Outlook: A Different Look on Life

This project surrounds my experience as a teacher at Outlook. Outlook is an organization in Nebraska that creates opportunities for people with visual impairment. Outlook does this by adaptive technology, recreational programs, cultural experiences, and employment opportunities (Outlook Nebraska). Throughout the semester, I have been teaching workout classes with three of my other classmates. This project will provide a short background of visually impaired people in sports as well as walk through the steps I have had to take to become a better teacher. The methods section will cover how my group completed the fitness testing. It will also explain how the workouts were written and provide examples of workouts. The results section will highlight the results from two of the women we fitness tested. This will provide a quantitative analysis of the progress made over the semester. The discussion and conclusion will be a reflective piece on how the semester went as well as things that could have been done differently

Phoneme Recognition for Pronunciation Improvement

This project aims to improve English pronunciation by investigating speech errors and developing a tool to provide precise feedback. The study focuses on creating a new pronunciation tool that offers localized feedback, identifies specific errors, and suggests corrective measures. By addressing the shortcomings of current methods, this research seeks to enhance pronunciation refinement. Utilizing cutting-edge technology, the tool leverages speech-to-phoneme AI models and modified lazy string matching algorithms to compare the user\u27s spoken input with the intended pronunciation. This allows for a detailed analysis of discrepancies, providing users actionable insights into their phonetic errors. The speech-to-phoneme AI models mark a significant advancement, facilitating a personalized learning experience that automates some traditional methods used by speech-language pathologists. Through AI integration with a modified Levenshtein algorithm, the tool delivers feedback helping users identify improvement areas with high accuracy

INTEGRATIVE VS INTEGRATION : STEM SKILLS AND CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT IN 6TH GRADE STUDENTS

As a whole, interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in schools is on the rise at a national level, and it is widely recognized that the development of skills and concepts in science, technology, engineering, and math are not only beneficial to students, but are in fact necessities for future citizens of an increasingly global world (Kelley & Knowles, 2016.) Despite this increasing acceptance and awareness of the need for STEM literacy, there is a critical lack of guidelines on what STEM education actually entails and how to effectively integrate these concepts and skills into the educational system. Approaches span a broad range of ideas, from perspectives encouraging STEM integration to be more dynamic and led by students to other viewpoints emphasizing the more typical procedure of teacher-led learning. Situated in a metropolitan elementary school, this study examines a University-School District partnership through an undergraduate research experience which aims to determine how young students best learn and develop STEM knowledge and skills

Dao Gives Birth to Lots of Killing: Violence in the Daoist Tradition

Violence in Daoism takes on political and/or cosmological significance. The earliest texts, including Daodejing, argue for defensive war that must be conducted appropriately by rulers. Myths and rituals that developed later in the tradition portray gods and spirits subduing demons. The latter are either killed or enlisted into the armies of the gods. Rituals include the role of humans, particularly Daoist priests/ritual specialists who call upon the gods to fight demons who inflict maladies upon people. This paper also examines the role of martial arts and physical violence. Martial arts are often imbued with religious hues in Daoism, as is seen with Taijiquan, Xingyiquan, and Baguazhang. The styles carry combat effectiveness with different methods such as wrestling, striking, grappling, and the use of weapons. Physical violence in Daoism took the form of overturning dynastic regimes, namely the Han, Yuan, and Qing dynasties. There are possibilities that Daoist monks fought in 20th century China. There is too little to confirm this currently. The paper ends with an analysis of the book trilogy, Chronicles of Tao. It portrays the actions of Huashan monk Guan Shihung who acted violently. The book is examined for what it can tell us about the Daoist view of killing

Testing Promising Drug-like Compounds Against Rare but Fatal Parasitic Amoeba, Naegleria

Naegleria fowleri is a parasitic amoeba that resides in warm freshwater and causes meningoencephalitis in humans. While infection is rare, the mortality rate is 97% as the current recommended treatment regimens are unreliable and have proven ineffective. There have even been fatalities in Nebraska and Iowa in recent years. Our aim is to find novel compounds or repurposed drugs with promise to be effective in treating the amoeba. While in vitro studies can help to identify potential lead compounds, little work has been done further – such as in animal models - thus impeding the progress of promising compounds. Here we will present several promising compounds with potency in vitro and discuss the path towards clinical development and approval

Formas variables en la expresión del pasado en aprendices del español: los efectos de la L1

Los resultados de muchas investigaciones apoyan la hipótesis del aspecto léxico (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; 1996; Andersen 2002; Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; 2000, Bardovi-Harlig & Comajoan-Colomé, 2020; Comajoan-Colomé, 2014; Salaberry, 1999; 2000; 2008); sin embargo, estas investigaciones no consideran las restricciones o efectos del aspecto léxico en el primer idioma (L1) de los participantes. Además, estas investigaciones no consideran las restricciones o efectos del aspecto léxico en el primer idioma (L1) de los participantes. Esto es importante, ya que, en ciertas construcciones en otras lenguas, el aspecto gramatical perfecto tiene restricciones que se relacionan al aspecto léxico del verbo principal; como -te iru del japonés, (Tsujimura, 2014) o el pretérito perfeito composto del portugués, (Amaral & Howe, 2010). La investigación actual pretende tomar en cuenta estas restricciones del L1 y su relación a la adquisición de expresiones con referencia hacia el pasado. Se extrajeron 1.374 muestras de tareas escritas por 151 participantes del Corpus de aprendices del español (CAES; Rojo & Palacios, 2022). Los participantes se diferenciaron por variables sociales, como la L1 (japonés, inglés y portugués) y variables lingüísticas, las cuales incluyen la forma expresada con referencia al pasado, uso de adverbio temporal y aspecto léxico del verbo, entre otras. Basado en dos ANOVAS unidireccionales, se pudo ver que la L1 tuvo una relación significativa con el uso del pretérito. Los resultados de doce regresiones multivariadas de efectos mixtos muestran efectos significativos de proficiencia y L1, entre variables lingüísticas como el aspecto léxico. Es más, según nueve otras regresiones multivariadas de efectos mixtos, los efectos más significativos se ven en los hablantes de nivel B2. Los datos sugieren que la L1 de un aprendiz tiene una influencia más profunda de lo que se había reportado en investigaciones previas

Fallen Leaves

This is a film review of Fallen Leaves (2023), directed by Aki Kaurismäki

You Were Never Really Here

This is a film review of You Were Never Really Here (2023), directed by Flor Portieri

Handling the Undead

This is a film review of Handling the Undead (2024), directed by Thea Hvistendahl