A study of the errors and violations committed by college and high school basketball teams

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1948. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Hybridizing two-step growth mixture model and exploratory factor analysis to examine heterogeneity in nonlinear trajectories

Empirical researchers are usually interested in investigating the impacts of baseline covariates have when uncovering sample heterogeneity and separating samples into more homogeneous groups. However, a considerable number of studies in the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework usually start with vague hypotheses in terms of heterogeneity and possible reasons. It suggests that (1) the determination and specification of a proper model with covariates is not straightforward, and (2) the exploration process may be computational intensive given that a model in the SEM framework is usually complicated and the pool of candidate covariates is usually huge in the psychological and educational domain where the SEM framework is widely employed. Following \citet{Bakk2017two}, this article presents a two-step growth mixture model (GMM) that examines the relationship between latent classes of nonlinear trajectories and baseline characteristics. Our simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed model is capable of clustering the nonlinear change patterns, and estimating the parameters of interest unbiasedly, precisely, as well as exhibiting appropriate confidence interval coverage. Considering the pool of candidate covariates is usually huge and highly correlated, this study also proposes implementing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to reduce the dimension of covariate space. We illustrate how to use the hybrid method, the two-step GMM and EFA, to efficiently explore the heterogeneity of nonlinear trajectories of longitudinal mathematics achievement data.Comment: Draft version 1.6, 08/08/2020. This paper has not been peer reviewed. Please do not copy or cite without author's permissio

Una investigación sobre la tensión de la identidad profesional de los profesores de EFL de la escuela secundaria en China desde la perspectiva de la teoría de la disonancia

Due to the great importance of professional identity in teachers’ development and success, researchers’ attention has recently been confined to the tensions that may challenge teachers’ identities. Despite the importance of these tensions in the EFL context, only a few studies have addressed them by employing qualitative research methods. The present study aims to investigate the professional identity tensions of EFL teachers by a psychometric scale. Therefore, an instrument was developed and validated for measuring Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identity tensions from the Dissonance Theory perspective by adopting the Professional Identity Tension Scale (PITS). To this end, based on the convenience sampling method, 452 Chinese EFL teachers from senior high schools participated in the study. Exploratory and SEM analyses were performed to identify and confirm the weight of the influencing factors respectively. The final instrument is a 5-point Likert-type item including 30 items measuring six different tensions related to professional identity. The findings were an indication of the applicability of PITS in the EFL context with six contributive factors. Implications of the study and suggestions for further research are discussed.Debido a la importancia de la identidad profesional en el desarrollo y el éxito de los docentes, los investigadores se han centrado recientemente en las tensiones que pueden desafiar la identidad docente. Aunque estas tensiones son muy importantes en el entorno de EFL, solo unos pocos estudios han resuelto estos problemas a través de métodos de investigación cualitativos. El objetivo de este estudio es investigar la tensión de identidad profesional de los profesores de EFL mediante una escala psicométrica. Por lo tanto, se utilizó la escala de tensión de identidad profesional (PITS) para desarrollar y verificar una herramienta para medir la tensión de identidad profesional de los profesores chinos de inglés desde una perspectiva de la teoría de la disonancia. Con este fin, 452 profesores chinos de EFL de la escuela secundaria participaron en el estudio basado en el método de muestreo de conveniencia. Se realizaron análisis exploratorios y SEM para determinar y confirmar el peso de los factores de influencia, respectivamente. La última herramienta fue una escala Likert de 5 puntos que incluyó 30 elementos para medir seis tensiones diferentes relacionadas con la identidad profesional. Los resultados del estudio muestran que la aplicabilidad de los PITS en el entorno de EFL tiene seis factores contribuyentes. Se discutieron las implicaciones del estudio y las sugerencias para futuras investigaciones

Making growth more environmentally sustainable in Germany

This document analyses German environmental policies, including, among others, discussion of air and water quality policy, use of the waste management hierarchy approach and of voluntary agreements. The German public has been highly sensitive to environmental concerns, leading to many policy initiatives in this area since the early 1980s. Significant environmental improvements have been achieved, using an approach frequently based on detailed regulations, often developed with the close involvement of industry and even individual polluters. There has developed a tendency to relieve some of the heaviest polluters from the most stringent regulation, on the grounds of competitiveness concerns, and some polluting activities receive considerable direct or indirect subsidies; these policies will increasingly make it unnecessarily expensive to meet environmental targets. Objectives need to be defined more clearly and consistently and a less discriminatory approach to taxation and ..

Design and Implementation of ISO:9001 Standards at Sigma 6 Electronics, Inc.

ISO 9001 certification is a very long process that can take even the most dedicated team years to complete. For smaller companies such a process could be costly, confusing, and arduous. While many resources exist, it takes nearly the same amount of effort to tailor fit the examples as it does to create a whole new set. The purpose of this senior project is to research examples and help fit them to a small manufacturing company, Sigma 6 Electronics, Inc. An interlinked, or combined, quality manual/procedures were chosen to aid Sigma 6 Electronics through making the documentation clear and perfectly understandable. Through analysis of the data collected from manufacturing, it was determined that there was a large amount of variability in specific non-standard processes. The core of the ISO 9001 certification is the promotion of quality through standard processes and transparency. Through the application of the Quality Manual, Quality Operating Procedures, and Standard Work A3’s, Sigma 6 Electronics should see an increase in quality parts while maintaining a reasonable production level

DNA methylation associated with postpartum depressive symptoms overlaps findings from a genome-wide association meta-analysis of depression

Background Perinatal depressive symptoms have been linked to adverse maternal and infant health outcomes. The etiology associated with perinatal depressive psychopathology is poorly understood, but accumulating evidence suggests that understanding inter-individual differences in DNA methylation (DNAm) patterning may provide insight regarding the genomic regions salient to the risk liability of perinatal depressive psychopathology. Results Genome-wide DNAm was measured in maternal peripheral blood using the Infinium MethylationEPIC microarray. Ninety-two participants (46% African-American) had DNAm samples that passed all quality control metrics, and all participants were within 7 months of delivery. Linear models were constructed to identify differentially methylated sites and regions, and permutation testing was utilized to assess significance. Differentially methylated regions (DMRs) were defined as genomic regions of consistent DNAm change with at least two probes within 1 kb of each other. Maternal age, current smoking status, estimated cell-type proportions, ancestry-relevant principal components, days since delivery, and chip position served as covariates to adjust for technical and biological factors. Current postpartum depressive symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Ninety-eight DMRs were significant (false discovery rate \u3c 5%) and overlapped 92 genes. Three of the regions overlap loci from the latest Psychiatric Genomics Consortium meta-analysis of depression. Conclusions Many of the genes identified in this analysis corroborate previous allelic, transcriptomic, and DNAm association results related to depressive phenotypes. Future work should integrate data from multi-omic platforms to understand the functional relevance of these DMRs and refine DNAm association results by limiting phenotypic heterogeneity and clarifying if DNAm differences relate to the timing of onset, severity, duration of perinatal mental health outcomes of the current pregnancy or to previous history of depressive psychopathology

The Genetics of General Cognitive Ability

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2013. Major: Psychology. Advisors: Matthew McGue, Niels Waller. 1 computer file (PDF); v, 140 pages.General cognitive ability (GCA) is a highly heritable trait, with correlates in numerous other domains. This dissertation reports the results of three studies of the genetics of GCA, conducted with participants from the Minnesota Center for Twin & Family Research (MCTFR). Study #1 (N = 7,100) is a genome-wide association study plus other analyses that exploit genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Study #2 (N = 6,439) is an association study of a different class of genetic polymorphism, the copy-number variant (CNV). In this study, we detect CNVs from genome-wide SNP-allele-probe intensity data. We aggregate them into genome-wide mutational burden scores and also carry out genome-wide association scans for specific CNVs. Study #3 is a biometric moderation study in a sample of 2,494 pairs of twins, full siblings, and adoptive siblings. We compared models by their sample-size-corrected AIC, and based our parametric inference on model-averaged point estimates and standard errors. Taken as a whole, these three studies demonstrate that GCA is substantially heritable and massively polygenic, but it is also influenced by environmental factors, and its heritability can be moderated by contextual variables like age and family-of-origin socioeconomic status (SES)