Touch Phonics to Improve Reading Fluency among Fourth Grade Students

Touchphonics, a phonemic awareness reading program, has been implemented among fourth grade students in order to test its effectiveness in improving reading fluency. Data were presented to support teaching phonemic awareness as part of reading programs. Several examples have been given of how students with phonemic awareness skills have been successful in learning how to read. Within this project are lesson plans on how to implement Touchphonics in the classroom which have been developed. Finally, a portfolio system to assess students\u27 reading and writing is explained

The Chinese in Northern Mexico: Immigration, integration, and discrimination in Mexican society, 1882-1940

In The Chinese in Northern Mexico: Immigration, Integration, and Discrimination 1882-1940, the focus is on understanding what compelled the Chinese to immigrate to Mexico and how their lives in the country developed over time. After the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation was signed by both nations in 1899, the Chinese saw Mexico as an alternative to the United States, which was not allowing any Chinese to enter the country. The first part of the paper looks into the immigration patterns that led to the Chinese arrival, then shifts into examining what type of jobs, industries, and overall experience the Chinese had. The latter part of the paper deals with the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments that swept Mexico and how this affected the Chinese. Special attention is placed on the Chinese custom of intermarrying with Mexican women and the scandal this caused as well as to mention specific episodes of violence perpetrated against them in the northern states. An appendix is included with photographs and tables to supplement the text

Direct introduction of nitrogen and oxygen functionality with spatial control using copper catalysis.

Synthetic chemists have spent considerable effort optimizing the synthesis of nitrogen and oxygen containing compounds through a number of methods; however, direct introduction of N- and O-functionality remains challenging. Presented herein is a general method to allow for the simultaneous installation of N- and O-functionality to construct unexplored N-O heterocyclic and amino-alcohol scaffolds. This transformation uses earth abundant copper salts to facilitate the formation of a carbon-centered radical and subsequent carbon-nitrogen bond formation. The intermediate aminoxyl radical is terminated by an intramolecularly appended carbon-centered radical. We have exploited this methodology to also access amino-alcohols with a range of aliphatic and aromatic linkers

Synthesis and Thermo-Selective Recycling of Diels–Alder Cyclopentadiene Thermoplastics

Catalyst-free and reversible step-growth Diels-Alder (DA) polymerization has a wide range of applications in polymer synthesis and is a promising method for fabricating recyclable thermoplastics. The effectiveness of polymerization and depolymerization relies on the chemical building blocks, often utilizing furan as the diene and maleimide as the dienophile. Compared to the traditional diene-dienophile or two-component approach that requires precise stoichiometry, cyclopentadiene (Cp) can serve dual roles via self-dimerization. This internally balanced platform offers a route to access high-molecular-weight polymers and a dynamic handle for polymer recycling, which has yet to be explored. Herein, through a reactivity investigation of different telechelic Cp derivatives, the uncontrolled cross-linking of Cp was addressed, revealing the first successful DA homopolymerization. To demonstrate the generality of our methodology, we synthesized and characterized six Cp homopolymers with backbones derived from common thermoplastics, such as poly(dimethylsiloxane), hydrogenated polybutadiene, and ethylene phthalate. Among these materials, the hydrogenated polybutadiene-Cp analog can be thermally depolymerized (Mn = 68 to 23 kDa) and repolymerized to the parent polymer (Mn = 68 kDa) under solvent- and catalyst-free conditions. This process was repeated over three cycles without intermediate purification, confirming the efficient thermo-selective recyclability. The varied degradable properties of the other four Cp-incorporated thermoplastics were also examined. Overall, this work provides a general methodology for accessing a new class of reversible homopolymers, potentially expanding the design and construction of sustainable thermoplastics

Enantioselective PCCP Brønsted acid-catalyzed aza-Piancatelli rearrangement.

An enantioselective aza-Piancatelli rearrangement has been developed using a chiral Brønsted acid based on pentacarboxycyclopentadiene (PCCP). This reaction provides rapid access to valuable chiral 4-amino-2-cyclopentenone building blocks from readily available starting material and is operationally simple

Scenarios of land use change and impacts on ecosystem services in the Brazilian Amazon.

Large-scale and high-intensity land use changes (LUC) are intrinsically related to the loss of biodiversity, and decreased integrity of natural systems that help maintain ecosystem services (ES). Landscape-scale patterns of land use (LU) can be correlated with different levels of ecosystem integrity (EI) and consequently with the potential ES provision. Once the relations between LU patterns and EI/ES are established it is possible to predict future environmental services provision considering different LUC scenarios. The objective of this work is to present a methodological approach and preliminary results of the prediction of future impacts on ES based on LUC scenarios for the Brazilian Amazon. The methodological approach used was to integrate: (i) Ecosystem Integrity Spatial Model (EISM) based on Bayesian probabilistic distribution of evidences using a Remote Sensing dataset. The validation was based on knowledge and field controls; (ii) Correlation of EISM and ES Models: (iia) Evapotranspiration Fluxes (ET) - MODIS/MOD16; (iib) Aboveground Carbon Stocks Spatial Model (WHRC); and (iii) Amazon legal region LUC-SSPs scenarios (Adapted from the IPCC-SSPs) - Clue Model (1 km2 pixel; projected for 2050). The preliminary results were promising and showed the decrease of ecosystem integrity related with each LUC scenario considered, allowing estimates of the impacts on the ecosystem services studied: water fluxes (ET) and aboveground carbon stocks. This work is part of ROBIN Project (EU- FP7Edict.ENV.2011.2.1.4-1)

Reachability in Restricted Chemical Reaction Networks

The popularity of molecular computation has given rise to several models of abstraction, one of the more recent ones being Chemical Reaction Networks (CRNs). These are equivalent to other popular computational models, such as Vector Addition Systems and Petri-Nets, and restricted versions are equivalent to Population Protocols. This paper continues the work on core reachability questions related to Chemical Reaction Networks; given two configurations, can one reach the other according to the system\u27s rules? With no restrictions, reachability was recently shown to be Ackermann-complete, this resolving a decades-old problem.Here, we fully characterize monotone reachability problems based on various restrictions such as the rule size, the number of rules that may create a species (k-source) or consume a species (k-consuming), the volume, and whether the rules have an acyclic production order (feed-forward). We show PSPACE-completeness of reachability with only bimolecular reactions with two-source and two-consuming rules. This proves hardness of reachability in Population Protocols, which was unknown. Further, this shows reachability in CRNs is PSPACE-complete with size-2 rules, which was previously only known with size-5 rules. This is achieved using techniques within the motion planning framework.We provide many important results for feed-forward CRNs where rules are single-source or single-consuming. We show that reachability is solvable in polynomial time if the system does not contain special void or autogenesis rules. We then fully characterize all systems of this type and show that if you allow void/autogenesis rules, or have more than one source and one consuming, the problems become NP-complete. Finally, we show several interesting special cases of CRNs based on these restrictions or slight relaxations and note future significant open questions related to this taxonomy

Trichothecenes and zearalenone production by Fusarium equiseti and Fusarium semitectum species isolated from Argentinean soybean

Fusarium equiseti and F. semitectum represent the most abundant species in the Fusarium complex isolated from flowers, soybean pods and seeds in Argentina. The aim of the present study was to assess the production of major type A and type B trichothecenes (diacetoxyscirpenol, neosolaniol, T-2 toxin and HT-2 toxin, nivalenol, deoxynivalenol) and zearalenone by 40 F. equiseti and 22 F. semitectum isolates on rice culture. Mycotoxins were determined by HPLC with fluorescence detection after derivatisation with 1-anthronylnitrile for type A trichothecenes (i.e. diacetoxyscirpenol, neosolaniol, T-2 toxin and HT-2 toxin), by HPLC with UV detection for type B trichothecenes (i.e. nivalenol and deoxynivalenol) and by TLC for zearalenone. Twenty-two of 40 F. equiseti isolates produced diacetoxyscirpenol, nivalenol and ZEA alone or in combination, whereas only 2 of 20 F. semitectum isolates were nivalenol and ZEA producers. Both Fusarium species did not produce any deoxynivalenol, neosolaniol, T-2 toxin and HT-2 toxin. The variable retention in toxigenicity displayed by both fungal species suggests that these species have a saprophytic lifestyle in the soybean agroecosystem in Argentina.Fil: Barros, Germán Gustavo. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Microbiología e Inmunología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Alaniz Zanon, Maria Silvina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Microbiología e Inmunología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Palazzini, Juan Manuel. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Microbiología e Inmunología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Haidukowski, M.. b Institute of Sciences of Food Production; ItaliaFil: Pascale, M.. b Institute of Sciences of Food Production; ItaliaFil: Chulze, Sofia Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Microbiología e Inmunología; Argentin

Covert Computation in the Abstract Tile-Assembly Model

There have been many advances in molecular computation that offer benefits such as targeted drug delivery, nanoscale mapping, and improved classification of nanoscale organisms. This power led to recent work exploring privacy in the computation, specifically, covert computation in self-assembling circuits. Here, we prove several important results related to the concept of a hidden computation in the most well-known model of self-assembly, the Abstract Tile-Assembly Model (aTAM). We show that in 2D, surprisingly, the model is capable of covert computation, but only with an exponential-sized assembly. We also show that the model is capable of covert computation with polynomial-sized assemblies with only one step in the third dimension (just-barely 3D). Finally, we investigate types of functions that can be covertly computed as members of P/Poly