345 research outputs found
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Sea to hume fish passage task force
In 2001, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) initiated a program to improve fish passage along 2225km of the River Murray, from the sea to Hume Dam, including the construction of 15 new fishways. The three disciplines of biology, hydraulics and engineering are inherently linked in fishway design. As such, a Fish Passage Taskforce (FPTF) was established to recommend fishway design criteria and comprised a team of scientists, engineers, managers and river operators. In order to complement the FPTF, a team of freshwater fish scientists from three states of the Basin (NSW, Victoria, South Australia) was also created to quantitatively assess fishway performance and any associated longer-term benefits from improved fish passage.
The rigour instilled in the design process by the integration of the three disciplines was crucial to the overall success of the program. The FPTF has provided a good model for interdisciplinary cooperation and integration of ideas in relation to the conceptual design, construction and monitoring of fishways, setting objectives according to the characteristics of native fish species. An adaptive management approach to fishway design was taken, thus leading to constant design improvements, optimisation, and improved cost-effectiveness as the construction program progressed. The program had a strategic, holistic view and a strong ecological basis, recognising that fish migration can occur over hundreds, and occasionally thousands, of kilometres
An Alternative Teacher Preparation Journey
The following report discusses one university\u27s alternative pathway journey. Four candidates were accepted into the program the first year in the fall of 2003. Since then numbers have increased to over 175 active program participants. Such substantial growth evidences the need for highly qualified teachers, especially in particular content areas and geographic regions as highlighted in the following report. State guidelines and regulation requirements help ensure quality, rigorous programs
Rethinking the foundations: towards powerful professional knowledge in teacher education in the USA and England
In this paper, we aim to outline what foundations can offer in terms of understanding education and educational practice, and thus for providing a basis for teachersâ professional knowledge. We look critically at the struggle foundation disciplines often experience with coherence and integration in terms of both their relation to each other and to broader (e.g. philosophical or sociological) thought. We begin to rethink foundations more as a (strong, disciplinary and professionally orientated) region rather than a singular or a set of singulars (to use Bernsteinâs terms), although one that is rather different from other regions. In doing so, we suggest that Bernsteinâs work, in providing a rich lens to understand curricula and pedagogic practice while holding social and political issues and implications close, is a useful exemplar of the type of educational knowledge which should be at the core of the foundations. A revitalized region of educational foundations can offer the âpowerful professional knowledgeâ that will enable teachers to make knowledgeable professional judgements in educational practice
Guide to cataloging slotMusic based on AACR2 Chapters 6 and 9
In September 2008 SanDisk announced it would begin making music available for purchase on its microSD flash memory card format.1 The audio files on a slotMusic card are in MP3 format and are offered free of any digital rights management controls. In addition to containing an album\u27s worth of music (i.e., a slotMusic release generally corresponds to a collection of music issued on other formats such as compact disc), a typical slotMusic card may come pre-loaded with images, video, text, MIDI files, etc. Each card contains 1 GB of memory (well more than what is required for the pre-loaded content) and the extra memory can be used in whatever way the buyer wishes. Indeed, the preloaded content can be moved to another storage device and the memory card can be formatted and used like any other card.
Music on slotMusic cards can be accessed using any device that both accepts microSD cards and is able to play MP3 files at up to 320 kbps.2 In addition, some slotMusic cards come packaged with a special microSD-to-USB adapter, which makes it possible to load slotMusic content onto a computer, car stereo, or any other device equipped with a USB jack. Some slotMusic cards are also sold as bundles, which in addition to the memory card and USB adapter include special dedicated MP3 players that accept the microSD format.
Many early media responses questioned whether there would be a market for slotMusic, reasoning that music consumers interested in MP3s generally are comfortable with downloading them through computer network connections.3 But a more recent report in the Los Angeles Times argues that the format is doing better than many expected.4 Still, in April 2010, a search for âslotmusicâ in WorldCat retrieves only the record created by this task force as an example, and it is unclear whether any libraries have begun collecting this new format.
In terms of cataloging, slotMusic offers a number of challenges. Like much electronic media, the cards exhibit aspects of more than one format, in this case at least sound recordings and electronic resources. Currently, and as the name implies, slotMusic only offers musical sound recordings, but future releases could potentially contain non-musical sound. SlotMusic releases contain no descriptive information on the card itself, making choice of chief sources of information challenging. And slotMusic releases often come bundled with peripheral items (such as USB adapters and MP3 players) that contain no intellectual content, making for interesting accompanying materials notes. And finally, since the devices that can play the cards are numerous, but the technical requirements of those devices are complex, clear notes regarding the playback characteristics of the cards are necessary
David Goutor, "Guarding the Gates: The Canadian Labour Movement and Immigration, 1872-1934" (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2007)
Transcript for Episode 36: Beyond Montana: Tom Judge\u27s 2nd Term Builds International Trade and Sustainable Growth (THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT YET AVAILABLE; WILL BE INSTALLED WHEN AVAILABLE)
https://digitalcommons.mtech.edu/crucible_transcriptions/1035/thumbnail.jp
Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution
During its first 4 months of taking data, Advanced LIGO has detected
gravitational waves from two binary black hole mergers, GW150914 and GW151226,
along with the statistically less significant binary black hole merger
candidate LVT151012. We use our rapid binary population synthesis code COMPAS
to show that all three events can be explained by a single evolutionary channel
-- classical isolated binary evolution via mass transfer including a common
envelope phase. We show all three events could have formed in low-metallicity
environments (Z = 0.001) from progenitor binaries with typical total masses
, and , for
GW150914, GW151226, and LVT151012, respectively.Comment: Published in Nature Communication
Accuracy of inference on the physics of binary evolution from gravitational-wave observations
The properties of the population of merging binary black holes encode some of
the uncertain physics of the evolution of massive stars in binaries. The binary
black hole merger rate and chirp mass distribution are being measured by
ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. We consider isolated binary
evolution and explore how accurately the physical model can be constrained with
such observations by applying the Fisher information matrix to the merging
black hole population simulated with the rapid binary population synthesis code
COMPAS. We investigate variations in four COMPAS parameters: common envelope
efficiency, kick velocity dispersion, and mass loss rates during the luminous
blue variable and Wolf--Rayet stellar evolutionary phases. We find that 1000
observations would constrain these model parameters to a fractional accuracy of
a few percent. Given the empirically determined binary black hole merger rate,
we can expect gravitational-wave observations alone to place strong constraints
on the physics of stellar and binary evolution within a few years.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures; version accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Societ
STROOPWAFEL: Simulating rare outcomes from astrophysical populations, with application to gravitational-wave sources
Gravitational-wave observations of double compact object (DCO) mergers are
providing new insights into the physics of massive stars and the evolution of
binary systems. Making the most of expected near-future observations for
understanding stellar physics will rely on comparisons with binary population
synthesis models. However, the vast majority of simulated binaries never
produce DCOs, which makes calculating such populations computationally
inefficient. We present an importance sampling algorithm, STROOPWAFEL, that
improves the computational efficiency of population studies of rare events, by
focusing the simulation around regions of the initial parameter space found to
produce outputs of interest. We implement the algorithm in the binary
population synthesis code COMPAS, and compare the efficiency of our
implementation to the standard method of Monte Carlo sampling from the birth
probability distributions. STROOPWAFEL finds 25-200 times more DCO
mergers than the standard sampling method with the same simulation size, and so
speeds up simulations by up to two orders of magnitude. Finding more DCO
mergers automatically maps the parameter space with far higher resolution than
when using the traditional sampling. This increase in efficiency also leads to
a decrease of a factor 3-10 in statistical sampling uncertainty for the
predictions from the simulations. This is particularly notable for the
distribution functions of observable quantities such as the black hole and
neutron star chirp mass distribution, including in the tails of the
distribution functions where predictions using standard sampling can be
dominated by sampling noise.Comment: Accepted. Data and scripts to reproduce main results is publicly
available. The code for the STROOPWAFEL algorithm will be made publicly
available. Early inquiries can be addressed to the lead autho
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