The Contributing Factors to Student Absenteeism/Truancy and the Effectiveness of Social Services and Interventions

One major issue that schools are currently facing and seeing little or no improvement with is effectively dealing with student absenteeism and truancy. Despite early interventions, programs are still failing to effectively motivate students to attend school. This research study examines the success of an implementation of a perfect attendance award within an elementary school to increase student attendance. An examination of student attendance from the 2006-2007 academic year and from the 2007-2008 academic year, suggested that the perfect attendance certificate distributed monthly to students with no absences for that month is a positive motivator for students to attend school every day. The data from the months of September, October and November in the 2006-2007 year had a mean score of 54.5 and the 2007-2008 year had a mean score of 59.5, which indicated from an Independent Samples Test that the data proves to be statistically significant, thus the certificates accounted for increased attendance rates. Follow up surveys also provide evidence that the attendance certificates are an overall positive motivator for students and help to increase student attendance at one elementary school. Recognizing student’s strengths of attending school every day is a powerful tool of empowerment, and reduces absenteeism

The motion of a drop in a rigid surface

The assumptions of a region of slip near a moving contact line (to remove the force singularity) and a constant contact angle are used to obtain the equation for the shape of a thin drop of liquid resting on a rigid plane. Three asymptotic expansions are matched together to obtain an expression for the rate at which the drop spreads. Some cases of sliding motion are also examined. Although the technique is presented here for thin drops only, it can also be applied to drops of arbitrary size

A life without stigma

Stigma stops people asking for help and getting the treatment and support they need. It makes it more difficult to find somewhere decent to live, a job, a mortgage, or insurance. It can make it more difficult to get help to look after children, make friends, feel good about yourself, or even to feel that life is worth living. Stigma is a major barrier to recovery. If people with mental illness are to be included as equal members of our society, then stigma and its associated discrimination must be eliminated.This report examines the impact stigma has on the lives of people affected by mental illness, including an overview of associated issues from the growing body of research in this area. It describes some of the major stigma-reduction initiatives carried out in Australia and overseas, looks at the evidence base to identify what works, and makes recommendations for future action in Australia to create a life without stigma

Measurements of turbulence and its evolution and variability during MAP

The understanding of turbulence in the middle atmosphere has improved considerably during the MAP period. For a theoretical viewpoint, several advances were made including understanding the ways in which turbulence is generated, and the differences between the rates of diffusion of momentum and heat. Experimentally, a proper understanding of how radars can be used to measure turbulence has emerged, and turbulent energy dissipation rates in the middle atmosphere were measured with MF, HF, and VHF radars. New rocket techniques were developed which have enabled detailed studies of the fine structure of turbulence to be made. While some discrepancies between techniques still exist, these will undoubtedly be resolved soon, and these different techniques are already providing a great improvement in the understanding of turbulence on a global scale

Unsteady draining of a fluid from a circular tank

Three-dimensional draining flow of a two-fluid system from a circular tank is considered. The two fluids are inviscid and incompressible, and are separated by a sharp interface. There is a circular hole positioned centrally in the bottom of the tank, so that the flow is axially symmetric. The mean position of the interface moves downwards as time progresses, and eventually a portion of the interface is withdrawn into the drain. For narrow drain holes of small radius, the interface above the centre of the drain is pulled down towards the hole. However, for drains of larger radius the portion of the interface above the drain edge is drawn down first, rather than the central section. Non-linear results are obtained with a novel spectral technique, and are also compared against the predictions of linearized theory. Unstable Rayleigh-Taylor type flows, in which the upper fluid is heavier than the lower one, are also discussed

An intrusion layer in stationary incompressible fluids Part 2: A solitary wave

The propagation of a solitary wave in a horizontal fluid layer is studied. There is an interfacial free surface above and below this intrusion layer, which is moving at constant speed through a stationary density-stratified fluid system. A weakly nonlinear asymptotic theory is presented, leading to a Korteweg-de Vries equation in which the two fluid interfaces move oppositely. The intrusion layer solitary wave system thus forms a widening bulge that propagates without change of form. These results are confirmed and extended by a fully nonlinear solution, in which a boundary-integral formulation is used to solve the problem numerically. Limiting profiles are approached, for which a corner forms at the crest of the solitary wave, on one or both of the interfaces

Seasonal variation of turbulence intensities in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere measured by radar techniques

Since February 1985, the 2 MHz narrow beam radar operated by the University of Adelaide in Australia has been used to measure the short term root-mean-square fluctuating velocities of radio wave scatterers in the upper middle atmosphere (80 to 100 km). These measured fluctuations are caused by a mixture of turbulence and gravity waves, and under certain reasonable assumptions the turbulent contribution can be extracted. The results of these measurements were discussed in detail by Hocking (1988). These results are summarized and the data set is extended to include 1987

Amphibian Contributions to Ecosystem Services

Ecosystems provide essential services for human society, which include provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Amphibians provide provisioning services by serving as a food source for some human societies, especially in Southeast Asia. They also serve as models in medical research and provide potential for new pharmaceuticals such as analgesics and anti-viral drugs derived from skin secretions. Amphibians contribute to regulating services by reducing mosquito recruitment from ephemeral wetlands, potentially controlling other pest species, and indirectly through predation of insect pollinators. Often neglected, ecosystems also provide cultural services to human societies that increase the quality of human life through recreation, religion, spirituality, and aesthetics. As an abundant and diverse class of vertebrates, amphibians also play prominent roles in the culture of human societies through pathways such as mythology, literature, and art. Most research on the role of amphibians in ecosystems has been on their contribution to supporting services. This is also the area where amphibians are likely to have the largest contribution to ecosystem services. Supporting services have structural (e.g., habitat) and functional (e.g., ecosystem functions and processes) components. Amphibians can affect ecosystem structure through soil burrowing and aquatic bioturbation and ecosystem functions such as decomposition and nutrient cycling through waste excretion and indirectly through predatory changes in the food web. They also can control primary production in aquatic ecosystems through direct consumption and nutrient cycling. Unfortunately, amphibians are experiencing major declines and humans may be losing associated ecosystem services. It is important to understand how declines affect ecosystem services for human societies, but these declines can also serve as natural experiments to understand the role of amphibians in ecosystems