Evaluation of a professional development curriculum in movement education and adapted physical activity for invisible disabilities : a critical cross-case analysis

Movement education and adapted physical activity are content areas not addressed in pre-service education or in-service training for Ontario practitioners working with individuals with disabilities in physical environments. Consequently, physical activity is often overlooked by service providers in programming and intervention for exceptional young learners. A formative evaluation, multiple-case study design was employed in this research in which a purposeful sample of expert practitioners performed a guided, descriptive evaluation of a three-day professional development workshop curriculum designed to supplement these areas lacking in professional preparation within their respective cohorts. Case-by-case and comparative analyses illustrated the inherent assumptions and societal constraints which prioritize the structure of professional development within the education system and other government organizations providing services for school-aged persons with disabilities in Ontario. Findings, discussed from a critical postmodern perspective, illustrate the paradoxical nature of Western values and prevailing mind/body dichotomy that guide professional practice in these fields.

Educator Evaluation of Academic and Social Competence in Students with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Relative to Assessed Performance and Sense of Belonging

Acquired brain injury (ABI) is the leading cause of death and disability amongst children and adolescents andpresents itself with challenges associated in cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural domains. These changes may interfere with academic performance and social inclusion, influencing self-esteem and personal success. The current study examined a subset of data to capture the sense of academic and social belonging for students with ABI as a function of the classroom teachers’ subjective perception of ability, their ABI knowledge, and student identification. Overall, a discrepancy was found between educators’ subjective ratings of student performance and students’ neurocognitive capacity. Educator knowledge and identification of ABI influenced student success in academic and social domains independent of teaching approach. This research has implications for the identification of ABI in the classroom and related challenges students experience. Educators are underprepared for the reintegration of students returning to school and lack appropriate knowledge and strategies to accommodate individual needs.

Top-down and Bottom-up influences on ACC activation: Evaluation of a proposed model of the feedback-related negativity

The Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) is thought to reflect the dopaminergic prediction error signal from the subcortical areas to the ACC (i.e., a bottom-up signal). Two studies were conducted in order to test a new model of FRN generation, which includes direct modulating influences of medial PFC (i.e., top-down signals) on the ACC at the time of the FRN. Study 1 examined the effects of one’s sense of control (top-down) and of informative cues (bottom-up) on the FRN measures. In Study 2, sense of control and instruction-based (top-down) and probability-based expectations (bottom-up) were manipulated to test the proposed model. The results suggest that any influences of medial PFC on the activity of the ACC that occur in the context of incentive tasks are not direct. The FRN was shown to be sensitive to salient stimulus characteristics. The results of this dissertation partially support the reinforcement learning theory, in that the FRN is a marker for prediction error signal from subcortical areas. However, the pattern of results outlined here suggests that prediction errors are based on salient stimulus characteristics and are not reward specific. A second goal of this dissertation was to examine whether ACC activity, measured through the FRN, is altered in individuals at-risk for problem-gambling behaviour (PG). Individuals in this group were more sensitive to the valence of the outcome in a gambling task compared to not at-risk individuals, suggesting that gambling contexts increase the sensitivity of the reward system to valence of the outcome in individuals at risk for PG. Furthermore, at-risk participants showed an increased sensitivity to reward characteristics and a decreased response to loss outcomes. This contrasts with those not at risk whose FRNs were sensitive to losses. As the results did not replicate previous research showing attenuated FRNs in pathological gamblers, it is likely that the size and time of the FRN does not change gradually with increasing risk of maladaptive behaviour. Instead, changes in ACC activity reflected by the FRN in general can be observed only after behaviour becomes clinically maladaptive or through comparison between different types of gain/loss outcomes.

The Educational Experience of Students of Chinese Origin in a French-Speaking Context : the role of school, family, and community

Cette recherche vise à documenter l’expérience scolaire des élèves québécois d’origine chinoise à l’école secondaire de langue française et à examiner les dynamiques qui influencent la réussite scolaire de ces élèves. Elle s’intéresse plus précisément aux impacts des facteurs relatifs à l’école, à la famille immigrante, et à ceux de la communauté ethnique sur l’intégration de ces jeunes dans un contexte francophone. Les données ont été principalement recueillies à travers des entretiens semi-structurés approfondis auprès d’élèves d’origine chinoise et de différents acteurs du paradigme éducatif (parents, acteurs scolaires et intervenants communautaires). D’autres instruments, tels que l’analyse du contenu de documents et de médias, ont également été utilisés afin de fournir des informations contextuelles et d’enrichir les données d’entrevues. Les données ont été analysées selon un cadre théorique ouvert et inclusif où la réussite scolaire des élèves issus de l’immigration est mesurée en mettant l’accent sur l’influence de la maîtrise de la langue d’enseignement, du capital culturel et social de la famille et de la communauté immigrante, ainsi que des facteurs systémiques au niveau de l’école. Les résultats de cette étude dans trois écoles cibles montrent qu’en général les élèves d’origine chinoise connaissent une expérience positive, surtout en ce qui concerne leur performance scolaire en mathématiques et sciences. Cependant, les nouveaux arrivants ont tendance à éprouver des difficultés dans l’apprentissage du français et pour leur intégration sociale. En effet, le processus d’intégration socioscolaire des jeunes chinois est sous l’influence des différents milieux qu’ils fréquentent. À propos de l’influence des dynamiques scolaires, les résultats de la recherche indiquent qu’une relation maître-élève positive joue un rôle important dans la réussite éducative de ces élèves. Toutefois, l’insuffisance du soutien à l’apprentissage défavorise l’intégration linguistique et sociale des élèves nouvellement arrivés. Les données de cette étude soulignent notamment le rôle de la famille immigrante et de la communauté ethnique dans l’expérience scolaire de ces jeunes. D’une part, sous l’impact des dynamiques familiales, notamment ce qui à trait au projet migratoire, à la culture chinoise et à l’expérience pré- et post-migratoire, les parents immigrants chinois s’impliquent activement dans les études de leurs enfants, malgré des barrières linguistiques et culturelles. D’autre part, afin de surmonter les effets négatifs des faibles liens entretenus avec l’école de langue française, les parents chinois ont largement recours aux ressources au sein de la communauté ethnique, tels que les médias de langue chinoise, les organismes ethnospécifiques de services aux immigrants, l’école du samedi et les institutions religieuses ethniques. Ces institutions sociales ethniques contribuent à soutenir les valeurs culturelles, échanger des informations, établir des modèles pour les jeunes et à fournir des services appropriés en matière culturelle et linguistique.

An Evaluation of Extension Activities in the Development of Aquaculture in Kerala

Aquaculture is one of the prime catalysts for the socio-economic development of Indian economy contributing to the nations food and nutritional security, export earnings, income and employment generation. In this study an evaluation of extension activities in the development of aquaculture in Kerala. This study was conducted with a view to examine how the Kerala fisheries department offered extension services to the aquaculture farmers in the freshwater and brackish water sectors of the state through various agencies like Fish Farmers Development Agency(FFDA), Brackish water Fish Farmers Development Agency (BFFDA). In this study there are 3 category of respondent’s fresh water beneficiary farmers, brackish water beneficiary farmers and fisheries extension officers. The main motive of the thesis is to make an attempt to explore the responses of local producers to the extension programs of the state with special reference to the aquaculture sector of Kerala, India. The most important technical constraint faced by the fresh water farmers was lack of knowledge followed by non-availability of quality seeds. In the case of brackish water farming, it was infection of disease followed by lack of knowledge. The overall activities of the department of fisheries were ‘fairly good’. It indicate the need for improvements in the delivery of extension services to various target groups. The state fisheries department has already moving towards evolving these modes of extension activities by community participation.

Photoacoustic evaluation of the thermal effusivity in the isotropic phase of certain comb-shaped polymers

The thermal effusivity values in the isotropic phase of certain comb-shaped polymers have been evaluated for the first time using an open photoacoustic cell configuration. The compounds investigated have siloxane and acrylate backbone and they carry mesogenic groups in their side chain. The results indicate that the polymer chain length as well as the side chain length have pronounced influence on the thermal effusivity values in liquid crystalline polymers

ANALYSIS, MODIFICATION, AND EVALUATION OF THE COLD FLOW PROPERTIES OF VEGETABLE OILS AS BASE OIL FOR INDUSTRIAL LUBRICANTS

Poor cold flow properties of vegetable oils are a major problem preventing the usage of many abundantly available vegetable oils as base stocks for industrial lubricants. The major objective of this research is to improve the cold flow properties of vegetable oils by various techniques like additive addition and different chemical modification processes. Conventional procedure for determining pour point is ASTM D97 method. ASTM D97 method is time consuming and reproducibility of pour point temperatures is poor between laboratories. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) is a fast, accurate and reproducible method to analyze the thermal activities during cooling/heating of oil. In this work coconut oil has been chosen as representative vegetable oil for the analysis and improvement cold flow properties since it is abundantly available in the tropics and has a very high pour point of 24 °C. DSC is used for the analysis of unmodified and modified vegetable oil. The modified oils (with acceptable pour points) were then subjected to different tests for the valuation of important lubricant properties such as viscometric, tribological (friction and wear properties), oxidative and corrosion properties.A commercial polymethacrylate based PPD was added in different percentages and the pour points were determined in each case. Styrenated phenol(SP) was added in different concentration to coconut oil and each solution was subjected to ASTM D97 test and analysis by DSC. Refined coconut oil and other oils like castor oil, sunflower oil and keranja oil were mixed in different proportions and interesterification procedure was carried out. Interesterification of coconut oil with other vegetable oils was not found to be effective in lowering the pour point of coconut oil as the reduction attained was only to the extent of 2 to 3 °C.Chemical modification by acid catalysed condensation reaction with coconut oil castor oil mixture resulted in significant reduction of pour point (from 24 ºC to -3 ºC). Instead of using triacylglycerols, when their fatty acid derivatives (lauric acid- the major fatty acid content of coconut oil and oleic acid- the major fatty acid constituents of monoand poly- unsaturated vegetable oils like olive oil, sunflower oil etc.) were used for the synthesis , the pour point could be brought down to -42 ºC. FTIR and NMR spectroscopy confirmed the ester structure of the product which is fundamental to the biodegradability of vegetable oils. The tribological performance of the synthesised product with a suitable AW/EP additive was comparable to the commercial SAE20W30 oil. The viscometric properties (viscosity and viscosity index) were also (with out additives) comparable to commercial lubricants. The TGA experiment confirmed the better oxidative performance of the product compared to vegetable oils. The sample passed corrosion test as per ASTM D130 method.

Studies on Synthesis And Nutritional Evaluation of Prawn Feeds

Chemical Oceanography Division, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology

An Evaluation of Business Deals Using Plastic Money in Kerala

School of Management Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Development and Evaluation of Blind Identification Techniques for Nonlinear Systems

Identification and Control of Non‐linear dynamical systems are challenging problems to the control engineers.The topic is equally relevant in communication,weather prediction ,bio medical systems and even in social systems,where nonlinearity is an integral part of the system behavior.Most of the real world systems are nonlinear in nature and wide applications are there for nonlinear system identification/modeling.The basic approach in analyzing the nonlinear systems is to build a model from known behavior manifest in the form of system output.The problem of modeling boils down to computing a suitably parameterized model,representing the process.The parameters of the model are adjusted to optimize a performanace function,based on error between the given process output and identified process/model output.While the linear system identification is well established with many classical approaches,most of those methods cannot be directly applied for nonlinear system identification.The problem becomes more complex if the system is completely unknown but only the output time series is available.Blind recognition problem is the direct consequence of such a situation.The thesis concentrates on such problems.Capability of Artificial Neural Networks to approximate many nonlinear input-output maps makes it predominantly suitable for building a function for the identification of nonlinear systems,where only the time series is available.The literature is rich with a variety of algorithms to train the Neural Network model.A comprehensive study of the computation of the model parameters,using the different algorithms and the comparison among them to choose the best technique is still a demanding requirement from practical system designers,which is not available in a concise form in the literature.The thesis is thus an attempt to develop and evaluate some of the well known algorithms and propose some new techniques,in the context of Blind recognition of nonlinear systems.It also attempts to establish the relative merits and demerits of the different approaches.comprehensiveness is achieved in utilizing the benefits of well known evaluation techniques from statistics. The study concludes by providing the results of implementation of the currently available and modified versions and newly introduced techniques for nonlinear blind system modeling followed by a comparison of their performance.It is expected that,such comprehensive study and the comparison process can be of great relevance in many fields including chemical,electrical,biological,financial and weather data analysis.Further the results reported would be of immense help for practical system designers and analysts in selecting the most appropriate method based on the goodness of the model for the particular context.

Bioprocess Technology for Antagonistic Pseudomonas MCCB 102, 103,Micrococcus MCCB 104, and Evaluation of Synechocystis MCCB 114, 115 as Probiotics for the Management of Vibrio in Shrimp Culture Systems

National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, School of Environmental Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology

An evaluation of Primary health care system in Kerala

The thesis entitled An Evaluation of Primary Health Care System in Kerala. The present study is intended to examine the working of primary health care system and its impact on the health status of people. The hypothesis tested in the thesis includes, a. The changes in the health profile require reallocation of resources of primary health care system, b. Rate of utilization depends on the quality of services provided by primary health centers, and c. There is a significant decline in the operational efficiency of the primary health care system. The major elements of primary health care stated in the report of AlmaAta International Conference on Primary Health Care (WHO, 1994)” is studied on the basis of the classification of the elements in to three: Preventive, Promotive, and Curative measures. Preventive measures include Maternal and Child Health Care including family Planning. Provision of water and sanitation is reviewed under promotive measures. Curative measures are studied using the disease profile of the study area. Collection of primary data was done through a sample survey, using pre-tested interview schedule of households of the study area. Multi stage random sampling design was used for selecting the sample. The design of the present study is both descriptive and analytical in nature. As far as the analytical tools are concerned, growth index, percentages, ratios, rates, time series analysis, analysis of variance, chi square test, Z test were used for analyzing the data. Present study revealed that no one in these areas was covered under any type of health insurance. Conclusion states that considering the present changes in the health profile, traditional pattern of resource allocation should be altered to meet the urgent health care needs of the people. Preventive and promotive measures like health education for giving awareness among people to change health habits, diet pattern, life style etc. are to be developed. Proper diagnosis and treatment of the disease at the beginning of the stage itself may help to cure majority of disease. For that, Public health policy must ensure the primary health care as enunciated at Alma- Ata international Conference. At the same time Public health is not to be treated as the sole responsibility of the government. Active community participation is an essential means to attain the goals.

Evaluation of cyanobacteria for biomass production and effluent treatment

The microalgae gained importance as food and feed as well as source of fine chemicals since the l960’s. Spirulina became the trend setter due to its easily culturable properties as well as nutritional composition. A rapid expansion of microalgal industry occurred in the Asia-Pacific region as microalgae came to stay as a health food supplement. Microalgae have been an integral component of oxidation ponds usually incorporated with wastewater treatment. Over the last few decades, efforts have been made to apply intensive microalgal cultures to perform biological tertiary treatment of secondary effluents. Given the limited number of species still available for commercial exploitation, it is imperative to isolate and cultivate those photosynthetic organisms with high growth rate and biomass accumulation, which could play the dual role of cleaning the wastewater and also providing useful biomass. This has been the objective of this study ie. 0 To develop pure cultures of local isolates of Cyanobacteria for extraction of biochemicals of commercial value 0 To couple biomass production with effluent treatment

Chemical Evaluation of Selected Organics and Trace Metals in the Mangrove Macroflora Of Cochin

Mangroves are considered to play a significant role in global carbon cycling. Themangrove forests would fix CO2 by photosynthesis into mangrove lumber and thus decrease the possibility of a catastrophic series of events - global warming by atmospheric CO2, melting of the polar ice caps, and inundation of the great coastal cities of the world. The leaf litter and roots are the main contributors to mangrove sediments, though algal production and allochthonous detritus can also be trapped (Kristensen et al, 2008) by mangroves due to their high organic matter content and reducing nature are excellent metal retainers. Environmental pollution due to metals is of major concern. This is due to the basic fact that metals are not biodegradable or perishable the way most organic pollutants are. While most organic toxicants can be destroyed by combustion and converted into compounds such as C0, C02, SOX, NOX, metals can't be destroyed. At the most the valance and physical form of metals may change. Concentration of metals present naturally in air, water and soil is very low. Metals released into the environment through anthropogenic activities such as burning of fossils fuels, discharge of industrial effluents, mining, dumping of sewage etc leads to the development of higher than tolerable or toxic levels of metals in the environment leading to metal pollution. Of course, a large number of heavy metals such as Fe, Mn, Cu, Ni, Zn, Co, Cr, Mo, and V are essential to plants and animals and deficiency of these metals may lead to diseases, but at higher levels, it would lead to metal toxicity. Almost all industrial processes and urban activities involve release of at least trace quantities of half a dozen metals in different forms. Heavy metal pollution in the environment can remain dormant for a long time and surface with a vengeance. Once an area gets toxified with metals, it is almost impossible to detoxify it. The symptoms of metal toxicity are often quite similar to the symptoms of other common diseases such as respiratory problems, digestive disorders, skin diseases, hypertension, diabetes, jaundice etc making it all the more difficult to diagnose metal poisoning. For example the Minamata disease caused by mercury pollution in addition to affecting the nervous system can disturb liver function and cause diabetes and hypertension. The damage caused by heavy metals does not end up with the affected person. The harmful effects can be transferred to the person's progenies. Ironically heavy metal pollution is a direct offshoot of our increasing ability to mass produce metals and use them in all spheres of existence. Along with conventional physico- chemical methods, biosystem approachment is also being constantly used for combating metal pollution