Brainstorm: A Highly Competitive Game and its Effect on Fifth Grade Science and Social Studies Achievement

In recent years a difference of opinion has existed regarding the effectiveness of games. Some educators believe games have many intrinsic values to facilitate learning and achievement. Others believe the competition involved from participating in games is detrimental to some student\u27s emotional status. No sound research has been conducted in relation of games to achievement. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a highly competitive game called Brainstorm will serve as a media toward motivation and will improve achievement in science and social studies at the fifth grade level

The Isocyanoarene Motif in Organometallic Crystal Engineering and New Azulene-Based Organometallics

Isocyanides (:CN-R) and their metal complexes play an important role in many areas including synthetic organic chemistry, catalysis, diagnostic medicine, as well as surface, polymer, and materials sciences. The rich chemistry of isocyanides stems from the tunability of the molecular and electronic structure through variations of the substituent R. Isocyanides represent a rather versatile class of ligands and can accommodate metal ions in both high and low oxidation states upon complexation. Isocyanoarene derivatives have been shown to be effective in the design of charge transport materials (e.g., molecular wires). In addition, di- and other polyisocyanoarenes have been employed as building blocks in the coordination chemistry of polynuclear organometallics. In the past decade, Barybin et al. have developed the chemistry of electron-rich compounds and materials that incorporate isocyanoarene ligands featuring nonbenzenoid aromatic azulenyl and η5-cyclopendadienyl substituents. In this Dissertation, isocyanide-terminated benzenoid and nonbenzenoid arenes as well as the organometallic complexes thereof are discussed. Chapter I constitutes a review of recent developments in the chemistry of isocyanoarenes as ligands in low-valent organometallics. Particular emphases are placed on (1) isocyanometalates (isocyanide complexes of metals in negative oxidation states), (2) low-coordinate complexes of extremely bulky isocyanoarenes, and (3) the chemistry of nonbenzenoid isocyanoarenes. The first part of Chapter II is dedicated to the chemistry of an unusual supramolecular charge-transfer ensemble ([Cp2Co]2[{(OC)5V}2(μ-CNC6Me4NC)])∞ (Cp = cyclopentadienyl) held together via synergistic π-stacking and contact-ion interactions. This three-dimensional, porous framework features channels capable of housing linear molecules such as acetonitrile, carbon dioxide, etc., and offers new opportunities in organometallic crystal engineering. The second part of Chapter II describes preliminary studies on the interaction of the novel 2-isocyano-1,3-dimethylazulene ligand with sub-valent metal ions (e.g., Co(I-) and Fe(II-)). Chapter III of this Dissertation describes the syntheses and coordination chemistry of the polar, linear 2-isocyano-1,3-diethoxycarbonyl-2',6-biazulene ligand and related species. Detailed electrochemical and spectroscopic studies of these novel ligands and their low-valent homoleptic complexes shed light on electron delocalization between the azulenic/biazulenic π-systems and electron-rich metal ions mediated by the isocyanide junction. In Chapter IV, synthetic studies toward a family of azulene-based metal-organic frameworks are described. Two-dimensional, rectangular metal-organic frameworks were formed by bridging {Cp*ClIr(III)} corner fragments (Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) with either asymmetric 2,6-diisocyanoazulenic or symmetric 2,2'-diisocyano-6,6'-biazulenic ditopic edge units. 16-Electron metal carbonyl units, namely [Cr(CO)5], were employed as end caps to control orientation of the molecular dipole of 2,6-diisocyano-1,3-diethoxycarbonylazulene within tetrametallic molecular frameworks

Interview with John Fullerton

John Fullerton discusses the First Presbyterian Church in Mt. Vernon.https://digital.kenyon.edu/elfs_interviews/1003/thumbnail.jp

A Descriptive and Comparative Case Study of Undergraduate Psychology Students\u27 Feedback Processes When Developing a Research Proposal Paper

The current study was conducted to examine undergraduate psychology students’ feedback processes associated with developing a research proposal paper. Previous research has investigated how feedback can be effective for student learning, but it has been limited by not considering the effectiveness of multiple, smaller assessments and the frequent feedback provided on them, from both instructors and peers, as students complete a single, larger assignment. It also has been limited by not considering the application of one model of feedback at the postsecondary education level. The case study research design was selected both to describe my students’ feedback processes when completing a semester-long assignment and to compare these feedback processes when the feedback was provided by either me or other students. Course-based data, including students’ assessments, the feedback provided on them, and their responses to questionnaire items, from two class sections were analyzed using pattern matching within the two cases and cross-case syntheses between the two cases. The findings indicated students’ feedback processes were: (a) informing them of the type and level of performance to be attained, (b) helping them to progress and attain the type and level of performance, (c) providing them with information associated with performance, (d) conveying their progress and how they should proceed, (e) impacting student learning, and (f) leading to greater possibilities for student learning. In general, students indicated these processes were more helpful when I provided feedback rather than when other students provided feedback, although most feedback provided by both me and other students was directed at the same levels

Convergence of a fully discrete finite element method for a degenerate parabolic system modelling nematic liquid crystals with variable degree of orientation

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Challenges in Modeling the Effects of Trade Agreements on the Agricultural Sector

Major issues and challenges encountered in modeling and analyzing agricultural and trade policy reforms are reviewed. We focus on the modeling approach and pay special attention to the type and scope of the models, the calibration of a realistic baseline scenario, the representation of the reform agreement, the use of extra-model information, the choice of metrics to measure reform impacts, and emerging issues in policy modeling. Existing solutions and unresolved issues are examined. We stress the complementarity of various modeling approaches in assessing policy reforms and the importance of helping users understand the limitations of the chosen approach. Keywords: agricultural policy, economic modeling, trade agreements. JEL classification: Q17, Q18, F13

Classification of US Supreme Court Cases using BERT-Based Techniques

Models based on bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) produce state of the art (SOTA) results on many natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as named entity recognition (NER), part-of-speech (POS) tagging etc. An interesting phenomenon occurs when classifying long documents such as those from the US supreme court where BERT-based models can be considered difficult to use on a first-pass or out-of-the-box basis. In this paper, we experiment with several BERT-based classification techniques for US supreme court decisions or supreme court database (SCDB) and compare them with the previous SOTA results. We then compare our results specifically with SOTA models for long documents. We compare our results for two classification tasks: (1) a broad classification task with 15 categories and (2) a fine-grained classification task with 279 categories. Our best result produces an accuracy of 80\% on the 15 broad categories and 60\% on the fine-grained 279 categories which marks an improvement of 8\% and 28\% respectively from previously reported SOTA results

Affordable Health Care Keeps Children and Families Healthy

The health of young children is negatively affected when parents have to forego health care for themselves or other adult members of the household or when parents have to forego payment of household expenses in order to pay for health care