Student Perceptions of the Color Clip Chart Behavior Management System

The color clip chart behavior management system is a classroom staple for many teachers, as it is a simple, quick and effective way to address problematic behavior. But how do students feel about the clip chart? The purpose of this study was to observe and understand student perceptions of the public clip chart method, and to see whether or not student perceptions of the clip chart change when the public aspect is taken away, and a hidden chart is implemented. This study took place in a second-grade classroom composed of 18 regular education students, three English Language Learners, and two students receiving special education services. Data regarding student perceptions were collected from student surveys, student interviews, a teacher interview, and observation notes, and analyzed through qualitative analysis and descriptive statistics. The researcher found that the majority of students expressed a dislike for the clip chart system, whether public or hidden

Letter to the Editor - Conservation of Freshwater Mussels in Iowa

Freshwater mussels occur in a variety of aquatic ecosystems worldwide but nowhere is mussel species richness as high as is reported in North America. With nearly 300 recorded species in the U.S., mussels are key components of freshwater biodiversity playing a vital role in benthic communities. Ecologically important in biological processing and nutrient cycling, mussels are also an important food item for a variety of mammals including mink, otter, and raccoon. In addition to ecological importance, freshwater mussels have been economically important in the production of cultured pearls

Disrupting or reconfiguring racist narratives about Muslims? The representation of British Muslims during the Covid crisis

This article examines British newspaper coverage of Muslims during the first wave of the Coronavirus crisis. A well-established trajectory of research shows that Muslims are negativized in mainstream media representation in the UK. However, it became obvious from the outset of the pandemic, that ethnic minority key workers were disproportionately affected by Coronavirus. This, alongside high levels of support for NHS staff, had the potential to challenge and shift established narratives about Muslims as questions of structural discrimination became the subject of news media discourse. This article examines whether these events were able, even momentarily, to disrupt dominant narratives about Muslims in the UK or whether the pandemic provided further opportunity for Othering discourses to be perpetuated. In the context of a tumultuous political landscape, where the politics of immigration have been linked to the politics of austerity, Muslims have been scapegoated as a threat to the nationalist project. In this context, the identifier ‘Muslim’ is only deemed relevant if it signifies ‘difference’, or to distinguish between good versus bad Muslim/immigrant. Hence, in the context of the reporting of Coronavirus, racist discourses have been reshaped as Muslim key workers are distinguished in the reporting from other Muslims. We examine how these representational practices play out through an analysis of four British newspapers (The Sun, Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Mirror) over a months’ coverage at the peak of the crisis (April, 2020)

Livestock CRP Vietnam 2019-2021 Site selection process

[The Livestock CRP can] focus on difficult regions with high poverty and ethnic minorities, showing how research can deliver impact in challenging area, but can also conduct active research in medium scale intensified livestock areas to address priority issues on market, feeds and forage, animal diseases, food safety, AMR and the environment. While poverty rates have reduced rapidly over the past decade at national level, there remain sizable pockets of poverty at regional level, particularly in North-West, Central Highlands and Mekong Delta regions. In these areas, livestock, particularly indigenous pigs and cattle, play an important livelihoods function and could raise household income if market access, productivity, and animal disease constraints are overcome. This suggests a need for a targeted, regional approach for livestockoriented research in Vietnam

Anti-Muslim Propaganda on Twitter and the Role for the Far-Right

Following Donald Trump’s retweeting of Britain First’s anti-Muslim videos, this article shows how the far-right have previously used Twitter as a platform for anti-Muslim propaganda but also to boost the profile and political success of Donald Trump and his political allies. After the Brussels terrorist attack of 2016, some mainstream media outlets reported on a racist hashtag #StopIslam that had been ‘hijacked’ by anti-racists to counter the negative publicity being peddled about Muslims in the aftermath of the attack. This inspired us to seek funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust to investigate the dynamics of this campaign. What we found was surprising. We expected to find a preponderance of European far right voices in the debate but we were wrong

Good data, smart analysis, meaningful conclusions: Towards a gender analysis framework

Peer Revie

Atomically detailed simulation of the powerstroke in myosin II by milestoning

The interaction between actin and myosin II plays an important role in a variety of cellular functions. In particular, myosin II is involved in muscle contraction, which is attributed to the sliding of thin filament actin past the thick myosin II filaments. Past studies on the structure of myosin have linked severe pathologies to defects in myosin, making it important to understand the mechanism of the system. In this dissertation I will discuss a study in which we focus our analysis on the powerstroke of the myosin II cross bridge cycle. To do this, we use an algorithm called Milestoning which partitions the dynamics into a sequence of trajectories between “milestones” along the reaction coordinate. The structure of myosin II bound to actin in the rigor state was used as a starting point, and a structure for the bound prepowerstroke state was developed using existing published structures for the unbound prepowerstroke state as well as experimental data gathered about the movement of myosin II during the powerstroke. With both the beginning and final states of the powerstroke, we can interpolate between these structures to build intermediate states along the pathway. We generate two approximate reaction paths using a chain minimization approach and targeted molecular dynamics (TMD). The all-atom intermediate structures along the pathway of the powerstroke were developed to be used in further simulations. Milestoning allows for the computation of kinetics and thermodynamics between the smaller partitions along the reaction coordinate to gain further insight into the kinetics of the myosin II powerstroke. This work will lead to a significant improvement in our understanding of the complete powerstroke mechanism, which will in turn facilitate future research on the effects of structural defects in myosin II on powerstroke function and muscle contraction. At present, due to problems in the model of the rigor state that was developed by others we are unable to obtain reliable comparison between our studies and experiment. The second research topic that I will discuss in this dissertation is a study that combines two computational techniques, umbrella sampling and locally enhanced sampling (LES). LES allows for enhanced sampling of a small subset of a system by running simulations using multiple copies of the region of interest. Since the small part does not add significantly to the computational costs, multiplying the local part increases statistics. The LES Hamiltonian, H [subscript LES], is a mean field approximation. Therefore, the weight of the configurations must be corrected to obtain the exact answer by exp(-β(H-H [subscript LES])). The exponential weight may have a wide distribution that impacts efficiency. In combination with umbrella sampling, the umbrella potential ensures that the exponent is close to one and the weight of all LES configurations is significant, while still retaining the computational advantages of LES. For illustration, we compute the free energy of alanine dipeptide with the Ψ angle for a coarse variable using a single copy and two LES copies. The resulting free energy profiles evaluate whether the addition of an umbrella potential to LES improves the accuracy of free energy calculationsChemistr