Space nuclear reactor shields for manned and unmanned applications

Missions which use nuclear reactor power systems require radiation shielding of payload and/or crew areas to predetermined dose rates. Since shielding can become a significant fraction of the total mass of the system, it is of interest to show the effect of various parameters on shield thickness and mass for manned and unmanned applications. Algorithms were developed to give the thicknesses needed if reactor thermal power, separation distances, and dose rates are given as input. The thickness algorithms were combined with models for four different shield geometries to allow tradeoff studies of shield volume and mass for a variety of manned and unmanned missions. Shield design tradeoffs presented in this study include the effects of: higher allowable dose rates; radiation hardened electronics; shorter crew exposure times; shield geometry; distance of the payload and/or crew from the reactor; and changes in the size of the shielded area. Specific NASA missions that were considered in this study include unmanned outer planetary exploration, manned advanced/evolutionary space station, and advanced manned lunar base

Is It Scholarly? A Lesson Plan for Collaborative Chemistry Information Literacy

This chapter describes a lesson plan that incorporates information literacy into an introductory chemistry course. The learning outcomes of the activity include becoming familiar with the peer-review process, knowing how to locate original research articles based on “clues” in a general news article, and differentiating between popular and scholarly periodicals. Students work in small groups in a collaborative classroom setting. The activities of the lesson plan are mapped to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The lesson plan is supported by a literature review outlining the importance of collaborative, active learning in STEM courses, and highlights the correlation between information literacy instruction and student retention

Learning my way : papers from the National Conference on Adult Aboriginal Learning

The National Conference \u27Learning My Way\u27 has made a significant contribution to the promotion of issues concerning Aboriginal adult learning styles. Staff at the Department of Aboriginal and lntercultural Studies at the Western Australian College of Advanced Education co-ordinated the input. They were responsible for taking ideas beyond the embryonic stage and shaping these into a conference format. Aboriginal participation was very strong at the conference. It was gratifying to find that Aboriginal people made up seventy percent of the five hundred in attendance. Also it is important to point out, that of the eight five papers presented, seventy three percent came from Aboriginal contributors. Most importantly this conference was structured so that everyone had a chance to have their say. Moreover it was crucial for Aboriginal people to put forward what was important to them and to say this in an atmosphere free of academic formality. This collection then is a joint venture between the Institute of Applied Aboriginal Studies and the Department of Aboriginal and Intercultural Studies. It stands in place of what would have been the 1988 edition of the Institute\u27s Journal \u27Wikaru\u27. This book deserves a wide audience and I thank all the contributors and others. To those people inside and outside of Australia who were not exposed to the conference proceedings, this book will provide you with a measure of the strength and direction in which Aboriginal Australians are moving. So it gives me great pleasure to recommend \u27Learning My Way\u27 as a means of keeping the voices alive

The biochemical and genetical analysis of lactase phlorizin hydrolase: with specific reference to the lactase persistence/ non-persistence polymorphism in man

This thesis describes investigations on the biochemical and genetical properties of human intestinal lactase-phlorizin hydrolase which were designed to help in the understanding of the molecular basis of the lactase persistence / non-persistence polymorphism in man. There were two major objectives, one was to study the expression of the lactase gene in lactase persistent and non-persistent individuals and the second was to identify as many polymorphisms as possible within the lactase gene in order to increase informativeness for linkage analysis and to explore the extent of allelic association across the gene. The expression of the lactase gene was studied in a series of samples of adult intestine. The level of the enzyme activity, the protein and the mRNA was examined in each sample. Individuals were assigned lactase persistence status on the basis of their lactase to sucrase activity ratio. The results of this analysis suggest that differences in the level of transcription of the lactase gene are important in determining the lactase persistence phenotype. Lymphoblasoid cell lines were established from 32 of these individuals and used to prepare genomic DNA. The mapping of the lactase gene to chromosome 2 was confirmed and refined to band q21 using a panel of somatic cell hybrids and in situ hybridisation. Using a variety of electrophoretic techniques which are sensitive to the detection of single base changes, polymorphisms were identified at seven different sites within the 70kb region comprising the lactase gene. Analysis of these polymorphisms in 50 families revealed that only 3 of the possible 128 haplotypes occur frequently, suggesting an area of linkage disequilibrium stretching across the whole lactase coding region. These markers have also been used for linkage analysis and enabled the identification of the most closely linked hypervariable marker (D2S44). The lactase gene polymorphisms are currently being used to study unrelated individuals as well as families characterised with respect to their lactase persistence / non-persistence status and preliminary results of this analysis are described

Science Information Literacy Lesson Plan

Students need to find “primary research” articles (also known as “scholarly,” “peer-reviewed,” or “refereed” articles), but how can they tell them apart from other types of articles, and where can they find them? This lesson is designed for a 50-minute session with student access to internet-accessible devices (laptops, tablets, etc.)

What I Learned from my Summer Research Scholar: The Transformative Impact of Undergraduate Research Mentorship on the Liaison Librarian Narrative

In 2017, the University Libraries of Grand Valley State University (GVSU) began a partnership with GVSU’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (OURS) which extended the OURS Scholars Summer Program to include the Library Scholars Summer Program. The goal of the Library Scholars Summer Program is to “provide students with the opportunity to have an intensive research experience using the library’s resources and collections.”1 Students are mentored or co-mentored by library faculty and receive a $2,000 stipend for twenty hours of commitment per week for ten weeks, culminating with a product that enhances the library for other users and contributes to the Grand Valley library mission and goals. The Library Scholars Summer Program is one of the rigorous and robust OURS Scholar & Fellowship Programs. Running concurrently with the Student Summer Scholars and Beckman Scholars program, the library scholars are required to attend several training sessions hosted by OURS prior to and during the program. Mandatory training included completing an online certificate course on responsible conduct of research, participating in an on-campus all-day research orientation, and completing an Individual Development Plan (IDP). In addition to the OURS-required components, the library scholars were expected to participate in weekly cohort readings and discussions, individual meetings with their mentors (which may include additional readings), and maintain a research journal that is shared with their mentor for formative feedback. Amongst all the required meetings, each scholar must narrow or hone the scope of their initial project proposal, implement the project, and present the final product to the entire OURS summer scholars community. In the summer of 2018, four student scholars were accepted into the program. These students were respectively majoring in Geography; Photography; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Psychology/Economics. Erica Millspaugh, Liaison Librarian to Legal Studies, Criminal Justice, and Hospitality & Tourism Management, was chosen to mentor the Psychology/Economics major, and Barbara Harvey, Liaison Librarian to Nursing, Public Health, Clinical Dietetics, and Diagnostic & Imaging Sciences (and previous liaison to several science departments), was selected to mentor the Geography major. There were no librarians available whose subject areas or educational background matched either of these two students. Erica and Barbara each have a second master’s degree (in addition to a Library & Information Science master’s); Erica’s second master’s is an MFA in visual arts, and Barbara’s is in biology. Because the main focus of the library scholars’ projects are library resources, the authors and other faculty mentors in the program thought Erica and Barbara possessed the knowledge and skills to effectively mentor these students. In this paper, each liaison will summarize their experience mentoring a library scholar, highlighting the benefits gained and challenges encountered. A literature review summarizes current practices of librarian involvement with undergraduate research, which indicates that GVSU’s Library Scholars Summer Program is unique in several ways. While the authors acknowledge that there is a wealth of literature about the benefits to students of engaging in “high impact” practices, including undergraduate research, the focus of this contributed paper is on the experience of the liaison librarian as the primary mentor of an undergraduate student research project

Effective Teaching and Learning: Using ICT

Mellar, H., Kambouri, M., Logan, K., Betts, S., Nance, B., Moriarty, V. (2007) Effective Teaching and Learning: Using ICT. London: NRDC. Available at: http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_3347.pdfResearch report for NRDCFindings and recommendations on effective teaching practice - with the aim of providing material for improving the quality of teaching and learning and for informing developments in initial teacher education and continuing development. (http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_3347.pdf

The dynamics of critical Kauffman networks under asynchronous stochastic update

We show that the mean number of attractors in a critical Boolean network under asynchronous stochastic update grows like a power law and that the mean size of the attractors increases as a stretched exponential with the system size. This is in strong contrast to the synchronous case, where the number of attractors grows faster than any power law.Comment: submitted to PR