Experiment and modelling of birefringent flows using commercial CFD code

It is well-known that certain fluids are birefringent and when flows are viewed in polarised light interference fringes are observed. The fringes are caused by a phase shift in the light passing through the fluid and are proportional to the integral of the maximum shear strains in the fluid. In order to understand what is happening within the three dimensional flow and overcome the difficulties due to this integration, additional computational or experimental information is needed. In this work, a commercially available computer code (Fluent) is used for the first time to model the flows. The flow data are then exported to a spreadsheet where the shear rates are integrated across the field and then banded for graphical output. The results from this are then compared to results generated from birefringent flow experiments and the agreement is found to be good since the modelled fringes show the same patterns as those in the experiment. This novel use of computational and experimental techniques together will allow quantitative analysis of three-dimensional flows in the future. Currently, there are still a lot of empirical variables involved in fitting the computational fringes to the experiment, but the results of this preliminary study show that this is a promising approach to this type of problem

Art Unlimited? Dynamics and Paradoxes of a Globalizing Art World

Until recently still a blank spot on the world map of art, China today occupies one of the top positions in the rankings of the global art market and has moved into the center of the speculations and the covetousness of its protagonists. But what is really happening on the spot, beyond the ethnocentric distortions of the Western viewpoint? What social representations and uses of art can be identified? A research team from the University of St. Gallen has taken up such questions in an ethnographical field research project which enables the actors in this emergent and nonetheless already market-dominated art field to have their say

The Influence of the Media on the Epidemic of Eating Disorders in the United States

There is an epidemic happening in the United States. It is highly visible, yet it is still largely ignored. It affects women ninety percent of the time but can also affect men, and has been seen recently in younger and younger people (Hesse-Biber et al., 2006). It is an epidemic of eating disorders, and anyone who has lived through the past few decades can see that it has gotten worse. This paper will discuss several ways in which our society has contributed to the increase in eating disorders, namely in the use of visual portrayals of extremely thin women, the proliferation of weight-loss advertising, and the effect of these on one’s immediate socio-cultural network in continuing the obsession with weight. I will focus on women in this paper, though that is not to discount the men who are afflicted with eating disorders. In fact, eating disorders are increasingly affecting men and it is a very serious issue. It is a topic that deserves much more research and comparison with women’s experiences. I will conclude this paper by discussing ways in which we might reverse this epidemic and what is already being done to prevent and eventually end eating disorders

The use of natural history dioramas for science education

Natural history dioramas have long been identified as potentially valuable sites of learning. In this chapter, I first examine what the purposes of science education might be and then argue that the other chapters in this book show that natural history dioramas do indeed have considerable potential to advance the learning of science. Such dioramas are engaging to many visitors, whatever their age and prior knowledge and experience and enable visitors to construct narratives about what is happening in the diorama. Nevertheless, the evidence about the extent and types of learning that natural history dioramas can enable is still modest. Furthermore, there exists quite a wide range of tools for gathering and interpreting data at dioramas and it is not always evident that the reasons for this diversity are valid. Much research still needs to be undertaken to help realise the educational affordances of natural history dioramas

Improving Student Vocabulary Mastery Through The Pictionary Words Game in Fifth Grade of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Tarbiyatul Athfal Sumurber

This study aims to improve the ability of vocabulary in english through the implementation of pictionary words game in elementary school. Basically learning in the classroom must be done in a fun, but the teacher still do not know what techniques are able to attract student learning interest. In addition pictionary words game is also able to make all students active during the learning process. The author conducted a series of processes to identify problems that are happening. From interviews and observationS it can be concluded that the pictionary words game is quite effective in helping students remember vocabularies in English languag

Art Unlimited?

Until recently still a blank spot on the world map of art, China today occupies one of the top positions in the rankings of the global art market and has moved into the center of the speculations and the covetousness of its protagonists. But what is really happening on the spot, beyond the ethnocentric distortions of the Western viewpoint? What social representations and uses of art can be identified? A research team from the University of St. Gallen has taken up such questions in an ethnographical field research project which enables the actors in this emergent and nonetheless already market-dominated art field to have their say

Representation of Cultures and Languages in Children’s Picture Books

This study investigated cultural representation in children’s picture books located in classroom libraries. The literature review explored what is culture, the history of children’s books, what past studies have found on representation in books, and why this topic is important. The research methodology was a qualitative study that involved inventorying classroom teachers’ libraries, as well as interviews with teachers about diversity and their libraries. The results included each of the individual teachers’ libraries as well as all the libraries’ data together; data revealed that the majority of characters were animal or non-human characters. Additionally, most of the books in these classroom libraries were books that were only in English. The major learnings I had were that classroom libraries have changed and now include electronic reading sources for students. Additionally, while there is still a lot of underrepresentation happening in classroom libraries, the white percentage was lower than in Dahl’s 2018 study and hopefully, books will continue to become more culturally diverse in who they represent

On the efficacy of financial regulations.

Regulatory failures have been a significant contributor to the financial crisis, but that does not automatically mean more regulation is called for. The crisis happened because fi nancial institutions and the whole economy used seemingly infi nite amounts of cheap credit to create an asset price bubble. The banks played their part by creating all these complex structured products that continue causing difficulties. They did this under direct regulatory oversight. Such excessive credit expansion is how most financial crises have played out throughout history. The exact same process can be prevented from happening in the future, but surely the next crisis will take a different form. It will be something completely unforeseen. One cannot regulate against such unforeseen events. The crisis has its roots in the most regulated parts of the financial system, the banks, whilst the least regulated part, the hedge funds, are mostly innocent. Is the problem lack of regulation? Or is the problem lack of understanding on how to regulate financial institutions properly? Depending upon the answer to the question, the correct approach to future financial regulations will be very different. The unique element this time around has been the extensive use of statistical models to forecast prices, and risk as well as to price complex assets. It was the models that failed. Such models embed an assumption of risk being exogenous; market participants react to the financial system but do not change it. In practice, this is nonsense. Market participants, especially in a crisis, receive the same signals and react in a similar way; they exert significant price impact resulting in risk being endogenous. This implies financial risk models are the least reliable when we need them the most and that regulation by risk sensitivity, such as risk sensitive bank capital, may increase financial instability. The root causes of the crisis are the same as in most financial crises throughout history. These crises have happened under a wide range of regulatory mechanisms. Blaming the crisis on a narrow set of obvious regulatory causes, such as bonuses, hedge funds, universal banking, shadow banking, structured credit, lack of regulations, inadequate risk management is attacking a straw man. It takes the focus away from the necessary detailed examination of the causes of fi nancial instability, which is the only way to design effective regulatory mechanisms. We do not clearly understand what went wrong, and know even less how to design regulations to prevent such episodes from happening in the future, whilst maintaining the effi ciency of the financial system. This is why it would be preferable to study what went wrong and then in a few years carefully change regulations at a time when we know more. There is no hurry, we still haven’t solved this crisis and the next one will not come immediately after the current crisis. The costs of inappropriate regulations are high and we do have the time to wait.

Middle School Student and Teacher Perceptions About the Effectiveness of the Technology Integration in the Classroom

Technology in schools is not a new phenomenon, however, whether technology integration is successful or not is up for debate. Critics of technology in the classroom write about failed attempts to integrate technology into the classroom in a meaningful way. Research indicates that we still have teachers using technology in ways that may not be much different than traditional teaching practices. The literature describes varying levels of technology usage in the classroom. Some researchers describe technology as overrated and not fulfilling the promise to improve the teaching and learning experience. Other research describes unique uses of technology that promote engaging and useful learning experiences. However, there appears to be a gap in the research when trying to determining how teachers and students feel about the effectiveness of the technology integration happening in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to document how teachers and students perceive the effectiveness of technology integration happening in the classroom. Various forms of data were collected and analyzed. The data included an online survey, personal interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations, and documents and artifacts that were collected during the classroom observations. The researcher, using techniques commonly associated with grounded theory data analysis was able to identify four main categories. They are 1.) shared experience, 2.) technology integration readiness, 3.) educational uses of technology, and 4.) obstacles to technology integration. These categories along with their subcategories, properties, and dimensions help to explain what is happening when technology is being used in a middle school classroom and ultimately helped the researcher answer the research questions. After analyzing all of the data, it suggests that teachers are mostly satisfied with the way they are using technology in the classroom and they are happy with the technology integration training they receive. The teachers’ main motivation to use technology is to promote engaging and exciting activities for their students. However, the data also suggests that students are not necessarily motivated by the simple act of using technology. In many cases, the students are motivated by personal interests and entertainment, not the technology itself

The many histories of the Hatton House

Ernest Pickering wrote in The Homes of America, A history of American homes is necessarily a history of American life ... That phrase is the basis of my story, that the history of Des Moines architecture and the lives of those inhabiting are tied together. The historian cannot effectively tell the history of a building without reflecting on the social and personal histories of the people who built (the carpenters and artisans), the people who lived and/or worked in the building, and the history of the cultural landscape. What was happening in the world affects this history as well: for example, some houses were divided into apartments during the depression and further deteriorated during the decline of the urban and boom of the suburbs between the 1940\u27s and 1980\u27s. Urban Revitalization efforts, which often mean mega-stores and parking lots, still threaten to change the landscape and environment of these neighborhoods. The history of the Hatton House is a memoir of the process of historic preservation, of living in the midst of a worksite, and of the historical research involved in taking on such a project