5,941 research outputs found
Probing physics students' conceptual knowledge structures through term association
Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and
structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set
of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the
interconnections within students' store of conceptual knowledge. The tasks have
students respond spontaneously to a term or problem or topic area with a
sequence of associated terms; the response terms and timeof- entry data are
captured. The tasks were tried on introductory physics students, and
preliminary investigations show that the tasks are capable of eliciting
information about the stucture of their knowledge. Specifically, data gathered
through the tasks is similar to that produced by a hand-drawn concept map task,
has measures that correlate with inclass exam performance, and is sensitive to
learning produced by topic coverage in class. Although the results are
preliminary and only suggestive, the tasks warrant further study as
student-knowledge assessment instruments and sources of experimental data for
cognitive modeling efforts.Comment: 31 pages plus 2 tables and 8 figure
Fish and freshwater crayfish in streams in the Cape Naturaliste region and Wilyabrup Brook
No abstract availabl
Designing Effective Questions for Classroom Response System Teaching
Classroom response systems (CRSs) can be potent tools for teaching physics.
Their efficacy, however, depends strongly on the quality of the questions used.
Creating effective questions is difficult, and differs from creating exam and
homework problems. Every CRS question should have an explicit pedagogic purpose
consisting of a content goal, a process goal, and a metacognitive goal.
Questions can be engineered to fulfil their purpose through four complementary
mechanisms: directing students' attention, stimulating specific cognitive
processes, communicating information to instructor and students via
CRS-tabulated answer counts, and facilitating the articulation and
confrontation of ideas. We identify several tactics that help in the design of
potent questions, and present four "makeovers" showing how these tactics can be
used to convert traditional physics questions into more powerful CRS questions.Comment: 11 pages, including 6 figures and 2 tables. Submitted (and mostly
approved) to the American Journal of Physics. Based on invited talk BL05 at
the 2005 Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers
(Albuquerque, NM
Disseminated histoplasmosis in an 'immunocompetent' child
A rare case of severe disseminated histoplasmosis in a 7-year-old boy with apparently normal immune function is described. Current recommendations for diagnostic investigations, monitoring and the treatment of this disease with amphotericin B and itraconazole are reviewed
Spitzer Phase Curves of KELT-1b and the Signatures of Nightside Clouds in Thermal Phase Observations
We observed two full orbital phase curves of the transiting brown dwarf
KELT-1b, at 3.6um and 4.5um, using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Combined with
previous eclipse data from Beatty et al. (2014), we strongly detect KELT-1b's
phase variation as a single sinusoid in both bands, with amplitudes of
ppm at 3.6um and ppm at 4.5um, and confirm the secondary
eclipse depths measured by Beatty et al. (2014). We also measure noticeable
Eastward hotspot offsets of degrees at 3.6um and
degrees at 4.5um. Both the day-night temperature contrasts and the hotspot
offsets we measure are in line with the trends seen in hot Jupiters (e.g.,
Crossfield 2015), though we disagree with the recent suggestion of an offset
trend by Zhang et al. (2018). Using an ensemble analysis of Spitzer phase
curves, we argue that nightside clouds are playing a noticeable role in
modulating the thermal emission from these objects, based on: 1) the lack of a
clear trend in phase offsets with equilibrium temperature, 2) the sharp
day-night transitions required to have non-negative intensity maps, which also
resolves the inversion issues raised by Keating & Cowan (2017), 3) the fact
that all the nightsides of these objects appear to be at roughly the same
temperature of 1000K, while the dayside temperatures increase linearly with
equilibrium temperature, and 4) the trajectories of these objects on a Spitzer
color-magnitude diagram, which suggest colors only explainable via nightside
clouds.Comment: AJ in press. Updated to reflect the accepted versio
A Prospective Analysis of Pharmacists Integration in the Patient-Centered Medical Home: Preparing for Value-Based Care
This is an unpublished manuscript of research completed in several patient centered medical homes that provide pharmacy services; presented at the 2016 American Pharmacists Association annual meeting in Baltimore, MD.Objective: The purpose of this project was to describe pharmacy services in a patient-centered medical home to demonstrate pharmacists’ involvement in the evolving delivery of primary care. Design: This was a prospective, qualitative study. Setting and Participants: This project analyzed the work of eight pharmacists employed at a National Committee for Quality Assurance tier III patient-centered medical home associated with a large, academic medical center. Outcome Measures: The primary outcome was to identify and quantify the types of services completed by pharmacists in a patient-centered medical home. Secondary outcomes included determining the percentage of pharmacist recommendations accepted by providers and patients, the percentage of pharmacist interventions submitted for third-party reimbursement, and the average time spent per encounter. Results: Eight pharmacists (representing 4.0 full-time equivalents) facilitated 581 encounters over 20 days. Mean time spent per encounter was 20 minutes (± 19). The most common types of encounters were interdisciplinary visits (31.8%) and phone/secure portal communication (30.0%). Of 918 pharmacist recommendations made to providers, 830 (90.4%) were accepted and implemented. Of 412 pharmacist recommendations made to patients, 393 (95.4%) were verbally accepted. Thirty-nine percent of encounters were eligible for direct payor billing. Conclusion: Our data show that pharmacists working in a patient-centered medical home are effectively integrated within the evolving delivery of primary care. Consistent inclusion of pharmacy services should be readily supported in future models of health care reform
Planning the Future of U.S. Particle Physics (Snowmass 2013): Chapter 4: Cosmic Frontier
These reports present the results of the 2013 Community Summer Study of the
APS Division of Particles and Fields ("Snowmass 2013") on the future program of
particle physics in the U.S. Chapter 4, on the Cosmic Frontier, discusses the
program of research relevant to cosmology and the early universe. This area
includes the study of dark matter and the search for its particle nature, the
study of dark energy and inflation, and cosmic probes of fundamental
symmetries.Comment: 61 page
- …