This article investigates the study methodologies, learning strategies, and motives of spelling bee participants. The authors identify several important educational implications of this work.
Read More...Browse Articles
English learner status in Florida public schools is correlated with significantly lower graduation rates
The authors explore factors affecting graduation rates of students learning English as a second language across Florida counties.
Read More...Do self-expression values affect global jazz popularity? An analysis of postmaterialism and political activity
Jazz music is a unique American art form that has spread around the world. Iyer and Iyer study this spread through a computational sociology project examining how jazz popularity is correlated with postmaterialism (an ideology that values self-expression) and political activity.
Read More...Substance Abuse Transmission-Impact of Parental Exposure to Nicotine/Alcohol on Regenerated Planaria Offspring
The global mental health crisis has led to increased substance abuse among youth. Prescription drug abuse causes approximately 115 American deaths daily. Understanding intergenerational transmission of substance abuse is complex due to lengthy human studies and socioeconomic variables. Recent FDA guidelines mandate abuse liability testing for neuro-active drugs but overlook intergenerational transfer. Brown planaria, due to their nervous system development similarities with mammals, offer a novel model.
Read More...What is the optimal fuel for space flight? Efficiency, cost, and environmental impact
Here, the authors sought to investigate the efficiency, cost, and environmental impact of several possible propellants that are or could be used for space flight. By deriving three novel equations, they identified harm, energy, and cost scores for each fuel, suggesting that considering each factor will be essential to the ongoing growth of the space industry.
Read More...Model selection and optimization for poverty prediction on household data from Cambodia
Here the authors sought to use three machine learning models to predict poverty levels in Cambodia based on available household data. They found teat multilayer perceptron outperformed the other models, with an accuracy of 87 %. They suggest that data-driven approaches such as these could be used more effectively target and alleviate poverty.
Read More...Thermoelectric cooling in greenhouses: Implications for small-holder production
The authors set to test a system that would help with the dehumidification and overall management of greehouses.
Read More...The Effect of UV Treatment on the Degradation of Compostable Polylactic Acid
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a bio-based, compostable plastic that is comparable in cost to petroleum-based plastics. This study aims to evaluate the effects of UV treatment and mechanical chopping on the degradation of PLA. Based on their findings, the authors propose an alternative PLA degradation process that may be more time and energy efficient than current processes.
Read More...Understanding investors behaviors during the COVID-19 outbreak using Twitter sentiment analysis
The authors examine a relationship between tweet sentiment and stock market behavior during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read More...The juxtaposition of anatomy and physics in the eye
People are quick to accept the assumption that a light will appear dimmer the farther away they are, citing the inverse square relationship that illuminance obeys as rationale. However, repeated observations of light sources maintaining their brightness over large distances prompted us to explore how the brightness, or perceived illuminance of a light varies with the viewing distance from the object. We hypothesized that since both the illuminance of the light source and image size decrease at the same rate, then the concentration, or intensity of the image remains unchanged, and subsequently the perceived illuminance.
Read More...