Preparing Information Literate Teachers: A Review of the Literature

Ye

Preparing Information Literate Teachers: A Review of the Literature

Ye

A socio-historical study of the treatment and reception of John Lydgate in Early Modern print culture

This project aims to explore the ways in which the works of late medieval poet John Lydgate are treated and received in their early printed forms. The study will chart the history and evolution of a selection of Lydgate texts through the late medieval and Reformation period, considering the texts and their reception in relation to the contemporary social, political and religious backdrop. The project will make special reference to the work of John Lydgate and evaluate his contemporary status as a high profile poet and his subsequent decline in popularity from the mid-sixteenth century. In order to provide a focus for the analysis of these texts, the punctuation practices employed by the various printers and editors will be studied in-depth in four of Lydgate’s texts; The Siege of Thebes, Troy Book, The Churl and the Bird and The Temple of Glas. This data will demonstrate the development of punctuation techniques in print from the late medieval to early modern period and determine how these techniques were applied to the chosen texts. The analysis of this data will further illustrate the changing requirements and expectations of the contemporary readership and the impact this had on the treatment and reception of Lydgate’s medieval texts. Despite his successful literary career during the fifteenth century, modern criticism has been harsh and Lydgate has long been considered a marginal figure in the canon of English literature. Scanlon and Simpson argue that this “was as much a matter of careful aesthetic discrimination as it was of historical reconstruction”; in other words, John Lydgate did not fit the literary and artistic ideals of the nineteenth century and was subsequently relegated to the margins of literary history (Scanlon & Simpson 2006: 2). More recently scholarship has aimed to take a fresh look at the life and work of John Lydgate and the influence he had on later writers and English literature as a whole. Attempting to sweep away the entrenched negative perceptions of his work as dull and didactic, scholars have begun to analyse Lydgate from a fifteenth-century perspective and to evaluate the role his work played in the lives and reading habits of late medieval England. As a definitively Catholic writer whose popularity spans the Reformation, it is Lydgate’s unique position which can provide insights into the contradictions and complexities of fifteenth century reading culture. His work is steeped in the medieval Catholic literary tradition, while also tackling contemporary political issues of kingship and national identity associated with the intellectual pursuits of the Renaissance. It is for this reason that Lydgate has been described as both a definitive embodiment of the middle ages (Pearsall 1970: 2) and as a “transition poet” (Renoir 1967: 31). Regardless of labelling, Lydgate was undoubtedly a central figure in fifteenth-century literary culture, and the treatment and reception of his texts can illustrate the ways in which sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editors, printers and publishers approached and dealt with late medieval texts while attempting to target a Renaissance audience amidst growing Protestant literature and propaganda. This project will determine how wider attitudinal changes and social shifts impacted the presentation of texts and the editing process, with particular reference to punctuation practices. Sixteenth-century England experienced significant social, religious and intellectual upheavals and this is clearly reflected in the reading habits and publishing trends of a rapidly expanding book industry. However, the central hypothesis of this dissertation argues that certain aspects of the editing process were less dramatic in their development. Punctuation practices in particular display a more gradual move towards modern conventions and represent the contradictions and complexities of a reading culture very much in transition

Providing Biblical Knowledge to Women Ages 25–70 to Place Women in Ministry and Leadership Positions in the Church

The purpose of this project is to provide biblical knowledge to equip women to assume scriptural roles in church ministry and leadership. The project was conducted at The Word Ministry Church in rural Dallas County, Alabama. The writer reviewed women’s challenges and issues in the Christian community dominated by patriarchal theories. This project provides an overview of the study group and the training criteria for preparing women for ministry and leadership. The goal was to educate women not serving in leadership or ministry positions to obtain biblical knowledge to give them the confidence and support to accept their gift of ministry or leadership. The researcher used various tools to assess each participant’s biblical knowledge of women in ministry and leadership, including pre- and post-tests, individual interview questionnaires, and a group questionnaire tool. The data collection process included individual and group interviews. The mentoring process was implemented for a month, during which each mentor and mentee shared information to determine the effectiveness of the process. The elective group of mentors, women currently in ministry and leadership positions, were paired with mentees, women not in ministry or leadership positions in the church

Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Networked applications have software components that reside on different computers. Email, for example, has database, processing, and user interface components that can be distributed across a network and shared by users in different locations or work groups. End-to-end performance and reliability metrics describe the software quality experienced by these groups of users, taking into account all the software components in the pipeline. Each user produces only some of the data needed to understand the quality of the application for the group, so group performance metrics are obtained by combining summary statistics that each end computer periodically (and automatically) sends to a central server. The group quality metrics usually focus on medians and tail quantiles rather than on averages. Distributed quantile estimation is challenging, though, especially when passing large amounts of data around the network solely to compute quality metrics is undesirable. This paper describes an Incremental Quantile (IQ) estimation method that is designed for performance monitoring at arbitrary levels of network aggregation and time resolution when only a limited amount of data can be transferred. Applications to both real and simulated data are provided.Comment: This paper commented in: [arXiv:0708.0317], [arXiv:0708.0336], [arXiv:0708.0338]. Rejoinder in [arXiv:0708.0339]. Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000583 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Rejoinder: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Rejoinder: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation [arXiv:0708.0302]Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000592 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Sequencing impact at the University of Missouri

Executive Summary: It would be an understatement to say that "next-generation" sequencing technology has been revolutionary. Over the last 10 years, sequencing has created a paradigm shift in biological sciences where more and more a component of research involves "just sequence it". This is because the types of data, applications and resulting insights are expanding every year. Further, the volume and speed of data generation are growing exponentially, while the costs to generate these data are decreasing exponentially. The Human Genome Project completed the first draft genome sequence in 2001 at an estimated cost of $3 billion. Next-generation sequencing became mainstream around 2007 and enabled the re-sequencing of a human genome at a cost of approximately$50,000. In late 2015, Illumina announced the availability of their X10 sequencer for use on non-human samples enabling the re-sequencing of a mammalian (human, cow, dog etc.) genome for approximately $1,500 and with an annual throughput of 10,000 genomes per year. The ease, rapidity and cost effectiveness of generating sequence data has created a computational analysis bottleneck. The growth of computational resources on the MU campus has not kept pace with the growth in data generation capability. In order for Mizzou to maintain a competitive research environment, we need to expand the computational resources available for bioinformatics analysis of large data which include sequence data. It will require an initial investment of$619,000 in early 2016 to build the needed core infrastructure and will require ongoing funding to maintain and expand this infrastructure. Initial investments (cost share of $231,000) made by Mizzou in 2005 to bring next-generation sequencing to this campus have been returned many-fold. Based on a survey sent to MU researchers in November 2015, a total of 66 grants have been awarded involving sequencing for a total of$87.5M. $7.6M of that is directly attributable to sequence data generation/analysis. In addition, another$7.9M in grant funding has been submitted and remains pending. This research has led to 173 refereed journal articles in top-tier journals producing over 6,000 citations. Additionally, 19 M.S., 62 Ph.D. and 21 postdocs have been trained as a result of these sequence related research projects. Plant and animal researchers at MU have been at the forefront of the next-generation sequencing revolution. However, based on the diversity of grants and papers gathered by the survey, sequence analysis provides a common foundation that ties together many disciplines on campus. As such, investment in computational capacity directed at sequence data analysis will serve the entire campus and provide technological ties between disciplines. The following is a detailed description of the history of sequencing/bioinformatics, a description of the computation resources required, and a model for sustainability and an analysis of the impacts of next-generation sequencing at Mizzou

Abusive Debt Collection - A Model Statute for Virginia

Among the many by-products of the phenomenal growth of consumer credit in the last two decades has been the attempt on the part of existing legal institutions to grapple with the problem of coercive debt collection. The existence of the problem is no longer disputed, and the nature and extent of the abuse surrounding debt collection practices has been the subject of voluminous commentary. Given the dynamics of the competing interests involved when a creditor attempts to collect a just debt which the debtor is unable to pay, an essential conflict requiring regulated resolution becomes apparent. Unfortunately, the problem is compounded when it is recognized that the debt may not be validly due and owing, that the debtor may have a defense, real or perceived, or that the debtor may merely be unwilling to pay, either in fact or as perceived by the creditor. Since the information available to either party is imperfect, it frequently is impossible to determine the actual dimensions of the conflict as viewed from the varying perceptions of the parties. The inevitable result of the inability of either party to assess accurately the optimum means by which any given conflict should be resolved has been the development of a series of abusive collection tactics and practices utilized by debt collectors in attempts to recover outstanding obligations. The extent of such practices is difficult to determine. When questioned about their techniques, firms engaging in debt collection universally report that they have promulgated policies against harassment in an effort to maintain customer good will. To the extent that such statements can be accepted without question, the abusive practices which do occur must be attributed to overly aggressive individual collectors possibly concerned with default ratios as a reflection on their job performance. Such collectors, of course, are reluctant to discuss these practices candidly, making it difficult to measure accurately the extent of harassment tactics by surveying the collection industry. On the other hand, compiling accurate empirical data on collection practices through a consumer sample is equally difficult. Debtors have a tendency to exaggerate descriptions of contacts made by the debt collector. They may be acutely sensitive to any collection attempt, no matter how harmless it might seem to an objective outsider, and their reports may reflect their resentment. Those engaging in debt collection should be entitled to a presumption of regularity in view of the absence of data revealing the true extent of offensive collection practices. It may be assumed that the great majority of all lending institutions, credit sellers, and collection agencies employ acceptable methods in their attempts to encourage the debtor to pay. Nevertheless, in today\u27s credit-oriented society, attention must be directed toward the small minority of firms involved in coercive and overreaching activities. With over $180 billion of credit currently outstanding and an average per capita indebtedness of$900, it is reasonable to assume that few consumers are untouched by the credit industry. Since credit plays such a major role in consumer transactions, it is vital that collection practices be effectively regulated

Hispanic Subgroups, Acculturation, and Substance Abuse Treatment Outcomes

This study explored Hispanic subgroup differences in substance use treatment outcomes, and the relationship of acculturation characteristics to these outcomes. Data were from a multisite randomized clinical trial of motivational enhancement therapy versus treatment as usual in a sample of Spanish-speaking substance abusers. Participants were Cuban American (n = 34), Mexican American (n = 209), Puerto Rican (n = 78), and other Hispanic American (n = 54). Results suggested that Cuban Americans and individuals with more connection to Hispanic culture had lower treatment retention. Hispanics born in the U.S and those who spoke English at home had a lower percentage of days abstinent during weeks 5–16, although Puerto Ricans born in the U.S. and Cuban Americans living more years in the U.S. had a higher percentage of days abstinent in weeks 1–4 and 5–16, respectively. Results may inform future hypothesis-driven studies in larger Hispanic treatment seeking samples of the relationship between acculturation and treatment outcome

I-70 Truck Automation Corridor Update

Truck automation arrived in the Midwest in 2022 with the advertising of procurement for truck platooning and Level 2 and 4 automations on trucks in operations on I-70. We will discuss the readiness of infrastructure and industry to accept this technology, debunk the headlines on automation, discuss real-world feedback from both technology and trucking industries, and spotlight the partners who are helping INDOT and DriveOhio advance this project