Designing and implementing a new advanced level biology course.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology is a new advanced level biology course currently being piloted from September 2002 in England with around 1200 students. This paper discusses the reasons for developing a new advanced biology course at this time, the philosophy of the project and how the materials are being written and the specification devised. The aim of the project is to provide an up-to-date course that interests students, is considered appropriate by teachers and other professionals in biology, and takes full advantage of modern developments in biology and in teaching

The early medieval origin of Perth, Scotland

The radiocarbon results (and Bayesian modeling) of 15 samples of carbonized food residues removed from the external surface of rim sherds of cooking pots indicate that shellyware pottery first appeared in Perth, Scotland, around cal AD 9101020 (95% probability) and that it had disappeared by cal AD 10201140 (95% probability). Previously, it had been suggested that this pottery could not date to before AD 1150. These data, together with 14C analyses carried out on leather artifacts and a sample of wattle from a ditch lining, also demonstrate that there was occupation in Perth about 100 yr or more prior to the granting of royal burgh status to Perth in the 1120s

Universities as Research Partners

Universities are a key institution in the US innovation system and an important aspect of their involvement is the role they play in Private-Public Partnering activities. This study seeks to gain a better understanding of the performance of university-industry research partnerships using a sample survey of pre-commercial research projects funded the U.S. government's Advanced Technology Program. Although results must be interpreted cautiously due to the small size of the sample, the study finds that projects with university involvement tend to be in areas involving "new" science and therefore experience more difficulty and delay but also are more likely not to be aborted prematurely. We interpret this finding to imply that universities are contributing to basic research awareness and insight among the partners in ATP-funded projects.university; research

Hilliard Police Department

Hilliard Police Department was originally formed in 1957 as a special police force which consisted of twenty volunteers. The city was growing, and with more people comes more potential for crime as well as more requested services. “The employees of the Hilliard Division of Police are committed to serve the Hilliard Community and to enhance the quality of life by working cooperatively with the public to prevent crime, preserve peace, enforce the law with respect to the constitutional rights of all citizens, reduce fear and provide a safe community environment (Lt. Plesich, Personal Communication, June 19, 2014).https://fuse.franklin.edu/ss2014/1072/thumbnail.jp

One-ended subgroups of graphs of free groups with cyclic edge groups

Consider a one-ended word-hyperbolic group. If it is the fundamental group of a graph of free groups with cyclic edge groups then either it is the fundamental group of a surface or it contains a finitely generated one-ended subgroup of infinite index. As a corollary, the same holds for limit groups. We also obtain a characterisation of surfaces with boundary among free groups equipped with peripheral structures.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, corrected typos in the introductio

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ETHANOL BIOREFINERIES IN THE U.S. MIDWEST FROM 2001 TO 2015: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the economic impact of newly operational ethanol biorefineries on rural counties in the U.S. Midwest region for the period 2001 to 2015 using a quasi-experimental approach. Rapid growth in the ethanol industry expanded the number of ethanol plants located in the U.S. Midwest from 54 in 2001 to 173 in 2015. Out of the counties with 119 new ethanol biorefineries, 97 counties met the general treatment criteria defined in this dissertation, but only 56 of those counties qualified for the rural treatment criteria. Counties with ethanol biorefineries that qualified for treatment were organized into a treated group based on county level data. Six counterfactual control groups (or control counties without ethanol biorefineries) were contemporaneously matched to the treated counties based on the Mahalanobis distance metric evaluated on a set of 29 selection variables. Matching occurred on two levels. In the first level, matching was performed both for the in-state level and over the entire Midwest region. In the second level, three criteria were used to select the final control groups: Mahalanobis distance metric best match, population best match, and rural-urban continuum codes (RUCC) best match. Economic impact is evaluated based on the growth rate in real per capita earnings for the treated group over a period from one to five years after treatment relative to the control group. A difference-in-differences (DID) model is used to assess the significance of results where the dependent variable is the natural log of real per capita earnings and a set of control variables is used to capture state fixed effects, time fixed effects and spillover effects. Empirical results evaluated against a representative Midwest control group and over six regression models adjusting for various fixed effects produced, on average, one-sided significant results for average treatment on the treated (ATOT) with a (min, max) range of growth rates as (5.53%-7.63%), (10.0%-12.0%), (14.7%-19.6%), (14.5%-18.3%), and (13.3%-18.9%) from one to five years after treatment, respectively. The minimum value of these estimates can be represented as an uncorrected average annual growth rate as 2.75%, 3.33%, 3.68%, 2.90%, and 2.22% over the respective period from one to five years after treatment. Employment levels for the treated group increased on average by 211 at the county level five years after treatment. A comparative Midwest control group lost, on average, 169 jobs over the five year period after treatment. A treated county employment multiplier calculated using the direct, indirect and induced employment impacts varied from 1.46 during the year of treatment to 7.6 five years after treatment relative to the control group. Five years after treatment, the treated group employment rate gradually increased, on average, by 2.2% which was better than either of the two counterfactual control groups used in this comparison. Overall, the analysis presented in this dissertation does show statistically significant positive economic impacts, on average, for rural U.S. Midwest counties with newly operational ethanol biorefineries relative to control counties without an ethanol biorefinery. These results demonstrate that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) contributed to positive rural economic development impacts in treated counties with the possibility of spillover effects positively affecting contiguous counties

Implementation of Interactive Whiteboards by High School Mathematics Teachers: Case Studies of Change

The purpose of this study was to assess how mathematics teachers with varying years of Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) experience differ in their implementation of IWBs. The theoretical frameworks were constructivism and change theory. Six teachers participated in the full scale study, two in each IWB experience category: Beginner, Intermediate, and Experienced. Instruments of the Concerns Based Adoption Model were used to collect data about the participants: the Stages of Concern Questionnaire measured participants\u27 concerns about IWBs (George, Hall, & Stiegelbauer, 2006) while the Levels of Use Interview Protocol analyzed IWB usage (Hall, Dirksen, & George, 2006). Two lessons of each participant were also video-recorded and analyzed according to the guidelines of Glover, Miller, Averis, and Door (2007). A mixed methods case study approach was utilized to compare the IWB users within and between groups. Quantitative analyses of the Stages of Concern Questionnaire indicated that IWB experience does influence concerns; teachers with more IWB experience generally reported higher Stages of Concern than less experienced IWB users. Effective collaboration with an Experienced IWB user, however, can greatly improve the concerns of a Beginner IWB user. Qualitative analyses of the Levels of Use interviews and the video-recorded lessons indicated that IWB experience does impact usage during lessons. In general, more experienced IWB users demonstrated greater knowledge about IWB features and how to integrate them into lessons to improve student learning. Again, effective collaboration with an Experienced IWB user appeared to improve the performance of a Beginner IWB user compared to other, less experienced IWB users. Collaborations between similarly experienced participants who shared time management concerns did not seem to have as much of an impact on IWB knowledge. Based on the findings of this study, the following efforts should be pursued to maximize the benefits of IWB technology in mathematics classrooms: encourage collaboration, provide full-time access to IWB technology, use IWBs with other technologies, ensure adequate training, and properly install the IWB\u27s projector to reduce recalibration needs

Emissions of Hexavalent Chromium From Hard Chromium Plating Operations

This research addresses emissions of hexavalent chromium mist from hard chromium electroplating operations. Most of these emissions are typically captured by a ventilation stack and directed to a pollution control device; those which escape capture are called fugitive emissions. Releases of toxic materials such as hexavalent chromium must be reported annually to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under provisions of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) Title III of 1986 via the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), Form R. The objectives were: (1) to provide estimates of fugitive hexavalent chromium emissions for the completion of Form R; and (2) to develop a predictive model for stack and fugitive emissions versus process and ventilation parameters. The database for stack emissions included published results from EPA studies. Fugitive release data were generated by field characterization at two operating facilities. Supplemental data for stack releases were also obtained during this field activity. The fugitive releases were documented to represent a small portion of the total atmospheric discharge; in most instances, the fugitive releases were less than the detection capability of the sampling/analytical protocols. Stack releases were successfully correlated with a measure of production activity (ampere-hours), production capacity (mass of chromium in the process bath), tank dimensions (plating bath surface area), and ventilation efficiency (ventilation slot area). This effort was supported by the EPA in the form of a cooperative agreement with the American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers Society (AESF)