Developing a Professional Vision: The Role of Faculty Learning Labs as a Peer-Mentoring Model

This paper describes a faculty development project in which four teacher educators, who were part of a larger Faculty Learning Community, used an innovative model called the Faculty Learning Lab to support each other in critical reflections about their teaching. Within the learning lab, which was guided by Knowles’ adult learning theory, each faculty member invited colleagues to observe a lesson, priming their observations with a description of desired learning objectives. Learning lab members shared their noticings regarding evidence of student learning and their hypotheses about the interaction of factors that may have affected the learning. Exploratory analyses indicate that participation in this faculty mentoring project has helped participants develop a professional vision, as well as a sense of professional collegiality

In situ measurement of the acoustic performance of a full scale tramway low height noise barrier prototype

International audienceThe performance of a full scale low height barrier prototype meant to attenuate tramway noise is measured in situ. The prototype is made of a simple L-shape assembly of pressed wood boards covered on the source side with fibrous absorbing material, and has been set up temporarily in a residential area in the town of Saint-Martin-d'H` eres, near Grenoble, through which a tramway line passes. A series of pass-by measurements were made at a close receiver location corresponding to the typical height of human ears, with and without the device. The tram speed has been measured as well using an auxiliary microphone located very close to the track. A significant variability in pass-by levels has been found between the different trams, even when applying an approximate correction for speed. However it is shown that the barrier provides on average an attenuation of more than 10 dB(A), during the whole pass-by. Spectral analysis of the recorded signals is carried out as well to estimate the barrier insertion loss more accurately. Furthermore, comparisons between measurements and simplistic BEM calculations show that numerical predictions can yield rather good estimates of the actual in situ performance, within a few dB(A)

RSAT 2011: regulatory sequence analysis tools

RSAT (Regulatory Sequence Analysis Tools) comprises a wide collection of modular tools for the detection of cis-regulatory elements in genome sequences. Thirteen new programs have been added to the 30 described in the 2008 NAR Web Software Issue, including an automated sequence retrieval from EnsEMBL (retrieve-ensembl-seq), two novel motif discovery algorithms (oligo-diff and info-gibbs), a 100-times faster version of matrix-scan enabling the scanning of genome-scale sequence sets, and a series of facilities for random model generation and statistical evaluation (random-genome-fragments, random-motifs, random-sites, implant-sites, sequence-probability, permute-matrix). Our most recent work also focused on motif comparison (compare-matrices) and evaluation of motif quality (matrix-quality) by combining theoretical and empirical measures to assess the predictive capability of position-specific scoring matrices. To process large collections of peak sequences obtained from ChIP-seq or related technologies, RSAT provides a new program (peak-motifs) that combines several efficient motif discovery algorithms to predict transcription factor binding motifs, match them against motif databases and predict their binding sites. Availability (web site, stand-alone programs and SOAP/WSDL (Simple Object Access Protocol/Web Services Description Language) web services): http://rsat.ulb.ac.be/rsat/

Early Agriculture in the Maya Lowlands

Wetland research in northern Belize provides the earliest evidence for development of agriculture in the Maya Lowlands. Pollen data confirm the introduction of maize and manioc before 3000 B.C. Dramatic deforestation, beginning ca. 2500 B.C. and intensifying in wetland environments ca. 1500-1300 B.C., marks an expansion of agriculture, which occurred in the context of a mixed foraging economy. By 1000 B.C. a rise in groundwater levels led farmers to construct drainage ditches coeval with the emergence of Maya complex society ca. 1000-400 B.C. Field manipulations often involved minor modifications of natural hummocks. Canal systems are not as extensive in northern Belize as previously reported, nor is there evidence of artificially raised planting platforms. By the Classic period, wetland fields were flooded and mostly abandoned

Microscopic Study of Superdeformed Rotational Bands in 151Tb

Structure of eight superdeformed bands in the nucleus 151Tb is analyzed using the results of the Hartree-Fock and Woods-Saxon cranking approaches. It is demonstrated that far going similarities between the two approaches exist and predictions related to the structure of rotational bands calculated within the two models are nearly parallel. An interpretation scenario for the structure of the superdeformed bands is presented and predictions related to the exit spins are made. Small but systematic discrepancies between experiment and theory, analyzed in terms of the dynamical moments, J(2), are shown to exist. The pairing correlations taken into account by using the particle-number-projection technique are shown to increase the disagreement. Sources of these systematic discrepancies are discussed -- they are most likely related to the yet not optimal parametrization of the nuclear interactions used.Comment: 32 RevTeX pages, 15 figures included, submitted to Physical Review