Technology : The Positive And Negative Effects On Student Achievement

Technology is the technical means people use to improve their surroundings. People use technology to improve their ability to do work. Classrooms around the world have implemented many forms of technology to enhance student interest and achievement. One form of technology that is common to math classrooms is the graphing calculator. One eighth grade math class of nineteen students from an urban middle school was taught a unit on Solving Systems of Equations by Graphing. The unit was implemented with and without the use of the graphing calculator. Students were first introduced to the unit through the use of pencils and graph paper. All the graphing was done by hand and students had to determine the solutions of the systems of equations by proper graphing techniques. The students were then tested at the end of the unit. Students were then given the same unit but were now able to use the graphing calculator as a means to enhance their learning of Solving Systems of Equations through graphing. Students were then tested again but this time they were able to use the graphing calculator during the test. Student achievement for the unit had risen and grades on the assessments had increased due to the presence of technology. Student engagement and interest had also increased due to the presence of technology

Phylogenetic ctDNA analysis depicts early-stage lung cancer evolution.

The early detection of relapse following primary surgery for non-small-cell lung cancer and the characterization of emerging subclones, which seed metastatic sites, might offer new therapeutic approaches for limiting tumour recurrence. The ability to track the evolutionary dynamics of early-stage lung cancer non-invasively in circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) has not yet been demonstrated. Here we use a tumour-specific phylogenetic approach to profile the ctDNA of the first 100 TRACERx (Tracking Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Evolution Through Therapy (Rx)) study participants, including one patient who was also recruited to the PEACE (Posthumous Evaluation of Advanced Cancer Environment) post-mortem study. We identify independent predictors of ctDNA release and analyse the tumour-volume detection limit. Through blinded profiling of postoperative plasma, we observe evidence of adjuvant chemotherapy resistance and identify patients who are very likely to experience recurrence of their lung cancer. Finally, we show that phylogenetic ctDNA profiling tracks the subclonal nature of lung cancer relapse and metastasis, providing a new approach for ctDNA-driven therapeutic studies

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead