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As students read textbooks, they often highlight the material they deem to be most important. We analyze students’ highlights to predict their subsequent performance on quiz questions. Past research in this area has encoded highlights in terms of where the highlights appear in the stream of text—a positional representation. In this work, we construct a semantic representation based on a state-of-the-art deep-learning sentence embedding technique (SBERT) that captures the content-based similarity between quiz questions and highlighted (as well as non-highlighted) sentences in the text. We construct regression models that include latent variables for student skill level and question difficulty andmore »augment the models with highlighting features. We find that highlighting features reliably boost model performance. We conduct experiments that validate models on held-out questions, students, and student-questions and find strong generalization for the latter two but not for held-out questions. Surprisingly, highlighting features improve models for questions at all levels of the Bloom taxonomy, from straightforward recall questions to inferential synthesis/evaluation/creation questions.« less

We investigate whether student comprehension and knowledge retention can be predicted from textbook annotations, specifically the material that students choose to highlight. Using a digital open-access textbook platform, Openstax, students enrolled in Biology, Physics, and Sociology courses read sections of their introductory text as part of required coursework, optionally highlighted the text to flag key material, and then took brief quizzes as the end of each section. We find that when students choose to highlight, the specific pattern of highlights can explain about 13% of the variance in observed quiz scores. We explore many different representations of the pattern ofmore »highlights and discover that a low-dimensional logistic principal component based vector is most effective as input to a ridge regression model. Considering the many sources of uncontrolled variability affecting student performance, we are encouraged by the strong signal that highlights provide as to a student’s knowledge state.« less

A bstract Charged lepton flavor violation is forbidden in the Standard Model but possible in several new physics scenarios. In many of these models, the radiative decays τ ± → ℓ ± γ ( ℓ = e, μ ) are predicted to have a sizeable probability, making them particularly interesting channels to search at various experiments. An updated search via τ ± → ℓ ± γ using full data of the Belle experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 988 fb − 1 , is reported for charged lepton flavor violation. No significant excess over background predictions from the Standardmore »Model is observed, and the upper limits on the branching fractions, $$ \mathcal{B} $$ B ( τ ± → μ ± γ ) ≤ 4 . 2 × 10 − 8 and $$ \mathcal{B} $$ B ( τ ± → e ± γ ) ≤ 5 . 6 × 10 − 8 , are set at 90% confidence level.« less

A bstract We measure the branching fractions and CP asymmetries for the singly Cabibbo-suppressed decays D 0 → π + π − η , D 0 → K + K − η , and D 0 → ϕη , using 980 fb − 1 of data from the Belle experiment at the KEKB e + e − collider. We obtain $$ {\displaystyle \begin{array}{c}\mathcal{B}\left({D}^0\to {\pi}^{+}{\pi}^{-}\eta \right)=\left[1.22\pm 0.02\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.02\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\pm 0.03\left({\mathcal{B}}_{\mathrm{ref}}\right)\right]\times {10}^{-3},\\ {}\mathcal{B}\left({D}^0\to {K}^{+}{K}^{-}\eta \right)=\left[{1.80}_{-0.06}^{+0.07}\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.04\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\pm 0.05\left({\mathcal{B}}_{\mathrm{ref}}\right)\right]\times {10}^{-4},\\ {}\mathcal{B}\left({D}^0\to \phi \eta \right)=\left[1.84\pm 0.09\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.06\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\pm 0.05\left({\mathcal{B}}_{\mathrm{ref}}\right)\right]\times {10}^{-4},\end{array}} $$ B D 0 → π + π − η = 1.22 ± 0.02 stat ± 0.02more »syst ± 0.03 B ref × 10 − 3 , B D 0 → K + K − η = 1.80 − 0.06 + 0.07 stat ± 0.04 syst ± 0.05 B ref × 10 − 4 , B D 0 → ϕη = 1.84 ± 0.09 stat ± 0.06 syst ± 0.05 B ref × 10 − 4 , where the third uncertainty ( $$ \mathcal{B} $$ B ref ) is from the uncertainty in the branching fraction of the reference mode D 0 → K − π + η . The color-suppressed decay D 0 → ϕη is observed for the first time, with very high significance. The results for the CP asymmetries are $$ {\displaystyle \begin{array}{c}{A}_{CP}\left({D}^0\ {\pi}^{+}{\pi}^{-}\eta \right)=\left[0.9\pm 1.2\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.5\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\right]\%,\\ {}{A}_{CP}\left({D}^0\to {K}^{+}{K}^{-}\eta \right)=\left[-1.4\pm 3.3\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 1.1\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\right]\%,\\ {} ACP\ \left({D}^0\to \phi \eta \right)=\left[-1.9\pm 4.4\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.6\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\right]\%.\end{array}} $$ A CP D 0 π + π − η = 0.9 ± 1.2 stat ± 0.5 syst % , A CP D 0 → K + K − η = − 1.4 ± 3.3 stat ± 1.1 syst % , ACP D 0 → ϕη = − 1.9 ± 4.4 stat ± 0.6 syst % . The results for D 0 → π + π − η are a significant improvement over previous results. The branching fraction and A CP results for D 0 → K + K − η , and the ACP result for D 0 → ϕη , are the first such measurements. No evidence for CP violation is found in any of these decays.« less