Signing to Success: Developing Effective ASL Curricula in Secondary Public Education

This study aims to investigate the history of American Sign Language (ASL) in public schools, analyze where ASL education is today, and provide potential solutions to improving the quantity and quality of ASL classes within public high schools. A significant body of research focusing on preK-2nd grade students and research with primary concentration on students who are Deaf or hard of hearing has already been developed. However, developing effective methods for teaching ASL to hearing people is a relatively new and under researched area. ASL was not officially recognized as a language until the 1950s. It wasn’t until 2011 that Missouri first permitted ASL to be used for foreign language credit in public high schools and postsecondary education. ASL in public education is quickly becoming a developing area of study and practice. Providing ASL class options increases inclusivity within schools and their surrounding communities. Learners also benefit from positive cognitive impacts gained when learning a signed language, and also prosper from becoming bilingual. Yet, there is unexplored value in aiming central research specifically at hearing students at a secondary level. Classes in high school for hearing students in addition to those who are Deaf and hard of hearing deserve more attention within educational research. Theoretically, cognitive acceleration seen in elementary students can be expected in secondary students and provide lifelong benefits such as improved literacy and mastery of the students spoken language as well as enhanced appreciation for diversity within academic communities comprised of Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing individuals

Novel Method to Express Functional Epitope-Tagged GPCRs

Epitope tagging of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) typically involves the addition of a specific antigenic amino acid sequence (e.g., hemagglutinin) to the N-terminus, a region not involved in receptor ligand binding or signal transduction functions. However, with certain GPCRs this method fails due to posttranslational cleavage of the N-terminal tag or inhibition of membrane isertion. To overcome this, we modified a cloning vector so that it would insert an artificial cleavage site at the N-terminus of the protein before the epitope. This ensures that a functional receptor will be expressed and properly inserted into the membrane. Clones of an opioid and calcitonin-like receptor (the tagged versions of which are subject to improper post-translational processing) were tagged using this new vector. The modified clones were expressed in a mammalian cell line and visualized using immunofluorescence. This method offers an efficient means to create immunologically identifiable constructs of human GPCRs

An Investigation of the Relationship between Plantar Weight Distribution and the Condition of Osteoarthritic Knees during Quiet Standing

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a damaging disease that commonly affects the knee and can impact function of the lower limb. This study examined how plantar weight distribution is related to the changes in knee alignment and various types of joint damage in patients with OA. A force mat was used to measure plantar weight distribution on 37 patients with knee OA, and the internal condition of the knee was evaluated during surgery. Analysis showed a relationship between medial plantar weight distribution and an increase in knee alignment angle (0.20, p \u3c 0.001). For the damage models, an indirect relationship was found between medial weight distribution and ACL damage (-0.14, p=0.029). No relationship was found for the other types of OA damage. It is reasonable to believe they do exist, however. This study found a connection between weight distribution and alignment, and previous research has shown one between alignment and OA

Strawberry Variety Evaluation for High Tunnel Production in Southwest Indiana

This is a compilation of 21 research trial reports from four land-grant universities in the Midwestern United States. Crops include cantaloupe, pickling cucumber, pepper, potato, pumpkin, summer squash and zucchini, sweet corn, tomato, and watermelon. Somecrops were evaluated in high tunnels or hoophouses. Most trials evaluated different cultivars or varieties. One report addressed plant spacing for sweet corn and one addressed soil block for production of tomato seedlings. A list of vegetable seed sources and a list of other online sources of vegetable trial reports are also included

Strawberry Variety Evaluation for High Tunnel Production in Southwest Indiana

This is a compilation of 21 research trial reports from four land-grant universities in the Midwestern United States. Crops include cantaloupe, pickling cucumber, pepper, potato, pumpkin, summer squash and zucchini, sweet corn, tomato, and watermelon. Somecrops were evaluated in high tunnels or hoophouses. Most trials evaluated different cultivars or varieties. One report addressed plant spacing for sweet corn and one addressed soil block for production of tomato seedlings. A list of vegetable seed sources and a list of other online sources of vegetable trial reports are also included

The positional-specificity effect reveals a passive-trace contribution to visual short-term memory.

The positional-specificity effect refers to enhanced performance in visual short-term memory (VSTM) when the recognition probe is presented at the same location as had been the sample, even though location is irrelevant to the match/nonmatch decision. We investigated the mechanisms underlying this effect with behavioral and fMRI studies of object change-detection performance. To test whether the positional-specificity effect is a direct consequence of active storage in VSTM, we varied memory load, reasoning that it should be observed for all objects presented in a sub-span array of items. The results, however, indicated that although robust with a memory load of 1, the positional-specificity effect was restricted to the second of two sequentially presented sample stimuli in a load-of-2 experiment. An additional behavioral experiment showed that this disruption wasn't due to the increased load per se, because actively processing a second object--in the absence of a storage requirement--also eliminated the effect. These behavioral findings suggest that, during tests of object memory, position-related information is not actively stored in VSTM, but may be retained in a passive tag that marks the most recent site of selection. The fMRI data were consistent with this interpretation, failing to find location-specific bias in sustained delay-period activity, but revealing an enhanced response to recognition probes that matched the location of that trial's sample stimulus

The Influence of Large Prestrains on Dynamic Properties of Sand

The development of the UMR Resonant Column/Torsional simple Shear device has provided the means to evaluate high and low amplitude shear moduli on a single sand specimen. Results of cyclic torsional simple shear tests showed that progressive strain increases w1th the cyclic strain amplitude and the number of cycles and decreases with density of the sand. Large accumulated prestrains were found to decrease the maximum dynamic shear modulus by 30 to 35%

User disorientation related to instructional hypermedia programs

Instructional hypennedia programs seem to define the current trend in today\u27s educational institutions. These multimedia programs, most often found on CD-Roms (compact disks, which can be read, but not written to), make use of the computer to coordinate and present text, graphics, audio, animation, and video within a single document. They are classified as hype1media because of the way in which the various elements can be accessed. Rather than being limited to a linear presentation, in which each element is dispensed in a predetermined sequence to all users, Yang and Moore (1995) define hypermedia as a non-linear association of information .... [ which have a linkage] based on [the] users\u27 real-time decisions, not on a predete1mined sequence (p. 4). Thus, the user of the program has the ability to select multiple paths through which to approach the information. This means that each user can independently decide both the flow of the presentation, and which portions of the material need to be attended to or disregarded