Total suspended solids in Las Vegas Wash

Erosion along the Las Vegas Wash (Wash) has increased steadily along with the rapidly increasing population. The focus of this study is to find out if there is a relationship between lower total suspended solids rate (TSS) and the construction of erosion control structures along the Wash. The study was conducted between 7/15/2003 and 11/29/2004. The method was water sampling on 7 sites and the samples were analyzed at Southern Nevada Water Systems (SNWS) laboratory at Saddle Island in Boulder City. Additional water quality data was also collected using Quanta, a device measuring different parameters in water. In this study 5 parameters were collected: temperature (°C), dissolved oxygen(% and mg/l), pH, conductivity (uS/cm). and turbidity (NTU). The results of the TSS samples reflect considerable decline in sediment level and transport to Las Vegas Bay

Digitaaliset viihdepelit kuvataideopetuksessa: opettajien käsityksiä ja kokemuksia kartottava kyselylomaketutkimus

Tämä tutkimus selvittää millaista on peruskoulun ja lukion kuvataideopettajien digi-taalisia viihdepelejä käsittelevä opetus. Ilmiötä tarkastellaan kuvataideopettajien nä-kökulmasta; kuinka he suhtautuvat digitaalisiin viihdepeleihin, mitä digitaalisiin viihdepeleihin liittyviä aihealueita he pitävät kuvataideoppiaineen kannalta tärkeinä ja mitä he oppilaidensa kanssa käsittelevät, millä tavoin he näitä asioita opetukses-saan käsittelevät sekä mitkä seikat hankaloittavat opetusta. Aineisto kerätään sähköisesti puolistrukturoituna kyselylomaketutkimuksena ja siinä hyödynnetään menetelmätriangulaatiota eli yhdistettään sekä määrällistä että laadul-lista tutkimusotetta. Määrällisen osuuden vastauksia on 53 kappaletta ja laadullisen osuuden vastauksia on 17 kappaletta. Määrällisen aineiston analyysissä käytetään vertailevaa ja kuvailevaa lähestymistapaa ja sen tuloksia käsitellään numeroina ja prosentteina. Laadullisen osuuden analyysissä käytetään aineistolähtöistä ja teoriaoh-jaavaa sisällönanalyysiä. Tutkimuksen perusteella kuvataideopettajat näkevät digitaaliset viihdepelit merkityk-sellisenä ilmiönä yhteiskunnan tasolla ja kokevat, että eivät itse tiedä niistä riittävästi. He eivät kuitenkaan näe ilmiötä yhtä tärkeänä itsensä kannalta. Opettajat arvostavat peleissä kuvataidekasvatukselle tyypillisiä sisältöjä ja käsittelevät opetuksessaan etenkin pelien kehittämisprosessia, pelihahmoja sekä pelien visuaalisuutta painotta-via sisältöjä. Välillä opetusta läpileikkaavat muut sisällöt, välillä opetus ei käsittele ollenkaan digitaalisia viihdepelejä tai ne esiintyvät vain välineinä jonkin muun ope-tustavoitteen saavuttamiseksi. Digitaalisia viihdepelejä käsitellään satunnaisesti ja opetuksen määrä laskee sen haasteellisuuden ja resurssivaatimusten kasvaessa. Ylei-simpiä tapoja digitaalisten viihdepelien käsittelemiseen ovat perinteiset kuvataiteen tekemisen tavat sekä tietotekniikka ja peliaiheiset esitelmät. Opetusta tapahtuu pää-asiassa useamman tunnin kokonaisuuksina tai erillisinä kursseina. Usein taustalla on jokin laajempi hanke, projekti tai oppiaineintegraatio. Digitaalisia viihdepelejä käsit-televää opetusta rajoittavat tietotaito- ja resurssiongelmat. Tätä osaltaan paikkaavat erilaiset hankkeet ja projektit, jotka tuovat kuitenkin uusia haasteita ja ongelmia.This study focused on the position of digital entertainment games in Finnish compre-hensive and upper secondary schools’ art education. The study examined how com-prehensive school and upper secondary school teachers include digital entertainment games in their teaching. The study examined the phenomenon from the perspective of arts teachers; what they think about digital entertainment games, which topics re-lated to digital entertainment games they find important to art education and what subjects they discuss with their students, how they deal with this matter in their teaching, and what factors have hampered their teaching. The data was collected electronically by using a semi-structured questionnaire survey which was subjected to methodological triangulation, i.e. the study combined quanti-tative and qualitative research. The quantitative part of the study consists of 53 an-swers and the qualitative part of the study consists of 17 answers. Quantitative data analysis was conducted via a comparative and descriptive approach and results are presented in numbers and percentages. The qualitative part of the material was sub-jected to conventional and directed content analysis. In this study art teachers saw digital entertainment games primarily as an important phenomenon and felt that they did not know enough about it. However, they did not see games as an important phenomenon for themselves. Teachers appreciated tradi-tional art education contents, and in practical teaching they focused especially on the development process of games, game characters and the games’ visual content. Sometimes lessons also had some other contents. Other times lessons did not have anything to do with digital entertainment games, and sometimes digital entertainment games were used only to achieve other objectives. Digital entertainment games were taught occasionally, but as the level of challenge and resources requirements in-creased, the role of digital entertainment games in teaching diminished. The most common ways to include digital entertainment games in teaching were traditional fine arts methods, as well as information technology and presentations. Teaching was mainly distributed along the course of se-veral lessons, or separate courses. Often there was a larger project or curricular integration on the background. Problems were caused by limited knowledge, skills and resources. This was partly patched with var-ious projects outside the curriculum, which however brought new challenges and problems

Verkostonalyysiä soveltamalla voidaan tutkia kuinka opettajaopiskelijat näkevät yhteydet opetttajantiedon osa-alueiden välillä

In this article we present a new approach to investigating teacher knowledge. The essay data related to Finnish future teachers' (N = 18) perceptions of the "knowledge required for teaching mathematics" were transformed into a network. We classified the knowledge topics using the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) framework and examined the relationships between the issues raised with the aid of network analysis. According to the results, the future teachers see the six MKT domains in a hierarchical sequence. As it is not subject specific, this approach is also applicable in the investigation of teacher knowledge of other subjects. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Teachers and their Educators - Views on Contents and their Development Needs in Mathematics Teacher Education

Finland has scored well in international assessments (e.g. PISA, TIMSS), and the pressure to attain excellent scores has activated a drive toward even more effective mathematics teacher education. This article presents the results of a qualitative assessment of the mathematics teacher education provided by the University of Eastern Finland. In this study, the views held by practicing teachers (N=101) and teacher educators (N=19) are compared so that the outstanding development needs of mathematics teacher education in terms of their contents can be revealed. The data was gathered via an electronic survey and was mainly analyzed using data-driven methods. In addition, framework provided by Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) was used to categorize the respondents’ views regarding the contents of mathematics teacher education and to develop general guidelines for the reform of mathematics teacher education. The results indicate that mathematics teacher education should include pure mathematical content (Common Content Knowledge, CCK) and mathematical content that will have been designed only for future teachers (Specialized Content Knowledge, SCK). Teacher educators and practicing teachers both held the view that the relevance of CCK studies depend on the connections between university and school mathematics. Pedagogical studies should also be reformed because practicing teachers have realized that effective teaching (Knowledge of Content and Teaching, KCT) requires knowledge about learning mathematics (Knowledge of Content and Students, KCS) that is not offered in the current educational system on a sufficiently broad basis. In this study, suggestions for developing mathematics teacher education were mostly connected to four domains of MKT: (CCK, SCK, KCT and KCS). Interestingly those domains are the same domains which has been empirically tested and better conceptualized

Developing online learning environments with AI : future visions from continuing training in mathematics teaching

Tutkimus perustuu Opetushallituksen ja Kansallisen koulutuksen arviointikeskuksen keräämään pitkittäisaineistoon. Samaan ikäluokkaan kuuluvat oppilaat ovat osallistuneet kansallisiin matematiikan kokeisiin ja matematiikka- asenteita kartoittaviin kyselyihin vuosien 2005–2015 aikana neljällä eri mittauskerralla perusopetuksen kolmannelta vuosiluokalta toisen asteen loppuun. Tutkimusaineiston kokonaisotos käsittää yhteensä 3896 oppilasta. Tutkimuksessa keskitytään tarkastelemaan matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneitä opiskelijoita. Matematiikan parhaiksi osaajiksi määritetään kansalliseen matematiikan kokeeseen osallistuneet lukiolaiset, jotka saivat pitkän matematiikan ylioppilaskokeesta arvosanan laudatur tai eximia cum laude approbatur (n = 146). Ensin tutkimuksessa selvitetään, miten parhaiden osaajien matematiikka-asenteet muuttuivat perusopetuksesta lukion loppuun ja toiseksi, miten opetuksen pedagogiset ratkaisut yläkoulussa ja lukiossa selittävät osaamiseltaan parhaiden tyttöjen ja poikien asenteissa tapahtuneita muutoksia. Selittävien tekijöiden analyysissa käytetään päätöspuuanalyysia (DTA) ja lineaarista regressioanalyysia. Matematiikan parhaiden osaajien matematiikasta pitäminen kasvoi lukio-opintojen aikana, mutta minäkäsitys ja kokemus matematiikan hyödyllisyydestä laskivat. Matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneiden tyttöjen asenteissa tapahtuneet muutokset poikkesivat asenteiden yleisestä muutossuunnasta. Parhaiden tyttöjen minäkäsitys kasvoi yläkoulun ja lukion aikana lähes parhaiten menestyneiden poikien tasolle ja tytöt pitivät matematiikasta lukion lopussa poikia enemmän. Matematiikassa parhaiten menestyneiden tyttöjen ja poikien asenteiden kehittymistä selittivät erilaiset opetuksen pedagogiset ratkaisut. Molemmilla myönteisiä asenteita vahvistivat yleisesti oppilaskeskeisyyteen, yhteistoiminnallisuuteen ja oppijoiden tarpeiden huomioimiseen liittyvät pedagogiset ratkaisut.Peer reviewe

Out-of-home care and diagnosed mental and behavioral disorders among youth with and without prenatal substance exposure – a longitudinal register-based cohort study

A majority of youths with prenatal substance exposure (PSE) have experienced out-of-home care (OHC), but there is a lack of studies on its association with mental health in adolescence and adulthood. The main aim of this retrospective longitudinal cohort study was to explore whether type of OHC (family/institutional) and number of OHC placements are associated with mental and behavioral disorders among youth with PSE (n=393) and unexposed controls (n=147) after controlling for the effect of important confounding factors. Before these anal-yses, characteristics of OHC and factors associated with the age at entry to care were ana-lyzed separately in both groups. Data from hospital medical records and nine registers were merged and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations and multivariate Cox regression models. Exposed youths entered OHC earlier in life, and the lifetime duration of OHC was longer with more placements and a higher proportion of family-type OHC. Despite these differences in OHC history, a high number of placements was associated with behav-ioral and emotional disorders with onset in childhood and adolescence (International Statisti-cal Classification of Diseases ICD-10, F90-F98) among both the exposed and controls. Among the exposed, the number of placements and institutional care were also associated with later appearing mental and behavioral disorders (F10-F69). The results suggest that in-terventions to support placement stability and favor family-type care could be beneficial in the promotion of mental health among children and youth entering OHC.Peer reviewe

Mood and neurotic disorders among youth with prenatal substance exposure : A longitudinal register-based cohort study

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorsBackground: Prenatal substance exposure is associated with mood and neurotic disorders but this association is complex and understudied. This study investigated the recorded use of specialised healthcare services for mood and neurotic disorders among youth with prenatal substance exposure in comparison with an unexposed matched cohort. Furthermore, the influence of adverse maternal characteristics and out-of-home care (OHC) is investigated. Methods: This longitudinal register-based matched cohort study included 594 exposed and 1735 unexposed youth. Cox proportional hazard regression models were applied to study the first episode of mood and neurotic disorders in specialised healthcare from 13 years of age, and the influence of adverse maternal characteristics and OHC. Mediation analysis was applied to study the mediating effect of OHC on the association between prenatal substance exposure and the disorders. Results: The exposed cohort had a two-fold higher likelihood of being treated at specialised healthcare for mood and neurotic disorders compared with the unexposed cohort (HR 2.34, 95% CI 1.86–2.95), but this difference was attenuated to non-significant levels (AHR 1.29, 95% CI 0.92–1.81) following adjustments with adverse maternal characteristics and OHC. OHC mediated 61% (95% CI 0.41–0.94) of the association between prenatal substance exposure and youth's mood and neurotic disorders. Limitations: Register data likely include more severe cases of disorders, and as an observational study, causality cannot be assessed. Conclusion: Mood and neurotic disorders are more common following prenatal exposure to substances and interlinked with significant adversities in the postnatal caregiving environment and OHC.Peer reviewe

Prenatal substance exposure, adverse childhood experiences and diagnosed mental and behavioral disorders - A longitudinal register-based matched cohort study in Finland

Both prenatal substance exposure (PSE, alcohol/drugs) and experiences during the first years of life have powerful effects on brain development. However, only a few studies have investigated the combined effect of PSE and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on mental and behavioral disorders among exposed adolescents and adults. This longitudinal register-based cohort study 1) compared the nature and extent of diagnosed mental and behavioral disorders among youth with PSE and matched unexposed controls, and 2) investigated the influence of PSE, health in infancy and ACEs (maternal risk factors and out-of-home care, OHC) on diagnoses of mental and behavioral disorders. The data consisted of 615 exposed youth aged 15-24 years and 1787 matched unexposed controls. Data from hospital medical records and nine registers were merged for the analysis. Descriptive analysis methods and Cox regression were used. The results showed that the prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders was twice as high among exposed compared with controls. The highest levels of mental and behavioral disorders and ACEs were found among exposed with at least one OHC episode. The difference in the risk of mental and behavioral disorders between exposed and controls diminished after controlling for the effect of ACEs. Low birth weight, maternal risk factors, and OHC were the strongest predictors of mental and behavioral disorders. The results suggest that PSE alone does not explain poorer mental health among exposed youth. Risk factors accumulate, and low birth weight and ACEs are strongly associated with increased risk of mental and behavioral disorders.Peer reviewe