Merit pay in Marshfield, Wisconsin?

In 1983, when A Nation At Risk was published, the idea of merit pay for teachers reappeared. The hope associated with merit pay is that if public school teachers in the U.S. were given incentive for improvement, public education might also improve. Awards of merit pay would be based on longevity, credentials, additional duties and quality of teaching performance. If Marshfield, WI is typical of the school districts polled nationwide, there is some willingness to explore merit pay possibilities among both educators and the community. Three merit pay options predominate: Performance-by-objective, Professional Competence, and Career Ladder. Of them, an adaptation of the Career Ladder Approach as described by the State Superintendent\u27s Task Force on Teaching and Teacher Education is the most likely to be successful in Marshfield, should the present system of rewarding teachers for their accumulation of college credits rather than their teaching competency be dropped. This pay system has four stages with entry standards and rewards specific to each level. It is workable, it motivates teachers to excel, it is cost effective over the long term, and it has the potential to improve student learning

Analysis of using child care services to increase occupancy rates for hotels in two Wisconsin markets

This case analyzes the feasibility of using child care services to increase occupancy rates in two tourist areas of Wisconsin. Data from initial research suggested a general lack of interest from hotel operators and parents for most of the services which could be added to hotels. However, analysis of specific services revealed a higher interest level for an activity center than for any other service

Construction and initial testing of a microwave spectrometer

This thesis has been written to provide a basic understanding of the spectrometer and to be used as a useful reference for its operation. Discussions of such things as the propagation of microwaves and the mechanics of klystron operations have been avoided

Rethinking the role of sham TMS

Sham TMS approaches are widely used in basic and clinical research to ensure that observed effects are due to the intended neural manipulation instead of being caused by various possible side effects. We here critically discuss several methodological aspects of sham TMS. Importantly, we propose to carefully distinguish between the placebo versus sensory side effects of TMS. In line with this conceptual distinction, we describe current limitations of sham TMS approaches in the context of placebo effects and blinding success, followed by a short review of our own work demonstrating that the sensory side effects of sham TMS are not unspecific as often falsely assumed. Lastly, we argue that sham TMS approaches are inherently insufficient as full-fledged control conditions as they fail to demonstrate the specificity of TMS effects to a particular brain area or time point of stimulation. Sham TMS should therefore only complement alternative control strategies in TMS research

Relating alpha power modulations to competing visuospatial attention theories

Visuospatial attention theories often propose hemispheric asymmetries underlying the control of attention. In general support of these theories, previous EEG/MEG studies have shown that spatial attention is associated with hemispheric modulation of posterior alpha power (gating by inhibition). However, since measures of alpha power are typically expressed as lateralization scores, or collapsed across left and right attention shifts, the individual hemispheric contribution to the attentional control mechanism remains unclear. This is, however, the most crucial and decisive aspect in which the currently competing attention theories continue to disagree. To resolve this long-standing conflict, we derived predictions regarding alpha power modulations from Heilman's hemispatial theory and Kinsbourne's interhemispheric competition theory and tested them empirically in an EEG experiment. We used an attention paradigm capable of isolating alpha power modulation in two attentional states, namely attentional bias in a neutral cue condition and spatial orienting following directional cues. Differential alpha modulations were found for both hemispheres across conditions. When anticipating peripheral visual targets without preceding directional cues (neutral condition), posterior alpha power in the left hemisphere was generally lower and more strongly modulated than in the right hemisphere, in line with the interhemispheric competition theory. Intriguingly, however, while alpha power in the right hemisphere was modulated by both, cue-directed leftward and rightward attention shifts, the left hemisphere only showed modulations by rightward shifts of spatial attention, in line with the hemispatial theory. This suggests that the two theories may not be mutually exclusive, but rather apply to different attentional states

Left parietal tACS at alpha frequency induces a shift of visuospatial attention

Background Voluntary shifts of visuospatial attention are associated with a lateralization of parieto-occipital alpha power (7-13Hz), i.e. higher power in the hemisphere ipsilateral and lower power contralateral to the locus of attention. Recent noninvasive neuromodulation studies demonstrated that alpha power can be experimentally increased using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). Objective/Hypothesis We hypothesized that tACS at alpha frequency over the left parietal cortex induces shifts of attention to the left hemifield. However, spatial attention shifts not only occur voluntarily (endogenous/ top-down), but also stimulus-driven (exogenous/ bottom-up). To study the task-specificity of the potential effects of tACS on attentional processes, we administered three conceptually different spatial attention tasks. Methods 36 healthy volunteers were recruited from an academic environment. In two separate sessions, we applied either high-density tACS at 10Hz, or sham tACS, for 35–40 minutes to their left parietal cortex. We systematically compared performance on endogenous attention, exogenous attention, and stimulus detection tasks. Results In the endogenous attention task, a greater leftward bias in reaction times was induced during left parietal 10Hz tACS as compared to sham. There were no stimulation effects in either the exogenous attention or the stimulus detection task. Conclusion The study demonstrates that high-density tACS at 10Hz can be used to modulate visuospatial attention performance. The tACS effect is task-specific, indicating that not all forms of attention are equally susceptible to the stimulation

Oscillations in an artificial neural network convert competing inputs into a temporal code

The field of computer vision has long drawn inspiration from neuroscientific studies of the human and non-human primate visual system. The development of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), for example, was informed by the properties of simple and complex cells in early visual cortex. However, the computational relevance of oscillatory dynamics experimentally observed in the visual system are typically not considered in artificial neural networks (ANNs). Computational models of neocortical dynamics, on the other hand, rarely take inspiration from computer vision. Here, we combine methods from computational neuroscience and machine learning to implement multiplexing in a simple ANN using oscillatory dynamics. We first trained the network to classify individually presented letters. Post-training, we added temporal dynamics to the hidden layer, introducing refraction in the hidden units as well as pulsed inhibition mimicking neuronal alpha oscillations. Without these dynamics, the trained network correctly classified individual letters but produced a mixed output when presented with two letters simultaneously, indicating a bottleneck problem. When introducing refraction and oscillatory inhibition, the output nodes corresponding to the two stimuli activate sequentially, ordered along the phase of the inhibitory oscillations. Our model implements the idea that inhibitory oscillations segregate competing inputs in time. The results of our simulations pave the way for applications in deeper network architectures and more complicated machine learning problems

Help Keep Hawks in Hawkeye Land

Many people have watched a hawk soar on a warm spring day. As the hawk turns lazy circles in the sky, he is riding currents of air that push him up. Not much hunting is done from this soar. Hawks are equipped with strong feet and sharp claws called talons. These are for capturing and killing their food. Their hooked beak is used to tear the food up for swallowing. Hawks have ear openings and can hear fairly well. The eyes of the hawk are about eight times more powerful than a human\u27s and are especially built to detect movement of little animals