1,415 research outputs found
The Value of a College Education: Estimating the Effect of Teacher Preparation on Student Achievement
Federal legislation currently holds institutions of higher education accountable for the quality of teachers that they produce. However research has yet to demonstrate that teacher preparation programs (TPPs) have differential effects on the quality of teachers they produce in terms of student achievement. This study uses data from a sample of 2,582 5th grade math students in an urban school district in Kentucky and a school fixed effects design to explore the variation in average TPP effects. The authors find that TPPs are differentially effective in training teachers, which in turn impacts student performance on 5th grade math scores. There is also some indication that these differential effects converge around teachers’ fifth year of teaching.Student achievement; teacher preparation, teacher effects
An interacting spin flip model for one-dimensional proton conduction
A discrete asymmetric exclusion process (ASEP) is developed to model proton
conduction along one-dimensional water wires. Each lattice site represents a
water molecule that can be in only one of three states; protonated,
left-pointing, and right-pointing. Only a right(left)-pointing water can accept
a proton from its left(right). Results of asymptotic mean field analysis and
Monte-Carlo simulations for the three-species, open boundary exclusion model
are presented and compared. The mean field results for the steady-state proton
current suggest a number of regimes analogous to the low and maximal current
phases found in the single species ASEP [B. Derrida, Physics Reports, {\bf
301}, 65-83, (1998)]. We find that the mean field results are accurate
(compared with lattice Monte-Carlo simulations) only in the certain regimes.
Refinements and extensions including more elaborate forces and pore defects are
also discussed.Comment: 13pp, 6 fig
Exact time-dependent correlation functions for the symmetric exclusion process with open boundary
As a simple model for single-file diffusion of hard core particles we
investigate the one-dimensional symmetric exclusion process. We consider an
open semi-infinite system where one end is coupled to an external reservoir of
constant density and which initially is in an non-equilibrium state
with bulk density . We calculate the exact time-dependent two-point
density correlation function and the mean and variance of the integrated average net flux
of particles that have entered (or left) the system up to time .
We find that the boundary region of the semi-infinite relaxing system is in a
state similar to the bulk state of a finite stationary system driven by a
boundary gradient. The symmetric exclusion model provides a rare example where
such behavior can be proved rigorously on the level of equal-time two-point
correlation functions. Some implications for the relaxational dynamics of
entangled polymers and for single-file diffusion in colloidal systems are
discussed.Comment: 11 pages, uses REVTEX, 2 figures. Minor typos corrected and reference
17 adde
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The theory of agency and breastfeeding
Objective: In this paper, we apply psychological agency theory to women’s interviews of their breastfeeding experiences to understand the role of agency in relation to breastfeeding initiation, maintenance and duration.
Design: Qualitative, video interviews were collected from 49 women in the UK from a wide range of ethnic, religious, educational and employment backgrounds about their breastfeeding experiences. We undertook secondary analysis of the data focusing on their accounts of vulnerability and agency.
Findings: Women’s agency was impacted by a variety of factors including their own vulnerability, knowledge, expectations and experience, the feeding environment and the support of health professionals in sharing decision-making and dealing with uncertainty.
Conclusion: Health professionals as co-agents with women are well positioned to maintain, enhance or restore women’s sense of agency. Breastfeeding goals should be included in women’s birth plans. Training related to agency, continuity of care, and staffing and workload management supported by national breastfeeding policies could improve breastfeeding rates and experiences
Asymmetric exclusion process with next-nearest-neighbor interaction: some comments on traffic flow and a nonequilibrium reentrance transition
We study the steady-state behavior of a driven non-equilibrium lattice gas of
hard-core particles with next-nearest-neighbor interaction. We calculate the
exact stationary distribution of the periodic system and for a particular line
in the phase diagram of the system with open boundaries where particles can
enter and leave the system. For repulsive interactions the dynamics can be
interpreted as a two-speed model for traffic flow. The exact stationary
distribution of the periodic continuous-time system turns out to coincide with
that of the asymmetric exclusion process (ASEP) with discrete-time parallel
update. However, unlike in the (single-speed) ASEP, the exact flow diagram for
the two-speed model resembles in some important features the flow diagram of
real traffic. The stationary phase diagram of the open system obtained from
Monte Carlo simulations can be understood in terms of a shock moving through
the system and an overfeeding effect at the boundaries, thus confirming
theoretical predictions of a recently developed general theory of
boundary-induced phase transitions. In the case of attractive interaction we
observe an unexpected reentrance transition due to boundary effects.Comment: 12 pages, Revtex, 7 figure
Sleeping habits of adolescents in relation to their physical activity and exercise output: results from the ELSPAC study
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the effects of physical activity and fitness on sleep timing parameters in adolescence. METHODS: We investigated the development of sleep timing between age 8 and 15 and its association with physical fitness at age 15 in 787 adolescents (408 males, 379 females). Physical fitness was measured using the physical work capacity (PWC) protocol. Information on sport activity was collected at ages 11 and 15. Finally, the contribution of other covariates (sex, body mass index (BMI), parental education and occupational skill level) to the association between sleep parameters and physical fitness was evaluated. The correlation of BMI and physical fitness was assessed separately. RESULTS: Mild correlation of sleep duration at ages 8 and 15 was observed (r=0.08-0.16). Higher sport activity participation and physical fitness were found to be mildly associated with delayed bedtime and reduced sleep duration; the association with bedtime was significant after adjustment for all covariates. Sport activity at age 11 was not associated with sleep timing at age 15. Interestingly, higher BMI was linked to delayed bedtime and higher physical fitness. CONCLUSION: Our findings do not support existing hypotheses suggesting the association of low physical activity and fitness with shorter sleep duration and high BMI in a generally non-obese adolescent population without severe sleep restriction
Empowerment or Engagement? Digital Health Technologies for Mental Healthcare
We argue that while digital health technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, smartphones, and virtual reality) present significant opportunities for improving the delivery of healthcare, key concepts that are used to evaluate and understand their impact can obscure significant ethical issues related to patient engagement and experience. Specifically, we focus on the concept of empowerment and ask whether it is adequate for addressing some significant ethical concerns that relate to digital health technologies for mental healthcare. We frame these concerns using five key ethical principles for AI ethics (i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and explicability), which have their roots in the bioethical literature, in order to critically evaluate the role that digital health technologies will have in the future of digital healthcare
Persistence in the One-Dimensional A+B -> 0 Reaction-Diffusion Model
The persistence properties of a set of random walkers obeying the A+B -> 0
reaction, with equal initial density of particles and homogeneous initial
conditions, is studied using two definitions of persistence. The probability,
P(t), that an annihilation process has not occurred at a given site has the
asymptotic form , where is the
persistence exponent (``type I persistence''). We argue that, for a density of
particles , this non-trivial exponent is identical to that governing
the persistence properties of the one-dimensional diffusion equation, where
. In the case of an initially low density, , we find asymptotically. The probability that a site
remains unvisited by any random walker (``type II persistence'') is also
investigated and found to decay with a stretched exponential form, , provided . A heuristic argument
for this behavior, based on an exactly solvable toy model, is presented.Comment: 11 RevTeX pages, 19 EPS figure
Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ATLAS detector
This paper presents measurements of the and cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a
function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were
collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with
the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity
of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements
varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the
1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured
with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with
predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various
parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between
them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables,
submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at
https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13
Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13 TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV
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