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Online professional development (PD) can support broader accessibility than traditional face-to- face PD. However online delivery presents challenges for characteristics of high-quality PD, such as collaborative knowledge building and community development, that have proven positive outcomes in face-to- face modes. A few comparative studies have demonstrated equivalent outcomes when PD activities have been translated from a successful face-to-face implementation to an online format. This study investigates whether an online version of PD for high school biology teachers on using computer-supported complex systems curriculum and instruction can achieve the same high impact as the face-to-face version. We describe changes in design decisions to accommodate the online mode and measure impact on teachers’ perceptions of their experiences and student outcomes. The results show positive teacher perceptions in both PD formats and roughly equal student outcomes. However, teachers articulated other benefits to online activities that indicate opportunities for improved access to high-quality PD. 

Polymer networks crosslinked with spring-like ortho -phenylene ( o P) foldamers were developed. NMR analysis indicated the o P crosslinkers were well-folded. Polymer networks with o P-based crosslinkers showed enhanced energy dissipation and elasticity compared to divinylbenzene crosslinked networks. The energy dissipation was attributed to the strain-induced reversible unfolding of the o P units. Energy dissipation increased with the number of helical turns in the foldamer. 

Neutrino-nucleus cross section measurements are needed to improve interaction modeling to meet the precision needs of neutrino experiments in efforts to measure oscillation parameters and search for physics beyond the Standard Model. We review the difficulties associated with modeling neutrino-nucleus interactions that lead to a dependence on event generators in oscillation analyses and cross section measurements alike. We then describe data-driven model validation techniques intended to address this model dependence. The method relies on utilizing various goodness-of-fit tests and the correlations between different observables and channels to probe the model for defects in the phase space relevant for the desired analysis. These techniques shed light on relevant mismodeling, allowing it to be detected before it begins to bias the cross section results. We compare more commonly used model validation methods which directly validate the model against alternative ones to these data-driven techniques and show their efficacy with fake data studies. These studies demonstrate that employing data-driven model validation in cross section measurements represents a reliable strategy to produce robust results that will stimulate the desired improvements to interaction modeling. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

Many researchers have identified the need for a more holistic understanding of the role of feedback in supporting learning in online environments. This study explores how our design, development, and implementation of an online feedback facilitation system influenced high school science teachers’ learning in an asynchronous teacher professional development online course. We then describe teachers’ and facilitators’, i.e., feedback providers’, perceptions of the effectiveness of the system’s features for supporting participants’ learning and engagement. Our work also responds to recent calls for developing a more nuanced understanding of how the complexity of feedback influences learning and the need for more qualitative research on online facilitators’ and learners’ experiences working with new technologies. Results demonstrated that, despite the difficulty of analyzing the complex variables influencing learners’ interactions and perceptions of the feedback system, designing adaptive feedback systems that draw on the principles of design- based implementation research (DBIR) offer promise for enhancing the systems’ contributions to teacher learning. 

Large neutrino liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiments can broaden their physics reach by reconstructing and interpreting MeV-scale energy depositions, or blips, present in their data. We demonstrate new calorimetric and particle discrimination capabilities at the MeV energy scale using reconstructed blips in data from the MicroBooNE LArTPC at Fermilab. We observe a concentration of low-energy ( $<3\mathrm{MeV}$) blips around fiberglass mechanical support struts along the time projection chamber edges with energy spectrum features consistent with the Compton edge of 2.614 MeV ${}^{208}\mathrm{Tl}$decay $\gamma$rays. These features are used to verify proper calibration of electron energy scales in MicroBooNE’s data to few percent precision and to measure the specific activity of ${}^{208}\mathrm{Tl}$in the fiberglass composing these struts, $(11.7\pm 0.2\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 3.1\left(\mathrm{syst}\right))\mathrm{Bq}/\mathrm{kg}$. Cosmogenically produced blips above 3 MeV in reconstructed energy are used to showcase the ability of large LArTPCs to distinguish between low-energy proton and electron energy depositions. An enriched sample of low-energy protons selected using this new particle discrimination technique is found to be smaller in data than in dedicated cosmic-ray simulations, suggesting either incorrect modeling of incident cosmic fluxes or particle transport modeling issues in eant4. Published by the American Physical Society2025