A Comparison of ELL and Non-ELL Students’ and Guardians’ Perceptions of Student Led Conferences

The purpose of the study was to determine if the ELL and non-ELL students’ and guardians’ perceptions of student-led conferences were similar. The sample included 97 consenting guardians and 90 students from five fifth grade classrooms. The student and guardian participants were given parallel surveys to ascertain their perceptions of student-led conferences. The survey data were analyzed with the two one-sided significance test (TOST) technique to determine statistical significance. Additionally, 90% confidence intervals were constructed and analyzed to verify the results. Six of the nine student survey questions resulted in statistically equivalent perceptions between the ELL and non-ELL participants. Four of the ten guardian survey questions resulted in statistical equivalent average responses. In both cases, however, ELL students and parents had better perceptions than non-ELL students and guardians for those items that were not statistically significant

District Attorney Compensation and Performance

Does prosecutor pay impact performance? We attempt to identify the causal effect of wages on a prosecutor’s effort by studying a large (41%), exogenous salary increase for district attorneys in New York state. We measure the performance of prosecutors by the likelihood that a conviction is upheld when appealed. If the efficiency wage theory accurately explains non-market actor behavior, then the exogenous wage shock should entice better performance. Alternatively, if individuals who hold public office are motivated primarily by an intrinsic desire to carry out their office duties to the best of their ability rather than strictly financial compensation, then their performance would be unrelated to changes in their salary. We mostly find, inconsistent with efficiency wage theory, that an exogenous pay increase has a null effect on prosecutor performance

Sequential primed kinases create a damage-responsive phosphodegron on Eco1.

Sister-chromatid cohesion is established during S phase when Eco1 acetylates cohesin. In budding yeast, Eco1 activity falls after S phase due to Cdk1-dependent phosphorylation, which triggers ubiquitination by SCF(Cdc4). We show here that Eco1 degradation requires the sequential actions of Cdk1 and two additional kinases, Cdc7-Dbf4 and the GSK-3 homolog Mck1. These kinases recognize motifs primed by previous phosphorylation, resulting in an ordered sequence of three phosphorylation events on Eco1. Only the latter two phosphorylation sites are spaced correctly to bind Cdc4, resulting in strict discrimination between phosphates added by Cdk1 and by Cdc7. Inhibition of Cdc7 by the DNA damage response prevents Eco1 destruction, allowing establishment of cohesion after S phase. This elaborate regulatory system, involving three independent kinases and stringent substrate selection by a ubiquitin ligase, enables robust control of cohesion establishment during normal growth and after stress

Instrumenting the Interaction: Affective and Psychophysiological Features of Live Collaborative Musical Improvisation

NIME’14, June 30 – July 03, 2014, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Copyright remains with the author(s)

Measuring Affect for the Study and Enhancement of Co-Present Creative Collaboration

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Using an adaptive e-learning curriculum to enhance digital literacy: challenges and opportunities

Universities have established the need for digital literacies as key graduate outcomes and must support students' development in these areas (Lea, 2013; Littlejohn, Beetham & McGill, 2012). In an era of widening participation, it is erroneous to assume all students will enter the sector with the technological skills required to support their studies. While some may be "skilled technology users", many will lack the digital competencies required for academic success (Jisc, 2014). Students need support for developing digital literacies, but explicit teaching may lead to frustration, as some are forced to "learn" skills they possess, while others are lost in the crowd. Adaptive learning technologies are particularly suited to addressing student diversity, as they automatically adjust to individual student's needs. This paper documents the development of a digital literacies curriculum that utilises an adaptive e-Learning platform to prepare students for technology-rich academic environments. The curriculum was co-developed by academics and librarians and consists of lessons on information literacy, media literacy, and online identity management. The paper outlines the pedagogical underpinnings of the lessons, alongside the challenges and opportunities observed during development process, and reflects on the impacts of adaptive technologies on teaching in blending learning environments

The correlation between inflammatory biomarkers and polygenic risk score in Alzheimer's Disease

Plasma biomarkers to aid the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or to monitor disease progression have long been sought and continue to be widely studied. Biomarkers that correlate with AD polygenic risk score, a measure of the polygenic architecture of the disease and highly predictive of AD status, would be excellent candidates. Therefore, we undertook a preliminary study to assess the association of plasma inflammatory biomarkers with an overall AD polygenic risk score as well as with an inflammation-specific AD polygenic risk score in a sample set of 93 AD cases. We measured five complement biomarkers [complement receptor 1 (CR1), clusterin, complement component 9 (C9), C1 inhibitor (C1inh), terminal complement complex (TCC)] and the benchmark inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP). Plasma clusterin level showed an association with overall AD polygenic risk score, while clusterin, C1inh, and CRP levels each displayed some association with the inflammatory-specific AD polygenic risk score. The results suggest that elevated plasma levels of inflammatory biomarkers, including complement proteins, associate with polygenic risk scores in AD, further strengthening the link between genetic and biomarker disease predictors and indicating a potential role for these markers in disease prediction and patient stratification in AD