Motivating Technical Writing through Study of the Environment

Today’s engineers must be more than just technically competent. To be successful in our increasingly global economy in which teamwork and interdisciplinary interaction are the norm, engineers must have excellent communication skills. In recognition of industry needs, the San José State University College of Engineering redesigned its technical communication course to ensure that students graduate with writing and speaking skills that will transfer readily to their career needs and the global arena. The course aims to motivate students through exploring topics that are meaningful to them and using communication formats that they will see in the workplace. Combing technical communication with study of the environment broadens the course to meet multiple ABET outcomes. This paper describes the course goals, organization, management, selected assignments, and assessment. Assessment data indicate that at the end of the semester students, on average, have gained between 0.8 and 1.1 points on a 12-point evaluation rubric, and have gained an appreciation of the unique characteristics of and need for technical writing

The Ongoing Gender Gap in Art Museum Directorships

In a 2014 report, AAMD and the National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) found that a gender gap existed in art museum directorships. We found that women held less than half of directorships, that the average female director's salary lagged behind that of the average male director, and that these phenomena were most persistent in the largest museums. Three years later, despite press attention and field-wide dialogue on the topic, the gender gap persists, although trends showing incremental gains in some areas of pay and employment representation deserve recognition

Optimizing astrophotonic spatial reformatters using simulated on-sky performance

One of the most useful techniques in astronomical instrumentation is image slicing. It enables a spectrograph to have a more compact angular slit, whilst retaining throughput and increasing resolving power. Astrophotonic components like the photonic lanterns and photonic reformatters can be used to replace bulk optics used so far. This study investigates the performance of such devices using end-to-end simulations to approximate realistic on-sky conditions. It investigates existing components, tries to optimize their performance and aims to understand better how best to design instruments to maximize their performance. This work complements the recent work in the field and provides an estimation for the performance of the new components.Comment: Conference proceedings in SPIE 2018 Austin Texa

Using astrophotonics to design new components for future telescopes

With the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) currently under construction we are entering a new era of challenging requirements, which drive spectrograph designs towards techniques that more efficiently use a facility’s light feed. If the spectrograph can operate close to the diffraction limit, this reduces the footprint of the instrument compared to a conventional high resolution spectrograph and mitigates problems and cost issues caused by the use of large optics. By using adaptive optics (AO) to address the wavefront distortions caused by the Earth’s atmospheric turbulence, we can provide diffraction limited starlight to the telescope’s focal plane. Using astrophotonic spatial reformatters and custom optical fibers to manage the AO output, we can increase the starlight coupled into the instrument. In the first part of the thesis, simulation models are compared to manufactured and on-sky tested astrophotonic reformatters. Re-designing of the structures allowed their simulated performance to be further optimised. This is complemented by the laboratory characterisation of multiple different reformatters. In the second part of the thesis, everything discussed thus far is combined, leading to the design, manufacture and on-sky test of a novel instrument concept. This new instrument is composed of a multi-core fiber (MCF) with 3D printed micro-optics on its cores, which increase the coupling of light into them. The custom fiber is used to feed starlight from the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) instrument at the 8.2 m Subaru telescope in Hawaii to a diffraction-limited high resolution spectrograph. The results are promising and highlight the instrument’s potential to change the paradigm with which high resolution spectrographs are built, in particular in the near infrared (NIR), for telescopes equipped with powerful AO systems. This study complements recent work in the field and provides crucial insight for optimising future astrophotonic devices

Impact of Engineering Ambassador Programs on Student Development

This study highlights the positive impact of participation in an engineering ambassador program on students from two universities: Oregon State University which is a large public university in a college town with a 13% minority student body, and Howard University, a medium sized private university with a relatively small engineering program in an urban setting enrolling a primarily minority population. Although these ambassador programs have a major goal of service to the university and engineering program, they serve an equally important goal of developing the skills and attitudes of the ambassadors themselves. Ambassadors from both universities were surveyed, and though the universities and the programs are different, results show that both programs have a similar positive impact on student goals, attitudes, leadership skill and self-efficacy

LFE as a development tool for next generation earthquake professionals

In January 2017 the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in partnership with the National Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN) led a five-day travel study program in Chile in which students and young professionals engaged in learning from earthquakes activities. The 16 participants attended lectures and field trips and completed two resilience projects to contribute to the body of knowledge about recovery since the 2010 Maule earthquake while also becoming familiar with reconnaissance tools and techniques. The program was created to provide learning-from-earthquakes opportunities for younger members outside the limited postevent reconnaissance teams; and to engage younger members in EERI activities and train them for future reconnaissance, which might include long-term resilience and recovery components. The success of the program can be attributed to the strong partnership with CIGIDEN, experienced mentors who accompanied the group, senior academics and practitioners who lectured and led tours, as well as a strong interdisciplinary team of participants who worked extremely hard interviewing locals and compiling the data for their resilience project

Modulation of Immune Biomarkers by Biofield Energy Healing Based Herbomineral Formulation in Male Sprague Dawley Rat: Potential Role of Energy of Consciousness

The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of The Trivedi Effect®- Energy of Consciousness Healing Treatment based new proprietary herbomineral formulation and Energy Healing Treatment per se in male Sprague Dawley rats for immune biomarkers modulation. The test formulation was divided into two parts, one as the control without any Biofield Energy Treatment, while the other part was defined as the Biofield Energy Treated sample, which received the Biofield Energy Healing Treatment remotely from seven renowned Biofield Energy Healers. Additionally, one group of animals also received Biofield Energy Treatment per se (day -15) by under similar conditions. Humoral immune response data showed an increased level of IgG by 2.89%, 6.20%, and 6.20% in the Biofield Energy Treated test formulation group (G4), Biofield Energy Treatment group per se (G6), and Biofield Energy Treated test formulation at day -15 (G7), respectively as compared with the disease control group (G2). The ratio of CD4+/CD8+ was increased by 3.80%, 12.38%, and 16.19% in the G4, G6, and G7, respectively compared with the G2. Hematology analysis suggested an increased level of TLC and neutrophil by 9.64% and 1.48%, respectively in the G4 group, while G6 group showed an increase count of TLC, lymphocytes, and monocytes by 19.79%, 2.87%, and 15.54%, respectively compared with the G2. Biochemical study showed an increased concentration of glucose by 11.78%, 18.60%, and 56.84% in the G4, G6, and G7, respectively compared with G2. Total cholesterol was significantly decreased by 10.54% and 4.20% in the G4 and G7, respectively compared with G2. In contrast, the HDL level was increased by 11.69% and 1.06% in G6 and G7, respectively while LDL was decreased by 10.52% in G4 compared with the G2. SGOT, CK-MB, total protein, albumin, and globulin levels were decreased by 4.04%, 23.54%, 1.68%, 1.54%, and 1.80%, respectively in G4, while G6 group showed decreased level of SGOT, CK-MB, and A/G ratio by 2.08%, 16.23%, and 3.40%, respectively compared with G2. However, SGOT was significantly decreased (p≤0.01) by 18.88% in G7 compared with G2. The testosterone level was decreased by 76.67%, 18.43%, and 44.06% in G4, G6, and G7, respectively compared with G2. Antioxidant profile showed a decreased level of LPO by 59.63% in G7, while SOD and CAT levels were significantly altered in tested groups compared with G2. Biofield Energy may also be used for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, stress management and prevention, and anti-aging by improving overall health. https://www.trivedieffect.com/science/modulation-of-immune-biomarkers-by-biofield-energy-healing-based-herbomineral-formulation-in-male-sprague-dawley-rat-potential-role-of-energy-of-consciousness lhttp://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=216&doi=10.11648/j.abb.20170506.1

On-sky results for the integrated microlens ring tip-tilt sensor

We present the first on-sky results of the microlens ring tip-tilt sensor. This sensor uses a 3D printed microlens ring feeding six multimode fibers to sense misaligned light, allowing centroid reconstruction. A tip-tilt mirror allows the beam to be corrected, increasing the amount of light coupled into a centrally positioned single-mode (science) fiber. The sensor was tested with the iLocater acquisition camera at the Large Binocular Telescope in Tucson, Arizona, in November 2019. The limit on the maximum achieved rms reconstruction accuracy was found to be 0.19/D in both tip and tilt, of which approximately 50% of the power originates at frequencies below 10 Hz. We show the reconstruction accuracy is highly dependent on the estimated Strehl ratio and simulations support the assumption that residual adaptive optics aberrations are the main limit to the reconstruction accuracy. We conclude that this sensor is ideally suited to remove post-adaptive optics noncommon path tip-tilt residuals. We discuss the next steps for concept development, including optimization of the lens and the fiber, tuning of the correction algorithm, and selection of optimal science cases