Implementing Labor-Based and Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Principles

During this session, Dr. Marc Santos will introduce you to foundational principles, strategies, and tools on how labor-based grading can produce more equitable outcomes for marginalized students and increase learning for all students. We’ll talk about what happens when we shift the focus of a writing assignment from assessment (demonstration of mastery) to learning (appreciation for risk and “error”). We’ll talk about ways to assess writing that avoid adversarial confrontation and promote more constructive feedback and revision. We’ll also talk about how to manage the time it takes to provide valuable, actionable feedback on documents. Marc will share a rubric for an upper division writing class that shows how he puts these principles to work in his classes

Implications of the LHC two-photon signal for two-Higgs-doublet models

We study the implications for Two Higgs Doublet Models of the recent announcement at the LHC giving a tantalizing hint for a Higgs boson of mass 125 GeV decaying into two photons. We require that the experimental result be within a factor of two of the theoretical Standard Model prediction, and analyze the type I and type II models as well as the lepton-specific and flipped models, subject to this requirement. It is assumed that there is no new physics other than two Higgs doublets. In all of the models, we display the allowed region of parameter space taking the recent LHC announcement at face value, and we analyze the $W^+W^-$, $ZZ$, $\bar{b}b$ and $\tau^+\tau^-$ expectations in these allowed regions. Throughout the entire range of parameter space allowed by the $\gamma\gamma$ constraint, the number of events for Higgs decays into $WW$, $ZZ$ and $b \bar b$ are not changed from the Standard Model by more than a factor of two. In contrast, in the Lepton Specific model, decays to $\tau^+ \tau^-$ are very sensitive across the entire $\gamma \gamma$-allowed region.Comment: Latex, 6 pages, 4 figures; v2 - added 2 reference

Organising metabolic networks: cycles in flux distributions

Metabolic networks are among the most widely studied biological systems. The topology and interconnections of metabolic reactions have been well described for many species, but are not sufficient to understand how their activity is regulated in living organisms. The principles directing the dynamic organisation of reaction fluxes remain poorly understood. Cyclic structures are thought to play a central role in the homeostasis of biological systems and in their resilience to a changing environment. In this work, we investigate the role of fluxes of matter cycling in metabolic networks. First, we introduce a methodology for the computation of cyclic and acyclic fluxes in metabolic networks, adapted from an algorithm initially developed to study cyclic fluxes in trophic networks. Subsequently, we apply this methodology to the analysis of three metabolic systems, including the central metabolism of wild type and a deletion mutant of Escherichia coli, erythrocyte metabolism and the central metabolism of the bacterium Methylobacterium extorquens. The role of cycles in driving and maintaining the performance of metabolic functions upon perturbations is unveiled through these examples. This methodology may be used to further investigate the role of cycles in living organisms, their pro-activity and organisational invariance, leading to a better understanding of biological entailment and information processing

Temporal patterns in acoustic presence and foraging activity of oceanic dolphins at seamounts in the Azores

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cascao, I., Lammers, M. O., Prieto, R., Santos, R. S., & Silva, M. A. Temporal patterns in acoustic presence and foraging activity of oceanic dolphins at seamounts in the Azores. Scientific Reports, 10(1), (2020): 3610, doi:10.1038/s41598-020-60441-4.Several seamounts have been identified as hotspots of marine life in the Azores, acting as feeding stations for top predators, including cetaceans. Passive acoustic monitoring is an efficient tool to study temporal variations in the occurrence and behaviour of vocalizing cetacean species. We deployed bottom-moored Ecological Acoustic Recorders (EARs) to investigate the temporal patterns in acoustic presence and foraging activity of oceanic dolphins at two seamounts (Condor and Gigante) in the Azores. Data were collected in March–May 2008 and April 2010–February 2011. Dolphins were present year round and nearly every day at both seamounts. Foraging signals (buzzes and bray calls) were recorded in >87% of the days dolphin were present. There was a strong diel pattern in dolphin acoustic occurrence and behaviour, with higher detections of foraging and echolocation vocalizations during the night and of social signals during daylight hours. Acoustic data demonstrate that small dolphins consistently use Condor and Gigante seamounts to forage at night. These results suggest that these seamounts likely are important feeding areas for dolphins. This study contributes to a better understanding of the feeding ecology of oceanic dolphins and provides new insights into the role of seamount habitats for top predators.This research was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Azores 2020 Operational Programme and the Fundo Regional da Ciência e Tecnologia (FRCT), through research projects TRACE (PTDC/MAR/74071/2006), MAPCET (M2.1.2/F/012/2011), FCT-Exploratory (IF/00943/2013/CP1199/CT0001), WATCH IT (Acores-01-0145-FEDER-000057) and MISTIC SEAS II (GA11.0661/2017/750679/SUB/ENV.C2), co-funded by FEDER, COMPETE, QREN, POPH, European Social Fund (ESF), the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education, and EU-DG/ENV. The Azores 2020 Operational Programme is funded by the community structural funds ERDF and ESF. Funds were also provided by FCT to MARE, through the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013. MAS was supported through a FCT Investigator contract funded by POPH, QREN, ESF and the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education (IF/00943/2013). IC was supported by a FCT doctoral grant (SFRH/BD/41192/2007) and RP by a FCT postdoctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/108007/2015). We thank the field and crew teams for assisting with the many deployments and recoveries of the EARs. Special thanks to Norberto Serpa for helping with mooring design, Ken Sexton and Michael Richlen for their roles in manufacturing the EARs, Sergio Gomes for building the battery packs, and Lisa Munger for adapting Triton for EAR data analysis

English 122 College Composition Pilot Assessment Project

In the fall 2019 semester, under the direction of Tara Wood, a new, standardized curriculum was implemented for all sections of ENG 122 College Composition. This new curricular approach is grounded in the transfer and cross-context writing studies research that has emerged in the past decade (e.g. Adler-Kassner and Wardle 2015; Downs and Wardle 2017; Yancey, Robertson, Taczak 2015). Historically, the curricular approach to ENG 122 has floundered with a lack of clear vision and a lack of consistency of delivery. Moreover, to our knowledge, no previous assessment of the curriculum has taken place. Ultimately, this presentation reports on an assessment of a sample of student artifacts from ENG 122 fall 2019 sections, looking specifically at the course outcomes as constructed by state standards. The focus of our presentation will be to report how successfully the student artifacts created in our piloted ENG 122 curriculum reflect the expectations articulated in the Colorado Department of Higher Education\u27s (CDHE) gtPathways. Additionally, we coded for additional variables, include race/ethnicity, gender, first-generation status, and more

Could the LHC two-photon signal correspond to the heavier scalar in two-Higgs-doublet models?

LHC has reported tantalizing hints for a Higgs boson of mass 125 GeV decaying into two photons. We focus on two-Higgs-doublet Models, and study the interesting possibility that the heavier scalar (H) has been seen, with the lightest scalar (h) having thus far escaped detection. Non-observation of h at LEP severely constrains the parameter-space of two-Higgs-doublet models. We analyze cases where the decay H --> h h is kinematically allowed, and cases where it is not, in the context of type I, type II, lepton-specific, and flipped models.Comment: 9 pages, pdf figure

Multimodal agent interfaces and system architectures for health and fitness companions

Multimodal conversational spoken dialogues using physical and virtual agents provide a potential interface to motivate and support users in the domain of health and fitness. In this paper we present how such multimodal conversational Companions can be implemented to support their owners in various pervasive and mobile settings. In particular, we focus on different forms of multimodality and system architectures for such interfaces

Precise OBS location at the sea bottom in active seismic profiles using the air gun shot records

The Norcaribe campaign, in November – December 2013, funded by Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science (Norcaribe Project CGL2010-17715), was performed on board of the Spanish research vessel “Sarmiento de Gamboa” around the Hispaniola island, also with the participation of the Dominic Republic Navy patrol vessels and several Haiti and Dominic Republic institutions. During the campaign, a 200 km long, wide-amgle refraction seismic profile was carried out crossing the Beata ridge. The air gun signal (5100 ci) was recorded by 15 OBSs deployed along the seismic line in water depths between 2.300 meters and 4.320 meters. To obtain the section records, the OBS position is needed, usually the deployment location is used, but the OBS can drift while is sinking due to the deep oceanic currents. The recovery locations at surface could provide information about the drift, assuming a constant sea current since the deployment to the recovery, but it is imprecise. In this work we show a method to obtain a precise location of the OBS at the sea bottom using a high-resolution bathymetry and the OBS record of the closest air gun shots of the profile. Also, the preliminary results for the Norcaribe campaign (Beata ridge profile) are shown.Peer Reviewe