The Impact of a Sixth Grade Laptop Initiative on Student Attitudes Concerning Their Learning and Technological Competencies

This research explored the impact of a sixth grade one-to-one laptop initiative on student attitudes about learning and technological competencies. The study compared student preintervention and postintervention survey data prior to and after a sixth grade laptop intervention initiative. The survey responses were divided into 5 dimensions (School Subject Attitudes, Teaching and Learning Preferences, Computer Use Perceptions, Technology Skills, and Personal Attitudes and Behaviors) on both pre- and postsurveys. District means were compared with preintervention and postintervention data, as well as the means from the 5 dimensions, using a one-sample t-test with a midpoint test value of 3 on a 5-point scale. Ninety students participated in the preintervention survey and 93 students participated in the postintervention survey across 3 schools. The findings indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in student responses in 4 of the 5 dimensions except Teaching and Learning Preferences. Overall the findings on the 2 dimensions related to technological competencies had statistically significant scores on the postintervention survey, whereas the findings on 2 of the 3 sections related to student attitudes about learning had statistically significant scores. In conclusion, generally the laptop intervention initiative had an overall positive impact on student attitudes and technological competencies. The researcher concluded that the timing of the postsurvey, as well as the research taking place during the first year of implementation could have had an impact on the Teaching and Learning Preferences results. Examining the impact of one-to-one initiatives on student attitudes about learning and technological competencies could support districts in making the decision of adopting this technology

Cycles, wheels, and gears in finite planes

The existence of a primitive element of $GF(q)$ with certain properties is used to prove that all cycles that could theoretically be embedded in $AG(2,q)$ and $PG(2,q)$ can, in fact, be embedded there (i.e. these planes are `pancyclic'). We also study embeddings of wheel and gear graphs in arbitrary projective planes

Morphoproteomic profiling of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway in desmoplastic small round cell tumor (EWS/WT1), Ewing's sarcoma (EWS/FLI1) and Wilms' tumor(WT1).

BackgroundDesmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT) is a rare sarcoma in adolescents and young adults. The hallmark of this disease is a EWS-WT1 translocation resulting from apposition of the Ewing's sarcoma (EWS) gene with the Wilms' tumor (WT1) gene. We performed morphoproteomic profiling of DSRCT (EWS-WT1), Ewing's sarcoma (EWS-FLI1) and Wilms' tumor (WT1) to better understand the signaling pathways for selecting future targeted therapies.MethodologyThis pilot study assessed patients with DSRCT, Wilms' tumor and Ewing's sarcoma. Morphoproteomics and immunohistochemical probes were applied to detect: p-mTOR (Ser2448); p-Akt (Ser473); p-ERK1/2 (Thr202/Tyr204); p-STAT3 (Tyr 705); and cell cycle-related analytes along with their negative controls.Principal findingsIn DSRCT the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is constitutively activated by p-Akt (Ser 473) expression in the nuclear compartment of the tumor cells and p-mTOR phosphorylated on Ser 2448, suggesting mTORC2 (rictor+mTOR) as the dominant form. Ewing's sarcoma had upregulated p-Akt and p-mTOR, predominantly mTORC2. In Wilm's tumor, the mTOR pathway is also activated with most tumor cells moderately expressing p-mTOR (Ser 2448) in plasmalemmal and cytoplasmic compartments. This coincides with the constitutive activation of one of the downstream effectors of the mTORC1 signaling pathway, namely p-p70S6K (Thr 389). There was constitutive activation of the Ras/Raf/ERK pathway p-ERK 1/2 (Thr202/Tyr204) expression in the Wilms tumor and metastatic Ewing's sarcoma, but not in the DSRCT.ConclusionMORPHOPROTEOMIC TUMOR ANALYSES REVEALED CONSTITUTIVE ACTIVATION OF THE MTOR PATHWAY AS EVIDENCED BY: (a) expression of phosphorylated (p)-mTOR, p-p70S6K; (b) mTORC 2 in EWS and DSRCT; (c) ERK signaling was seen in the advanced setting indicating these as resistance pathways to IGF1R related therapies. This is the first morphoproteomic study of such pathways in these rare malignancies and may have potential therapeutic implications. Further study using morphoproteomic assessments of these tumors are warranted

Global restructuring and resistance in an age of austerity: a critical political economy of the Eurozone crisis in Greece and Portugal

This thesis analyses the political economic origins of, and responses to, the eurozone crisis in Greece and Portugal. Part 1 develops a Critical Political Economy (CPE) approach to studying the economic development of European capitalism(s). The development of this CPE approach takes place through a critical engagement with authors employing a Varieties of Capitalism Approach (VoC). This critique is considered important as the VoC approach offers an institutionalist theory of capitalist diversity. Instead, what is required when explaining trajectories of development, change and contestation across European varieties of capitalism is a capitalist theory of institutional diversity. In other words, whilst varieties of capitalism do evidently exist, the institutional diversity they exhibit (whether it be path-dependent or transformed) is always and already embedded as varieties in capitalism. This has to be taken seriously to adequately explain the systemic origins of, and responses to, the eurozone crisis in Greece and Portugal. Part 2 focuses on the historical origins of the eurozone crisis (1985-2009). It highlights the constitutive role that European integration, both as a supranational institutional and a transnationalising capitalist project, has played in shaping Greece’s and Portugal’s uneven and combined political economic trajectories towards crisis. It also focuses on the agency of class forces within each national political economy, and how this hegemonic project was internalised and conditioned by specific national dynamics that sought to pursue developmental ‘catch-up’ with ‘core’ European states. Empirically, this is analysed along two lines. The first focuses on the inability of each political economy to generate export-led growth that may have offset the accumulation of large amounts of externally-held debt. Here, the role of transnational capital and of new emerging competition in the ‘global south’ and Europe is highlighted. The second focuses on institutional transformations driven particularly by the prerogatives of European integration. This is specifically in relation to the privatisation and liberalisation of financial banking sectors, which led to the emergence of debt-led accumulation and economic growth. Part 3 focuses on the political economic responses to the eurozone crisis in Greece and Portugal (2010-2016). The primary aim of this section is to analyse the political economy of ‘expansionary austerity’ that has been presented as a technocratic means by which to pursue an ‘exit’ from the crisis. Repoliticising the response demonstrates how a shift in the balance of class forces across both political economies has taken place as capitalist discipline and domination is deepened and expanded, reinforced by a turn towards ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. Further, analysis of the response to the crisis would suffer considerably if conducted on the basis that the attempt to deepen and expand capitalist domination faced little contest. The principles and policies of expansionary austerity, enacted through fiscal austerity and global capitalist restructuring, have faced resistance and alternative forms of political economic organisation from labour. The second predominant aim of Part 3 is to focus on how labour (broadly defined) has struggled against, and have proposed and practiced alternatives beyond, the conditionality deemed a necessity within the MoUs and the capitalist domination inherent to these. The thesis concludes by discussing the wider implications of the eurozone crisis for Europe’s political economy as a whole, and Greece’s and Portugal’s future within it

The recruitment of knowledge regarding plurality and compound formation during language comprehension

Compound formation has been a major focus of research and debate in mental lexicon research. In particular, it has been widely observed that compounds with a regular plural non-head are dispreferred, and a long line of research has examined the nature of this constraint, including which morphological, semantic or phonological properties of the non-head underlie this dispreference. While it is typically assumed that this constraint in fact leads to the barring of a compound analysis to a noun-noun string which would otherwise violate the constraint, its implementation during sentence comprehension has not been thoroughly examined. Using self-paced reading, we demonstrate that knowledge of pluralization and compound formation is immediately utilized in the assignment of structure to noun-noun strings, and that the dispreference for regular plural non-heads in fact leads the parser away from the compound analysis in favor of a more complex grammatical alternative. These results provide new evidence for the online deployment of knowledge regarding pluralization and its interaction with compound formation, and inform our understanding of how morphological information is deployed during, and impacts real-time sentence comprehension

Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program, Capstone

44 pagesThe sun is our most impressive source of energy. More than one million times the earth’s size, every year the sun provides ten times more energy than is stored in all the world’s reserves of coal and oil. The amount and intensity of sunlight varies by location, climate conditions, as well as daily and seasonal trends. Although southern states such as Arizona, California, and New Mexico receive the most sunlight during the year, Iowa ranks among the top third in the United States in the technical potential for solar energy production. Iowa’s 16th-place ranking puts it ahead of many states to the south including Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Iowa’s rooftop solar energy potential alone could meet close to 20% of Iowa’s annual electric needs under optimal conditions. The decentralized approach to electricity generation through the creation of small-scale and distributed energy facilities has done wonders for solar proliferation in the state of Iowa as well as had a positive impact on the state’s economic development. Solar energy in Iowa now powers farms, businesses, universities, utilities, communities, and industries, as well as vehicles, and homes in the state. The purpose of this study is to analyze Iowa’s current solar energy blueprint by focusing on current practices, financial aspects, recent policy, and potential limitations. At the heart of this study is the examination of the northeast Iowa community of Decorah where renewable practices are epitomized with more than 50 solar projects found in a town of only 8,000 people. This study will correlate current policy and financial considerations to the case study of Decorah in order to help build a model for solar proliferation in the state of Iowa. It will show that although there may not be a perfect model for solar proliferation for each community in Iowa, there are many recommendations to help the process, including reauthorizing the state solar energy tax credit, cities creating community gardens, and electric utilities’ re-framing of the term “distributed generation” for becoming a comprehensible term which would boost understanding and awareness for potential ratepayers.Professor Allen Zagoren DO, MP

Marine Biological Monitoring in Broward County, Florida: Year 3 Annual Report

A study has been undertaken to monitor Broward County, Florida (southeast Florida) coral communities, reef fish assemblages and sedimentation rates in relation to possible effects from a proposed extensive beach renourishment (restoration) project. Coral communities and reef fish assemblages will be monitored at a total of 23 stations distributed offshore Broward County. This monitoring effort will characterize and quantify populations of scleractinian (stony) corals, octocorallian (gorgonian) corals, sponges, and reef fishes. In addition, sediment traps located at each station will be sampled and analyzed. This document reports the data collected during the third year of this project. Coral communities and fish assemblages were monitored at each of the 23 sites between September and October 2002. In addition, sedimentation analysis for the November 2001, January 200-, March 2002, May 2002, July 2002 and September 2002 collections are reported. For September/October 2002 (=Year 3), mean (± 1 S.D.) stony coral density for the 23 sites was 2.84 + 1.30 colonies/m2. Mean stony coral coverage was 2.16 ± 3.53%. Mean octocoral density was 8.93 ± 10.17 colonies/m2 and mean sponge density was 13.47 ± 5.90 colonies/m2. Although no significant difference was found between the three reef tracts for stony coral cover, stony coral density, and octocoral density, First Reef sites had greater mean stony coral coverage but lower octocoral density than Second and Third Reef sites. First Reef coral cover was much lower than the Third Reef when the First Reet site, FTL4, was removed from the analysis. FTL4 had much greater stony coral cover than the mean cover for the remaining First Reef sites (17.40% compared to 1.65%). Sponge density was significantly greater on the Third Reef sites than the First or Second Reef sites, which did not significantly differ. Shannon-Weaver Diversity Indices performed on the overall transect data resulted in values of 1.49 ± 0.48 and 1.71 ± 0.46 for cover and number of species respectively. Overall evenness was 0.67 ± 0.20 for number of species and 0.76 ± 0.14 for cover. Examining the 23 total sites, mean stony coral density has not significantly changed from the Year 1 (January/February 2001) Year 2 (September/October 2001) and Year 3 (September/October 2002) monitoring events. Mean stony coral cover at these 23 sites was found to be significantly greater in Year 2 than in Year 1 or 3, which did not significantly differ. At these 23 sites, mean octocoral density did not significantly differ between Years while mean sponge density was found to be significantly greater in Year 1 than in Year 2 or 3, which did not significantly differ. Stony coral density, stony coral coverage, octocoral density and sponge density data collected from the 18 monitoring sites established in 1997 and visited yearly from 1997 to 2002 were analyzed. There has been no significant difference in stony coral density from 1998 to 2002. The density of stony corals in 1997 was found to be significantly less than what was found in 1998 and 2002. Mean stony coral cover increased from 1997 to 2001 but decreased slightly in 2002. Statistically, stony coral cover did not differ from 1998 to 2002, but 1997 was found to have significantly less cover than in 2000 and 2001. The mean density of octocorals did not differ statistically between 1998 and 2002. Mean sponge density was found to be greatest in 1998 and has decrease each year with a low in density found in 2002. Statistically 1998 and 1999 had the greatest sponge density compared to 2001 and 2002, which had the lowest sponge density. The results of a multivariate statistical procedure indicate that the stony coral assemblages off Broward County have changed little from 1997 to 2002. This procedure has also shown that the stony coral assemblages on the Third and Second Reef sites have gieater similarity and that either have with most of the First Reef sites. Trends in fish density were similar to those trends identified within the coral community transects. The greatest density of fishes occurs on the Third Reef followed by the Second and First. A difference in richness was seen amongst the three Reefs with the First Reef having the lowest number of species. The differences noted in abundance, density, and richness between the data collected in January/February 2001 and in September/October 2001 and September/October 2002 confirm previous reports of temporal differences in the fish assemblage offshore Broward County (Spieler 1998). The First Reef had a statistically higher rate of sedimentation than both the Second and Third Reefs for the period from November 2001 to September 2002. The November 2001 samples had the greatest sedimentation rates. Sedimentation analysis indicates that the average grain size was significantly highest on First Reef sites, with Second and Third Reel sites lacking significant difference from one another. Average sediment rates for the three reefs since August 1997 indicate that the First Reef typically has the highest rate of sedimentation followed by the Second, then Third Reefs. Both sedimentation rate and average grain size from November 2001 to September 2002 appear to be consistent with data collected from previous years during these same sampling intervals. A comparison of sedimentation rate and wind speed revealed a similar pattern: when wind speed is low, sedimentation rates are low, and vise versa. This relationship is logical considering winddriven waves may cause sediment resuspension. Data collected and analyses completed during this monitoring project will be used to help evaluate effects from the proposed beach renourishment project

Diagnosing domestic and transboundary sources of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in UK cities using GEOS-Chem

The UK is set to impose a stricter ambient annual mean fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standard than was first adopted fourteen years ago. This necessitates strengthened knowledge of the magnitude and sources that influence urban PM2.5 in UK cities to ensure compliance and improve public health. Here, we use a regional-scale chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), validated with national ground-based observations, to quantify the influence of specific sources within and transported to the mid-sized UK city Leicester. Of the sources targeted, we find that agricultural emissions of ammonia (NH3) make the largest contribution (3.7 μg m−3 or 38 % of PM2.5) to annual mean PM2.5 in Leicester. Another important contributor is long-range transport of pollution from continental Europe accounting for 1.8 μg m−3 or 19 % of total annual mean PM2.5. City sources are a much smaller portion (0.2 μg m−3; 2 %). We also apply GEOS-Chem to the much larger cities Birmingham and London to find that agricultural emissions of NH3 have a greater influence than city sources for Birmingham (32 % agriculture, 19 % city) and London (25 % agriculture, 13 % city). The portion from continental Europe is 16 % for Birmingham and 28 % for London. Action plans aimed at national agricultural sources of NH3 and strengthened supranational agreements would be most effective at alleviating PM2.5 in most UK cities

Experimental realization of field-induced XY and Ising ground states in a quasi-2D S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet

High field specific heat, Cp, and magnetic susceptibility, \c{hi}, measurements were performed on the quasi-two dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet [Cu(pyz)2(pyO)2](PF6)2. While no Cp anomaly is observed down to 0.5 K in zero magnetic field, the application of field parallel to the crystallographic ab-plane induces a lambda-like anomaly in Cp, consistent with Ising-type magnetic order. On the other hand, when the field is parallel to the c-axis, Cp and \c{hi} show evidence of XY-type antiferromagnetism. We argue that it is a small but finite easy-plane anisotropy in quasi-two dimensional [Cu(pyz)2(pyO)2](PF6)2 that allows the unusual observation of field induced XY and Ising-type magnetic states.Comment: 4 figure