Furthering the use of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire: reliability with younger child respondents

A sample of 917 children, aged 7 to 17 years, their parents, and their teachers each completed the appropriate version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and 120 from each group did so again 2 weeks later. The results indicate that the SDQ demonstrates sound interinformant and test-retest reliability. Younger children, whose self-reports have not been assessed in previous studies, were reliable in their responding, although not as reliable as older children by these measures. However, the internal reliability of the various subscales, in particular, the peer problems subscale, is questionable for both older and younger child respondents. Overall the findings suggest that the SDQ's use may be extended cautiously to include self-report from younger children.

Normative data for the strengths and difficulties questionnaire in Australia

The purpose of this study was to establish Australian norms for the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a recently developed screening instrument for child and adolescent mental health problems. A random sample consisting of 910 children aged 7-17 years recruited through government schools across Victoria, their parents and their teachers completed the appropriate version of the SDQ. The sample contained the expected spread of normal and abnormal scores according to the UK norms for the SDQ. As previous analyses have suggested that scores on the five subscales and the total difficulties scale of the SDQ may very with age and gender, separate norms for each of the three informant versions, by age and gender are presented in tabular form for children aged 7-17 years.

The factor structure of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) has been widely adopted as a measure of child and adolescent mental health and behavioral problems. However, despite an impressive number of studies demonstrating its psychometric properties, appropriate analyses of the instrument's underlying structure have not been reported. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses on matched data obtained from a large community sample of 7-17-year-olds, their parents, and their teachers. The analyses indicated that the reputed factor structure was not supported, with none of the subscales being unidimensional. Further, each informant group appeared to respond differently to the questionnaire. Considering the findings in relation to the stringency of the tests used to evaluate the SDQ, its utility, and previous research on its clinical validity, it is suggested that the SDQ be used with caution and in conjunction with other forms of assessment.

Australia's strengths and weaknesses in technology transfer and R&D exploitation : GEM survey "experts" views compared with public policy and other published data

There has been increasing public debate in Australia in recent years about research culture in universities and other publicly funded research agencies such as CSIRO and its impact on Australia's performance in generating economic, social and environmental benefits to the Australian community from the large amount of public funding for R&D. This is the supply side issue. On the demand side there is equally concern about the technology absorptive capacity of Australian. business as illustrated by the low proportion of gross business research expenditure (GERD) spent by business (BERD). Against this background, this paper has explored the views of abut 100 "experts" interviewed in the Australian Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) studies in the years 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 on the issues, strengths and weaknesses of Australia's technology transfer performance as it applies to new technology small firms. The paper has also explored evidence for any longitudinal change over this period.

Microstructures and bond strengths of the calcium phosphate coatings formed on titanium from different simulated body fluids

Calcium phosphate (Ca-P) coatings were deposited on Ti substrates by a biomimetic method from m-SBF and 10× SBF, respectively. Comparative study of microstructures and bond strengths of the Ca-P coatings deposited from those different SBFs was carried out. Effect of the surface roughness of the substrates on the bond strength of the Ca-P coatings was also studied. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), inductive coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP) and thermogravimetry (TG) were used to characterize the Ca-P coatings. The bond strengths between the coatings and Ti substrates were measured using an adhesive strength test. Results indicated that the ionic concentrations of the SBFs and the surface roughness of the substrate had a significant influence on the formation, morphology and bond strength of the Ca-P precipitates. The induction period of time to deposit a complete Ca-P layer from the m-SBF is much longer, but the Ca-P coating is denser and has higher bond strength than that formed from the 10× SBF. The Ti with a surface roughness of R_a 0.64 µm and R_z 2.81 µm favoures the formation of a compact Ca-P coating from the m-SBF with the highest bond strength of approximately 15.5 MPa.

Interparent agreement on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire : a Chinese study

This article reports on the first study to investigate interparent agreement when the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is used to assess school-aged children. It is also the first study conducted in China on agreement between parents reporting on their child. Both parents of 380 girls and 320 boys completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Chinese version). Because reliabilities were poor, the Conduct Problems and Hyperactivity=Inattention subscales were merged to form an Externalizing Problems subscale, and the Peer Problems subscale as an independent variable was omitted from analyses. Consistent with past research, moderate to strong correlations were found between mother and father reports for emotional and behavioral problems, although interparent agreement was better for externalizing problems than internalizing problems for both girls and boys. Mothers reported significantly higher scores than fathers for prosocial behaviors for their sons. Findings suggest that, in general, one parent’s report will be similar to the other’s when the SDQ is used in the form adapted for this study. More work on the psychometric properties of the SDQ is needed in China.

Fracture strengths of Mg alloy AZ31B-H24 friction stir lap welds

The effects of selected friction stir lap welding parameters on fracture strength of Mg alloy AZ31B-H24 welds have been studied. Rotation speed has been found to affect significantly the flow related hook size formation. Furthermore, fracture strength decreased almost linearly with hook size. A small amount of softening was detected in fracture location that was outside the nugget zone and thus this softening may only adversely affect the fracture strength slightly. Finally, simulation results are presented to show the uneven stress distribution in a lap geometry which together with the relative brittleness of the stir material must be the cause to have significantly reduced the fracture strength.

Indoor location prediction using multiple wireless received signal strengths

This paper presents a framework for indoor location prediction system using multiple wireless signals available freely in public or office spaces. We first propose an abstract architectural design for the system, outlining its key components and their functionalities. Different from existing works, such as robot indoor localization which requires as precise localization as possible, our work focuses on a higher grain: location prediction. Such a problem has a great implication in context-aware systems such as indoor navigation or smart self-managed mobile devices (e.g., battery management). Central to these systems is an effective method to perform location prediction under different constraints such as dealing with multiple wireless sources, effects of human body heats or mobility of the users. To this end, the second part of this pa- per presents a comparative and comprehensive study on different choices for modeling signals strengths and prediction methods under different condition settings. The results show that with simple, but effective modeling method, almost perfect prediction accuracy can be achieved in the static environment, and up to 85% in the presence of human movements. Finally, adopting the proposed framework we outline a fully developed system, named Marauder, that support user interface interaction and real-time voice-enabled location prediction.