level. The goal of this study was to determine whether such an analysis would be helpful in identifying the source of college students' reading comprehension difficulties. After analyzing the miscues of 10 college-age readers and the results of other comprehension-related tasks, we concluded that comprehension of basic grade school-level passages depended on the ability to recognize and comprehend key words and phrases in these texts. We also concluded that these diagnostic procedures provided useful information about the reading abilities and strategies of each reader that had implications for designing more effective interventions.

  13. ULK1: a promising biomarker in predicting poor prognosis and therapeutic response in human nasopharygeal carcinoma.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miao Yun

    Full Text Available Plenty of studies have established that dysregulation of autophagy plays an essential role in cancer progression. The autophagy-related proteins have been reported to be closely associated with human cancer patients' prognosis. We explored the expression dynamics and prognostic value of autophagy-related protein ULK1 by immunochemistry (IHC method in two independent cohorts of nasopharygeal carcinoma (NPC cases. The X-tile program was applied to determine the optimal cut-off value in the training cohort. This derived cutoff value was then subjected to analysis the association of ULK1 expression with patients' clinical characteristics and survival outcome in the validation cohort and overall cases. High ULK1 expression was closely associated with aggressive clinical feature of NPC patients. Furthermore, high expression of ULK1 was observed more frequently in therapeutic resistant group than that in therapeutic effective group. Our univariate and multivariate analysis also showed that higher ULK1 expression predicted inferior disease-specific survival (DSS (P<0.05. Consequently, a new clinicopathologic prognostic model with 3 poor prognostic factors (ie, ULK1 expression, overall clinical stage and therapeutic response could significantly stratify risk (low, intermediate and high for DSS in NPC patients (P<0.001. These findings provide evidence that, the examination of ULK1 expression by IHC method, could serve as an effective additional tool for predicting therapeutic response and patients' survival outcome in NPC patients.

  14. A smartphone colorimetric reader integrated with an ambient light sensor and a 3D printed attachment for on-site detection of zearalenone.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yuan; Fu, Qiangqiang; Li, Dagang; Xie, Jun; Ke, Dongxu; Song, Qifang; Tang, Yong; Wang, Hong

    2017-11-01

    Smartphone biosensors could be cost-effective, portable instruments to be used for the readout of liquid colorimetric assays. However, current reported smartphone colorimetric readers have relied on photos of liquid assays captured using a camera, and then analyzed using software programs. This approach results in a relatively low accuracy and low generality. In this work, we reported a novel smartphone colorimetric reader that has been integrated with an ambient light sensor and a 3D printed attachment for the readout of liquid colorimetric assays. The portable and low-cost ($0.15) reader utilized a simplified electronic and light path design. Furthermore, our reported smartphone colorimetric reader can be compatible with different smartphones. As a proof of principle, the utility of this device was demonstrated using it in conjunction with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect zearalenone. Results were consistent with those obtained using a professional microplate reader. The developed smartphone colorimetric reader was capable of providing scalable, cost-effective, and accurate results for liquid colorimetric assays that related to clinical diagnoses, environment pollution, and food testing. Graphical abstract A novel smartphone colorimetric reader that has been integrated with an ambient light sensor and a 3D printed attachment for the readout of liquid colorimetric assays.

  15. SAIL--A Way to Success and Independence for Low-Achieving Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergman, Janet L.

    1992-01-01

    Argues that providing students with a repertoire of important learning strategies is one crucial way of helping all students to become independent readers, thinkers, and learners. Describes a third grade reading environment and the practices of the Students Achievement Independent Learning Program (SAIL). (PRA)

  16. ReaderBench goes Online: A Comprehension-Centered Framework for Educational Purposes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gutu, Gabriel; Dascalu, Mihai; Trausan-Matu, Stefan; Dessus, Philippe

    2016-01-01

    In this paper we introduce the online version of our ReaderBench framework, which includes multi-lingual comprehension-centered web services designed to address a wide range of individual and collaborative learning scenarios, as follows. First, students can be engaged in reading a course

  17. PorTL - a compact, portable TLD reader for environmental and personal dosimetry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deme, S.; Apathy, I.; Bodnar, L.; Csoke, A.; Feher, I.; Pazmandi, T.

    2005-01-01

    Thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) are commonly used for environmental monitoring, for personal and medical dosimetry, for dosimetry in nuclear facilities, etc. Major advantages are their independence of the power supply, small dimension, sensitivity, good stability, wide measuring range, resistance to environmental changes and relatively low cost. The disadvantage is that the detector must be transported for evaluation to a laboratory equipped with a large, heavy and expensive TLD Reader operated by qualified personnel, which considerably increases the costs and delays results. To overcome this disadvantage, the KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute (KFKI AEKI), in co-operation with BL Electronics (Hungary), has developed a new and unique TLD system containing a small, portable, battery powered and moderate-price reader for commercial use. This paper gives a detailed description and parameters of this system.(author)

  18. The role of morphology and short vowelization in reading Arabic among normal and dyslexic readers in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abu-Rabia, Salim

    2007-03-01

    This study was an investigation of several Arabic reading measures among dyslexics and normal Arabic readers across different ages (grades 3, 6, 9, and 12): the role of morphology, short vowelization (phonological and syntactic skills), spelling, reading isolated words, and reading comprehension. The results of the one-way ANOVAs indicated clear differences between the dyslexic readers and the normal readers on all reading measures. However, the stepwise regression analysis revealed consistent orthographic results: morphology (identification and/or production) and spelling were generally the most powerful predictors of both reading accuracy and reading comprehension among dyslexic and normal readers across these different age groups. The results are discussed in terms of the characteristics of the Arabic orthography and the heavy reliance of readers at all levels and ages on orthographic factors in reading.

  19. ELISA reader does not interfere by mobile phone radiofrequency radiation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seyyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi

    2016-01-01

    Conclusion: This study showed that ELISA reader does not interfere by mobile phone RF radiation at a closed contact (less than 5 cm distance. However, we recommend that medical institutions discuss these issues in the context of their specific use of technologies and frame a policy that is clear and straightforward to guide staff, patients, and visitors.

  20. Using Game-Based Learning to Support Struggling Readers at Home

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holmes, Wayne

    2011-01-01

    Significant numbers of children (6% of 11-year-olds) have difficulties learning to read. Meanwhile, children who receive appropriate support from their parents do better in literacy than those who do not. This study uses a case study approach to investigate how digital games designed to support struggling readers in school were used at home, by…