Energy Conversion Alternatives Study (ECAS), Westinghouse phase 1. Volume 4: Open recuperated and bottomed gas turbine cycles

Open-cycle recuperated gas turbine plant with inlet temperatures of 1255 to 1644 K (1800 to 2500 F) and recuperators with effectiveness values of 0, 70, 80 and 90% are considered. A 1644 K (2500 F) gas turbine would have a 33.5% plant efficiency in a simple cycle, 37.6% in a recuperated cycle and 47.6% when combined with a sulfur dioxide bottomer. The distillate burning recuperated plant was calculated to produce electricity at a cost of 8.19 mills/MJ (29.5 mills/kWh). Due to their low capital cost $170 to 200$/kW, the open cycle gas turbine plant should see duty for peaking and intermediate load duty

Competencies in education for sustainable development : emerging teaching and research developments

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development clearly reflects the urgency to embed the principles of education for sustainable development (ESD) into all levels of education. ESD, understood as an integral part of quality education and all educational institutions, from preschool to higher education and in nonformal and informal education, can and should foster the development of sustainability competencies. This Special Issue entitled "Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development" responds to this urgency and the papers presented deliver recent developments in the field of ESD competencies. They focus on various perspectives: systematic literature reviews; curriculum developments; meta-analysis of the interrelation between sustainability content, competencies developed and pedagogical approaches used; testing and validation of evaluation tools and processes for sustainability competencies; and the development of conceptual models focused on different subject areas and educational levels (higher education, primary education, rural schools, external support services to schools, and extracurricular activities). The contributions indicate how the field of ESD competencies in the area of sustainability has become a major focus in recent years. Further research efforts need to be put into operationalizing sustainability competencies and developing tools to measure and evaluate students' and educators' competencies development

Evaluation of an Online Master Program: From the Distance Learning Users’ Perspective

This study examined the functioning of a group of instructional designers (IDs) in higher education through the lens of Communities of Practice (CoPs). The study particularly focused on whether and how the grouping of experienced and novice IDs operated as an effective CoP from the perspective of novices. The findings indicated that a group of IDs working in a midwestern university was able to cultivate a CoP within a clearly defined domain, a well-established community, and the shared practice with a specific body of knowledge. Particularly from the perspectives of novices, they highlighted the positive impact while participating in the CoP by contributing to their shared domain and defining who they are, developing expertise by interacting with experienced designers, and learning through different trajectories of participation. The rich description of this case study would further inform educators and practitioners in their efforts to improve the professional preparation and development for novice IDs in the higher education contexts

Pblcloud Virtual Patient Simulator: Enhancing Immersion Through Natural Language Processing

PBLCLOUD VIRTUAL PATIENT SIMULATOR: ENHANCING IMMERSION THROUGH NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING Pierre Martin M.Ed.(1), Lisa DelSignore M.D.(2), and Traci A. Wolbrink M.D. M.P.H.(2) (1)Yale School of Medicine (2)From the Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Management, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Department of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. (Sponsored by JH, Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine) Virtual patient simulation has been utilized to teach interviewing skills, often employing selection-based methods (e.g., multiple-choice lists and menu-based prompts) to simulate doctor-patient conversations. Users have evaluated these systems as inauthentic, which can diminish user immersion (influenced by control, realism, distraction and sensory factors) and, in turn, negatively affect skill acquisition, mastery and transfer. Our objectives were to design and develop PBLCloud, a scenario-based and highly interactive platform that uses natural language processing to support a more realistic doctor-patient conversation and create an immersive clinical learning environment. PBLCloud was developed utilizing an iterative design thinking process and its initial evaluation involved a mixed methods approach. We recruited a convenience sample of 11 participants: three (27%) fourth-year medical students from Harvard Medical School as well as two (18%) residents, four (36%) fellows and two (18%) attendings from Boston Children’s Hospital. There were two rounds of formative evaluation testing with eight participants in Round 1 and three participants in Round 2. Each participant completed a semi-structured think–aloud protocol exploring our pilot case, 10-item system usability scale (SUS) and 10-item open-ended questionnaire. The chat-based functionality provides users with computer-generated context-specific responses during the historical encounter. Users have the opportunity to perform physical examinations, review incorporated multimedia, order and interpret diagnostic investigations, order therapeutic interventions that have appropriate effects on patient vitals and laboratory data, formulate and refine a differential diagnosis, receive just-in-time feedback regarding user-initiated actions and complete embedding learning exercises. 73% of participants strongly agreed that PBLCloud was useful (i.e., it is clinically-oriented, realistic, provides helpful feedback and is widely applicable) and 64% of participants strongly agreed that their experience with the system was enjoyable (i.e., it is relevant with an engaging interface). It was deemed to be more interactive and engaging than other simulators and 82% of participants were very interested in utilizing the system in the future. The average SUS score for Round 1 and 2 were 79.7 ± 12.0 and 82.5 ± 19.8 respectively. Areas of improvement were identified, in particular, the unsatisfactory response accuracy of the chat-based functionality. Future work will include the investigation of various strategies to optimize the platform’s natural language processing algorithm as well as the formal evaluation of the system’s validity, reliability, level of induced user immersion and educational impact. We anticipate that PBLCloud will serve as a cost-effective and scalable approach for the instruction and assessment of clinical reasoning

Preliminary Design and Fabrication Assessment for Two Solar Sail Candidates

Primary emphasis is directed to the spinning sail design and fabrication assessment. Several methods of fabricating the spinning sail blades are presented and compared. Evaluations are made of each proposed design, as well as the baseline design. These efforts resulted in the recommendation of an apparent optimum design and fabrication plan with an assessment of the major advantages/disadvantages of each concept considered

Systems Thinking in Engineering Design: Differences in Expert vs. Novice and Relationship to Personality Traits

Systems thinking is the ability to see the big picture and the related elements when designing, and how these relationships form the big picture. In engineering design, systems thinking is valuable to both industry, as well as engineering education. As such, it creates opportunities for researchers to better understand systems thinking of both professional engineers in industry, who are assumed to be the experts, and engineering students in higher education, who are assumed to be the novices. The purpose of this study was to compare and identify the differences between expert and novice systems thinking in engineering design. Additionally, the study explored the relationship between systems thinking and individual personality. Results from various statistical analysis of 61 teams (18 professionals, 19 seniors, and 24 freshmen) show that professionals are different from senior and freshman students because they focus more on the problem during their systems thinking process, whereas students tend to focus on the solution. Surprisingly, members of professional teams interact less with each other than student teams during the process of breaking down complex problems into smaller and manageable subproblems. The results also showed that there were similarities in systems thinking between professionals and senior students. Additionally, exploratory results from a small subset of the participants show no clear evidence for a relationship between systems thinking and personality traits. Therefore, the existence of the relationship between systems thinking and personality traits remains in question and require further investigation. The findings from this study have several implications for engineering education and future research

Evaluating a Translingual Administration of the Early Grades Math Assessment (EGMA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Translanguaging is a view around languages that normalizes diglossia without separation: the linguistic resources of the bilinguals are considered one integrated system. Translanguaging is also a language practice of bilinguals, who select features from their entire linguistic repertoire to make sense of the world around them. Translanguaging is widely used by students and teachers in the bilingual classroom, as it allows students to build upon their entire set of resources, enhance learning outcomes, perform identities, and develop their languages even further. However, translanguaging is rarely used in assessments of bilinguals. Assessments of bilinguals, especially large-scale tests, are typically monolingual in focus and not appropriate for a large portion of the population, who cannot perform as one or two monolinguals. While psychometricians and test developers have spent large amount of resources in developing and testing linguistic accommodations, their efforts are not entirely solving the problems faced by bilinguals. Translanguaging is a framework that may overcome the limitations of linguistic accommodations. However, there is few research on how to properly implement translanguaging in assessments, particularly, in content assessments. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of implementing a translingual administration of the EGMA assessment in the region of Mbandaka, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Using a mixed-methods design, I looked at the effect of translanguaging on scores and the alignment of the framework with the classroom practices enounced by teachers. The results of this study show that the translingual version of the EGMA had a positive effect on the scores of girls who identified as bilinguals, and improved the reliability estimates of all the tasks. The results also show that the translingual EGMA is more appropriate for the context of Mbandaka, yet there are characteristics that prevent us from considering the test fully appropriate for the region. Further research must shed light on the particular aspects of the translingual administration that explained the improvements observed in this study. Future studies should also clarify potential routes to a better and more effective implementation of translanguaging in content assessments

Faculty Handbook

Faculty Handbook for Georgia Southern University for the 2012-2013 academic year. The Faculty Handbook is published online by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and archived in Digital Commons@Georgia Southern