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Mysteries of the Bryozoans
No full textMarine bryozoans have about 6,000 living species and many fossil species going back to the early Ordovician. As suspension feeders they can be an important part of keeping the ocean healthy. Yet, as colonial organisms, even though present in habitats from estuaries and continental shelves to the deep sea, they are often treated as background for mobile organisms. There is still much to learn about their lives and relationships. This Ocean Reflection describes my career as a museum scientist from the 1970s to today, beginning at a time when it was often difficult as a woman to find a way forward. Though my path wasn’t direct, perseverance paid off and I found a museum career. The article summarizes some of the things we have learned about bryozoans (and those who studied them) during the last part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st and suggests some mysteries still to be unraveled
2025 Nominee Bookmarks: PreK-2nd Grade
No full texthttps://aquila.usm.edu/magnolia_book_awards/1008/thumbnail.jp
A New Deep-Sea Species of Genus Bathybirubius Senna, 2010 (Crustacea, Peracarida, Amphipoda) Associated with Bathyal Sediments from The Bay of Campeche, SW Gulf of Mexico
No full textThe genus Bathybirubius Senna, 2010 was erected to receive the species B. margaretae Senna, 2010 from Brazilian deep—sea waters. The present study describes and illustrates in detail a new deep—sea species of Bathybirubius which represents the second species in the genus and the first record for the Gulf of Mexico. The new species was collected from soft bottoms offshore Veracruz State, Mexico, in the Bay of Campeche, SW Gulf of Mexico, at 2,385 m depth. The new species is characterized by head length, accessory flagellum of antenna 1, antenna flagellum 2, mandibular palp, coxae 1 and 2, merus of pereopods 3 and 4, basis of pereopod 7, epimeron 3, and notch of telson. A comparative table showing primary features of the only 2 Bathybirubius species described until now is also included
A Social Learning Analysis Study: Social Presence in Online Discussions’ Network Interactions
Get PDFThe significance of social presence is pivotal for online students’ participation in online discussion boards. Yet, it remained ambiguous how students evolved their social presence in their network interaction development. This research delved into the extent to which social presence moderated trends over time in several facets of students\u27 prominence within social learning analysis of online discussions. The social network analysis (SNA) employed revealed that students’ prominence, including betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and PageRank, showed no notable growth over the duration of a 7-week online course. Moreover, the consistent trend observed in betweenness, eigenvector, and PageRank, coupled with the declining trend in closeness, was consistent across participants, irrespective of their level of social presence. These findings underscored the high interactivity of the students over time, offering valuable guidance for online educators and instructors to effectively sustain students\u27 social presence and interconnectivity in online discussion boards effectively and continuously
Implementation of Smart Training on Construction Site Safety : A Case Study in Hong Kong
Get PDFThe construction industry has made progress in improving safety controls, but vocational and professional education and training are still necessary to ensure site safety. In the 2022-2023 budget, the Hong Kong government has allocated HK$1.2 billion to The Construction Innovation and Technology Fund (CITF) implementation of advanced construction technologies (ACT) and a smart site safety system (SSSS) and the purpose of this system is to reduce accidents in the construction industry. In September and October of 2023, relevant training courses for the SSSS were introduced on a pilot basis. The industry will have access to a learning platform to participate in these courses. The Hong Kong Institute of Construction (HKIC) developed a training course to introduce the SSSS to the construction industry in Hong Kong. This research paper aims to explain how this training course has been designed. Participants were asked to complete anonymous questionnaires after the first two training classes, and an after-class interview was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. This paper explores the effectiveness of training and offers suggestions for evaluating training courses for different stakeholders in the industry
Paralympic Athletes’ Perspectives on Necessary Factors to Improve the Health and Performance Among Team USA
No full textAccess to para sport opportunities is essential for health promotion in individuals with disabilities. The Paralympic Games is one of the most visible versions of para sport and working to improve accessibility, enhance performance, and promote equity in research specific to para sport is necessary. PURPOSE: To evaluate Paralympic athletes’ experiences and gain recommendations for enhancing the performance environment and resources available in para sport. METHODS: Using phenomenological study design, we employed semi-structured interviews to investigate the experiences of Paralympic athletes. Participants, purposively sampled via a screening questionnaire, discussed their experiences with resources and provided recommendations for improvements to resource allocation for para athletes. Data were analyzed using a Consensual Qualitative Research tradition, focused on ensuring rigor through multi-person analysis and triangulation. RESULTS: 19 Paralympic athletes (females, n = 11; males, n = 8; age, 31±9 y) representing a range of International Paralympic Committee disability categories (muscle and movement, bone-related conditions, visual impairments, central nervous system disorders) and 11 different sports participated. The resulting codebook included themes titled “Resources for Paralympic Athletes” and “Recommendations for Improvements.” The Resources theme included five categories: 1) community-level, 2) university-level, 3) United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 4) national governing body, and 5) resources access, awareness, and satisfaction. The Recommendations theme also had five categories: 1) sports medicine, 2) sports performance, 3) disability-specific needs and classification systems, 4) resources, and 5) community awareness
Quasipseudometric Value Functions with Dense Rewards
Get PDFGoal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL) serves as an extension of reinforce- ment learning (RL) that focuses on goals that can be adjusted, making it useful for many applications, especially in complex robotics tasks. Recent research has established that the optimal value function of GCRL, denoted as Q∗(s, a, g), has a quasipseudometric structure. This finding has led to the development of targeted neural architectures that respect such a structure. However, prior analyses have predominantly focused on sparse reward settings, which are known to increase challenges related to sample complexity. In this work, I with the guidance of my advisor show that the key property of a quasipseudometric - the triangle inequality - holds true even when using dense rewards. This finding challenges previous beliefs that dense rewards could be detrimental to GCRL performance. By identifying the crucial condition necessary for maintaining the triangle ineqaulity, we show that dense reward functions meeting this criterion can improve, rather than hinder, sample complexity. The implications of this research are important, especially in the current period of AI revolu- tionary change. By enabling the training of efficient neural architectures with dense rewards, we can leverage the benefits to improve sample efficiency in GCRL. We evaluate the pro- posal in 12 standard benchmark environments in GCRL featuring challenging continuous control tasks. Empirical results confirm that training a quasipseudometric value function in a dense reward setting indeed outperforms training with sparse rewards. The potential impact of this work lies in its ability to transform how GCRL is approached in practical applications, paving the way for more effective learning strategies in robotics and beyond. While there are certain limitations to this approach, researchers and practitioners, using this method, can expect improved performance and more efficient training processes, ultimately advancing the field of reinforcement learning
The Effect of the Black Ink Red Ink Testing Method on Anxiety Levels, Test Performance, and Note-Taking Behavior among College Students
Get PDFAnxiety among students has emerged as a pressing concern due to its significant impact on academic performance and mental well-being (Chen, 2004; Davis, DiStefano, & Schutz, 2008) and is particularly evident in student performance within STEM-related courses (Magula, 2019; Vakili & Pourrazavy, 2017). Previous research has explored various factors influencing test anxiety, including testing methods. The present study examined a testing method called Black Ink Red Ink (BIRI), proposed by Rodgers and Rodgers (2011). The effects of the BIRI method were examined on (1) test anxiety, (2) test scores, and (3) note taking motivation and behaviors. Thirty-eight students in a biology course participated in the study and underwent weekly tests over 12 weeks, alternating between three weeks of no BIRI and three weeks of BIRI. Implementing BIRI was hypothesized to increase test scores, reduce test anxiety, and increase notetaking. Results of the study failed to support the hypotheses though the results were in the predictive directions. That is, when BIRI was used, students showed numerically lower test anxiety but higher test scores and note-taking motivation. In addition, several significant positive correlations emerged between test anxiety and note-taking motivation, indicating that when students reported higher test anxiety, they also reported taking more lecture notes. Interpretations and practical educational implications of the results, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research were discussed