Research in Brief - Higher Education in an Era of Mass Incarceration: Possibility Under Constraint

In this essay, we explore the purposes of higher education in prison during an era of mass incarceration and contend that the potential of postsecondary educational opportunity in carceral spaces is undermined by a single-minded focus on reducing recidivism. Among the over 2.2 million individuals behind bars in the United States, only 6 percent have access to formal postsecondary educational opportunities, and as a result, most incarcerated students are not on an educational pathway likely to result in academic degree attainment. We must move beyond a recidivist paradigm not because certificate-based and vocational training is not valuable, but because it is simply not enough of what college-in-prison programming can be or do. Drawing upon the experiences of higher education students who are incarcerated, our analysis reveals how even well-intended practices in prison spaces pose obstacles to seeing incarcerated individuals as potential postsecondary students and degree completers

Cosmic web of galaxies in the COSMOS field:public catalog and different quenching for centrals and satellites

We use a mass complete (log($M/M_{\odot}$) $\geqslant$ 9.6) sample of galaxies with accurate photometric redshifts in the COSMOS field to construct the density field and the cosmic web to $z$=1.2. The comic web extraction relies on the density field Hessian matrix and breaks the density field into clusters, filaments and the field. We provide the density field and cosmic web measures to the community. We show that at $z$ $\lesssim$ 0.8, the median star-formation rate (SFR) in the cosmic web gradually declines from the field to clusters and this decline is especially sharp for satellites ($\sim$ 1 dex vs. $\sim$ 0.5 dex for centrals). However, at $z$ $\gtrsim$ 0.8, the trend flattens out for the overall galaxy population and satellites. For star-forming galaxies only, the median SFR is constant at $z$ $\gtrsim$ 0.5 but declines by $\sim$ 0.3-0.4 dex from the field to clusters for satellites and centrals at $z$ $\lesssim$ 0.5. We argue that for satellites, the main role of the cosmic web environment is to control their star-forming fraction, whereas for centrals, it is mainly to control their overall SFR at $z$ $\lesssim$ 0.5 and to set their fraction at $z$ $\gtrsim$ 0.5. We suggest that most satellites experience a rapid quenching mechanism as they fall from the field into clusters through filaments, whereas centrals mostly undergo a slow environmental quenching at $z$ $\lesssim$ 0.5 and a fast mechanism at higher redshifts. Our preliminary results highlight the importance of the large-scale cosmic web on galaxy evolution

The highest frequency detection of a radio relic : 16 GHz AMI observations of the 'Sausage' cluster

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We observed the cluster CIZA J2242.8+5301 with the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager at 16 GHz and present the first high radio-frequency detection of diffuse, non-thermal cluster emission. This cluster hosts a variety of bright, extended, steep-spectrum synchrotron-emitting radio sources, associated with the intracluster medium, called radio relics. Most notably, the northern, Mpc-wide, narrow relic provides strong evidence for diffusive shock acceleration in clusters. We detect a puzzling, flat-spectrum, diffuse extension of the southern relic, which is not visible in the lower radio-frequency maps. The northern radio relic is unequivocally detected and measures an integrated flux of 1.2 ± 0.3 mJy. While the low-frequency (<2 GHz) spectrum of the northern relic is well represented by a power law, it clearly steepens towards 16 GHz. This result is inconsistent with diffusive shock acceleration predictions of ageing plasma behind a uniform shock front. The steepening could be caused by an inhomogeneous medium with temperature/density gradients or by lower acceleration efficiencies of high energy electrons. Further modelling is necessary to explain the observed spectrum.Peer reviewe

The Balanced Scorecard at Futura Industries

Most companies use the balanced scorecard (BSC) to focus on the financial aspects or the operational metrics required by ISO quality certification. But that is not all one unique company uses the BSC for. At Futura Industries, President Susan Johnson built the enterprise\u27s success over the past 3 years on the BSC\u27s foundational level - the learning, innovation, and growth dimension. This dimension provides the building blocks that generate success in the remaining 3 quadrants: customer service, financial, and internal operations. And the results have followed: a 50% increase in revenue without adding personnel from 1996 to 1999. This organization is all about putting people first. So much so that the company of 300 ranks in the top 10 Family Friendly Employers in Utah for the third year in a row. A look at how they have implemented the 4 quadrants of the BSC using the learning innovation, and growth dimension as their foundation is presented

The widest frequency radio relic spectra: observations from 150 MHz to 30 GHz

Radio relics are patches of diffuse synchrotron radio emission that trace shock waves. Relics are thought to form when intracluster medium electrons are accelerated by cluster merger-induced shock waves through the diffusive shock acceleration mechanism. In this paper, we present observations spanning 150 MHz to 30 GHz of the ‘Sausage’ and ‘Toothbrush’ relics from the Giant Metrewave and Westerbork telescopes, the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the Effelsberg telescope, the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager and Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy. We detect both relics at 30 GHz, where the previous highest frequency detection was at 16 GHz. The integrated radio spectra of both sources clearly steepen above 2 GHz, at the ≳6σ significance level, supporting the spectral steepening previously found in the ‘Sausage’ and the Abell 2256 relic. Our results challenge the widely adopted simple formation mechanism of radio relics and suggest more complicated models have to be developed that, for example, involve re-acceleration of aged seed electrons

First evidence of diffuse ultra-steep-spectrum radio emission surrounding the cool core of a cluster

Diffuse synchrotron radio emission from cosmic-ray electrons is observed at the center of a number of galaxy clusters. These sources can be classified either as giant radio halos, which occur in merging clusters, or as mini halos, which are found only in cool-core clusters. In this paper, we present the first discovery of a cool-core cluster with an associated mini halo that also shows ultra-steep-spectrum emission extending well beyond the core that resembles radio halo emission. The large-scale component is discovered thanks to LOFAR observations at 144 MHz. We also analyse GMRT observations at 610 MHz to characterise the spectrum of the radio emission. An X-ray analysis reveals that the cluster is slightly disturbed, and we suggest that the steep-spectrum radio emission outside the core could be produced by a minor merger that powers electron re-acceleration without disrupting the cool core. This discovery suggests that, under particular circumstances, both a mini and giant halo could co-exist in a single cluster, opening new perspectives for particle acceleration mechanisms in galaxy clusters

Teaching as a system: COVID-19 as a lens into teacher change

In the spring of 2020, schools and universities around the world were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relative lockdown affected more than 1.5 billion learners as teachers and students sheltered at home for several weeks. As schooling moved online, teachers were forced to change how they taught. In the research presented here, we focus on university mathematics professors, and we analyze how their practice, knowledge, and beliefs intertwine and change under these circumstances. More specifically, the context of the pandemic and the relative lockdown provides us with the experimental basis to argue that the new practice affected both knowledge and beliefs of mathematics teachers and that practice, knowledge, and beliefs form a system. Being part of a system, the reactions to change in practice can be of two types, namely, the system as a whole tries to resist change, or the system as a whole changes - and it changes significantly. The research presented here proposes a model for describing and analyzing what we called a teaching system and examines three cases that help to better depict the systemic nature of teaching