Recognizing Culture in Experiential Education: An Analysis and Framework for Practitioners

Experiential education is an intentional educational process that relies on experiential learning theory. This paper categorizes common features of experiential education and analyzes them with a cultural framework. Common features of experiential education include individual development, student-centered teaching, individual challenge and learning, challenge-by-choice, “emotional safety”, and reflection/processing activities. The features of experiential education that I have analyzed have basic cultural assumptions of high individuality, low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance, high achievement, emphasis on internal control, and possible interaction with ascriptive dispositions and masculine characteristics. These assumptions may have implications for practitioners practicing cross-culturally. In an increasingly global world and with the increasing popularity of experiential education all over the world, I suggest that practitioners should equip themselves with tools to work with a variety of participants and the awareness of biases and values in practices in order to continually accommodate diverse populations in a socially-just manner

Sustainable urban development in practice:the SAVE concept

The need for sustainable development of the urban environment presents the research community with a number of challenges and opportunities. A considerable volume of research has been undertaken into the constituent parts of this complex problem and a number of tool kits and methodologies have been developed to enable and encourage the application of specific aspects of research in practice. However, there is limited evidence of the holistic integration of the body of knowledge arising from the research within real-life decision-making practices. In this paper we present an overview of the existing body of knowledge relating to sustainable development of the urban environment and propose a generic framework for its integration within current practices. This framework recognises the need to: understand social, economic, and environmental issues; understand the decision-making processes; provide a means of measurement, assessment, or valuation of the issues; provide analytical methods for the comparative assessment of complex data to enable an evaluation of strategies and design options and to communicate effectively throughout the process with a wide range of stakeholders. The components of a novel sustainability assessment, visualisation and enhancement (SAVE) framework, developed by the authors to ‘operationalise’ the body of knowledge are presented and justified. These include: decision-mapping methods to identify points of intervention; indicator identification and measurement approaches; appropriate mathematical and analytical tools and an interactive simulation and visualisation platform which integrates and communicates complex multivariate information to diverse stakeholder groups. We report on the application of the SAVE framework to a major urban development project and reflect on its current and potential impact on the development. Conclusions are also drawn about its general applicability

1985 Masters of Fine Arts Graduates

MFA Class of 1985: Joanne Barthelmes, Sharon Daniel, Andrea Laborde, Mercedes Saldarriaga, Kenny Shipley, Madeline Simos, and Sally Yelkin

A Full Computation-relevant Topological Dynamics Classification of Elementary Cellular Automata

Cellular automata are both computational and dynamical systems. We give a complete classification of the dynamic behaviour of elementary cellular automata (ECA) in terms of fundamental dynamic system notions such as sensitivity and chaoticity. The "complex" ECA emerge to be sensitive, but not chaotic and not eventually weakly periodic. Based on this classification, we conjecture that elementary cellular automata capable of carrying out complex computations, such as needed for Turing-universality, are at the "edge of chaos"

Photoluminescence quenching mechanisms in type II InAs/GaInSb QWs on InAs substrates

We would like to acknowledge the National Science Centre of Poland for support within Grant No. 2014/15/B/ST7/04663.Optical properties of AlSb/InAs/GaInSb/InAs/AlSb quantum wells (QWs) grown on an InAs substrate were investigated from the point of view of room temperature emission in the mid- and long-wavelength infrared ranges. By means of two independent techniques of optical spectroscopy, photoreflectance and temperature-dependent photoluminescence, it was proven that the main process limiting the performance of such InAs substrate-based type II structures is related to the escape of carriers from the hole ground state of the QW. Two nonradiative recombination channels were identified. The main process was attributed to holes tunneling to the valence band of the GaAsSb spacing layer and the second one with trapping of holes by native defects located in the same layer.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Time-Resolved Measurement of Interatomic Coulombic Decay in Ne_2

The lifetime of interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) [L. S. Cederbaum et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4778 (1997)] in Ne_2 is determined via an extreme ultraviolet pump-probe experiment at the Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg. The pump pulse creates a 2s inner-shell vacancy in one of the two Ne atoms, whereupon the ionized dimer undergoes ICD resulting in a repulsive Ne^{+}(2p^{-1}) - Ne^{+}(2p^{-1}) state, which is probed with a second pulse, removing a further electron. The yield of coincident Ne^{+} - Ne^{2+} pairs is recorded as a function of the pump-probe delay, allowing us to deduce the ICD lifetime of the Ne_{2}^{+}(2s^{-1}) state to be (150 +/- 50) fs in agreement with quantum calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted by PRL on July 11th, 201

Multiple ionization and fragmentation dynamics of molecular iodine studied in IR-XUV pump-probe experiments

The ionization and fragmentation dynamics of iodine molecules (I-2) are traced using very intense (similar to 10(14) W cm(-2)) ultra-short (similar to 60 fs) light pulses with 87 eV photons of the Free-electron LASer at Hamburg (FLASH) in combination with a synchronized femtosecond optical laser. Within a pump-probe scheme the IR pulse initiates a molecular fragmentation and then, after an adjustable time delay, the system is exposed to an intense FEL pulse. This way we follow the creation of highly-charged molecular fragments as a function of time, and probe the dynamics of multi-photon absorption during the transition from a molecule to individual atoms

Electron Rearrangement Dynamics in Dissociating I 2 n Molecules Accessed by Extreme Ultraviolet Pump Probe Experiments

The charge rearrangement in dissociating In 2 molecules is measured as a function of the internuclear distance R using extreme ultraviolet pulses delivered by the free electron laser in Hamburg. Within an extreme ultraviolet pump probe scheme, the first pulse initiates dissociation by multiply ionizing I2, and the delayed probe pulse further ionizes one of the two fragments at a given time, thus triggering charge rearrangement at a well defined R. The electron transfer between the fragments is monitored by analyzing the delay dependent ion kinetic energies and charge states. The experimental results are in very good agreement with predictions of the classical over the barrier model demonstrating its validity in a thus far unexplored quasimolecular regime relevant for free electron laser, plasma, and chemistry application

Watching the acetylene vinylidene intramolecular reaction in real time

It is a long-standing dream of scientists to capture the ultra-fast dynamics of molecular or chemical reactions in real time and to make a molecular movie. With free-electron lasers delivering extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light at unprecedented intensities, in combination with pump-probe schemes, it is now possible to visualize structural changes on the femtosecond time scale in photo-excited molecules. In hydrocarbons the absorption of a single photon may trigger the migration of a hydrogen atom within the molecule. Here, such a reaction was filmed in acetylene molecules (C2H2) showing a partial migration of one of the protons along the carbon backbone which is consistent with dynamics calculations on ab initio potential energy surfaces. Our approach opens attractive perspectives and potential applications for a large variety of XUV-induced ultra-fast phenomena in molecules relevant to physics, chemistry, and biology.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, submitte