Analysis of success in beginning reading in relation to knowledge of letter names, experiential background and school adjustment.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Attachment Patterns Between Hearing Children and Deaf Primary Caregivers

This study extends previous research on attachment patterns, formed by infants with primary caregivers who noncontingently or inconsistently respond to the infant\u27s attachment signals, to the population of hearing children of deaf primary caregivers. It was hypothesized that, due to the simple mechanical problem of the deaf primary caregiver\u27s inability to hear the infant\u27s attachment signals, e.g. crying, hearing adolescent children of deaf primary caregivers will demonstrate higher Anger Distress Scale scores as measured by the Adolescent Attachment Questionnaire than a control group. Results support the hypothesis. A sample of 19 hearing adolescents with deaf primary caregivers rated themselves significantly higher on the Anger Distress Scale than did the control group of adolescents with hearing parents (p \u3c .05)

Factors Influencing Variation in Susceptibility of Prairie Plants to an Early Summer Frost in East-Central Minnesota

This study was conducted to determine the factors affecting susceptibility of prairie plants to an early summer frost at Cedar Creek Natural History Area, in east-central Minnesota. Data were collected in a previously established experimental field after temperatures fell to 1.3 °C on 20 June 1992, and to 0.3 °c on 21 June 1992. The degree of frost damage to prairie plants was recorded using a scale of frost damage based on visual criteria, and possible causes of variation in frost susceptibility were examined. The degree of frost damage was independent of plant type (grass or forb), life cycle (annual, perennial, or biennial), successional status (early or late), and species origin (native or introduced). No significant correlations were noted between plant height and mean frost damage but there was a significant negative correlation between plant height and maximum frost damage. In addition, there were no significant correlations between frost damage and mean plant biomass allocated to leaves, stems, and roots, mean biomass allocations aboveground and below-ground, and total biomass. However, plants that allocated a greater proportion of biomass to leaves were more severely damaged than plants which allocated less biomass to leaves. The ratio of leaves to total biomass appears to be critical in relation to frosting events because leaves have a high surface area to volume ratio, which allows more surface area to be exposed to cold air masses, thus increasing the freezing rate

Twistors, special relativity, conformal symmetry and minimal coupling - a review

An approach to special relativistic dynamics using the language of spinors and twistors is presented. Exploiting the natural conformally invariant symplectic structure of the twistor space, a model is constructed which describes a relativistic massive, spinning and charged particle, minimally coupled to an external electro-magnetic field. On the two-twistor phase space the relativistic Hamiltonian dynamics is generated by a Poincare scalar function obtained from the classical limit (appropriately defined by us) of the second order, to an external electro-magnetic field minimally coupled, Dirac operator. In the so defined relativistic classical limit there are no Grassman variables. Besides, the arising equation that describes dynamics of the relativistic spin differs significantly from the so called Thomas Bergman Michel Telegdi equation.Comment: 39 pages, no figures, few erronous statements (not affecting anything else in the papper) on page 23 delete

Proving the Value of Honors Education:The Right Data and the Right Messaging

Administered within over 1,500 honors colleges and programs in two- and four-year institutions worldwide (National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) 2017; Scott and Smith 2016; Wolfensberger 2015), honors education serves the best interests of students and adds quality to the academic mission of host institutions by promoting the highest intellectual standards. Necessarily differing in form and content, all honors programs and colleges share the goals of identifying and supporting the most talented students as they achieve success in college and as they learn how to prepare not only for successful careers, but also for lifelong learning and meaningful civic engagement (Humphrey 2008). Certainly honors enthusiasts believe that these goals are met through innovative and challenging programming in areas of curriculum, undergraduate research, community engagement and service, and leadership. These beliefs, however, need to be backed by empirical data. Do honors programs and colleges achieve their goals? Do they increase the success of their students? Do they add measurable value to their institutions? How do we know? What data are needed to prove the worth of honors education, and how should those data be communicated to the administrators responsible for funding it—provosts, chancellors, and presidents? What are the obstacles to honors programs’ and colleges’ ability to gather those data and persuade various audiences? Nationally, a growing body of evidence confirms that honors students are more successful than other students (e.g., Cosgrove 2004; Pritchard and Wilson 2003). That every specific honors college or program know—not just hope or think—that it is effective in terms of recruiting, retaining, and promoting the success of its exceptional students is essential. Achieving this knowledge requires the right data, the right analyses, and the right communication. This paper details several ways to accomplish this task as well as some of the obstacles to this effort. We approach the idea of assessment and evaluation—or more simply, documenting positive effects of programs and persuading others of those effects—with social psychological research methods and while considering the politics of today’s higher education landscape. Specifically, we discuss how to obtain, understand, and use the simplest to the most complex data to prove the ultimate value of an honors program, and how to tailor messaging about those data. Honors colleges and programs are the model for undergraduate recruitment and success. Our goal is to help readers prove it

Techniques for Teaching Scientific Reasoning and Problem Solving

Small Group Discussion Exercises Group Research Projects Results Reference

Transgenerational inheritance of shuffled symbiont communities in the coral Montipora digitata

Adult organisms may "prime" their offspring for environmental change through a number of genetic and non-genetic mechanisms, termed parental effects. Some coral species may shuffle the proportions of Symbiodiniaceae within their endosymbiotic communities, subsequently altering their thermal tolerance, but it is unclear if shuffled communities are transferred to offspring. We evaluated Symbiodiniaceae community composition in tagged colonies of Montipora digitata over two successive annual spawning seasons and the 2016 bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef. ITS2 amplicon sequencing was applied to four families (four maternal colonies and 10-12 eggs per family) previously sampled and sequenced the year before to characterize shuffling potential in these M. digitata colonies and determine if shuffled abundances were preserved in gametes. Symbiont densities and photochemical efficiencies differed significantly among adults in 2016, suggesting differential responses to increased temperatures. Low-abundance ("background") sequence variants differed more among years than between maternal colonies and offspring. Results indicate that shuffling can occur in a canonically 'stable' symbiosis, and that the shuffled community is heritable. Hence, acclimatory changes like shuffling of the Symbiodiniaceae community are not limited to the lifetime of an adult coral and that shuffled communities are inherited across generations in a species with vertical symbiont transmission. Although previously hypothesized, to our knowledge, this is the first evidence that shuffled Symbiodiniaceae communities (at both the inter- and intra- genera level) can be inherited by offspring and supports the hypothesis that shuffling in microbial communities may serve as a mechanism of rapid coral acclimation to changing environmental conditions

Maternal effects and Symbiodinium community composition drive differential patterns in juvenile survival in the coral Acropora tenuis

Coral endosymbionts in the dinoflagellate genus Symbiodinium are known to impact host physiology and have led to the evolution of reef-building, but less is known about how symbiotic communities in early life-history stages and their interactions with host parental identity shape the structure of coral communities on reefs. Differentiating the roles of environmental and biological factors driving variation in population demographic processes, particularly larval settlement, early juvenile survival and the onset of symbiosis is key to understanding how coral communities are structured and to predicting how they are likely to respond to climate change. We show that maternal effects (that here include genetic and/or effects related to the maternal environment) can explain nearly 24% of variation in larval settlement success and 5–17% of variation in juvenile survival in an experimental study of the reef-building scleractinian coral, Acropora tenuis. After 25 days on the reef, Symbiodinium communities associated with juvenile corals differed significantly between high mortality and low mortality families based on estimates of taxonomic richness, composition and relative abundance of taxa. Our results highlight that maternal and familial effects significantly explain variation in juvenile survival and symbiont communities in a broadcast-spawning coral, with Symbiodinium type A3 possibly a critical symbiotic partner during this early life stage

Public Perceptions of Registry Laws for Juvenile Sex Offenders

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against the abuser. Jurors used disability as a mitigating factor, making more lenient judgments for a disabled than a nondisabled juvenile. Jurors also completely discounted a coerced confession for a disabled juvenile, but not for a nondisabled juvenile. In fact, compared with when it was portrayed as voluntary, jurors generally discounted a juvenile’s coerced confession. Implications for public policy and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd