The current study examined the extent to which associations between participation in a targeted state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-k) program and children’s literacy, numeracy, executive function (EF), and social-emotional skills were moderated by the quality of teacher-child interactions. Data came from an evaluation of a state-funded pre-k program including children enrolled in pre-k and those in a matched comparison group. The sample consisted of 558 children (Mage = 57.74 months) from two cohorts (48.9% female; 43.7% African American; 0.8% Asian; 32.3% European American; 12.4% Hispanic; 10.4% Multiracial). Children’s school readiness assessments and teacher surveys were collected during fall and spring of the preschool year. Research assistants assessed teacher-child interactions using the Pre-K Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, Hamre, 2008) once in the winter of the preschool year. Two-level multilevel linear models were conducted for each school readiness domain and included a variety of control variables. Results suggested that emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support did not significantly moderate the relation between pre-k participation and literacy, numeracy, EF, and social-emotional skills.

<div>A number of studies provide evidence that the home numeracy environment (HNE) is important for the development of early numeracy skills. There is also evidence that preschoolers understanding of math language is a strong predictor of numeracy skills. However, there is limited research on the role of math language knowledge in the relation between the HNE and early numeracy skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between different aspects of the HNE (direct vs. indirect numeracy activities) and numeracy skills while considering math language as a moderator. Participants included 125 children between 3.01 to 5.17 years (M = 4.09) and their parents. Parents reported on the frequency of engaging children in home numeracy activities. Children were assessed in the fall and spring of their preschool year on their numeracy skills and math language knowledge. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to test if prior math language knowledge would moderate the relation between each component of the HNE (indirect and direct numeracy activities) and later numeracy skills. Results indicate that math language was not a moderator of these relations. However, supplemental analyses suggest that math language mediates the relation between direct HNE and numeracy skills. These findings provide evidence that the relation between the direct HNE and early numeracy may be explained by preschooler’s math language knowledge.</div><div><br></div>

<p>Two studies explored the connections between physical activity, participation in structured open-skilled sports (e.g., soccer and basketball) and closed-skilled sports (e.g. running and swimming), and executive function (EF) among preschool-aged children. Study 1 included 197 preschool-aged children (mean age = 4.34 years, female = 48%, white = 83.5%). Study 2 included 1012 preschool-aged children (mean age = 51.59 months, white = 60.5%). Results from regression models indicated that parent-reported physical activity was not associated with direct assessments or parent reports of child EF (Studies 1 and 2). General sport participation was associated with one direct assessment (DCCS; Study 1), but was not associated with parent reports of child EF when controlling for physical activity (Studies 1 and 2); however, depending on the conceptualization of sport, some associations were significant. Future research is necessary to determine whether these associations exist when the constructs are conceptualized differently and when using different assessments. </p>

<div>Fluid power is widely used in a variety of applications such as construction machines, aerospace, automotive, agricultural machinery, manufacturing, etc. Although this technology has many obvious advantages such as compactness, robustness, high power density, and so forth, there is much room for improvement, of which one of the most important and challenging problems is the noise.</div><div><br></div><div>Different institutes have been researching fluid power noise for decades. However, much of the experimental investigation was based on simple measurement and analysis techniques, which left the designers/researchers no method of understanding the complicated phenomena. A microphone array is a powerful tool that unfortunately has not been introduced to the fluid power noise research. By capturing the magnitude and phase information in space, a microphone array enables the noise source identification, separation, localization and so forth.</div><div><br></div><div>This thesis focuses on implementing the microphone array processing techniques on a synthetic microphone array for fluid power noise diagnostics. Differing from traditional scan-based approaches, the synthetic array is created by synchronizing the non-synchronous measurements to achieve the equivalent effect of a multi-microphone snapshot. The final results will show the power of microphone arrays and provide an economical solution to achieve approximate results when a real microphone array is not available.</div>

<div> Large thermal gradients can cause very nonintuitive effects in the flowfield, as flow motion and even a force (often referred to as a Knudsen thermal force) can be induced even with a freestream velocity of zero. These flows can be exploited on the microscale, where temperature gradients of 10E6K/m are achievable. These flows have been studied experimentally many times, and it has been shown that Knudsen forces have a bimodal relationship with pressure, where the peak is in the transitional flow regime. It has also been shown that these thermal gradients cause thermal diffusion, or species separation in a mixture.</div><div> </div><div> A MEMS based device called the Microscale In-Plane Knudsen Radiometric Actuator (MIKRA) was developed to use Knudsen forces to calculate pressure and gas composition. The direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method was used to analyze the device to calculate the device forces and calculate the flowfield. DSMC proved to be a reliable method of simulating these types of flows, as the force results agreed well with experiments, and the DSMC results matched the results of other numerical methods.</div><div> </div><div> N2 and H2O mixtures were also simulated, and it was shown that the force is sensitive to the composition. At the same pressure, the force is larger for mixtures dominated by N2. Heat flux is also larger for N2 dominated flows.</div>

Early numeracy skills are related to children’s later mathematics and reading skills. Early interventions that target parent-child numeracy practices may be an effective way to promote these skills in young children. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a home numeracy environment (HNE) intervention in increasing preschool children’s early numeracy skills through a randomized controlled trial. The intervention was designed to incorporate practices that have been shown to improve children’s numeracy development, in addition to a number of practices that have been shown to lead to effective outcomes for parenting interventions more broadly. Parents were randomly assigned to participate in either the HNE intervention or an active comparison condition. Both groups of parents attended a brief informational meeting and received daily text messages for four weeks; parents in the intervention group received information about the importance of early mathematics development and strategies for incorporating numeracy into their children’s daily routines and parents in the active comparison condition received information on general development in preschool. Before and after the intervention, parents completed a questionnaire on their numeracy beliefs and practices, and children were assessed on their early numeracy skills. Findings indicate that, compared to parents in the comparison condition, parents who participated in the intervention reported more frequent direct HNE activities and their children showed greater improvement on numeracy skills. There were no group differences on beliefs of importance of math, self-efficacy for teaching math, or engagement in indirect HNE practices. The study provides initial evidence that a brief HNE intervention is feasible for parents to implement and is effective in improving preschool children’s numeracy skills.

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