How and why do student teachers use ICT?

This paper examines how and why student teachers made use of information and communication technology (ICT) during a 1-year initial teacher education programme from 2008 to 2009. This is a mixed methods study involving a survey (N = 340) of the entire cohort and a series of semi-structured interviews with a sample of student teachers within the cohort (N = 21). The study explored several themes, including the nature of student teachers' use of ICT; variation in the use of ICT; support for, and constraints on, using ICT; attitudes to ICT and to teaching and learning more generally. It was found that nearly all teachers were receptive to using ICT – more so than their in-service counterparts – and made frequent use of it during their placement (internship) experience. The Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) was central to nearly all student teachers' use of ICT, in good part, because it was already used by their mentors and was widely accessible. Student teachers' use of ICT was categorized in three levels. Routine users focused mostly on the use of the IWB for whole class teaching; extended users gave greater opportunities for pupils to use ICT for themselves; innovative student teachers used ICT in a greater range of contexts and made more effort to overcome barriers such as access. ICT use was seen as emerging from a mix of factors: chiefly student teachers' access to ICT; their feeling of ‘self-efficacy’ when using ICT; and their belief that ICT had a positive impact on learning – in particular, the impact on pupils' behavioural and affective engagement. Factors which influenced ICT use included mentoring, training and support. Limitations on student teachers' use of ICT are explored and it is suggested that new teachers need to be supported in developing a more discerning use as they begin their teaching careers

4d Strain Path Recorded In The Lower Crust During The Transition From Convergence To Continental Rifting, Doubtful Sound, Fiordland, New Zealand

ABSTRACT Doubtful Sound, in SW New Zealand, exposes an exhumed section of lower crust that represents the root of an Early Cretaceous magmatic arc. Here, the lower crust underwent a change from contraction to extension and these tectonic cycles are fundamental to the growth of continental crust. Mafic-intermediate granulite gneisses occur below the extensional Doubtful Sound shear zone (DSSZ) which records the retrogression and transposition of granulite fabrics at the upper amphibolite facies. I compared 3D rock fabrics, microstructures and textures within and below the DSSZ to determine the processes involved in the shift from contraction to extension and to infer the sequential processes of transforming L\u3eS granulites to L=S amphibolites. Below the DSSZ, dehydration zones around felsic veins and leucosome in migmatitic orthogneiss record granulite facies metamorphism. Aggregates of clinopyroxene (cpx) and orthopyroxene (opx) that are rimmed by garnet (grt) and interstitial melt are set in a plagioclase (pl) matrix. Peritectic grt, pl-grt symplectites, beads of pl along grain boundaries, and elongate, inclusion-free pl reflect the anatexis. Pl exhibits a crystal preferred orientation (CPO) and evidence of subgrain rotational recrystallization and grain boundary migration, indicating subsolidus deformation outlasted melting. Mafic aggregates are boudinaged and opx developed subgrains. During peak metamorphism high strain was partitioned to locations enriched in melt, producing L\u3eS fabrics and an upward trajectory in the strain path. A comparison of mineral grain shapes indicates that pl accommodated most of the strain. Granulite-amphibolite transitional rocks inside the DSSZ record a heterogeneous retrogression of the granulites to a polyphase metamorphic assemblage of hornblende (hbl), biotite (bt), and fine pl. Also preserved is the resetting of high strain L\u3eS granulite to low strain, L=S amphibolite. Folia of porphyroblastic hbl + bt progressively penetrate the pl matrix via solution mass transfer. Porphyroblastic pl in the rock matrix becomes increasingly transposed to gneissic layering. A path of decreasing gradient from high strain L\u3eS granulite to low strain L=S amphibolite reflects the development of the DSSZ fabric, growth of new minerals and onset to deformation at the amphibolite facies. Inside the DSSZ, amphibolites show an increasing strain gradient from low strain L=S amphibolite to high strain L=S amphibolite. Pl aggregates lack a CPO and are mostly annealed but preserve grain boundary migration microstructures. Hbl is recrystallized and forms asymmetric fish. Evidence of high fluid activity and reaction softening within the DSSZ include increased hbl + bt and bt beards on pl relative to rocks outside the DSSZ. My observations suggest that magma, heat, and melting initially weakened the lower crust, facilitating the development of high strain zones with L\u3eS fabrics. Partially molten regions deformed by suprasolidus flow and solid portions deformed mostly by dislocation creep in pl and boudinage of cpx + opx. Later, the lower crust was weakened and high strain fabrics were reset from overprinting and transposition as retrogression progressed and low strain L=S fabrics formed. During extension there was an upward trajectory in the strain path to high strain L=S fabrics within the DSSZ, where hbl and bt accommodated more strain. My results illustrate the importance of 1) melting, cooling, and hydration in controlling strain partitioning and the rheological evolution of lower crustal shear zones, and 2) the importance of integrating microstructural and fabric analysis to determine strain paths

Explaining Weapon System Sustainment\u27s Impact to Aircraft Availability

This research focused on understanding the phenomena behind the cost growth of Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) and the simultaneous degradation in USAF aircraft system availability. The primary modelling technique used was Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) while incorporating temporal effect. Other studies have looked at cost factors related to the Flying Hour Program, flying conditions and age. This study found empirical relationships between each of the four WSS business processes and the lead time in months it takes to realize improvements in system aircraft availability

Mice Infected with Low-virulence Strains of Toxoplasma gondii Lose their Innate Aversion to Cat Urine, Even after Extensive Parasite Clearance

Toxoplasma gondii chronic infection in rodent secondary hosts has been reported to lead to a loss of innate, hard-wired fear toward cats, its primary host. However the generality of this response across T. gondii strains and the underlying mechanism for this pathogen mediated behavioral change remain unknown. To begin exploring these questions, we evaluated the effects of infection with two previously uninvestigated isolates from the three major North American clonal lineages of T. gondii, Type III and an attenuated strain of Type I. Using an hour-long open field activity assay optimized for this purpose, we measured mouse aversion toward predator and non-predator urines. We show that loss of innate aversion of cat urine is a general trait caused by infection with any of the three major clonal lineages of parasite. Surprisingly, we found that infection with the attenuated Type I parasite results in sustained loss of aversion at times post infection when neither parasite nor ongoing brain inflammation were detectable. This suggests that T. gondii-mediated interruption of mouse innate aversion toward cat urine may occur during early acute infection in a permanent manner, not requiring persistence of parasitecysts or continuing brain inflammation.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Managing the managers managing people: Lessons for recreation and water management in protected areas

Many of Australia’s critical urban water resources are located within protected areas, originally reserved for their timber production, recreation and aesthetic values. Later, these areas were also recognised for their conservation value and as reliable, potable water supplies. This paper presents a case study of water source protection planning in urban water catchments and impoundments in the south west of Western Australia and the impacts on recreation and tourism access in protected areas. Inland water catchments in the Southwest of Western Australia have historically been, and are currently, popular resources for public recreation. Recreation includes a broad range of leisure, pastime and entertainment activities ranging from passive through to active pursuits that vary in their character and potential for environmental impacts

Renewable Energy\u27s Role in Georgia\u27s Energy Regulatory Compact

Exploring Georgia’s complex legal and regulatory landscape, this blog post examines the challenges and opportunities for renewable energy integration within the state\u27s investor-owned utilities

Network motifs: structure does not determine function

BACKGROUND: A number of publications have recently examined the occurrence and properties of the feed-forward motif in a variety of networks, including those that are of interest in genome biology, such as gene networks. The present work looks in some detail at the dynamics of the bi-fan motif, using systems of ordinary differential equations to model the populations of transcription factors, mRNA and protein, with the aim of extending our understanding of what appear to be important building blocks of gene network structure. RESULTS: We develop an ordinary differential equation model of the bi-fan motif and analyse variants of the motif corresponding to its behaviour under various conditions. In particular, we examine the effects of different steady and pulsed inputs to five variants of the bifan motif, based on evidence in the literature of bifan motifs found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (commonly known as baker's yeast). Using this model, we characterize the dynamical behaviour of the bi-fan motif for a wide range of biologically plausible parameters and configurations. We find that there is no characteristic behaviour for the motif, and with the correct choice of parameters and of internal structure, very different, indeed even opposite behaviours may be obtained. CONCLUSION: Even with this relatively simple model, the bi-fan motif can exhibit a wide range of dynamical responses. This suggests that it is difficult to gain significant insights into biological function simply by considering the connection architecture of a gene network, or its decomposition into simple structural motifs. It is necessary to supplement such structural information by kinetic parameters, or dynamic time series experimental data, both of which are currently difficult to obtain

Dynamic Analysis of Executables to Detect and Characterize Malware

It is needed to ensure the integrity of systems that process sensitive information and control many aspects of everyday life. We examine the use of machine learning algorithms to detect malware using the system calls generated by executables-alleviating attempts at obfuscation as the behavior is monitored rather than the bytes of an executable. We examine several machine learning techniques for detecting malware including random forests, deep learning techniques, and liquid state machines. The experiments examine the effects of concept drift on each algorithm to understand how well the algorithms generalize to novel malware samples by testing them on data that was collected after the training data. The results suggest that each of the examined machine learning algorithms is a viable solution to detect malware-achieving between 90% and 95% class-averaged accuracy (CAA). In real-world scenarios, the performance evaluation on an operational network may not match the performance achieved in training. Namely, the CAA may be about the same, but the values for precision and recall over the malware can change significantly. We structure experiments to highlight these caveats and offer insights into expected performance in operational environments. In addition, we use the induced models to gain a better understanding about what differentiates the malware samples from the goodware, which can further be used as a forensics tool to understand what the malware (or goodware) was doing to provide directions for investigation and remediation.Comment: 9 pages, 6 Tables, 4 Figure

Self-Updating Models with Error Remediation

Many environments currently employ machine learning models for data processing and analytics that were built using a limited number of training data points. Once deployed, the models are exposed to significant amounts of previously-unseen data, not all of which is representative of the original, limited training data. However, updating these deployed models can be difficult due to logistical, bandwidth, time, hardware, and/or data sensitivity constraints. We propose a framework, Self-Updating Models with Error Remediation (SUMER), in which a deployed model updates itself as new data becomes available. SUMER uses techniques from semi-supervised learning and noise remediation to iteratively retrain a deployed model using intelligently-chosen predictions from the model as the labels for new training iterations. A key component of SUMER is the notion of error remediation as self-labeled data can be susceptible to the propagation of errors. We investigate the use of SUMER across various data sets and iterations. We find that self-updating models (SUMs) generally perform better than models that do not attempt to self-update when presented with additional previously-unseen data. This performance gap is accentuated in cases where there is only limited amounts of initial training data. We also find that the performance of SUMER is generally better than the performance of SUMs, demonstrating a benefit in applying error remediation. Consequently, SUMER can autonomously enhance the operational capabilities of existing data processing systems by intelligently updating models in dynamic environments.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, published in the proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications II conference in the SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing, 2020 symposiu