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The use of brief dyslexia rating scales is increasing given current dyslexia legislation efforts across the United States. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the historical context of the use of brief dyslexia rating scales, strengths, and limitations of using these measures, criteria for selecting these measures, and a review of three commonly used brief dyslexia rating scales in the United States. A discussion of how brief dyslexia rating scales can be used in conjunction with other forms of assessment is also provided. Implications for practice on using brief dyslexia rating scales are addressed in the context of both assessment and intervention. Practitioner points: Dyslexia screeners are intended to identify students who are at risk of not meeting reading performance standards and consist of both performance‐based measures and brief dyslexia rating scales.Caution should be taken when using brief dyslexia rating scale screeners due to low sample sizes for certain populations, limited numbers of students with dyslexia in the standardization sample of some measures, and variable specificity and sensitivity levels.Practitioners are encouraged to utilize performance‐based screeners if scores on a brief dyslexia rating scale screener fall below a cut score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quality Rating and Improvement Systems use indicators to define early care and education quality. • Indicators often offer evidence-informed guidance to support and monitor development and foster mental health. • Development and mental health promotion often applies to center-based and family child care. • Opportunities exist to offer more specific guidance in quality indicators. • Future research can assess equity of child development and mental health promotion indicators. In the United States (U.S.), quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) are used by many states to incentivize quality in ECE and may be a viable lever for promoting early childhood development and mental health on a population level. We conducted a qualitative review of publicly available data on state QRIS indicators to better understand how states incorporate evidence-informed early childhood development and mental health promotion standards in QRIS. We systematically compared QRIS indicators for 41 U.S. states with child development and mental health promotion quality standards from Caring for Our Children National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 3rd Edition , as of March/April 2020. Of those, 39 states included at least one indicator consistent with child development or mental health promotion standards, including practices that can lead to early detection of developmental delays such as developmental monitoring, activities or curriculum addressing developmental domains, and regular communication and resource-sharing with parents/guardians. Opportunities exist within states for incorporating more specific guidance within indicators, such as use of childcare health consultants and advocates, validated screening tools, parent/guardian participation or input in developmental monitoring and screening, and staff training on family engagement. We found that in most states QRIS indicators offer guidance for ECE systems to support and monitor early development and foster mental health, with opportunities to enhance guidance. Findings point to QRIS as a viable opportunity for promotion of early childhood development and mental health standards in ECE systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Validity of performance standards is a key element for the defensibility of standard setting results, and validating performance standards requires collecting multiple pieces of evidence at every step during the standard setting process. This study employs a statistical procedure, latent class analysis, to set performance standards and compares latent class analysis results with previously established performance standards via the modified‐Angoff method for cross‐validation. The context of the study is an operational large‐scale science assessment administered in one of the southern states in the United States. Results show that the number of classes that emerged in the latent class analysis concurs with the number of existing performance levels. In addition, there is a substantial level of agreement between latent class analysis results and modified‐Angoff method in terms of classifying students into the same performance levels. Overall, the findings establish evidence for the validity of the performance standards identified via the modified‐Angoff method. Practical implications of the study findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Chronic pain patients frequently report cognitive problems including learning and memory. However, recent research involving induced pain has demonstrated an absence of reliably detectable decrements on several standard cognitive measures, suggesting that factors other than pain likely explain perceived cognitive deficits in chronic pain patients. This study examined potential effects of induced pain on verbal learning and memory as measured by the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-2). Potential effects of self-reported pain intensity were also evaluated. Method: Participants (111 non-clinical undergraduate students in the Southwestern United States) completed one version (Standard or Alternate) of the CVLT-2 under normal conditions, and then were administered the other version (Alternate or Standard) either while experiencing cold pressor-induced pain (Pain condition) or non-painful warm water immersion (Control condition). Results: For the Pain condition decrements in performance across most CVLT-2 variables were observed, including a mean T-score decrease of 10.98 (SD = 10.99) for Trials 1-5, whereas the comparable decrease in the Control condition was an average of 1.5 words (SD = 8.27). Self-reported pain intensity was significantly correlated with the degree of Time 1 to Time 2 performance decrement for Short-Delay Free Recall (r = −.51, p <.050), but not for Trials 1-5 (r = −.37, p =.160). Conclusion: Induced pain produces detectable decrements in performance on a standard clinical measure of verbal learning and memory performance, suggesting that pain in clinical populations may contribute to learning and memory deficits apart from potential neurological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a novel methodology, referenced as ORFEO (Ordinal classifier and Regressor Fusion for Estimating an Ordinal categorical target), to enhance the performance in ordinal classification problems for which the latent variable is observable. ORFEO is an artificial neural network model incorporating two outputs, one for ordinal classification, using the cumulative link model, and one for regression, using a linear model. Both outputs are simultaneously optimised considering a loss function that linearly combines both classification and regression losses. The main motivation behind developing the proposed approach is to enhance the performance of a standard ordinal classifier. This improvement is facilitated by considering the regression output, which allows the model to differentiate between patterns within the same category. The ORFEO model is applied to two problems in the field of marine and ocean engineering: short-term prediction of both significant wave height and flux of energy. Both problems are addressed considering four different coastal zones of the United States of America, using 13 datasets formed by buoys measurements and reanalysis data. A comprehensive comparison against 20 methodologies, including regression and nominal/ordinal classification approaches is performed, by using diverse nominal and ordinal performance metrics. Ranks achieved indicate that ORFEO outperforms all the compared methodologies in terms of all the performance measures, demonstrating the efficacy and robustness of the proposal. Finally, a statistical analysis is conducted, concluding that there are statistically significant differences across ordinal and nominal performance metrics in favour of the proposed ORFEO model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children -- Fifth Edition is the most recent update to this scale, launched originally in 2014 in the United Stated. WISC-V includes several improvements from previous versions, such as an updated factorial structure that includes more indexes, new process scores and new procedures for norming. These improvements are particularly relevant in the Chilean context, since the previous version available in the country was the WISC-IIIv.ch, whose factorial structure dates from 1991, although it was standardized for Chilean population in 2007. This article presents the standardization process for the WISC-V, which includes the translation, adaptation and norming procedures for the Chilean population. It includes evidence for reliability and validity, and also results for various special groups samples, such as intellectual disability (24), attentional deficit disorder with hyperactivity (27), autism spectrum disorder (26), specific language disorder (56) and rural population (47). The Chilean data shows excellent reliability results and an excellent adjustment to the factorial model used in the North American version. This research provides evidence for convergent validity between WISC-V and other versions of these scales, such as the WAIS-IV and the WISC-IIIv.ch. Finally, we perform a comparison between private, voucher and public schools using this scale and a comparison between male and female performance in this scale. The main finding of this research is that the Chilean standardization of the WISC-V has excellent psychometric properties that allow recommending the use of this instrument in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytic objectivity as a standard for the US Intelligence Community appears to have been drawn from idealized conceptualizations of the scientific method as a kind of value-neutral epistemological framework used to develop knowledge "objectively." But this embrace of objectivity provides a poor foundation for contemporary conceptualizations of the applied epistemology of intelligence analysis, as well as performance standards. Instead, intelligence analysts should embrace a more realistic goal of aspiring to but never actually achieving analytic objectivity through the reduction of subjectivity while embracing the values of honesty, neutrality, and integrity encapsulated in the phrase "calling it as you see it". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current solar forecast verification processes place much attention on performance comparison of a group of competing methods. However, forecast verification ought to further answer how the best method within the group performs relative to the best-possible performance which one can attain under that forecasting situation, which makes the quantification of predictability and forecast skill immediately relevant. Unfortunately, the literature on the quantification of relative performance of solar irradiance has hitherto been lacking, and very few studies have focused on the spatial distributions of predictability and forecast skill of solar irradiance. The predictability and forecast skill of an atmospheric process depend on two concepts: (1) the growth of initial error in unresolved scale of motion, and (2) the forecast performance of the standard of reference. Based upon this formalism, predictability and forecast skill of solar irradiance in the United States are quantified and mapped. Through this study, a couple of common misconceptions in regard to irradiance predictability are refuted, and the original formulation of skill score revived. • A formal discussion on predictability of solar irradiance is presented. • A rigorous way of computing the forecast skill score is emphasized. • Predictability of solar irradiance in the United States is estimated. • Bounds of mean square error of ECMWF irradiance forecasts in the United States are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature suggests that post-secondary students experience food insecurity (FI) at greater rates than the general population. However, these rates vary dramatically across institutions and studies. FI assessment methods commonly used in studies with college students have not been scrutinized for psychometric properties, and varying protocols may influence resulting FI prevalence estimates. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of standard food security assessment protocols and to evaluate their agreement as well as the relative accuracy of these protocols in identifying student FI. A randomized sample of 4,000 undergraduate students were invited to participate in an online survey (Qualtrics, LLC, Provo, Utah, USA) that evaluated sociodemographic characteristics and FI with the 2-item food sufficiency screener and the 10-item USDA Adult Food Security Survey Module (FSSM; containing the abbreviated 6-item module). Four hundred sixty-two eligible responses were included in the final sample. The psychometric analysis revealed inconsistencies in college student response patterns on the FSSM when compared to national evaluations. Agreement between FI protocols was generally high (>90%) but was lessened when compared with a protocol that incorporated the 2-item screener. The 10-item FSSM with the 2-item screener had the best model fit (McFadden's R2 = 0.15 and Bayesian Information Criterion = -2049.72) and emerged as the tool providing the greatest relative accuracy for identifying students with FI. Though the 10-item FSSM and 2-item screener yields the most accuracy in this sample, it is unknown why students respond to FSSM items differently than the general population. Further qualitative and quantitative evaluations are needed to determine which assessment protocol is the most valid and reliable for use in accurately identifying FI in post-secondary students across the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White workers in the United States earn almost 30 percent more per hour on average than Black workers, and this wage gap is associated with large racial differences in occupational assignments. In this article, we theoretically and empirically examine the Black-White disparity in occupations. First, we present a model based on Antonovics and Golan (2012) that relates occupational assignments to the incentives workers face while learning about their own unknown ability. Second, we document differences between Black and White workers in both the complexity of skills required in their initial occupations and the growth rates of this complexity over time. To do this, we match panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 with the Dictionary of Occupational Titles measures of occupational characteristics and find that, compared with White workers, Black workers start in occupations requiring less-complex skills, see slower growth in job complexity over time, and are relatively more likely to transition to jobs with lower complexity. Finally, we consider the relationship between our model and our empirical findings; for example, discrimination in hiring early in the career can have long-term consequences on the ability of Black workers to learn their best occupational match and explains part of their lower wage growth. We conclude with suggestions for policy and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the opinions of the U.S. public on the 2015 Education Next poll for determining the existing stand of the children and the schools. It sates that the supporters of the Common Core State Standards are against the the new method practiced by the U.S. Congress. The government's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was rewritten for students testing in order to collect the performance data of the teachers and the school including a change in the tenure, merit pays and tax credits.

Performance standards have played an important part in the regulation of technology for many years, yet they have received little attention from historians. This article presents a three-part framework of analysis for examining the role of regulatory performance standards in technological change. Parts one and two of the framework focus on how regulatory agencies construct and enforce standards for technological risks, or "negative externalities." The final part addresses the important question of whether and how firms choose to internalize these standards in their design procedures and other organizational routines. The article provides examples from the history of automotive regulation in the United States to illustrate each part of the framework, and it gives some thoughts on how regulatory performance standards fit within the voluminous literature on standardization, including other work on de facto and voluntary consensus standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present results of an empirical study of the relationship between research productivity and research-related merit ratings over a 10-year period for tenured and tenure-track faculty in a school of education. The purpose of the study was to assess change in faculty productivity as a result of the institution's change in the Carnegie classification system. Results show that higher research expectations affected the productivity level of faculty in regard to increasing international conference presentations, national conference presentations, state conference presentations, and large unfunded grants. Furthermore, over time the variables that were important for merit scores changed and decreased in number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of run-of-river hydropower is to produce cost-competitive renewable electricity with minimal disruption of the natural riverine ecosystem. Modeling and feasibility analysis of alternative design options are crucial for developing new run-of-river hydropower projects. Our review shows that existing run-of-river hydropower design models focus on maximizing economic potential at high-head diversion schemes with limited consideration of environmental outcomes. Since nearly three-quarters of new hydropower potential in the United States is found at low-head sites and environmental performance standards are imperative to project success, new models are needed to address the multi-dimensional design challenges at these sites. To aid in formulating holistic models, we synthesize the performance objectives and design variables related to early-stage run-of-river facility design. The objectives span six potential impact areas, including hydrologic alteration, sediment continuity, water quality, aquatic species passage, social, and economic. Based on these reviews, we identify three key areas to enhance the capabilities of run-of-river hydropower design models. These are 1) expanded model formulations, 2) assessment of barrier effects, and 3) explicit environmental objectives. The resulting modeling improvements would accelerate the identification of run-of-river hydropower designs that minimize environmental impacts, promote economic competitiveness, and incorporate the value of non-power benefits. • Current hydropower design models focus on economic potential of high-head projects. • New hydropower plants in the US will likely be low-head, instream, and run-of-river. • Flow allocation, technology selection, and headpond design are critical decisions. • Barrier effects on fish, sediment, and recreation should be modeled. • Win-win designs are possible when non-power benefits are explicitly optimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency regulation (FR) is the electric grid service responsible for maintaining the system frequency at its nominal value of 60 Hz in the United States — an indicator of energy balance on the grid. In cases of mismatch between power supply and demand, FR resources either on the generation or the demand side, responding rapidly to restore system frequency to its nominal value. Due to the limited responsiveness of generators, fast and accurate demand side resources (DSR) have recently been encouraged to participate in FR. However, the tested DSRs typically require high initial equipment investment (e.g., flywheels and batteries). Large commercial buildings can provide effective load shaping with little impact to occupants’ comfort and have significant amount of available capacity for FR participation. In addition, commercial buildings are characterized by numerous interdependent HVAC subsystems and control systems. Therefore, a high-level supervisory control strategy is needed that directs the interdependent HVAC systems for FR with strengthened interactions and depressed counteractions. Simulation results suggest that large commercial buildings can provide significant FR capacity and high performance scores. Dynamic building-to-grid integration automatically and continuously provides solutions maintaining energy balance on the gird. The benefit to the power system reliability would be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of alternate fuels and raw materials in the cement manufacturing process has evolved substantially over the last two to three decades, along with approaches to acquire regulatory approval. Most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published new regulations as an overlay to what has been in place, having the potential to significantly impact this practice. Instead of dealing with the state agencies that usually have permitting authority, the new rules add another layer of regulatory hurdles by EPA. The new regulations also force a more significant overlap of the air permitting and solid waste rules. As a result, implementing an alternate material program and seeking approval has the potential to be considerably more challenging for the regulated community, in addition to adding complexity for the state agency permitting staff. This paper provides an update on the latest solid waste and air regulations applicable to alternative material use in cement plants, and potential implications for the U.S. industry. Early experiences will be explored, in addition to contemplating potential permitting and/or approval pathways expected to be encountered with the newest regulations in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Termites are structurally destructive pests that can infest a consumer's most important investment, their home. The evolution of termite control is complex, involving people's understanding of termite biology and behavior, building construction, the use of soil termiticides, baits, wood treatments, and physical barriers, as well as regulations from different industries (pest control and building construction). Soil termiticides have been the standard method of treatment for decades, but the concern for human and environmental health has driven the development of alternatives. This article discusses the evolution of termite control methods that were alternatives to the standard of the time and the regulatory structure that provides a level of consumer protection for some products. The global economic impact of termites is estimated to be approximately USD 40 billion annually, and subterranean termites are responsible for about 80% of the total impact. Twenty-eight species of termites have been described as invasive, and these termites are spreading, partially due to global trade, making effective control methods essential. Termite control is complex, as is the biology and behavior of this social insect group. In the U.S., termite prevention and control (with claims of structural protection) is regulated by more than one industry (pest control and building construction), and at the federal and state levels. Termite prevention has historically relied on building construction practices that do not create conducive conditions for termite infestations, but as soil termiticides developed, heavy reliance on pesticides became the standard for termite control. The concern for human and environmental health has driven the development of termite control alternatives and regulation for products claiming structural protection. Product development has also provided unprecedented opportunities to study the biology and behavior of cryptobiotic termites. Technological advances have allowed for the re-examination of questions about termite behavior. Advances in communications via social media provide unrestricted access to information, creating a conundrum for consumers and science educators alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When interpreting the status of poultry processing establishments subject to performance standards testing, USDA-FSIS employs a round-up rule when fewer than the standard 52 samples per establishment per year are collected. This rule is to ensure that an establishment with fewer than 52 samples is held to a performance standard with a threshold that is not less than that based on the full 52 samples. By estimating population-based sensitivities and specificities for six pathogen reduction performance standards implemented in 2016 (i.e., comminuted chicken, comminuted turkey, and chicken parts standards for both Salmonella and Campylobacter), this study assesses the effect of the round-up rule on correctly classifying commercial poultry establishments as not meeting or meeting the performance standards. Population specificity is greater than 80% for all the performance standards and only modestly affected by reduced sample sizes. Therefore, the round-up rule mitigates against increased misclassification of establishments with low prevalence when sample size is reduced. Population sensitivity is greater than 80% for four of the performance standards but is lower for both comminuted poultry- Campylobacter standards. This sensitivity decreases with reduced sample size and changes sharply as the round up rule is applied. These sensitivity and specificity estimates can serve as benchmarks for future pathogen reduction performance standards, as well as explaining differences with past performance standards. • Attributes sampling plans set a number of positive tests, s , in n samples. • Resource limitations can reduce n, so s should be reduced accordingly. • The effects of a rule for reducing s for corresponding reductions in n is given. • Veterinary epidemiology results assess surveillance sensitivity and specificity. • Specificity is affected less than sensitivity, so the rule is lenient to producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers tips for the proper delivery of an effective safety job briefing in the U.S. Organizations. Topics discussed include getting the attention of the crew, providing the crew with the daily scope of work, considering the demonstration of a new technique or tool, and having the veteran crew members help new employees in refining their skills.

The article explores on the concept of fan-out wafer level packaging (FOWLP) and embedded packaging of the semiconductor industry in the U.S. It highlights the benefits of FOWLP and embedded packaging wherein it improve electrical and thermal performance of the mobile market. It examines the impact of technical challenges to the packaging systems including die shift, topography, warpage and chip-to- mold non planarity.