Enhancing Literacy Instruction through Technology

Technology has altered how children experience language. As technology has taken root in society, literacy skills have expanded beyond simply reading and writing print texts to include interacting with digital texts and media. To prepare students to operate in this digital environment, teachers should integrate technology into language arts instruction; however, many teachers feel unprepared to do so effectively. Additionally, some teachers hesitate to implement technology into language arts instruction as a tool because of its supposed negative effects on literacy. Despite beliefs about technology inhibiting reading and writing, teachers can utilize technology to enhance literacy instruction. The digital age has laid the foundation for new literacies, and teachers must build upon it

The Cervical Spine: Race and Sex Differences

This study examines the possible correlation of cervical vertebrae (C2-C7) gross morphological and metric variation with race and sex. Developmental and normal anatomy of the cervical vertebrae are investigated to pinpoint any functional reason associated with this variability. The 174 individuals comprising the pooled data set consisted of black and white males and females from the William M. Bass Collection and the Terry Anatomical Collection. Five measurements and one spinous process type classification were collected on each cervical vertebra (C2-C7). A series of multivariate and discriminant statistical tests were performed on the measurement data to determine whether significant variation exists with respect to race and sex. The typological data were subjected to Chi2 tests to estimate the strength of the relationships between spinous process gross morphological type categorizations and race. Results of these tests indicate discernible size and gross morphological differences between cervical vertebrae relative to race and/or sex. Such measurable differences were discriminated with moderate to high accuracy for race and sex: further, group classifications were found to be low to moderate. The strength of the relationship between spinous process gross morphological types and race was found to be significant at the C3, C4, and C5 level. No conclusions were reached as to the cause and function of this variation

Suppression of small scale dynamo action by an imposed magnetic field

Non-helical hydromagnetic turbulence with an externally imposed magnetic field is investigated using direct numerical simulations. It is shown that the imposed magnetic field lowers the spectral magnetic energy in the inertial range. This is explained by a suppression of the small scale dynamo. At large scales, however, the spectral magnetic energy increases with increasing imposed field strength for moderately strong fields, and decreases only slightly for even stronger fields. The presence of Alfven waves is explicitly confirmed by monitoring the evolution of magnetic field and velocity at one point. The frequency omega agrees with vA k1, where vA is the Alfven speed and k1 is the smallest wavenumber in the box.Comment: Final version (7 pages

Lipids of the stratum corneum vary with cutaneous water loss among larks along a temperature-moisture gradient

We explored the relationship between lipids of the stratum corneum (SC), the barrier to water-vapor diffusion of the skin, and cutaneous water loss (CWL) of species of free-living larks along a temperature-moisture gradient. Our results showed that free fatty acids, cholesterol, and ceramides were the major constituents of SC in larks from different environments including the Netherlands, a mesic environment; Iran, a semiarid region; and several areas in Saudi Arabia, a hot dry desert. We found that CWL was reduced among larks inhabiting deserts, but our data did not support the hypothesis that birds from desert environments have larger quantities of lipids per unit dry mass of the SC than larks from more mesic environments. Instead, larks in arid environments had a higher proportion of ceramides, especially the more polar fractions 4 - 6, and a smaller proportion of free fatty acids in their SC, an adjustment that apparently reduced their CWL. Subtle changes in the ratios of lipid classes can apparently alter the movement of water vapor through the skin. We hypothesize that desert birds have higher proportions of ceramides in their SC and lower proportions of free fatty acids because this combination allows the lipid lamellae to exist in a more highly ordered crystalline phase and consequently creates a tighter barrier to water-vapor diffusion.</p

Fetal liver blood flow distribution: role in human developmental strategy to prioritize fat deposition versus brain development

Among primates, human neonates have the largest brains but also the highest proportion of body fat. If placental nutrient supply is limited, the fetus faces a dilemma: should resources be allocated to brain growth, or to fat deposition for use as a potential postnatal energy reserve? We hypothesised that resolving this dilemma operates at the level of umbilical blood distribution entering the fetal liver. In 381 uncomplicated pregnancies in third trimester, we measured blood flow perfusing the fetal liver, or bypassing it via the ductus venosus to supply the brain and heart using ultrasound techniques. Across the range of fetal growth and independent of the mother's adiposity and parity, greater liver blood flow was associated with greater offspring fat mass measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, both in the infant at birth (r = 0.43, P&lt;0.001) and at age 4 years (r = 0.16, P = 0.02). In contrast, smaller placentas less able to meet fetal demand for essential nutrients were associated with a brain-sparing flow pattern (r = 0.17, p = 0.02). This flow pattern was also associated with a higher degree of shunting through ductus venosus (P = 0.04). We propose that humans evolved a developmental strategy to prioritize nutrient allocation for prenatal fat deposition when the supply of conditionally essential nutrients requiring hepatic inter-conversion is limited, switching resource allocation to favour the brain if the supply of essential nutrients is limited. Facilitated placental transfer mechanisms for glucose and other nutrients evolved in environments less affluent than those now prevalent in developed populations, and we propose that in circumstances of maternal adiposity and nutrient excess these mechanisms now also lead to prenatal fat deposition. Prenatal developmental influences play important roles in the human propensity to deposit fa

A hierarchical frailty model applied to two-generation melanoma data

We present a hierarchical frailty model based on distributions derived from non-negative Lévy processes. The model may be applied to data with several levels of dependence, such as family data or other general clusters, and is an alternative to additive frailty models. We present several parametric examples of the model, and properties such as expected values, variance and covariance. The model is applied to a case-cohort sample of age at onset for melanoma from the Swedish Multi-Generation Register, organized in nuclear families of parents and one or two children. We compare the genetic component of the total frailty variance to the common environmental term, and estimate the effect of birth cohort and gender. © 2010 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 21 Feb 201

Cosmic ray confinement in fossil cluster bubbles

Most cool core clusters of galaxies possess active galactic nuclei (AGN) in their centers. These AGN inflate buoyant bubbles containing non-thermal radio emitting particles. If such bubbles efficiently confine cosmic rays (CR) then this could explain ``radio ghosts'' seen far from cluster centers. We simulate the diffusion of cosmic rays from buoyant bubbles inflated by AGN. Our simulations include the effects of the anisotropic particle diffusion introduced by magnetic fields. Our models are consistent with the X-ray morphology of AGN bubbles, with disruption being suppressed by the magnetic draping effect. We conclude that for such magnetic field topologies, a substantial fraction of cosmic rays can be confined inside the bubbles on buoyant rise timescales even when the parallel diffusivity coefficient is very large. For isotropic diffusion at a comparable level, cosmic rays would leak out of the bubbles too rapidly to be consistent with radio observations. Thus, the long confinement times associated with the magnetic suppression of CR diffusion can explain the presence of radio ghosts. We show that the partial escape of cosmic rays is mostly confined to the wake of the rising bubbles, and speculate that this effect could: (1) account for the excitation of the H$\alpha$ filaments trailing behind the bubbles in the Perseus cluster, (2) inject entropy into the metal enriched material being lifted by the bubbles and, thus, help to displace it permanently from the cluster center and (3) produce observable $\gamma$-rays via the interaction of the diffusing cosmic rays with the thermal intracluster medium (ICM).Comment: submitte

Arctic and subarctic environmental analyses utilizing ERTS-1 imagery

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS-1 imagery provides a means of distinguishing and monitoring estuarine surface water circulation patterns and changes in the relative sediment load of discharging rivers on a regional basis. Physical boundaries mapped from ERTS-1 imagery in combination with ground truth obtained from existing small scale maps and other sources resulted in improved and more detailed maps of permafrost terrain and vegetation for the same area. Snowpack cover within a research watershed has been analyzed and compared to ground data. Large river icings along the proposed Alaska pipeline route from Prudhoe Bay to the Brooks Range have been monitored. Sea ice deformation and drift northeast of Point Barrow, Alaska have been measured during a four day period in March and shore-fast ice accumulation and ablation along the west coast of Alaska have been mapped for the spring and early summer seasons

Spin Coupling Effect on Geometry-Dependent X-ray Absorption of Diradicals

We theoretically investigate the influence of diradical electron spin coupling on the time-resolved X-ray absorption spectra of the photochemical ring opening of furanone. We predict geometry dependent carbon K-edge signals involving transitions from core orbitals to both singly and unoccupied molecular orbitals. The most obvious features of the ring opening come from the carbon atom directly involved in the bond breaking, through its transition to both the newly formed SOMO and the available LUMO state. In addition to this primary feature, the singlet spin coupling of four unpaired electrons that arises in the core-to-LUMO states creates additional geometry dependence in some spectral features, with both oscillator strengths and relative excitation energies varying observably as a function of the ring opening. We attribute this behavior to a spin-occupancy-induced selection rule, which occurs when singlet spin coupling is enforced in the diradical state. Notably, one of these geometry-sensitive core-to-LUMO transitions excites core electrons from a backbone carbon not involved in the bond breaking, providing a novel non-local X-ray probe of chemical dynamics arising from electron spin coupling.Comment: 52 Pages, 13 Figure