Promising Practices in Combatting Juvenile Sex Trafficking Surrounding Large Events and Beyond

Proactive, inter-agency, multidisciplinary collaboration has proven helpful in effectively addressing human trafficking surrounding large events, such as the Super Bowl, as multiple municipal entities, neighboring law enforcement agencies, various service providers, local and visiting volunteers, and heightened media focus are generally involved

Cytological characterization and allelism testing of anther developmental mutants identified in a screen of maize male sterile lines.

Proper regulation of anther differentiation is crucial for producing functional pollen, and defects in or absence of any anther cell type result in male sterility. To deepen understanding of processes required to establish premeiotic cell fate and differentiation of somatic support cell layers a cytological screen of maize male-sterile mutants has been conducted which yielded 42 new mutants including 22 mutants with premeiotic cytological defects (increasing this class fivefold), 7 mutants with postmeiotic defects, and 13 mutants with irregular meiosis. Allelism tests with known and new mutants confirmed new alleles of four premeiotic developmental mutants, including two novel alleles of msca1 and single new alleles of ms32, ms8, and ocl4, and two alleles of the postmeiotic ms45. An allelic pair of newly described mutants was found. Premeiotic mutants are now classified into four categories: anther identity defects, abnormal anther structure, locular wall defects and premature degradation of cell layers, and/or microsporocyte collapse. The range of mutant phenotypic classes is discussed in comparison with developmental genetic investigation of anther development in rice and Arabidopsis to highlight similarities and differences between grasses and eudicots and within the grasses

Self Concept As A Mediator Of Effect Of Extracurricular Activities On Academic Engagement in Middle School Students

The following study examined the relationship between participation in extracurricular activities and academic outcomes, such as achievement and behavioral engagement and self-concept, in an at-risk group of middle school students. The researchers hypothesized that if a relationship existed between extracurricular participation and academic outcomes, then self-competence beliefs would mediate this relationship and that these relationships would remain significant after controlling for the previous years’ academic outcomes and self-concept. Consistent with the hypothesis, there was a positive relationship between extracurricular participation and achievement. However, this relationship was no longer significant after controlling for the previous years’ achievement. Inconsistent with the hypothesis, the relationship between extracurricular participation and classroom engagement was not significant. As expected, the positive relationship between extracurricular participation and self-concept was significant and remained significant after controlling for the previous years’ self-concept. The implications of these findings and avenues for further research are discussed

Filamentous fungi are potential bioremediation agents of semi-synthetic textile waste

Textile waste contributes to the pollution of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. While natural textile fibres are known to be biodegraded by microbes, the vast majority of textiles now contain a mixture of processed plant-derived polymers and synthetic materials generated from petroleum and are commonly dyed with azo dyes. This presents a complex recycling problem as the separation of threads and removal of dye are challenging and costly. As a result, the majority of textile waste is sent to landfill or incinerated. This project sought to assess the potential of fungal bioremediation of textile-based dye as a step towards sustainable and environmentally-friendly means of disposal of textile waste. Successful development of an agar-independent microcosm enabled the assessment of the ability of two fungal species to grow on a range of textiles containing an increasing percentage of elastane. The white rot fungus Hypholoma fasciculare was shown to grow well on semi-synthetic textiles, and for the first time, bioremediation of dye from textiles was demonstrated. Volatile analysis enabled preliminary assessment of the safety profile of this process and showed that industrial scale-up may require consideration of volatile capture in the design process. This study is the first to address the potential of fungi as bioremediation agents for solid textile waste, and the results suggest this is an avenue worthy of further exploration

Accommodations experience and retention of students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing in postsecondary education settings

textStudents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing represent a special population of students with unique accommodation needs (Cawthon & Online Research Lab, 2008). The goal of these accommodations, whether utilized during classroom instruction or assessment, is to ensure students have access to academic material and are able to demonstrate their skills on knowledge assessments. These students have historically had less access to higher education and in the last few decades research has examined their low rates of retention in postsecondary institutions (Lang, 2002). Previous research has examined a variety of social and academic factors in relation to retention of deaf or hard-of-hearing students (Albertini, Kelly, & Matchett, 2011). However, this research is often limited to few sites and time windows, rather than examining the longitudinal nature of retention. This dissertation proposed to utilize the deaf or hard-of-hearing sample in the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) to examine the extent of the relationship between students’ experiences of accommodations in their postsecondary setting and their retention in that setting. Particular aspects of this experience included student evaluations of their accommodations’ utility and whether they received sufficient accommodations. Analysis included two logistic regression where responses to questions regarding accommodations, controlling for previous school performance, socioeconomic status, and co-occurring disabilities, were used to predict college retention. Analysis also addressed whether the student’s communication modality moderates the relationship between students’ evaluations of accommodations utility and sufficiency and college retention.Educational Psycholog

Spectral faux trees

A spectral faux tree with respect to a given matrix is a graph which is not a tree but is cospectral with a tree for the given matrix. We consider the existence of spectral faux trees for several matrices, with emphasis on constructions. For the Laplacian matrix, there are no spectral faux trees. For the adjacency matrix, almost all trees are cospectral with a faux tree. For the signless Laplacian matrix, spectral faux trees can only exist when the number of vertices is of the form $n=4k$. For the normalized adjacency, spectral faux trees exist when the number of vertices $n\ge 4$, and we give an explicit construction for a family whose size grows exponentially with $k$ for $n=\alpha k+1$ where $\alpha$ is fixed.Comment: 17 page

Complements of coalescing sets

We consider matrices of the form $qD+A$, with $D$ being the diagonal matrix of degrees, $A$ being the adjacency matrix, and $q$ a fixed value. Given a graph $H$ and $B\subseteq V(G)$, which we call a coalescent pair $(H,B)$, we derive a formula for the characteristic polynomial where a copy of same rooted graph $G$ is attached by the root to \emph{each} vertex of $B$. Moreover, we establish if $(H_1,B_1)$ and $(H_2,B_2)$ are two coalescent pairs which are cospectral for any possible rooted graph $G$, then $(H_1,V(H_1)\setminus B_1)$ and $(H_2,V(H_2)\setminus B_2)$ will also always be cospectral for any possible rooted graph $G$.Comment: 16 page

Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Belongingness in Civil Engineering

Prior research shows that engineering students with low feelings of belongingness tend to switch to non-technical majors. With the understanding that aspects of student motivation, identity, and personality, as well as their academic performance, affect their sense of community in engineering, this study seeks to assess these student attributes over time. The context for this study is a single civil engineering program that is undergoing both curricular and cultural changes as part of an NSF-funded project. The data and findings presented here are part of a larger study of how student attitudes and beliefs change during their experiences in a curriculum that is different from the status quo. The focus of this paper is on students’ sense of belonging within their courses, major and university, and how those perceptions differ based on student demographics and year in the program. Data collected for this study include responses to a survey designed to assess the current civil engineering students’ motivation, attitudes and beliefs about their courses, department, and university. The survey, which was adapted from a prior NSF-funded project, included eight constructs: sense of community, time-oriented motivation, goal orientation, career outcome expectations, grit, identity, agency beliefs and Big 5 personality traits. Subscales for students’ sense of community (which is the focus of this paper) were sense of community within their current engineering course, their engineering major and university. Undergraduates were invited to complete the survey during lab courses in which they were enrolled during the Fall and Spring semesters. Of the total number of students in the program, 92.2% completed the survey (86% White and 80% male, which is representative of enrollment in the department). Quantitative data analyses included descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (ANOVA) to compare the factor means by gender and race and by year in the program. Interviews were conducted with a subset of the survey participants (n=9) from a range of classes and demographics during the last two weeks of each semester. The interview questions pertaining to students’ perceptions of belongingness are included in this paper, although other questions explored students’ beliefs about identity and their perceptions of their future in engineering. Interviews were analyzed using open coding, with codes organized into categories and themes. Quantitative results showed that mean scores for all three belongingness sub-constructs increase as students’ time in the program increases, with the exception of juniors having the highest score for sense of belonging at the university level. The largest increases in sense of belonging at the course, major and institution levels were between sophomore and junior year. Some factors of belongingness were significantly lower for non-majority student groups. Qualitative analyses revealed that students’ perceptions of belongingness were affected by positive learning experiences, connecting with civil engineers in different contexts, making personal connections and having a sense of solidarity with others in the program. Perceptions of not belonging were affected by students selecting this major to fulfill others’ expectations, not meeting instructors’ expectations, and a lack of role models for females