Cell Phones in Minnesota High Schools: Principals’ Perceptions of Impact and Policy

As cell phone use has become commonplace in society, school leaders have debated the positive and negative impacts of permitting cell phone use in schools (Kiema, 2015). In 2015, New York City public schools removed their cell phone ban for 1.1 million students (Allen, 2015). A reason for reversing the ban was that the policy had a disproportionate impact on low students who were more likely to have their cell phones confiscated because of metal detectors in the schools they attended (Allen, 2015). The New York City cell phone ban also proved extremely difficult to consistently and effectively enforce (Allen, 2015). Students in France ages 15 years and younger were banned from bringing cell phones to school in 2018 (Busby, 2018). French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer cited public health concerns over excessive screen time use and decreased socialization for children (Wamsley, 2017). Parent groups who opposed the ban pointed out the problems associated with keeping phones out of schools, such as equitably enforcing the policy and lack of parent support (Wamsley, 2017). Research findings suggest banning cell phone use increases student achievement, for example a study of English public high schools found an improvement in student performance on standardized test scores in schools which banned the use of cell phones (Beland & Murphy, 2015). The study asserted that banning cell phones had the greatest impact on the academic performance of low-achieving students and no significant impact on the scores of higher achieving students (Beland & Murphy, 2015). Research is limited measuring the impacts of different types of cell phone use policies. The conceptual framework of the study was derived from research conducted by Obringer and Coffey (2007) who surveyed high school principals in the United States designed to determine principals’ perceptions of school cell phone policies, cell phone use by teachers and school safety issues involving the use of cell phones. The study replicated and, in some cases, modified survey questions from the Obringer and Coffey study in order to compare findings with the Obringer and Coffey study. The purpose of the study was to determine Minnesota high school (Grades 9-12) principals’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their school districts’ cell phone policies and their perceptions of the impact of teacher and student cell phone use in the classroom on student learning. The results of the study are intended to be used to assist school principals and other policy makers in the formulation of policies regulating the use of cell phones in schools

Electrophysiological and kinematic correlates of communicative intent in the planning and production of pointing gestures and speech

Acknowledgements We thank Albert Russel for assistance in setting up the experiments, and Charlotte Paulisse for help in data collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

ZINC PHOSPHIDE RODENTICIDE REDUCES COTTON RAT POPULATIONS IN FLORIDA SUGARCANE

Rodents cause extensive damage to sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) in southern Florida (Samol 1972). Losses have been estimated as high as $235/ha (Lefebvre et al. 1978). Cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and roof rats (Rattus rattus) are responsible for most of the damage (Holler et al. 1981). In-field treatment is required for effective reduction of rat populations because of the distribution and restricted movement patterns of rats within fields (Lefebvre et al. 1985a). Zinc phosphide (2%) baits are the only rodenticide baits registered for in-field use in Florida sugarcane. A preliminary test of in-crop aerial application of ZP Rodent Bait AG3 (Bell Laboratories, Inc., Madison, Wis.) in Florida showed poor results in reducing roof rat populations; only 7 of 40 (18%) radio-collared rats in 2 treated fields died whereas none of 38 radio-collared rats in 2 control fields died (Lefebvre et al. 1985b). Furthermore, no significant difference in pre- and post-treatment trapping success between treatment and control fields was observed. Donovan (1986) reported that numbers of cotton rats trapped in fields treated with this bait differed from those trapped in untreated fields; however, degree of efficacy was not discussed. Our study was conducted to obtain preliminary data on the effectiveness of ZP Rodent Bait AG in reducing cotton rat populations in Florida sugarcane. The study also provided information on the rate of disappearance of the bait following application

ZINC PHOSPHIDE RODENTICIDE REDUCES COTTON RAT POPULATIONS IN FLORIDA SUGARCANE

Rodents cause extensive damage to sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) in southern Florida (Samol 1972). Losses have been estimated as high as $235/ha (Lefebvre et al. 1978). Cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and roof rats (Rattus rattus) are responsible for most of the damage (Holler et al. 1981). In-field treatment is required for effective reduction of rat populations because of the distribution and restricted movement patterns of rats within fields (Lefebvre et al. 1985a). Zinc phosphide (2%) baits are the only rodenticide baits registered for in-field use in Florida sugarcane. A preliminary test of in-crop aerial application of ZP Rodent Bait AG3 (Bell Laboratories, Inc., Madison, Wis.) in Florida showed poor results in reducing roof rat populations; only 7 of 40 (18%) radio-collared rats in 2 treated fields died whereas none of 38 radio-collared rats in 2 control fields died (Lefebvre et al. 1985b). Furthermore, no significant difference in pre- and post-treatment trapping success between treatment and control fields was observed. Donovan (1986) reported that numbers of cotton rats trapped in fields treated with this bait differed from those trapped in untreated fields; however, degree of efficacy was not discussed. Our study was conducted to obtain preliminary data on the effectiveness of ZP Rodent Bait AG in reducing cotton rat populations in Florida sugarcane. The study also provided information on the rate of disappearance of the bait following application

First Near-IR Spectroscopic Survey of Neptune Trojans with JWST: Distinct Surface Compositions of Red vs Ultra-Red Neptune Trojans

Neptune's Trojan asteroids have been observed to have a variety of optical colors, most notably red (g $-$ r 0.75), but the underlying cause of these different color classifications is unknown. Near-IR spectroscopy can be used as a probe of the surface composition of these objects, as broad ice bands for a variety of materials are present in the near-IR. Here, we present the first results of a spectroscopic survey of Neptune's Trojan asteroids using the NIRSpec instrument on JWST. We compare the near-IR spectra of eight Neptune Trojans (NTs) based on different optical color classifications and with model spectra of different ices. We find that most of our targets are consistent with a surface covered in a thin layer of H$_2$O and CO$_2$ ices, while the only NT to reliably be classified as ultra-red is covered in ice tholins in addition to CO$_2$. Ice tholins are a known reddening agent when subjected to irradiation, so these results support the hypothesis that differences in optical color are due to differences in irradiation of the surfaces of these bodies. Since NTs have very similar orbits and therefore generally similar levels of irradiation at the current time, our results suggest that these objects have unique origins or there is ongoing processing of the surfaces of these objects through stochastic disturbances such as impacts.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, Submitted to ApJ

Framework engineering to produce dominant T cell receptors with enhanced antigen-specific function

Immunobiology of allogeneic stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy of hematological disease

Astro2020 Science White Paper: Triggered High-Priority Observations of Dynamic Solar System Phenomena

Unexpected dynamic phenomena have surprised solar system observers in the past and have led to important discoveries about solar system workings. Observations at the initial stages of these events provide crucial information on the physical processes at work. We advocate for long-term/permanent programs on ground-based and space-based telescopes of all sizes - including Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) - to conduct observations of high-priority dynamic phenomena, based on a predefined set of triggering conditions. These programs will ensure that the best initial dataset of the triggering event are taken; separate additional observing programs will be required to study the temporal evolution of these phenomena. While not a comprehensive list, the following are notional examples of phenomena that are rare, that cannot be anticipated, and that provide high-impact advances to our understandings of planetary processes. Examples include: new cryovolcanic eruptions or plumes on ocean worlds; impacts on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune; extreme eruptions on Io; convective superstorms on Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune; collisions within the asteroid belt or other small-body populations; discovery of an interstellar object passing through our solar system (e.g. 'Oumuamua); and responses of planetary atmospheres to major solar flares or coronal mass ejections.Comment: Astro2020 white pape

Whole-Slide Mitosis Detection in H&E Breast Histology Using PHH3 as a Reference to Train Distilled Stain-Invariant Convolutional Networks

Manual counting of mitotic tumor cells in tissue sections constitutes one of the strongest prognostic markers for breast cancer. This procedure, however, is time-consuming and error-prone. We developed a method to automatically detect mitotic figures in breast cancer tissue sections based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Application of CNNs to hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained histological tissue sections is hampered by: (1) noisy and expensive reference standards established by pathologists, (2) lack of generalization due to staining variation across laboratories, and (3) high computational requirements needed to process gigapixel whole-slide images (WSIs). In this paper, we present a method to train and evaluate CNNs to specifically solve these issues in the context of mitosis detection in breast cancer WSIs. First, by combining image analysis of mitotic activity in phosphohistone-H3 (PHH3) restained slides and registration, we built a reference standard for mitosis detection in entire H&E WSIs requiring minimal manual annotation effort. Second, we designed a data augmentation strategy that creates diverse and realistic H&E stain variations by modifying the hematoxylin and eosin color channels directly. Using it during training combined with network ensembling resulted in a stain invariant mitosis detector. Third, we applied knowledge distillation to reduce the computational requirements of the mitosis detection ensemble with a negligible loss of performance. The system was trained in a single-center cohort and evaluated in an independent multicenter cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas on the three tasks of the Tumor Proliferation Assessment Challenge (TUPAC). We obtained a performance within the top-3 best methods for most of the tasks of the challenge.Comment: Accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Medical Imagin