Student and Faculty Views of Important Elements of Teaching in Associate Level Allied Health Programs

Teaching requires constant adapting, and need to continually reflect, and be ready to make changes when teaching elements may not prove effective. The purpose of this study was to examine faculty and student views of effective elements of teaching in an associate level allied health program. Surveys were collected from associate degree seeking allied health students and full-time faculty currently employed at a technical college in the northeastern region of the state of Georgia. The results showed a high confidence level with little to no difference in mean confidence levels between faculty and student responses on 15 Likert-scaled questions. Two open-ended questions showed little difference as well with faculty and students having similar responses when asked their preferred teaching/learning method. Results of this study will help to improve educational instruction for allied health programs

Nonperturbative corrections to moments of the decay B -> X_s l^+ l^-

We study nonperturbative corrections to the inclusive rare decay B -> X_s l^+ l^- by performing an operator product expansion (OPE) to O(1/m_b^3). The values of the matrix elements entering at this order are unknown and introduce uncertainties into physical quantities. We study uncertainties introduced into the partially integrated rate, moments of the hadronic spectrum, as well as the forward-backward asymmetry. We find that for large dilepton invariant mass q^2 > M_{\psi'}^2 these uncertainties are large. We also assess the possibility of extracting the HQET parameters \lambda_1 and \bar{\Lambda} using data from this process.Comment: 24 pages, revtex, 4 figures, added an appendix with details, results unchange

Nonperturbative corrections to B -> X_s l^+ l^- with phase space restrictions

We study nonperturbative corrections up to O(1/m_b^3) in the inclusive rare B decay B -> X_s l^+ l^- by performing an operator product expansion. The values of the matrix elements entering at this order are unknown and introduce uncertainties into physical quantities. Imposing a phase space cut to eliminate the $c \bar{c}$ resonances we find that the O(1/m_b^3) corrections introduce an O(10%) uncertainty in the measured rate. We also find that the contributions arising at O(1/m_b^3) are comparable to the ones arising at O(1/m_b^2) over the entire region of phase space.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, revte

Phenomenology of B -> pi pi, pi K Decays at O(alpha^2 beta_0) in QCD Factorization

We study O(alpha^2 beta_0) perturbative corrections to matrix elements entering two-body exclusive decays of the form B -> pi pi, pi K in the QCD factorization formalism, including chirally enhanced power corrections, and discuss the effect of these corrections on direct CP asymmetries, which receive their first contribution at O(alpha). We find that the O(alpha^2 beta_0) corrections are often as large as the O(alpha) corrections. We find large uncertainties due to renormalization scale dependence as well as poor knowledge of the non-perturbative parameters. We assess the effect of the perturbative corrections on the direct CP violation parameters of B -> pi^+ pi^-.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. Updated input parameters and added citations; expanded discussio

The Influence of Air Pollution on Corticolous Lichens near the Strathcona Industrial Area, Alberta

Lichens that grow on the bark of mature trees were studied at 35 sites along an air pollution gradient east of Edmonton, Alberta. Data on species composition, richness, and cover were recorded in October 1999 in a matrix of sites that extends from a known source of pollutants (the Strathcona Industrial Area) east across Strathcona County. Air pollution is affecting the corticolous lichen community. Lichen species richness and total cover increased with distance from the pollution source. Species richness in areas distant from pollution was roughly twice that in areas near the Strathcona Industrial Area. Xanthoria fallax and Phaeophyscia orbicularis were the most pollution tolerant lichens. Xanthoria hasseana, Ochrolechia arborea, Physcia adscendens, Parmelia sulcata, and Melanelia albertana were rare or absent near the pollution source and common in more distant areas. Most of the 15 species assessed were sensitive to air quality to some degree. Some lichens near the refineries and in Sherwood Park showed abnormal coloration and poor thallus integrity indicative of stress. We discuss implications for human health

Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction in Sri Lanka: What Methodology?

Research methodology is the procedural framework within which the research is conducted. This includes the overall approach to a problem that could be put into practice in a research process, from the theoretical underpinning to the collection and analysis of data. Choice of methodology depends on the primary drivers: topic to be researched and the specific research questions. Hence, methodological perspectives of managing stakeholder expectations of PDHR context are composed of research philosophies, research strategy, research design, and research techniques. This research belonged to social constructivism or interpretivism within a philosophical continuum. The nature of the study was more toward subjectivism where human behavior favored voluntary stance. Ontological, methodological, epistemological, and axiological positioning carried the characteristics of idealism, ideographic, anti-positivism, and value laden, respectively. Data collection comprises two phases, preliminary and secondary. Exploratory interviews with construction experts in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka were carried out to refine the interview questions and identify the case studies. Case study interviews during the secondary phase took place in Sri Lanka. Data collected at the preliminary stage were used to assess the attributes of power, legitimacy/proximity, and urgency of stakeholders to the project using Stakeholder Circle™ software. Moreover, the data collected at secondary phase via case studies will be analyzed with NVivo 8. This article aims to discuss these methodological underpinnings in detail applied in a post-disaster housing reconstruction context in Sri Lanka

Bounds and Inequalities Relating h-Index, g-Index, e-Index and Generalized Impact Factor

Finding relationships among different indices such as h-index, g-index, e-index, and generalized impact factor is a challenging task. In this paper, we describe some bounds and inequalities relating h-index, g-index, e-index, and generalized impact factor. We derive the bounds and inequalities relating these indexing parameters from their basic definitions and without assuming any continuous model to be followed by any of them.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 5 table