A Longitudinal Study of Visual Selective Attention, Auditory Selective Attention, IQ, and Reading Readiness as Predictors of Reading Achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive validity of four factors tested in a kindergarten sample—visual selective attention, auditory selective attention, IQ, and reading readiness. This study was to investigate which of the four factors was the most accurate predictor of reading achievement at the end of first grade and fifth grade, and which of the testing elements form the best combination for accurately predicting reading achievement. The original studies, investigating the visual and auditory selective attention abilities of children completing a kindergarten program, were conducted by Cuccu and DeChristopher in 1978. The original number of subjects attending a suburban western New York public school was 50. The four tests used as predictor variables were given during the kindergarten school year 1977-78. Visual selective attention was determined using a sorting task designed and administered by Cuccu. Auditory selective attention was determined by using dichotic listening tapes administered by DeChristopher. Verbal IQ was determined using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test administered by the classroom teacher, and reading readiness was determined using the pre-reading skills composite score on the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT) administered by the classroom teacher. One year later, 34 of these children remained in the school for their first grade year and 31 were included in this follow-up study. First grade reading achievement was determined using the total reading score on the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Level. In 1983, 16 of the original kindergarten sample completed their fifth grade year, and 15 were included in this study. Fifth grade reading achievement was determined using the total reading score on the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Intermediate Level. Multiple stepwise regression revealed that reading readiness was the best single predictor of reading achievement at the end of first grade. The best combination of predictor variables was reading readiness and visual selective attention. IQ was found to be the best single predictor of reading achievement at the end of fifth grade, and the best combination of predictors was IQ, visual selective attention, and reading readiness. Tests of selective attention are not regularly administered in kindergarten. Results of this study indicate that visual selective attention tested in kindergarten may be a useful additional screening procedure and could be important in determining the type of formal reading instruction most appropriate for the beginning reader

Neighborhood and community interactions determine the spatial pattern of tropical tree seedling survival

Factors affecting survival and recruitment of 3531 individually mapped seedlings of Myristicaceae were examined over three years in a highly diverse neotropical rain forest, at spatial scales of 1–9 m and 25 ha. We found convincing evidence of a community compensatory trend (CCT) in seedling survival (i.e., more abundant species had higher seedling mortality at the 25-ha scale), which suggests that density-dependent mortality may contribute to the spatial dynamics of seedling recruitment. Unlike previous studies, we demonstrate that the CCT was not caused by differences in microhabitat preferences or life history strategy among the study species. In local neighborhood analyses, the spatial autocorrelation of seedling survival was important at small spatial scales (1–5 m) but decayed rapidly with increasing distance. Relative seedling height had the greatest effect on seedling survival. Conspecific seedling density had a more negative effect on survival than heterospecific seedling density and was stronger and extended farther in rare species than in common species. Taken together, the CCT and neighborhood analyses suggest that seedling mortality is coupled more strongly to the landscape-scale abundance of conspecific large trees in common species and the local density of conspecific seedlings in rare species. We conclude that negative density dependence could promote species coexistence in this rain forest community but that the scale dependence of interactions differs between rare and common species

Using the Business Classroom to Help Fe y Alegría- Bolivia Schools with Analytics and Pattern Visualization

This article describes the analytical support a Saint Joseph’s University (SJU) data mining class provided over the past three academic years to Fe y Alegría in Bolivia (FyAB), a Jesuit-sponsored institution dedicated to the education of the poor and looking for a feasible model that could help them identify which students and schools have the most need. SJU undergraduates, working without viable socio-economic household income information for each student in the database, had to be creative in assisting FyAB using only survey data provided by Bolivian school-age pupils. Working in consultation with FyAB school representatives, their goal for each iteration was twofold: 1) create a model that provides evidence, given current sample data, of the students most in need and 2) expand it for application across the larger population of FyAB schools. Such work exemplifies, as noted by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015), the importance of equality and justice in education as instruments toward sustainability. This article thus provides context for, and a historical background of, this ongoing initiative, and describes its specific characteristics. It reviewssequential cohorts of students by semester, how the requests, focus, and models evolved with new and changing issues, and concludes by sharing a system SJU students created in the fall of 2017—an innovative web-based and easily updated visualization tool that allows for very efficient examination of survey answers—to help make initial analyses easier for those looking to implement immediate student outreach initiatives in Bolivia

First interstellar detection of OH+

The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) 12m telescope was used to observe the N=1-0, J=0-1 ground state transitions of OH+ at 909.1588 GHz with the CHAMP+ heterodyne array receiver. Two blended hyperfine structure transitions were detected in absorption against the strong continuum source Sagittarius B2(M) and in several pixels offset by 18". Both, absorption from Galactic center gas as well as absorption from diffuse clouds in intervening spiral arms in a velocity range from -116 to 38.5 km/s is observed. The total OH+ column density of absorbing gas is 2.4 \times 10^15 cm-2. A column density local to Sgr B2(M) of 2.6 \times 10^14 cm-2 is found. On the intervening line-of-sight the column density per unit velocity interval are in the range from 1 to 40 \times 10^12 cm-2/(km/s). OH+ is found to be on average more abundant than other hydrides such as SH+ and CH+. Abundance ratios of OH and atomic oxygen to OH+ are found to be in the range of 10^1-2 and 10^3-4, respectively. The detected absorption of a continuous velocity range on the line-of-sight shows OH+ to be an abundant component of diffuse clouds.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Seasonality of reproduction in an ever-wet lowland tropical forest in Amazonian Ecuador

We thank Pablo Alvia, Alvaro Pérez, Zornitza Aguilar, Paola Barriga, Matt Priest, Caroline Whitefoord, and Gorky Villa for assistance in collecting data or identifying species; Elina Gomez for entry of trap data; Hugo Navarrete, Katya Romoleroux and the QCA herbarium staff, and David Lasso and the ECY staff for help with logistics and needed permitting; Rick Condit, Elizabeth Losos, Robin Foster, and Henrik Balslev for initial encouragement to work within the Yasuní Forest Dynamics Plot; Hugo Romero for initially summarizing the YFDP and SSP weather data sets; Pablo Jarrin for setting up the TEAM weather station, and David Lasso and Carlos Padilla for maintaining that equipment and making the data available; and the Ecuadorian Ministerio del Ambiente for permission to work in Yasuní National Park [No 014-2019-IC-PNY-DPAO/AVS, No 012-2018-IC-PNY593-DPAO/AVS, No 008-2017-IC-PNY-DPAO/AVS, No 012-2016-IC-FAU-FLO-DPAO-PNY, No 594-014-2015-FLO-MAE-DPAO-PNY, and earlier permits]. The Forest Dynamics Plot of Yasuní National Park has been made possible through the generous support of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE) funds of donaciones del impuesto a la renta, the Government of Ecuador, the US National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the University of Aarhus of Denmark. The phenology project began while NCG was at the Natural History Museum, London, with funding (2000–2004) from the Department of Botany (NHM), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, British Airways, and the Natural Environment Research Council (GR9/04037). It continued with NCG at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2005–2023). We thank the Center for Tropical Forest Science for transitional funding (2006–2008, 2017–2018) and the National Science Foundation LTREB program for long-term funding (2006–2020; DEB-0614525, DEB-1122634, DEB-1754632, DEB-1754668).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The origin of abundance gradients in the Milky Way: the predictions of different models

We aim at studying the abundance gradients along the Galactic disk and their dependence upon several parameters: a threshold in the surface gas density regulating star formation, the star formation efficiency, the timescale for the formation of the thin disk and the total surface mass density of the stellar halo. We test a model which considers a cosmological infall law. This law does not predict an inside-out disk formation, but it allows to well fit the properties of the solar vicinity. We study several cases. We find that to reproduce at the same time the abundance, star formation rate and surface gas density gradients along the Galactic disk it is necessary to assume an inside-out formation for the disk. The threshold in the gas density is not necessary and the same effect could be reached by assuming a variable star formation efficiency. A cosmologically derived infall law with an inside-out process for the disk formation and a variable star formation efficiency can indeed well reproduce all the properties of the disk. However, the cosmological model presented here does not have sufficient resolution to capture the requested inside-out formation for the disk.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures and 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

An ammonia spectral map of the L1495-B218 filaments in the Taurus molecular cloud. I. Physical properties of filaments and dense cores

We present deep NH3 observations of the L1495-B218 filaments in the Taurus molecular cloud covering over a 3° angular range using the K-band focal plane array on the 100 m Green Bank Telescope. The L1495-B218 filaments form an interconnected, nearby, large complex extending over 8 pc. We observed NH3 (1, 1) and (2, 2) with a spectral resolution of 0.038 km s−1 and a spatial resolution of 31''. Most of the ammonia peaks coincide with intensity peaks in dust continuum maps at 350 and 500 μm. We deduced physical properties by fitting a model to the observed spectra. We find gas kinetic temperatures of 8–15 K, velocity dispersions of 0.05–0.25 km s−1, and NH3 column densities of 5 × 1012 to 1 × 1014 cm−2. The CSAR algorithm, which is a hybrid of seeded-watershed and binary dendrogram algorithms, identifies a total of 55 NH3 structures, including 39 leaves and 16 branches. The masses of the NH3 sources range from 0.05 to 9.5 ${{M}_{\odot }}$. The masses of NH3 leaves are mostly smaller than their corresponding virial mass estimated from their internal and gravitational energies, which suggests that these leaves are gravitationally unbound structures. Nine out of 39 NH3 leaves are gravitationally bound, and seven out of nine gravitationally bound NH3 leaves are associated with star formation. We also found that 12 out of 30 gravitationally unbound leaves are pressure confined. Our data suggest that a dense core may form as a pressure-confined structure, evolve to a gravitationally bound core, and undergo collapse to form a protostar

Carbon Recombination Lines from the Galactic Plane at 34.5 & 328 MHz

We present results of a search for carbon recombination lines in the Galaxy at 34.5 MHz (C$575\alpha$) made using the dipole array at Gauribidanur near Bangalore. Observations made towards 32 directions, led to detections of lines in absorption at nine positions. Followup observations at 328 MHz (C$272\alpha$) using the Ooty Radio Telescope detected these lines in emission. A VLA D-array observation of one of the positions at 330 MHz yielded no detection implying a lower limit of 10' for the angular size of the line forming region. The longitude-velocity distribution of the observed carbon lines indicate that the line forming region are located mainly between 4 kpc and 7 kpc from the Galactic centre. Combining our results with published carbon recombination line data near 76 MHz (\nocite{erickson:95} Erickson \et 1995) we obtain constraints on the physical parameters of the line forming regions. We find that if the angular size of the line forming regions is $\ge 4^{\circ}$, then the range of parameters that fit the data are: \Te $= 20-40$ K, \ne $\sim 0.1-0.3$ \cm3 and pathlengths $\sim 0.07-0.9$ pc which may correspond to thin photo-dissociated regions around molecular clouds. On the other hand, if the line forming regions are $\sim 2^{\circ}$ in extent, then warmer gas (\Te $\sim 60-300$ K) with lower electron densities (\ne $\sim 0.03-0.05$ \cm3) extending over several tens of parsecs along the line of sight and possibly associated with atomic \HI gas can fit the data. Based on the range of derived parameters, we suggest that the carbon line regions are most likely associated with photo-dissociation regions.Comment: To appear in Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy, March 200

Submillimeter absorption from SH+, a new widespread interstellar radical, 13CH+ and HCl

We have used the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment 12 m telescope (APEX) to carry out an absorption study of submillimeter wavelength rotational ground-state lines of H35Cl, H37Cl, 13CH+, and, for the first time, of the SH+ radical (sulfoniumylidene or sulfanylium). We detected the quartet of ground-state hyperfine structure lines of SH+ near 683 GHz with the CHAMP+ array receiver against the strong continuum source Sagittarius B2, which is located close to the center of our Galaxy. In addition to absorption from various kinematic components of Galactic center gas, we also see absorption at the radial velocities belonging to intervening spiral arms. This demonstrates that SH+ is a ubiquitous component of the diffuse interstellar medium. We do not find clear evidence for other SH+ lines we searched for, which is partially due to blending with lines from other molecules. In addition to SH+, we observed absorption from H35Cl, H37Cl, and 13CH+. The observed submillimeter absorption is compared in detail with absorption in 3 mm transitions of H13CO+ and c-C3H2 and the CO J = 1-0 and 3-2 transitions.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure