Socioscientific Issues in School-Based Agricultural Education: Describing and Exploring Factors of Integration

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are complex issues which are scientific in nature and have societal impacts. Many SSI have connections to agriculture and as such should be included in agricultural education curriculum. A clear understanding of what school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers know about SSI is needed. The purpose of this research was to explore the knowledge and integration of SSI among SBAE teachers by describing and explaining the factors that influence integration. This quantitative survey research was guided by the SSI-based instruction framework and the three-component model of agricultural education. The population for this study was all SBAE teachers in the U.S. and U.S. territories during the 2019-2020 school year. Participants could choose between an online or a paper and pencil version of the survey. A total of 136 SBAE teachers participated in the research. School-based agricultural education teachers’ self-efficacy related to SSI, their perceived need to teach SSI and barriers to teaching SSI were explored. Survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, ordinary least squares regression, and logistic regression. Findings suggest SBAE teacher self-efficacy was a significant predictor of overall SSI integration as well as the integration of climate issues, ecosystem and biodiversity, energy, food security, human population, and natural resource issues. Respondents agreed that SSI are needed in agricultural education but time to develop curriculum and integrate SSI is a barrier. Overall SBAE teachers felt supported by their administration and communities. The most taught SSI by respondents were natural resource, sustainability, and water issues; and the least taught SSI were energy, climate, and ecosystem and biodiversity issues. Although respondents indicated they were teaching SSI in their classes, the research results suggest that many were not using learning experiences aligned with the SSI-based instruction framework. Recommendations included integration of SSI and the SSI-based instruction framework in both pre-service agricultural teacher preparation programs and in-service teacher professional development. Aligning state and national agricultural education standards to include SSI is also recommended. Further research should be conducted to explore SBAE teachers’ knowledge of SSI, how they are integrating SSI in their classes and what resources and teaching strategies they are using

Area/latency optimized early output asynchronous full adders and relative-timed ripple carry adders

This article presents two area/latency optimized gate level asynchronous full adder designs which correspond to early output logic. The proposed full adders are constructed using the delay-insensitive dual-rail code and adhere to the four-phase return-to-zero handshaking. For an asynchronous ripple carry adder (RCA) constructed using the proposed early output full adders, the relative-timing assumption becomes necessary and the inherent advantages of the relative-timed RCA are: (1) computation with valid inputs, i.e., forward latency is data-dependent, and (2) computation with spacer inputs involves a bare minimum constant reverse latency of just one full adder delay, thus resulting in the optimal cycle time. With respect to different 32-bit RCA implementations, and in comparison with the optimized strong-indication, weak-indication, and early output full adder designs, one of the proposed early output full adders achieves respective reductions in latency by 67.8, 12.3 and 6.1 %, while the other proposed early output full adder achieves corresponding reductions in area by 32.6, 24.6 and 6.9 %, with practically no power penalty. Further, the proposed early output full adders based asynchronous RCAs enable minimum reductions in cycle time by 83.4, 15, and 8.8 % when considering carry-propagation over the entire RCA width of 32-bits, and maximum reductions in cycle time by 97.5, 27.4, and 22.4 % for the consideration of a typical carry chain length of 4 full adder stages, when compared to the least of the cycle time estimates of various strong-indication, weak-indication, and early output asynchronous RCAs of similar size. All the asynchronous full adders and RCAs were realized using standard cells in a semi-custom design fashion based on a 32/28 nm CMOS process technology

Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribes in the Colorado River Basin

The coronavirus pandemic has tragically highlighted the vast and long standing inequities facing Tribal communities, including disparities in water access. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) are at least 3.5 times more likely than white persons to contract COVID-19. Limited access to running water is one of the main factors contributing to this elevated rate of incidence. This report describes current conditions among Tribes in the Colorado River Basin. It outlines the four main challenges in drinking water access: (1) Native American households are more likely to lack piped water services than any other racial group; (2) Inadequate water quality is pervasive in Indian country; (3) Existing water infrastructure is deteriorating or inadequate; and (4) Operation and maintenance of water systems is a critical component of ensuring long-term water security. The report also examines existing federal assistance programs to provide drinking water access to Tribes. In exchange for the cession of millions of acres of lands, Tribes received certain promises from the federal government. These promises often included the establishment of a reservation as a permanent homeland for Tribes. Based upon an underlying trust responsibility, the federal government has a duty to protect Tribal treaty rights, lands, assets, and resources. Access to a clean, reliable supply of water is basic to human health and clearly a necessary component to providing a habitable and permanent homeland. In at least partial recognition and fulfillment of its treaty and trust responsibility to provide access to clean water for Tribes, various federal agencies have established programs that provide support for water related projects. However, these programs are often underfunded and have other limitations. As a result, obtaining significant progress in providing universal access to clean water for all Americans has remained elusive. Finally, the report concludes with policy recommendations to address Tribal community water needs. Key recommendations include adopting a whole of government approach and fully funding federal programs related to Tribal drinking water projects. A window of opportunity has opened to address water insecurity in Indian country. It is critical that action be taken before that window closes and these issues are ignored for several more generations

Carbonate clumped isotope geochemistry of marine mollusk and brachiopod shells and its application to deep-time paleoclimatology

The main objective of this dissertation research was to study the carbonate clumped isotope compositions of marine mollusk and brachiopod shells, both modern and ancient, and to investigate critical problems with the preservation of isotope clumping in shell carbonate over the Phanerozoic Eon. This was accomplished through a series of empirical and laboratory studies detailed in each of the three chapters of this dissertation. This approach was aided by the knowledge gained from decades of previous research on the bulk carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of marine shells, but was novel in its application of modern methods for measuring carbonate clumped isotopes. Unlike conventional carbonate-water oxygen isotope thermometry, carbonate clumped isotope thermometry is independent of the isotopic composition of the precipitating fluid, which for shells growing in ancient seawater is largely unknown and the long-time subject of debate. Therefore, clumped isotopes, combined with bulk isotopic measurements of ancient shells, can provide an independent estimate of paleotemperature and the isotopic composition of paleoseawater. The first chapter of this dissertation describes a comprehensive calibration of the carbonate clumped isotope thermometer using modern mollusk and brachiopod shells collected worldwide from waters of known temperature and isotopic composition. The results are in accord with the temperature dependence of the thermometer predicted from theory, but are different from earlier empirical calibration attempts by other laboratories. The second chapter explores the phenomenon of carbonate clumped isotope reordering—that is closed-system alteration of 13C-18O ‘clumped’ bonds—in Paleozoic brachiopod shells, finding that sedimentary burial temperatures above 100°C can alter primary clumped isotope compositions over geologic timescales. The third chapter presents the emerging Phanerozoic clumped isotope record of seawater temperature and δ18O from well-preserved marine mollusk and brachiopod fossils, and evaluates it with respect to clumped isotope bond reordering described in chapter two. Altogether, this research lays the groundwork for continued study of the clumped isotope geochemistry of marine shells, with future studies expected to shed insight into temperature calibration discrepancies between materials and laboratories, the limits and mechanism(s) of 13C-18O bond reordering, and paleoclimatology of Paleozoic and Mesozoic worlds

Clumped Isotope Thermometry in Deeply Buried Sedimentary Carbonates: The Effects of Bond Reordering Kinetics and Recrystallization

I utilize clumped isotope thermometry to explore the diagenetic and thermal histories of exhumed brachiopods, crinoids, cements, and host rock in the Palmarito Formation, Venezuela and the Bird Spring Formation, Nevada, USA. Carbonate components in the Palmarito Formation, which experienced ~4 km of burial, yield statistically indistinguishable clumped isotope temperatures (T(Δ_(47))s) ranging from 86 to 122 °C. Carbonate clumped isotope temperatures in the more deeply buried Bird Spring Formation (>5 km) range from ~100 to 165 °C and differ by component type, with brachiopods and pore-filling cements yielding the highest T(Δ_(47))s (mean = 153 and 141 °C, respectively) and crinoids and host rock yielding significantly cooler T(Δ_(47))s (mean 103 and 114 °C). New high-resolution thermal histories are coupled with kinetic models to predict the extent of solid-state C–O bond reordering during burial and exhumation for both sites. Application of these models, termed 'THRMs' (Thermal History Reordering Models), suggests that brachiopods in the Palmarito Formation experienced partial bond reordering without complete equilibration of clumped isotopes at maximum burial temperatures. In contrast, T(Δ_(47))s of brachiopods from the Bird Spring Formation completely equilibrated at maximum burial temperatures, and reflect blocking temperatures achieved during cooling. Relative to the brachiopod calcite, the 40-50 °C cooler clumped isotope temperatures measured in Bird Spring Formation crinoids and host rock can be explained by recrystallization and cementation during shallow burial and a greater inherent resistance to solid-state reordering

Effective Instance Matching for Heterogeneous Structured Data

One main problem towards the effective usage of structured data is instance matching, where the goal is to find instance representations referring to the same real-world thing. In this book we investigate how to effectively match Heterogeneous structured data. We evaluate our approaches against the latest baselines. The results show advances beyond the state-of-the-art

Signature for Pain Recovery IN Teens (SPRINT): protocol for a multisite prospective signature study in chronic musculoskeletal pain

INTRODUCTION: Current treatments for chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain are suboptimal. Discovery of robust prognostic markers separating patients who recover from patients with persistent pain and disability is critical for developing patient-specific treatment strategies and conceiving novel approaches that benefit all patients. Given that chronic pain is a biopsychosocial process, this study aims to discover and validate a robust prognostic signature that measures across multiple dimensions in the same adolescent patient cohort with a computational analysis pipeline. This will facilitate risk stratification in adolescent patients with chronic MSK pain and more resourceful allocation of patients to costly and potentially burdensome multidisciplinary pain treatment approaches. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Here we describe a multi-institutional effort to collect, curate and analyse a high dimensional data set including epidemiological, psychometric, quantitative sensory, brain imaging and biological information collected over the course of 12 months. The aim of this effort is to derive a multivariate model with strong prognostic power regarding the clinical course of adolescent MSK pain and function. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study complies with the National Institutes of Health policy on the use of a single internal review board (sIRB) for multisite research, with Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Review Board as the reviewing IRB. Stanford's IRB is a relying IRB within the sIRB. As foreign institutions, the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) are overseen by their respective ethics boards. All participants provide signed informed consent. We are committed to open-access publication, so that patients, clinicians and scientists have access to the study data and the signature(s) derived. After findings are published, we will upload a limited data set for sharing with other investigators on applicable repositories. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04285112

The Bottom Line: Investing for Impact on Economic Mobility in the U.S.

There is no greater challenge in the United States today than income inequality. It has been 50 years since the War on Poverty began. We have made progress but not enough. More than 32 million children live in low-income families, and racial and gender gaps persist. For the first time, Americans do not believe life will be better for the next generation. We have both a moral and an economic imperative to fuel social and economic mobility in this country.The Aspen Institute was founded in 1950 as a place to address the critical issues of our time. Today, ensuring that the American dream can be a possibility for all and be passed from one generation to the next is that issue. This commitment is at the heart of the work of many policy programs at the Aspen Institute. Ending the cycle of poverty requires leadership and hard work across all sectors, from nonprofit organizations, philanthropies, and academia to the government and private sector. This report recognizes the importance of learning from all sectors in tackling any challenge. Specifically, it builds on opportunities in the growing impact investment field. The report draws on the lessons from market-based approaches to identify tools and strategies that can help move the needle on family economic security. In this report, you will find the following: Case studies -- An opportunity to go under the hood on deals with the Bank of America, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Acelero Learning, and others; Point of view essays -- Insights and lessons from leaders in the field; Deals at a glance -- Snapshots of impact investors and what they have learned, including the Kresge Foundation, Living Cities, and the MacArthur Foundation; and Survey results and lessons learned -- Trends among active and emerging players in the U.S. impact investment field and the lessons that can be applied to economic mobility in the U.S. We are pleased to offer this expanded perspective on impact investing in the U.S. and the lessons for investors, philanthropists, and non-profits working to build strong and prosperous families and communities