Carryless Arithmetic Mod 10

We investigate what arithmetic would look like if carry digits into other digit position were ignored, so that 9 + 4 = 3, 5 + 5 = 0, 9 X 4 = 6, 5 X 4 = 0, and so on. For example, the primes are now 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 41, 43, 45, 47, ... .Comment: 7 pages. To the memory of Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 -- May 22, 2010). Revised version (with a number of small improvements), July 7 201

On Asymmetric Coverings and Covering Numbers

An asymmetric covering D(n,R) is a collection of special subsets S of an n-set such that every subset T of the n-set is contained in at least one special S with |S| - |T| <= R. In this paper we compute the smallest size of any D(n,1) for n <= 8. We also investigate ``continuous'' and ``banded'' versions of the problem. The latter involves the classical covering numbers C(n,k,k-1), and we determine the following new values: C(10,5,4) = 51, C(11,7,6,) =84, C(12,8,7) = 126, C(13,9,8)= 185 and C(14,10,9) = 259. We also find the number of nonisomorphic minimal covering designs in several cases.Comment: 11 page

A Study in the Humor of the Old Northeast: Joseph C. Neal\u27s Charcoal Sketches and the Comic Urban Frontier Studies in American Humor

Joseph C. Neal pioneered the urban frontier of the Old Northeast in depicting what he called hard cases from the Philadelphia slums in the long-overlooked Charcoal Sketches, first published in book form in 1838. His characters\u27 inability to change with the times, their false and vulnerable toughness, and their urban vernacular language look forward to the humor of Mark Twain, political commentators, and radio and TV sitcoms. In Neal\u27s work, the cash economy, the lightly ironic euphuistic character study, and metaphors of the city are used to describe the new social and ethical paradoxes of the urban-industrial world already emerging in the urban Northeast in his time

The Influence Of Peer-Led Team Learning on Underrepresented Minority Student Achievement in Introductory Biology and Recruitment and Retention In Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Majors

Increasing underrepresented minority (URM) participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is of increasing national importance as the United States continues to fall behind other nations in global economic competitiveness. These students constitute a large pool of potential STEM majors at the college level, but they have been recruited to and retained in STEM programs at significantly lower rates than students from other populations. As such, President Barack Obama’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has called on undergraduate science instructors to diversify their teaching methods and employ active learning strategies to improve students’ success in introductory or “gatekeeper” courses as well as improving students’ attitudes toward STEM. As a strategy that fosters active learning, Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) holds the potential to provide much of what PCAST deems necessary to improve URM student performance in introductory courses and retention in STEM majors. In the first of two studies presented herein, we found the PLTL model to be effective in improving scores for both URM and non-URM students in an introductory college science course. In the second study, we found PLTL to be associated with higher levels of retention among URM students. We conclude that participation in PLTL can help URM students who may struggle to identify with STEM to develop stronger STEM identities, which, along with higher achievement, may lead to enhanced retention

Effects of Slavery on Non-Slaves

Prof. Sloane comments on how characters in Huckleberry Finn reflect the attitudes of white people in slave territory during the time of slavery in the United States

Consensus Messaging Using Scholarly Literature: Impacts on Students\u27 Conceptions of Global Climate Change

Despite near-unanimous consensus among climate scientists, the misconception of substantial scientific disagreement over the reality of human-induced global climate change persists among members of the general public. Within the research literature on climate science, there exists robust work which quantifies and reviews the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change. This study evaluated the efficacy of using such research literature as a tool for consensus messaging among undergraduates taking an introduction to biological research course at a large, private, research-intensive university in the northeastern United States. Outcomes investigated include the potential impact that reading and discussing such research literature may have had on students’ perceptions of the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change among climate scientists, students’ key beliefs about climate change, students’ support for threat-reduction actions and climate policy, and students’ confidence in their own ability to communicate to others about the degree of scientific consensus on climate change. The findings suggest that using scholarly literature as a mode of consensus messaging is effective at aligning participants’ perceptions with the actual level of scientific consensus around climate change as well as their self-reported confidence in communicating the consensus. There was also an overall increase in the degree to which participants were worried about climate change and evidence of increased acceptance of human-induced climate change after reading and discussing these articles. Additional findings include that participants overwhelmingly perceived benefits from participation in the introduction to biology course itself, which focuses on primary literature and interacting with biology research faculty about their scientific work. Participants’ self-reported benefits included improved biology content knowledge, enhanced data analysis skills, and improved ability to read and understand primary literature

Usher’s Nervous Fever: The Meaning of Medicine in Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher

Poe translates medical descriptions into Gothic apparatus and establishes a double motif, for the narrator in telling us about these symptoms seems to ascribe them to mind and imagination even while noting the physicality of his surroundings with almost clinical detail. -- p. 14