125 research outputs found
Antrim to Ayrshire
In the summer of 2007, I visited Scotland during a personal vacation. During that trip, I kept a private journal that later became the source of an interest in the genre of travel writing. In this thesis, I present a discussion of the genre, as well as, build a framework into which my writing can be placed
Closed surfaces and character varieties
The powerful character variety techniques of Culler and Shalen can be used to
find essential surfaces in knot manifolds. We show that module structures on
the coordinate ring of the character variety can be used to identify detected
boundary slopes as well as when closed surfaces are detected. This approach
also yields new number theoretic invariants for the character varieties of knot
manifolds.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figur
Perceiving Organizational Conflict: The Effect of Occupational Rank and Sex on Perceptions of Conflict in the Workplace
In this study, perceptions of conflict were examined with respect to sex and occupational rank. The model for this study was Tjosvold\u27s cooperation theory. Yet, unlike much of Tjosvold\u27s work, I examined cooperation as a dependent rather than an independent variable. A reward-level pre-test was used to account for the predisposition to cooperate, and a mixed motive scale (post-test) was used to measure any differences in cooperation between occupational ranks and the sexes. Two hypotheses in this study were tested. First, in a between-rank conflict, supervisors were expected to view the conflict as competitive, while subordinates were expected to view the conflict as cooperative. Second, it was hypothesized that in a same-sex conflict women would tend to view the conflict as more cooperative then would men. Contrary to hypothesis one, occupational rank did not affect the perception of conflict or cooperation. There was partial support for the second hypothesis. Specifically, at low levels of pre-test cooperativeness, women exhibited more workplace cooperation than did men. However, at high levels of pre-test cooperativeness, the sexes did not differ in workplace cooperation
Closeness in a physics faculty online learning community predicts impacts in self-efficacy and teaching
Community-based professional development initiatives have been shown to
support physics faculty in their adoption of research-based instructional
strategies. Hoping to better understand these initiatives' mechanisms of
success, we analyze the results of two surveys administered to a faculty online
learning community teaching a common physics curriculum designed primarily for
pre-service elementary teachers. We use social network analysis to represent
the faculty network and compare members' centrality, a family of measures that
capture the prominence of individuals within a network, to their reported
experience in the community. We use a principal component analysis of different
centrality measures to show that closeness, a measure of how closely connected
a person is with every other person in their network, is the most appropriate
centrality measure for our network. We then compare regression models according
to Bayes factors to find relationships between participants' closeness and
their survey responses. We find that participants' self-efficacy, as well as
their sense of improvement to their teaching and sense of benefitting from the
community, are predictors of their closeness with other participants and thus
their breadth and depth of participation in the community. Our results are
consistent with other studies that have highlighted interactions among faculty
as key components of successful professional development initiatives. They may
also be useful for designers of similar communities as they decide how to
prioritize time and resources to meet specific goals
Asymmetric function theory
The classical theory of symmetric functions has a central position in
algebraic combinatorics, bridging aspects of representation theory,
combinatorics, and enumerative geometry. More recently, this theory has been
fruitfully extended to the larger ring of quasisymmetric functions, with
corresponding applications. Here, we survey recent work extending this theory
further to general asymmetric polynomials.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Written for the proceedings of the
Schubert calculus conference in Guangzhou, Nov. 201
The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe
The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the
dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for
life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront
of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early
evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The
Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed
plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE
is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity
neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream
of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed
as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research
Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in
Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at
Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino
charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet
cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can
accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional
combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and
potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility
for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around
the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program
of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of
LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics
worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will
possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for
LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a
comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the
landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate
and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure
Working in the Public Interest Law Conference
Entirely student organized, WIPI seeks to bring together eminent practitioners in their respective fields, students, and faculty to discuss practical approaches to lawyering which can best serve the poor. Practical methods of challenging poverty are often not covered in traditional law school courses. This conference seeks to remedy that and provide dynamic, creative ways to combat poverty through the vehicle of the law
Multiple Phenotypes in Adult Mice following Inactivation of the Coxsackievirus and Adenovirus Receptor (Car) Gene
To determine the normal function of the Coxsackievirus and Adenovirus Receptor (CAR), a protein found in tight junctions and other intercellular complexes, we constructed a mouse line in which the CAR gene could be disrupted at any chosen time point in a broad spectrum of cell types and tissues. All knockouts examined displayed a dilated intestinal tract and atrophy of the exocrine pancreas with appearance of tubular complexes characteristic of acinar-to-ductal metaplasia. The mice also exhibited a complete atrio-ventricular block and abnormal thymopoiesis. These results demonstrate that CAR exerts important functions in the physiology of several organs in vivo
Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome
The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead
A estranha não morte da privatização neoliberal na Estratégia 2020 para a educação do Banco Mundial
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