Variable boundary II heat conduction

Computer program for solving both transient and steady-state heat transfer problems is presented. Specific applications of computer program are described. Formulation for individual nodes of solid medium for heat balance is presented. Diffusion equation is solved for all nodes simultaneously at finite increments of time

A Genre Of Collective Intelligence: Blogs As Intertextual, Reciprocal, And Pedagogical

This thesis investigates the rhetorical features of blogs that lend them dialogic strength as an online genre through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin\u27s theories of speech genres, utterances, and dialogism. As a relatively new online genre, blogs stem from previous genres (in print and online as well as verbal), but their emergence as a popular form of expression in our current culture demands attention to how blogs also offer us different rhetorical opportunities to meet our changing social exigencies as online subjects in the 21st century. This thesis was inspired by questions about how blogs redefine the rhetorical situation to alter our textual roles as readers, writers, and respondents in the new generic circumstances we encounter--and reproduce--online. Applying the framework of Henry Jenkins\u27 Convergence Culture and Pierre Levy\u27s Collective Intelligence, this thesis analyzes how blogs enable us as online subjects to add our utterances to our textual collective intelligence, which benefits from our personal experience and the epistemic conversations of blogs as online texts. In addition, it is also an inquiry into how the rhetorical circumstances of blogs as textual sites of collective intelligence can create a reciprocal learning environment in the writing classroom. I ultimately examine blogs through the lenses of alternative pedagogy--informed by David Wallace and Helen Rothschild Ewald\u27s Mutuality in the Rhetoric and Composition Classroom and Xin Liu Gale\u27s Teachers, Discourses, and Authority in the Postmodern Composition Classroom--to suggest the potential consequences of a writing education that includes how we are currently writing--and being written by--our culture\u27s online generic practice of blogs

Stories at work : restorying narratives of new teachers\u27 identity learning in writing studies.

Rhetoric and composition has a long, robust history of studying how we train new writing teachers in our graduate/writing programs; yet we lack in-depth inquiries that foreground how new writing teachers learn. This dissertation traces five graduate students learning how to be and become writing teachers, using narrative as an object and means of analysis to study the tacitly internalized process of newcomer professional identity learning. In this project, I enact narrative as a feminist, interdisciplinary methodology to restory new writing teacher research narratives away from implicit deficit or explicit resistance and toward a more generative focus on newcomers’ motivated learning and complex experiences mediated by understandings of teaching, learning, and education that precede, exceed, and infuse the program training and academic literacy histories that our research has historically privileged. Drawing on research in writing studies, education, sociology, and psychology, this dissertation conducts a narrative inquiry into new writing teachers’ identity learning by analyzing stories of teaching and learning elicited from five new writing teachers during a year-long semi-structured, text-based interview study. Using the interplay of thematic and structural analysis of participants’ 248 stories and artifact analysis of participants’ teaching texts, I practice narrative inquiry as an explicitly feminist methodology to destabilize and interrogate what we think we know about new writing teachers’ identities and understandings of learning (as in Chapter Three), experiences and teaching troubles (as in Chapter Four), and motivated desires for the future (as in Chapter Five). I also rely on interdisciplinary theories of learning and identity to understand new teachers as complex people mediated and motivated over time in ways that academic writing/composition theories alone have not adequately illuminated. Ultimately, I argue that new teacher research in writing studies should employ more complex methodologies for studying new writing teachers’ identities as learned and storied over time; and that listening rhetorically to newcomers’ stories and for learning and meaning-making is one way to interrupt unproductive assumptions about newcomer deficit or resistance and to restory our research, administrative, and teaching practices to authorize and encourage more agentive positions from which newcomers (and we all) can learn to act

Backwards Romanticism or a Glimpse of the Future? The Visual Language of Reactionary Modernism in National Socialist Landscape Painting

In 1935, two years prior to the opening of the House of German Art in Munich, Adolf Hitler declared the following during a speech to the German people in Nuremberg: “Art, precisely because it is the most direct and faithful emanation of the Volksgeist, constitutes the force that unconsciously models the mass of the people in the most active fashion, on condition that this art is a sincere reflection of the soul and temperament of a race and is not a deformation of it.” Numerous scholars have noted the importance and necessity of art in the creation and molding of the Third Reich, from the establishment of the Reichskulturkammer, or Reich Chamber of Culture under Alfred Rosenberg (and later famously run by Joseph Goebbels) in 1933 to the opening of the House of German Art four years later to Hitler’s ultimately failed plans for the creation of an even grander complex of German art in Linz. Some contemporaries of the Third Reich, including Thomas Mann, noted the direct link between the Wagnerian Romantic doctrine that “German art should not be content simply to aspire but must realize its German essence,” and Nazism. As Robert Scholz, a Nazi art theorist, described it, “the desire to create of the German people is always born from two roots: a strong sensitive inclination toward nature and a deep metaphysical aspiration.” These lofty Romantic ideals seemingly manifested themselves deeply in the artistic policies of the Third Reich as it attempted to reestablish and cement a thoroughly German Volksgemeinschaft, notably in the prevalence of idyllic German landscapes present in most major Nazi art exhibitions under the Third Reich. Nazism’s propensity for Romantic and Realist-inspired landscapes depicting the connectedness of the German people to their land and representing a longing for an idyllic, communal past belied a worldview that was both modern and regressive. Indeed, those drawn to the movement and its leaders themselves viewed it not as a refuge from the twentieth century, but a revolutionary movement intent on forming a new type of nation-state. This paper explores the tensions between the brand of perverted and philistine Romanticism that the Third Reich exploited and the technology-driven modernism necessary as a driving force behind the mass movement, tensions that Jeffrey Herf characterizes as forces of “reactionary modernism.” The means of exploring these tensions are the landscape paintings that were produced under the Reichskulturkammer. Though painting subjects favored by the Nazis ranged from images of women to genre scenes to heroic images of the leaders, landscape comprised the largest portion of painting output, representing 40 percent of the paintings displayed in the House of German Art in Munich. Though Hitler aimed to create and foster a new, “eternal” brand of Nazi art, these paintings (rarely studied seriously by art historians) have been derided as “second-rate” and derivative. They visually embody the leadership’s nineteenth century tastes as well as an empty brand of Romanticism that the Nazis used to exploit their own nihilistic goals driven by racism and a desire to destroy in order to create a New Order. These horrific goals were sold to the German people visually through comforting landscapes and rural-scapes that touted the purity of the German soil, and strength of the German peasant, and celebrated the “sublime” and superior beauty of the specifically Nordic landscape. However, another less familiar type of “landscape” emerged around 1940, deemed the “heroic landscape” by architect Paul Schultze-Naumberg. These scenes juxtaposed the unique beauty and appeal of that Nordic landscape with scenes of worksites – from granite quarries to bridges to the Autobahnen – in a manner that more aggressively stated Hitler’s progressive and modernistic goals for Germany’s future. They gained popularity during the “peak” years of the Third Reich, that is, post-1938, all and pre-1943, when victories from the Anschluß (1938) to the Fall of France (1941), all stemming from the notion of Lebensraum, bolstered confidence and made the creation of a New Order seem possible. It was at this time, it seems, that visual depictions of the more modernistic, and often disturbing (one painting depicts slave laborers from Dachau mining a granite quarry for another labor camp at Mauthausen-Gusen) were fed to the German public. These “heroic landscapes” disappear for the last two years of the Reich’s existence (according to evidence in Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich, the official National Socialist arts publication), and are again replaced by an abundance of comforting, benign landscapes and farm scenes. Ultimately, although these landscapes have been dismissed by art historians, their subject matter has much to say about National Socialist ideology and its mode of indoctrination. In spite of the derivative nature of the landscapes, in the words of historian Roger Griffin, “the Nazi exploitation of…Romanticism is not the archaism of a society nostalgic for the past, but the modernism of a regime which was nostalgic for the future.” The arts program “pulled the wool over the eyes,” so to speak, of the German people with comforting, appealing landscapes that had a deep-rooted tradition in the German collective consciousness. Following the stunning successes between 1938 and 1942, the most modern, radical, and criminal impulses of the Reich revealed themselves in painting, in the form of the still-beautiful, sanitized “heroic landscapes.” This more modern subject matter was abandoned as the possibility of German victory disappeared, replaced once again by a preponderance of those affirming landscapes and rural-scapes

Dental and Craniofacial Anomalies Associated with Axenfeld-Rieger Syndrome with PITX2 Mutation

Axenfeld-Rieger syndrome (ARS) (OMIM Nr.: 180500) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder (1  :  200000) with genetic and morphologic variability. Glaucoma is associated in 50% of the patients. Craniofacial and dental anomalies are frequently reported with ARS. The present study was designed as a multidisciplinary analysis of orthodontic, ophthalmologic, and genotypical features. A three-generation pedigree was ascertained through a family with ARS. Clinically, radiographic and genetic analyses were performed. Despite an identical genotype in all patients, the phenotype varies in expressivity of craniofacial and dental morphology. Screening for PITX2 and FOXC1 mutations by direct DNA-sequencing revealed a P64L missense mutation in PITX2 in all family members, supporting earlier reports that PITX2 is an essential factor in morphogenesis of teeth and craniofacial skeleton. Despite the fact that the family members had identical mutations, morphologic differences were evident. The concomitant occurrence of rare dental and craniofacial anomalies may be early diagnostic indications of ARS. Early detection of ARS and elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) helps to prevent visual field loss

The Battle for Higher Standards

In the aftermath of the federal mandates imposed through No Child Left Behind, the state-led effort to establish common math and English standards across states—known as the Common Core State Standards—seemed a welcome change in the approach to improving student achievement and success. However, the effort to ensure that students were ready for college or the workforce became the political target of those who distrust federal mandates and fear a nationalized education agenda bent on social engineering. The standards became intertwined with NSA spying, data mining, and federal grants for education with strings attached

Results of a patient-directed survey on frequency of family history of glaucoma in 2170 patients

Purpose.: To evaluate in different types of glaucoma frequency of family history of glaucoma (FHG), age at diagnosis, glaucoma risk in relatives, and acceptance rate of genetic glaucoma tests. To assess stage of visual field loss (VFL) in relation to FHG. Methods.: Using standardized questions whether an ophthalmologist had found or excluded glaucoma or ocular hypertension (OH), 2170 patients with glaucoma or OH interviewed all their first and second degree relatives. One thousand three hundred thirty-eight patients had POAG, 233 primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG), 148 OH, 153 normal tension glaucoma (NTG), 50 pigmentary glaucoma (PG), and 66 pseudoexfoliation glaucoma (PEX). Results.: Frequency of FHG was 40% in POAG, without significant differences compared with NTG (P = 0.08), OH (P = 0.5), PACG (P = 0.4), and PG (P = 0.6). There were significant differences in age at diagnosis between the glaucomas (smallest between group P < 0.0001). Patients with FHG were significantly younger at diagnosis than patients without FHG in all types of glaucoma (all P values ≤ 0.03), except NTG and PEX. Patients' siblings and mothers had the highest detection probability for glaucoma in POAG and OH. There was no significant relation between stage of VFL and FHG in POAG (P = 0.6). Sixty-eight percent of patients would participate in genetic glaucoma tests. Conclusions.: There is a similarly high genetic disposition in all types of glaucoma. Disease risk was especially high in mothers and siblings. In patients with FHG, knowledge of genetic disposition of the glaucomas may have led to earlier diagnosis. This highlights the need for glaucoma awareness campaigns

Evaluating Recognition Memory Models from an Individual Differences Perspective

Although recognition memory models have been thoroughly compared in various recognition memory paradigms, the relative reliability and validity of their parameters have not been thoroughly assessed using an individual differences approach. In two studies, I evaluated three models: the dual-process signal detection (DPSD) model, the continuous dual process (CDP) model, and the unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) model. In Study 1, participants performed a remember-know procedure that also included confidence ratings. When model parameters were estimated twice in the same individual, both key parameters from the DPSD model were reliable within an individual, whereas the CDP version of familiarity was not reliable (ICC \u3c .40). Fitting the UVSD model also produced reliable parameters, although the variance parameter was only moderately so. In Study 2, participants performed tests of fluid intelligence, processing speed, and recall along with the same recognition procedure as in Study 1. Structural equation modeling comparing the models’ ability to predict cognitive variables suggested that the parameters accounted for an equal proportion of variability in gF. However, the DPSD was the lone model with two parameters that predicted variance in gF Assessing the reliability and construct validity of the models’ parameters within an individual differences’ framework provided a novel test of these models. Together, the results from these studies suggest that the DPSD is the most reliable model and exhibits convergent validity with other cognitive constructs, but that there is room for further assessment of the UVSD and the DPSD using an individual differences approac