Learning to read is one of the most important academic accomplishments in the early grades of elementary school. Knowing what factors contribute to reading ability would improve instructional practices. The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of semantic fluency, phonological fluency, rapid naming, inhibitory control, selective attention, and visual motor integration on reading fluency in 140 second and third grade students. The results of this study indicated that significant predictors of reading fluency were: selective attention, semantic fluency, inhibitory control, and rapid naming. However, the association between predictor variables and reading fluency was moderated by the students’ grade. The article concludes with some suggestions on how to improve reading fluency in elementary school children, given that all predictors are susceptible to instruction.

The paper presents a model for numerical simulation of interaction between the fluid and the reinforced-concrete structure under seismic load for spatial 3D problems, with an emphasis of concrete dams. The model is based on the so called partition scheme for coupled (multi-field) problems. The model especially focuses on the concrete ageing effects, which has proven to be highly significant in the analysis of older structures. The paper starts with a brief description of the numerical model, which is followed by a more detailed description of the concrete ageing model, and by analysis of Jablanica hydropower plant (HPP) on which the validity of the model and related software was checked.

In this work, various combinations of the NO emission influencing factors and their x combined effects in air staging combustion on level of furnace, using over fire air, were investigated in an experimental lab-scale furnace. At this, process temperature were varied in the range from 950?C to 1450?C, excess air ratio in primary zone in the range ? = 0.9 - 1.2, while distance of over fire air nozzles from the burner outlet varied until a 1 given distance of 2/5 of total length of furnace. Basic fuel is brown coal from Middle Bosnia coal basin, mixed in two coal blends and one coal-woody biomass blend, to combine an effect of fuel characteristics variation on NO emission. Results shows that x an average reduction of NO emission over tested temperature range, when using over x fire air against conventional air supply with over fire air switched off, is 26.5%. At this, much more NO emission reduction for two coal blends were occurred at higher x temperatures ? at 1350?C and above, where an average NO emission reduction is x 32.5%. Furthermore, it was found that the NO emission decreased with an increase in x distance of over fire air nozzles from the outlet level of burner until a distance of 1/3 of total furnace length; with further increase of the distance, NOx emission is stabilised and no further effect to NOx emission reduction was observed, while CO emission and unburnt increased.

In this paper, we propose an enhanced selected mapping (e-SLM) technique to improve the performance of OFDM-PLC systems under impulsive noise. At the transmitter, the best transmit sequence is selected from among possible candidates so as to minimize the weighted sum of transmit signal peak power and the estimated receive one, where the received signal peak power is estimated at the transmitter using channel state information (CSI). At the receiver, a nonlinear blanking is applied to hold the impulsive noise under a given threshold, where impulsive noise detection accuracy is improved by the proposed e-SLM. We evaluate the probability of false alarms raised by impulsive noise detection and bit error rate (BER) of OFDM-PLC system using the proposed e-SLM. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed method in OFDM-PLC system compared with the conventional blanking technique. key words: power-line communications (PLC), OFDM, impulsive noise blanking, peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), selected mapping (SLM)

In this paper, a novel interference management technique based on compressive sensing (CS) theory is investigated for downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) heterogeneous networks (HetNets). We mathematically formulate the interference management problem in terms of power and resource blocks (RBs) allocation to maximize the overall sum rate while considering both co-tier and cross-tier interferences and then explain its non-convexity. In this paper, we exploit the sparsity of the allocated RBs to relax the non-convexity of the formulated problem by transforming it into a sparse <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$l_{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm problem for a near-optimum solution. Then, based on the CS theory, an interference management technique with a restricted weighted fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding (R-WFISTA) algorithm is proposed to solve the equivalent sparse <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$l_{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm problem. The simulation results verify that compared with the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) HetNets and conventional NOMA HetNets, the proposed technique improves the system performance in terms of overall sum rate and the outage probability.

Tomaž Ambrožič, Admir Mulahusić, Nedim Tuno, Jusuf Topoljak, Amir Hajdar, Dušan Kogoj | DEFORMACIJSKA ANALIZA V GEODETSKIH MREŽAH Z ROBUSTNIMI METODAMI | DEFORMATION ANALYSIS WITH ROBUST METHODS IN GEODETIC NETS | 163-178 | deformation analysis, robust methods, numerical example This article describes the deformation analysis approach with robust methods in geodetic networks. The characteristic of this approach is the iterative weighted similarity transformation in which the displacement vector d is transformed into a datum determined by points with a smaller coordinate difference between two epochs. The article first gives a theoretical background of the approach, and then the approach is applied to the case of simulated measurements in two epochs. The calculated results of the deformation analysis approach with the robust methods in the present case do not differ significantly from the results obtained by conventional deformation analysis approaches.

The ubiquity of wireless technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT) concept enforces utilization of power-optimized wireless techniques. Furthermore, a specially tailored mesh-routing algorithm is required in order to achieve battery longevity and node accessibility. In the paper, we propose an improved BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) mesh-routing algorithm for an IoT Smart Home application. The proposed algorithm is based on a time-slotted medium-access scheme, which enables communication nodes to sleep and/or exchange information. In order to achieve compatibility with any BLE-enabled device, such as mobile phones/tablets, routing and data information is transmitted via Eddystone beacons. Performance analysis of the proposed BLE mesh-routing algorithm is carried out using an OMNeT++ discrete simulation environment and Mixim framework. Validation of the proposed algorithm is completed on the basis of measurements from a real-life test network. The results show that the proposed algorithm is suitable for the IoT applications where the energy efficiency of the communication nodes is a key priority and propagation delays are not critical.

Background/Aim. Despite bunion surgery having been performed for more than 100 years, there has yet to be a technique considered as the ?Gold Standard?. The aim of the study was to compare postoperative results of Mitchell vs. Golden methods of treating moderate hallux valgus deformity. Methods.This observational case control study included 49 patients (81 feet) who had the Mitchell distal metatarsal osteotomy performed, and 49 patients (77 feet) that had the Golden proximal metatarsal osteotomy performed. The results of treatment were evaluated using Hellal?s modification of the Bonney and McNab classification and the Hallux Metatarsophalangeal Interphalangeal Score (HMIS). The statistical analysis of the results was done, thus the values p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results. Both operative procedures showed successful and statistically significant postoperative results compared to the preoperative status (p < 0.001). Comparative analysis of the results from the Mitchell and Golden procedures, according to the Hellal?s modification of Bonney and McNab classification, proved that there was a high statistically significant difference in favor of the Mitchell method (p < 0.001), whereas the comparison based on the HMIS showed no statistically significant difference (p = 0.123) between the two methods. The estimated results analysis of both procedures, based on the values of hallux valgus angle, intermetatarsal angle, sesamoid position, length of immobilization, treatment duration and complications demonstrated that there was a highly significant difference in favor of the Mitchell method (p < 0.001), whereas the value of the shortening of the first metatarsal bone indicated that the shortening was greater in the Mitchell method (p < 0.001), which goes in favor of the Golden method. Regarding the flexion of the thumb of the feet operated on, there was no statistically significant difference (p = 0.723). Conclusion. The examinations performed indicated that both methods showed good postoperative results, but applying the Mitchell method they were better.