US Public Education Policy: Missing Voices

Public education is a cornerstone of democracy. In the U.S., however, a growing number of families are withdrawing from the public school system, by choice or because that is their only option. Many of these families did try public school, but found it did not meet the needs of their children at at that time and place. Dismissing all homeschoolers as anti-school would be an unfortunate mischaracterization

Relative intensity influences the degree of correspondence of jump squats and push jerks to countermovement jumps

The aim of this study was to determine the mechanical similarity between push jerk (PJ) and jump squat (JS) to countermovement jump (CMJ) and further understand the effect increasing external load may have on this relationship. Eight physically trained males (age 22 ± 3; height 176 ± 7 kg; weight 83 ± 8 kg) performed an unloaded CMJ followed by JS under a range of loads (10%, 25%, 35% and 50% 1RM back squat) and PJ (30%, 50%, 65% and 75% 1RM push jerk). A portable force platform and high speed camera both collecting at 250 Hz were used to establish joint moments and impulse during the propulsive phase of the movements. A standard inverse dynamics model was used to determine joint moment and impulse at the hip, knee and ankle. Significant correlations (p<0.05) were shown between CMJ knee joint moment and JS knee joint moment at 25% load and PJ knee joint moment at 30% and 50% load. Significant correlations were also observed between CMJ knee joint impulse and JS knee joint impulse at 10% load and PJ knee joint moment at 30% and 65% load. Significant correlation was also observed between CMJ hip joint impulse and PJ hip joint impulse at 30% load. No significant joint x load interaction was shown as load increased for either PJ or JS. Results from the study suggest partial correspondence between PJ and JS to CMJ, where a greater mechanical similarity was observed between the PJ and CMJ. This interaction is load and joint dependent where lower relative loads showed greatest mechanical similarity. Therefore utilising lower relative loads when programming may provide a greater transfer of training effect

Attention training for infants at familial risk of ADHD (INTERSTAARS): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

- Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder that can negatively impact on an individual’s quality of life. It is pathophysiologically complex and heterogeneous with different neuropsychological processes being impaired in different individuals. Executive function deficits, including those affecting attention, working memory and inhibitory control, are common. Cognitive training has been promoted as a treatment option, based on the notion that by strengthening the neurocognitive networks underlying these executive processes, ADHD symptoms will also be reduced. However, if implemented in childhood or later, when the full disorder has become well-established, cognitive training has only limited value. INTERSTAARS is a trial designed to test a novel approach to intervention, in which cognitive training is implemented early in development, before the emergence of the disorder. The aim of INTERSTAARS is to train early executive skills, thereby increasing resilience and reducing later ADHD symptoms and associated impairment.\ud - Methods/design: Fifty 10–14-month-old infants at familial risk of ADHD will participate in INTERSTAARS. Infants will be randomised to an intervention or a control group. The intervention aims to train early attention skills by using novel eye-tracking technology and gaze-contingent training paradigms. Infants view animated games on a screen and different events take place contingent on where on the screen the infant is looking. Infants allocated to the intervention will receive nine weekly home-based attention training sessions. Control group infants will also receive nine weekly home visits, but instead of viewing the training games during these visits they will view non-gaze-contingent age-appropriate videos. At baseline and post treatment, infant attention control will be assessed using a range of eye-tracking, observational, parent-report and neurophysiological measures. The primary outcome will be a composite of eye-tracking tasks used to assess infant attention skills. Follow-up data will be collected on emerging ADHD symptoms when the infants are 2 and 3 years old.\ud - Discussion: This is the first randomised controlled trial to assess the potential efficacy of cognitive training as a prevention measure for infants at familial risk of ADHD. If successful, INTERSTAARS could offer a promising new approach for developing early interventions for ADHD

A submillimetre survey of the kinematics of the Perseus molecular cloud - III. Clump kinematics

We explore the kinematics of continuum clumps in the Perseus molecular cloud, derived from C18O J=3-2 data. Two populations are examined, identified using the automated algorithms CLFIND and GAUSSCLUMPS on existing SCUBA data. The clumps have supersonic linewidths with distributions which suggest the C18O line probes a lower-density 'envelope' rather than a dense inner core. Similar linewidth distributions for protostellar and starless clumps implies protostars do not have a significant impact on their immediate environment. The proximity to an active young stellar cluster seems to affect the linewidths: those in NGC1333 are greater than elsewhere. In IC348 the proximity to the old IR cluster has little influence, with the linewidths being the smallest of all. A virial analysis suggests that the clumps are bound and close to equipartition. In particular, the starless clumps occupy the same parameter space as the protostars, suggesting they are true stellar precursors and will go on to form stars. We also search for ordered C18O velocity gradients across the face of each core, usually interpreted as rotation. We note a correlation between the directions of the identified gradients and outflows across protostars, indicating we may not have a purely rotational signature. The fitted gradients are larger than found in previous work, probably as a result of the higher resolution of our data and/or outflow contamination. These gradients, if interpreted solely in terms of rotation, suggest that rotation is not dynamically significant. Furthermore, derived specific angular momenta are smaller than observed in previous studies, centred around j~0.001 km/s pc, which indicates we have identified lower levels of rotation, or that the C18O J=3-2 line probes conditions significantly denser and/or colder than n~10^5 per cc and T~10 K.Comment: 20 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS. Supplementary, on-line only material available from http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~eic22/Papers/CR10b_suppmaterial.pd

Expanding the healing circle : private stories become public.

EducationDoctor of Education (Ed.D.

Physiological and Growth Responses of Midrotation Loblolly Pine to Treatments of Fire, Herbicide, and Fertilizer

The objectives of this study were to examine the effects of fertilizer and understory vegetation control (herbicide and prescribed fire) on mature tree physiology and to link observed physiological responses with tree growth. Photosynthetic rate (photosynthesis), transpiration, stomatal conductance, stem diameter, and crown area were measured in two midrotation loblolly pine plantations in East Texas. Rates of photosynthesis, E and gs for the midsummer measurements were significantly reduced by fertilizer treatments on both sites. Drought in east Texas during the last 3 years may have influenced this result. Trees receiving fire at the site with a comparatively more dense live pre-treatment understory exhibited higher rates of photosynthesis; however, prescribed fire had no positive effect on growth. Herbicide treatment significantly increased the change in diameter growth of unfertilized trees at both sites between 1999-2001 by an average of 5 percent, but had no effect on growth of fertilized trees. Increase in diameter growth per unit crown area was significantly greater in unfertilized trees receiving herbicide than in controls

The properties of SCUBA cores in the Perseus molecular cloud: the bias of clump-finding algorithms

We present a new analysis of the properties of star-forming cores in the Perseus molecular cloud, identified in SCUBA 850 micron data. Our goal is to determine which core properties can be robustly identified and which depend on the extraction technique. Four regions in the cloud are examined: NGC1333, IC348/HH211, L1448 and L1455. We identify clumps of dust emission using two popular automated algorithms, CLFIND and GAUSSCLUMPS, finding 85 and 122 clumps in total respectively. Some trends are true for both populations: clumps become increasingly elongated over time and are consistent with constant surface brightness objects, with an average brightness ~4 to 10 times larger than the surrounding molecular cloud; the clump mass distribution (CMD) resembles the stellar intial mass function, with a slope alpha = -2.0+/-0.1 for CLFIND and alpha = -3.15+/-0.08 for GAUSSCLUMPS, which straddle the Salpeter value. The mass at which the slope shallows (similar for both algorithms at M~6 Msun) implies a star-forming efficiency of between 10 and 20 per cent. Other trends reported elsewhere depend on the clump-finding technique: we find protostellar clumps are both smaller (for GAUSSCLUMPS) and larger (for CLFIND) than their starless counterparts; the functional form, best-fitting to the CMD, is different for the two algorithms. The GAUSSCLUMPS CMD is best-fitted with a log-normal distribution, whereas a broken power law is best for CLFIND; the reported lack of massive starless cores in previous studies can be seen in the CLFIND but not the GAUSSCLUMPS data. Our approach highlights similarities and differences between the clump populations, illustrating the caution that must be exercised when comparing results from different studies and interpreting the properties of continuum cores.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

Agricultural Legislation: The Presence of California Proposition 2 on YouTube

Animal rights movements continue to be a threat to the livestock industry in the United States. In 2008 California voters passed a proposition (2) which outlawed the use of battery cages for laying hens, gestation crates for sows, and veal crates for veal calves by 2015. Similar measures have previously been passed in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon. As animal rights activists continue to pressure the livestock industry, it is important to look at their information outlets, especially those targeted toward young voters. The researchers used content analysis to determine the message content and campaign for Proposition 2 posted on YouTube. By using the search term “proposition 2 California,” a usable sample of 103 videos were identified. Results indicate that when dealing with political legislation, agriculture has very little web presence on YouTube. In addition, it indicates that those in favor of the proposition use appeals and biased examples to deliver their message. In order to be relevant to young voters, agriculture advocates must begin using technology to reach non-agriculture audiences. Educators must also be preparing future communicators to embrace such technology in campaigns

Evaluating systematicity in neural networks with natural language inference

Compositionality makes linguistic creativity possible. By combining words, we can express uncountably many thoughts;by learning new words, we can extend the system and express a vast number of new thoughts. Recently, a numberof studies have questioned the ability of neural networks to generalize compositionally (Dasgupta, Guo, Gershman &amp;Goodman, 2018). We extend this line of work by systematically investigating the way in which these systems generalizenovel words.In the setting of a simple system for natural language inference, natural logic (McCartney &amp; Manning, 2007), we systemat-ically explore the generalization capabilities of various neural network architectures. We identify several key properties ofa compositional system, and develop metrics to test them. We show that these architectures do not generalize in human-likeways, lacking inductive leaps characteristic of human learning

Rural Tourism and Gendered Nuances

Despite numerous studies conducted on rural residents’ perception of attempts at tourism development in their communities, findings are often contradictory. While several explanations have been provided for these contradictions, the two of interest here are a tendency to view residents under study as a single group, rather than examining variation among local subgroups, and the related tendency to ignore or trivialize possible differences in men’s and women’s orientations