A Multi-Institution Investigation Of Educational Practices And Strategies In Stem Courses

This study examines the teaching practices of faculty participating in the Automated Analysis of Constructed Response (AACR) project. The AACR project focuses on using short-answer assessment questions to elicit the mixed models students have about key concepts in STEM courses. The 19 faculty from six different institutions who participated in this project are all teaching biology courses, asking biology AACR questions, and participating in Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs). FLCs are a method of faculty professional development in which groups of faculty regularly meet to discuss issues of teaching and learning. Here I use a combination of classroom observation data and surveys where faculty self-report on teaching practices to answer three research questions: 1) What instructional practices are currently being used by the AACR FLC faculty? 2) What instructional practices do AACR FLC faculty think that they are using in their courses? and 3) How closely do AACR FLC faculty’s perceptions of their teaching align with their measured teaching practices? Results from the classroom observations show that instructors participating in FLCs utilize a variety of teaching practices ranging from lecture to collaborative learning. Survey data show that faculty self-awareness of their own teaching practices varies depending on the types of questions asked. Taken together, these data establish a baseline from which to monitor changes in teaching practices and self-perceptions of teaching practices of the FLC faculty as a result of their participation in the AACR project

Agricultural Biosecurity: Reducing risks and impacts of livestock diseases

Gund Fellows co-developed timely, innovative research to reduce the risk of animal diseases like coronaviruses spreading among farms. This policy brief helped to inform decision makers at the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program, and private sector stakeholders

Biochemical Systematics of the Tyrannoidea (Aves) (Electrophoresis, Jackknifing, Phylogenetic Trees, Consensus Methods).

The superfamily Tyrannoidea (Aves) has been the subject of numerous systematic investigations, yet the relationships among and within the five component families remain ambiguous. Relationships within the superfamily were investigated using starch gel electrophoresis of 20 enzyme loci in 14 cotinga genera, 12 manakin genera, the flycatcher genus Myiarchus, and each of the genera from the monogeneric families Phytotomidae and Dxyruncidae. Electrophoretic characters were found to contain considerable information concerning familial and subfamilial relationships within this New World assemblage. The Fitch-Margoliash jackknife strict consensus tree and a cladogram generated from the character state distributions were very similar and were used in the formation of a revised classification. The new classification contains several radical departures from the commonly accepted arrangement, most notably the division of the Cotingidae into four separate lineages.The results disagree with several portions of a phylogeny derived from a study of DNA/DNA hybridization (Sibley and Ahlquist 1985). The implications of this finding are discussed. Phylogenetic trees, derived from distance measures, may be of variable reliability due to variance in the quality of the data sets from which they are produced. Such trees are therefore of questionable value as a means of summarizing large data sets. To improve our confidence in these trees, a jackknife technique for data manipulation is presented that, in combination with existing consensus techniques, identifies those portions of evolutionary history that are poorly known due to inconsistencies in the data. Such trees more accurately represent the results of a study than do current tree-generating algorithms that obscure areas of uncertainty. The approach is a simple modification of existing tree-generating methods. As an illustration, a biochemical data set is analyzed using this technique

Mechanically Robust Additively Manufactured Magnetically Coupled Aperture and Patch Microstrip to Rectangular Waveguide Transition

Advances in additive manufacturing technologies allow for the rapid, inexpensive manufacturing of microwave circuits. Circuits made using additive manufacturing are comparable in performance to circuits produced circuits produced using conventional methods such as printed circuit board fabrication, thin film deposition, machining, and milling. Very little work has been done in making additively manufactured transitions, specifically those going from a planar transmission line medium to a rectangular waveguide. This thesis presents a magnetically coupled aperture and patch microstrip to rectangular waveguide transition cascaded with a coplanar waveguide to microstrip feed, manufacturable using fused deposition modelling and microdispensing. It has rectangular waveguide flange bolt holes, which allows a rectangular waveguide to be securely attached. In simulation, at 15dB return loss, it has 0.8 GHz of bandwidth, centered at 10 GHz. It has a minimum insertion loss of 0.89 dB

Piloting the Alcohol Feedback, Reflection, and Morning Evaluation (A-FRAME) Program : A Smartphone-delivered Alcohol Intervention

Many college students engage in heavy drinking and experience negative consequences, but typically show little motivation to change their drinking behavior. Although personalized feedback interventions (PFIs) show promise, improved effect sizes, engagement, and potential for reach are needed. We developed and pilot-tested a theory-based, smartphone-delivered PFI for heavy-drinking college students that incorporated innovations, including a choice of feedback delivered in multiple doses that occur close in time to drinking events. In an open trial, we delivered the 4-week intervention to 18 heavy-drinking students, followed by individual interviews of participants’ experience. Feasibility was demonstrated by high enrollment and response rates, and acceptability was demonstrated by positive participant ratings and interview responses. Results will inform efforts to continue to develop this novel and scalable mobile intervention for alcohol misuse among college students, with potential impact for the public health problem of high-risk drinking

Factors associated with hepatitis B vaccine series completion in a randomized trial for injection drug users reached through syringe exchange programs in three US cities

juillet 19311931/07 (T8,A1931)-1931/12.Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : PACA

Mixed methods approach to understanding farmer and agricultural advisor perceptions of climate change and adaptation in Vermont, United States

The relationships among farmers’ belief in climate change, perceptions of climate-related risk, and use of climate adaptation practices is a growing topic of interest in U.S. scholarship. The northeast region is not well represented in the literature, although it is highly agricultural and will likely face climate-related risks that differ from those faced in other regions. We used a mixed methods approach to examine northeast farmers’ perceptions of climate change and climate-related risks over time, and perceived trade-offs associated with on-farm practices. Our investigation shows how northeastern farmers think about climate-risk, and what they are doing to address it

eXframe: reusable framework for storage, analysis and visualization of genomics experiments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genome-wide experiments are routinely conducted to measure gene expression, DNA-protein interactions and epigenetic status. Structured metadata for these experiments is imperative for a complete understanding of experimental conditions, to enable consistent data processing and to allow retrieval, comparison, and integration of experimental results. Even though several repositories have been developed for genomics data, only a few provide annotation of samples and assays using controlled vocabularies. Moreover, many of them are tailored for a single type of technology or measurement and do not support the integration of multiple data types.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed eXframe - a reusable web-based framework for genomics experiments that provides 1) the ability to publish structured data compliant with accepted standards 2) support for multiple data types including microarrays and next generation sequencing 3) query, analysis and visualization integration tools (enabled by consistent processing of the raw data and annotation of samples) and is available as open-source software. We present two case studies where this software is currently being used to build repositories of genomics experiments - one contains data from hematopoietic stem cells and another from Parkinson's disease patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The web-based framework eXframe offers structured annotation of experiments as well as uniform processing and storage of molecular data from microarray and next generation sequencing platforms. The framework allows users to query and integrate information across species, technologies, measurement types and experimental conditions. Our framework is reusable and freely modifiable - other groups or institutions can deploy their own custom web-based repositories based on this software. It is interoperable with the most important data formats in this domain. We hope that other groups will not only use eXframe, but also contribute their own useful modifications.</p

Operationalizing Embeddedness for Sustainability in Local and Regional Food Systems

Agricultural systems are deeply embedded in social processes and the institutions that govern them. Measuring these processes and understanding the extent of that embeddedness is critical to crafting policy for sustainable agricultural systems. The bulk of measurement in sustainability research, however, focuses on economic and environmental indicators such as farm profitability and water quality. Since policy is most often aimed at what is measured, it tends to focus on issues like price, production, and market access. And while those are important, policies aimed at social issues such as community reciprocity are often outside the scope of policy design. The gap between social measurement and policy is not for lack of care; the importance of social dynamics is well known. Yet due to the difficulty of measuring complex social systems— How does one measure values?—more straightforward economic and environmental measures dominate research and policy. When social systems are measured, as, for example, with the social capital or sustainable livelihoods frameworks, they often do so using economic methodologies and indicators. Such economic-based social indicators are important but focus heavily on outcomes such as poverty or profitability. Accordingly, the complex social processes that lead to such outcomes such as culture, heritage, tradition or generational dynamics are often overlooked. These policy and methodological difficulties present a problem: measurements import the theoretical framing of their intellectual development. Economic methodologies are largely rooted in an atomistic theory of human behavior in which individuals are selfishly motivated by economic gains. While individuals do seek economic success, they are also motivated by social connection, reciprocity, values, and culture. The institutions governing these social processes and the degree to which individuals and businesses are embedded in society are incredibly important, yet poorly understood and measured. This paper outlines a theoretical framing for understanding these complex social processes and develops a methodology for measuring social embeddedness in local and regional agricultural systems. Coined by sociologist Karl Polanyi, embeddedness is the extent to which economic systems like markets are governed by non-economic systems such as culture and social cohesion. While markets and their price and output components are well understood and widely measured, the non-economic institutions like culture and values that support and govern markets have tended to be seen as non-measurable. This has important policy implications for rural agriculture. Accordingly, this paper develops a tool for measuring the social embeddedness of producers and consumers in ten agricultural sectors in Vermont that can be replicated across New England. The tool uses a Likert scale survey designed to understand the degree to which producers and consumers are motivated by self-interest—what we call Instrumentalism—and the extent to which they are market-oriented—what we call Marketness. Survey responses are analyzed using a Factor Analysis to generate Instrumentalism and Marketness scores for each survey respondent on a scale of -1 to 1. The Embeddedness Type Matrix consists of a vertical Instrumentalism axis and a horizontal Marketness axis that together create four quadrants that represent different types of embeddedness: embedded, underembedded, disembedded, and overembedded. Individual consumers and producers are plotted on the matrix based upon their respective Instrumentalism and Marketness scores and yield an embeddedness type given their quadrant. Plotting all producers and consumers of a particular industry on the Embeddedness Type Matrix provides an understanding of the motivations, values, actions, and interactions of the individuals in that industry. This paper provides researchers and policy makers in Vermont and New England with a tool to understand and measure the social aspect of agricultural sustainability in multiple industries. This approach allows for the design of policy aimed at aspects of the food system outside of price, production, and market access alone