The Impact of After-School Programs That Promote Personal and Social Skills

The first of several reports to come from CASEL's major meta-analysisproject. Conducted in collaboration with Joseph Durlak of Loyola Universityand funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation, this first report describes thestrong positive effects after-school programs can have, and the conditionsneeded to realize these benefits

Retour sur interactivité

Cet article discute de l'interactivité sous trois éclairages de nature différente. Dans une première partie, l'auteur tente de renouveler la définition de l'interactivité dans ses rapports à la simulation de la présence humaine. Une deuxième partie s'attache aux enjeux éducatifs propres à l'interactivité, cherchant à montrer pourquoi et comment devrait s'imposer un objectif central consistant à favoriser, entre autres, le « devenir auteur » des générations montantes. La troisième partie porte sur le récit interactif. L'auteur fait apparaître qu'à travers les questions de la séquentialité du récit, des temporalités de sa réception, de la présence de l'interlecteur dans la narration ou de l'irruption d'un tiers le programme dans la relation auteur/lecteur, ce sont toujours des théories fictionnelles de la vie qui se tiennent en arrière-plan.This article presents a discussion of interactivity from three very different viewpoints. In the first section, the author re-examines the definition of interactivity as it is related to simulation and considering human characteristics. A second section presents educational issues related to interactivity and attempts to show both why and how to promote a central objective which facilitates "becoming an author". The third section describes interactive narrative which reveals that through questions about narrative sequences, aspects of temporality, presence of the reader or the program in the relationship between author-reader, that "fictional theories" about life are always present in the background.Este articulo discurre sobre la interactividad desde très puntos de vista de diferente naturaleza. En la primera parte, el autor ensaya de renovar la definiciôn de interactividad en Io que hace a su relaciôn con la simulacion de la presencia humana. En la segunda parte, encara los desaffos educativos propios de la interactividad, buscando mostrar porqué y como deberia imponerse un objetivo central destinado a favorizar, entre otros, el "convertirse en autor" de las generaciones montantes. La tercera parte trata sobre el relato interactivo, el cual révéla que mas alla de las cuestiones de secuencialidad, de las temporalidades de su recepcion, de la presencia del interlector en la narraciôn o en la irrupcion de un tercero - el programa - en la relaciôn autor/lector, son siempre las teorias de Io fîctivo que se encuentran como tela de fondo del relato.Dieser Artikel bespricht die Interaktivität aus drei verschiedenen Blickwinkeln. AIs Erstes unternimmt der Verfasser, die Interaktivität in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der Simulation eines menschlichen Gegenübers neu zu definieren. Dann erôrtert er die Bedeutung der Interaktivität fiir die Erziehung und versucht darzulegen, weshalb und wie sich die Förderung des "Autor-Werdens" der kommenden Generationen als Hauptziel durchsetzen sollte. Im dritten Teil wird das interactive Erzählen untersucht, durch das klar wird, dass jenseits der Fragen der sequentiellen Eigenschaft des Erzählens, der Temporalität der Rezeption, der Existenz eines "Zwischen-Lesers" in der Erzählung oder des Eindringens eines dritten Elementes - des Programms - in die Autor-Leser-Beziehung immer die fiktionalen Theorien des Lebens im Hintergrund stehen

Rescaling Relations between Two- and Three-dimensional Local Porosity Distributions for Natural and Artificial Porous Media

Local porosity distributions for a three-dimensional porous medium and local porosity distributions for a two-dimensional plane-section through the medium are generally different. However, for homogeneous and isotropic media having finite correlation-lengths, a good degree of correspondence between the two sets of local porosity distributions can be obtained by rescaling lengths, and the mapping associating corresponding distributions can be found from two-dimensional observations alone. The agreement between associated distributions is good as long as the linear extent of the measurement cells involved is somewhat larger than the correlation length, and it improves as the linear extent increases. A simple application of the central limit theorem shows that there must be a correspondence in the limit of very large measurement cells, because the distributions from both sets approach normal distributions. A normal distribution has two independent parameters: the mean and the variance. If the sample is large enough, LPDs from both sets will have the same mean. Therefore corresponding distributions are found by matching variances of two- and three-dimensional local porosity distributions. The variance can be independently determined from correlation functions. Equating variances leads to a scaling relation for lengths in this limit. Three particular systems are examined in order to show that this scaling behavior persists at smaller length-scales.Comment: 15 PostScript figures, LaTeX, To be published in Physica

Outcome after acute myocardial infarction: a comparison of patients seen by cardiologists and general physicians

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.Abstract Background The management of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has improved over the last 50 years with the more frequent use of effective medicines and procedures. The clinical benefit of the speciality of the attending physician is less clear. The United Kingdom National Service Framework for coronary heart disease (CHD) suggested that patients with CHD are likely to benefit from cardiological supervision. We set out to assess the effect of access to cardiologists on survival among AMI patients admitted in two UK hospitals. Methods The study was conducted in a university hospital and a district general hospital in England. Information was obtained on age, sex, ethnicity, Carstairs socioeconomic deprivation category derived from postcode of residence, comorbidity, distance from hospital and medication from all patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction in two acute trusts between July 1999 and June 2000. Record linkage to subsequent Hospital Episode Statistics and Registrar General's death records provided follow up information on procedures and mortality up to eighteen months after admission. Cox proportional hazard models were used to investigate the main hypothesis controlling for confounding. The main outcome measure was 18-month survival after myocardial infarction. Results Access to a cardiologist was univariately associated with improved survival (hazard ratio 0.16, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.25). This effect remained after controlling for the effect of patient characteristics (hazard ratio 0.22, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.25). The effect disappeared after controlling for access to effective medication (hazard ratio 0.70, 95% CI 0.33 to 1.46). Conclusions Access to a cardiologist is associated with better survival compared to no access to a cardiologist among a cohort of patients already admitted with AMI. This effect is mainly due to the more frequent use of effective medicines by the group referred to cardiologists. Hospitals may improve survival by improving access to effective medicines and by coordinating care between cardiologists and general physicians.Published versio

Elastic properties of a tungsten-silver composite by reconstruction and computation

We statistically reconstruct a three-dimensional model of a tungsten-silver composite from an experimental two-dimensional image. The effective Young's modulus ($E$) of the model is computed in the temperature range 25-1060^o C using a finite element method. The results are in good agreement with experimental data. As a test case, we have reconstructed the microstructure and computed the moduli of the overlapping sphere model. The reconstructed and overlapping sphere models are examples of bi-continuous (non-particulate) media. The computed moduli of the models are not generally in good agreement with the predictions of the self-consistent method. We have also evaluated three-point variational bounds on the Young's moduli of the models using the results of Beran, Molyneux, Milton and Phan-Thien. The measured data were close to the upper bound if the properties of the two phases were similar ($1/6 < E_1 /E_2 < 6$).Comment: 23 Pages, 12 Figure

National initiatives to improve outcomes from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in England

NHS England report that the ambulance services attempt to resuscitate approximately 28 000 people from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year (approximately 1 per 2000 inhabitants per year).1 The rate of initial success (return of spontaneous circulation) was 25%, with less than half of those who are successfully resuscitated initially surviving to go home from hospital (survival to discharge 7%–8%, 2011–2014).1 (see figure 1). The survival rates contrast sharply with those observed in the best-performing emergency medical services systems, which have survival rates of 20%–25%.2–4 In 2013, the government's Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy for England set the ambitious, but achievable target of increasing survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by 50%, leading to an additional 1000 lives saved each year

Elastic properties of model porous ceramics

The finite element method (FEM) is used to study the influence of porosity and pore shape on the elastic properties of model porous ceramics. The Young's modulus of each model was found to be practically independent of the solid Poisson's ratio. At a sufficiently high porosity, the Poisson's ratio of the porous models converged to a fixed value independent of the solid Poisson's ratio. The Young's modulus of the models is in good agreement with experimental data. We provide simple formulae which can be used to predict the elastic properties of ceramics, and allow the accurate interpretation of empirical property-porosity relations in terms of pore shape and structure.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure

Childhood loneliness as a predictor of adolescent depressive symptoms: an 8-year longitudinal study

Childhood loneliness is characterised by children’s perceived dissatisfaction with aspects of their social relationships. This 8-year prospective study investigates whether loneliness in childhood predicts depressive symptoms in adolescence, controlling for early childhood indicators of emotional problems and a sociometric measure of peer social preference. 296 children were tested in the infant years of primary school (T1 5 years of age), in the upper primary school (T2 9 years of age) and in secondary school (T3 13 years of age). At T1, children completed the loneliness assessment and sociometric interview. Their teachers completed externalisation and internalisation rating scales for each child. At T2, children completed a loneliness assessment, a measure of depressive symptoms, and the sociometric interview. At T3, children completed the depressive symptom assessment. An SEM analysis showed that depressive symptoms in early adolescence (age 13) were predicted by reports of depressive symptoms at age 8, which were themselves predicted by internalisation in the infant school (5 years). The interactive effect of loneliness at 5 and 9, indicative of prolonged loneliness in childhood, also predicted depressive symptoms at age 13. Parent and peer-related loneliness at age 5 and 9, peer acceptance variables, and duration of parent loneliness did not predict depression. Our results suggest that enduring peer-related loneliness during childhood constitutes an interpersonal stressor that predisposes children to adolescent depressive symptoms. Possible mediators are discussed