13251 research outputs found
Sort by
Rainwater harvesting potentials for a water-scarce city in Bangladesh
No full textThe potential for a rainwater harvesting (RWH) system to supplement the water supply in Chittagong city, Bangladesh, was assessed. Two years were selected for the analysis (2006 and 2020); the projected rainfall for 2020 was evaluated using the Statistical Downscaling Model. Data on projected runoff, land use changes, population growth and catchment areas were also accumulated. The whole city was divided into 22 sub-basins and 176 354 building rooftops were studied for RWH opportunities. Using the weighted linear combination method in a geographic information system environment, potential rooftops and zones were identified for 2006 and 2020. The results showed that the areas with a high RWH potentiality index could supplement water demand by up to 13.03% and 29.68% in 2006 and 2020, respectively. With proper data, this novel approach for a decision support system can be applied to investigate RWH potential in any urban area
A Study Concerning Factors that Contribute to School Counselors\u27 Self-Efficacy
No full textMany school districts and states still require that school counselors have previous teaching experience before one can begin a career in school counseling. There is little to no data to support these claims and the data that is available does not include how the school counselor’s own previous experiences influence their self-efficacy in their current roles. The data for this study was collected through an online survey sent to school counselors in Missouri. The qualitative data was evaluated using a grounded theory approach while the quantitative data was analyzed through a series of t-tests for independent samples, with group membership (counselors with teaching backgrounds and those without teaching experience) as the independent variable and each question is set as the dependent variable. The results from this survey show that there were not any significant differences between the two groups of participants, those with teaching backgrounds and those without. One area that did come up frequently between both groups was that having additional education or training experiences helps those in this field gain knowledge and skills they may be lacking, whether that be teaching knowledge or not
In memoriam: Frances Degen Horowitz (1932-2021): Behavior analyst, development theorist, humanitarian
No full textEvidence From Children with Autism that Derived Relational Responding is a Generalized Operant
No full textWe conducted an empirical examination of derived relational responding as a generalized operant and concurrently evaluated the validity and efficacy of program items contained in the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge - Equivalence (PEAK-E) curriculum. A first study utilized a multiple-baseline across-skills experimental arrangement to determine the efficacy of equivalence-based instruction guided by PEAK-E, replicated across 11 children with autism. A total of 33 individualized skills were taught, and the subsequent emergence of untrained relations was tested throughout the investigation. The mastery criterion was achieved for 29 of the 33 instructional targets. Additionally, for 3 participants, results were again replicated with a novel set of stimuli. A second study evaluated the degree to which multiple-exemplar equivalence-based instruction led to the emergence of derived relational responding as a generalized operant. The organized nature of the PEAK curriculum allowed the impact on derived relational responding to be compared to that produced by earlier PEAK models that are focused on the direct training of traditional verbal operants. PEAK-E instruction was introduced in a multiple-baseline design across two participants, with a third staying in a training baseline throughout. Increases in derived relational responding using novel, untrained stimuli were only observed when multiple-exemplar equivalence-based instruction was introduced. Taken together, these results provide support for derived relational responding as a generalized operant and demonstrate the utility of conducting larger scale evaluations of higher order behavioral phenomena in single-case experimental arrangements
Evaluating Racial Discrimination Research Within Behavior Analytic Journals
No full textAntiracism movements in the United States have gained momentum over the last year as events of racial discrimination have been publicly displayed in the media and increased social awareness regarding barriers and disadvantages facing certain communities in a broader cultural ecosystem. The current review evaluated the prevalence of racism and anti-racism research within 8 major behavior analytic journals, where 39 articles met the inclusion criterion. Each article was evaluated on based on critical race theory, as relating to implicit bias, white privilege, or systemic racism extended from the nested model developed by Belisle, Payne, and Paliliunas (in press) and its theory-to-impact model developed by Dixon, Belisle, Rehfeldt, and Root (2019). Results show that research on racism and anti-racism is increasing at a exponentiating rate in behavior analytic journals – although this work appears to be constrained largely to only a few journals in the field of applied behavior analysis. Results also show that a majority of the literature is theoretical or correlations, with limited direct experimental research and even fewer studies that have demonstrated a reduction is racist behavior. I discuss some potential avenues for future research based on these findings
From “Fast Friends” to True Friends: Can a Contact Intervention Promote Friendships in Middle School?
No full textThe protective role of friendships in middle school is well established, yet no research to date has examined how to build friendships among middle school peers. In the present research, we adapted the Fast Friends procedure for inducing interpersonal closeness to promote friendships among students (n = 301) in middle school. Given the growing diversity in the K-12 population and the benefits of cross-ethnic friendships for ethnic majority and minority youth, we examined whether the intervention was equally effective at fostering same- and cross-ethnic friendships. Results indicated that the intervention successfully increased interpersonal closeness and friendships for participants in both same- and cross-ethnic conditions. Implications for using Fast Friends to promote the healthy social development of adolescent youth are discussed
A penile implant: Embodying medical technology
No full textThis article situates the experiences of having penile implant surgery between medical interventions and privately understood meanings and practices. Using my own experiences, supplemented with information from online sources, I document the changes that occur in the meanings and the practices that implant surgery enables. My analysis derives from the concepts of habitus and the looking glass body, and it begins with a diagnosis of impotence and moves through the various considerations that lead to surgery and its aftermaths. I suggest that understanding how medical technology interacts with everyday meanings contributes to a wider application of the concept of habitus while expanding a symbolic interactionist perspective of the body
Exploring phosphonium and ammonium chitosan polymers and their PEGylated analogs for high performance gene delivery
No full textAmong cationic polymers, chitosan (CS) is a promising non-viral vector due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability and safety profile. However, its application for gene delivery is hindered by its poor solubility at physiological pH. In this study, novel water-soluble chitosan derivatives containing triethylphosphonium chloride ((N-(1-carboxybutyl-4-triethylphosphonium chloride) chitosan = TEPB-CS)) or triethylammonium chloride ((N-(1-carboxybutyl-4-triethylammonium chloride) chitosan = TEAB-CS)) with 4-carbon spacers separating the cationic units from the chitosan backbone were synthesized by carbodiimide mediated coupling reactions. Two different degrees of substitution of quaternary phosphonium (43% and 21%) and ammonium (40.6% and 26%) were synthesized. The polymers with higher degrees of substitutions displayed higher solubility in aqueous media and were further grafted with mPEG (TEAB-CS-g-mPEG and TEPB-CS-g-mPEG) and used for DNA complexation, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and gene transfection studies. Chemical characterization of the above polymers was performed by FTIR, 1H NMR, and 31P NMR, and the degree of substitution of the grafted phosphonium and ammonium and mPEG was calculated by 1H NMR. The polymers efficiently bound pDNA at weight ratio of polymer:pDNA of 2.8:1. From dynamic light scattering experiments, the mean diameters of the calf thymus DNA complexes with the polymers, in water and phosphate buffer (pH 7.4), were in the range of 140 – 330 nm. Zeta potential of these complexes in water became positive as the weight ratios of the polymers/DNA exceeded 2:1. Most of these polymers mildly affect the viability of HeLa cells with a final concentration of 10 µg/mL or higher. Cell viability was only modestly compromised in the presence of 100 µg/mL of TEPB-CS-g-mPEG, and this derivative was also found to display the highest transfection efficiencies among all four polymers. Apoptosis measurements by flow cytometry indicated that both TEAB-CS-g-mPEG and TEPB-CS-g-mPEG induce no perceptible and mild apoptosis with their concentration at 100 µg/mL, respectively. Together, the present study provides evidence that these PEGylated TEPB-CS and TEAB-CS are safe and effective vectors for efficient nucleic acid delivery
A new topological semimetal candidate: SmMnBi2
No full textThe new compound SmMnBi2 has been synthesized by the self-flux method and shown to crystallize in space group I4/mmm with a = 4.5054(4)Å, c = 20.5914(19)Å and Z = 4. Its structure comprises two-dimensional square Mn-nets layers, puckered rock-salt-like SmBi slabs and two-dimensional square Bi-nets layers, alternating along the c axis in an...Mn-net-SmBi slab-Bi-net-SmBi slab-Mn-net... sequence. Surprisingly, the atomic arrangement differs from its neighboring compound EuMnBi2 which has similar layers but with a different stacking arrangement. This gives rise to edge-shared square planar MnBi4 polyhedral layers in SmMnBi2 while EuMnBi2 has edge-shared MnBi4 tetrahedral layers. The MMnX 2 (M = alkaline earth/rare earth metals, X = Sb/Bi) family has emerged as topological Dirac or Weyl semimetal candidates, all of them sharing similar structural features. Although SmMnBi2 has a different stacking arrangement to EuMnBi2, its layer structure still makes it a topological Dirac or Weyl semimetal candidate
Emotional Intelligence: Changes Over the First Year of Physician Assistant Education
No full textPurpose: To investigate emotional intelligence (EI) development in physician assistant (PA) students as they progress through their didactic education.
Methods: Data were gathered through an online survey of EI distributed to a purposeful sample of 5 institutions with similar curriculum length and start dates. Program directors forwarded the survey to students at the start of their didactic education (pretest). Follow-up surveys were distributed via email to the students at the end of their didactic education (posttest). The survey consisted of 33 items related to 4 subscales of EI. Participants\u27 age, gender, and previous healthcare experience were gathered. Five repeated measures ANOVAs were calculated for each EI summary score. Independent sample t-tests were conducted between pretest scores and a previously established EI mean.
Results: A total of 192 first-year students were solicited. A sample of 68 (16 males; 52 females) served as participants. No results were attained for gender or age due to unbalanced sample sizes. Significant results were realized for total EI and the Managing Others\u27 Emotions subscale.
Conclusion: Participants with more than one healthcare experience demonstrated significantly high emotional intelligence on the pretest. Participants with one healthcare experience demonstrated a significant increase in total EI and the Managing Others\u27 Emotions subscale. The main limitation of the study was the attrition of participants between measures. Future research is needed to assess EI at the end of the clinical year, after a period of clinical experience, and to determine which educational activities are most likely to enhance EI