High Stakes and No Takers: The Impact of Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Writing on Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Writing

This ethnographic case study of ten students and their teachers concludes that the state writing test had a negative impact on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of writing in four categories: strengths and weaknesses in student writing, self-assessment of writing skills, factors impacting test scores, and motivation and attitudes toward writing

“Half Bricks and Half Clicks”: Is Blended Onsite and Online Teaching and Learning the Best of Both Worlds?

Blended learning, or combined onsite and online learning, is increasingly popular in higher education. This literature review investigated its effectiveness compared to traditional teaching and learning, concluding that with retention and achievement, blended learning is similar or slightly better; with interaction and satisfaction, blended teaching and learning are more effective

Joining the Conversation: Graduate Students\u27 Perceptions of Writing for Publication

The authors report on their qualitative study of eight students in a class on writing for publication and the nature of the writing process in academia. While the participants found value and purpose in writing and scholarly writing, they had great difficulty with criticism and using feedback in constructive ways

Decoherence in a dynamical quantum phase transition

Motivated by the similarity between adiabatic quantum algorithms and quantum phase transitions, we study the impact of decoherence on the sweep through a second-order quantum phase transition for the prototypical example of the Ising chain in a transverse field and compare it to the adiabatic version of Grovers search algorithm, which displays a first order quantum phase transition. For site-independent and site-dependent coupling strengths as well as different operator couplings, the results show that (in contrast to first-order transitions) the impact of decoherence caused by a weak coupling to a rather general environment increases with system size (i.e., number of spins/qubits). This might limit the scalability of the corresponding adiabatic quantum algorithm.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Addressing social, emotional, and organizational goals for a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) approach

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have social, emotional, and organizational skill deficits which are frequently addressed through behavioral based skills training. However, these approaches often do not result in generalization of skills. This case study sought to understand if the Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP), a problem-solving approach, is effective for addressing social, emotional, and organizational goals with a child with an ASD. Pre and post-intervention assessments indicated an improvement on all three client-centered goals, with the client transferring his goals and problem-based strategies to the community. Analysis of video recordings of the intervention sessions indicated the global strategies Goal-PlanDo-Check were effective, with the participant spending most time in “plan.” A majority of the domain specific strategies did not apply to this case study. Additionally, the participant utilized “verbal guidance by therapist” most often and spent a majority of dimension of time on task “talking about the task.

General error estimate for adiabatic quantum computing

Most investigations devoted to the conditions for adiabatic quantum computing are based on the first-order correction ${\bra{\Psi_{\rm ground}(t)}\dot H(t)\ket{\Psi_{\rm excited}(t)} /\Delta E^2(t)\ll1}$. However, it is demonstrated that this first-order correction does not yield a good estimate for the computational error. Therefore, a more general criterion is proposed, which includes higher-order corrections as well and shows that the computational error can be made exponentially small -- which facilitates significantly shorter evolution times than the above first-order estimate in certain situations. Based on this criterion and rather general arguments and assumptions, it can be demonstrated that a run-time $T$ of order of the inverse minimum energy gap $\Delta E_{\rm min}$ is sufficient and necessary, i.e., T=\ord(\Delta E_{\rm min}^{-1}). For some examples, these analytical investigations are confirmed by numerical simulations. PACS: 03.67.Lx, 03.67.-a.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, several modification

The Resourceful-U Family Caregiving Strengths-Building Education and Support Group: A Florida Library and Aging Network Partnership Project

Project Objective: Two Research Questions What are the information and support needs of family caregivers participating in a newly formed library-aging network educational support group? How can libraries and aging network agencies effectively partner to promote positive outcomes for the health and well-being of informal family caregivers and their care recipients with long-term medical conditions? Methods: Research Steps The following research steps are underway as of January 2018-- (1) A comprehensive and ongoing literature review of family caregiver strengths-building (i.e., resourcefulness), social support, and older adult care recipients’ wellness and quality of life including a JBI systematic review (Lauritzen, Pedersen, and Bjerrum, 2013) that points to social support as beneficial for family caregivers and their care recipients. (2) A Family Caregiver Interest Survey and assessment completed by family caregivers attending monthly support group meetings. (3) Field Notes compiled and analyzed from all meetings and training sessions for the Resourceful-U family caregivers. (4) An optional “Your Family Caregiving Story” with a follow-up telephone or in-person interview to assess caregiver strengths, health, and wellness. Results: Reporting Research Outcomes The Powerful Tools for Caregivers (2013) project curriculum will be offered in conjunction with the Resourceful-U support group as an enrichment opportunity. This evidence-based training program will serve 12 family caregivers beginning in September 2018. A training team of librarians and social workers will conduct the evidence-based family caregiver training curriculum over a six-week period at the local regional public library. The implications of this action learning intervention project for policy and program development will be explored in relationship to a June 2018 community needs report-- The Silver Tsunami: Is Broward County Ready?-- for partnerships between medical libraries, public libraries, and key aging network agencies serving family caregivers and older adults

Physiological and Behavioral Differences in Sensory Processing: A Comparison of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Sensory Modulation Disorder

A high incidence of sensory processing difficulties exists in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and children with Sensory Modulation Disorder (SMD). This is the first study to directly compare and contrast these clinical disorders. Sympathetic nervous system markers of arousal and reactivity were utilized in a laboratory paradigm that administered a series of sensory challenges across five sensory domains. The Short Sensory Profile, a standardized parent-report measure, provided a measure of sensory-related behaviors. Physiological arousal and sensory reactivity were lower in children with ASD whereas reactivity after each sensory stimulus was higher in SMD, particularly to the first stimulus in each sensory domain. Both clinical groups had significantly more sensory-related behaviors than typically developing children, with contrasting profiles. The ASD group had more taste/smell sensitivity and sensory under-responsivity while the SMD group had more atypical sensory seeking behavior. This study provides preliminary evidence distinguishing sympathetic nervous system functions and sensory-related behaviors in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Sensory Modulation Disorder. Differentiating the physiology and sensory symptoms in clinical groups is essential to the provision of appropriate interventions

Orbits for the Impatient: A Bayesian Rejection Sampling Method for Quickly Fitting the Orbits of Long-Period Exoplanets

We describe a Bayesian rejection sampling algorithm designed to efficiently compute posterior distributions of orbital elements for data covering short fractions of long-period exoplanet orbits. Our implementation of this method, Orbits for the Impatient (OFTI), converges up to several orders of magnitude faster than two implementations of MCMC in this regime. We illustrate the efficiency of our approach by showing that OFTI calculates accurate posteriors for all existing astrometry of the exoplanet 51 Eri b up to 100 times faster than a Metropolis-Hastings MCMC. We demonstrate the accuracy of OFTI by comparing our results for several orbiting systems with those of various MCMC implementations, finding the output posteriors to be identical within shot noise. We also describe how our algorithm was used to successfully predict the location of 51 Eri b six months in the future based on less than three months of astrometry. Finally, we apply OFTI to ten long-period exoplanets and brown dwarfs, all but one of which have been monitored over less than 3% of their orbits, producing fits to their orbits from astrometric records in the literature.Comment: 32 pages, 28 figures, Accepted to A

Evaluating genetic traceability methods for captive bred marine fish and their applications in fisheries management and wildlife forensics

Growing demands for marine fish products is leading to increased pressure on already depleted wild populations and a rise in the aquaculture production. Consequently, more captive bred fish are released into the wild through accidental escape or deliberate restocking, stock enhancement and sea ranching programs. The increased mixing of captive bred fish with wild conspecifics may affect the ecological and/or genetic integrity of wild fish populations. From a fisheries management perspective unambiguous identification tools for captive bred fish will be highly valuable to manage risks. Additionally there is great potential to use these tools in wildlife forensics (i.e. tracing back escapees to their origin and determining mislabelling of seafood products). Using SNP data from captive bred and wild populations of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) and sole (Solea solea L.), we explored the efficiency of population and parentage assignment techniques for the identification and tracing of captive bred fish. Simulated and empirical data were used to correct for stochastic genetic effects. Overall, parentage assignment performed well when a large effective population size characterizes the broodstock and escapees originate from early generations of captive breeding. Consequently, parentage assignments are particularly useful from a fisheries management perspective to monitor the effects of deliberate releases of captive bred fish on wild populations. Population assignment proved to be more efficient after several generations of captive breeding, which makes it a useful method in forensic applications for well-established aquaculture species. We suggest the implementation of a case by case strategy when choosing the best method