1,006 research outputs found
Lunch: A positive intervention in the workplace?
Everybody has to eat. In humans, meal eating is typically a social event, and there is a generally positive word, commensality, to describe this fact. Commensality seems to be a situation which promotes bonding. Many people spend one third of their waking hours at work. Lunch is the meal that happens in the middle of most people’s workday and could be an opportunity to create a form of commensality. Bonding enhances well-being. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that commensality will improve well-being, including at the workplace. A study was done to see if Americans perceive a commensal situation at work to demonstrate bonding and well-being, in contrast to a similar situation without food
Faculty Development and Interdisciplinary Partnerships: Supporting Change in Instructional Practice of Engineering Faculty Members Through Professional Learning and Pedagogical Expertise
A shortage of science and engineering professionals has led to an effort to engage and retain higher education students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors in the United States. School reformers call on faculty members to shift their teaching practices towards evidence-based instructional strategies that involve students in the learning process. Professional developers provide awareness of innovative strategies, but support during implementation is rare. This case study research examined how one unique professional learning partnership (PLP) between a School of Engineering and School of Education in the Pacific Northwest supported an instructional change.
Faculty members supported by the PLP created, implemented, and assessed curriculum in an undergraduate engineering program through training, ongoing coaching, and local and national engineering education networks. In aggregate, 19 faculty member surveys, six interviews, and 42 artifacts and were collected for this study. Key findings revealed that faculty members desire more pedagogical training with their colleagues and implement evidence-based instructional strategies if they see value in the changes. While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted instruction, faculty members continued to implement strategies that connected students to the real-world using problem-based learning. Conditions that led to continued implementation included support from colleagues, pedagogical coaching, and ongoing feedback. Data evidenced an educational-related research component for faculty development could improve participation and application of new initiatives
Discovery of a Binary Centaur
We have identified a binary companion to (42355) 2002 CR46 in our ongoing
deep survey using the Hubble Space Telescope's High Resolution Camera. It is
the first companion to be found around an object in a non-resonant orbit that
crosses the orbits of giant planets. Objects in orbits of this kind, the
Centaurs, have experienced repeated strong scattering with one or more giant
planets and therefore the survival of binaries in this transient population has
been in question. Monte Carlo simulations suggest, however, that binaries in
(42355) 2002 CR46 -like heliocentric orbits have a high probability of survival
for reasonable estimates of the binary's still-unknown system mass and
separation. Because Centaurs are thought to be precursors to short period
comets, the question of the existence of binary comets naturally arises; none
has yet been definitively identified. The discovery of one binary in a sample
of eight observed by HST suggests that binaries in this population may not be
uncommon.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, 1 table accepted for publication in Icaru
A comparison of head and manual control for a position-control pursuit tracking task
Head control was compared with manual control in a pursuit tracking task involving proportional controlled-element dynamics. An integrated control/display system was used to explore tracking effectiveness in horizontal and vertical axes tracked singly and concurrently. Compared with manual tracking, head tracking resulted in a 50 percent greater rms error score, lower pilot gain, greater high-frequency phase lag and greater low-frequency remnant. These differences were statistically significant, but differences between horizontal- and vertical-axis tracking and between 1- and 2-axis tracking were generally small and not highly significant. Manual tracking results were matched with the optimal control model using pilot-related parameters typical of those found in previous manual control studies. Head tracking performance was predicted with good accuracy using the manual tracking model plus a model for head/neck response dynamics obtained from the literature
On the relationship between instability and Lyapunov times for the 3-body problem
In this study we consider the relationship between the survival time and the
Lyapunov time for 3-body systems. It is shown that the Sitnikov problem
exhibits a two-part power law relationship as demonstrated previously for the
general 3-body problem. Using an approximate Poincare map on an appropriate
surface of section, we delineate escape regions in a domain of initial
conditions and use these regions to analytically obtain a new functional
relationship between the Lyapunov time and the survival time for the 3-body
problem. The marginal probability distributions of the Lyapunov and survival
times are discussed and we show that the probability density function of
Lyapunov times for the Sitnikov problem is similar to that for the general
3-body problem.Comment: 9 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Did the Hilda collisional family form during the late heavy bombardment?
We model the long-term evolution of the Hilda collisional family located in
the 3/2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. Its eccentricity distribution
evolves mostly due to the Yarkovsky/YORP effect and assuming that: (i) impact
disruption was isotropic, and (ii) albedo distribution of small asteroids is
the same as for large ones, we can estimate the age of the Hilda family to be
. We also calculate collisional activity in the J3/2
region. Our results indicate that current collisional rates are very low for a
200\,km parent body such that the number of expected events over Gyrs is much
smaller than one.
The large age and the low probability of the collisional disruption lead us
to the conclusion that the Hilda family might have been created during the Late
Heavy Bombardment when the collisions were much more frequent. The Hilda family
may thus serve as a test of orbital behavior of planets during the LHB. We
tested the influence of the giant-planet migration on the distribution of the
family members. The scenarios that are consistent with the observed Hilda
family are those with fast migration time scales to
, because longer time scales produce a family that is depleted
and too much spread in eccentricity. Moreover, there is an indication that
Jupiter and Saturn were no longer in a compact configuration (with period ratio
) at the time when the Hilda family was created
The Calibration of the HST Kuiper Belt Object Search: Setting the Record Straight
The limiting magnitude of the HST data set used by Cochran et al. (1995) to
detect small objects in the Kuiper belt is reevaluated, and the methods used
are described in detail. It is shown, by implanting artificial objects in the
original HST images, and re-reducing the images using our original algorithm,
that the limiting magnitude of our images (as defined by the 50% detectability
limit) is . This value is statistically the same as the value found in
the original analysis. We find that of the moving Kuiper belt objects
with are detected when trailing losses are included. In the same data
in which these faint objects are detected, we find that the number of false
detections brighter than is less than one per WFPC2 image. We show
that, primarily due to a zero-point calibration error, but partly due to
inadequacies in modeling the HST'S data noise characteristics and Cochran et
al.'s reduction techniques, Brown et al. 1997 underestimate the SNR of objects
in the HST dataset by over a factor of 2, and their conclusions are therefore
invalid.Comment: Accepted to ApJ Letters; 10 pages plus 3 figures, LaTe
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