Contesting science by appealing to its norms: readers discuss climate science in the Daily Mail

This study examines the rhetorical aspects of social contestation of climate change in reader comments published in the Daily Mail, subsequent to climategate. The following themes are reported: (1) denigration of climate scientists to contest hegemonic representations, (2) delegitimization of pro–climate change individuals by disassociation from science, and (3) outright denial: rejecting hegemonic social representations of climate change. The study outlines the discursive strategies employed in order to construct social representations of climate change, to contest alternative representations, and to convince others of the validity of these representations. It examines how social representations of science are formed, maintained, and disseminated

Temperature effects on geotechnical properties of kaolin clay: Simultaneous measurements of consolidation characteristics, shear stiffness, and permeability using a modified oedometer

The increased worldwide use of shallow geothermal energy systems including ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) have given concerns of possible temperature effects on soil geotechnical properties. In this study, the effects of temperature on mechanical characteristics such as consolidation settlement, shear stiffness, and permeability of kaolin clay were investigated. A modified oedometer apparatus which allows the simultaneous measurements of consolidation settlement, shear wave velocity, and hydraulic conductivity was developed and used. Consolidation tests on preconsolidated kaolin samples (two sample sizes: ϕ 6 cm x H 10 cm and ϕ 6 cm x H 2 cm) were performed under sequentially increasing consolidation pressures at three different temperatures (5 °C, 15 °C, and 40 °C). Larger apparent preconsolidation pressure, Pac, was seen at higher temperature (40 °C) for both sample sizes, but only for samples having relatively high initial void ratios between 1.53 and 1.62. Relatively higher shear modulus as a function of void ratio was observed for samples at higher temperature, suggesting that changes in fabric structure (likely caused by enhanced inter-particle forces between clay particles at higher temperature) resulted in the increased shear stiffness and, thus, higher Pac at 40 °C. Oppositely, temperature effects on theManuscript received February 5, 2013. This work was partly funded by a grant from the Research Management Bureau, Saitama University, the grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (No.22860012), and a JSPS bilateral research project. This work was also partially supported by a CREST project, a research grant from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).E. E. Mon is with Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-okubo, Sakura ku, Saitama, 338-8570, Japan. (phone/fax: (+81) 48-858-3116; e-mail: [email protected]).S. Hamamoto, is with Graduate School of Science and Engineering, and Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-okubo, Sakura ku, Saitama, 338-8570, Japan. (e-mail: [email protected])K. Kawamoto is with Graduate School of Science and Engineering, and Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-okubo, Sakura ku, Saitama, 338-8570, Japan. (e-mail: [email protected]).T. Komatsu is with Graduate School of Science and Engineering, and Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-okubo, Sakura ku, Saitama, 338-8570, Japan. (e-mail: [email protected]).P. Mødrup is with Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark. (e-mail: [email protected]). permeability of kaolin clay were not significant within the studied temperature range between 5 °C and 40 °C

Educational Research Abstracts

Editors\u27 Note: As noted in previous issues of the Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations, the purpose of this Educational Research Abstract section is to present current published research on issues relevant to math and science teaching at both the K-12 and college levels. Because educational research articles are published in so many different academic journals, it is a rare public school teacher or college professor who reads all the recent published reports on a particular instructional technique or curricular advancement. Indeed, the uniqueness of various pedagogical strategies has been tacitly acknowledged by the creation of individual journals dedicated to teaching in a specific discipline. Yet many of the insights gained in teaching certain physics concepts, biological principles, or computer science algorithms can have generalizability and value for those teaching in other fields or with different types of students. In this review, the focus is on assessment. Abstracts are presented according to a question examined in the published articles. Hopefully, such a format will trigger your reflections about exemplary math/science assessment as well as generate ideas about your own teaching situation. The abstracts presented here are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather a representative sampling of recent journal articles. Please feel free to identify other useful research articles on a particular theme or to suggest future teaching themes to be examined. Please send your comments and ideas via email to [email protected] or by regular mail to The College of William and Mary, P. O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23185-8795

The Duke Internet Programming Contest

On the evening of October 23, 1990, electronic mail messages started to pour into the computers at the Duke University Computer Science Department. Teams of programmers from all over the world were registering to compete in the first global (as far as the authors are aware) programming contest to be held on the Internet. During the three hour competition, modeled after the annual ACM scholastic programming contest, 60 teams from 37 institutions in 5 countries attempted to solve a set of six programming problems using C or Pascal. Their solutions were sent by electronic mail to Duke, where their programs were judged and the results returned by electronic mail. At the conclusion of the contest, 330 program submissions had been judged and 65 clarification requests were answered