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The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate the effects of the Math to Mastery intervention package versus the effects of immediate corrective feedback with elementary school students who were performing at least one year below grade level in mathematics. Students were participants in a one-month summer academic clinic for remediation of reading, writing, and mathematics deficits held at a university in the southeastern United States. A combined-series multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of both interventions for gains in fluency as measured by digits correct per minute on one minute curriculum-based measurement probes. Implications for implementation in applied settings and future research are provided.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with a variety of physical, mental, and behavioral healthcare needs. However, parents of autistic children consistently report difficulty accessing necessary services, and no instrument has been validated to assess and quantify these barriers for autistic children. The current study aims to adapt and validate the Barriers to Care Questionnaire (BCQ), a pre-existing measure of barriers to healthcare for children with specific healthcare needs, for families of autistic children. The BCQ and theoretically related measures were collected from 242 parents (117 parents of autistic children, 125 parents of non-autistic children). Cronbach’s alpha statistics (ranging from 0.87 to 0.96 for BCQ subscales) provide evidence of reliability for the BCQ. The BCQ subscales were correlated with unmet treatment need, treatment experiences, and theoretically related variables at the child, parent, and family level, providing evidence of convergent validity. Correlations were of low magnitude with theoretically unrelated variables (parent personality and socially desirable responding), suggesting preliminary evidence of discriminant validity. Additionally, the BCQ subscales predicted a significant amount of variance in unmet need and treatment experiences over and above other predictors for autistic youth, indicating incremental validity. Parents of autistic children reported significantly more barriers to care across all subscales of the BCQ than parents of non-autistic children, and the highest average item score was on the “skills” subscale, which measures difficulties with navigating the healthcare system. Results support that the BCQ can be used among autistic youth, and suggest the critical need for family-centered supports and provider education in order to ameliorate barriers to healthcare for autistic children. / M.S. / Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is related to many physical, mental, and behavioral healthcare needs. However, parents of autistic children state that it is often hard to receive healthcare when their child needs it. No questionnaire exists to measure barriers that make getting healthcare harder for autistic children. Our study adapted the Barriers to Care Questionnaire (BCQ) for families of autistic children. The BCQ and related questionnaires were filled out by 242 parents (117 parents of autistic children, 125 parents of non-autistic children). The BCQ reliably and consistently measured barriers to care in these groups. The BCQ subscales were associated with unmet treatment need, treatment experiences, and other related variables at the child, parent, and family level. The questionnaire was less strongly related to variables that we would not expect to be associated with barriers to care, like personality and social desirability. Also, the BCQ subscales predicted healthcare experiences even when accounting for other factors that might impact access to care. Parents of autistic children reported more barriers to care on all subscales of the BCQ than parents of non-autistic children, and the highest average item score was on the “skills” subscale, which measures difficulties with navigating the healthcare system. Results show that the BCQ can be used among autistic youth, and suggest the need for family-centered supports and provider education in order to improve barriers to healthcare for autistic children.

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This paper deals with the relatively new business model for digital games called Free toPlay and how aspects of that business model can affect the players gaming experience. Thestudy is done through user studies with the use of interviews, observations and diaries. Forour analysis of the data we’ve looked for themes and then categorized the data intoelements from the CEGE Model by E.H Cavillo-Gámez et al. that we use to measure howFree to Play affects the Core Elements of the Gaming Experience. The paper concludes thatwhen measuring gaming experience and business model together one might have to add asub-element that represents the business model, which can affect the elements all togetheror one by one.

Today the telecommunication market is faced with the situation that customers are requesting for new telecommunication services, especially value added services. The concept of Next Generation Networks (NGN) seems to be a solution for this, so this concept finds its way into the telecommunication area. These customer expectations have emerged in the context of NGN and the associated migration of the telecommunication networks from traditional circuit-switched towards packet-switched networks. One fundamental aspect of the NGN concept is to outsource the intelligence of services from the switching plane onto separated Service Delivery Platforms using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) to provide the required signalling functionality. Caused by this migration process towards NGN SIP has appeared as the major signalling protocol for IP (Internet Protocol) based NGN. This will lead in contrast to ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and IN (Intelligent Network) to significantly lower dependences among the network and services and enables to implement new services much easier and faster. In addition, further concepts from the IT (Information Technology) namely SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) have largely influenced the telecommunication sector forced by amalgamation of IT and telecommunications. The benefit of applying SOA in telecommunication services is the acceleration of service creation and delivery. Main features of the SOA are that services are reusable, discoverable combinable and independently accessible from any location. Integration of those features offers a broader flexibility and efficiency for varying demands on services. This thesis proposes a novel framework for service provisioning and composition in SIP-based peer-to-peer networks applying the principles of SOA. One key contribution of the framework is the approach to enable the provisioning and composition of services which is performed by applying SIP. Based on this, the framework provides a flexible and fast way to request the creation for composite services. Furthermore the framework enables to request and combine multimodal value-added services, which means that they are no longer limited regarding media types such as audio, video and text. The proposed framework has been validated by a prototype implementation.

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No description available.

Psychological investigation of occupational choice has traditionally followed one of two dominant approaches. The structural (or 'personality-matching') approach (e.g., Holland, 1985) has used pysychometric testing to predict occupational choice on the basis of personality assessments whilst the process (or 'developmental') approach (e.g., Ginzberg et al., 1951) has mainly used interview responses to identify stages in the maturation of vocational thinking culminating 'realistic' decision-~aking. The aim of this study was to test the utility of these approaches in undertaking a detailed analysis of interview data. Garfinkel's (1967) proposal that decisions can be viewed as the retrospective construction of 'sense-able' accounts provided a useful perspective on collected interview responses. A discourse analysis approach was adopted in which the functional nature of language, as achieving interactive purposes, was stressed (Potter and Wetherell, 1987). Finally, use was made of the conversation analytic focus on turn-taking in order to examine the interdependent nature of the question-and-answer turns of the interviews (e.g., Sacks, 1972). Forty undergraduate students following the BSc courses in mechanical engineering and nursing at Dundee Institute of Technology were interviewed. The sample consisted of twenty students from each course, ten from the first year and ten from the final year. Comparisons were made between the two vocational groups and between first and final year students. A preliminary examination of course selection interviews was also undertaken. The data could not be categorized in accordance with Holland's 'personality patterns' for mechanical engineering and nursing, nor in terms of Ginzberg's 'realistic stage' of vocational thinking, due to categorization conflicts and within-interview response variability. The apparent contradictions and complexities generated by categorizing responses in these terms were clarified when accounts were analyzed as ongoing constructions of 'sense-able' choices within which 'personality-expressive' and 'developmental-stage' talk served specific conversational functions. The findings call into question methods of careers guidance based on these theories and it is argued that attention should be directed at career-selection preparation. However, it should be noted that a focus on the conversational skills required to succeed in selection interviews could challenge faith in a meritocratic selection system.

The movement of labour from the less developed countries of southern Europe and North Africa to the industrial economiesof northern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, has led to a migrant populationof some 15 million in these countries. Poduguese labour migration to France has been part of this wider movement, and the Portuguese are one of the largest migrant groups, representing over one fifth of the estimated four millionmigrants in France. Ambivalenceas to the migrants' status and future is considerable on the level of policy, in the literature concerning these labour migrations, and among the migrants themselves: the uncertainty is whether the phenomenonis one of settlement and permanent immigration or of temporary migration and ultimately the return of migrants to their countries of origin. Takingthe case of Portuguese migrants in Grenoble, this thesis explores the intentions of Portuguese migrant workers in France to return to Portugal. In part this may be seen as a prior intention, consistent with the migrants' initial plans to benefit from the employment opportunities and better pay abroad, and to earn as much money as possible in a short time, in order to be able to return to Portugal. I describe precedents for this kindof a return migration in Portugal's extensive emigration history. However, this return orientation in migration cannot be seen only as the continuity of a cultural form, or as occurring in France in an ideological vacuum. The intention to return to Portugal, which implies a limited commitment to France, and a reference to Portuguese conditions and values, is fundamental in the migrants' tolerance of generally disadvantageous conditions, particularly of employment, in France, and thereby an aspect of the migrants' continuing usefulness there. The migrants' differentiation from the French workforce is in some respects beneficial to French society, and the migrants' economic, political and social marginality is reinforced and perpetuated on an ideologicallevel, by ltgislation, and in a variety of ways in evtryday pratice. Cultural differences may be cultivated, and there is an involuntary aspect to the migrants' marginality and the return orientation. For these reasons I have stressed tht broader political and economic forces in labour migration as the context which acts on the migrants and within which they must act. Yet for many migrants, the intention to return to Portugal is more than a passive response to their vulnerable postition in French society or a product of the ideology of the dominant society. While we are dealing with a subjective intention to return rather than actual returns, this is a dynamic element of migrant identity and culture in France, full of tensions but with great symbolic importance as well as far-reaching practical implications for their lives and the nature of their participation in French life. This is particularly the case for many of the older generation of migrants aged between 30-50. Their return orientation is often accompaniedby an adherence to what they see as 'Portuguese' values and culture, the forms and expressions of which I consider; it is also associated with the maintenance of social and economio links with Portugal, distinctive savings and consumption patterns, a steady flow of remittances, and by a perception of migration as temporary even after 20 or more years' residence in France. The return orientation is central among many Portuguese migrants in France, not just as a latent desire, but as a system of meaning and a structuring principle in every day life; plans to return not only justify migration in tht long term, but are a priority which is used to organise and give coherence to the migrants' daily strategies and choices. TM maintenance of an alternative value system, an identity, and options aside from those that conditions in France impose on them, gives the migrants a certain autonomy despite the constraints of their situation