Theory of Change As A Tool For Strategic Planning

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the use of the Theory of Change approach for planning community-based initiatives. Through lessons learned from a case study of how TOC was applied during the planning phase of The Wallace Foundation Parents and Communities for Kids (PACK) initiative, the utility of this technique and the challenges involved in employing it are illustrated. The case study was designed to highlight lessons that will be of most interest to program planners, evaluators, and funders who are interested in applying this method to their work

Second Grade Students Learn about Civil Engineers and Erosion

The integration of art into curricula focused on teaching science is a new perspective in education designed to reach a broader range of students. The current study examined the process of second-grade students participating in science and art activities through qualitative content analysis. The subjects of science and art were not taught to the students separately, rather, students engaged in both subjects simultaneously, in an integrated manner. Participants were 23 second-grade students (11 female and 12 male; age range 7 to 8 years) who were learning about erosion through sketching and creative construction and the work of civil engineers through role-play and exploration of problems they solve. Sources of information for the study included student-reported symbolism for engineering badges, classroom discussions, students’ responses during testing of sand hills, teacher observations, and student writings. Major themes in the process of the students were: connections to prior knowledge of erosion and engineers along with symbols connected to engineers; observing erosion and shapes of the land; integration of art bringing motivation; social learning and teamwork; problem-solving solutions to erosion; making connections between the classroom testing and the real world; and the desire to continue exploring erosion. The lessons emphasized learning through and with the arts, making the lessons engaging and motivating students to continue learning on their own

Second-Graders Beautify for Butterflies

This practical article presents activities that support previous research suggesting the integration of art with science is beneficial to the learning and cooperative processes of children. The project showcased here highlights the ability of elementary school children to collaborate with their peers for problem solving and critical thinking through the artistic use of observation and sketching. This article discusses effective lesson activities in which students combined art and science by creating and cultivating a butterfly garden on the school’s property

Occurrence and phylogenetic significance of latex in the Malpighiaceae

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142034/1/ajb21725.pd

Quantum fluctuations in one-dimensional arrays of condensates

The effects of quantum and thermal fluctuations upon the fringe structure predicted to be observable in the momentum distribution of coupled Bose-Einstein condensates are studied by the effective-potential method. For a double-well trap, the coherence factor recently introduced by Pitaevskii and Stringari [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 180402 (2001)] is calculated using the effective potential approach and is found in good agreement with their result. The calculations are extended to the case of a one-dimensional array of condensates, showing that quantum effects are essentially described through a simple renormalization of the energy scale in the classical analytical expression for the fringe structure. The consequences for the experimental observability are discussed.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 5 eps figures (published version with updated references

Marginal States in Mean Field Glasses

We study mean field systems whose free energy landscape is dominated by marginally stable states. We review and develop various techniques to describe such states, elucidating their physical meaning and the interrelation between them. In particular, we give a physical interpretation of the two-group replica symmetry breaking scheme and confirm it by establishing the relation to the cavity method and to the counting of solutions of the Thouless-Anderson-Palmer equations. We show how these methods all incorporate the presence of a soft mode in the free energy landscape and interpret the occurring order parameter functions in terms of correlations between the soft mode and the local magnetizations. The general formalism is applied to the prototypical case of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick-model where we re-examine the physical properties of marginal states under a new perspective.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Optimal detection of burst events in gravitational wave interferometric observatories

We consider the problem of detecting a burst signal of unknown shape. We introduce a statistic which generalizes the excess power statistic proposed by Flanagan and Hughes and extended by Anderson et al. The statistic we propose is shown to be optimal for arbitrary noise spectral characteristic, under the two hypotheses that the noise is Gaussian, and that the prior for the signal is uniform. The statistic derivation is based on the assumption that a signal affects only affects N samples in the data stream, but that no other information is a priori available, and that the value of the signal at each sample can be arbitrary. We show that the proposed statistic can be implemented combining standard time-series analysis tools which can be efficiently implemented, and the resulting computational cost is still compatible with an on-line analysis of interferometric data. We generalize this version of an excess power statistic to the multiple detector case, also including the effect of correlated noise. We give full details about the implementation of the algorithm, both for the single and the multiple detector case, and we discuss exact and approximate forms, depending on the specific characteristics of the noise and on the assumed length of the burst event. As a example, we show what would be the sensitivity of the network of interferometers to a delta-function burst.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures in 3 groups. Submitted for publication to Phys.Rev.D. A Mathematica notebook is available at http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~avicere/nda/burst/Burst.nb which allows to reproduce the numerical results of the pape

Heat transport in model jammed solids

We calculate numerically the normal modes of vibrations in 3D jammed packings of soft spheres as a function of the packing fraction and obtain the energy diffusivity, a spectral measure of transport that controls sound propagation and thermal conductivity. The crossover frequency between weak and strong phonon scattering is controlled by the coordination and shifts to zero as the system is decompressed towards the critical packing fraction at which rigidity is lost. Below the crossover, the diffusivity displays a power-law divergence with inverse frequency, which suggests that the vibrational modes are primarily transverse waves, weakly scattered by disorder. Above it, a large number of modes appear whose diffusivity plateaus at a nearly constant value independent of the inter-particle potential, before dropping to zero above the Anderson localization frequency. The thermal conductivity of a marginally jammed solid just above the rigidity threshold is calculated and related to the one measured experimentally at room temperature for most glasses.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

High School FLASH Sexual Health Education Curriculum: LGBTQ Inclusivity Strategies Reduce Homophobia and Transphobia

Homophobic and transphobic beliefs that lead to bias-based harassment remain a critical concern for young people in the USA. The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of an inclusive comprehensive sex education program (High School FLASH) on homophobic and transphobic beliefs. Data from this study come from a randomized controlled trial that evaluated the impact of High School FLASH on students\u27 sexual behaviors and related outcomes with 20 schools in two U.S. regions (Midwest and South). Following the baseline survey, the 20 schools were randomly assigned to receive FLASH or a comparison curriculum. Ninth and 10th grade students completed follow-up surveys 3 and 12 months after the instructional period. We examined changes in homophobic beliefs using multilevel linear regression models in the full sample and two sub-groups: straight cisgender young people versus those who identified as not straight or cisgender. Mean scores on the homophobic and transphobic beliefs scale were statistically significantly lower among young people receiving FLASH relative to the comparison at both the 3- and 12-month timepoints (p-values for adjusted mean differences were \u3c 0.01, n = 1357 and 1275, respectively). Specifically, FLASH\u27s positive impact on reducing homophobic and transphobic beliefs was statistically significant for straight and cisgender youth at both survey follow-ups (p \u3c 0.01, n = 1144 and p = 0.05, n = 1078, respectively); the effects for the LGBTQ sub-group reached statistical significance at only the final follow-up (p = 0.01, n = 197). Our results show that carefully designed, inclusive comprehensive sexual health education programs like High School FLASH can play a role in promoting better school climates for all youth by reducing beliefs that may lead to bullying, violence, and victimization

The genomic diversification of grapevine clones.

BACKGROUND:Vegetatively propagated clones accumulate somatic mutations. The purpose of this study was to better appreciate clone diversity and involved defining the nature of somatic mutations throughout the genome. Fifteen Zinfandel winegrape clone genomes were sequenced and compared to one another using a highly contiguous genome reference produced from one of the clones, Zinfandel 03. RESULTS:Though most heterozygous variants were shared, somatic mutations accumulated in individual and subsets of clones. Overall, heterozygous mutations were most frequent in intergenic space and more frequent in introns than exons. A significantly larger percentage of CpG, CHG, and CHH sites in repetitive intergenic space experienced transition mutations than in genic and non-repetitive intergenic spaces, likely because of higher levels of methylation in the region and because methylated cytosines often spontaneously deaminate. Of the minority of mutations that occurred in exons, larger proportions of these were putatively deleterious when they occurred in relatively few clones. CONCLUSIONS:These data support three major conclusions. First, repetitive intergenic space is a major driver of clone genome diversification. Second, clones accumulate putatively deleterious mutations. Third, the data suggest selection against deleterious variants in coding regions or some mechanism by which mutations are less frequent in coding than noncoding regions of the genome