Investigating the Relationship Between High School Technology Education and Test Scores for Algebra 1 and Geometry

The standards-based reform movement in education that began in the 1980s has evolved. In the 1990s, the focus was on producing subject-area content standards and modifying instruction. Today, the focus has shifted to assessment, and for technology education, demonstrating the impact on children and the efficacy of the discipline within general education. The purpose of this study was to compare the Standards of Learning (SOL) End-of-Course mathematics performance of high school students who completed courses in illustration and design technology to students who have not completed an illustration and design technology course. The following research questions were developed for this study: (1) Did students who had taken illustration and design technology courses perform better on their mathematics SOL tests than students who did not take illustration and design technology courses?; and (2) Did students who had not passed the mathematics SOL tests do better on their retake examinations after they took an illustration and design course? The population for this study was composed of 996 students in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades who had taken the Algebra I and/or the Geometry end-of-course SOL examinations during the 2002-2003 school year. A t test was used to validate the first research question, and a Chi-square test was used to validate the second research question. The means and standard deviations were used to show the quality of testing between the Non-Illustration and Design Technology group and the Illustration and Design Technology group. The Illustration and Design Technology group had a 78% passing rate, while the Non-Illustration and Design Technology group had a passing rate of 73%. The Illustration and Design Technology group scored 14 points higher on average than the Non-Illustration and Design Technology group. The researchers recommend that this study be replicated with a larger sample in order to include more students. Technology educators must insure that planning at all levels implements contextual practice and includes meaningful assessment. The profession\u27s long tradition of contextual practice is meaningless if it cannot delineate the impact it is having on students

The Development of the WISE (Writing to Inspire Successful Education) Writing Mentoring Program: A University-School Collaboration

Abstract This paper describes the development of a service learning writing mentoring program designed to close the achievement gap in writing proficiency for economically disadvantaged seventh grade students. Compared to writing mentoring studies found in the published literature, this program has three distinguishing components. First, it focused on economically disadvantaged middle school students. Second, it provided writing mentoring through a university-school partnership in which college students provided the intervention in collaboration with a seventh-grade teacher. Third, the program used technology to facilitate the mentoring process. Over the course of an academic year, mentors created videos with feedback on 19 writing assignments. The writing mentoring program was associated with a four-fold increase in the percentage of students who were graded as ‘proficient’ on a state standardized writing exam. These results suggest that semi-virtual, intensive writing mentoring and individualized feedback from college students can close the achievement gap and improve the quality of middle level education provided to economically disadvantaged students

Keyword-Based Delegable Proofs of Storage

Cloud users (clients) with limited storage capacity at their end can outsource bulk data to the cloud storage server. A client can later access her data by downloading the required data files. However, a large fraction of the data files the client outsources to the server is often archival in nature that the client uses for backup purposes and accesses less frequently. An untrusted server can thus delete some of these archival data files in order to save some space (and allocate the same to other clients) without being detected by the client (data owner). Proofs of storage enable the client to audit her data files uploaded to the server in order to ensure the integrity of those files. In this work, we introduce one type of (selective) proofs of storage that we call keyword-based delegable proofs of storage, where the client wants to audit all her data files containing a specific keyword (e.g., "important"). Moreover, it satisfies the notion of public verifiability where the client can delegate the auditing task to a third-party auditor who audits the set of files corresponding to the keyword on behalf of the client. We formally define the security of a keyword-based delegable proof-of-storage protocol. We construct such a protocol based on an existing proof-of-storage scheme and analyze the security of our protocol. We argue that the techniques we use can be applied atop any existing publicly verifiable proof-of-storage scheme for static data. Finally, we discuss the efficiency of our construction.Comment: A preliminary version of this work has been published in International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience (ISPEC 2018

Probing the N=14N = 14 subshell closure: gg factor of the 26^{26}Mg(21+^+_1) state

The first-excited state $g$~factor of $^{26}$Mg has been measured relative to the $g$ factor of the $^{24}$Mg($2^+_1$) state using the high-velocity transient-field technique, giving $g=+0.86\pm0.10$. This new measurement is in strong disagreement with the currently adopted value, but in agreement with the $sd$-shell model using the USDB interaction. The newly measured $g$ factor, along with $E(2^+_1)$ and $B(E2)$ systematics, signal the closure of the $\nu d_{5/2}$ subshell at $N=14$. The possibility that precise $g$-factor measurements may indicate the onset of neutron $pf$ admixtures in first-excited state even-even magnesium isotopes below $^{32}$Mg is discussed and the importance of precise excited-state $g$-factor measurements on $sd$~shell nuclei with $N\neq Z$ to test shell-model wavefunctions is noted.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

The Association between Inflammatory Diet and Infection-Related Cancers in Adults: A Systematic Review

Poster presented at the 2023 American Academy of Health Behavior conference. Presents preliminary results of a systematic review investigating the relationship between inflammatory dietary patterns and infection-related cancers in adults

Toeplitz algebras and spectral results for the one-dimensional Heisenberg model

We determine the structure of the spectrum and obtain non-propagation estimates for a class of Toeplitz operators acting on a subset of the lattice $\Z^N$. This class contains the Hamiltonian of the one-dimensional Heisenberg model.Comment: 13 page

Control of auxin-regulated root development by the Arabidopsis thaliana SHY2/IAA3 gene

The plant hormone auxin controls many aspects of development and acts in part by inducing expression of various genes. Arabidopsis thaliana semidominant shy2 (short hypocotyl) mutations cause leaf formation in dark-grown plants, suggesting that SHY2 has an important role in regulating development. Here we show that the SHY2 gene encodes IAA3, a previously known member of the Aux/IAA family of auxin-induced genes. Dominant shy2 mutations cause amino acid changes in domain II, conserved among all members of this family. We isolated loss-of-function shy2 alleles including a putative null mutation. Gain-of-function and loss-of-function shy2 mutations affect auxin-dependent root growth, lateral root formation, and timing of gravitropism, indicating that SHY2/IAA3 regulates multiple auxin responses in roots. The phenotypes suggest that SHY2/IAA3 may activate some auxin responses and repress others. Models invoking tissue-specificity, feedback regulation, or control of auxin transport may explain these results

The openness conjecture and complex Brunn-Minkowski inequalities

We discuss recent versions of the Brunn-Minkowski inequality in the complex setting, and use it to prove the openness conjecture of Demailly and Koll\'ar.Comment: This is an account of the results in arXiv:1305.5781 together with some background material. It is based on a lecture given at the Abel symposium in Trondheim, June 2013. 13 page