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No abstract

Date Presented 03/28/20 When children receive OT, they are expected to willingly engage in tasks that are difficult. This is often not the case. This research surveyed OTs nationwide to examine the impact of challenging behaviors on a child’s therapy participation. Results indicated that children primarily exhibit behaviors to escape the demands of therapy, with therapists expressing safety concerns, lost time, and frustration. Knowledge and feasibility of an evidence-based behavioral intervention were also explored. Primary Author and Speaker: Sandra Brown Additional Authors and Speakers: Claire Cote, Ashley Mills, Brooke Page, Sheila Norris, Brooke Whitley

We investigate possibilities of inducing temporal structures without fading memory in recurrent networks of spiking neurons strictly operating in the pulse-coding regime. We extend the existing gradientbased algorithm for training feed-forward spiking neuron networks (Spike-Prop [1]) to recurrent network topologies, so that temporal dependencies in the input stream are taken into account. It is shown that temporal structures with unbounded input memory specified by simple Moore machines (MM) can be induced by recurrent spiking neuron networks (RSNN). The networks are able to discover pulse-coded representations of abstract information processing states coding potentially unbounded histories of processed inputs.

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

A large-scale field experiment tested psychological interventions to reduce engine idling at long-wait stops. Messages based on theories of normative influence, outcome efficacy, and self-regulation were displayed approaching railway crossing on street poles. Observers coded whether drivers (N = 6,049) turned off their engine while waiting at the railway crossings (only 27.2% did so at baseline). Automatic air quality monitors recorded levels of pollutants during barrier down times. To different degrees, the social norm and outcome efficacy messages successfully increased the proportion of drivers who turned off their engines (by 42% and 25%, respectively) and significantly reduced concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter (PM2.5) two meters above ground level. Thus, the environment was improved through behavior change. Moreover, of both theoretical and practical significance there was an 'accelerator effect', in line with theories of normative influence whereby the social norm message was increasingly effective as the volume of traffic increased.

Leaded fuel emissions exposed a global population of children to lead and its profound health consequences. Recognition of its harms precipitated a global phase out and replacement with unleaded substitutes for road vehicles. Despite this widespread recognition and action, aviation fuel for piston engine aircraft still contains lead. Leaded aviation fuel (AVGAS100LL) contains 0.56g of tetraethyl lead per litre and this lead must be jettisoned from the engine during operation to prevent fouling. This action distributes lead and lead compounds into the air and soil around general aviation airports. This has been shown to increase the blood lead levels of children living nearby to clinically significant levels. Whilst this problem is recognised by the EPA in the U.S, it has received little attention in the UK. We provide a review of the situation in the UK with regard to the current policy and regulation framework. We analysed the UK's general aviation airport fleet, general avation airport data, and GB residential address data. We estimate the unleaded-readiness of the UK aviation fleet and the current usage of fuels at UK general aviation airports. We provide a first order estimate of the number of residential addresses exposed to lead near general aviation airports. We find that the majority of aviation fuel sold in the UK is leaded and that there are 370721 residences within 4km of a general aviation airport at risk from exposure to lead emissions. Finally we present a path forward for regulation change and public health monitoring.

Background: In the UK an hourly objective exists for NO2 concentrations and assessment against this objective is required for various administrative purposes. The vast majority of NO2 measurement in the UK is non-hourly however. Thus, Defra guidance provides a heuristic to estimate hourly objective exceedance likelihood from an annual average. Methods: We examine the performance of this heuristic using a Europe wide dataset containing over 20,000 site-years of data, and perform a sensitivity test to account for data uncertainty. Results: The heuristic misses 64% of sites that break the hourly objective. The heuristic is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for predicting hourly objective breaches. The sensitivity test reveals that the heuristic is input-fragile. Conclusions: The heuristic performs poorly, is weakly coupled to medical evidence, and work is needed to develop new short term exposure limits for NO2.