Finding a Balanced Blend: Designing and Supporting Engaging and Effective Integrated Skills Materials for Adult ESL Blended Learning Classrooms

As technology plays an increasingly critical role in society, responsive classrooms are pushed to innovate in new ways in order to equip students with the skills they need for daily life. Blended learning classes, combining in-person and virtual instruction, went from being a helpful model to a critical need in light of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Many Adult Basic Education (ABE) English as a Second Language (ESL) programs had not developed robust blended learning programs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to emergency models that, while innovative, were not sustainable. As the field of education moves forward we can consider how blended learning classes can be thoughtfully designed in order to ensure quality outcomes. These considerations led to the research question for this capstone project: What are the necessary components of a blended learning environment to foster increased language fluency and accuracy across all language domains for intermediate Adult Basic Education (ABE) English as a Second Language (ESL) learners? A teacher toolkit was created to provide educators with resources for framing their concept of blended learning, planning blended learning classes, implementing blended learning policies, and supporting students in blended learning classes. These resources can help educators foster multimodal literacies in their adult learners, and provide support for engaging in learning, enhancing learning, and extending learning, in alignment with the Triple E Framework. This resource is intended to support and guide ABE ESL instruction as they plan instruction covering all language domains and multimodal digital literacies in blended learning classes

Motivations and drivers of trapper catch per unit effort in Alaska

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015Indices of abundance based on harvest alone have long been used to track furbearer populations. However, abundance indices based on harvest alone do not account for variation in trapping effort. To my knowledge, adjusting harvest-based furbearer abundance indices to account for effort has not been previously examined in Alaska. Understanding how effort varies among trappers, and how social issues and external factors such as human conflict and fur prices affect effort, can give a clearer understanding of why trapping effort changes. A trapper's motivations may determine how strongly various external factors and social issues influence trapping effort. I sent a questionnaire to trappers of interior Alaska and used nine years of statewide data from the Alaska Trapper Questionnaire (distributed annually by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game) to address these issues. Across five regions from 2004-2013, I found that total fur harvest increased with per-capita trapper effort (R² = 0.125, p = 0.02). Variation in average winter temperature across game management regions explained 42% of variation in trapping effort, but annual variation in temperature, snow depth, fur prices, and fuel prices did not affect effort. Corresponding to these statewide findings, surveys of trappers in interior Alaska indicated that economic gain was not a strong motivation to trap, a finding that differs from previous studies. The most important social issues and external factors affecting trapping effort were access to land and the perceived abundance of furbearer populations respectively. To determine the motivations of interior Alaskan trappers, I used a k-means cluster analysis that identified four groups of trappers: management (17% of trappers), recreational (39%), subsistence (18%), and solitary (26%). Each group is represented by its strongest motivation for trapping. To improve the use of harvest as an index of furbearer abundance, I recommend accounting for trapping effort by calculating catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE), a metric commonly used in fisheries. I further recommend that resource managers should focus their efforts on reducing human conflicts while maximizing the non-monetary benefits of trapping. Resource managers should take advantage of questionnaires to help understand the fluctuations in furbearer populations and understand the motivations of trappers

Reorganisation von Datenbanken: Auslöser, Verfahren, Nutzenermittlung

Beim Betrieb großer datenbankgestützter Anwendungssysteme kommt es im Laufe der Zeit oft zu einer nachhaltigen Verschlechterung der Systemleistung durch in den physischen Speicherungsstrukturen entstehende Degenerierungen (z.B. eingestreuter Freiplatz, Überlaufbereiche, migrierte Tupel, nicht mehr vorliegende Daten-Clusterung oder -sortierung). Die Beseitigung von Degenerierungen kann mit Datenbankreorganisationen erfolgen. Solche Wartungsarbeiten sind allerdings, selbst bei Online-Durchführung, meist mit Einschränkungen im normalen Datenbankbetrieb verbunden, die von einer temporären Verschlechterung der Systemleistung bis hin zu eingeschränkter Verfügbarkeit von Daten während der Reorganisationsdurchführung reichen. Diese Einschränkungen kollidieren immer mehr mit wachsenden Verfügbarkeitsanforderungen von Datenbank-Management-Systemen (DBMS). Eine Möglichkeit zur Verringerung der negativen Auswirkungen stellt die sorgfältige Auswahl und Priorisierung von Reorganisationsmaßnahmen dar. Damit können besonders nutzbringende Maßnahmen identifiziert und bevorzugt ausgeführt, andere zurückgestellt oder unterlassen werden

C I R E D INTEGRATION OF WIND POWER INTO DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS

ABSTRACT The political promotion of renewable energies in Germany has led to a strong increase in the generation capacity especially by wind energy conversion. Therefore, the capacity of MV and HV networks in windy regions of North and Central Germany will have run out in a few years. In locations with strong winds and low loads, distribution networks feed energy back into the transmission network in considerable amounts, with the result that bottlenecks may occur. This paper describes a possible way to avoid problems concerning both the security and the stability of the supply system

On the Impact of Smartification Strategies for the State Estimation of Low Voltage Grids

The decarbonization of for example the energy or heat sector leads to the transformation of distribution grids. The expansion of decentralized energy resources and the integration of new consumers due to sector coupling (e.g. heat pumps or electric vehicles) into low voltage grids increases the need for grid expansion and usage of flexibilities in the grid. A high observability of the current grid status is needed to perform these tasks efficiently and effectively. Therefore, there is a need to increase the observability of low voltage grids by installing measurement technologies (e.g. smart meters). Multiple different measurement technologies are available for low voltage grids which can vary in their benefit to observation quality and their installation costs. Therefore, Bayernwerk Netz GmbH and E.DIS AG in cooperation with E-Bridge Consulting GmbH and the Institute for High Voltage Equipment and Grids, Digitalization and Energy Economics (IAEW) investigated the effectiveness of different strategies for the smartification of low voltage grids. This paper presents the methodology used for the investigation and exemplary results focusing on the impact of intelligent cable distribution cabinets and smart meters on the quality of the state estimation.Comment: In proceedings of the 13th "Internationale Energiewirtschaftstagung" (IEWT2023), February 15-17, 2023, Vienna, Austri

Identification of candidate genes for congenital splay leg in piglets by alternative analysis of DNA microarray data

The congenital splay leg syndrome in piglets is characterized by a temporarily impaired functionality of the hind leg muscles immediately after birth. Etiology and pathogenetic mechanisms for the disease are still not well understood. We compared genome wide gene expression of three hind leg muscles (M. adductores, M. gracilis and M. sartorius) between affected piglets and their healthy littermates with the GeneChip® Porcine Genome Array (Affymetrix) in order to identify candidate genes for the disease. Data analysis with standard algorithms revealed no significant differences between both groups. By application of an alternative approach, we identified 63 transcripts with differences in two muscles and 5 genes differing between the groups in three muscles. The expression of six selected genes (SQSTM1, SSRP1, DDIT4, ENAH, MAF, and PDK4) was investigated with SYBRGreen RT - Real time PCR. The differences obtained with the microarray analysis could be confirmed and demonstrate the validity of the alternative approach to microarray data analysis. Four genes with different expression levels in at least two muscles (SQSTM1, SSRP1, DDIT4, and MAF) are assigned to transcriptional cascades related to cell death and may thus indicate pathways for further investigations on congenital splay leg in piglets

A short critical history of the application of genomics to animal breeding

[EN] Two scientific schools have been in coexistence from the beginning of genetics, one of them searching for factors of inheritance and the other one applying biometrical models to study the relationships between relatives. With the development of molecular genetics, the possibilities of detecting genes having a noticeable effect in traits augmented. Some genes with large or medium effects were localized in animals, although the most common result was to detect markers linked to these genes, allowing the possibility of assisting selection programs with markers. When a large amount of simple and inexpensive markers were available, the SNPs, new possibilities were opened since they did not need the presence of genes of large or medium effect controlling a trait, because the whole genome was scanned. Using a large amount of SNPs permits having a prediction of the breeding value at birth accurate enough to be used in some cases, like dairy cattle, to halve its generation interval. In other animal breeding programs, the implementation of genomic selection is less clear and the way in which it can be useful should be carefully studied. The need for large populations for associating phenotypic data and markers, plus the need for repeating the process continuously, complicates its application in some cases. The implementation of the information provided by the SNPs in current genetic programs has led to the development of complex statistical tools, joining the efforts of the two schools, factorial and biometrical, that nowadays work closely related. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain (Projects AGL2011-29831-C03-01 and CGL2012-39861-C02-02). We are grateful to Dr. Saif Agha for his useful comments.Blasco Mateu, A.; Toro, MA. (2014). A short critical history of the application of genomics to animal breeding. Livestock Science. 166:4-9. doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2014.03.015S4916