The Value of a College Education: Estimating the Effect of Teacher Preparation on Student Achievement

Federal legislation currently holds institutions of higher education accountable for the quality of teachers that they produce. However research has yet to demonstrate that teacher preparation programs (TPPs) have differential effects on the quality of teachers they produce in terms of student achievement. This study uses data from a sample of 2,582 5th grade math students in an urban school district in Kentucky and a school fixed effects design to explore the variation in average TPP effects. The authors find that TPPs are differentially effective in training teachers, which in turn impacts student performance on 5th grade math scores. There is also some indication that these differential effects converge around teachers’ fifth year of teaching.Student achievement; teacher preparation, teacher effects

Economic and environmental analysis of the introduction of legumes in livestock farming systems

Legumes in low input systems are becoming increasingly important. The socioeconomic implication of the adoption of novel legumes species has been assessed in sheep and dairy cattle grazing systems in Europe using a biological model which has been linked to linear programming models. In the economic sub-model, the mathematical programming models produce an economic evaluation of the legumes in a farming system context, emphasising the land allocation and the availability of nutrients during the different seasons of the production cycle. Then the paper evaluates the impact of adopting the legumes on the regional income and production. In the UK and Germany, the introduction of legumes results in sizeable gains for the farmers whereas in Italy and France the gains are smaller

Cooperation versus competition effects on information sharing and use in group decision making

Information processing in groups has long been seen as a cooperative process. In contrast with this assumption, group members were rarely found to behave cooperatively: They withhold unshared information and stick to initial incorrect decisions. In the present article, we examined how group members' cooperative and competitivemotives impact on group information processing and propose that information sharing and use in groups could be seen as strategic behavior. We reviewed the latest developments in the literature investigating different forms of strategic information processing and their underlying mechanisms. This review suggests that explicit cooperative goals are needed for effective group decision-making

Order-disorder in Fe₃Al at various temperatures induced by neutron irradiation

Resistivity measurements were made on ordered and disordered Fe3Al samples while irradiated by neutrons. In the ordered as well as the disorder state, the different Fe3Al samples were heated to 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300°C respectively, and were irradiated by a fast neutron flux of 0.534 x 1010 neutrons/cm²-sec. The ordered Fe3Al measurements were characterized by an increase in resistivity denoting an advancement toward disorder. The disordered Fe3Al measurements were characterized by a decrease in resistivity denoting an advancement toward order. In the Fe3Al ordered and disordered samples irradiated at 300°C, the resistivities tended to become constant as the fast neutron flux reached 19.2 x 1013 neutrons/cm2. This indicated that the amount of disordering is in equilibrium with the amount of ordering, and that the relatively high temperature of 300°C is the cause for this. The other ordered and disordered Fe3Al samples irradiated at lower temperatures did not show this effect when the fast neutron flux reached 19.2 x 1013 neutrons/cm². If these samples had continued to be neutron irradiated, they too, at some higher flux, would have experienced this effect of the amount of disordering approximately equaling the ordering. Two different long range order parameters were obtained for both the ordered and disordered Fe3Al samples. Resistivity measurements were used to calculate one of the parameters. In this case, the resistivity at the elevated temperature was used. The second long range order parameter was obtained by integrated intensities of the x-ray diffraction pattern. In this case, the order parameter was obtained for room temperature. It was found that the parameter obtained by the integrated intensity method, for both ordered and disordered samples, was substantially larger than the one obtained by using the resistivity method. This indicated that the point defects produced during irradiation were annealed as the Fe3Al samples were cooled from the test temperature to room temperature --Abstract, pages ii-iii

Mapping Muscles Activation to Force Perception during Unloading

It has been largely proved that while judging a force humans mainly rely on the motor commands produced to interact with that force (i.e., sense of effort). Despite of a large bulk of previous investigations interested in understanding the contributions of the descending and ascending signals in force perception, very few attempts have been made to link a measure of neural output (i.e., EMG) to the psychophysical performance. Indeed, the amount of correlation between EMG activity and perceptual decisions can be interpreted as an estimate of the contribution of central signals involved in the sensation of force. In this study we investigated this correlation by measuring the muscular activity of eight arm muscles while participants performed a quasi-isometric force detection task. Here we showed a method to quantitatively describe muscular activity ("muscle-metric function") that was directly comparable to the description of the participants' psychophysical decisions about the stimulus force. We observed that under our experimental conditions, muscle-metric absolute thresholds and the shape of the muscle-metric curves were closely related to those provided by the psychophysics. In fact a global measure of the muscles considered was able to predict approximately 60% of the perceptual decisions total variance. Moreover the inter-subjects differences in psychophysical sensitivity showed high correlation with both participants' muscles sensitivity and participants' joint torques. Overall, our findings gave insights into both the role played by the corticospinal motor commands while performing a force detection task and the influence of the gravitational muscular torque on the estimation of vertical forces

Introduction to Special Topic: Rural Education Finance and Policy

This special topic takes stock of the current state of rural education finance and policy research. Taken together the articles in this special topic highlight a major point. Rural districts and schools not only differ from those in urban areas but also differ from one another. This is perhaps not surprising given the heterogeneity of school size, community size, demographics, and the degree of rurality of schools across the United States. The articles pose a challenge for policymakers. Policies that serve one state or one rural community may not be relevant or helpful to another. Policy solutions must recognize the diversity of education challenges across and within states

First Observations on the Mushroom in Mountain Area of Iraqi Kurdistan Region

Based on the collections made for mushroom between 1996-2010 in mountain areas in Sulaimani and Erbil Governorate especially in Soran, Joman, Sedakan districts Qandil and Zalm areas upto more than 3000 m.a.s.l. A total of 34 species in 23 genera, 17 families and 7 orders belong to woody and fleshy species were identified at the first time in Iraq

Magnetic Control of Transmission and Helicity of Nano-Structured Optical Beams in Magnetoplasmonic Vortex Lenses

We theoretically investigate the generation of far-field propagating optical beams with a desired orbital angular momentum by using an archetypical magnetoplasmonic tip surrounded by a gold spiral slit. The use of a magnetic material can lead to important implications once magneto-optical activity is activated through the application of an external magnetic field. The physical model and the numerical study presented here introduce the concept of magnetically tunable plasmonic vortex lens, namely a magnetoplasmonic vortex lens, which ensures a tunable selectivity in the polarization state of the generated nanostructured beam. The presented system provides a promising platform for a localized excitation of plasmonic vortices followed by their beaming in the far-field with an active modulation of both light's transmittance and helicity

Boosting infrared energy transfer in 3D nanoporous gold antennas

The applications of plasmonics to energy transfer from free-space radiation to molecules are currently limited to the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum due to the intrinsic optical properties of bulk noble metals that support strong electromagnetic field confinement only close to their plasma frequency in the visible/ultraviolet range. In this work, we show that nanoporous gold can be exploited as a plasmonic material for the mid-infrared region to obtain strong electromagnetic field confinement, co-localized with target molecules into the nanopores and resonant with their vibrational frequency. The effective optical response of the nanoporous metal enables the penetration of optical fields deep into the nanopores, where molecules can be loaded thus achieving a more efficient light–matter coupling if compared to bulk gold. In order to realize plasmonic resonators made of nanoporous gold, we develop a nanofabrication method based on polymeric templates for metal deposition and we obtain antenna arrays resonating at mid-infrared wavelengths selected by design. We then coat the antennas with a thin (3 nm) silica layer acting as the target dielectric layer for optical energy transfer. We study the strength of the light–matter coupling at the vibrational absorption frequency of silica at 1240 cm−1 through the analysis of the experimental Fano lineshape that is benchmarked against identical structures made of bulk gold. The boost in the optical energy transfer from free-space mid-infrared radiation to molecular vibrations in nanoporous 3D nanoantenna arrays can open new application routes for plasmon-enhanced physical–chemical reactions

Isolation, Identification and Seasonal Distribution of Soilborne Fungi in Different Areas of Erbil Governorate

A survey study was undertaken for the isolation and identification of soilborne fungi inhabiting different areas in Erbil, Iraq. A total of 15 soil samples collected seasonally during August 2008-July 2009. Fungi were isolated from soil during this study\u27s period, by soil dilution plate method on selective medium: Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA), eighty-one different genera of fungi were isolated during the four seasons; (30, 33, 70, and 53) genera isolated in (summer, autumn, winter and spring) respectively, the most frequently isolated fungi during four seasons were Aspergillus sp. (539x103) colony forming units /g.soil, followed by Penicillium sp. (215x103) cfu/g.soil, Rhizopus spp. (115x103) cfu/g.soil, Emericella spp. (109x103) cfu/g.soil, Fusarium spp. (47x103) cfu/g.soil, and Ulocladium botrytis (47x103) cfu/g.soil, while the least frequently isolated fungal genera were Blakeslea tuningtam, Clasterosporium cyperi, Idriella sp., Naranus cryptomeriae and Torula alternata, (1x103) cfu/g.soil, for each one. Fungi isolated from soil by washing method counted for ninety three species belonging to fifty six genera, among them: Aspergillus sp., Circinella sp., Cunninghamella sp., Mucor spp., Mycelia sterilia, Rhizopus sp