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Post-Secondary Education Outcomes for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Self-Determination, Independent Living, Employment, and the Impact of COVID-19
Get PDFPost-secondary education (PSE) plays an important role in preparing individuals with an intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) to gain employment and independent living. Despite the recent increase in PSE programs, however, there is a lack of research examining outcomes of individuals with IDD who have attended a PSE program. This study examined three years of data from students who participated in one PSE program that focuses on the acquisition of skills regarding self-determination, employment, and independent living. We analyzed the outcome data of program graduates regarding their acquisition of skills in employment and self-determination, as well as follow-up data on employment. It was found that participation in the program increased self-determination and post-secondary readiness. Our findings also indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the self-determination scores of participants and their employment outcomes.Interdisciplinary Learning and Teachin
Test Review: Tests of Dyslexia–Comprehensive (TOD-C)
No full textThis article reviews the administrative and psychometric properties of the Tests of Dyslexia–Comprehensive (TOD-C). The TOD-C is part of the multi-battery Tests of Dyslexia (TOD), which also includes a screener and separate test for young children. The TOD-C measures reading, spelling, and linguistic characteristics of dyslexia. The TOD-C also includes tests of vocabulary and reasoning.Education Psycholog
Exploring Hydrogen Interactions With High-Density Nuclear Fuel Compounds
No full textHigh density fuels (HDF) offer promising advantages over conventional nuclear fuel com- pounds like UO2, including higher uranium density and thermal conductivity, potentially leading to increased power uprates and enhanced operational efficiency in nuclear reactors. However, their commercialization faces challenges related to oxidation performance during reactor coolant expo- sure. Understanding HDF behavior in extreme environments, relevant to both current and future reactor designs, is imperative for their widespread adoption. This study explores the hydrogen absorption behavior of uranium-silicide compounds, notably U3Si5, elucidating their propensity for hydride formation under diverse environmental conditions. Sieverts’ analysis revealed a temperature-dependent correlation between hydrogen absorption and the formation of a hydride phase (U3Si5H1.23) in U3Si5. Thermodynamic analyses using Van ’t Hoff methods provided insights into the spontaneity of hydride formation, while structural examinations via Rietveld refinement indicated potential material pulverization akin to U3Si2 upon hydriding. Parallel investigations involving uranium monocarbide (UC) and uranium diboride (UB2) demon- strated similar hydrogen absorption behaviors, with UC exhibiting hydride formation and oxida- tion, while UB2 formed a solid solution. Conversely, uranium nitride (UN) showed no evidence of hydriding, highlighting its distinct behavior. The study also suggested that uranium oxidation is crucial for nitrogen-hydrogen gas formation, aligning with previous reports on ammonia (NH3) formation during UN oxidation. These findings underscore the intricate interplay between hy- drogen absorption, thermodynamics, and structural transformations in uranium-based compounds, necessitating further research for enhanced material understanding and design.Physics and Astronom
A Multi Sensor Indoor/Outdoor Real Time IoT Hybrid Model Approach for Fire Detection
No full textFire detection systems play an essential role in identifying fire threats that could lead to property damages, risk of lives, and mass habitat losses. However, many existing solutions tend to focus on a specific use case, which affects diverse application into different settings. This study presents a hybrid fire detection model that integrates sensor data analysis, anomaly detection through the use of a Z-score statistical procedure, an AWS infrastructure, and the use of Fuzzy Logic, Random Forest Classifier (RFC), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) machine learning algorithms to enhance real-time fire threat identification in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. A Raspberry Pi continuously monitors collected data using temperature, gas, smoke, fire, humidity, sunlight, and GPS modules. The data is processed using Z-scores to help identify anomalies from the incoming data. When an anomaly is detected, the Raspberry Pi securely connects to a cloud-based AWS infrastructure to communicate via Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol to store sensor readings into a DynamoDB database, which then triggers a rule-based lambda function. The AWS lambda then invokes an AWS SageMaker endpoint containing a hybrid model that combines fuzzy logic and RFC to handle uncertainties and historical patterns in the data. When the hybrid model identifies a potential fire risk, a new MQTT message is transmitted back to the Raspberry Pi from the cloud to activate the connected camera module to capture an image of the surroundings. Once the image is captured, the lambda function invokes another endpoint containing a CNN model based on the ResNet50 architecture, which categorizes images into four classes: ?no_fire_day?, ?fire_day?, fire_indoor_night?, and no_fire_indoor_night?. A web application dashboard composed of Next.js is then updated with the latest sensor readings and the captured image for users to visualize the status of the overall model in real-time. The fuzzy logic and RFC model achieved approximately 99% accuracy, while the CNN model achieved approximately 90% accuracy. Additionally, the model took approximately 774ms from database sensor data insertion to updating the dashboard, thus validating that a cloud based hybrid model approach can result effective when dealing with real-time fire threatening anomalies.Electrical and Computer Engineerin
“The burden is upon your shoulders to feed and take care of your children, not religion or culture”: qualitative evaluation of participatory community dialogues to promote family planning’s holistic benefits and reshape community norms on family success in rural Uganda
No full textBackground
Family planning has significant health and social benefits, but in settings like Uganda, is underutilized due to prevalent community and religious norms promoting large family size and gender inequity. Family Health = Family Wealth (FH = FW) is a multi-level, community-based intervention that used community dialogues grounded in Campbell and Cornish’s social psychological theory of transformative communication to reshape individual endorsement of community norms that negatively affect gender equitable reproductive decision-making among couples in rural Uganda.
Methods
This study aimed to qualitatively evaluate the effect of FH = FW’s community dialogue approach on participants’ personal endorsement of community norms counter to family planning acceptance and gender equity. A pilot quasi-experimental controlled trial was implemented in 2021. This paper uses qualitative, post-intervention data collected from intervention arm participants (N = 70) at two time points: 3 weeks post-intervention (in-depth interviews, n = 64) and after 10-months follow-up (focus group discussions [n = 39] or semi-structured interviews [n = 27]). Data were analyzed through thematic analysis.
Results
The community dialogue approach helped couples to reassess community beliefs that reinforce gender inequity and disapproval of family planning. FH = FW’s inclusion of economic and relationship content served as key entry points for couples to discuss family planning. Results are presented in five central themes: (1) Community family size expectations were reconsidered through discussions on economic factors; (2) Showcasing how relationship health and gender equity are central to economic health influenced men’s acceptance of gender equity; (3) Linking relationship health and family planning helped increase positive attitudes towards family planning and the perceived importance of shared household decision-making to family wellness; (4) Program elements to strengthen relationship skills helped to translate gender equitable attitudes into changes in relationship dynamics and to facilitate equitable family planning communication; (5) FH = FW participation increased couples’ collective family planning (and overall health) decision-making and uptake of contraceptive methods.
Conclusion
Community dialogues may be an effective intervention approach to change individual endorsement of widespread community norms that reduce family planning acceptance. Future work should continue to explore innovative ways to use this approach to increase gender equitable reproductive decision-making among couples in settings where gender, religious, and community norms limit reproductive autonomy. Future evaluations of this work should aim to examine change in norms at the community-level.
Trial registration
Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04262882).Public Healt
The Effect of Muscle Activation on Cervical Spine Injury Risk in Frontal Impacts
No full textMotor vehicle collisions (MVCs) are a leading cause of traumatic injury to the cervical spine, with the activity of the cervical muscles influencing occupant kinematics and injury risk in response to dynamic loading. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of muscle activation timing, level, and coordination of muscle groups on global and local tissue-level response. A model of the cervical spine with active musculature was developed and evaluated for performance in a 15 g frontal impact. Furthermore, a parametric study was conducted to investigate the correlations between muscle activation parameters, global injury metrics, and local tissue loads. Early muscle activation was found to reduce linear head accelerations and head rotation, while increasing loading to the upper cervical ligaments. Furthermore, greater maximum muscle force primarily reduced posterior ligaments loads, particularly for the upper cervical spine. Upper cervical ligament forces were strongly correlated with HIC and NIJ injury risk measures, while posterior ligaments had a strong correlation with HIC. The alar and transverse ligaments, which have clinical significance for injury risk, were specifically identified as strongly correlated with activation timing and maximum muscle force as well as HIC and NIJ. Therefore, this study provided further insight into the effect of muscle activation and timing on injury risk with investigation at a global as well as localized tissue level. In this study, muscle activation parameters were further highlighted as important parameters for future modeling efforts focused on injury risk mitigation in automotive collisions.Biomedical Engineerin
Elucidating the Mechanisms of Protective Immune Responses against Coxiella burnetii Infection
No full text<i>Coxiella burnetii</i> is an obligate intracellular bacterium that causes human Q fever. Despite the availability of a formalin-inactivated whole-cell vaccine (Q-VAX) in Australia, there is currently no FDA-approved vaccine for broad usage due to the high occurrence of adverse events in already sensitized persons. The unavailability of a licensed vaccine and the possibility of <i>C. burnetii</i> being weaponized highlights the crucial need for creating a safe and effective Q fever vaccine. To develop a vaccine, it is essential to understand the immunological mechanism of protective immunity against <i>C. burnetii</i> infection. This thesis seeks to fill knowledge gaps in our understanding of the immunological mechanisms for protective immunity against <i>C. burnetii</i> infection. Coxiella has two phase variations, Phase-I (PI, has full length LPS), Phase-II (PII, lacks O-antigen and Outer core). The work shows that primary PI <i>C. burnetii</i> infection elicits strong, dose- and route-independent protective immunity that includes both humoral responses and T cell-mediated immunity, with CD8<sup>+</sup> T cells playing a more critical role than CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells. Furthermore, the adoptive transfer of dendritic cells pulsed with phase I (PIV) or phase II (PIIV) formalin whole-cell vaccine antigens provides equivalent protection despite the failure of the PIIV vaccine alone, implying that directing antigens to dendritic cells may improve vaccine efficacy. Notably, dendritic cells stimulated with PIIV antigens can elicit protective immunity through T cell-dependent and T cell-independent antibody responses. Finally, investigations using animals lacking Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK<sup>xid</sup>), which has B cell deficiency, show that among the two subsets of B cells B2 cells might play an essential role in the immune response against <i>C. burnetii</i> infection as evident by reduced B2 cell response after infection in these mice. Overall, this thesis sheds new light on the complex immunological responses that mediate protection against <i>C. burnetii</i> and proposes viable options for rational vaccine design, bringing us closer to developing a safer and more effective Q fever vaccine.Molecular Microbiology and Immunolog
Computer-Aided Proofs for the VC-dimension of Art Gallery Variants
Get PDFVisibility problems are fundamental to computational geometry, and many versions of geometric set cover where coverage is based on visibility have been considered. In most settings, points can see "infinitely far" so long as visibility is not "blocked" by some obstacle. In many applications, this may be an unreasonable assumption. We consider a new model of visibility where no point can see any other point beyond a sight radius ρ. We consider this visibility model in the context of art gallery variants. We show that the VC-dimension of limited visibility terrains is exactly 7. We give lower bound construction that shatters a set of 7 points, and we prove that shattering 8 points for limited visibility terrains is not possible. We also prove a collection of lemmas about the structure of visibility and that help finding the VC-dimension of limited visibility on the boundary of simple polygons.
We also consider the VC-dimension of visibility on the boundary of simple polygons under this limited visibility model. That is, we restrict all guards/viewpoints to be on the boundary of the simple polygon. We show that the VC-dimension under the limited visibility model is exactly 8. That is, we give an example of a simple polygon with 8 "guards" on the boundary such that every one of the 2<sup>8</sup> subsets of the 8 guards has a "viewpoint" that sees exactly the guards in the subset. We then show that this is not possible with any set of 9 guards.
Finally, we consider the problem of lowering the upper bound on the VC-dimension of the classic art gallery problem (no limited visibility constraints), and the guards and viewpoints can lie anywhere in the interior of the polygon. This problem has not seen an improvement in a decade. We extend our code to address this problem, relying on counterclockwise systems defined by Knuth to discretize the set of possible polygons. We give a dynamic programming approach for finding all of the ways that certain guard and viewpoint sets can be placed while satisfying their visibility requirements.Computer Scienc
Ethnoracial Disparities in Vulnerable Populations: HCV and HIV
Get PDFThis research examines ethnoracial disparities in hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence and clearance, as well as HIV viral suppression, within a vulnerable population in South Texas, utilizing data from a safety-net health system and Bexar County's public health records. The investigation into HCV, based on eight years of retrospective data, identifies significant disparities in prevalence and clearance rates across ethnoracial and gender groups, demonstrating higher prevalence rates among non-Hispanic Whites compared to Hispanic and Black populations, with variable clearance dynamics suggesting a nuanced interplay of demographic factors. Further research into HIV viral suppression utilizes logistic regression analysis to determine the influence of demographic variables on health outcomes within Bexar County. The study highlights pronounced disparities affecting African American and Hispanic communities, emphasizing the role of social determinants such as education, sex, and income in shaping these outcomes.
Additionally, this research extends to an analysis of the social determinants impacting the frequency of HIV testing among racial and ethnic minorities, drawing from a nationally representative survey. This segment illustrates how factors like socioeconomic status, stigma, and access to healthcare perpetuate disparities in HIV testing frequencies, underscoring the necessity for public health interventions tailored to these community-specific barriers.Demograph
The Reliability of Inter-Limb Asymmetry Measures During the Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull and Its Relationship With Jump Performance
No full textThe bilateral isometric mid-thigh pull (Bi-IMTP) and unilateral isometric mid-thigh pull (Uni-IMTP) are used to determine interlimb asymmetries despite their reliability being unknown. It is also unknown if quantifying the interlimb asymmetry as asymmetry, symmetry, or absolute difference yields differences in reliability or association with jump performance. This study determined reliability of the Bi-IMTP and Uni-IMTP, examined differences in reliability between quantification methods, and determined correlations with jump performance. Twenty-one participants (female=12 and male=9) attended four sessions: a familiarization session, two sessions of Bi-IMTP and Uni-IMTP, and a jump session. The Bi-IMTP and Uni-IMTP were used to quantify asymmetry, symmetry, and absolute difference of net peak force, as well as net force, rate of force development and impulse at different epochs. Within- and between- session reliability was quantified using intraclass correlations (ICC2,k) with absolute agreement and 95% confidence intervals, coefficient of variation, and technical error of measurement. Correlations were conducted to determine the association between peak force asymmetry, symmetry, and absolute difference with peak force, vertical jump height, and broad jump distance. Significance was set at an alpha level of p<0.05. Peak force symmetry of the Bi-IMTP displayed acceptable within- and between-session reliability (ICC=0.59-0.72, CV=2.95-5.35%), while all other measures had poor reliability or variability. Correlations between Bi-IMTP asymmetry and peak force (r=-0.80) and positive correlation between Uni-IMTP absolute differences with peak force (r=0.61) were found. The Bi-IMTP can determine reliable peak force symmetry but caution should be taken with other measures. The Uni-IMTP does not provide reliable interlimb asymmetries data.Health and Kinesiolog