Search results for "background"
showing 10 items of 556 documents
Chronic Background Radiation Correlates With Sperm Swimming Endurance in Bank Voles From Chernobyl
2022
Sperm quantity and quality are key features explaining intra- and interspecific variation in male reproductive success. Spermatogenesis is sensitive to ionizing radiation and laboratory studies investigating acute effects of ionizing radiation have indeed found negative effects of radiation on sperm quantity and quality. In nature, levels of natural background radiation vary dramatically, and chronic effects of low-level background radiation exposure on spermatogenesis are poorly understood. The Chernobyl region offers a unique research opportunity for investigating effects of chronic low-level ionizing radiation on reproductive properties of wild organisms. We captured male bank voles (Myo…
Pathways to higher education in France and Switzerland: Do vocational tracks facilitate access to higher education for immigrant students?
2014
In this chapter we wish to clarify through which institutional pathways higher education is accessed by immigrant group students in Switzerland and France. We have chosen these two countries because they differ from each other both in their educational systems and in the ways new routes to higher education have been set up through vocationally orientated programmes. The educational landscape in France is characterised by a more school-based system and has a greater tradition of prestigious tertiary education institutions (Duru-Bellat et al., 2008). Moreover, traditional vocational education and training (VET) does not have very high status and therefore fails to attract a large proportion o…
Effet de l'origine sociale des élèves sur les résultats en lecture d'après PISA
2003
International audience
Maternal teaching of reading and children's reading skills in Grade 1: Patterns and predictors of positive and negative associations
2013
Abstract The main aim of the study was to identify subgroups of children based on the associations between the reported frequency of maternal teaching of reading and children's reading skills, and whether these subgroups differ with respect to mother-related (i.e., education, controlling behavior, and emotions in homework situations) and child-related (i.e., reading habits and gender) background factors. Data were gathered from 1460 mother–child dyads. The reading skills of 6- to 7-year-old Finnish-speaking children were measured at the beginning and at the end of Grade 1. Information from mothers was gathered by questionnaires. Regression Mixture Modeling identified four latent subgroups o…
Low-Cost Alternatives for Urban Noise Nuisance Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Networks
2015
Noise pollution caused by vehicular traffic is a common problem in urban environments that has been shown to affect people's health and children's cognition. In the last decade, several studies have been conducted to assess this noise, by measuring the equivalent noise pressure level (called L eq ) to acquire an accurate sound map using wireless networks with acoustic sensors. However, even with similar values of L eq , people can feel the noise differently according to its frequency characteristics. Thus, indexes, which can express people's feelings by subjective measures, are required. In this paper, we analyze the suitability of using the psychoacoustic metrics given by the Zwicker's mod…
The dark side of curvature
2009
Geometrical tests such as the combination of the Hubble parameter H(z) and the angular diameter distance d(A)(z) can, in principle, break the degeneracy between the dark energy equation of state parameter w(z), and the spatial curvature Omega(k) in a direct, model-independent way. In practice, constraints on these quantities achievable from realistic experiments, such as those to be provided by Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) galaxy surveys in combination with CMB data, can resolve the cosmic confusion between the dark energy equation of state parameter and curvature only statistically and within a parameterized model for w(z). Combining measurements of both H(z) and d(A)(z) up to suffici…
Search for ultrarelativistic magnetic monopoles with the Pierre Auger Observatory
2016
We present a search for ultra-relativistic magnetic monopoles with the Pierre Auger Observatory. Such particles, possibly a relic of phase transitions in the early universe, would deposit a large amount of energy along their path through the atmosphere, comparable to that of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The air shower profile of a magnetic monopole can be effectively distinguished by the fluorescence detector from that of standard UHECRs. No candidate was found in the data collected between 2004 and 2012, with an expected background of less than 0.1 event from UHECRs. The corresponding 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper limits on the flux of ultra-relativistic magnetic monopoles ra…
Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
2015
A diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos above $100\,\mathrm{TeV}$ has been observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Here we extend this analysis to probe the astrophysical flux down to $35\,\mathrm{TeV}$ and analyze its flavor composition by classifying events as showers or tracks. Taking advantage of lower atmospheric backgrounds for shower-like events, we obtain a shower-biased sample containing 129 showers and 8 tracks collected in three years from 2010 to 2013. We demonstrate consistency with the $(f_e:f_{\mu}:f_\tau)_\oplus\approx(1:1:1)_\oplus$ flavor ratio at Earth commonly expected from the averaged oscillations of neutrinos produced by pion decay in distant astrophysical sou…
Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with the ANTARES neutrino telescope
2012
Magnetic monopoles are predicted in various unified gauge models and could be produced at intermediate mass scales. Their detection in a neutrino telescope is facilitated by the large amount of light emitted compared to that from muons. This paper reports on a search for upgoing relativistic magnetic monopoles with the ANTARES neutrino telescope using a data set of 116 days of live time taken from December 2007 to December 2008. The one observed event is consistent with the expected atmospheric neutrino and muon background, leading to a 90% C.L. upper limit on the monopole flux between 1.3 ¿ 10¿17 and 8.9 ¿ 10¿17 cm¿2 s¿1 sr¿1 for monopoles with velocity ß ¿ 0.625.
Why Does Cultural Diversity Foster Technology-enabled Intergenerational Collaboration?
2019
Globalization and information technology enable people to join the movement of global citizenship and work without borders. However, different type of barriers existed that could affect collaboration in todays work environment, in which different generations are involved. Although researchers have identified several technical barriers to intergenerational collaboration (iGOAL), the influence of cultural diversity on iGOAL has rarely been studied. Therefore, using a quantitative study approach, this paper investigates the impact of differences in cultural background on perceived technical and operational barriers to iGOAL. Our study reveals six barriers to IGC that are perceived differently …