Two Boats, Three Summers, Five Universities, One Dozen Instructors, and Sixty-Five Teachers: A Collaborative Oceanography Field Program for Earth Science

A three-day field workshop was an integral component of the graduate-level course entitled, Oceanography, that was offered by Virginia Earth Science Collaborative Project (VESC) to help Virginia educators earn the earth science teaching endorsement. The VESC partner institutions that offered Oceanographngeorge Mason University, James Madison University, the University of Virginia Southwest Center, and Virginia Commonwealth University-lacked direct access to research and education facilities en the coast. The College of William & Mary, another VESC partner, provided this resource through the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s (VIMS) Eastern Shore Laboratory in Wachapreague, Virginia. The field program agenda and activities were developed and conducted by a team comprised of VESC oceanography faculty, Virginia Sea Grant educators, and a scientist from VIMS. This collaboration resulted in a program design used as the basis for six workshops conducted over three summers. Seventy-nine Virginia middle school and high school science teachers took part in the six workshops, conducted in July of 2005, 2006, and 2007. This article describes the workshop activities and provides perspectives on its design and implementation from the viewpoints of Virginia Sea Grant educators who served as field instructors

Lattice Universes in 2+1-dimensional gravity

Lattice universes are spatially closed space-times of spherical topology in the large, containing masses or black holes arranged in the symmetry of a regular polygon or polytope. Exact solutions for such spacetimes are found in 2+1 dimensions for Einstein gravity with a non-positive cosmological constant. By means of a mapping that preserves the essential nature of geodesics we establish analogies between the flat and the negative curvature cases. This map also allows treatment of point particles and black holes on a similar footing.Comment: 14 pages 7 figures, to appear in Festschrift for Vince Moncrief (CQG

Electro-Reflectance Spectra of Blue Bronze

We show that the infrared reflectance of the quasi-one dimensional charge-density-wave (CDW) conductor K0.3MoO3 (blue bronze) varies with position when a voltage greater than the CDW depinning threshold is applied. The spatial dependence and spectra associated with these changes are generally as expected from the electro-transmission [B.M. Emerling, et al, Eur. Phys. J. B 16, 295 (2000)], but there are some differences which might be associated with changes in the CDW properties on the surface. We have examined the electro-reflectance spectrum associated with CDW current investigation for light polarized parallel to the conducting chains for signs of expected current-induced intragap states, and conclude that the density of any such states is at least an order of magnitude lower than expected.Comment: 1)submitted to Eur. Phys. J B 2) revised (July 24) to a) better emphasize results and b) with new figure insets to make paper more self-containe

The isolation of gravitational instantons: Flat tori V flat R^4

The role of topology in the perturbative solution of the Euclidean Einstein equations about flat instantons is examined.Comment: 15 pages, ICN-UNAM 94-1

Reversibility Checking for Markov Chains

In this paper, we present reversibility preserving operations on Markov chain transition matrices. Simple row and column operations allow us to create new reversible transition matrices and yield an easy method for checking a Markov chain for reversibility

Monetary policy and economic activity: a postwar review

Monetary policy ; Financial markets ; Economic conditions

Black Holes and Wormholes in 2+1 Dimensions

A large variety of spacetimes---including the BTZ black holes---can be obtained by identifying points in 2+1 dimensional anti-de Sitter space by means of a discrete group of isometries. We consider all such spacetimes that can be obtained under a restriction to time symmetric initial data and one asymptotic region only. The resulting spacetimes are non-eternal black holes with collapsing wormhole topologies. Our approach is geometrical, and we discuss in detail: The allowed topologies, the shape of the event horizons, topological censorship and trapped curves.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 11 figure