Measuring the implementation of media literacy instructional practices in schools: community stakeholder perspectives

Interest in media literacy education is increasing across the United States and around the world but little is still known about the prevalence of various instructional practices used to implement it in elementary and secondary schools. Surveys and semi-structured interviews with a statewide quota sample of education stakeholders included school leaders, educators, librarians, elected public officials, parents, and members of the community in all 24 school districts in Rhode Island. Results show that only a few instructional practices are implemented with most or nearly all students in the state. However, the implementation of various media literacy instructional practices varied considerably from one community to another but these differences were not due to the size of the community, its geographic location, or its socioeconomic status. Nearly half the variance in instructional practices can be accounted for by obstacles including technology limitations, school policies, academic priorities, perceptions of students, and educator response

DAGC: Data-Volume-Aware Adaptive Sparsification Gradient Compression for Distributed Machine Learning in Mobile Computing

Distributed machine learning (DML) in mobile environments faces significant communication bottlenecks. Gradient compression has emerged as an effective solution to this issue, offering substantial benefits in environments with limited bandwidth and metered data. Yet, they encounter severe performance drop in non-IID environments due to a one-size-fits-all compression approach, which does not account for the varying data volumes across workers. Assigning varying compression ratios to workers with distinct data distributions and volumes is thus a promising solution. This study introduces an analysis of distributed SGD with non-uniform compression, which reveals that the convergence rate (indicative of the iterations needed to achieve a certain accuracy) is influenced by compression ratios applied to workers with differing volumes. Accordingly, we frame relative compression ratio assignment as an $n$-variables chi-square nonlinear optimization problem, constrained by a fixed and limited communication budget. We propose DAGC-R, which assigns the worker handling larger data volumes the conservative compression. Recognizing the computational limitations of mobile devices, we DAGC-A, which are computationally less demanding and enhances the robustness of the absolute gradient compressor in non-IID scenarios. Our experiments confirm that both the DAGC-A and DAGC-R can achieve better performance when dealing with highly imbalanced data volume distribution and restricted communication

Mobile phone based optical spectrometer

The tradition spectrometer based on the grating to reconstruct the wavelength. The structure of the grating will influence the resolution of the spectrometer. The high-resolution spectrometer usually has high requirement for the grating. While the grating structure is limited to the fabrication method. Thus, the cost of the high-resolution spectrometer is always high. Besides the grating, the size of the spectrometer can also affect the resolution of the spectrometer. Hence, the high-resolution spectrometer is always large. To overcome these disadvantages, the speckle-based spectrometer has been currently studied by many scholars. Through using multimode fiber[1-3], the speckle patterns can be generated. Then, the reconstruction algorithms are applied to reconstruct the wavelength. In order to find a way to build a portable and low-cost spectrometer based on mobile phone, a spectrometer device based on speckle reconstruction is put forward in this article. The frosted glass is used as the speckle generate medium and the mobile phone is adopted to capture the pictures of the speckle. Through applying the minimum energy algorithm, this device is able to reconstruct certain wavelength.​Master of Science (Biomedical Engineering

The ARt of Inequality: A Youth Social Justice Exhibition in Augmented Reality

The substantive development in the role of augmented reality (AR) technologies in public spaces provides new opportunities for digital arts and arts activism as a means of increasing awareness of critical social issues. However, because of the digital divide and dominant narratives in the museum, there is an existing racial and socioeconomic gap in (digital) art, activism education, and museum curation. In this paper we present a curriculum that aims to empower high-school-aged youth from minoritized backgrounds through art activism in museum spaces via the development and exhibition of augmented reality art pieces that address social justice issues relevant to youth interests and experiences

Identification of Genes and Pathways Associated with Kidney Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury by Bioinformatics Analyses

Background/Aims: Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury in the kidney is a major cause of acute kidney injury in humans. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for the progression of kidney IR injury still need to be explored. In this study, we aimed to explore the underlying genes and pathways associated with kidney IR injury. Methods: Gene microarray of GSE27274 was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between kidney IR injury and kidney IR rat samples were analyzed. Gene Ontology biological process (BP) and pathway enrichment analyses of DEGs were performed, followed by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction. Results: A total of 88 up-regulated and 102 down-regulated DEGs were identified. The up-regulated DEGs including FK506 binding protein 1A (Fkb1a) were mainly enriched in biological processes (BPs) related to protein ubiquitination. The down-regulated DEGs including complement component 5 (C5) were enriched in complement and coagulation cascades pathway. Choline phosphotransferase 1 (Chpt1) was enriched in glycerophospholipid metabolism pathway. In the PPI network, heme oxygenase (decycling) 1 (Hmox1) was as a hub gene that interacted with the maximum nodes. Conclusions: DEGs of Fkb1a, C5, Chpt1, and Hmox1, as well as complement and coagulation cascades pathway, glycerophospholipid metabolism pathway, and BP terms related to protein ubiquitinatione may be the potential targets for diagnosis and treatment of kidney IR injury

Operator theory, operator algebras and their interactions with geometry and topology: Ronald G. Douglas memorial volume

This book is the proceeding of the International Workshop on Operator Theory and Applications (IWOTA) held in July 2018 in Shanghai, China. It consists of original papers, surveys and expository articles in the broad areas of operator theory, operator algebras and noncommutative topology. Its goal is to give graduate students and researchers a relatively comprehensive overview of the current status of research in the relevant fields. The book is also a special volume dedicated to the memory of Ronald G. Douglas who passed away on February 27, 2018 at the age of 79. Many of the contributors are Douglas’ students and past collaborators. Their articles attest and commemorate his life-long contribution and influence to these fields

LIKES, SARCASM AND POLITICS: YOUTH RESPONSES TO A PLATFORM-INITIATED MEDIA LITERACY CAMPAIGN ON SOCIAL MEDIA

When it comes to youth and media literacy, the focus of both research and practice has been on the integration of media literacy instruction into young people’s various educational experiences, rather than studying, implementing and evaluating such initiatives in situ, on social media—which is known to be youths’ central news source. Furthermore, existing studies focus on older platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and we lack a nuanced understanding of these dynamics on the platforms most popular with youth today. The present study aims to fill this gap, by analyzing how users responded to a media literacy education campaign on the popular youth-oriented social media app TikTok, with a focus on the lessons that we might draw in terms of targeted media literacy education initiatives for youth. Our large-scale qualitative content analysis—which included 11,449 public comments posted on 5 educational TikTok videos about media literacy—facilitated a naturalistic study of young people’s attitudes towards such initiatives. We found that reactions to the campaign were mixed, and highly political in nature. While many users appreciated the media literacy campaign and TikTok’s role in implementing it, there was also resistance to the campaign, due to factors related to video content, dissemination approach, and the very identity of TikTok as a platform. Across the board, comments were highly political, illustrating the politicized nature of media literacy education today. These reactions serve as rich feedback that can usefully inform future media literacy campaigns on social media, and especially those targeting youth audiences

A review of HPV and HBV vaccine hesitancy, intention, and uptake in the era of social media and COVID-19

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization named vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health. The impact of hesitancy on the uptake of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines was of particular concern, given the markedly lower uptake compared to other adolescent vaccines in some countries, notably the United States. With the recent approval of COVID-19 vaccines, coupled with the widespread use of social media, concerns regarding vaccine hesitancy have grown. However, the association between COVID-related vaccine hesitancy and cancer vaccines such as HPV is unclear. To examine the potential association, we performed two reviews using Ovid Medline and APA PsychInfo. Our aim was to answer two questions: (1) Is COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, intention, or uptake associated with HPV or hepatitis B (HBV) vaccine hesitancy, intention, or uptake? and (2) Is exposure to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on social media associated with HPV or HBV vaccine hesitancy, intention, or uptake? Our review identified few published empirical studies that addressed these questions. Our results highlight the urgent need for studies that can shift through the vast quantities of social media data to better understand the link between COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and disinformation and its impact on uptake of cancer vaccines

Repeated methamphetamine exposure decreases plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in rhesus monkeys

Background Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is known to prevent methamphetamine (METH)-induced neurotoxicity and plays a role in various stages of METH addiction. However, there is a lack of research with longitudinal design on changes in plasma BDNF levels in active METH-dependent individuals.Aims The aim of the study was to investigate changes in BDNF levels during METH self-administration in monkeys.Methods This study measured plasma BDNF levels in three male rhesus monkeys with continuous METH exposure and four male control rhesus monkeys without METH exposure. Changes in plasma BDNF levels were then assessed longitudinally during 40 sessions of METH self-administration in the three monkeys.Results Repeated METH exposure decreased plasma BDNF levels. Additionally, plasma BDNF decreased with long-term rather than short-term accumulation of METH during METH self-administration.Conclusions These findings may indicate that the changes in peripheral BDNF may reflect the quantity of accumulative METH intake during a frequent drug use period