Algebra 1 is considered an essential course to master in order to understand the concepts of higher-order mathematics, and the California accountability system designates this course for completion in 8th grade. In Shelton County, however, placement of 8th graders in this course is based on feeder school, rather than student ability, resulting in inequitable access. The purpose of this case study was to examine the experiences of administrators who place individual students in mathematics courses and the factors that influence their placement decisions. The conceptual framework for the study was administrative theory as related to processes of effective decision making. Eighteen administrators from 9 local districts described their experiences as they made decisions to place 8th grade students in Algebra 1. Seventeen administrators completed a semi-structured questionnaire on the placement decision-making process, 9 participated in follow-up semi-structured interviews, and 1 was interviewed only. Data were transcribed, open coded, and thematically analyzed. They key findings that affected placement decisions included that many students entered middle school unprepared for algebra, the local mathematics programs were not coherently designed, and aspects of an effective action-cycle decision-making process were absent. A position paper was developed that offers policy and practice recommendations that address these findings. Key recommendations include implementing clear policy, pursuing a coherent instructional program, providing student support interventions, and utilizing assessment and placement processes. This project study advances positive social change by engaging educational leaders at the local site to develop their professional practice and enhance the quality of their organizations' mathematics education program.

The primary goal of this paper is to demonstrate the application of a relatively esoteric and interdisciplinary technique, called spectral analysis, to dyadic social sciences data. Spectral analysis is an analytical and statistical technique, commonly used in engineering, that allows times series data to be analyzed for the presence of significant regular/periodic fluctuations/oscillations. These periodic fluctuations are reflected in the frequency domain as amplitude or energy peaks at certain frequencies. Furthermore, a Magnitude Squared Coherence analysis may be used to interrogate more than one time series concurrently in order to establish the degree of frequency domain correlation between the two series, as well to establish the phase (lead/lag) relationship between the coherent frequency components. In order to demonstrate the application of spectral analysis, the current study utilizes a secondary dyadic dataset comprising 30 daily reports of perceived sexual desire for 65 couples. The secondary goal of this paper is to establish a) whether there is significant periodic fluctuation in perceived levels of sexual desire for men and/or women, and at which specific frequencies, and b) how much correlation or `cross-spectral coherence' there is between partners' sexual desire within the dyads, and c) what the phase lead-lag relationship is between the partners at any of the identified frequency components. Sexual desire was found to have significant periodic components for both men and women, with a fluctuation of once per month being the most common frequency component across the groups of individuals under analysis. Mathematical models are presented in order to describe and illustrate these principal fluctuations. Partners in couples, on average, were found to fluctuate together at a number of identified frequencies, and the phase lead/lag relationships of these frequencies are presented.

While a growing evidence base suggests that expressive writing about a traumatic event may be an effective intervention which results in a variety of health benefits, there are still multiple competing theories that seek to explain expressive writing’s mechanism(s) of action. Two of the theories with stronger evidence bases are exposure theory and cognitive processing theory. The state of this field is complicated by methodological limitations; operationalizing and measuring the relative constructs of trauma narratives, such as coherence, traditionally requires time- and labor-intensive methods such as using a narrative coding scheme. This study used a computer-based methodology, latent semantic analysis (LSA), to quantify narrative coherence and analyze the relationship between narrative coherence and both short- and long-term outcomes of expressive writing. A subsample of unscreened undergraduates (N=113) who had been randomly assigned to the expressive writing group of a larger study wrote about the most traumatic event that had happened to them for three twenty-minute sessions; their narratives were analyzed using LSA. There were three main hypotheses, informed by cognitive processing theory: 1) That higher coherence in a given session would be associated with a more positive reported valence at the conclusion of that session, 2) that increasing narrative coherence across writing sessions would be associated with increasing reported valence at the conclusion of each session, and 3) that increasing narrative coherence over time would be associated with a decrease in post-traumatic stress symptoms. Overall, initial hypotheses were not supported, but higher coherence in the third writing session was associated with more negative valence at the conclusion of the session. Furthermore, relationships between pre- and post-session valence strengthened over time, and coherence, pre-session valence, and post-session valence all trended over time. These results suggest a collection of temporal effects, the implications of which are discussed in terms of future directions.

Enhancing Quality of Life: The Effects of Positive Cognitions by Claudine Antoniette Gerald M.S., Walden University, 2009 B.S., Florida Atlantic University, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy General Psychology Walden University August 2015 The purpose of this study was to test the nature of the relationship among cognitive factors to determine quality of life in a sample of 180 adult internet users. Theories of the positive psychology paradigm, salutogenesis, dynamic equilibrium model, family systems, and family resilience theories were the bases for examining the relative significance of the cognitive factors, positive illusions, optimism, perception of control, meaning in life, resilience, and sense of coherence to the development of quality of life. Factor analysis revealed the order of significance of these variables from the most influential to least influential: sense of coherence, meaning in life, positive illusions, perception of control, resilience, and optimism. Stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that positive illusions have a negative influence on quality of life β = -0.198, t = -2.36, F = 5.58, p = 0.02. Standard multiple regression analysis indicated that these cognitive factors do not significantly contribute to quality of life when grouped together. These findings corroborate current research that cognitive factors do not work alone in enhancing quality of life and there must be a balance along factors on other levels, such as psychological, physiological, behavioral, and sociocultural to enhance quality of life. Social change may be influenced by this study's unique and exclusive emphasis on the effects of cognitive factors, demonstrating the relative significance of these cognitive factors, individually and combined, for the promotion of quality of life. This study has filled two research gaps because positive cognitions had not been studied together and the association between positive illusions and the known quality of life promoting cognitive factors needed clarification.

The present study examined the relationships between anxiety, cognitive functioning, weak central coherence, and social skills in a group of 102 children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; Autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, and PDD-NOS). The results indicated that children diagnosed with Asperger's disorder had significantly higher cognitive functioning and Block Design scores (i.e., weaker central coherence) compared to those diagnosed with autism or PDD-NOS. Regression analyses results showed that anxiety and cognitive functioning moderated the association between weak central coherence and social skills. For children with low cognitive functioning and high anxiety, weak central coherence was associated with poorer social skills than those with low cognitive functioning, high anxiety, and strong central coherence. For children with high cognitive functioning and high anxiety, weak central coherence was associated with better social skills than those with high cognitive functioning and strong central coherence. Implications of these findings are discussed. / acase@tulane.edu

Strong coupling of light and matter is an essential element of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity-QED) and quantum optics, which may lead to novel mixed states of light and matter and to applications such as quantum computation. In the strong-coupling regime, where the coupling strength exceeds the dissipation, the light-matter interaction produces a characteristic vacuum Rabi splitting. Therefore, strong coupling can be utilized as an effective coherent interface between light and matter (in the form of electron charge, spin or superconducting Cooper pairs) to achieve components of quantum information technology including quantum memory, teleportation, and quantum repeaters. Semiconductor quantum dots, nuclear spins and paramagnetic spin systems are only some of the material systems under investigation for strong coupling in solid-state physics. Mixed states of light and matter coupled via electric dipole transitions often suffer from short coherence times (nanoseconds). Even though magnetic transitions appear to be intrinsically more quantum coherent than orbital transitions, their typical coupling strengths have been estimated to be much smaller. Hence, they have been neglected for the purposes of quantum information technology. However, we predict that strong coupling is feasible between photons and a ferromagnetic nanomagnet, due to exchange interactions that cause very large numbers of spins to coherently lock together with a significant increase in oscillator strength while still maintaining very long coherence times. In order to examine this new exciting possibility, the interaction of a ferromagnetic nanomagnet with a single photonic mode of a cavity is analyzed in a fully quantum-mechanical treatment. Exceptionally large quantum-coherent magnet-photon coupling with coupling terms in excess of several THz are predicted to be achievable in a spherical cavity of ∼ 1 mm radius with a nanomagnet of ∼ 100 nm radius and ferromagnet resonance frequency of ∼ 200 GHz. This should substantially exceed the coupling observed in solids between orbital transitions and light. Eigenstates of the nanomagnet-photon system correspond to entangled states of spin orientation and photon number over 105 values of each quantum number. Initial coherent state of definite spin and photon number evolve dynamically to produce large coherent oscillations in the microwave power with exceptionally long dephasing times of few seconds. In addition to dephasing, several decoherence mechanisms including elementary excitation of magnons and crystalline magnetic anisotropy are investigated and shown to not substantially affect coherence upto room temperature. For small nanomagnets the crystalline magnetic anisotropy of the magnet strongly localize the eigenstates in photon and spin number, quenching the potential for coherent states and for a sufficiently large nanomagnet the macrospin approximation breaks down and different domains of the nanomagnet may couple separately to the photonic mode. Thus the optimal nanomagnet size is predicted to be just below the threshold for failure of the macrospin approximation. Moreover, it is shown that initially unentangled coherent states of light (cavity field) and spin (nanomagnet spin orientation) can be phase-locked to evolve into a coherent entangled states of the system under the influence of strong coupling.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT), being a noninvasive imaging modality, has begun to find vast use in the diagnosis and management of retinal diseases. These high-resolution images of the retina allow structural changes to be detected and tracked. For instance, in glaucoma, the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) has been known to thin. The recent availability of the considerably larger volumetric data from the spectral-domain OCT scanners has further increased the need for new processing techniques. This body of work is centered around an automated 3-D graph-theoretic approach for the segmentation of 7 surfaces (6 layers) of the retina from 3-D spectral-domain OCT images centered on the optic nerve head (ONH). The multiple surfaces are detected through the computation of a minimum-cost closed set in a vertex-weighted graph constructed using edge/regional information, and subject to a priori determined varying surface interaction and smoothness constraints. The method also addresses the challenges posed by presence of the neural canal and the large blood vessels found at the ONH. The method was used to study RNFL thickness maps of normal and glaucomatous eyes, which showed average thicknesses of 73.72 +/- 32.72um and 60.38 +/- 25.22um (p < 0.01), respectively.

Those with chronic illnesses or disabilities face numerous obstacles and issues as they come to terms with and manage the realities of their situation. How well health care providers and funders understand this can determine the types and quality of services offered. Antonovsky (1993) has developed the Sense of Coherence (SOC) concept, which introduces a salutogenic (health promotion) model of health. This challenges the pathogenic model (origins of disease) that dominates health care. A relationship between the SOC and coping has been established in the literature. Currently, the SOC is widely viewed as a stable personality trait, but emerging evidence suggests that the SOC may be amenable to change. The purpose of the study was essentially to investigate the stability of the SOC in relation to an intervention over time. The study was conducted using a time series design (Pre-admission (T1), admission(T2), discharge (T3), 6-month follow up(T4)). A convenience sample of 120 participants (93 women, 27 men) was recruited for the study. The instruments used as dependant measures were the SOC-29, the Acceptance of Disability Scale ADM (modified) and the SF-36. Analysis of the SOC-29 revealed a significant change over time (p= .05), with the follow up analysis indicating that this change occurred following the intervention. This same finding was also true of the ADM scores (p=0.0005). This was not sustained at 6-month follow up for either the SOC or the ADM. Analyses of the SF-36 scores showed a significant improvement from admission to the 6-month follow up on all scores except general health. Only 72 participants completed at the 6-month follow up and this reduced the power of the study to yield a statistically significant result. Furthermore, a post-hoc analysis revealed that over 93% of the participants had medium to high SOC scores at the beginning of the study and this may have impacted on the outcome. There were significant correlations between the scores on the SOC-29 and the ADM and all scales of the SF-36 except physical function. As the significant change in SOC-29 scores was not sustained at the six-month follow up it could suggest that the SOC is indeed a stable trait. However, there were other factors identified, related to the characteristics of the sample and to wider factors that could have had an impact on the outcome of this study. In particular it is possible that a 3-week programme is not long enough to effect a lasting change in the SOC and this raises questions about health care delivery for those who have chronic illness or disability.

In this dissertation, we study properties of quantum interaction phenomena in two-dimensional (2D) and one-dimensional (1D) electronic systems in p-GaAs micro- and nano-scale devices. We present low-temperature magneto-transport data from three forms of low-dimensional systems 1) 2D hole systems: in order to study interaction contributions to the metallic behavior of 2D systems 2) Bilayer hole systems: in order to study the many body, bilayer quantum Hall state at nu = 1 3) 1D hole systems: for the study of the anomalous conductance plateau G = 0.7 ???? 2e2/h The work is divided into five experimental studies aimed at either directly exploring the properties of the above three interaction phenomena or the development of novel device structures that exploit the strong particle-particle interactions found in p-GaAs for the study of many body phenomena. Firstly, we demonstrate a novel semiconductor-insulator-semiconductor field effect transistor (SISFET), designed specifically to induced 2D hole systems at a ????normal???? AlGaAs-on-GaAs heterojunction. The novel SISFETs feature in our studies of the metallic behavior in 2D systems in which we examine temperature corrections to ????xx(T) and ????xy(T) in short- and long-range disorder potentials. Next, we shift focus to bilayer hole systems and the many body quantum Hall states that form a nu = 1 in the presence of strong interlayer interactions. We explore the evolution of this quantum Hall state as the relative densities in the layers is imbalanced while the total density is kept constant. Finally, we demonstrate a novel p-type quantum point contact device that produce the most stable and robust current quantization in a p-type 1D systems to date, allowing us to observed for the first time the 0.7 structure in a p-type device.

SUMMARY Introduction: There has recently been a great deal of interest in the role of synchronous high-frequency gamma oscillations in brain function. This interest has been motivated by an increasing body of evidence, that oscillations which are synchronous in phase across separated neuronal populations, may represent an important mechanism by which the brain binds or integrates spatially distributed processing activity which is related to the same object. Many models of schizophrenia suggest an impairment in the integration of brain processing, such as a loosening of associations, disconnection, defective multiple constraint organization, or cognitive dysmetria. This has led to recent speculation that abnormalities of high-frequency gamma synchronization may reflect a core dimension of the disturbance underlying this disorder. However, examination of the phase synchronization of gamma oscillations in patients with schizophrenia has never been previously undertaken. Method: In this thesis a new method of analysis of gamma synchrony was introduced, which enables the phase relationships of oscillations in a specific frequency band to be examined across multiple scalp sites as a function of time. This enabled, for the first time, the phase synchronization of gamma oscillations across widespread regions, to be studied in electrical brain activity measured at the scalp in humans. Gamma synchrony responses were studied in electroencephalographic (EEG) data acquired during a commonly employed conventional auditory oddball paradigm. The research consisted of two sets of experiments. In the first set of experiments, data from 100 normal subjects, consisting of 10 males and 10 females in each age decade from 20 to 70, was examined. These experiments were designed to characterize the gamma synchonizations that occurred in response to target and background stimuli and their functional significance in normal brain activity, and to exclude the possibility of these findings being due to electromyogram (EMG) or volume conduction artifact. The examination of functional significance involved the development of an additional new analysis technique. In the second set of experiments, data acquired from 35 patients with schizophrenia and 35 matched normal controls was analyzed. The purpose of these experiments was to determine whether patients showed disturbances of gamma synchrony compared to controls, and to establish the relationship of any such disturbances to medication levels, symptom profiles, duration of illness, and a range of psychophysiological variables. Results: In the 100 normals, responses to target stimuli were characterized by two bursts of synchronous gamma oscillations, an early (evoked) and a late (induced) synchronization, with different topographic distributions. Only the early gamma synchronization was seen in response to background stimuli. The main variable modulating the magnitude of these gamma synchronizations from epoch to epoch was pre-stimulus EEG theta (3-7 Hz) and delta (1-3 Hz) power. Early and late gamma synchrony were also associated with N1 and P3 ERP component amplitude across epochs. Across subjects, the early gamma synchronization was associated with shorter latency of the ERP components P2, N2 and P3, smaller amplitude of N1 and P2, and smaller pre-stimulus beta power. The control analyses showed that these gamma responses were specific to a narrow frequency range (37 to 41 Hz), and were not present in adjacent frequency bands. The responses were not generated by EMG contamination or volume conduction. In the 35 patients with schizophrenia, significant abnormalities of both the early and late synchronizations were observed compared to the 35 normal controls, with distinctive topographic characteristics. In general, early gamma synchrony was increased in patients compared to controls, and late gamma synchrony was decreased. These gamma synchrony disturbances were not related to medication level or the four summed symptom profile scores (positive, negative, general and total). They were, however, associated with duration of illness, becoming less severe the longer the patient had suffered from the disorder. The disordered gamma synchrony in patients was not secondary to abnormalities in other psychophysiological variables, but appeared to represent a primary disturbance. Discussion: The early synchronization may relate to the binding of object representations in early sensory processing, or, given that a constant inter-stimulus interval was employed, may be anticipatory and related to active memory. The late response is probably involved in binding in relation to activation of the internal contextual model involved in late expectancy/contextual processing (context updating or context closure) for target stimuli. The across epochs effects may relate to whether the focus of attention immediately prior to stimulus presentation is internal or is directed at the task. The across subjects effects suggest that a larger magnitude of the early gamma synchronization might indicate that the subject maintains a more stable and less ambiguous internal representation of the environment, that reduces the complexity of input and facilitates target/background discrimination and subsequent processing. The early gamma synchronization findings in patients with schizophrenia suggest that anticipatory processing involving active memory and forward-prediction of the environment is subject to over-binding or the formation of inappropriate associations. The late synchronization disturbances may reflect a fragmentation of contextual processing, and an inability to maintain contextual models of the environment intact over time. Conclusion: This research demonstrates the potential importance of integrative network activity as indexed by gamma phase synchrony in relation to normal cognition, and the possible broad relevance of such activity in psychiatric disorders. In particular, the application in this study to patients with schizophrenia showed that an impairment of brain integrative activity (missing links) might be a key feature of this illness.