What are Students Learning?: Assessing Service Learning and the Curriculum

Service learning, a method of learning and teaching, has the potential to move our educational system into the 21st century by providing a vehicle for integrating the needs of schools and communities while reflecting current reform agendas and providing meaningful learning experiences for students. In order for service learning to play a role in the transformation of our schools, however, educators must become successful at linking service to learning- making connections between service experiences and academic learning explicit. This paper explores the meaning of learning in service learning by explicating: a) how service learning links to current standards based reform agendas and; b) how the academic learning associated with service learning can be assessed by teachers, professors, and community agency personnel

Overview of contextual tracking approaches in information fusion

Proceedings of: Geospatial InfoFusion III. 2-3 May 2013 Baltimore, Maryland, United States.Many information fusion solutions work well in the intended scenarios; but the applications, supporting data, and capabilities change over varying contexts. One example is weather data for electro-optical target trackers of which standards have evolved over decades. The operating conditions of: technology changes, sensor/target variations, and the contextual environment can inhibit performance if not included in the initial systems design. In this paper, we seek to define and categorize different types of contextual information. We describe five contextual information categories that support target tracking: (1) domain knowledge from a user to aid the information fusion process through selection, cueing, and analysis, (2) environment-to-hardware processing for sensor management, (3) known distribution of entities for situation/threat assessment, (4) historical traffic behavior for situation awareness patterns of life (POL), and (5) road information for target tracking and identification. Appropriate characterization and representation of contextual information is needed for future high-level information fusion systems design to take advantage of the large data content available for a priori knowledge target tracking algorithm construction, implementation, and application.Publicad

Engineered Resilient System Life Cycle Costing Model

In order to make the best use of the defense spending budget, it is critical that the Department of Defense (DoD) accurately predict the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E), Procurement, and Operation and Support (O&S) costs down to the third level of the Work Breakdown Structure for Major Defense Acquisition Project (MDAP) wheeled or tracked vehicles. This research utilizes historical data, extracted from government databases, to develop cost estimating relationships (CERs) that predict the life cycle cost of wheeled and tracked vehicles based on attributes. This research can also be leveraged for defense acquisition programs across the DoD portfolio. The model will be integrated into a tradespace analysis tool, ERS & CREATE-GV, which was developed by ERDC to predict the cost of each alternative created in the tradespace

Analysing Properties of Asphalt Concrete Modified with Crumb Rubber Compare to Other Mixture

Several  researchers have been undertake in finding alternative materials in order to be used as a modifier in asphalt mixture for the purpose of improving its properties. This research presents a study of laboratory evaluation on the performance of hot-mixed asphalt (HMA) using crumb rubber as an additive. It is noted that crumb rubber was identified to have potency as a modifier in HMA due to the elastic behavior exposed by the rubber particles, especially in reducing the rutting potential. This study fine crumb rubber Shred (2.36-0.85 mm) obtained by ambient-temperature grinding process from discarded truck tires, was used to modify asphalt concert. The fine crumb rubber with different contents, i.e. 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10%, was incorporated into the mixture by using dry and wet process method in differentent temperatures. The Marshal properties, Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS), Indirect Tensile Strength test (ITS) and Indirect Tensile Strength Modulus (ITSM), Permeability   were conducted. The result showed that marshal stability, Marshal Quotient, Voids in Mix (VIM) and Voids in mineral aggregate (VMA) decreased with the increasing crumb rubber modifier. However, Marshal Flow and Void filled with asphalt (VFWA) increased when crumb rubber modifier was increased. The crumb rubber asphalt mixture result indicated has increased amount of crumb rubber in asphalt concrete mixture will decrease the Marshall Stability and permeability test shows that asphalt concrete without crumb rubber lower than AC with crumb rubber strength compare to other mixture

Natural Mentors, Racial Identity, and Educational Attainment Among African American Adolescents: Exploring Pathways to Success

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92398/1/j.1467-8624.2012.01769.x.pd

Effects of a realistic hollow cathode plasma contactor model on the simulation of bare electrodynamic tether systems, The

2013 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.The region known as Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) has become populated with artificial satellites and space debris since humanities initial venture into the region. This has turned LEO into a hazardous region. Since LEO is very valuable to many different countries, there has been a push to prevent further buildup and talk of even deorbiting spent satellites and debris already in LEO. One of the more attractive concepts available for deorbiting debris and spent satellites is a Bare Electrodynamic Tether (BET). A BET is a propellantless propulsion technique in which two objects are joined together by a thin conducting material. When these tethered objects are placed in LEO, the tether sweeps across the magnetic field lines of the Earth and induces an electromotive force (emf) along the tether. Current from the space plasma is collected on the bare tether under the action of the induced emf, and this current interacts with the Earth's magnetic field to create a drag force that can be used to deorbit spent satellites and space debris. A Plasma Contactor (PC) is used to close the electrical circuit between the BET and the ionospheric plasma. The PC requires a voltage and, depending on the device, a gas flow to emit electrons through a plasma bridge to the ionospheric plasma. The PC also can require a plasma discharge electrode and a heater to condition the PC for operation. These parameters as well as the PC performance are required to build an accurate simulation of a PC and, therefore, a BET deorbiting system. This thesis focuses on the development, validation, and implementation of a simulation tool to model the effects of a realistic hollow cathode PC system model on a BET deorbit system

Data for: There’s Got to Be a Better Way! Introducing Faculty to Small Group Instructional Diagnosis for Helpful Student Feedback and Useful Formative Peer Reviews

Data for: There’s Got to Be a Better Way! Introducing Faculty to Small Group Instructional Diagnosis for Helpful Student Feedback and Useful Formative Peer Review