Selected localities in the Taconics and their implications for the plate tectonic origin of the Taconic region

Guidebook for field trips in western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut and adjacent areas of New York: 67th annual meeting October 10, 11, and 12, 1975: Trip B-1; C-

Scapegoat: John Dewey and the character education crisis

Many conservatives, including some conservative scholars, blame the ideas and influence of John Dewey for what has frequently been called a crisis of character, a catastrophic decline in moral behavior in the schools and society of North America. Dewey’s critics claim that he is responsible for the undermining of the kinds of instruction that could lead to the development of character and the strengthening of the will, and that his educational philosophy and example exert a ubiquitous and disastrous influence on students’ conceptions of moral behavior. This article sets forth the views of some of these critics and juxtaposes them with what Dewey actually believed and wrote regarding character education. The juxtaposition demonstrates that Dewey neither called for nor exemplified the kinds of character-eroding pedagogy his critics accuse him of championing; in addition, this paper highlights the ways in which Dewey argued consistently and convincingly that the pedagogical approaches advocated by his critics are the real culprits in the decline of character and moral education

Studies of the Relativistic Binary Pulsar PSR B1534+12. II. Origin and Evolution

We have recently measured the angle between the spin and orbital angular momenta of PSR B1534+12 to be either 25+/-4 deg or 155+/-4 deg. This misalignment was almost certainly caused by an asymmetry in the supernova explosion that formed its companion neutron star. Here we combine the misalignment measurement with measurements of the pulsar and companion masses, the orbital elements, proper motion, and interstellar scintillation. We show that the orbit of the binary in the Galaxy is inconsistent with a velocity kick large enough to produce a nearly antialigned spin axis, so the true misalignment must be ~25 deg. Similar arguments lead to bounds on the mass of the companion star immediately before its supernova: 3+/-1 Msun. The result is a coherent scenario for the formation of the observed binary. After the first supernova explosion, the neutron star that would eventually become the observed pulsar was in a Be/X-ray type binary system with a companion of at least 10--12 Msun. During hydrogen (or possibly helium) shell burning, mass transfer occurred in a common envelope phase, leaving the neutron star in a roughly half-day orbit with a helium star with mass above ~3.3 Msun. A second phase of mass transfer was then initiated by Roche lobe overflow during shell helium burning, further reducing both the helium star mass and orbital period before the second supernova. Scenarios that avoid Roche lobe overflow by the helium star require larger helium star masses and predict space velocities inconsistent with our measurements. The companion neutron star experienced a velocity kick of 230+/-60 km/s at birth, leading to a systemic kick to the binary of 180+/-60 km/s.Comment: 9 pages, submitted to ApJ. Abstract shortened. Version with high-resolution figures available at http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/stairs/papers/tds04_orig.ps.g

Skills, strategies, sport and social responsibility : reconnecting physical education

Physical education is one of the more difficult subjects in the curriculum for generalist classroom teachers in primary schools to incorporate confidently into their teaching. In many primary schools, the generalist classroom teacher defers to a physical education specialist. This situation has both positive and negative features. In this context, this study brings together several prominent models of physical education teaching in an approach that enables the curriculum to be encountered through the interests of the children. This approach offers a generalist teacher, through appropriate professional development, a means for delivering a high-quality physical education programme, and also complements the repertoire of the specialist physical education teacher at both primary and secondary school levels.<br /

Climatology of the daily temperature range annual cycle in the United States

Many researchers are presently interested in detecting long-term trends in annual or seasonal daily temperature range (DTR), and attributing these changes to anthropogenic origins. However, very little work has been done to confirm the mechanisms that are important to determining the long-term average annual cycle of the DTR. Therefore, the focus of this work is to examine the spatial and temporal difference in the DTR average annual cycle across the United States, and to associate the patterns of these cycles with potential causal variables. Three major types of DTR annual cycle exist in the United States: high sun season maximum (northern and western U.S.), low sun season maximum (south central and southeast U.S.), and transitional season maxima (middle latitude in the U.S.). The annual cycles of the DTR in the northern and western U.S. are well related to average annual cycles of cloud cover and dew point temperature; only areas to the west of the Rocky Mountains have a strong linkage between DTR and precipitation frequency annual cycles. Across the northern tier of the U.S., the loss of snow cover is important to DTR transitions during the spring season. However, the onset of snow cover in the fall does not appear to be the major factor in DTR variations, which are instead more strongly associated with cloud cover effects. As expected from their sinusoidal annual cycle, maximum and minimum temperature cycles are linearly related to the DTR in regions with a warm season or cold season DTR maximum, while non-linear relationships exist where the DTR annual cycle has maxima in the transition seasons

Is there a gender difference in noninvasive coronary imaging? Multislice computed tomography for noninvasive detection of coronary stenoses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multislice computed tomography (MSCT) coronary angiography is the foremost alternative to invasive coronary angiography.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We sought to compare the diagnostic accuracy of MSCT in female and male patients with suspected coronary disease. Altogether 50 women and 95 men underwent MSCT with 0.5 mm detector collimation. Coronary artery stenoses of at least 50% on conventional coronary angiography were considered significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The coronary vessel diameters of all four main coronary artery branches were significantly larger in men than in women. The diagnostic accuracy of MSCT in identifying patients with coronary artery disease was significantly lower for women (72%) compared with men (89%, <it>p </it>< 0.05). Also sensitivity (70% vs. 95%), positive predictive value (64% vs. 93%), and the rate of nondiagnostic examinations (14% vs. 4%, all: <it>p </it>< 0.05) were significantly worse for women. The effective radiation dose of MSCT coronary angiography was significantly higher in the examination of women (13.7 ± 1.2 mSv) than of men (11.7 ± 0.9 mSv, <it>p </it>< 0.001), mainly as a result of the fact that the radiosensitive female breast (contributing 24.5% of the dose in women) is in the x-ray path.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Noninvasive coronary angiography with MSCT might be less accurate and sensitive for women than men. Also, women are exposed to a significantly higher effective radiation dose than men.</p

A Clinical Trial

Purpose The aim of this study was the systematic image quality evaluation of coronary CT angiography (CTA), reconstructed with the 3 different levels of adaptive iterative dose reduction (AIDR 3D) and compared to filtered back projection (FBP) with quantum denoising software (QDS). Methods Standard-dose CTA raw data of 30 patients with mean radiation dose of 3.2 ± 2.6 mSv were reconstructed using AIDR 3D mild, standard, strong and compared to FBP/QDS. Objective image quality comparison (signal, noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), contour sharpness) was performed using 21 measurement points per patient, including measurements in each coronary artery from proximal to distal. Results Objective image quality parameters improved with increasing levels of AIDR 3D. Noise was lowest in AIDR 3D strong (p≤0.001 at 20/21 measurement points; compared with FBP/QDS). Signal and contour sharpness analysis showed no significant difference between the reconstruction algorithms for most measurement points. Best coronary SNR and CNR were achieved with AIDR 3D strong. No loss of SNR or CNR in distal segments was seen with AIDR 3D as compared to FBP. Conclusions On standard- dose coronary CTA images, AIDR 3D strong showed higher objective image quality than FBP/QDS without reducing contour sharpness