12,754 research outputs found

    Who does what now? How physics lab instruction impacts student behaviors

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    While laboratory instruction is a cornerstone of physics education, the impact of student behaviours in labs on retention, persistence in the field, and the formation of students' physics identity remains an open question. In this study, we performed in-lab observations of student actions over two semesters in two pedagogically different sections of the same introductory physics course. We used a cluster analysis to identify different categories of student behaviour and analyzed how they correlate with lab structure and gender. We find that, in lab structures which fostered collaborative group work and promoted decision making, there was a task division along gender lines with respect to laptop and equipment usage (and found no such divide among students in guided verification labs).Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

    MECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INVERTED GIANT SWING

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    Strength, balance, flexibility, speed, proper timing, and stamina have long been considered a necessity for the sport of gymnastics. However, the explosive worldwide development of the sport the last decade established another factor --the mastering of swinging --to be of paramount importance for gymnasts desiring to succeed in competition. Among the different kinds of swings, the giant swing refers to those gymnastic skills which require a full 360 degree rotation of the gymnast's suspended body about a relatively fixed point. Depending on the direction of the rotation, the gymnast's body configuration and the type of handgrasp, the degree of difficulty for the various types of the existing giant swings ranges from low to high. With reference to the horizontal bar, the forward and backward giant swings are considered, for example, fundamental but of low difficulty, whereas the so called "inverted" and "German" giant swinqs are given high marks for difficulty

    Satellite power system: Concept development and evaluation program. Volume 3: Power transmission and reception. Technical summary and assessment

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    Efforts in the DOE/NASA concept development and evaluation program are discussed for the solar power satellite power transmission and reception system. A technical summary is provided together with a summary of system assessment activities. System options and system definition drivers are described. Major system assessment activities were in support of the reference system definition, solid state system studies, critical technology supporting investigations, and various system and subsystem tradeoffs. These activities are described together with reference system updates and alternative concepts for each of the subsystem areas. Conclusions reached as a result of the numerous analytical and experimental evaluations are presented. Remaining issues for a possible follow-on program are identified

    SHOULDER JOINT TORQUES AND THE STRAIGHT ARM/FLEXED HIPS PRESS HANDSTAND ON THE PARALLEL BARS

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    The recent rapid growth of the sport of gymnastics may be based, among other factors, on its versatility. Gymnasts attempt to win points in each of the various events by combining certain skills into spectucular eye pleasing routines. However, while the sport's governing body gives the athlete considerable freedom to choose or develop the appropriate skills for a particular routine, it also imposes certain restrictions. One of those restrictions is that routines on the floor, rings, and parallel bars should include a press handstand, i.e. a gymnastic skill requiring the slow elevation of an individual's body from an initial (usually an "L") stationary position to a handstand position. Several variations of press handstands exist depending on body configuration between initial and final positions. One of them, the straight arms/flexed hips press (SAFHP), is the variation most commonly used by gymnasts, and is depicted in Figure 3 (see results)

    Geometry-induced pulse instability in microdesigned catalysts: the effect of boundary curvature

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    We explore the effect of boundary curvature on the instability of reactive pulses in the catalytic oxidation of CO on microdesigned Pt catalysts. Using ring-shaped domains of various radii, we find that the pulses disappear (decollate from the inert boundary) at a turning point bifurcation, and trace this boundary in both physical and geometrical parameter space. These computations corroborate experimental observations of pulse decollation.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.
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