Overparenting and homework: The student’s task, but everyone’s responsibility

A high level of parental involvement is widely considered to be essential for optimal child and adolescent development and wellbeing, including academic success. However, recent consideration has been given to the idea that extremely high levels of parental involvement (often called ‘overparenting’ or ‘helicopter parenting’) might not be beneficial. This study used a newly created overparenting measure, the Locke Parenting Scale (LPS), to investigate the association of overparenting and children’s homework. Eight hundred and sixty-six parents completed online questionnaires about their parenting beliefs and intentions, and their attitudes associated with their child’s homework. Parents with higher LPS scores tended to take more personal responsibility for the completion of their child’s homework than did other parents, and ascribed greater responsibility for homework completion to their child’s teacher. However, increased perceived responsibility by parents and teachers was not accompanied by a commensurate reduction in what they perceived was the child’s responsibility. Future research should examine whether extreme parental attitudes and reported behaviours translate to validated changes in actual homework support.

On the Solution of Certain Simultaneous Pairs of Dual Integral Equations

Mit einer direkten Methode, bei der der Erdelyi-Kober- und der modifizierte Hankel-Operator Anwendung finden, werden gewisse Systeme aus zwei bzw. drei Paaren dualer Integralgleichungen mit Bessel-Kernen in geschlossener Form gelöst. Für bestimmte Funktionenklassen und Ordnungen der Bessel-Funktionen ist die Vorgehensweise angebrachter und geeigneter als die bereits existierenden Methoden.

Data distribution and task scheduling for distributed computing of all-to-all comparison problems

This research studied distributed computing of all-to-all comparison problems with big data sets. The thesis formalised the problem, and developed a high-performance and scalable computing framework with a programming model, data distribution strategies and task scheduling policies to solve the problem. The study considered storage usage, data locality and load balancing for performance improvement in solving the problem. The research outcomes can be applied in bioinformatics, biometrics and data mining and other domains in which all-to-all comparisons are a typical computing pattern.

Patients with physical debility undergoing subacute physical rehabilitation following an acute hospital admission demonstrated improvement in cognitive functional task independence

Background: Hospitalised older adults often experience a decline in physical functioning and mobility in the lead up to (or during) an acute hospital admission. During acute illness and hospitalisation, older adults may also experience a decline or fluctuation in their cognitive functioning. Previous studies have demonstrated that patients with or without reduced cognitive functioning on admission to subacute inpatient rehabilitation have considerable potential to improve their physical functioning and quality of life.

Novel modulation strategy for a CLC resonant dual active bridge

This paper proposes a novel modulation strategy for a phase controlled Capacitor-Inductor-Capacitor (CLC) Resonant Dual Active Bridge (RDAB). The proposed modulation strategy improves the soft turn-on, Zero-Current-Switching (ZCS) and Zero-Voltage-Switching (ZVS) range of the converter while only minimally increasing the required reactive currents in the ac link. A mathematical analysis of the proposed modulation scheme is presented along with a theoretical loss comparison between several modulation strategies. The proposed modulation strategy was implemented and the experimental results are presented.

Dual Drug Delivery Microcapsules via Layer-by-Layer Self-Assembly

The integration of hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs in the polymer microcapsule offers the possibility of developing a new drug delivery system that combines the best features of these two distinct classes of material. Recently, we have reported the encapsulation of an uncharged water-insoluble drug in the polymer membrane. The hydrophobic drug is deposited using a layer-by-layer (LbL) technique, which is based on the sequential adsorption of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes onto a charged substrate. In this paper, we report the encapsulation of two different drugs, which are invariably different in structure and in their solubility in water. We have characterized these dual drug vehicular capsules by confocal laser scanning microscopy, atomic force microscopy, visible microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The growth of a thin film on a flat substrate by LbL was monitored by UV−vis spectra. The desorption kinetics of two drugs from the thin film was modeled by a second-order rate model.

Specifying Reuse Interfaces for Task-Oriented Framework Specialization

Reuse of existing carefully designed and tested software improves the quality of new software systems and reduces their development costs. Object-oriented frameworks provide an established means for software reuse on the levels of both architectural design and concrete implementation. Unfortunately, due to frame-works complexity that typically results from their flexibility and overall abstract nature, there are severe problems in using frameworks. Patterns are generally accepted as a convenient way of documenting frameworks and their reuse interfaces. In this thesis it is argued, however, that mere static documentation is not enough to solve the problems related to framework usage. Instead, proper interactive assistance tools are needed in order to enable system-atic framework-based software production. This thesis shows how patterns that document a framework s reuse interface can be represented as dependency graphs, and how dynamic lists of programming tasks can be generated from those graphs to assist the process of using a framework to build an application. This approach to framework specialization combines the ideas of framework cookbooks and task-oriented user interfaces. Tasks provide assistance in (1) cre-ating new code that complies with the framework reuse interface specification, (2) assuring the consistency between existing code and the specification, and (3) adjusting existing code to meet the terms of the specification. Besides illustrating how task-orientation can be applied in the context of using frameworks, this thesis describes a systematic methodology for modeling any framework reuse interface in terms of software patterns based on dependency graphs. The methodology shows how framework-specific reuse interface specifi-cations can be derived from a library of existing reusable pattern hierarchies. Since the methodology focuses on reusing patterns, it also alleviates the recog-nized problem of framework reuse interface specification becoming complicated and unmanageable for frameworks of realistic size. The ideas and methods proposed in this thesis have been tested through imple-menting a framework specialization tool called JavaFrames. JavaFrames uses role-based patterns that specify a reuse interface of a framework to guide frame-work specialization in a task-oriented manner. This thesis reports the results of cases studies in which JavaFrames and the hierarchical framework reuse inter-face modeling methodology were applied to the Struts web application frame-work and the JHotDraw drawing editor framework.

(v, k, λ) Configurations and self-dual codes

The incidence matrix of a (v, k, λ) configuration is used to construct a (2v, v) and a (2v + 2, v + 1) self-dual code. If the incidence matrix is a circulant, the codes obtained are quasi-cyclic and extended quasi-cyclic, respectively. The weight distributions of some codes of this type are obtained.

Harmonic response of a shock mount employing dual-phase damping

In this note, the application of dual-phase damping to a simple shock mount experiencing a harmonic input is described. The damping ratio is a function of the relative displacement between the foundation and the mounted mass. The purpose of employing such a damping is to reduce the absolute transmissibility over the whole frequency range.

A Note on Minimal Reed-Muller Canonical Forms of Switching Functions

A nonexhaustive procedure for obtaining minimal Reed-Muller canonical (RMC) forms of switching functions is presented. This procedure is a modification of a procedure presented earlier in the literature and enables derivation of an upper bound on the number of RMC forms to be derived to choose a minimal one. It is shown that the task of obtaining minimal RMC forms is simplified in the case of symmetric functions and self-dual functions.

An assessment of m-health in developing countries using task technology fit model

Health challenges present arguably the most significant barrier to sustainable global development. The introduction of ICT in healthcare, especially the application of mobile communications, has created the potential to transform healthcare delivery by making it more accessible, affordable and effective across the developing world. However, current research into the assessment of mHealth from the perspective of developing countries particularly with community Health workers (CHWs) as primary users continues to be limited. The aim of this study is to analyze the contribution of mHealth in enhancing the performance of the health workers and its alignment with existing workflows to guide its utilization. The proposed research takes into account this consideration and aims to examine the task-technology alignment of mHealth for CHWs drawing upon the task technology fit as the theoretical foundation.

Microstrip square ring antenna for dual-band operation

This paper presents a generalized approach to design an electromagnetically coupled microstrip ring antenna for dual-band operation. By widening two opposite sides of a square ring antenna, its fractional bandwidth at the primary resonance mode can be increased significantly so that it may be used for practical applications. By attaching a stub to the inner edge of the side opposite to the feed arm, some of the losses in electrical length caused by widening can be regained. More importantly, this addition also alters the current distribution on the antenna and directs radiations at the second resonant frequency towards boresight. It has also been observed that for the dual frequency configurations studied, the ratio of the resonant frequencies (center dot r(2)center dot center dot r(1)) can range between 1.55 and 2.01. This shows flexibility in designing dual frequency antennas with a desired pair of resonant frequencies.

EIT as a tool to observe dual wavelength operation of a semiconductor laser

We propose a simplified technique for dual wavelength operation of an extended cavity semiconductor laser, and its characterization using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In this laser cavity scheme light beam is made converging before it incidences on the cavity grating. The converging angle of the beam creates two longitudinal oscillating modes of resonating cavity. Frequency separation between the longitudinal modes are measured with the help of beat frequency generation in a photodiode and creating pair of EIT spectra in Rb vapor. The pair of EIT dips that are generated due to dual wavelength of this laser (that is used as control laser) can be used to estimate frequency difference between the generated wavelengths. Width of EIT spectra can be used to estimate line width of individual wavelength components.

Dual yolk-shell structure of carbon and silica-coated silicon for high-performance lithium-ion batteries

Silicon batteries have attracted much attention in recent years due to their high theoretical capacity, although a rapid capacity fade is normally observed, attributed mainly to volume expansion during lithiation. Here, we report for the first time successful synthesis of Si/void/SiO2/void/C nanostructures. The synthesis strategy only involves selective etching of SiO2 in Si/SiO2/C structures with hydrofluoric acid solution. Compared with reported results, such novel structures include a hard SiO2-coated layer, a conductive carbon-coated layer, and two internal void spaces. In the structures, the carbon can enhance conductivity, the SiO2 layer has mechanically strong qualities, and the two internal void spaces can confine and accommodate volume expansion of silicon during lithiation. Therefore, these specially designed dual yolk-shell structures exhibit a stable and high capacity of 956 mA h g−1 after 430 cycles with capacity retention of 83%, while the capacity of Si/C core-shell structures rapidly decreases in the first ten cycles under the same experimental conditions. The novel dual yolk-shell structures developed for Si can also be extended to other battery materials that undergo large volume changes.