Everyday Life Situations Research Articles

Special Pi Day Ahead: 3.14.15

“in my opinion: Special pi day ahead: 3.14.15,” The authors discuss pi in a historical context. This department publishes brief news articles, announcements, and guest editorials on current mathematics education issues that stimulate the interest of TCM readers and cause them to think about an issue or consider a specific viewpoint about some aspect of mathematics education. “YouCubed: Broadening the conversation for supporting student success in mathematics,” Drawing on current research and best practices, YouCubed is a collaborative effort to empower learners to find the joy of mathematics through engaging in challenging tasks. The website offers short videos, appropriate for a broad audience of students, parents, and teachers, describing current research about mathematics education in the United States, brain research, proven pedagogical practices, and challenging K—grade 12 mathematical tasks. “The Standards for Mathematical Practice: A three-step implementation approach,” As students become more proficient with math models, they will be able to identify important quantities in everyday life situations and represent them verbally, graphically, pictorially, and symbolically.

The Role Plays Implementation in Teaching Macroeconomics

When applying a suitable combination of different modern methods of education, it is possible to improve quality and attractiveness of higher education and readiness of students, not only for successful completion of the exam syllabus, final paper, final state exams, but also to deal with everyday life and work situations, creating a precondition for the successful application of the students in their further activities outside of school. We have shown an example in the article how you can use the method of role plays within the teaching of Macroeconomics and increase the attractiveness of the subject and efficiency of education for students of Informatics.

Control or non-control state: that is the question! An asynchronous visual P300-based BCI approach

Objective. Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) based on event-related potentials (ERP) were proven to be a reliable synchronous communication method. For everyday life situations, however, this synchronous mode is impractical because the system will deliver a selection even if the user is not paying attention to the stimulation. So far, research into attention-aware visual ERP–BCIs (i.e., asynchronous ERP–BCIs) has led to variable success. In this study, we investigate new approaches for detection of user engagement. Approach. Classifier output and frequency-domain features of electroencephalogram signals as well as the hybridization of them were used to detect the userʼs state. We tested their capabilities for state detection in different control scenarios on offline data from 21 healthy volunteers. Main results. The hybridization of classifier output and frequency-domain features outperformed the results of the single methods, and allowed building an asynchronous P300-based BCI with an average correct state detection accuracy of more than 95%. Significance. Our results show that all introduced approaches for state detection in an asynchronous P300-based BCI can effectively avoid involuntary selections, and that the hybrid method is the most effective approach.

Desarrollo de una herramienta virtual para la determinación de la confianza

Trust is fundamental in relationships established everyday between people and organizations, and is a determining factor in the results and long-term relationships. The objective of this research is to develop a virtual educational tool, through which participants trust can be determined in settings and situations of everyday life, by making investments. For this, a literature review of the concept of trust and existing games focused on teaching, strengthen or measure the concept was performed, then the trust game proposed by Joyce Berg in 1995 and the extended trust game proposed in Universidad Nacional de Colombia and through simulation and investment scenarios, the proposed virtual game was developed in Adobe Flash CS6 Software. As a result of the research, a virtual tool was developed and a pilot testwere done with six people from Facultad de Minas de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellin, during the 2014, and a preliminary analysis of the data were obtained and analyzed, verifying that the tool designed effectively can be applied in different environments, to determine trust in specific scenarios of everyday life.

Мотивация помогающего поведения в контексте житейской и профессиональной помощи

The article analyzes and compares the approaches to the study of helping motivation in everyday situations and in the activities of helping professions specialists. A detailed review of studies of factors affecting the motivation of non-professional help is introduced. The main features of the professional helping activities, which define the specifics of professional help, compared with everyday life situations, are highlighted. Factors, affecting the development of professional motivation, are analyzed and problematized in connection with the specific goals and conditions of professional helping activity. Author views the distortions and difficulties of professional motivation formation, including dis- tortions, which lead to the development of emotional burnout. The conclusion concerning the importance of the professionalization of helping motivation as a condition for successful professional development and prevention of burnout is drawn.

The Language of Bias among Teachers in Lorma Colleges Special Science High School

Education is not about what you learn inside the classroom rather it is about how you apply the knowledge that you gain in your everyday life situation. The way the teacher trains and educates a student is one of the greatest factors of one’s knowledge. With the sudden rise of controversies about equality at school, its effects on the students can merely be notified as the matter itself captures the interests of people these days. Society focuses mostly on how it affects the students’ study behavior – be it by interpersonal and intrapersonal communication; and its impact on the class as a whole. However, researches only concentrate on one party – the students’ perspective. The research investigated the awareness of teachers regarding the concept of bias. Researchers featured the teachers of Lorma Colleges Special Science High School as the respondents. The research was also intended to find factors and their effects on the teacher’s professionalism and effective instruction. Positive student-teacher relationships are characterized by open communication, as well as emotional and academic support that exist between students and teachers. In shaping successful classroom interaction, learning, and achievement, it is important to determine the degree of similarity between student’s and teacher’s personalities.

Prueba de integración noético perceptiva en esquizofrénicos crónicos

Se trata de una prueba de percepción visual en la que se presentan novedosas láminas conteniendo escenas y situaciones de la vida cotidiana en forma esquemática y con total prescindencia de detalles accesorios. Solamente están presentes los rasgos esenciales de la situación mediante una disposición adecuada de trozos de lana y de hilo fino fotografiados. Se compara la respuesta lograda en un grupo de control constituído por 100 personas normales y el tipo de respuesta de quince pacientes esquizofrénicos. Se han clasificados dieciocho tipos de respuesta esquizofrénica frente a las láminas que difieren de la respuesta normal. El propósito de la investigación es, mostrar el trastorno primario de la función noética prejudicativa en la construcción del mundo perceptivo en el esquizofrénico. Se trata de un informe preliminar.

Characteristics of a self-management support programme applicable in primary health care: a qualitative study of users' and health professionals' perceptions.

BackgroundDevelopment of more self-management support programmes in primary health care has been one option used to enhance positive outcomes in chronic disease management. At present, research results provide no consensus on what would be the best way to develop support programmes into new settings. The aim of the present study was therefore to explore users’ and health professionals’ perceptions of what would be the vital elements in a self - management support programme applicable in primary health care, how to account for them, and why.MethodsFour qualitative, semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted in Central Norway. The informants possessed experience in development, provision, or participation in a self-management support programme. Data was analysed by the Systematic Text Condensation method.ResultsThe results showed an overall positive expectation to the potential benefits of development of a self-management support programme in primary health care. Despite somewhat different arguments and perspectives, the users and the health professionals had a joint agreement on core characteristics; a self-management support programme in primary health care should therefore be generic, not disease specific, and delivered in a group- based format. A special focus should be on the everyday- life of the participants. The most challenging aspect was a present lack of competence and experience among health professionals to moderate self-management support programmes.ConclusionsThe development and design of a relevant and applicable self-management support programme in primary health care should balance the interests of the users with the possibilities and constraints within each municipality. It would be vital to benefit from the closeness of the patients’ every-day life situations. The user informants’ perception of a self-management support programme as a supplement to regular medical treatment represented an expanded understanding of the self-management support concept. An exploring approach should be applied in the development of the health professionals’ competence in practice. The effect of a self-management support programme based on the core characteristics found in this study needs to be evaluated.

Can Chat Group Therapy Suggest a Paradigm for Axiomatized Collective Decision Process

Multicriterion or multiagent decision needs a clear identification of the alternatives and of the criteria or of the agents but needs above all a method providing a sensible synthesis of the data. One can earn such a method using a set of noncontroversial principles—the axioms—that a limited number of methods, perhaps limited to one, can simultaneously satisfy. Examples of everyday life situations show that, if these axiomatic systems are not completed, the synthesis function of the data that might result can easily produce dangerous, ridiculous or merely absurd decisions! Some of the most classical axiomatic systems, built on such common sense principles, but not completed, may prove to be dangerous: they can explain a taste for crazy political orientations, for neurotic disorders, for masochistic choices! Even if no perfect and universal method can pretend to exist, a more widespread knowledge of the outcomes of the simultaneous satisfaction of the most common axioms would allow much wiser group (and individual) decision-making. As an example, the second part of the paper discusses the improvement by Lamboray and Tideman of Arrow-Raynaud ’s prudence axiomatic system.

Every Second Counts

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive disease that affects patients with a loss of speech and mobility. The aim of this study was to describe patients’ experiences of living with ALS in the end-of-life situations. A manifest content analysis was chosen for analysis narratives from four biographies by women who had ALS. The categories Suffering, Meaningfulness, and Experiences of a Limited life were identified as describing patients’ understanding of living with ALS. Nurses need to be trained in communication skills to maintain human dignity for patients who lost their speech regarding an intellect in shape. There is a need for information among family members about severe diseases, such as ALS, to improve high quality of care and well-being for all involved. Home health care has to invite and facilitate patients’ and relatives’ participation regarding the end-of-care processes to improve a sense of coherence to handle everyday life situation in the future.

Aportes empíricos a la validación y adaptación al español de las Historias extrañas de Happé

Theory of mind refers to the competence of attributing mind to others, and to predict and understand their behaviour in terms of mental states such as beliefs and desires. One of the main criticisms made ??to instruments measuring TM, is that their results are not reflected in the situations of everyday life. In 1994, Happe created a test trying to overcome the constraints. The aim of this paper was to generate empirical evidence contributing to the validation and Spanish adaptation of the mind theory test named Strange Stories of Happé, used to assess the capability to recognise non literal senses. Results revealed a good internal consistency of the test. The factorial analysis showed five factors that explained the 54% of the variance of data. Significant associations were found between the recognition of non literal senses and social sensibility tests. Research seeking to contribute to the knowledge of the evidence intended to explore advanced aspects of TM.

Communal normalization in an online self-help group for adolescents with a mentally ill parent.

Although implications of parental mental illness are well documented, most children of mentally ill parents are left to manage their family situation with limited information and support. We explored the role of a Norwegian online self-help group for adolescents (aged 15 to 18) with a mentally ill parent. Through in-depth interviews with 13 participants, we found that the online self-help group provided "communal normalization" by which participants, through communication in the forum, made sense of everyday experiences and emotions arising from having a mentally ill parent. We identified three main aspects of this process-recognizability, openness, and agency-all of which were important for the adolescents' efforts to obtain support, to be supportive, and to handle everyday life situations better. Communal normalization might provide resources for significantly improving the participants' life situations, and could demonstrate similar potential for users in other situations characterized by stigma, loneliness, silence, and health worries.

Prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation improves fundamental vehicle control abilities

Noninvasive brain stimulation techniques have increasingly attracted the attention of neuroscientists because they enable the identification of the causal role of a targeted brain region. However, few studies have applied such techniques to everyday life situations. Here, we investigate the causal role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in fundamental vehicle control abilities. Thirteen participants underwent a simulated driving task under prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on three separate testing days. Each testing day was randomly assigned to either anodal over the right with cathodal over the left DLPFC, cathodal over the right with anodal over the left DLPFC, or sham stimulation. The driving task required the participants to maintain an inter-vehicle distance to a leading car traveling a winding road with a constant speed. Driving performance was quantified using two metrics: the root-mean-square error of inter-vehicle distance as car-following performance, and the standard deviation of lateral position as lane-keeping performance. Results showed that both car-following and lane-keeping performances were significantly greater for right anodal/left cathodal compared with right cathodal/left cathodal and sham stimulation. These results suggest not only the causal involvement of the DLPFC in driving, but also right hemisphere dominance for vehicle control. The findings of this study indicate that tDCS can be a useful tool to examine the causal role of a specific brain region in ecologically valid environments, and also might be a help to drivers with difficulties in vehicle control.

Concurrent motor and cognitive function in multiple sclerosis: a motor overflow and motor stability study.

The interplay between motor and cognitive functions during performance of concurrent tasks is not fully understood but is known to vary depending on task characteristics and across clinical populations. Our controlled study examined how a concurrent digit span task affected a motor stability and motor overflow task in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). We asked 22 patients with MS and 22 matched controls to exert force on a transducer using 1 index finger at a time. We measured their motor stability (accuracy of voluntary force production) and motor overflow (involuntary force produced by the opposite, inactive finger). During half of the trials, the participants concurrently performed a digit span task. Overall, the patients with MS had more motor overflow and less motor stability than the controls; these measures correlated with the patients' disease severity. Adding the concurrent task affected motor stability; this relationship varied with the required level of exerted force. Motor overflow was lower during trials with the concurrent task. The concurrent task affected patients and controls similarly for both motor stability and overflow. This study demonstrates preserved motor function in a concurrent-task paradigm in patients with MS, and sheds further light on the relationship between attention and motor function in both the patients and controls. This research may help to inform rehabilitation for everyday life situations in which patients routinely perform cognitive and motor tasks simultaneously.

Everyday Life Situations of School-Aged Children with Severe Disabilities: What are the Goals for the Future? An Exploratory Study

This study investigated present and future everyday life situations (ELS) in home, school, work, and leisure environments for a group of school-aged children with severe disabilities, including complex disorders and a combination of disabilities. The purpose was to explore universal ELS; clarify how the children can be supported in their development of autonomy; and to gather information on potential overall goals for interventions. To make data comparable, all reported ELS were linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Child and Youth version (ICF-CY) and listed along with information on the setting. Both today, and in the future, recreational activities and participation in school or work were of highest importance, but few reported ELS involved directly interacting with other children. More ELS were predicted to occur outside the home and with a higher degree of autonomy. Therefore, interventions would be focused on the overall goal that children with severe disabilities take initiatives to become independent and to form relationships with others.

Evoluções numéricas a perder de vista

The everyday life situations gave us a good enough training to deal with numerical evolutions operated by arithmetic progressions, so in this specific case we can make good numerical predictions. But our common sense is not usually prepared to deal with numbers that grow, or shrink, according to geometrical progressions. In the last cases, our intuition strongly fails, showing that our intuition is not always right. We also fail in comparing some other situations which we are not trained. This article shows some of that limiting cases.

Altered Cognitive Control Activations after Moderate-to-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury and Their Relationship to Injury Severity and Everyday-Life Function

This study investigated how the neuronal underpinnings of both adaptive and stable cognitive control processes are affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was undertaken in 62 survivors of moderate-to-severe TBI (>1 year after injury) and 68 healthy controls during performance of a continuous performance test adapted for use in a mixed block- and event-related design. Survivors of TBI demonstrated increased reliance on adaptive task control processes within an a priori core region for cognitive control in the medial frontal cortex. TBI survivors also had increased activations related to time-on-task effects during stable task-set maintenance in right inferior parietal and prefrontal cortices. Increased brain activations in TBI survivors had a dose-dependent linear positive relationship to injury severity and were negatively correlated with self-reported cognitive control problems in everyday-life situations. Results were adjusted for age, education, and fMRI task performance. In conclusion, evidence was provided that the neural underpinnings of adaptive and stable control processes are differently affected by TBI. Moreover, it was demonstrated that increased brain activations typically observed in survivors of TBI might represent injury-specific compensatory adaptations also utilized in everyday-life situations.

Water condensation: a multiscale phenomenon.

The condensation of water is a phenomenon occurring in multiple situations in everyday life, e.g., when fog is formed or when dew forms on the grass or on windows. This means that this phenomenon plays an important role within the different fields of science including meteorology, building physics, and chemistry. In this review we address condensation models and simulations with the main focus on heterogeneous condensation of water. The condensation process is, at first, described from a thermodynamic viewpoint where the nucleation step is described by the classical nucleation theory. Further, we address the shortcomings of the thermodynamic theory in describing the nucleation and emphasize the importance of nanoscale effects. This leads to the description of condensation from a molecular viewpoint. Also presented is how the nucleation can be simulated by use of molecular models, and how the condensation process is simulated on the macroscale using computational fluid dynamics. Finally, examples of hybrid models combining molecular and macroscale models for the simulation of condensation on a surface are presented.

Making plans or “just thinking about the trip”? Understanding people’s travel planning in practice

ICT solutions have been proposed as a means for changing environmentally unfavourable traffic behaviour by providing better, real-time and more accessible travel information. However, prevailing models of travel choice and travel behaviour tend to overemphasise the impact and importance of information and the individualistic perspective. The issue of choice and travel planning in everyday life situations, and how information is used and acted on in these processes, was examined in a qualitative study in Stockholm, Sweden. Practice Theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study. Interviews were supplemented with an explorative diary and photo assignment to bring unreflected choices and actions of planning travel to the conscious level.The results showed that travel planning involves the immediate situation where planning and decisions are made, but also aspirations, cognitive/time/material limitations, social norms and social relations that extend widely in time and space. Definitions of travel planning and travel information based on the situated practices of planning are suggested. In the muddle of everyday life, travel planning takes place in the brief moments where circumstances at different levels – time, place, the social realm - interact and are considered or directly acted upon. In the development of new ICT-based travel information services, the role of technology in changing normal practices should be considered.

Drama Experience in Educational Interventions

Drama techniques have been widely implemented in many different areas of education and in clinical settings. The effectiveness of using theater as a means to promote change by capitalizing on its strong emotional component has been attributed to two main functions: a cathartic function and a performative one. In the first, actors produce a drama about a social problem that allows the audience to identify with the characters and may even change the audience members’ points of view; in the second, participants of the intervention are actors themselves and use drama techniques to portray everyday-life situations, attempting to consider social problems from different perspectives. Despite the widespread use of theater workshops in educational and clinical settings, an issue that requires further investigation and research is the assessment of their effectiveness. Many different reasons contribute to making the workshops’ effectiveness difficult to assess: Firstly, quantitative methods seem not to be perfectly suited for evaluating changes that drama may produce, as they are based on emotional experiences rather than on cognitive acquisitions; secondly, qualitative tools may require a large amount of time for the collection and analysis of data, and they may fail to generate comparable results. A reconnaissance of methods for assessing the effectiveness of drama intervention is presented in this paper, and a proposal for further analysis is provided.