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Considerable literature is devoted to teachers' assessment use to support teaching and learning. The study examined the factor structure of a measure of teachers' assessment use along the assessments "of", "for", and "as" learning purpose dimensions. The study also examined the factor structure of teachers' perceived instructional usefulness of these dimensions. Together, the measure provides a pulse on classroom assessment practice. The validation effort 1) presents the Classroom Teacher Assessment Use and Usefulness Survey, CTAUUS, for use in research on teachers' assessment practice, and 2) provides empirical grounding for the distinction among the purpose-related dimensions. Exploratory factor analyses revealed two identical factors for use and usefulness: AoL, with five items on the use of standardized assessments; and a combined AfL and AaL factor with nine items that we had anticipated as two separate factors. The study contributes to developing understanding of the conceptualization and measurement of AfL and AaL constructs.

Abstract The distance conjecture diagnoses viable low-energy effective realisations of consistent theories of quantum gravity by examining their breakdown at infinite distance in their parameter space. At the same time, infinite distance points in parameter space are naturally intertwined with string dualities. We explore the implications of the distance conjecture when T-duality is applied to curved compact manifolds and in presence of (non-)geometric fluxes. We provide evidence of how divergent potentials signal pathological infinite distance points in the scalar field space where towers of light states cannot be sustained by the curved background. This leads us to suggest an extension to the current statement of the Swampland distance conjecture in curved spaces or in presence of non-trivial fluxes supporting the background.

In current contexts of education, educators are tasked with using data, most often without any critical preparation to do so. In this way, data are presented as objective measures of student progress and participation in school without consideration of the systemic and structural influences on that progress and participation. This article reports on a proposed framework for preparing educators to engage in critical data-driven decision making as an engine of disrupting classroom and school-based systemic inequity through data use. We argue that if educators are to use data in ways that acknowledge the inequities of schooling and act in ways to trigger change, we must prepare them to engage with data differently. The framework we describe, "data use for equity," integrates data and equity literacies in this service. We use case study to report on the outcomes of a professional development project guided by this conceptual framework of data use for equity. Participants engaged in professional development that utilized a School and Classroom Equity Audit as a triggering data event and explicitly attended to the relationship of culture and education. Findings demonstrated that professional development in data use for equity enhanced participants' sense of agency, perceptions of equity and data, and perceived multicultural capacities. Findings also demonstrated that while participants made progress in strengthening their data and equity literacies on almost all indicators through the yearlong professional development, developing data use for equity must be an ongoing effort.

This study aims to better understand differences in the decision-making process behind study choices for higher education by investigating the presence of exploration profiles and then explore the explanatory base. To achieve this, we first identified different exploration profiles of students transitioning to higher education (n = 5660), and then investigated whether they were predicted by different student variables (i.e., learning strategies, gender, and educational track) and linked with different outcomes of the decision-making process (i.e., the amount of information acquired regarding higher education, decisional status, and commitment). A latent profile analysis identified three exploration profiles based on the decisional tasks of orientation, self-, broad, and in-depth exploration: passive (35%), moderately active (52%), and highly active explorers (13%). Students' learning strategies (regulation and processing strategies) were associated with these profiles. Students with more effective regulation and processing strategies were more likely to be highly active than passive or moderately active explorers. Female students and students from the technical track were more likely to be found in the highly active profile compared to the moderately active and the passive or moderately active profile, respectively. Finally, highly active explorers had the most favorable outcomes, measured by decisional status, commitment, and amount of information. Based on a substantial dataset, our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the explanatory base of important differences in the study choice making process of students opting for higher education. This may ultimately lead to more fitting support for students in less beneficial profiles.

Underscored by a long overdue call to challenge racism in teacher education (TE), we set forth to examine our own university TE classrooms to understand how we are both perpetuating and disrupting systemic racism and decentering whiteness, such that we can move toward sustained antiracist pedagogy for ourselves, our institutions, teacher candidates, and school communities. Undergirded by Critical Race Theory, this paper presents the development of an "Antiracist Pedagogy Course Audit" -- a tool to develop instructor capacity to engage in critically reflective practices in five key areas: 1) Instructor Critical Consciousness; 2) Understanding Students' Backgrounds and Experiences; 3) Course Readings and Content; 4) Classroom Learning Environment; and 5) Assignments and Assessments. We describe early implementation, process-oriented mechanisms for adaption, and applications of the tool in an early childhood education teacher education course.

Abstract Background There is a lack of reliable data on the size, characteristics, and experiences of sexual and gender minority (SGM) young people (ages 10–24) in low- and lower-middle- income countries (LMICs). This review examines the research conducted in the last thirteen years with and about SGM young people living in low-income settings and seeks to answer the question: What is known about the mental and physical health needs, safety, and wellbeing of SGM young people living in LMICs? Methods We conducted a scoping review informed by the methodological frameworks put forth by Arksey and O’Malley and the Joanna Briggs Institute. We systematically searched two general social science databases and one topic-specific database for peer-reviewed papers, of any research design, that included SGM young people or explored attitudes toward SGM young people in LMICs. We included papers that reported on factors influencing the health and wellbeing of SGM populations, including physical and mental health, healthcare-seeking behaviors, substance use, experiences of discrimination and/or stigma, experiences of violence and abuse (emotional, physical, and/or sexual), economically motivated paid sex practices, housing or economic security, and attitudes of others toward SGM populations. Results Of the 5,409 unique records identified, 79 papers drawing from data collected from 74 unique studies met the inclusion criteria. Only 50 of the 79 papers included SGM young people as participants, with just 13 focusing exclusively on SGM young people ages 10–24. The included papers were classified into three thematic groupings: attitudes toward SGM populations (n = 26), risks to health (n = 40), and experiences of stigma and discrimination (n = 13). Conclusion The findings indicate that the health and wellbeing of SGM young people in LMICs has been historically under-researched. While SGM young people have received more attention from researchers in recent years, the body of literature as a whole is disjointed and sparse, and often studies are about SGM young people, rather than with and for them. Our review highlights the need for more and better research, more accurate and disaggregated demographic data, and leadership and participation of SGM-led community-based organizations in the co-design of studies that focus on SGM young people.

Abstract We consider the setup of a black hole in AdS4 coupled to an external bath, embedded in type IIB string theory. We study quantum extremal islands in these backgrounds, in relation to the existence of a massive graviton. Using explicit results of the microscopic embedding of AdS4 massive gravity in string theory, we investigate whether it is possible to achieve backgrounds with extremal islands, in which the lowest lying graviton is only slightly massive. For certain regions of the microscopic parameters, the graviton mass can be computed explicitly, and we explain how it directly affects the existence and the properties of the islands. We also show that islands can in principle exist within the regime of validity of the massive gravity effective field theory. However we see via numerical computations that the existence of quantum extremal islands at zero temperature is highly constrained, also when the dilaton is allowed to vary, so that the mass of the graviton cannot be made arbitrarily light. At finite temperature, we also identify a critical parameter, above and below which islands still exist but exhibit a different behavior. Our work supports recent proposals that the unitary evolution of black holes in higher dimensions, and more precisely their Page curve, relies on the presence of a massive graviton in the effective theory.

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNP) function in RNA processing, have RNA-recognition motifs (RRMs) and intrinsically disordered, low-complexity domains (LCDs). While RRMs are drivers of RNA binding, there is only limited knowledge about the RNA interaction by the LCD of some hnRNPs. Here, we show that the LCD of hnRNPA2 interacts with RNA via an embedded Tyr/Gly-rich region which is a disordered RNA-binding motif. RNA binding is maintained upon mutating tyrosine residues to phenylalanines, but abrogated by mutating to alanines, thus we term the RNA-binding region ‘F/YGG motif’. The F/YGG motif can bind a broad range of structured (e.g. tRNA) and disordered (e.g. polyA) RNAs, but not rRNA. As the F/YGG otif can also interact with DNA, we consider it a general nucleic acid-binding motif. hnRNPA2 LCD can form dense droplets, by liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS). Their formation is inhibited by RNA binding, which is mitigated by salt and 1,6-hexanediol, suggesting that both electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions feature in the F/YGG motif. The D290V mutant also binds RNA, which interferes with both LLPS and aggregation thereof. We found homologous regions in a broad range of RNA- and DNA-binding proteins in the human proteome, suggesting that the F/YGG motif is a general nucleic acid-interaction motif.

Abstract Topological defects have long been known to encode symmetries and dualities between physical systems. In the context of string theory, defects have been intensively studied at the level of the worldsheet. Although marked by a number of pioneering milestones, the target space picture of defects is much less understood. In this paper, we show, at the level of the target space, that Poisson-Lie T-duality can be encoded as a topological defect. With this result at hand, we can postulate the kernel capturing the Fourier-Mukai transform associated to the action of Poisson-Lie T-duality on the RR-sector. Topological defects have the remarkable property that they can be fused together or, alternatively, with worldsheet boundary conditions. We study how fusion of the proposed generalised T-duality topological defect consistently leads to the known duality transformations for boundary conditions. Finally, taking a step back from generalised T-duality, we tackle the general problem of understanding the effect of fusion at the level of the target space. We propose to use the framework of Dirac geometry and formulate the fusion of topological defects and D-branes in this language.

Antiphospholipid antibody (aPL)-persistent positivity is frequent in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Native arteriovenous fistula (AVF) complications such as stenosis and thrombosis are among the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in hemodialysis patients. The association between aPL positivity and AVF thrombosis seems to now be well established. However, whether aPL positivity is associated with other AVF complications, such as maturation failure or stenosis, is not well known. Given the significant impact of AVF failure on patient’s prognosis, it is of interest to further investigate this particular point in order to improve prevention, surveillance and treatment, and, ultimately, the patient’s outcome. This literature review aims to report the recent literature on aPL-associated native AVF complications.

We review different exact approaches to string theory. In the context of the Green–Schwarz superstring, we discuss the action in curved backgrounds and its supercoset formulation, with particular attention to superstring backgrounds of the AdS 3 type supported by both Ramond–Ramond and Neveu–Schwarz–Neveu–Schwarz fluxes. This is the basis for the discussion of classical integrability, of worldsheet-scattering factorisation in the uniform lightcone gauge, and eventually of the string spectrum through the mirror thermodynamic Bethe ansatz, which for AdS 3 backgrounds was only derived and analysed very recently. We then illustrate some aspects of the Ramond–Neveu–Schwarz string, and introduce the formalism of Berkovits–Vafa–Witten, which has seen very recent applications to AdS 3 physics, which we also briefly review. Finally, we present the relation between M-theory in the discrete lightcone quantisation and decoupling limits of string theory that exhibit non-relativistic behaviors, highlighting the connection with integrable T T ¯ deformations, as well as the relation between spin-matrix theory and Landau–Lifshitz models. This review is based on lectures given at the Young Researchers Integrability School and Workshop 2022 'Taming the string worldsheet' at NORDITA, Stockholm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionSince previous research on educational career exploration has mainly been cross-sectional and therefore has been unsuccessful in explaining how this process can change during the final year in secondary education before students make the transition to higher education, this study aimed to examine changes over time in the exploration process. A person-centered research perspective was taken to further deepen the understanding of how different exploration tasks jointly combine into meaningful profiles. In this way, this study tried to gain more insight into why some students go through this process successfully and others do not. Four goals guided this study: identifying exploration profiles of students in Fall and Spring of the final year in secondary school based on four decisional tasks (orientation, self-, broad and in-depth exploration), investigating transitions between exploration profiles across these two timepoints, and examining the role which different antecedents (i.e., academic self-efficacy, academic self-concept, motivation, test anxiety, gender, educational track, socio-economic status) play in explaining both profile membership and transitions between profiles.MethodsUsing self-report questionnaires to measure the exploration tasks and the antecedents in final year students, two cross-sectional samples collected in Fall (n = 9,567) and Spring (n = 7,254), and one longitudinal sample (n = 672) were examined.ResultsLatent profile analyses identified three exploration profiles at both timepoints: passive, moderately active, and highly active explorers. Latent transition analysis showed the moderately active explorers profile to be the most stable profile, while the passive profile was the most variable profile. Academic self-concept, motivation, test anxiety, and gender had an effect on the initial states, while motivation and test anxiety affected the transition probabilities. For both academic self-concept and motivation, students scoring higher were found to be less present in the passive or the moderately active than in the highly active profile. Furthermore, compared to students who remained in the passive profile, higher levels of motivation were associated with a higher probability to transition to the moderately active profile. Next to that, compared to students who remained in the highly active profile, higher levels of motivation were associated with a lower probability to transition to the moderately active profile. Results on anxiety were inconsistent.DiscussionBased on substantial cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data, our findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the explanatory base of important differences in the study choice making process of students opting for higher education. This may ultimately lead to more timely and fitting support for students with different exploration profiles.

This conceptual essay explores the role a teaching philosophy plays in the experiences of K-12 classroom teachers who are firmly established in a school context. We draw on our experiences as in-service teacher educators and K-12 teachers to examine the extent to which teachers make decisions that are grounded in a well-thought out and clearly articulated belief system about teaching and learning. We argue that there are often tensions and disconnections between teachers' fundamental beliefs about teaching and learning and the realities of current mandates and imposed expectations.

As schools and teachers utilize data-driven decision-making processes to identify and remediate struggling students, systemic conditions that contribute to students' learning opportunities are often ignored. This longitudinal mixed-methods study examines the use of an equity audit as a critical data-driven decision-making tool in a graduate course for teachers on educational change. Findings indicate that through engagement in the equity audit process, teachers experienced increases in understanding of and skill with data, enhanced awareness of in/equity, and a greater sense of change agency. Interviews with participants one year later revealed the complexity in sustaining action related to equity in schools. Although findings suggest that teacher engagement with broader types of data with an explicit focus on equity in a university graduate program has the potential to reskill and empower teachers to address school-based opportunity gaps, support is needed beyond the university to maintain initial commitment and facilitate action.

Objective: Using a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach, this study documents Latine immigrant families' work, childcare, and education experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic to inform policy and practice to support Latine families. Background: Latine immigrant communities, comprising undocumented and mixed‐status families, were among the hardest hit by the COVID‐19 pandemic. In addition to employment and housing challenges, children and families lost access to the important academic supports and social services built into childcare programs and schools. Method: For this study, we collected in‐depth qualitative interview data from mothers who were immigrants from Central America and Mexico (N = 23) as part of an ongoing CBPR project. Using community coding techniques, data were analyzed in partnership with our Community Advisory Board, Amigas de la Comunidad. Results: In the context of illegality, participants and their families who already feared deportation and family separation, faced added burdens during the pandemic including job loss, school and childcare closures, and isolation. Parents worried about meeting their families' basic needs, getting sick, losing loved ones to COVID‐19, and being evicted from their housing. Conclusion: While participants shared stories of resilience and resistance, they also reflected on stories loss and hardship—experiences that were exacerbated by anti‐immigrant laws and policies that made navigating the pandemic especially punishing for immigrant families. Implications: On the basis of study findings, program and policy implications for serving Latine children and youth and their immigrant parents, especially those with mixed documentation status, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We build on the results of [1] for generalised frame fields on generalised quotient spaces and study integrable deformations for ℂP n . In particular we show how, when the target space of the Principal Chiral Model is a complex projective space, a two-parameter deformation can be introduced in principle. The second parameter can however be removed via a diffeomorphism, which we construct explicitly, in accordance with the results stemming from a thorough integrability analysis we carry out. We also elucidate how the deformed target space can be seen as an instance of generalised Kähler, or equivalently bi-Hermitian, geometry. In this respect, we find the generic form of the pure spinors for ℂP n and the explicit expression for the generalised Kähler potential for n = 1, 2.

Abstract Recent work has shown that two-dimensional non-linear σ-models on group manifolds with Poisson-Lie symmetry can be understood within generalised geometry as exemplars of generalised parallelisable spaces. Here we extend this idea to target spaces constructed as double cosets M = G ˜ $$ \tilde{G} $$ \𝔻/H. Mirroring conventional coset geometries, we show that on M one can construct a generalised frame field and a H -valued generalised spin connection that together furnish an algebra under the generalised Lie derivative. This results naturally in a generalised covariant derivative with a (covariantly) constant generalised intrinsic torsion, lending itself to the construction of consistent truncations of 10-dimensional supergravity compactified on M . An important feature is that M can admit distinguished points, around which the generalised tangent bundle should be augmented by localised vector multiplets. We illustrate these ideas with explicit examples of two-dimensional parafermionic theories and NS5-branes on a circle.