An Exploration of Aggregated Patterns of Student Curriculum-Based-Measurement Outcome Data Within a Response to Intervention Program

One major concern when developing a response to intervention (RTI) program is to select effective practices that will be successfully implemented and sustained with adequate organizational guidance and support. The purpose of this study was to explore patterns of student tier placement data as a school-based case example of the nature and utility of RTI in an applied setting. Specifically, this study aimed to explore the extent that the percentages of students placed in a three-tier program based on student oral reading fluency (ORF) level and growth trajectories reflect the standard RTI tier placement (80%, 15%, and 5%) at fall, winter, and spring in a school setting. Percentages of the total student population tier placement were explored with ORF data from third- and fourth-grade students (N = 429) at two schools in fall, winter, and spring. Results showed that school and ORF data reflected the standard percentages of student populations within each tier in fall, winter, and spring. However, slope data showed greater percentages of students in the more intensive tiers. Moreover, flexible grouping, or movement between tiers occurred for few students when movement occurred based on school or ORF level data. No significant differences were found between the school and ORF student tier placements in fall, winter, and spring. A significant difference was found in spring between placement methods with a larger proportion of students in Tier 1 based on the school assignments and a larger proportion of students in Tier 2 and Tier 3 based on ORF slope assignments

An Enquiry into the Physical Conditions and Social Circumstances of Mentally Subnormal Children Attending Elementary Schools in the City of Lincoln

This thesis is based on an examination by the writer of 323 children attending elementary schools in the City of Lincoln. The examination consisted of a physical examination and the application of the Stanford Revision of the Binet Simon tests. The ages of the children were from six to thirteen years. The social and economic problems of mental snbnormality have been discussed. In two hundred and twenty children information was obtained of their family history. Mental retardation, insanity, epilepsy and syphilis, abnormalities of pregnancy and labour, and tuberculosis, were noted. Each factor in the inheritance was considered first alone, then in combination with the other factors which are grouped under the heading "Other causative factors". Factors like epilepsy, insanity, tuberculosis, were not proved, when found alone, to affect the mental intelligence of the child, though when together or combined with factors like mental retardation they had an adverse effect. Mental retardation in the parents or grandparents was shown to he one of the most instrumental factors in the production of mentally subnormal children

The Effects of Music on the Recognition of Sight Vocabulary of First Grade Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect music had on the recognition of sight vocabulary of first grade students. The research that had been documented previous to this study indicated that music should be used in an environment that includes an abundance of printed materials as in a language experience or whole language approach. Through this, the lyrics were made visible to the students. A sample population of forty students was used for this study and it was conducted over an eight week period. The treatment group was instructed through the use of music and charted lyrics. The control group was instructed through the use of a basal reader. A comparison was made through the use of a two-tailed t test to compare the posttest scores of the group that used the basal and the group that used music. There was no significant difference found, yet further implications suggest further investigation may prove to be of use

Measurement of vacuum pressure with a magneto-optical trap : a pressure-rise method

This research was supported by UK EPSRC grant GR/T08272/01, IOP Scotland and the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant RPG-2013-074.The lifetime of an atom trap is often limited by the presence of residual background gases in the vacuum chamber. This leads to the lifetime being inversely proportional to the pressure. Here we use this dependence to estimate the pressure and to obtain pressure rate-of-rise curves, which are commonly used in vacuum science to evaluate the performance of a system. We observe different rates of pressure increase in response to different levels of outgassing in our system. Therefore we suggest that this is a sensitive method which will find useful applications in cold atom systems, in particular where the inclusion of a standard vacuum gauge is impractical.Peer reviewe

CCXXII.?The influence of solvents on the rotation of optically active compounds. Part XVI. The relationship between the chemical constitution and the influence of a solvent

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Designing community-based health programs to address the needs of marginalised and disadvantaged communities

The focus of the visit by Dr Julie Will was to explore evidence based approaches for improving access and equity in primary health care, with a particular emphasis on preventing and managing chronic conditions and health problems of people who are unemployed. Dr Will is a senior epidemiologist in the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the past 13 years, she served as the WISEWOMAN Team Leader, Acting Team Lead for the Applied Research and Translation Team, and Senior Epidemiologist for Health Services Research and Registry Team.The research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute which is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and

Quantitative assessments: Encouraging surface learning in introductory physics?

Force Concept Inventory (FCI) results are often used to inform the re-structuring of introductory physics courses. The correlation between learning gains on the FCI and results in quantitative assessments have been extensively investigated finding that course re-structuring focused on increased conceptual understanding is commonly accompanied by improvements in quantitative results (Fraser et al., 2014; Freeman et al., 2014). At the University of New South Wales—a large, research-intensive university—introductory physics students require improvement in quantitative assessments, as opposed to conceptual understanding. In this talk we present a case study of a mild course restructuring with a goal to improve students’ exam-readiness: introducing two mandatory mid-term quizzes. These quizzes consisted of four quantitative physics questions, similar in nature to the problems on the final exam. We examine student assessment outcomes for three consecutive introductory physics courses: two prior to the quiz introduction (n = 1403) and one post (n = 557). No other course changes occurred during this period. We find improvements in students’ final exam performance (52% to 61%), but a significant drop in FCI learning gains (25% to 14%). We examine the possible causes for this fall, which may indicate a trend towards a more surface-based learning approach

The Relationship between Sun Exposure, Dietary Vitamin D and Muscle Soreness in Collegiate Football Players

Background: A growing body of research is raising concern regarding the prevalence of poor vitamin D status among athletes. Besides it’s well known association with low bone mineral density, an addition sign of vitamin D deficiency is muscular weakness and soreness, suggesting that deficiency in athletic populations may inhibit optimal physical performance and increase the risk of injury. It is difficult to achieve optimal vitamin D status through diet alone, so it is important to assess all sources of vitamin D, including dietary intake, supplementation, and amount and frequency of sun exposure to obtain a comprehensive profile of vitamin D risk. Currently, there are no studies that include such a complete profile of vitamin D risk in collegiate football players. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the associations between sun exposure and diet, as markers of vitamin D status, and training-induced muscle soreness in collegiate football players. More specifically, this study assesses if total sun exposure and dietary vitamin D intake are related to muscle soreness. Methods: Twenty-four male collegiate football players were recruited for this cross-sectional study in October 2015. Player body composition was measured using a multi-current bioelectrical impedance analyzer (BIA). Dietary intake, sun exposure, and muscle soreness data were collected via interview. The Sun Exposure Questionnaire and the Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) were used to assess weekly sun exposure and muscle soreness, respectively. Results: The mean vitamin D intake (10.8±9.5 mcg) was below the RDA for vitamin D (15 mcg), with only 7 participants (29.2%) meeting or exceeding the RDA. Dietary vitamin D intake was inversely associated with portion of muscle sore (rs = -0.393, p = 0.029). SF-MPQ total and affective scores were each inversely associated with weekly time outdoors (rs = -0.362, p = 0.041; rs = -0.449, p = 0.014, respectively). T-test analysis found that the mean SF-MPQ affective pain score was significantly lower for players with a time outdoors score above the mean (p = 0.04). Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of insufficient dietary vitamin D intake (70.8%) identified in a collegiate football team. Our findings suggest that higher dietary vitamin D intake and more time spent outdoors are associated with a lower proportion of muscular soreness and decreased perceived pain. Thus, achieving a satisfactory vitamin D status, through a combination of diet and sun exposure, may reduce vitamin D deficiency associated risks, including lowering muscle soreness, thereby serving to enhance athletic performance

Grazing in a megagrazer-dominated savanna does not reduce soil carbon stocks, even at high intensities

Recent studies suggest that wild animals can promote ecosystem carbon sinks through their impacts on vegetation and soils. However, livestock studies show that intense levels of grazing reduce soil organic carbon (SOC), leading to concerns that rewilding with large grazers may compromise ecosystem carbon storage. Furthermore, wild grazers can both limit and promote woody plant recruitment and survival on savanna grasslands, with both positive and negative impacts on SOC, depending on the rainfall and soil texture contexts. We used grazing lawns in one of the few African protected savannas that are still dominated by megagrazers (> 1000 kg), namely white rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum, as a model to study the impact of prolonged and intense wild grazing on SOC stocks. We contrasted SOC stocks between patches of varying grazing intensity and woody plant encroachment in sites across different rhino habitat types. We found no differences in SOC stocks between the most- and least grazed plots in any of the habitats. Intermediately grazed plots, however, had higher SOC stocks in the top 5 cm compared to most and least grazed plots, but only in the closed-canopy woodland habitat and not in the open habitats. Importantly, we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that wild grazing reduces SOC, even at high grazing intensities by the world's largest megagrazer. Compared to the non-encroached reference plots, woody encroached plots had higher SOC stocks in soils with low clay content and lower SOC stocks in soils with high clay content, although only in the top 5 cm. Accordingly, our study highlights that wild grazers may influence SOC indirectly through their impact on tree-grass ratios in grassy ecosystems. Our study thus provides important insights for future natural climate solutions that focus on wild grazer conservation and restoration.Keywords: fire, grazing impact, rewilding, soil carbon, white rhinoceros, woody encroachmen

Evidence that faecal carriage of resistant Escherichia coli by 16-week-old dogs in the United Kingdom is associated with raw feeding

We report a survey (August 2017 to March 2018) and risk factor analysis of faecal carriage of antibacterial-resistant (ABR) Escherichia coli in 223 16-week-old dogs in the United Kingdom. Raw feeding was associated with the presence of fluoroquinolone-resistant (FQ-R) E. coli and those resistant to tetracycline, amoxicillin, and streptomycin, but not to cefalexin. Whole genome sequencing of 36 FQ-R E. coli isolates showed a wide range of sequence types (STs), with almost exclusively mutational FQ-R dominated by ST744 and ST162. Comparisons between E. coli isolates from puppies known to be located within a 50 × 50 km region with those isolated from human urinary tract infections (isolated in parallel in the same region) identified an ST744 FQ-R lineage that was carried by one puppy and caused one urinary tract infection. Accordingly, we conclude that raw feeding is associated with carriage of ABR E. coli in dogs even at 16 weeks of age and that bacteria carried by puppies are shared with humans. We therefore suggest that those who feed their dogs raw meat seriously consider the potential ABR-transmission threat their pet may become as a result and deploy appropriate hygiene practices in mitigation