Parent-child communication is an essential element in behavioral and character development in early childhood; however, parents may find it difficult to be aware of how they talk to their children. Through extensive field studies with experts and parents, we found that parents are more likely to experience communication conflict with preschool children (3-6 years old) on school mornings. In consultation with domain professionals and families, we designed WAKEY, a technology-based approach that helps parents use better communication strategies to teach preschool children to carry out their morning routines. Following the intervention with WAKEY, parents reported significantly reduced levels of frustration during morning routines and greater independent behavior by children. Furthermore, parents reported experiencing changes in their parenting attitudes and finding new insights into communication.

SUMMARY: We have developed U-PRIMER, a primer design program, to compute a minimal primer set (MPS) for any given set of DNA sequences. The U-PRIMER algorithm, which uses automatic variable fixing and automatic redundant constraint elimination to tackle the binary integer programming problem associated with the MPS selection problem. The program has been tested successfully with 32 adipocyte development-related genes and 9 TB-specific genes to obtain their respective MPSs. AVAILABILITY: A free copy of U-PRIMER implemented in C++ programming language is available from http://www.u-vision-biotech.com