Tympanometry in children with Down syndrome

The primary aim was to determine whether or not the current standard tympanogram used in those older than 6 months, i.e. the 226 Hz probe tone, is an accurate measure of middle ear effusion in children with Down syndrome. This study also attempted to determine whether or not the 1000 Hz tympanometric probe tone may be a better measurement of middle ear status for this population

Remembering East Frisian Immigrants Who Settled near German Valley, Illinois: A Family History Scrapbook

In June of 1848, Jelle Heeren (age 25) married Taalke Park (age 15) near Rhauderfhen, East Friesland (German: Ostfriesland). One year later, on September 10, along with their infant son, they left everything that was familiar to them in Germany. Based on glowing reports of good opportunities for farming and raising a family on the American frontier, they set sail for the United States. After what must have been a traumatic voyage (including the death of their son), they entered the United States at New York City. Continuing onward, they arrived at a new East Frisian settlement in Illinois (later known as German Valley) on November 23, 1849. Jelle and Taalke established a farm, raised a large family, welcomed new settlers, and helped start a local church. Most of this paper is a Family History Scrapbook which was originally compiled by Sophia (Wagner) Heeren in 1992. It focuses on Jelle and Taalke Heeren and their family, although it also highlights their grandson, John J. Heeren, who spent his career as an educational missionary in China. The scrapbook includes records of genealogy, pictures, and excerpts from books. While many of the details are specific to Jelle and Taalke’s family, the broader themes of this paper may be of interest to any reader who enjoys learning about German immigrants who settled in the American heartland. An extended introduction provides historical context and a glimpse into the experiences of this early-immigrant generation, the first generation of East Frisian immigrants in the American Midwest

Increasing student attentiveness and engagement in growing Mechanized Systems Management courses

Background Growing enrollment in undergraduate MSYM courses has carried increased class sizes and then made it more difficult for students to remain attentive and engaged during lecture. In fall 2014, I maintained a dynamic lecturing style in MSYM 354, Soil Conservation and Watershed Management. Readiness tests, an active learning tool, continued to be helpful, but the mode of delivery was still largely a traditional lecture. Team based learning was utilized which divided the class into diverse learning teams for both the lab and the lecture. Students completed readiness tests both individually and in their teams. The objective of this activity was to solicit more student attentiveness and engagement in the fall of 2015 by improving the mode of delivery. Improvements I implemented three improvements to my lecture style in fall of 2015 in MSYM 452, Irrigation Systems Management. With Dr. Eisenhauer’s retirement, I had agreed to teach MSYM 452 instead of MSYM 354. First, a more effective use of readiness tests to stimulate discussion and introduce lecture topics was utilized. Instead of going over readiness test answers quickly, I took 5-20 minutes to discuss the answers while the students were curious about the correct answers. Also, I used one or two of the readiness test questions as a transition to introduce the new lecture topic. Sometimes there was a shuffle in the classroom when students realized I had went over all five questions and they began to relax for the regular lecture material, indicating increased engagement during this time immediately after a readiness test. Second, I used more in-class example problems. These required students to work in their teams to quantitatively apply the concepts they learned in lecture. Example problems were scheduled for the middle of the lecture period when student attentiveness can start to wane. Finally, I increased the use of the white board and decreased the use of PowerPoint. This forced me to slow down (which is hard when I am excited about the material) and be more interactive with the students. I can better read students’ faces and body language, and then adjust my lecture accordingly. A good textbook in MSYM 452 helped make this transition possible, since I did not need to rely on PowerPoint to disseminate detailed lecture material

Evaluation of spoken document retrieval for historic speech collections

The re-use of spoken word audio collections maintained by audiovisual archives is severely hindered by their generally limited access. The CHoral project, which is part of the CATCH program funded by the Dutch Research Council, aims to provide users of speech archives with online, instead of on-location, access to relevant fragments, instead of full documents. To meet this goal, a spoken document retrieval framework is being developed. In this paper the evaluation efforts undertaken so far to assess and improve various aspects of the framework are presented. These efforts include (i) evaluation of the automatically generated textual representations of the spoken word documents that enable word-based search, (ii) the development of measures to estimate the quality of the textual representations for use in information retrieval, and (iii) studies to establish the potential user groups of the to-be-developed technology, and the first versions of the user interface supporting online access to spoken word collections

Learning environments matter: Identifying influences on the motivation to learn science

In the light of the poor academic achievement in science by secondary school students in South Africa, students’ motivation for science learning should be enhanced. It is argued that this can only be achieved with insight into which motivational factors to target, with due consideration of the diversity in schools. The study therefore explored the impact of six motivational factors for science learning in a sample of 380 Grade Nine boys and girls from three racial groups, in both public and independent schools. The students completed the Student Motivation for Science Learning questionnaire. Significant differences were identified between different groups and school types. The study is important for identifying the key role of achievement goals, science learning values and science self-efficacies. The main finding emphasises the significant role played by science teachers in motivating students for science in terms of the learning environments that they create. This has important implications for future research, aimed at a better understanding of these environments. Such insights are needed to promote scientific literacy among the school students, and so contribute to the improvement of science achievement in South Africa.Keywords: achievement goals; gender and racial group influences on motivation to learn science; influence of school; learning environment; mastery goals; motivation to learn science; science learning values; self-efficac

Modeling Vadose Zone Hydrology: Lecture Notes

Modeling Vadose Zone Hydrology is a graduate-level course offered biennially in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. Topics included hydraulic properties of porous media, application of Darcy\u27s Law in variably saturated media, hydrologic and transport processes in the vadose zone, and solution of steady and unsteady flow problems using numerical techniques. A graphical approach for characterizing vertical one-dimensional problems with energy head profiles was emphasized. Common one-dimensional flow and transport problems were solved analytically. The course was taught using a combination of lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations. The lecture notes from 2021, captured using the Microsoft Whiteboard app with a Microsoft Surface, are presented here. The lecture notes are open access (CC BY-NC 4.0) and may be useful to other instructors in vadose zone hydrology or soil physics

Peer Review of Teaching: ET Theory, Deficit Irrigation and Consumptive Use

A BSE Peer Review of Teaching was carried out for a graduate level course on Advanced Irrigation Management. This course has been offered for several years; each time improvements are made, but there is always a need for additional improvement. In particular, ET theory, deficit irrigation, and consumptive use are topics that the students struggle to grasp. These topics involve a relatively high level of math for an MS-level (800-level) Agricultural Systems Technology course, and the available materials on these topics either were not well developed or were not a good fit for this class. The primary objective was to develop clear lecture materials, readiness test questions, homework problems, and exam questions on these particular topics. Results from Post-Pre Survey indicated a large increase in the students’ self-assessed skills (related to learning objectives) during the semester. Future course improvements should include updating the course sequence of topics to provide a more uniform distribution of workload for the students

Size, weight and position: ion mobility spectrometry and imaging MS combined

Size, weight and position are three of the most important parameters that describe a molecule in a biological system. Ion mobility spectrometry is capable of separating molecules on the basis of their size or shape, whereas imaging mass spectrometry is an effective tool to measure the molecular weight and spatial distribution of molecules. Recent developments in both fields enabled the combination of the two technologies. As a result, ion-mobility-based imaging mass spectrometry is gaining more and more popularity as a (bio-)analytical tool enabling the determination of the size, weight and position of several molecules simultaneously on biological surfaces. This paper reviews the evolution of ion-mobility-based imaging mass spectrometry and provides examples of its application in analytical studies of biological surfaces