Fostering improved learning about sustainability

University business graduates must not only understand but also be equipped to apply a sustainable thought process to today's business challenges. However, evidence suggests that standard approaches to teaching business courses have not advanced to reflect changing student needs, especially for NetGen students who have differing expectations than earlier cohorts. The current challenge for instructors concerns the preservation of rigor and integrity in course design, while responding to the needs of a new generation of learners. This article presents a conceptual framework incorporating experiential learning, reflective practice, and the use of metaphor, with application to the teaching of sustainability within a number of business courses

Creating Momentum: The Atlantic Philanthropies' Investments to Repeal the Death Penalty in the United States

The Atlantic Philanthropies invested about $60 million between 2004 and 2016 to support efforts to repeal the death penalty in the United States. To assess the effectiveness of this work and to generate lessons for human rights activists and other funders involved in the repeal movement, the foundation commissioned this evaluation. The findings contained in this report are the result of extensive documentation review as well as interviews with foundation and grantee board and staff

Silent Spring - the lost call

The "silence" in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring1 alludes to the demise of bird populations through reproductive problems and death resulting from exposure to the pesticides of that time, many of which are endocrine active. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are compounds which may interfere with the endocrine system, producing effects that may disrupt the physiologic function of hormones. Early research on EDC exposure in humans and wildlife has focused mainly on reproductive effects of estrogenic chemicals, however recent studies have revealed that effects of estrogenic as well as non-estrogen active chemicals are often more far reaching than the reproductive system, and even mild exposures experienced early in development may have detrimental effects that are maintained throughout adulthood. Here we show trenbolone acetate, an androgen active environmental contaminant used as a growth promoter for cattle, to cause a literal silence in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) chicks following a one time embryonic exposure. Vocalizations were not merely lessened; this is the first study to demonstrate an environmental contaminant to cause a complete abolishment of the ability to vocalize. Since many reasons for vocalization in birds are directly linked to survival of the individual and species, the potential for detrimental population effects is a grave possibility for many avian species that may encounter androgen active chemicals in the environment. Many androgen active EDCs are persistent and ubiquitous in distribution, thereforechances for exposure to these chemicals in birds may be high. We hope that powerful, yet subtle effects like the ones presented here will encourage further research with EDCs to expand beyond the traditional focus of reproductive effects of estrogenic chemicals

Changing Stakeholder Needs and Changing Evaluator Roles: The Central Valley Partnership of the James Irvine Foundation

This case study describes the evolution of the evaluator's role as the program evolved and developed, and as the needs of the client and intended users changed over time. The initiative aimed to assist immigrants in California's Central Valley. The case illustrates important tensions among accountability, learning and capacity building purposes of evaluation

Off the Beaten Path: A New Approach to Realistically Model The Orbital Decay of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxy Formation Simulations

We introduce a force correction term to better model the dynamical friction (DF) experienced by a supermassive black hole (SMBH) as it orbits within its host galaxy. This new approach accurately follows the orbital decay of a SMBH and drastically improves over commonly used advection methods. The force correction introduced here naturally scales with the force resolution of the simulation and converges as resolution is increased. In controlled experiments we show how the orbital decay of the SMBH closely follows analytical predictions when particle masses are significantly smaller than that of the SMBH. In a cosmological simulation of the assembly of a small galaxy, we show how our method allows for realistic black hole orbits. This approach overcomes the limitations of the advection scheme, where black holes are rapidly and artificially pushed toward the halo center and then forced to merge, regardless of their orbits. We find that SMBHs from merging dwarf galaxies can spend significant time away from the center of the remnant galaxy. Improving the modeling of SMBH orbital decay will help in making robust predictions of the growth, detectability, and merger rates of SMBHs, especially at low galaxy masses or at high redshift.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure, Accepted by MNRA

Relative Identity and Ideal Art: The Pirandello Conflict and Its Political Analogy

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising

The Little Galaxies that Could (Reionize the Universe): Predicting Faint End Slopes & Escape Fractions at z > 4

The sources that reionized the universe are still unknown, but likely candidates are faint but numerous galaxies. In this paper we present results from running a high resolution, uniform volume simulation, the Vulcan, to predict the number densities of undetectable, faint galaxies and their escape fractions of ionizing radiation, $f_\mathrm{esc}$, during reionization. Our approach combines a high spatial resolution, a realistic treatment of feedback and hydro processes, a strict threshold for minimum number of resolution elements per galaxy, and a converged measurement of $f_\mathrm{esc}$. We calibrate our physical model using a novel approach to create realistic galaxies at z=0, so the simulation is predictive at high redshifts. With this approach we can (1) robustly predict the evolution of the galaxy UV luminosity function at faint magnitudes down to $M_\mathrm{UV}$~-15, two magnitudes fainter than observations, and (2) estimate $f_\mathrm{esc}$ over a large range of galaxy masses based on the detailed stellar and gas distributions in resolved galaxies. We find steep faint end slopes, implying high number densities of faint galaxies, and the dependence of $f_\mathrm{esc}$ on the UV magnitude of a galaxy, given by the power-law: log $f_\mathrm{esc} = (0.51 \pm 0.04)M_\mathrm{UV} + 7.3 \pm 0.8$, with the faint population having $f_\mathrm{esc}$~35%. Convolving the UV luminosity function with $f_\mathrm{esc}$($M_\mathrm{UV}$), we find an ionizing emissivity that is (1) dominated by the faintest galaxies and (2) reionizes the universe at the appropriate rate, consistent with observational constraints of the ionizing emissivity and the optical depth to the decoupling surface tau_es, without the need for additional sources of ionizing radiation.Comment: 16 pages, 12 Figures, Accepted for publication to MNRA