Application of a new resampling method to SEM: a comparison of S-SMART with the bootstrap

Among the commonly used resampling methods of dealing with small-sample problems, the bootstrap enjoys the widest applications because it often outperforms its counterparts. However, the bootstrap still has limitations when its operations are contemplated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine an alternative, new resampling method (called S-SMART) and compare the statistical performance of it with that of the bootstrap through an application of them to the most advanced modelling technique, SEM, as an example. The evaluation of the statistical performances of S-SMART and the bootstrap with respect to the standard errors of the parameter estimates was conducted through a Monte Carlo simulation study. This work, while potentially benefiting educational and behavioural research, conceivably would also provide methodological support for other research areas, such as bioinformatics, biology, geosciences, astronomy, and ecology, where large samples are hard to obtain.     

Four New Corrected Statistics for SEM With Small Samples and Nonnormally Distributed Data

When the assumption of multivariate normality is violated and the sample sizes are relatively small, existing test statistics such as the likelihood ratio statistic and Satorra–Bentler’s rescaled and adjusted statistics often fail to provide reliable assessment of overall model fit. This article proposes four new corrected statistics, aiming for better model evaluation with nonnormally distributed data at small sample sizes. A Monte Carlo study is conducted to compare the performances of the four corrected statistics against those of existing statistics regarding Type I error rate. Results show that the performances of the four new statistics are relatively stable compared with those of existing statistics. In particular, Type I error rates of a new statistic are close to the nominal level across all sample sizes under a condition of asymptotic robustness. Other new statistics also exhibit improved Type I error control, especially with nonnormally distributed data at small sample sizes.     

Two-Level Dynamic Structural Equation Models with Small Samples

Advances in data collection have made intensive longitudinal data easier to collect, unlocking potential for methodological innovations to model such data. Dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) is one such methodology but recent studies have suggested that its small N performance is poor. This is problematic because small N data are omnipresent in empirical applications due to logistical and financial concerns associated with gathering many measurements on many people. In this paper, we discuss how previous studies considering small samples have focused on Bayesian methods with diffuse priors. The small sample literature has shown that diffuse priors may cause problems because they become unintentionally informative. Instead, we outline how researchers can create weakly informative admissible-range-restricted priors, even in the absence of previous studies. A simulation study shows that metrics like relative bias and non-null detection rates with these admissible-range-restricted priors improve small N properties of DSEM compared to diffuse priors.     

干燥箱溶样FAAS法测定头发中锌

由干燥箱提供低温环境 ,对头发样品进行消解处理 ,用FAAS法测定人发中锌 .实验结果表明 ,该法具有省时、节约试剂、消解完全等优点 .且本法测定人发中的锌 ,获得满意的精密度、准确度     

The impact of COVID-19 on teachers' transition practices for students with disabilities in Illinois,USA

Transition services are central in preparing youth with disabilities for opportunities in postsecondary education, employment and independent living. The life skills education acquired in school may be the only resources they receive to help them with this transition. With COVID-19, educational systems were interrupted, including the access of students with disabilities to service provision and transition services. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on teachers' transition practices for students with disabilities in the State of Illinois, United States and to identify factors associated with the differences in teachers' practices across eight domains of transition. Results indicated statistical significant differences in transition practices before and during COVID-19 in all eight domains. Gender, Race, School Closings & Type of School did not show significant associations with any of the eight domains. Emotional Disability was found to have a significant association with all eight domains, whereas Intellectual Disability did not show significant association with any of the eight domains. Grade level and teachers' educational level showed significant associations with certain domains. Future investigations into how COVID-19 changed teachers' transition practices for students with disabilities and the long-term impact that these changes will have on students' post-secondary outcomes are needed.     

Parental perspectives of home-schooling of children with special educational needs and disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic: a review

The purpose of this paper is to review recent literature on parental perspectives of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the home-schooling of children with special educational needs and disabilities, as well as to consider implications for their education and well-being. Eleven papers were reviewed, published between 2020 and 2021, selected according to a systematic protocol from three widely used online databases. Analysis of the reviewed papers found that transitioning to home-schooling during the pandemic had negative consequences for most of the children, as well as for their parents, though a small but significant number reported positive consequences. Three key areas of concern were identified in the analysis: balancing home-schooling with parent work activities; parent relationships with schools and support services and agencies and home-schooling effects on the well-being and mental health of parents and children.     

不同家庭结构下的传递不平衡检验的功效(英文)

近年来 ,连锁和关联分析最流行的方法要属传递不平衡检验 (TDT) 而评估TDT的功效和样本大小至关重要 许多文章已讨论此问题 但以前的方法既不精确也不一般化 他们都作了一个简单的假设 ,即每个家庭仅有一个受累子代或两个受累同胞对或非受累同胞对 一个例外是Chen和Deng发展的方法 但他们并没有考虑不同比例的这些家庭对TDT功效和样本大小的影响 本文应用“PC”软件 ,调查了在四个遗传模式下不同的家庭结构对TDT功效的影响 ,考虑以下三种情形 :(1)不同家庭结构的不同比例 ,(2 )标记和易感基因间的不同重组率 ,(3)父母的不同致病状态 调查具有实践意义 因为在实际中 ,更多的是征集到不同结构的家庭 如何设计不同家庭的比例相当重要     

Clinical characteristics and plasma antibody titer of patients with COVID-19 in Zhejiang,China

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which first affected humans in China on December 31, 2019 (Shi et al., 2020). Coronaviruses generally cause mild, self-limiting upper respiratory tract infections in humans, such as the common cold, pneumonia, and gastroenteritis (To et al., 2013; Berry et al., 2015; Chan et al., 2015). According to the Report of the World Health Organization (WHO)-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 (WHO, 2020), the case fatality rate of COVID-19 increases with age, while the rate among males is higher than that among females (4.7% and 2.8%, respectively). Since an effective vaccine and specific anti-viral drugs are still under development, passive immunization using the convalescent plasma (CP) of recovered COVID-19 donors may offer a suitable therapeutic strategy for severely ill patients in the meantime. So far, several studies have shown therapeutic efficacy of CP transfusion in treating COVID-19 cases. A pilot study first reported that transfusion of CP with neutralizing antibody titers above 1:640 was well tolerated and could potentially improve clinical outcomes through neutralizing viremia in severe COVID-19 cases (Chen et al., 2020). Immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM are the most abundant and important antibodies in protecting the human body from viral attack (Arabi et al., 2015; Marano et al., 2016). Our study aimed to understand the aspects of plasma antibody titer levels in convalescent patients, as well as assessing the clinical characteristics of normal, severely ill, and critically ill patients, and thus provide a basis for guiding CP therapy. We also hoped to find indicators which could serve as a reference in predicting the progression of the disease.     

大学城高校应对重大疫情的理论逻辑与实践路径

新冠肺炎疫情在全国蔓延,威胁人民群众生命安全和身体健康。高校是国家实现创新驱动发展战略的重要阵地,也是人群密集的场所,存在交叉感染的风险隐患,大学城模式更是给高校疫情有效管控提出了新挑战。因此有必要充分掌握大学城高校在应对疫情时面临的特殊境遇,沿着政策协同、组织协同、人员协同的理论逻辑,在融合思想政治教育基础上,构建新形势下大学城高校重大疫情应急管控机制,并充分利用大学城的集聚优势持续改进,以获取抗击疫情的最终胜利,全面提升高校应对疫情的现代化治理能力。     

Coping with distance learning during COVID-19 and its impact on students' emotional experiences: Differences between students with and without special education needs

Given the almost 2-year COVID-19 school-related closure in Mexico, children and adolescents have experienced a negative impact not only on their learning, but as well as on their mental health and well-being. Although international research has shown that distant learning as a response to the COVID-19 school-related closures has severely affected students with special education needs, there is still a lack of studies conducted in Mexico. Thus, this study attempts to tackle this gap by exploring how Mexican students with and without special education needs coped with distance learning as well as its impact on their emotional experiences. A total of 293 Mexican lower secondary students participated in the study. Independent sample t-tests indicated that, in comparison with students without special needs, students with special needs coped significantly worse during distance learning as well as had higher levels of negative activation. Additionally, multiple linear regression analyses revealed that students' self-efficacy functioned as an important coping mechanism. Implications of the results, as well as further lines of research are discussed.     

Investigating the impact of at-home learning on secondary school-aged children with ADHD: a qualitative study

Students with ADHD can benefit from at-home learning in terms of managing their symptoms; however, lockdown restrictions due to the pandemic are having negative impacts on the student population. This study was designed to ascertain how students with ADHD have been impacted by at-home learning under lockdown restrictions. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted using semi-structured interviews from students, parents and teaching staff. These interviews were used to identify three main themes (anxiety caused by at-home learning, change in social interaction and academic impact of at-home learning) that best identified the participants' experiences. The results suggested that whilst supportive home environments helped students with ADHD to better manage their symptoms, social anxiety was a significant problem, and not all schools allowed students with ADHD to take full advantage of at-home learning for their students with ADHD.     

Weathering the storm: COVID-19 infection in patients with hematological malignancies

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Within a matter of months, this highly contagious novel virus has led to a global outbreak and is still spreading rapidly across continents. In patients with COVID-19, underlying chronic diseases and comorbidities are associated with dismal treatment outcomes. Owing to their immunosuppressive status, patients with hematological malignancies (HMs) are at an increased risk of infection and have a worse prognosis than patients without HMs. Accordingly, intensive attention should be paid to this cohort. In this review, we summarize and analyze specific clinical manifestations for patients with coexisting COVID-19 and HMs. Furthermore, we briefly describe customized management strategies and interventions for this susceptible cohort. This review is intended to guide clinical practice.     

The development of statistical literacy among students: Analyzing messages in media articles with Gal's worry questions

Real-world data are fundamental to modern teaching methodologies that aim to improve statistical knowledge and reasoning in students. Statistical information is encountered in everyday life, such as media articles and involves real-world contexts. However, information could be biased or (mis)represented and students should be concerned about the validity of such articles, as well as the nature and trustworthiness of the evidence presented, while considering alternative interpretations of the findings conveyed to them. Statistics educators could make use of media articles to create opportunities for students to reflect on such (mis)representations and build statistical literacy. The purpose of this article is to show how information and data on the Omicron COVID-19 variant have been (mis)represented in the media and by government entities. I also demonstrate how these examples may be utilized in the statistics classroom as they relate to concepts covered in most basic statistics courses.     

Working in Creative Partnership with Students to Co-Produce Neuroanatomy e-Learning Resources in a New Era of Blended Learning

Anatomists are well placed to tackle the transition from face-to-face to blended learning approaches as a result of the rapidly forced changes brought about by Covid-19. The subject is extremely visual and has, therefore, previously been a target for the development of technology-enhanced learning initiatives over the last ten years. Today's students have come to expect the integration of technology in the classroom and remotely. They adjust quickly to the innovative use of new applications and software and have begun to integrate it within their own workflow for note taking and study aids. Given the intense drive toward blended deliveries of anatomy as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is easy to picture how the benefits of working in partnership with students (in order to achieve many of these aims) would be possible, particularly in difficult subjects like neuroanatomy. In doing so, it provides anatomists with new opportunities to engage students in a way that aligns well with best practice frameworks for engaging students through partnership. The current United Kingdom guidelines set out by Advance HE (a professional membership organization for promoting excellence in higher education) strongly encourages the higher education community to seek out appropriate academic contexts where a balance of power can be struck between staff and student to create a community of practice. If such an approach can be fully embraced by anatomists, a strong argument can be made for seizing the opportunity to optimize the benefits of student partnership work in this discipline.     

Development and validation of an individualized nomogram for early prediction of the duration of SARS-CoV-2 shedding in COVID-19 patients with non-severe disease

With the number of cases of coronavirus disease-2019(COVID-19) increasing rapidly, the World Health Organization(WHO) has recommended that patients with mild or moderate symptoms could be released from quarantine without nucleic acid retesting, and self-isolate in the community. This may pose a potential virus transmission risk. We aimed to develop a nomogram to predict the duration of viral shedding for individual COVID-19 patients. This retrospective multicentric study enrolled 135 patients as a training cohort and 102 patients as a validation cohort. Significant factors associated with the duration of viral shedding were identified by multivariate Cox modeling in the training cohort and combined to develop a nomogram to predict the probability of viral shedding at 9, 13, 17, and 21 d after admission. The nomogram was validated in the validation cohort and evaluated by concordance index(C-index), area under the curve(AUC), and calibration curve. A higher absolute lymphocyte count(P=0.001) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio(P=0.013) were correlated with a shorter duration of viral shedding, while a longer activated partial thromboplastin time(P=0.007) prolonged the viral shedding duration. The C-indices of the nomogram were 0.732(95% confidence interval(CI): 0.685-0.777) in the training cohort and 0.703(95% CI: 0.642-0.764) in the validation cohort. The AUC showed a good discriminative ability(training cohort: 0.879, 0.762, 0.738, and 0.715 for 9, 13, 17, and 21 d; validation cohort: 0.855, 0.758, 0.728, and 0.706 for 9, 13, 17, and 21 d), and calibration curves were consistent between outcomes and predictions in both cohorts. A predictive nomogram for viral shedding duration based on three easily accessible factors was developed to help estimate appropriate self-isolation time for patients with mild or moderate symptoms, and to control virus transmission.     

A novel face recognition method with feature combination

INTRODUCTION Automatic face recognition has become a very active research area in the last decade due to the new interest in, and need for, surveillance and security, telecommunication and digital libraries, hu-man-computer intelligent interaction, and smart en-vironments. The small sample size (SSS) problem is often encountered because the number of the samples is much smaller than the dimension of the sample space in face recognition. It results in the singularity of the within-class …     

Supporting emotion regulation in individuals with ASD,ADHD and bipolar disorder through trauma-informed instruction and self-regulation strategies

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, students have endured drastic changes in educational routines. Such disruptions can be especially challenging for students who struggle with executive functioning, self-regulation and emotion regulation, such as students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder. Using a framework of trauma-informed instruction, the authors supported classroom teachers in implementing sensory spaces for students with ASD, ADHD and bipolar disorder. The project included professional development and funding for teachers to develop, procure and offer sensory tools and strategies to assist students in recognising and managing emotions. The authors collected data on the effectiveness of the sensory supports, combining teacher surveys and student behaviour data. Results indicated increased teacher knowledge on trauma-informed instruction and use of sensory supports to promote executive functioning and self-regulation and decreased target behaviours in students based on structured observation and anecdotal teacher feedback.     

Teaching NHCE with Cross-Cultural Simulations

Cross-cultural communication competence is very important for the students who study English as a second language. In order to teach effectively.the teachers may try to teach with cross-cultural simulations.The au- thor Of the article uses 5 simulations in the course of New Horizon College English.Although the sample size in this research is small,the author shows the ideas that cross-cultural awareness is related to communication competence and teaching with cross-cultural simulations helps understanding.