Mental health disorders are a leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Mental health services do not meet demand due to accessibility issues, financial burden, and increasing needs. Technology can provide affordable, accessible mental health care and some research suggests internet-delivered Cognitive Behavior Therapy (iCBT) may be an effective treatment. In iCBTs, participants typically complete Cognitive Behavior Therapy modules and videos and are supported by a therapist. Advantages of iCBT over face-to-face therapy include lower cost, no travel time, easy access, no waitlists, and trackable progress. To our knowledge there have been no naturalistic studies of iCBT programs. Therefore, this study will evaluate the usage and effectiveness of one iCBT program, SilverCloud, in a university counseling center. Participants (N=5568) were students at a large, private western university. Participants were either self-referred to the program, chose to enroll at intake as a standalone intervention, or were referred by their treating clinician as an adjunct to regular treatment. We compared the outcomes and usage of participants using SilverCloud concurrently with psychotherapy to participants using SilverCloud alone, and participants in psychotherapy alone.

Elektrofahrräder, sogenannte Pedelecs, erfreuen sich seit einigen Jahren zunehmender Beliebtheit. Ihre Zahl wird in Deutschland auch in den nächsten Jahren kontinuierlich steigen. Mit wachsender Verbreitung dieser neuen Form von Mobilität ergeben sich eine Reihe neuer Herausforderungen für den Straßenverkehr. So stellt sich die Frage, wie sich potentiell höhere Geschwindigkeiten, die mit Pedelecs erreicht werden können, auf die Verkehrssicherheit auswirken. Weiterhin ist offen, ob ältere Personen als aktuelle Hauptnutzergruppe des Verkehrsmittels einem gesteigerten Sicherheitsrisiko bei der Pedelec-Nutzung unterliegen. Auch mögliche Veränderungen des Mobilitätsverhaltens sind nicht auszuschließen. Im Rahmen dieses Projektes wurden Aspekte des Mobilitäts- und Sicherheitsverhaltens von Zweiradfahrern in einer sogenannten „Naturalistic Cycling Study“ untersucht. Bei diesem methodischen Ansatz werden die Zweiräder von Versuchsteilnehmern mit Kameras und zusätzlicher Sensorik ausgestattet, um das „normale“ Fahr- und Nutzungsverhalten der jeweiligen Fahrer über einen längeren Zeitraum hinweg dokumentieren zu können. Insgesamt wurden 90 Teilnehmer akquiriert. Neunundvierzig davon waren Nutzer eines sogenannten Pedelec25. Derartige Elektrofahrräder unterstützen beim Treten bis 25 km/h und sind klassischen Fahrrädern rechtlich gleichgestellt. Weitere 10 Teilnehmer nutzten ein sogenanntes Pedelec45, welches entsprechend bis 45 km/h unterstützt, und unter anderem mit Helm- und Kennzeichenpflicht verbunden ist. Als Kontrollgruppe nahmen zudem 31 Radfahrer an der Untersuchung teil. Um der aktuellen Nutzerstruktur Rechnung zu tragen, wurden die Teilnehmer zusätzlich auch nach Alter ausgewählt. Jeweils etwa ein Drittel der Teilnehmer waren 40 Jahre alt oder jünger, zwischen 40 und 65 Jahre alt, oder 65 Jahre und älter. Jeder der 90 Teilnehmer wurde mit Hilfe der Instrumentierung über einen Zeitraum von insgesamt 4 Wochen auf seinen Wegen mit seinem Zweirad beobachtet. Zudem führten Teilnehmer für eine dieser Wochen ein sogenanntes Aktivitätentagebuch, das dazu diente, jegliche Wege und deren Zwecke zu erfassen. Zusätzlich füllten sie vor Beginn und nach Ablauf der Datenerhebung eine Reihe von Fragebögen aus, die sich mit dem Nutzungsverhalten, der Unfallhistorie und weiteren Fragestellungen befassten. Insgesamt wurden mehr als 4.000 Fahrten mit einer Gesamtlänge von knapp 17.000 km aufgezeichnet. Um mögliche sicherheitsrelevante Verkehrssituationen aufzufinden erfolgte eine umfangreiche Videokodierung. Zu diesem Zweck wurde jede einzelne Fahrt vollständig gesichtet, und potentiell gefährliche Verkehrssituationen nach einem zuvor definierten Schema identifiziert und kodiert. Zusätzlich wurden mit Hilfe von Radsensordaten Weglängen, Wegdauern und vor allem Geschwindigkeiten analysiert. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass die Nutzung von Elektrofahrrädern nicht mit einer erhöhten Auftretenswahrscheinlichkeit von kritischen Situationen einhergeht. Auch mit Blick auf das Alter der Teilnehmer zeigen sich diesbezüglich keine Unterschiede. Generell interessant ist eine differenzierte Betrachtung der Situation mit Blick auf die jeweiligen Konfliktpartner. So kam es gehäuft zu Konfliktsituationen mit (hoch)motorisierten Fahrzeugen (Pkw, Lkw). Allerdings war auch eine substantielle Zahl an problematischen Interaktionen mit Fußgängern zu beobachten. Bei der Auswertung der Fahrdaten ergaben sich die zu erwartenden Unterschiede in den Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeiten der jeweiligen Zweiräder. So fuhren Pedelec25-Nutzer im Schnitt geringfügig (ca. 2 km/h), Pedelec45-Nutzer jedoch deutlich (ca. 8 km/h) schneller als Radfahrer. Auch ergaben sich im Hinblick auf die Geschwindigkeit deutliche Altersunterschiede, unabhängig vom Zweiradtyp. Im Mobilitätsverhalten hingegen ließen sich keine auffälligen Effekte durch die Nutzung von Elektrofahrrädern feststellen.

The Zimbabwean refugees sheltered at Holy Cross Church* in central Johannesburg have taken the initiative to develop their own curriculum. There have been many orientations to curriculum development with current reconceptualisations emphasising practical and descriptive curriculum development approaches. This research is framed specifically by Walker’s naturalistic curriculum development model, the community-based approach to education development, literature on refugee education and generally by broader theories of curriculum. The study employed the ethnographic research method and gathered data through non-participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Taking a wider approach to curriculum development and in the context of displaced people, the research redefined the term curriculum developer to mean ordinary people and refugees in their communal social setting. This study provides an analysis and description of how the refugees successfully initiated and developed effective learning and training programmes which resulted in the establishment of a school, early childhood, adult-education and vocational training centres. The refugee meetings and school council deliberation forums guided by common values and political, social and economic factors made practically defensible, education and training resolutions on language, school policies, curriculum options, pedagogy, knowledge and certification issues. On the forms of refugee-emergency education, the refugee school curriculum followed that of the country of origin, with some minor modifications thereby preparing learners for return to their country. The training programmes utilised a slightly adjusted curriculum of the host country in synergies with local private colleges and prepared the refugees to integrate into the host country’s economic communities. To improve the quality of education and training at Holy Cross there is need for intervention from government and international humanitarian organisations. In addition to the academic curriculum, subjects with a social reconstructionist ideology, double-shift schooling and democratic teaching and learning approaches must be introduced as well as awarding refugees with regionally recognised training certificates.

A distinct lack of data related to the impact of natural environments on children birth to age 3 was identified by a thematic review of the existing literature. With this in mind, the researcher designed a limited scope quantitative study to explore the potential for extending the existing body of research to include this younger age. The study used a time sampling method to code behaviors that occurred in videos collected of children from 12 to 35 month who were playing on the playground at their childcare facility. The playscapes were classified as naturalistic or manufactured. The data was then analyzed using independent t-tests to look for statistically significant variations to the frequent that children engaged in various social and play based behaviors. The results of the study were minimal but were significant enough to support the value of further research involving children birth to three.

No description available.

Drivers overtaking cyclists on rural roads create a hazardous scenario due to the potentially high impact speeds and, therefore, severe consequences in case of a crash [1]. Díaz Fernández et al. analyzed crashes between cyclists and motorized vehicles from various data sources, including insurance reports and crash databases, and concluded that this scenario is particularly dangerous and new safety countermeasures are needed [2]. Other studies have shown that particularly the side-swipe risk through. aerodynamic forces due to low lateral clearance and high overtaking speed affects both the objective and subjective safety of the cyclist [3], [4]. Furthermore, recent work by Gildea et al. showed through a self-reported survey among cyclists that a significant amount of side-swipe crashes and near-crashes with lower severity of injuries remains unreported [ 5]. This underlines the importance of investigating further in what situations the side-swipe risk for cyclists increases and how it can be decreased effectively. Previous research investigated how driver behavior in overtaking is influenced by infrastructural elements such as lane widths [6], road markings [6], [7], parked cars [7], and the presence of road crossings. However, the effect of sight distance on driver behavior has not gained much attention yet. Therefore, this work analyzed the influence of sight distance on driver behavior and the resulting safety implications for the overtaken cyclist.

Aim: Research on close relationships demonstrates that dyadic convergence, or two people becoming more concordant in their experiences and/or beliefs over time, is commonplace and adaptive. As psychotherapy involves a close relationship, patient–therapist convergence processes may influence treatment-specific outcomes. Although prior research supports that patients and therapists tend to converge on their alliance perspectives over time, which associates with subsequent patient improvement, no research has similarly examined belief convergence during therapy. Accordingly, this study focused on patient–therapist convergence in their outcome expectation (OE), a belief variable associated with patient improvement when measured from individual participant perspectives. I predicted both that significant OE convergence would occur and relate to better posttreatment outcome. Method: Data derived from a trial of naturalistic psychotherapy. Patients and therapists repeatedly rated their respective OE through treatment, and patients rated their symptom/functional outcomes at posttreatment. For dyads (N = 154) with the requisite OE data, I tested my questions using multilevel structural equation modeling. Results: There was no discernable OE convergence pattern over treatment (g100 = 0.02, SE = 0.04, p = .275) and OE convergence was unrelated to outcome at the between-dyad (b02k = 1.86, SD = 10.08, p = .406) and between-therapist (g002 = -0.06, SD = 3.54, p = .473) levels. However, higher early patient OE was significantly associated with better outcome at the between-dyad level (b05k = -0.04, SD = 0.01, p < .001). Discussion: Results suggest that OE may be more of a facilitative patient versus relational process factor.

This thesis describes a research study relating naturalistic Global Positioning System (GPS) driving data with long-term traffic safety performance for two classes of roadways. These two classes are multilane arterial streets and limited access highways. GPS driving data used for this study was collected from 33 volunteer drivers from July 2012 to March 2013. The GPS devices used were custom GPS data loggers capable of recording speed, position, and other attributes at an average rate of 2.5 hertz. Linear Referencing in ESRI ArcMAP was performed to assign spatial and other roadway attributes to each GPS data point collected. GPS data was filtered to exclude data with high horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP), incorrect heading attributes or other GPS communication errors. For analysis of arterial roadways, the Two-Fluid model parameters were chosen as the measure for long-term traffic safety analysis. The Two-Fluid model was selected based on previous research which showed correlation between the Two-Fluid model parameters n and Tm and total crash rate along arterial roadways. Linearly referenced GPS data was utilized to obtain the total travel time and stop time for several half-mile long trips along two arterial roadways, Grand Avenue and California Boulevard, in San Luis Obispo. Regression between log transformed values of these variables (total travel time and stop time) were used to derive the parameters n and Tm. To estimate stop time for each trip, a vehicle “stop” was defined when the device was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour. Results showed that Grand Avenue had a higher value for n and a lower value for Tm, which suggests that Grand Avenue may have worse long-term safety performance as characterized by long-term crash rates. However, this was not verified with crash data due to incomplete crash data in the TIMS database. Analysis of arterial roadways concluded by verifying GPS data collected in the California Boulevard study with sample data collected utilizing a traditional “car chase” methodology, which showed that no significant difference in the two data sources existed when trips included noticeable stop times. For analysis of highways the derived measurement of vehicle jerk, or rate of change of acceleration, was calculated to explore its relationship with long-term traffic safety performance of highway segments. The decision to use jerk comes from previous research which utilized high magnitude jerk events as crash surrogate, or near-crash events. Instead of using jerk for near-crash analysis, the measurement of jerk was utilized to determine the percentage of GPS data observed below a certain negative jerk threshold for several highway segments. These segments were ¼-mile and ½-mile long. The preliminary exploration was conducted with 39 ¼-mile long segments of US Highway 101 within the city limits of San Luis Obispo. First, Pearson’s correlation coefficients were estimated for rate of ‘high’ jerk occurrences on these highway segments (with definitions of ‘high’ depending on varying jerk thresholds) and an estimate of crash rates based on long-term historical crash data. The trends in the correlation coefficients as the thresholds were varied led to conducting further analysis based on a jerk threshold of -2 ft./sec3 for the ¼-mile segment analysis and -1 ft./sec3 for the ¼-mile segment analysis. Through a negative binomial regression model, it was shown that utilizing the derived jerk percentage measure showed a significant correlation with the total number of historical crashes observed along US Highway 101. Analysis also showed that other characteristics of the roadway, including presences of a curve, presence of weaving (indicated by the presence of auxiliary lanes), and average daily traffic (ADT) did not have a significant correlation with observed crashes. Similar analysis was repeated for 19 ½-mile long segments in the same study area, and it was found the percentage of high negative jerk metric was again significant with historical crashes. The ½-mile negative binomial regression for the presence of curve was also a significant variable; however the standard error for this determination was very high due to a low sample size of analysis segments that did not contain curves. Results of this research show the potential benefit that naturalistic GPS driving data can provide for long-term traffic safety analysis, even if data is unaccompanied with any additional data (such as live video feed) collected with expensive vehicle instrumentation. The methodologies of this study are repeatable with many GPS devices found in certain consumer electronics, including many newer smartphones.

No description available.

No description available.