Comprehensive school-linked services: Implications for school psychologists

This article reviews the primary concepts underlying the current movement toward the provision of comprehensive school-linked services for children and families in low-income communities and the implications of this movement for school psychologists. The development of collaborative partnerships involving schools, public, and community-based agencies is an attempt to increase the availability and accessibility of needed services to children and families. The adoption of collaborative governance and a case management system is intended to offer an alternative to the proliferation of separate categorical programs and the associated lack of coordination among programs. The hope is to emphasize prevention and efficient early intervention. Collaborative efforts can provide an opportunity for role expansion among school psychologists. This possibility is discussed within a consultation model of service delivery that is consistent with the collaborative nature of school-linked services and with the preventive stance that orginated them. School psychologists are in a position to contribute to team consultation, case management, and needs assessment. Implications for training are drawn.     

Color characterization of roofing slates from the Iberian Peninsula for restoration purposes

Substitution of slate roofing tiles is a conventional operation during building restoration, since tiles are very difficult to restore or clean because of the high degree of alteration they suffer. Criteria for replacement of historical building stones must be based on geological, geotechnical and esthetic parameters, among which color is of great importance. In this sense, this paper constitutes a comprehensive and useful colorimetric study of roofing slates from the Iberian Peninsula, for the purposes of restoration. The color of 50 commercial varieties of roofing slate mined in quarries from the 12 mining districts in the Iberian Peninsula was analyzed with a spectrophotometer device, by considering the CIELAB color space. The results of the study were used to develop a protocol for characterizing the color of roofing slate and to define the color range of roofing slate from the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, the similarities and differences in the color and microstructure of the different commercial varieties of Iberian roofing slate were established and the limit of acceptability of replacement of one type of slate by another was determined. Parameter h_ab was found to be the most important CIELAB color coordinate as regards the formation of homogeneous color groups, and the specular component excluded (SCE) mode was most sensitive as regards detecting color differences between two samples.     

Relationships between age and raw score increases on the Kaufman-assessment battery for children

Raw scores on the 16 K-ABC subtests and the total raw scores on the sequential and simultaneous processing scales and the achievement scale were correlated with age in months for two separate samples, each subdivided by race and sex: the K-ABC standardization sample (N = 2000) and an additional group of blacks and whites tested during the development of the K-ABC sociocultural norms (N = 615). Within each sample, the highest and lowest correlations from all race/sex groups were contrasted across all K-ABC subtests and scales. All correlations between age and raw scores were statistically significant (p ⩽ .05). No significant differences occurred in the magnitude of these relationships as a function of race/sex grouping, supporting the construct validity of the K-ABC as a developmental measure of children's aptitude and achievement for blacks, whites, Hispanics, males, and females.     

Accountability and the Framing Power of Visual Technologies: How Do Visualized Reconstructions of Incidents Influence Public and Political Accountability Discussions?

In this article visual technologies and their use in three reconstructions after an incident are linked with accountability issues. Conclusions are drawn on the relation between administration, the choice of technology to create and distribute visual occurrences, and society and how visualizations are used to frame accountability issues.     

How do your rivals’ releasing dates affect your box office?

In this paper, we study to what extent a movie’s box-office receipts are affected by the temporal distribution of rival films. We propose a reduced-form empirical model to measure and test competition effects among films released close to each other in a standard regression framework. Such an analysis is appealing in terms of its policy implication and may provide guidance to distributors to decide on their releasing dates of their firms. We estimate this model using information on the films released in five countries: the USA, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. The geographical dimension of our data set permits us to control for unobserved heterogeneity among films released using panel data techniques, which allows us to evaluate the individual and specific effects of each film. Thus we deal with one of the most relevant features of the movie market, namely the presence of highly differentiated products.     

Mathematics achievement and mathematics learning strategies: Cognitive competencies and construct differentiation

Responding to a survey requires cognitive abilities similar to those for any other linguistic task. We argue that, when faced with a cognitively challenging task, individuals respond by simplifying the task, declining it, or performing it poorly. Using the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA 2003) data sets, we document that the extent of construct differentiation in students’ mathematics learning strategies is strongly associated with their level of mathematics achievement. Likewise, the higher the level of mathematics achievement, the lower is the probability of a non-response to the mathematics learning strategy questions. Finally, the higher the students’ level of mathematics achievement, the more varied were their responses to the learning strategies items. These associations were examined across 40 participating countries.     

The timekeeping of Egyptian outflow clocks

Simple as the outflow clock principle may seem for the measurement of time, its translation into an accurate clock raises formidable technical and conceptual problems. An attempt is made here to reconstruct the Egyptians' consciousness of these problems, and the success of their solutions.