Why are we doing this? The role of personal relevance in developing biological information literacy using cyber Peer-led Team Learning

Student-centered learning necessitates that students engage with an array of materials to develop their own understandings, often requiring students to find and critically engage with biological information. This project describes a course (BIOL 131; Biology II: Development, Structure and Function of Organisms) that utilizes cyber Peer-led Team Learning (cPLTL) as a student-centered approach to enhance students’ biological information literacy. Emphasizing the social aspects of learning, students work together in small groups led by a peer mentor using online meeting software. Scaffolded across the first half of the semester, students were given information literacy focused questions as part of a weekly problem set, beginning with finding images or videos on the Internet to eventually examining experiments to understand what kind of evidence biologists use to solve problems. In the cPLTL environment, students teach one another to be critical and consider ethical guidelines in using biological information. In the second half of the semester, the students applied what they had learned to create academic posters. The first iteration of the redesigned course was successful in making Biol 131 more student-centered and did enhance students’ biological information literacy. However, a review of the small group sessions revealed some students did not make the connection between the weekly information literacy questions and developing a greater understanding of how biological information holds personal relevance. In the next iteration of the course, efforts will be made to reframe the information literacy component to emphasis students’ engagement with biological information in personally relevant ways

The legal minimum drinking age in texas: Effects of an increase from 18 to 19

Effects on motor vehicle crash involvement of raising the legal drinking age in Texas from 18 to 19 were examined, using an interrupted time-series design. Rates of single-vehicle-nighttime (SVN) and non-SVN crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers from 1978 through 1984 were examined for three levels of crash severity (serious injury, minor injury, property damage only) and four age groups (16-17, 18, 19-20, 21 and over). Results revealed significant reductions in SVN crashes for the 18-year-old target population across all levels of crash severity: serious injury, down 10.8% ; minor injury, down 14.3% ; and property damage only, down 12.8%. In comparison, no significant changes in SVN crashes among drivers age 21 and over were found. When the effects of macroeconomic conditions on crash rates were controlled statistically, no change in the estimated effect of the legal age law was seen. It is clear that the 1-year increase in legal age in Texas had a significant effect on youth crash involvement.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26362/1/0000449.pd

Native American families in the city: American Indian socialization to urban life-final report.

This report, sponsored by the Minority Studies Center of the National Institute of Mental Health, was conceived, researched and written by Native Americans. To answer questions about the problems young Native American families were facing raising children, the authors conducted a three-year study of 120 families who resided primarily in Oakland, California, and the surrounding area. Some areas of interest in the study include Indian identity, experiences of Native American parents and children in the city, the urbanization process, and social policy recommendations

Mandatory seat belt laws in eight states: a time-series evaluation

We examined state-specific and aggregate effects of U.S. legislation requiring the use of seat belts among front-seat motor vehicle occupants. Effects of compulsory seat belt use on the number of occupants fatally injured in traffic crashes were examined in the first eight states adopting such laws. Monthly data on crash fatalities between January 1976 and June 1986 were analyzed using Box-Tiao intervention analysis time-series methods. Because the new laws apply only to front-seat occupants, front-seat occupant fatalities were compared with: (1) rear-seat fatalities; (2) nonoccupant fatalities (motorcyclists, pedalcyclists, pedestrians); and (3) fatalities among front-seat occupants in neighboring states without compulsory seat belt use. Exposure to risk of crash involvement was controlled by analyzing fatality rates per vehicle mile traveled. Results revealed a statistically significant decline of 8.7% in the rate of front-seat fatalities in the first eight states with seat belt laws. The fatality rate declined 9.9% in states with primary enforcement laws and 6.8% in states with secondary enforcement only. Rates of rear-seat and non-occupant fatalities did not change when the belt laws were implemented.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27229/1/0000236.pd

Motivating learners through information literacy

This paper is included in the Information Literacy: Key to an Inclusive Society, the proceedings of the European Conference on Information Literacy, 2016. The paper introduces a model for creating information literacy learning activities that motivate students. The model draws from informed learning, an approach to information literacy that emphasizes the role that information plays in fostering learning about a subject. Self-determination theory, a motivational theory that focuses on enabling self-determined learners, is applied within the informed learning framework. The results of the investigation outline characteristics of motivating learning activities that enable learning subject content through engagement with information. The model is intended to be used by librarians when working with classroom teachers to foster greater student learning gains through creative and reflective engagement with information

FOREWARNS: development and multifaceted verification of enhanced regional-scale surface water flood forecasts

Surface water flooding (SWF) is a severe hazard associated with extreme convective rainfall, whose spatial and temporal sparsity belie the significant impacts it has on populations and infrastructure. Forecasting the intense convective rainfall that causes most SWF on the temporal and spatial scales required for effective flood forecasting remains extremely challenging. National-scale flood forecasts are currently issued for the UK and are well regarded amongst flood responders, but there is a need for complementary enhanced regional information. Here we present a novel SWF-forecasting method, FOREWARNS (Flood fOREcasts for Surface WAter at a RegioNal Scale), that aims to fill this gap in forecast provision. FOREWARNS compares reasonable worst-case rainfall from a neighbourhood-processed, convection-permitting ensemble forecast system against pre-simulated flood scenarios, issuing a categorical forecast of SWF severity. We report findings from a workshop structured around three historical flood events in Northern England, in which forecast users indicated they found the forecasts helpful and would use FOREWARNS to complement national guidance for action planning in advance of anticipated events. We also present results from objective verification of forecasts for 82 recorded flood events in Northern England from 2013–2022, as well as 725 daily forecasts spanning 2019–2022, using a combination of flood records and precipitation proxies. We demonstrate that FOREWARNS offers good skill in forecasting SWF risk, with high spatial hit rates and low temporal false alarm rates, confirming that user confidence is justified and that FOREWARNS would be suitable for meeting the user requirements of an enhanced operational forecast

Topology and Wilson lines: global aspects of the double copy

The Kerr-Schild double copy relates exact solutions of gauge and gravity theories. In all previous examples, the gravity solution is associated with an abelian-like gauge theory object, which linearises the Yang-Mills equations. This appears to be at odds with the double copy for scattering amplitudes, in which the non-abelian nature of the gauge theory plays a crucial role. Furthermore, it is not yet clear whether or not global properties of classical fields - such as non-trivial topology - can be matched between gauge and gravity theories. In this paper, we clarify these issues by explicitly demonstrating how magnetic monopoles associated with arbitrary gauge groups can be double copied to the same solution (the pure NUT metric) in gravity. We further describe how to match up topological information on both sides of the double copy correspondence, independently of the nature of the gauge group. This information is neatly expressed in terms of Wilson line operators, and we argue through specific examples that they provide a useful bridge between the classical double copy and the BCJ double copy for scattering amplitudes.Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures. Some minor corrections have been implemente

The Weyl double copy from twistor space

The Weyl double copy is a procedure for relating exact solutions in biadjoint scalar, gauge and gravity theories, and relates fields in spacetime directly. Where this procedure comes from, and how general it is, have until recently remained mysterious. In this paper, we show how the current form and scope of the Weyl double copy can be derived from a certain procedure in twistor space. The new formalism shows that the Weyl double copy is more general than previously thought, applying in particular to gravity solutions with arbitrary Petrov types. We comment on how to obtain anti-self-dual as well as self-dual fields, and clarify some conceptual issues in the twistor approach

2015 Student Portfolio Exhibition (View 1)

The 2015 Student Portfolio Exhibition was presented by the Lou Gallery and the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Linfield College from May 13-31, 2015.https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/avc_port2015/1000/thumbnail.jp