The Association between the Use of \u3cem\u3eAccelerated Math\u3c/em\u3e and Students\u27 Math Achievement.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between time spent on a computer managed integrated learning system entitled Accelerated Math and traditional mathematics instruction on achievement as measured by standardized achievement tests of elementary school students. The variables of ability level, special education, grade, socioeconomic status, gender, classroom teacher, school attended, and degree of implementation were also considered. The population consisted of 542 students who were sixth, seventh, and eighth graders during the 2003-2004 school year and took the TerraNova each year. Data were gathered that covered the three-year period beginning in 2001 and ending in 2004. A t test for independent samples, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to identify the relationship between variables. The researcher’s investigation of the relationship between Accelerated Math use and mathematics achievement might assist educators in planning for use of technology as a supplement to traditional instruction. The information gathered from this research might be beneficial to other school systems seeking information on the relationship between a computermanaged integrated learning system and math achievement. The findings in this study were mixed. The use of Accelerated Math was associated with no effects and negative effects depending on the degree of implementation. The findings indicated that there were measurable differences in the performance of students who received Accelerated Math compared to students who did not receive Accelerated Math. Students who did not receive Accelerated Math had higher overall scores than students participating in the intervention. The study indicated that gender, special education, and ability groups did not have a significant interaction with the intervention (participation in Accelerated Math). The research revealed that there was a socioeconomic status interaction intervention with proficiency scores. The study revealed that there was a significant intervention interaction with school, teacher, and grade. There was a significant interaction intervention for both proficiency and value-added scores for each of these three independent variables. In addition, the research revealed that the degree of implementation was a significant factor in students\u27 achievement

The challenge of integrating non-continuous processes-milk powder plant case study

The integration of non-continuous processes such as a milk powder plant present a challenge for existing process integration techniques. Current techniques are generally based on steady and continuous operation which for some industries is not the case. Milk production varies considerably during the year as dairy cows in New Zealand are grazed on pasture, which affects the scheduling and operation of plants on site. The frequency and duration of cleaning cycles and non-productive operating states can have a major affect on energy demand and the availability of heat sources and heat sinks. In this paper the potential for indirect heat transfer between the several plants using a heat recovery loop and stratified tank at a typical New Zealand dairy factory is investigated. The maximum amount of heat recovery is calculated for a range of recirculation loop temperatures. The maximum amount of heat recovery can be increased considerably if the temperature of the hot fluid in the recirculation loop is varied depending on which condition the site is operating under

Integrating heat recovery from milk powder spray dryer exhausts in the dairy industry

Heat recovery from milk powder spray dryer exhausts has proven challenging due to both economic and thermodynamic constraints. Integrating the dryer with the rest of the process (e.g. evaporation stages) can increase the viability of exhaust recovery. Several potential integration schemes for a milk powder plant have been investigated. Indirect heat transfer via a coupled loop between the spray dryer exhaust and various heat sinks were modeled and the practical heat recovery potential determined. Hot utility use was reduced by as much as 21% if suitable heat sinks are selected. Due to high particle loading and operating temperatures in the particle sticky regime, powder deposition in the exhaust heat exchanger is perhaps the greatest obstacle for implementing heat recovery schemes on spray dryers. Adequate cleaning systems are needed to ensure continuous dyer operation

Head Shops - Legitimate Governmental Interest in Regulating the Sale of Drug Paraphernalia Receives Judicial Recognition

For the first time, the Supreme Court, in Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., rendered an opinion concerning the validity of a regulatory drug paraphernalia law, which was challenged as being impermissibly vague and overbroad. In Hoffman, a unanimous Court upheld the ruling of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and reversed the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The court of appeals held that a municipal ordinance requiring businesses within the municipality to obtain a license if they sold any items designed or marketed for use with illegal cannabis or drugs was facially vague and overbroad. Since the challenged ordinance in Hoffman was regulatory in nature, at least one commentator has suggested that the ruling may be of minimal significance. This note will examine the decision rendered by the Court in Hoffman and its predictive value, if any, on the question of future facial challenges to drug paraphernalia laws

The Effect of Explicit Teaching of Comprehension Strategies on Reading Comprehension in Elementary School

This study investigated the effect of explicit teaching of comprehension strategies on the comprehension performance of elementary school students. Two schools with similar demographics, including a significant proportion of students at risk for reading failure, participated in the study. One school utilized an explicit comprehension strategy instruction program while the other school utilized traditional comprehension programs. A quasi-experimental mixed methods design was employed; standardized and researcher-developed pretests and posttests were administered and observations were conducted over a two-year period. Analyses of covariance that treated the pretests as covariates resulted in significant differences between the schools on several measures, but the overall results did not favor either school. Significantly more instances of explicit instruction were demonstrated by teachers using the explicit program than teachers using the traditional programs. Differences in the number of instances of explicit instruction were most substantial during the student practice and feedback sections of the lessons. Correlations between teacher explicitness scores and student achievement scores and a comparison of the achievement scores of high-explicit and low-explicit teachers (regardless of the school's program) did not demonstrate a significant relationship between explicit instruction and student performance. However, teachers using the explicit program for their second year demonstrated more explicit instruction than teachers using the program for their first year. Students in the second-year teachers' classrooms demonstrated superior performance on a passage comprehension assessment compared to students in the first-year teachers' classrooms. Also, a comparison of the students who had been exposed to the explicit program for two consecutive years and the students who had been exposed to the traditional program for two consecutive years found that second-grade students exposed to the explicit program outperformed their counterparts on most assessments. These results did not indicate an overall relationship between teacher explicitness and student performance. The results do indicate, however, that an explicit comprehension program can result in more explicit instruction in the classroom and that instances of explicit instruction increase when teachers have more experience teaching such a program. Moreover, there is evidence that among experienced teachers, there is a positive relationship between teacher explicitness and student performance

Head Shops - Legitimate Governmental Interest in Regulating the Sale of Drug Paraphernalia Receives Judicial Recognition

For the first time, the Supreme Court, in Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., rendered an opinion concerning the validity of a regulatory drug paraphernalia law, which was challenged as being impermissibly vague and overbroad. In Hoffman, a unanimous Court upheld the ruling of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and reversed the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The court of appeals held that a municipal ordinance requiring businesses within the municipality to obtain a license if they sold any items designed or marketed for use with illegal cannabis or drugs was facially vague and overbroad. Since the challenged ordinance in Hoffman was regulatory in nature, at least one commentator has suggested that the ruling may be of minimal significance. This note will examine the decision rendered by the Court in Hoffman and its predictive value, if any, on the question of future facial challenges to drug paraphernalia laws

Design and operation methods for better performing heat recovery loops

Inter-plant integration via a heat recovery loop (HRL) is an economic method for increasing total site process energy efficiency of semi-continuous processes. Results show that both the constant storage temperature approach and variable storage temperature approach have merit. Depending on the mix of source and sink streams attached, it may be advantageous to change the operation of an existing HRL from a constant temperature storage to a variable temperature storage. To realise the full benefits of this change in operation, a redistribution of the existing heat exchanger area may be needed

Importance of understanding variable and transient energy demand in large multi-product industrial plants for process integration

There have been some news releases claiming that Professor Henle in Germany has found the chemical identity of UMF, and that in future chemical analysis will be used instead of assays of antibacterial activity to indicate the level of UMF in manuka honey. Both of these claims are misleading. Because the level of active substance in manuka honey is an unreliable indication of the level of antibacterial activity and can be very misleading, it is hard to see any commercial advantage for it to be used to indicate antibacterial activity other than if someone wanted to fool the consumer into thinking that the higher numbers are giving them a level of antibacterial activity that is far higher than they are really getting

Integration of solar heating into heat recovery loops using constant and variable temperature storage

Solar is a renewable energy that can be used to provide process heat to industrial sites. Solar is extremely variable and to use it reliably thermal storage is necessary. Heat recovery loops (HRL) are an indirect method for transferring heat from one process to another using an intermediate fluid (e.g. water, oil). With HRL’s thermal storage is also necessary to effectively meet the stop/start time dependent nature of the multiple source and sink streams. Combining solar heating with HRL’s makes sense as a means of reducing costs by sharing common storage infrastructure and pipe transport systems and by lowering nonrenewable hot utility demand. To maximise the value of solar in a HRL, the means of controlling the HRL needs to be considered. In this paper, the HRL example and design method of Walmsley et al. (2013) is employed to demonstrate the potential benefits of applying solar heating using the HRL variable temperature storage (VTS) approach and the conventional HRL constant temperature storage (CTS) approach. Results show the VTS approach is superior to the CTS approach for both the non-solar and solar integration cases. When the pinch is around the hot storage temperature the CST approach is constrained and the addition of solar heating to the HRL decreases hot utility at the expenses of increased cold utility. For the VTS approach the hot storage pinch shifts to a cold storage pinch and increased heat recovery is possible for the same exchanger area without solar. With solar the VTS approach can maintain the same heat recovery while also reducing hot utility still further due to the presence of solar, but only with additional area. When the pinch is located around the cold storage temperature, solar heating can be treated as an additional heat source and the benefits of CTS and VTS are comparable

An investigation of milk powder deposition on parallel fins

One method to reduce the energy consumption of industrial milk spray dryers is to recover waste heat from the exhaust dryer air. A significant challenge associated with this opportunity is the air contains a small amount of powder that may deposit on the face and surfaces of a recuperator. This paper introduces a novel lab based test that simulates powder deposition on a bank of parallel plate fins at exhaust dryer air conditions. The fin bank acts like the face of a typical finned tube row in a recuperator. The aim of this study is to look at how deposition on the front of fins is affected by the air conditions. Results show similar characteristics to other milk powder deposition studies that exhibit a dramatic increase in deposition once critical stickiness levels are reached. As powder deposits on the face of the fins, the pressure drop across the bank increases until eventually an asymptote occurs, at which point the rates of deposition and removal are similar. For very sticky conditions, deposition on the face of the fins can cause a rise in the pressure drop by as much as 65%. The pressure drop has also been successfully related to the percentage of open frontal area of the fins with and without deposition. Deposition inside and at the rear of the fin bank was found to be minimal