The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade,by Philip Jenkins

The roots of today’s sectarian-fueled conflicts lie in the First World War. By igniting “a global religious revolution,” the “Great War” redrew the world’s religious map both figuratively and literally. Modern Islam, characterized as “assertive, self-confident, and aggressively sectarian,” is a direct result, but so too are the spread of charismatic Christianity in Africa, an invigorated Zionism that led to the eventual creation of the modern state of Israel, and even the “efflorescence of esoteric and mysti- cal ideas that we often summarize as New Age.

SYSTEMATIC IMPLEMENTATION OF FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN IN A LARGE SUBURBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: A CHANGE LEADERSHIP PLAN

The purpose of this change plan document is to provide a rationale and structure for shifting from half- to full-day kindergarten. Patricia Clark’s (2009) synthesis of multiple research studies on full-day kindergarten outlines the reoccurring findings that implementation of full-day kindergarten prevents long term academic struggles for students. Closing the achievement gaps when at its smallest, which is early in the educational career of a student, ensures long term academic, social, and emotional success

Math Magician: A Study on Distraction and Testing Ability

The problem with distraction in schools today could be affecting student’s learning. Our hypothesis is that students who are confronted with a distraction do not do as well as students who are not confronted with distractions while doing homework. There was a total of thirty five participants. The procedure was for participants in the experimental group would begin doing a math worksheet and a distraction (cell phone ring tone) would be introduced. For participants in the control group they would do the math worksheet in silence with out distraction. The results showed that the distraction did not affect the participant’s scores on the math worksheet in comparison to the control group

Smartphone based Android app for determining UVA aerosol optical depth and direct solar irradiances

This research describes the development and evaluation of the accuracy and precision of an Android app specifically designed, written and installed on a smartphone for detecting and quantifying incident solar UVA radiation and subsequently, aerosol optical depth at 340 nm and 380 nm. Earlier studies demonstrated that a smartphone image sensor can detect UVA radiation and the responsivity can be calibrated to measured direct solar irradiance. This current research provides the data collection, calibration, processing, calculations and display all on a smartphone. A very strong coefficient of determination of 0.98 was achieved when the digital response was recalibrated and compared to the Microtops sunphotometer direct UVA irradiance observations. The mean percentage discrepancy discrepancy for derived direct solar irradiance was only 4% and 6% for observations at 380 nm and 340 nm respectively, lessening with decreasing solar zenith angle. An 8% mean percent difference discrepancy was observed when comparing aerosol optical depth, also decreasing as solar zenith angle decreases. The results indicate that a specifically designed Android app linking and using a smartphone image sensor, calendar and clock, with additional external narrow bandpass and neutral density filters can be used as a field sensor to evaluate both direct solar UVA irradiance and low aerosol optical depths for areas with low aerosol loads

Point Process Modeling of Drug Overdoses with Heterogeneous and Missing Data

Opioid overdose rates have increased in the United States over the past decade and reflect a major public health crisis. Modeling and prediction of drug and opioid hotspots, where a high percentage of events fall in a small percentage of space-time, could help better focus limited social and health services. In this work we present a spatial-temporal point process model for drug overdose clustering. The data input into the model comes from two heterogeneous sources: 1) high volume emergency medical calls for service (EMS) records containing location and time, but no information on the type of non-fatal overdose and 2) fatal overdose toxicology reports from the coroner containing location and high-dimensional information from the toxicology screen on the drugs present at the time of death. We first use non-negative matrix factorization to cluster toxicology reports into drug overdose categories and we then develop an EM algorithm for integrating the two heterogeneous data sets, where the mark corresponding to overdose category is inferred for the EMS data and the high volume EMS data is used to more accurately predict drug overdose death hotspots. We apply the algorithm to drug overdose data from Indianapolis, showing that the point process defined on the integrated data outperforms point processes that use only homogeneous EMS (AUC improvement .72 to .8) or coroner data (AUC improvement .81 to .85).We also investigate the extent to which overdoses are contagious, as a function of the type of overdose, while controlling for exogenous fluctuations in the background rate that might also contribute to clustering. We find that drug and opioid overdose deaths exhibit significant excitation, with branching ratio ranging from .72 to .98

On the Reproducibility of Power Analyses in Motor Behavior Research

Recent metascience suggests that motor behavior research may be underpowered, on average. Researchers can perform a priori power analyses to ensure adequately powered studies. However, there are common pitfalls that can result in underestimating the required sample size for a given design and effect size of interest. Critical evaluation of power analyses requires successful analysis reproduction, which is conditional on the reporting of sufficient information. Here, we attempted to reproduce every power analysis reported in articles (k = 84/635) in three motor behavior journals between January 2019 and June 2021. We reproduced 7% of analyses using the reported information, which increased to 43% when we assumed plausible values for missing parameters. Among studies that reported sufficient information to evaluate, 63% reported using the same statistical test in the power analysis as in the study itself, and in 77%, the test addressed at least one of the identified hypotheses. Overall, power analyses were not commonly reported with sufficient information to ensure reproducibility. A nontrivial number of power analyses were also affected by common pitfalls. There is substantial opportunity to address the issue of underpowered research in motor behavior by increasing adoption of power analyses and ensuring reproducible reporting practices

Understanding Super-Earths with MINERVA-Australis at USQ's Mount Kent Observatory

Super Earths, planets between 5-10 Earth masses, are the most common type of exoplanet known, yet are completely absent from our Solar system. As a result, their detailed properties, compositions, and formation mechanisms are poorly understood. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will identify hundreds of Super-Earths orbiting bright stars, for the first time allowing in-depth characterisation of these planets. At the University of Southern Queensland, we are host to the MINERVA-Australis project, dedicated wholly to the follow-up characterisation and mass measurement of TESS planets. We give an update on the status of MINERVA-Australis and our expected performance.Comment: Accepted to appear in the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 17th Australian Space Research Conference, held at the University of Sydney, 13th-15th November, 201

Why don’t smokers want help to quit? A qualitative study of smokers’ attitudes towards assisted versus unassisted quitting

The development of prescription medication for smoking cessation and the introduction of evidence-based guidelines for health professionals has increasingly medicalised smoking cessation. There are debates about whether medicalisation is a positive development, or whether it has devalued unassisted quitting. In this debate the views of smokers have been neglected. This study explored the attitudes of smokers towards a range of quitting methods, and their considerations when judging their value. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 smokers and analysed data using thematic analysis. The results show that the perceived nature of an individual smoker's addiction was central to judgments about the value of pharmacological cessation aids, as was personal experience with a method, and how well it was judged to align with an individual's situation and personality. Unassisted quitting was often described as the best method. Negative views of pharmacological cessation aids were frequently expressed, particularly concerns about side effects from prescription medications. Smokers' views about the value of different methods were not independent: attitudes about cessation aids were shaped by positive attitudes towards unassisted quitting. Examining smokers' attitudes towards either assisted or unassisted quitting in isolation provides incomplete information on quitting preferences