Inside Online Charter Schools

Online charter schools -- also known as virtual charters or cyber charters -- are publicly funded schools of choice that deliver student instruction via telecommunications. Today, about 200 online charter schools are operating in the United States, serving about 200,000 students at the elementary, middle, and high school grade levels. Although online instruction is increasing rapidly, there have been few studies of their operations and effects. In innovative new research funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the National Study of Online Charter Schools offers a rigorous analysis of online charter schools and their effects. Mathematica Policy Research's report provides the first nationwide data and analysis of the operations and instructional approaches of online charter schools, based on data collected in a survey completed by 127 principals of online charter schools across the country and public data from the U.S. Department of Education

An Integrated Approach to Control Sclerotinia Stem Rot (White Mold) in Soybean

While brown stem rot, Phytophthora root rot, sudden death syndrome and the soybean cyst nematode generally are regarded as the most significant diseases of soybean in the North Central States, Sclerotinia stem rot, also called white mold, has been a problem in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan for many years. Beginning in 1992, and again in 1994, Sclerotinia stem rot developed throughout the northern range of the North Central Region. Nationally, the disease is considered to be minor because it has not involved a high percentage of the national soybean acreage. Possibly this situation has changed and Sclerotinia stem rot will be an annual threat to soybean production in more of the Region. Chamberlain (1951) was the first to make a detailed report on Sclerotinia stem rot in the mid-west after he observed localized, but severe outbreaks of the disease in lllinois in 1946. Chamberlain (1951) summarized his findings by the following quote; \u27There appears to be no ready explanation as to why Sclerotinia stem rot, certainly one of the least prevalent of soybean diseases, can cause such severe but localized damage . After almost 50 years, more is known about factors that impact on the incidence and severity of this disease, but an element of mystery still remains as to why sudden outbreaks occur

Laser-induced fluorescence studies of HfF+ produced by autoionization

Autoionization of Rydberg states of HfF, prepared using the optical-optical double resonance (OODR) technique, holds promise to create HfF+ in a particular Zeeman level of a rovibronic state for an electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) search. We characterize a vibronic band of Rydberg HfF at 54 cm-1 above the lowest ionization threshold and directly probe the state of the ions formed from this vibronic band by performing laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) on the ions. The Rydberg HfF molecules show a propensity to decay into only a few ion rotational states of a given parity and are found to preserve their orientation qualitatively upon autoionization. We show empirically that we can create 30% of the total ion yield in a particular |J+,M+> state and present a simplified model describing autoionization from a given Rydberg state that assumes no angular dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

El conte de les llengües

Treball de l'alumnat del Grau d'Educació Primària de la Facultat d'Educació de la UB. Proposta d'activitat emmarcada al projecte de recerca EDU201S-69332-R "Desarrollo de las competencias para la educación multilingüe". Any: 2017. Tutors: Juli Palou i Margarida CambraLa següent proposta didàctica pretén donar resposta a la diversitat lingüística a l'escola la Llacuna del barri del Poblenou. S’escriurà un conte col·laboratiu amb els alumnes i, posteriorment, s’explicarà audiovisualment. Escriurem un conte en una llibreta personalitzable en la qual la classe haurà de decidir: tema, context i personatges principals. Posteriorment, es crearà una història aprofitant la riquesa cultural i lingüística de cada alumne. Un cop acabat el conte, se’n farà una representació audiovisual mitjançant el programa Green Screen, disponible per tauletes tàctils amb sistema Apple. Tanmateix, es podria gravar amb mòbils o tablets android i editar amb el programa Sony Vegas. Un cop la portada de la llibreta hagi estat personalitzada i decorada, el mestre/a escriurà un primer paràgraf per introduir-lo, en català. A partir d’aquí cada setmana un alumne s’endurà la llibreta a casa i escriurà un paràgraf de la continuació d’aquest conte amb la seva llengua. En cas que la llengua no sigui la vehicular, a classe es traduirà aquell fragment al català amb l’ajuda de l’autor i la col·laboració dels altres companys i companyes de classe

Aplicació web per a gestió de pressuposts a Ncora

Aquest document conté originàriament altre material i/o programari només consultable a la Biblioteca de Ciència i Tecnologia.El projecte que s'ha presentat correspon a la titulació d'Enginyeria en Informàtica iEl proyecto que se ha presentado corresponde a la titulación de IngenieríaProject presented corresponds to Computer Engineering degree and contain

Automated corrosion detection in Oddy test coupons using convolutional neural networks

The Oddy test is an accelerated ageing test used to determine whether a material is appropriate for the storage, transport, or display of museum objects. The levels of corrosion seen on coupons of silver, copper, and lead indicate the material’s safety for use. Although the Oddy test is conducted in heritage institutions around the world, it is often critiqued for a lack of repeatability. Determining the level of corrosion is a manual and subjective process, in which outcomes are affected by differences in individuals’ perceptions and practices. This paper proposes that a more objective evaluation can be obtained by utilising a convolutional neural network (CNN) to locate the metal coupons and classify their corrosion levels. Images provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) were labelled for object detection and used to train a CNN. The CNN correctly identified the metal type and corrosion level of 98% of the coupons in a test set of the Met’s images. Images were also collected from the American Institute for Conservation’s Oddy test wiki page. These images suffered from low image quality and were missing the classification information needed to train the CNN. Experts from cultural heritage institutions evaluated the coupons in the images, but there was a high level of disagreement between expert classifications. Therefore, these images were not used to train the CNN. However, the images proved useful in testing the limitations of the CNN trained on the Met’s data when applied to images of coupons from different Oddy test protocols and photo documentation procedures. This paper presents the effectiveness of the CNN trained on the Met’s data to classify Met and non-Met Oddy test coupons. Finally, this paper proposes the next steps needed to produce a universal CNN-based classification tool. Graphic Abstrac

ENOBIO - First tests of a dry electrophysiology electrode using carbon nanotubes

We describe the development and first tests of Enobio, a dry electrode sensor concept for biopotential applications. In the proposed electrodes, the tip of the electrode is covered with a forest of multi-walled CNTs that can be coated with Ag/AgCl to provide ionic-electronic transduction. The CNT brush-like structure is to penetrate the outer layers of the skin improving electrical contact as well as increae the contact surface area. In this paper, we report the results of the first tests of this concept -- immersion on saline solution and pig skin signal detection. These indicate performance on a par with state of the art research-oriented wet electrodes.Comment: Submitted and accepted at the 28th IEEE EMBS International Conference, New York City, August 31st-September 3rd, 2006. Figures updated with proper filtering and averagin

Adaptación al español de una escala de motivación emprendedora

This study follows the theoretical framework put forward by Robichaud on entrepreneurial motivation. The objective was to adapt the original French scale of 17 items into Spanish and to analyze its psychometric properties. The participants in the present study were 981 Spanish employees (46.5 % men and 53.5 % women). After carrying out exploratory factor analyses and ESEM (RMSEA = .06; CFI = .95 and TLI = .95), revealed a structure comprised of three factors: Family security (α =.82), Independence and autonomy (α =.83), and Intrinsic motivations (α =.77). These three factors displayed adequate reliability. We also found evidence of validity with regard to a series of external correlates and various scales that have to do with workaholism, irritation and burnout. The present scale may prove useful for adequately identifying entrepreneurial motivation.Este estudio sigue el marco teórico propuesto por Robichaud sobre motivación emprendedora. El objetivo fue adaptar la escala original francesa de 17 ítems al español y analizar sus propiedades psicométricas. Los participantes del presente estudio fueron 981 empleados españoles (46.5% hombres y 53.5% mujeres). Después de llevar a cabo el análisis factorial exploratorio y el ESEM (RMSEA = .06; CFI = .95 y TLI = .95), se determinó una estructura compuesta de tres factores: Seguridad de la familia (α =.82), Independencia y autonomía (α =.83) y Motivaciones intrínsecas (α =.77). Los tres factores muestran una fiabilidad adecuada. También se encuentran evidencias de validez respecto a una serie de correlatos externos y varias escalas que hacen alusión a la adicción al trabajo, la irritación y el burnout. La presente escala puede resultar adecuada para identificar adecuadamente la motivación emprendedora