Student engagement in English 101 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student engagement and teaching techniques in English 101 courses at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. Specifically, the main goals of this study were to determine which techniques are most related to engagement, and whether students and instructors consider the same techniques to be beneficial. Student and instructor surveys were collected from approximately 215 students and nine teachers. Student responses to multiple choice questions have revealed that student engagement is most closely associated with variables related to course organization, feedback and assessment, active learning techniques, and institutional involvement. Additionally, students and instructors mostly agree about the effectiveness of student engagement techniques, with the exception of detailed feedback, which students rate more highly, and use of computer communication, which instructors rate more highly. Furthermore, short answer responses show students and instructors concur that active learning methods and selection of interesting paper topics are techniques currently used to engage students. Students and instructors agree that use of active learning techniques will increase in the future, and instructors also report that they will incorporate more technology in the course. Significantly, the results also demonstrated that many students consider themselves engaged in English 101. Implications for composition pedagogy are provided as well as suggestions for future research

Polyploidy

SummaryPolyploidy is defined as an increase in genome DNA content. Throughout the plant and animal kingdoms specific cell types become polyploid as part of their differentiation programs. When this occurs in subsets of tissues within an organism it is termed somatic polyploidy, because it is distinct from the increase in ploidy that is inherited through the germline and present in every cell type of the organism. Germline polyploidy is common in plants and occurs in some animals, such as amphibians, but will not be discussed further here. Somatic polyploid cells can be mononucleate or multinucleate, and the replicated sister chromatids can remain attached and aligned, producing polytene chromosomes, or they can be dispersed (Figure 1). In this Primer, we focus on why somatic polyploidy occurs and how cells become polyploid — the first of these issues being more speculative, given the status of the field

Teaching and learning about child rights: a study of implementation in 26 countries

In 2014 UNICEF’s Private Fundraising and Partnerships Division (PFP) published the Child Rights Education Toolkit which outlines a rights-based approach to developing child rights education (CRE) with a focus on formal education in early childhood education settings, primary and secondary schools. UNICEF PFP also commissioned the Centre for Children’s Rights in Queen’s University Belfast to undertake a baseline survey of CRE across countries with National Committee presence. The research was designed around the following questions: 1. To what extent are countries with a National Committee presence implementing CRE? 2. Where CRE implementation is advanced, what factors have supported this process? 3. Where CRE implementation is not advanced, what factors are hindering implementation? The research consisted of two strands of activity, first an on-line survey and secondly a series of case studies. The on-line survey was designed to collect data in relation to these three research questions and the survey questions were constructed around a series of themes identified in an initial literature review. The survey was distributed to national experts (identified by UNICEF National Committees) and provides an overview of the extent to which CRE is embedded in formal education settings and teacher education in 26 countries. These responses were enhanced with additional desk research to provide an overview of CRE in each country. The case studies were constructed to explore specific aspects of work in seven countries with a National Committee presence

Reproducing the CO-to-H₂ conversion factor in cosmological simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies

We present models of CO(1–0) emission from Milky-Way-mass galaxies at redshift zero in the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations. We calculate the molecular abundances by post-processing the simulations with an equilibrium chemistry solver while accounting for the effects of local sources, and determine the emergent CO(1–0) emission using a line radiative transfer code. We find that the results depend strongly on the shielding length assumed, which, in our models, sets the attenuation of the incident UV radiation field. At the resolution of these simulations, commonly used choices for the shielding length, such as the Jeans length, result in CO abundances that are too high at a given H₂ abundance. We find that a model with a distribution of shielding lengths, which has a median shielding length of ∼3 pc in cold gas (T < 300 K) for both CO and H₂, is able to reproduce both the observed CO(1–0) luminosity and inferred CO-to-H₂ conversion factor at a given star formation rate compared with observations. We suggest that this short shielding length can be thought of as a subgrid model, which controls the amount of radiation that penetrates giant molecular clouds

A decadal satellite record of gravity wave activity in the lower stratosphere to study polar stratospheric cloud formation

Atmospheric gravity waves yield substantial small-scale temperature fluctuations that can trigger the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). This paper introduces a new satellite record of gravity wave activity in the polar lower stratosphere to investigate this process. The record is comprised of observations of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite from January 2003 to December 2012. Gravity wave activity is measured in terms of detrended and noise-corrected 15 µm brightness temperature variances, which are calculated from AIRS channels that are the most sensitive to temperature fluctuations at about 17–32 km of altitude. The analysis of temporal patterns in the data set revealed a strong seasonal cycle in wave activity with wintertime maxima at mid- and high latitudes. The analysis of spatial patterns indicated that orography as well as jet and storm sources are the main causes of the observed waves. Wave activity is closely correlated with 30 hPa zonal winds, which is attributed to the AIRS observational filter. We used the new data set to evaluate explicitly resolved temperature fluctuations due to gravity waves in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational analysis. It was found that the analysis reproduces orographic and non-orographic wave patterns in the right places, but that wave amplitudes are typically underestimated by a factor of 2–3. Furthermore, in a first survey of joint AIRS and Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) satellite observations, nearly 50 gravity-wave-induced PSC formation events were identified. The survey shows that the new AIRS data set can help to better identify such events and more generally highlights the importance of the process for polar ozone chemistry

Monitoring Ocean Carbon and Ocean Acidification

As atmospheric CO2 continues to increase, more and more CO2 enters the ocean, which reduces pH (pH is a measure of acidity, the lower the pH, the more acidic the liquid) in a process referred to as ocean acidification. Declines in surface ocean pH due to ocean acidification are already detectable and accelerating

Evaluating future risk of NAFLD in adolescents:a prediction and decision curve analysis

BACKGROUND: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the commonest liver condition in the western world and is directly linked to obesity and the metabolic syndrome. Elevated body mass index is regarded as a major risk factor of NAFL (steatosis) and NAFLD fibrosis. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), we sought to investigate whether other variables from adolescence could improve prediction of future NAFL and NAFLD fibrosis risk at 24 years, above BMI and sex. METHODS: Aged 24 years, 4018 ALSPAC participants had transient elastography (TE) and controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) measurement using Echosens 502 Touch. 513 participants with harmful alcohol consumption were excluded. Logistic regression models examined which variables measured at 17 years were predictive of NAFL and NAFLD fibrosis in young adults. Predictors included sex, BMI, central adiposity, lipid profile, blood pressure, liver function tests, homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and ultrasound defined NAFL at 17 years (when examining fibrosis outcomes). A model including all these variables was termed “routine clinical measures”. Models were compared using area under the receiver operator curve (AUROC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), analysis, which penalises model complexity. Models were tested in all participants and those with overweight or obese standardised BMIs (BMI SDS) centiles at the 17-year time point. A decision curve analysis (DCA) was performed to evaluate the clinical utility of models in overweight and obese adolescents predicting NAFLD fibrosis at a threshold probability of 0.1. RESULTS: The “routine clinical measures” model had the highest AUROC for predicting NAFL in all adolescent participants (AUROC 0.79 [SD 0.00]) and those with an overweight/obese BMI SDS centile (AUROC 0.77 [SD 0.01]). According to BIC analysis, insulin resistance was the best predictor of NAFL in all adolescents, whilst central adiposity was the best predictor in those with an overweight/obese BMI SDS centile. The “routine clinical measures” model also had the highest AUROC for predicting NAFLD fibrosis in all adolescent participants (AUROC 0.78 [SD 0.02]) and participants with an overweight/obese BMI SDS centile (AUROC 0.84 [SD 0.03]). However, following BIC analysis, BMI was the best predictor of NAFLD fibrosis in all adolescents including those with an overweight/obese BMI SDS centile. A decision curve analysis examining overweight/obese adolescent participants showed the model that had the greatest net benefit for increased NAFLD fibrosis detection, above a treat all overweight and obese adolescents’ assumption, was the “routine clinical measures” model. However, the net benefit was marginal (0.0054 [0.0034–0.0075]). CONCLUSION: In adolescents, routine clinical measures were not superior to central adiposity and BMI at predicting NAFL and NAFLD fibrosis respectively in young adulthood. Additional routine clinical measurements do provide incremental benefit in detecting true positive fibrosis cases, but the benefit is small. Thus, to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with NASH cirrhosis in adults, the ultimate end point of NAFLD, the focus must be on obesity management at a population level. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12876-022-02401-y