Best Practices and Biblical Worldview for Technology Integration

This research focused on a study conducted across three different teacher education programs, focusing on equipping teacher candidates with strategies for technology integration while encouraging them to examine how to best glorify God with appropriate technology use in the classroom. Students were instructed using common research-based practices and assignments. These included instruction on the SAMR model, exploration of a variety of technology tools, and a reflection on what it means to glorify God through teaching with technology. Pre- and post-survey data was collected to measure the effectiveness of both the instruction and changes in students\u27 attitudes and perceptions of technology use in teaching. Pre-service teachers read and discussed research addressing Christian wisdom on technology, pursuing excellence in Christian education, technology and computational thinking in the classroom, and digital citizenship as they engaged in these assignments. This article includes main themes, preliminary findings, and implications for future research based on results across all three institutions

Intravenous meloxicam for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain: a pooled analysis of safety and opioid-reducing effects.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To describe the safety and tolerability of intravenous meloxicam compared with placebo across all phase II/III clinical trials. METHODS: Safety data and opioid use from subjects with moderate to severe postoperative pain who received ≥1 dose of intravenous meloxicam (5-60 mg) or placebo in 1 of 7 studies (4 phase II; 3 phase III) were pooled. Data from intravenous meloxicam 5 mg, 7.5 mg and 15 mg groups were combined (low-dose subset). RESULTS: A total of 1426 adults (86.6% white; mean age: 45.8 years) received ≥1 dose of meloxicam IV; 517 (77.6% white; mean age: 46.7 years) received placebo. The incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) in intravenous meloxicam and placebo-treated subjects was 47% and 57%, respectively. The most commonly reported TEAEs across treatment groups (intravenous meloxicam 5-15 mg, 30 mg, 60 mg and placebo, respectively) were nausea (4.3%, 20.8%, 5.8% and 25.3%), headache (1.5%, 5.6%, 1.6% and 10.4%), vomiting (2.8%, 4.6%, 1.6% and 7.4%) and dizziness (0%, 3.5%, 1.1% and 4.8%). TEAE incidence was generally similar in subjects aged \u3e65 years with impaired renal function and the general population. Similar rates of cardiovascular events were reported between treatment groups. One death was reported (placebo group; unrelated to study drug). There were 35 serious adverse events (SAEs); intravenous meloxicam 15 mg (n=5), intravenous meloxicam 30 mg (n=15) and placebo (n=15). The SAEs in meloxicam-treated subjects were determined to be unrelated to study medication. Six subjects withdrew due to TEAEs, including three treated with intravenous meloxicam (rash, localized edema and postprocedural pulmonary embolism). In trials where opioid use was monitored, meloxicam reduced postoperative rescue opioid use. CONCLUSIONS: Intravenous meloxicam was generally well tolerated in subjects with moderate to severe postoperative pain. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBERS: NCT01436032, NCT00945763, NCT01084161, NCT02540265, NCT02678286, NCT02675907 and NCT02720692

Compilation of Selected Vegetable Crop Reports Dealing with Research and Demonstration Plots Located at the Muck Crops Branch, 1983

Spinach cultivar trials, 1982 ; Celery cultivar trials, 1982 / James M. Pisarczyk and Richard L. Hassell -- Potato cultivar trials, 1982 / James M. Pisarczyk -- Celery transplant study, 1982 / Richard L. Hassell -- Parsley 1982 variety trials ; Onion 1982 variety trials ; Broccoli variety trials, 1982 / Richard L. Hassell -- Carrot variety trials, 1982 / R. Mack Riedel and Richard C. Henne -- Control of early blight of celery with fungicides, 1982 ; Control of crucifer downy mildew with fungicide sprays, 1982 / Randall C. Rowe and Richard L. Hassell -- Synergistic interaction between species of lesion nematodes and Verticillium dahliae, 1982 / R. M. Riedel and R. C. Rowe -- Transplants vs. bare-root in controlling root-knot nematode / R. M. Riedel -- Rotations for control of root-knot nematode / R. M. Riedel and J. A. Chatfield -- Fertilizer guidelines for vegetable crops grown on muck soils in Ohio / William M. Brooks, E. C. Wittmeyer and Richard Hassel

Cascades with Adjoint Matter: Adjoint Transitions

A large class of duality cascades based on quivers arising from non-isolated singularities enjoy adjoint transitions - a phenomenon which occurs when the gauge coupling of a node possessing adjoint matter is driven to strong coupling in a manner resulting in a reduction of rank in the non-Abelian part of the gauge group and a subsequent flow to weaker coupling. We describe adjoint transitions in a simple family of cascades based on a Z2-orbifold of the conifold using field theory. We show that they are dual to Higgsing and produce varying numbers of U(1) factors, moduli, and monopoles in a manner which we calculate. This realizes a large family of cascades which proceed through Seiberg duality and Higgsing. We briefly describe the supergravity limit of our analysis, as well as a prescription for treating more general theories. A special role is played by N=2 SQCD. Our results suggest that additional light fields are typically generated when UV completing certain constructions of spontaneous supersymmetry breaking into cascades, potentially leading to instabilities.Comment: 29 pages, a few typos fixed, improved discussion, added figure; now there is 1 figur

Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck

Recent research has shown that holding telephone conversations disrupts one's driving ability. We asked whether this effect could be attributed to a visual attention impairment. In Experiment 1, participants conversed on a telephone or listened to a narrative while engaged in multiple object tracking (MOT), a task requiring sustained visual attention. We found that MOT was disrupted in the telephone conversation condition, relative to single-task MOT performance, but that listening to a narrative had no effect. In Experiment 2, we asked which component of conversation might be interfering with MOT performance. We replicated the conversation and single-task conditions of Experiment 1 and added two conditions in which participants heard a sequence of words over a telephone. In the shadowing condition, participants simply repeated each word in the sequence. In the generation condition, participants were asked to generate a new word based on each word in the sequence. Word generation interfered with MOT performance, but shadowing did not. The data indicate that telephone conversation disrupts attention at a central stage, the act of generating verbal stimuli, rather than at a peripheral stage, such as listening or speaking

A One-Scale Model of Dynamical Supersymmetry Breaking

A model of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking is constructed in which the low-energy physics depends on a single dynamical scale. Strong coupling dynamics of gauge theories plays an important role, in particular through its effects on beta functions and through confinement. The model does not have distinct messenger and supersymmetry-breaking sectors. The scale of supersymmetry breaking is of order 10-100 \TeV, implying that the decay of the next-to-lightest superpartner into the gravitino is prompt. Superoblique corrections are enhanced. A Dirac fermion and one complex scalar, in a 10 or \bar{10} of (global) SU(5), are predicted to be relatively light and to satisfy certain mass relations with the standard model squarks and sleptons.Comment: 28 pages, uses revtex, h-physrev.bs

Composite GUTs: models and expectations at the LHC

We investigate grand unified theories (GUTs) in scenarios where electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking is triggered by a light composite Higgs, arising as a Nambu-Goldstone boson from a strongly interacting sector. The evolution of the standard model (SM) gauge couplings can be predicted at leading order, if the global symmetry of the composite sector is a simple group G that contains the SM gauge group. It was noticed that, if the right-handed top quark is also composite, precision gauge unification can be achieved. We build minimal consistent models for a composite sector with these properties, thus demonstrating how composite GUTs may represent an alternative to supersymmetric GUTs. Taking into account the new contributions to the EW precision parameters, we compute the Higgs effective potential and prove that it realizes consistently EW symmetry breaking with little fine-tuning. The G group structure and the requirement of proton stability determine the nature of the light composite states accompanying the Higgs and the top quark: a coloured triplet scalar and several vector-like fermions with exotic quantum numbers. We analyse the signatures of these composite partners at hadron colliders: distinctive final states contain multiple top and bottom quarks, either alone or accompanied by a heavy stable charged particle, or by missing transverse energy.Comment: 55 pages, 13 figures, final version to be published in JHE

Superconformal Flavor Simplified

A simple explanation of the flavor hierarchies can arise if matter fields interact with a conformal sector and different generations have different anomalous dimensions under the CFT. However, in the original study by Nelson and Strassler many supersymmetric models of this type were considered to be 'incalculable' because the R-charges were not sufficiently constrained by the superpotential. We point out that nearly all such models are calculable with the use of a-maximization. Utilizing this, we construct the simplest vector-like flavor models and discuss their viability. A significant constraint on these models comes from requiring that the visible gauge couplings remain perturbative throughout the conformal window needed to generate the hierarchies. However, we find that there is a small class of simple flavor models that can evade this bound.Comment: 43 pages, 1 figure; V3: small corrections and clarifications, references adde

Dark Matter Candidates: A Ten-Point Test

An extraordinarily rich zoo of non-baryonic Dark Matter candidates has been proposed over the last three decades. Here we present a 10-point test that a new particle has to pass, in order to be considered a viable DM candidate: I.) Does it match the appropriate relic density? II.) Is it {\it cold}? III.) Is it neutral? IV.) Is it consistent with BBN? V.) Does it leave stellar evolution unchanged? VI.) Is it compatible with constraints on self-interactions? VII.) Is it consistent with {\it direct} DM searches? VIII.) Is it compatible with gamma-ray constraints? IX.) Is it compatible with other astrophysical bounds? X.) Can it be probed experimentally?Comment: 29 pages, 12 figure

Evolution of chloroplast retrograde signaling facilitates green plant adaptation to land

Chloroplast retrograde signaling networks are vital for chloroplast biogenesis, operation, and signaling, including excess light and drought stress signaling. To date, retrograde signaling has been considered in the context of land plant adaptation, but not regarding the origin and evolution of signaling cascades linking chloroplast function to stomatal regulation. We show that key elements of the chloroplast retrograde signaling process, the nucleotide phosphatase (SAL1) and 3'-phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphate (PAP) metabolism, evolved in streptophyte algae-the algal ancestors of land plants. We discover an early evolution of SAL1-PAP chloroplast retrograde signaling in stomatal regulation based on conserved gene and protein structure, function, and enzyme activity and transit peptides of SAL1s in species including flowering plants, the fern Ceratopteris richardii, and the moss Physcomitrella patens Moreover, we demonstrate that PAP regulates stomatal closure via secondary messengers and ion transport in guard cells of these diverse lineages. The origin of stomata facilitated gas exchange in the earliest land plants. Our findings suggest that the conquest of land by plants was enabled by rapid response to drought stress through the deployment of an ancestral SAL1-PAP signaling pathway, intersecting with the core abscisic acid signaling in stomatal guard cells