Educational heterotopia and student's use of Facebook

"Facebook" use in higher education has grown exponentially in recent years, with both academics and students seeking to use it to support learning processes. Noting that research into educational cyberspace has generally ignored spatial elements, this paper redresses this deficiency through using Foucault's (1986) discussion of "different spaces" to examine "Facebook" use. Recognising that more than simple façade space is also social practice, Foucault's heterotopian principles are used to explore spatial notions of difference (deviance and divergence), relational aspects (conflicts and connections) and flow (time and thresholds). It is argued that social networking sites offer possibilities for creative deviations, can foster learning communities and help to develop social relations. Yet they also distract students, allowing them to "escape" seminars, whilst giving rise to damaging, rigid definitions of work and study. Ultimately, if universities are to be architects of the future, rather than its victims, the inherent differences of such learning spaces need to be recognised and traditional notions of academic work challenged

School internet use: case studies in the sociology of risk

This research uses observation, interviews and content analysis to examine the perceived and actual risks arising from Internet use in eight educational establishments. The majority of staff interviewed expressed concern about online pornography and the dangers of web based chat rooms. Additionally staff were anxious about the risks posed by hate engendering sites, websites encouraging experimentation, copyright infringement and threats to network security. In considering these school Internet risk narratives I make a distinction between concern that the student is "at risk" and that they are "dangerous”, posing a threat to the institution. I point out that in the primary schools staff talked about students solely as being "at risk", whereas in secondary schools this concern was tempered with the view that students misusing the school Internet also posed a danger to the institution. In the post-16 college Internet risks were almost solely expressed in terms of the "dangerous student". While only a sparse student risk narrative existed, with a few students anxious about on-line pornography, chat-lines and security there was non-verbal evidence indicating that students were worried about being punished for misusing the Internet. In assessing the "student- at-risk", I argue that exposure to pornography via the school Internet was not likely to pose an actual risk, while undesirable others in chat rooms, hateful websites and sites encouraging experimentation all posed actual, though statistically remote, risks. Considering the Internet activities of the "dangerous student", I found little evidence to suggest that the issues of school image, staff authority and copyright should be a source of great concern, although I note that school network security was an actual risk which deserves more attention. Finally, I consider institutional attempts to control Internet use and alleviate some of these perceived and actual risks through the use of rhetoric, exclusion and surveillance

Complying with the NSF’s New Public Access Policy and Depositing a Manuscript in NSF-PAR

In 2016 the National Science Foundation (NSF) rolled out its new online public access repository, NSF-PAR for investigators funded by the NSF to deposit their manuscripts to comply with its new Public Access Policy. The NSF’s policy and its new publications repository differ in several key ways from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) public access policy and PMC, particularly in terms of requirements for compliance and procedures for deposit. While NIH grants may make up the majority of biomedical institutions’ research funds, the NSF is also an important source of biomedical funding, especially for career awards, research training grants, and translational research. In this webinar we will walk participants through the requirements for compliance and the process for deposit and share insights provided by the NSF Policy Office

Observation of transverse interference fringes on an atom laser beam

Using the unique detection properties offered by metastable helium atoms we have produced high resolution images of the transverse spatial profiles of an atom laser beam. We observe fringes on the beam, resulting from quantum mechanical interference between atoms that start from rest at different transverse locations within the outcoupling surface and end up at a later time with different velocities at the same transverse position. Numerical simulations in the low output-coupling limit give good quantitative agreement with our experimental data

Food Habits of Rodents Inhabiting Arid and Semi-arid Ecosystems of Central New Mexico

In this study, we describe seasonal dietary composition for 15 species of rodents collected in all major habitats on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (Socorro County) in central New Mexico. A comprehensive literature review of food habits for these species from throughout their distribution also is provided. We collected rodents in the field during winter, spring and late summer in 1998 from six communities: riparian cottonwood forest; piñon-juniper woodland; juniper-oak savanna; mesquite savanna; short-grass steppe; and Chihuahuan Desert scrubland. Rodents included Spermophilus spilosoma (Spotted Ground Squirrel), Perognathus flavescens (Plains Pocket Mouse), Perognathus flavus (Silky Pocket Mouse), Dipodomys merriami (Merriams Kangaroo Rat), Dipodomys ordii (Ord\u27s Kangaroo Rat), Dipodomys spectabilis (Banner-tailed Kangaroo Rat), Reithrodontomys megalotis (Western Harvest Mouse), Peromyscus boylii (Brush Mouse), Peromyscus eremicus (Cactus Mouse), Peromyscus leucopus (White-footed Mouse), Peromyscus truei (Piñon Mouse), Onychomys arenicola (Mearn\u27s Grasshopper Mouse), Onychomys leucogaster (Northern Grasshopper Mouse), Neotoma albigula/leucodon (White-throated Woodrats), and Neotoma micropus (Southern Plains Woodrat). We collected stomach contents of all species, and cheek-pouch contents of heteromyids, and quantified them in the laboratory. We determined seasonal diets in each habitat by calculating mean percentage volumes of seeds, arthropods and green vegetation (plant leaves and stems) for each species of rodent. Seeds consumed by each rodent were identified to genus, and often species, and quantified by frequency counts. Comparisons of diets between and among species of rodents, seasons, and ecosystems were also examined. We provide an appendix of all plant taxa documented.\u2

The Research Data Management Interview

This presentation was given as part of the RDAP Summit, 2019 Train-the-Trainer: Developing a Research Data Management Workshop to Support Graduate Student NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant ProposalsPresenters: Andrew Creamer (Brown University), Hope Lappen (New York University), Sam Simas (Bryant University)Workshop Objectives: Participants will be able to:1. Teach graduate student researchers to navigate Research.gov and FastLane and provide overview of solicitation, supplementary document requirements, and public access compliance requirements, including depositing in NSF-PAR 2. Point out common pitfalls for graduate students navigating and complying with solicitation and PAPPG 3. Conduct an evaluation of students previously funded DDRIGs regarding their projects’ data collection and documentation needs and lessons learned to incorporate into the workshops Pull together a resource list of experts and offices to support data storage, data security, intellectual property, and ethics to support their research goals 4. Consult on directorate-specific Data Management Plans for their proposed DDRI projects that integrate library research data management resources among others, and help students locate and integrate data documentation standards utilized by the repositories and journals in their field 5. Consult on the development of students’ Broader Impacts plan for their DDRI project

Bird Flu Spreading to Farmed Mammals in the US

The more mammalian species infected by bird flu, the greater the threat of a new pandemic

Session D, 2016 Second Place: Plankton: I don\u27t know, I didn\u27t think we\u27d get this far

At the Cranberry Lake Biological Station, motorboats are used daily in order to allow students to observe the natural environment around them by conducting research, making observations and exploring. Zooplankton are an essential part of the Cranberry lake food chain, and high amounts of boat traffic may negatively affect their abundance in the water. Due to the varying degrees of gas levels in the lake, it is hypothesized that zooplankton from the marina will have lower percent mortality than the zooplankton from the swimming dock in the presence of gasoline (µL-1). Zooplankton samples were collected from the swimming dock and the marina. Water samples were then collected from Sucker Brook, the swimming dock, and the marina and used to compare the percent mortality between the zooplankton from the marina versus the dock. The experimental groups were exposed to 100 µL-1 gasoline, and both control and experimental groups were allowed to sit for 20 minutes. At the end of the twenty minute treatments, the number of alive and dead zooplankton were counted; twelve replications of this were completed. Statistical analysis will include ANOVA and paired t-tests. It is predicted that mortality rates of the marina plankton will be significantly less than dock plankton in all treatments

Mobile Technology for Empowering Health Workers in Underserved Communities: New Approaches to Facilitate the Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

BACKGROUND As global mobile phone penetration increases, direct health information communication from hard-to-reach communities is becoming commonplace. Mobile health (mHealth) tools that enable disease control programs to benefit from this information, while simultaneously empowering community members to take control of their own health, are vital to the goal of universal health care. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to highlight the development of the Liverpool mHealth Suite (LMS), which has been designed to address this need and improve health services for neglected tropical diseases being targeted for global elimination, such as lymphatic filariasis. METHODS The LMS has two main communication approaches-short message service and mobile phone apps-to facilitate real-time mass drug administration (MDA) coverage, reporting patient numbers, managing stock levels of treatment supplies, and exchanging health information to improve the quality of care of those affected. RESULTS The LMS includes the MeasureSMS-MDA tool to improve drug supplies and MDA coverage rates in real-time (currently being trialed in urban Tanzania); the MeasureSMS-Morbidity tool to map morbidity, including lymphedema and hydrocele cases (initially piloted in rural Malawi and Ghana, then extended to Ethiopia, and scaled up to large urban areas in Bangladesh and Tanzania); the LyMSS-lymphedema management supply system app to improve distribution of treatments (trialed for 6 months in Malawi with positive impacts on health workers and patients); and the HealthFront app to improve education and training (in development with field trials planned). CONCLUSIONS The current success and scale-up of the LMS by many community health workers in rural and urban settings across Africa and Asia highlights the value of this simple and practical suite of tools that empowers local health care workers to contribute to local, national, and global elimination of disease