Objectification and transgender jurisprudence: the dictionary as quasi-statute

This paper analyzes defi nitional issues raised by terms such as 'man' and 'woman' in transgender jurisprudence, focussing on the Court of First Instance decision in W v Registrar of Marriages. Courts frequently seek guidance on ordinary meaning in standard works of lexicography. But this objectifies the trans party by treating so-called “ordinary” meaning and the dictionary defi nition as determinative.published_or_final_versio

Quasi-optimum design of a six degree of freedom moving base simulator control system

The design of a washout control system for a moving base simulator is treated by a quasi-optimum control technique. The broad objective of the design is to reproduce the sensed motion of a six degree of freedom simulator as accurately as possible without causing the simulator excursions to exceed specified limits. A performance criterion is established that weights magnitude and direction errors in specific force and in angular velocity and attempts to maintain the excursion within set limits by penalizing excessive excursions. A FORTRAN routine for relizing the washout law was developed and typical time histories using the washout routine were simulated for a range of parameters in the penalty- and weighting-functions. These time histories and the listing of the routine are included in the report

Using blind analysis for software engineering experiments

Context: In recent years there has been growing concern about conflicting experimental results in empirical software engineering. This has been paralleled by awareness of how bias can impact research results. Objective: To explore the practicalities of blind analysis of experimental results to reduce bias. Method : We apply blind analysis to a real software engineering experiment that compares three feature weighting approaches with a na ̈ıve benchmark (sample mean) to the Finnish software effort data set. We use this experiment as an example to explore blind analysis as a method to reduce researcher bias. Results: Our experience shows that blinding can be a relatively straightforward procedure. We also highlight various statistical analysis decisions which ought not be guided by the hunt for statistical significance and show that results can be inverted merely through a seemingly inconsequential statistical nicety (i.e., the degree of trimming). Conclusion: Whilst there are minor challenges and some limits to the degree of blinding possible, blind analysis is a very practical and easy to implement method that supports more objective analysis of experimental results. Therefore we argue that blind analysis should be the norm for analysing software engineering experiments

School Climate Development Survey

Over the last twenty-five years the Consortium on Chicago School Research has engaged in systematic study of more than 400 Chicago Public Schools to determine organizational traits that are related to improvement in student learning. This effort was designed to help explain widely divergent levels of student success between very similar schools in the Chicago system. Initial discussions with educators at all levels, reviews of previous research, pilot studies, and field studies led to the identification of five school contextual factors – the 5Essential Supports – determined to be critical to school success: (1) effective leaders, (2) collaborative teachers, (3) involved families, (4) supportive environment, and (5) ambitious instruction. The framework of the 5Essential Supports served as a theoretical basis for a survey effort designed to measures and report on facets of school culture that could then be used by school leaders and practitioners to guide school improvement efforts. Research related to the 5Essential Supports consistently demonstrates a strong relationship between the presence of these supports and gains in student achievement. Led by Dr. James McMillan and Dr. Charol Shakeshaft from VCU’s School of Education, the purpose of this MERC study was (1) to develop a shortened version of the 5Essentials staff climate survey for the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium schools, (2) to pilot test the new survey with teachers and administrators, and (3) to determine effective methods of dissemination to support schools use f the survey data for school improvement purposes. The piloting and validation phase of the study demonstrated that the core constructs underlying the 5Essentials maintained high levels of validity and reliability in the shortened version. MERC also piloted and received feedback from school leaders on formats for reporting school climate results

Attentional load and sensory competition in human vision: Modulation of fMRI responses by load fixation during task-irrelevant stimulation in the peripheral visual field.

Perceptual suppression of distractors may depend on both endogenous and exogenous factors, such as attentional load of the current task and sensory competition among simultaneous stimuli, respectively. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare these two types of attentional effects and examine how they may interact in the human brain. We varied the attentional load of a visual monitoring task performed on a rapid stream at central fixation without altering the central stimuli themselves, while measuring the impact on fMRI responses to task-irrelevant peripheral checkerboards presented either unilaterally or bilaterally. Activations in visual cortex for irrelevant peripheral stimulation decreased with increasing attentional load at fixation. This relative decrease was present even in V1, but became larger for successive visual areas through to V4. Decreases in activation for contralateral peripheral checkerboards due to higher central load were more pronounced within retinotopic cortex corresponding to 'inner' peripheral locations relatively near the central targets than for more eccentric 'outer' locations, demonstrating a predominant suppression of nearby surround rather than strict 'tunnel vision' during higher task load at central fixation. Contralateral activations for peripheral stimulation in one hemifield were reduced by competition with concurrent stimulation in the other hemifield only in inferior parietal cortex, not in retinotopic areas of occipital visual cortex. In addition, central attentional load interacted with competition due to bilateral versus unilateral peripheral stimuli specifically in posterior parietal and fusiform regions. These results reveal that task-dependent attentional load, and interhemifield stimulus-competition, can produce distinct influences on the neural responses to peripheral visual stimuli within the human visual system. These distinct mechanisms in selective visual processing may be integrated within posterior parietal areas, rather than earlier occipital cortex

Online modelling of water distribution system using Data Assimilation

PublishedConference Proceeding12th International Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, CCWI2013This paper applies Data Assimilation (DA) methods to a Water Distribution System Model to improve the realtime estimation of water demand, and hydraulic system states. A time series model is used to forecast water demands which are used to drive the hydraulic model to predict the future system state. Both water demands and water demand model parameters are corrected via DA methods to update the system state. The results indicate that DA methods improved offline hydraulic modelling predictions. Of the DA methods, the Ensemble Kalman Filter outperformed the Kalman Filter in term of updating demands and water demand model parameters. © 2013 The Authors.The authors are grateful to United Utilities (UU), Mr D. Clucas, Mr T. Allen, Mr N. Croxton and UU hydraulic modelling team for providing the case study data and supporting financially the STREAM EngD project

Online burst detection in a water distribution system using the Kalman filter and hydraulic modelling

PublishedThis paper presents a burst detection methodology that utilizes distributed real time sensor data in a district metered area using a data assimilation method and a hydraulic model. A sensitivity analysis was applied to evaluate the performance of various burst detection metrics under different conditions, and to identify appropriate thresholds for online burst detection using artificial generated burst events. It was found that the best performing metrics are the corrected flow residual and normalized corrected flow residual. This metric can be effective to detect bursts in a timely and reliable manner within a district metering area under assumed test conditions

Duration of untreated psychosis and social function: 1-year follow-up study of first-episode schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: In first-episode schizophrenia, longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) predicts poorer outcomes. AIMS: To address whether the relationship between DUP and outcome is a direct causal one or the result of association between symptoms and/or cognitive functioning and social functioning at the same time point. METHOD: Symptoms, social function and cognitive function were assessed in 98 patients with first-episode schizphrenia at presentation and 1 year later. RESULTS: There was no significant clinical difference between participants with short and long DUP at presentation. Linear regression analyses revealed that longer DUP significantly predicted more severe positive and negative symptoms and poorer social function at 1 year, independent of scores at presentation. Path analyses revealed independent direct relationships between DUP and social function, core negative symptoms and positive symptoms. There was no significant association between DUP and cognition. CONCLUSIONS: Longer DUP predicts poor social function independently of symptoms. The findings underline the importance of taking account of the phenomenological overlap between measures of negative symptoms and social function when investigating the effects of DUP

Flexible coping psychotherapy for functional dyspeptic patients: A randomized, controlled trial

OBJECTIVE: This study tested the efficacy of a new psychotherapy, flexible coping psychotherapy (FCP), specifically designed for enhancing coping flexibility of patients with functional dyspepsia (FD). The design of this psychotherapy is based on the general cognitive-behavioral model and previous findings on FD. METHODS: We adopted a randomized, controlled design to examine the differences between the target (FCP) and control (supportive psychotherapy [SPP]) conditions. Coping flexibility and outcome measures reported by 75 Chinese FD patients (18-65 years; 35% men) were assessed before and 12 months after treatment. RESULTS: Results revealed that participants who received the FCP reported an increase in coping flexibility as well as reductions in self-rated dyspeptic symptom severity (SDSS), gastroenterologist-rated dyspeptic symptom severity, and anxiety levels (p values <.01). Participants who received the SPP reported reductions in SDSS and anxiety levels (p values <.0001). Although both groups reported a decrease in SDSS, only the SDSS level of the FCP group was comparable to that of a healthy community sample (p = .28). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that FCP is a potentially effective intervention for treating FD symptoms. Its effectiveness may be attributable to the specific components of FCP rather than common psychotherapeutic factors such as emotional support and empathy per se. Copyright © 2007 by American Psychosomatic Society.postprin

Response to Intervention to Educate the Diverse Needs of Elementary Students

Much research has been done regarding how to implement RTI, effective strategies for RTI, and outcomes of RTI, which is not the focus of the current study. This investigation will focus on assessing the current perceptions of elementary school educators and staff on thier current understanding of and needs for more effective implementation of RTI