Study of Pupil Personnel Ratios, Services, and Programs in California

Gray, Elsner, and Poynton present a brief overview and analysis of Assembly Bill 722. The authors provide a summary of the key components of the study including the need for pupil support services, effective pupil support services and programs, and ratios of pupil-to-pupil support personnel. They offer an additional analysis of implications for future practice, including a critique of the reported effectiveness of the pupil programs, but lack of access for most students given the high pupil to personnel ratio

The Construction of Cosmopolitan Glocalities in Secondary Classrooms through Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the Social Sciences

Our article argues for content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in the social sciences, as part of a new literacy towards 21st century challenges at school. At first, we will show how multilingualism is closely juxtaposed with global discourses in a worldwide network of glocalities. Thereafter, for the conceptual framework of the suggested pedagogy, we explain why cosmopolitanism must constitute an integral part thereof, accompanying the genesis of classroom glocalities. The heart of our competence model for CLIL in the social sciences fosters the promotion of global discourse competence with adolescent students. In short, this learning aim is a hybrid of subject and language learning, incorporating the merits of language didactics as well as “21st century skills”. Finally, in the last step, we will present #climonomics, a simulation of a multilingual EU parliamentary debate about climate change and climate action for secondary students. This example intends to demonstrate how multilingualism through CLIL amplifies the magnitude of global discourses during a simulation yet realistic setting. It should provide ‘food for thought’ for similar initiatives in research and teaching, to encourage the facilitation of cosmopolitan visions in classroom glocalities

Observed Versus GCM-Generated Local Tropical Cyclone Frequency: Comparisons Using a Spatial Lattice

Of broad scientific and public interest is the reliability of global climate models (GCMs) to simulate future regional and local tropical cyclone (TC) occurrences. Atmospheric GCMs are now able to generate vortices resembling actual TCs, but questions remain about their fidelity to observed TCs. Here the authors demonstrate a spatial lattice approach for comparing actual with simulated TC occurrences regionally using observed TCs from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) dataset and GCM-generated TCs from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) High Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM) and Florida State University (FSU) Center for Ocean–Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) model over the common period 1982–2008. Results show that the spatial distribution of TCs generated by the GFDL model compares well with observations globally, although there are areas of over- and underprediction, particularly in parts of the Pacific Ocean. Difference maps using the spatial lattice highlight these discrepancies. Additionally, comparisons focusing on the North Atlantic Ocean basin are made. Results confirm a large area of overprediction by the FSU COAPS model in the south-central portion of the basin. Relevant to projections of future U.S. hurricane activity is the fact that both models underpredict TC activity in the Gulf of Mexico

Retargeting Visual Data with Deformation Fields

Seam carving is an image editing method that enable content-aware resizing, including operations like removing objects. However, the seam-finding strategy based on dynamic programming or graph-cut limits its applications to broader visual data formats and degrees of freedom for editing. Our observation is that describing the editing and retargeting of images more generally by a displacement field yields a generalisation of content-aware deformations. We propose to learn a deformation with a neural network that keeps the output plausible while trying to deform it only in places with low information content. This technique applies to different kinds of visual data, including images, 3D scenes given as neural radiance fields, or even polygon meshes. Experiments conducted on different visual data show that our method achieves better content-aware retargeting compared to previous methods

Unabhängig, aber arm: Zur Dauer des Nichtbezuges von Sozialhilfe

Es gibt Menschen, die unterhalb des Existenzminimums leben und trotzdem keine Sozialhilfe beziehen. In einer Studie für die Sozialhilfe Basel-Stadt wurde erstmals untersucht, ob es sich beim Nichtbezug um ein kurzfristiges oder länger andauerndes Phänomen handelt. Was bedeuten die Erkenntnisse für die Armutsbekämpfung

Vector transition form factors of the NK∗→Θ+N K^*\to\Theta^+ and NKˉ∗→Σ10ˉ∗−N \bar{K}^*\to \Sigma_{\bar{10}}^{*-} in the SU(3) chiral quark-soliton model

We investigate the vector transition form factors of the nucleon and vector meson K^* to the pentaquark baryon Theta^+ within the framework of the SU(3) chiral quark-soliton model. We take into account the rotational 1/N_c and linear $m_{\rm s}$ corrections, assuming isospin symmetry and employing the symmetry-conserving quantization. It turns out that the leading-order contributions to the form factors are almost cancelled by the rotational corrections. Because of this, the flavor SU(3) symmetry-breaking terms yield sizeable effects on the vector transition form factors. In particular, the main contribution to the electric-like transition form factor comes from the wave-function corrections, which is a consequence of the generalized Ademollo-Gatto theorem derived in the present work. We estimate with the help of the vector meson dominance the K^* vector and tensor coupling constants for the Theta^+: $g_{K^{*}N\Theta}=0.74 - 0.87$ and $f_{K^{*}N\Theta}=0.53 - 1.16$. We argue that the outcome of the present work is consistent with the null results of the CLAS experiments in the reactions gamma n -> K^- Theta^+ and gamma p ->bar{K}^0 Theta^+. The results of the present work are also consistent with the recent experiments at KEK. In addition, we present the results of the $\Sigma_{\bar{10}}\to N\bar{K}^*$ transition form factors and its $\bar{K}^*N\Sigma_{\bar{10}}$ coupling constants.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure

Hurricanes and Climate: the U.S. CLIVAR Working Group on Hurricanes

While a quantitative climate theory of tropical cyclone formation remains elusive, considerable progress has been made recently in our ability to simulate tropical cyclone climatologies and understand the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation. Climate models are now able to simulate a realistic rate of global tropical cyclone formation, although simulation of the Atlantic tropical cyclone climatology remains challenging unless horizontal resolutions finer than 50 km are employed. The idealized experiments of the Hurricane Working Group of U.S. CLIVAR, combined with results from other model simulations, have suggested relationships between tropical cyclone formation rates and climate variables such as mid-tropospheric vertical velocity. Systematic differences are shown between experiments in which only sea surface temperature is increases versus experiments where only atmospheric carbon dioxide is increased, with the carbon dioxide experiments more likely to demonstrate a decrease in numbers. Further experiments are proposed that may improve our understanding of the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation, including experiments with two-way interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and variations in atmospheric aerosols

Hurricanes and Climate: The U.S. CLIVAR Working Group on Hurricanes

While a quantitative climate theory of tropical cyclone formation remains elusive, considerable progress has been made recently in our ability to simulate tropical cyclone climatologies and to understand the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation. Climate models are now able to simulate a realistic rate of global tropical cyclone formation, although simulation of the Atlantic tropical cyclone climatology remains challenging unless horizontal resolutions finer than 50 km are employed. This article summarizes published research from the idealized experiments of the Hurricane Working Group of U.S. Climate and Ocean: Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR). This work, combined with results from other model simulations, has strengthened relationships between tropical cyclone formation rates and climate variables such as midtropospheric vertical velocity, with decreased climatological vertical velocities leading to decreased tropical cyclone formation. Systematic differences are shown between experiments in which only sea surface temperature is increased compared with experiments where only atmospheric carbon dioxide is increased. Experiments where only carbon dioxide is increased are more likely to demonstrate a decrease in tropical cyclone numbers, similar to the decreases simulated by many climate models for a future, warmer climate. Experiments where the two effects are combined also show decreases in numbers, but these tend to be less for models that demonstrate a strong tropical cyclone response to increased sea surface temperatures. Further experiments are proposed that may improve our understanding of the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation, including experiments with two-way interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and variations in atmospheric aerosols

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE): Technical Overview

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) will expand the information space for study of cosmic sources, by adding linear polarization to the properties (time, energy, and position) observed in x-ray astronomy. Selected in 2017 January as a NASA Astrophysics Small Explorer (SMEX) mission, IXPE will be launched into an equatorial orbit in 2021. The IXPE mission will provide scientifically meaningful measurements of the x-ray polarization of a few dozen sources in the 2-8 keV band, including polarization maps of several x-ray-bright extended sources and phase-resolved polarimetry of many bright pulsating x-ray sources