1,880 research outputs found
Engaging Diversity And Marginalization Through Participatory Action Research: A Model For Independent School Reform
Authored by a university researcher, school practitioner, and high school student, this article examines how independent schools can utilize participatory action research (PAR) to bolster diversity and inclusion efforts. A case study approach was taken to showcase a two-year PAR project at a progressive independent school that sought to: (a) enrich institutional knowledge of student diversity, (b) capture the present-day schooling experiences of historically marginalized students in independent school settings, and (c) develop a dynamic action plan to ameliorate school issues that emerged through the PAR inquiry process. Committed to institutional research that informs school policy and practice, we argue that PAR provides a rigorous, student-centered, and democratic model for independent school reform
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Model instability and channel connectivity for 2D coastal marsh simulations
Reduced freshwater inflow into a coastal marsh can result in environmental stress through episodic hypersalinity. Hydrodynamic models can be used to evaluate salinity-control strategies when freshwater supplies are constrained by climate or increasing urban demands. However, there remain significant scientific, engineering, and technical barriers to correctly modeling salinity transport in such systems. In particular, the numerical instability at the wetting/drying front caused by strong wind stress and steep surface gradient and the inappropriate representation of the complex channels at practical computational scales are unsolved problems. This study documents recent achievements in modeling the timeâspace evolution of shallow marsh salinity using the Fine Resolution Environmental Hydrodynamic model (Frehd) applied to the Nueces River Delta (Texas, USA). The 2D depth-integrated model is tested across a variety of bathymetric representations derived from high-resolution lidar data to evaluate the effects of grid refinement and a variety of bathymetry processing methods. Novel treatments are proposed and tested to suppress unrealistic velocities and scalar concentrations caused by rapid wetting/drying and strong wind stress. The model results are compared with the field data collected at 12 spatially-distributed locations across the marsh, yielding good model-data agreements for free surface elevation and reasonable agreements for salinity. Analyses of results indicate that the critical difficulty for capturing salinity transport is in correctly representing connectivity effects (both blocking and channel features) at fine scales on the coarse grid without overestimating fluxes. Modeled water surface elevations are relatively robust to poor representation of connectivity whereas the salinity distribution is strongly affected, particularly at key choke points. This study defines a set of future challenges in developing automated methods for evaluating and preserving geometric connectivity at practical model grid resolution
The S-Matrix in Twistor Space
The simplicity and hidden symmetries of (Super) Yang-Mills and (Super)Gravity
scattering amplitudes suggest the existence of a "weak-weak" dual formulation
in which these structures are made manifest at the expense of manifest
locality. We suggest that this dual description lives in (2,2) signature and is
naturally formulated in twistor space. We recast the BCFW recursion relations
in an on-shell form that begs to be transformed into twistor space. Our twistor
transformation is inspired by Witten's, but differs in treating twistor and
dual twistor variables more equally. In these variables the three and
four-point amplitudes are amazingly simple; the BCFW relations are represented
by diagrammatic rules that precisely define the "twistor diagrams" of Andrew
Hodges. The "Hodges diagrams" for Yang-Mills theory are disks and not trees;
they reveal striking connections between amplitudes and suggest a new form for
them in momentum space. We also obtain a twistorial formulation of gravity. All
tree amplitudes can be combined into an "S-Matrix" functional which is the
natural holographic observable in asymptotically flat space; the BCFW formula
turns into a quadratic equation for this "S-Matrix", providing a holographic
description of N=4 SYM and N=8 Supergravity at tree level. We explore loop
amplitudes in (2,2) signature and twistor space, beginning with a discussion of
IR behavior. We find that the natural pole prescription renders the amplitudes
well-defined and free of IR divergences. Loop amplitudes vanish for generic
momenta, and in twistor space are even simpler than their tree-level
counterparts! This further supports the idea that there exists a sharply
defined object corresponding to the S-Matrix in (2,2) signature, computed by a
dual theory naturally living in twistor space.Comment: V1: 46 pages + 23 figures. Less telegraphic abstract in the body of
the paper. V2: 49 pages + 24 figures. Largely expanded set of references
included. Some diagrammatic clarifications added, minor typo fixe
Statistics of Lyapunov exponent in one-dimensional layered systems
Localization of acoustic waves in a one dimensional water duct containing
many randomly distributed air filled blocks is studied. Both the Lyapunov
exponent and its variance are computed. Their statistical properties are also
explored extensively. The results reveal that in this system the single
parameter scaling is generally inadequate no matter whether the frequency we
consider is located in a pass band or in a band gap. This contradicts the
earlier observations in an optical case. We compare the results with two
optical cases and give a possible explanation of the origin of the different
behaviors.Comment: 6 pages revtex file, 6 eps figure
Mirror Dark Matter
There appear to be three challenges that any theory of dark matter must face:
(i) why is of the same order as ? (ii) what
are the near solar mass objects () observed by the MACHO
microlensing project ? and (iii) understanding the shallow core density profile
of the halos of dwarf as well as low surface brightness galaxies. The popular
cold dark matter candidates, the SUSY LSP and the axion fail to meet these
challenges. We argue that in the mirror model suggested recently to explain the
neutrino anomalies, the mirror baryons being 15-20 times heavier than familiar
baryons, can play the role of the cold dark matter and provide reasonable
explanation of all three above properties without extra assumptions.Comment: Latex, 10 pages; Invited talk presented in PASCOS99 workshop, held in
Lake Tahoe, Dec. 1999 and DM2000 workshop held in Los Angeles, February, 200
Mirror Matter as Self Interacting Dark Matter
It has been argued that the observed core density profile of galaxies is
inconsistent with having a dark matter particle that is collisionless and
alternative dark matter candidates which are self interacting may explain
observations better. One new class of self interacting dark matter that has
been proposed in the context mirror universe models of particle physics is the
mirror hydrogen atom whose stability is guaranteed by the conservation of
mirror baryon number. We show that the effective transport cross section for
mirror hydrogen atoms, has the right order of magnitude for solving the
``cuspy'' halo problem. Furthermore, the suppression of dissipation effects for
mirror atoms due to higher mirror mass scale prevents the mirror halo matter
from collapsing into a disk strengthening the argument for mirror matter as
galactic dark matter.Comment: 6 pages; some references adde
Leptogenesis via Collisions: Leaking Lepton Number to the Hidden Sector
We propose a lepto-baryogenesis mechanism in which the non-zero B-L of the
universe is produced in out-of-equilibrium, lepton number and CP violating
scattering processes that convert ordinary particles into particles of some
hidden sector. In particular, we consider the processes mediated by the heavy Majorana neutrinos of the seesaw
mechanism, where and are ordinary lepton and Higgs doublets and
, their hidden counterparts. Such a leptogenesis mechanism is
effective even if the reheating temperature is much smaller than the heavy
neutrino masses. In particular, it can be as low as GeV.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 2 figures; as to appear in PRL, supplemented with an
additional remar
Bayesian Computing with INLA: A Review
The key operation in Bayesian inference is to compute high-dimensional integrals. An old approximate technique is the Laplace method or approximation, which dates back to Pierre-Simon Laplace (1774). This simple idea approximates the integrand with a second-order Taylor expansion around the mode and computes the integral analytically. By developing a nested version of this classical idea, combined with modern numerical techniques for sparse matrices, we obtain the approach of integrated nested Laplace approximations (INLA) to do approximate Bayesian inference for latent Gaussian models (LGMs). LGMs represent an important model abstraction for Bayesian inference and include a large proportion of the statistical models used today. In this review, we discuss the reasons for the success of the INLA approach, the R-INLA package, why it is so accurate, why the approximations are very quick to compute, and why LGMs make such a useful concept for Bayesian computing
Geophysical constraints on mirror matter within the Earth
We have performed a detailed investigation of geophysical constraints on the
possible admixture of mirror matter inside the Earth. On the basis of the
Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) -- the `Standard Model' of the Earth's
interior -- we have developed a method which allows one to compute changes in
various quantities characterising the Earth (mass, moment of inertia, normal
mode frequencies etc.)due to the presence of mirror matter. As a result we have
been able to obtain for the first time the direct upper bounds on the possible
concentration of the mirror matter in the Earth. In terms of the ratio of the
mirror mass to the Earth mass a conservative upper bound is . We then analysed possible mechanisms (such as lunar and solar tidal
forces, meteorite impacts and earthquakes) of exciting mirror matter
oscillations around the Earth centre. Such oscillations could manifest
themselves through global variations of the gravitational acceleration at the
Earth's surface. We conclude that such variations are too small to be observed.
Our results are valid for other types of hypothetical matter coupled to
ordinary matter by gravitation only (e.g. the shadow matter of superstring
theories).Comment: 25 pages, in RevTeX, to appear in Phys.Rev.
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