20,271 research outputs found
Student Veterans/Service Members' Engagement in College and University Life and Education
Since the passage of the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, also known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the enrollment of active-duty service members and veterans in American colleges and universities has increased substantially. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than three-quarters of a million veterans have used their earned benefit to enroll in postsecondary courses. In response to the influx of veteran student enrollment, a group of higher education associations and veterans' organizations collaborated in 2009 and 2012 on a study that asked college and university administrators whether their institutions had geared up campus programs and services specifically designed to support the unique needs of veterans.1 The results indicated that administrators had indeed increased support levels, sometimes by quite significant margins.But how do student veterans/service members perceive their experiences at higher education institutions? To date, there is little or no information to assess whether the efforts by institutions to provide targeted programs and services are helpful to the veterans and service members enrolled in colleges and universities. Similarly, not much is known about the transition to postsecondary education from military service experienced by student veterans/service members, or whether these students are engaged in both academic programs and college and university life to their fullest potential. In this context, this issue brief explores student veteran/service member engagement in postsecondary education. The brief utilizes data from the 2012 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), an annual survey of students enrolled in four-year universities, to assess how student veterans/service members perceive their integration on campus.A key finding is that student veterans/servicemembers are selective about the campus life and academic activities in which they invest their time. Student veterans/service members are morelikely to be first-generation students -- the first in their families to attend a college or university -- and older than nonveteran/civilian students; they therefore tend to have responsibilities outside of higher education that put constraints on their time.Student veterans/service members report placing greater emphasis on academic areas that they find essential for academic progress than on college and university life and activities -- academic or otherwise -- that are not essential for success in the courses in which they are enrolled. Student veterans/ service members are less likely to participate in co curricular activities, and they dedicate less time to relaxing and socializing than nonveteran/ civilian students
Profile of On-Line Anatomy Information Resources: Design and Instructional Implications
This study is based on a review of 40 on-line anatomy web resources compiled from sites selected from our own searches as well as sites reviewed and published by an external group (Voiglio et al., 1999, Surg. Radiol. Anat. 21:65-68; Frasca et al., 2000, Surg. Radiol. Anat. 22:107-110). The purpose of our survey was to propose criteria by which anatomy educators could judge the characteristics of the currently available web-based resources for incorporation into the courses they teach. Each site was reviewed and scored based on a survey matrix that included four main categories: 1). site background information, 2). content components, 3). interactivity features, and 4). user interface design components. The average score of the reviewed sites was 3.3 of the total possible score of 10, indicating the limited use of computer-based design features by the majority of sites. We found, however, a number of programs in each of the survey categories that could serve as prototypes for designing future on-line anatomy resources. From the survey we conclude that various design features are less important than the comprehensiveness, depth, and logical organization of content. We suggest that the content should be sufficient for supporting explicitly defined educational objectives, which should target specific end-user populations. The majority of anatomy programs currently accessible on-line fall short of these requirements. There is a need for a coordinated and synergistic effort to generate a comprehensive anatomical information resource that is of sufficient quality and depth to support higher levels of learning beyond the memorization of structure names. Such a resource is a prerequisite for meaningful on-line anatomy education
Edge Detecting New Physics the Voronoi Way
We point out that interesting features in high energy physics data can be
determined from properties of Voronoi tessellations of the relevant phase
space. For illustration, we focus on the detection of kinematic "edges" in two
dimensions, which may signal physics beyond the standard model. After deriving
some useful geometric results for Voronoi tessellations on perfect grids, we
propose several algorithms for tagging the Voronoi cells in the vicinity of
kinematic edges in real data. We show that the efficiency is improved by the
addition of a few Voronoi relaxation steps via Lloyd's method. By preserving
the maximum spatial resolution of the data, Voronoi methods can be a valuable
addition to the data analysis toolkit at the LHC.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
Making Every Study Count: Learning From Replication Failure to Improve Intervention Research
Why, when so many educational interventions demonstrate positive impact in tightly controlled efficacy trials, are null results common in follow-up effectiveness trials? Using case studies from literacy, this article suggests that replication failure can surface hidden moderators—contextual differences between an efficacy and an effectiveness trial—and generate new hypotheses and questions to guide future research. First, replication failure can reveal systemic barriers to program implementation. Second, it can highlight for whom and in what contexts a program theory of change works best. Third, it suggests that a fidelity first and adaptation second model of program implementation can enhance the effectiveness of evidence-based interventions and improve student outcomes. Ultimately, researchers can make every study count by learning from both replication success and failure to improve the rigor, relevance, and reproducibility of intervention research
X-ray fluoresced high-Z (up to Z = 82) K-x-rays produced by LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 pyroelectric crystal electron accelerators
High-energy bremsstrahlung and K X-rays were used to produce nearly
background-free K X-ray spectra of up to 87 keV (Pb) via X-ray fluorescence.
The fluorescing radiation was produced by electron accelerators, consisting of
heated and cooled cylindrical LiTaO3 and LiNbO3 crystals at mTorr pressures.
The newly discovered process of gas amplification whereby the ambient gas
pressure is optimized to maximize the electron energy was used to produce
energetic electrons which when incident on a W/Bi target gave rise to a
radiation field consisting of high-energy bremsstrahlung as well as W and Bi K
X-rays. These photons were used to fluoresce Ta and Pb K X-rays.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, PD
Falling into the gap: The coloniality of achievement gap discourses and their responses
This paper critically analyzes gap discourses in student learning, starting from the achievement gap, education debt, and opportunity gaps, applying the lens of coloniality, racial capitalism, and modernity (CRCM). Gap discourses are the prevalent rationale behind educational policies and school reforms globally. Specifically in the United States, achievement gap discourses contribute substantially to the educational framework that minoritized students (students of color) are inherently – intellectually and academically – behind White students. This paper will show the pervasive power of achievement gap discourses and their influence on school policy, practices, and norms. Additionally, we highlight how some of the most formidable achievement gap critiques fail to grasp the power of gap discourses. In some cases, these critiques end up reifying White supremacy ideologies. We propose a decoloniality framework or a layered and multi-disciplinary response to help re-think the entire gap discourses informed by White supremacy
Identifying Phase Space Boundaries with Voronoi Tessellations
Determining the masses of new physics particles appearing in decay chains is
an important and longstanding problem in high energy phenomenology. Recently it
has been shown that these mass measurements can be improved by utilizing the
boundary of the allowed region in the fully differentiable phase space in its
full dimensionality. Here we show that the practical challenge of identifying
this boundary can be solved using techniques based on the geometric properties
of the cells resulting from Voronoi tessellations of the relevant data. The
robust detection of such phase space boundaries in the data could also be used
to corroborate a new physics discovery based on a cut-and-count analysis.Comment: 48 pages, 23 figures, Journal-submitted versio
Enhancing the discovery prospects for SUSY-like decays with a forgotten kinematic variable
The lack of a new physics signal thus far at the Large Hadron Collider
motivates us to consider how to look for challenging final states, with large
Standard Model backgrounds and subtle kinematic features, such as cascade
decays with compressed spectra. Adopting a benchmark SUSY-like decay topology
with a four-body final state proceeding through a sequence of two-body decays
via intermediate resonances, we focus our attention on the kinematic variable
which previously has been used to parameterize the boundary of the
allowed four-body phase space. We highlight the advantages of using
as a discovery variable, and present an analysis suggesting that
the pairing of with another invariant mass variable leads to a
significant improvement over more conventional variable choices and techniques.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures. v2: matches published versio
Improving the sensitivity of stop searches with on-shell constrained invariant mass variables
The search for light stops is of paramount importance, both in general as a
promising path to the discovery of beyond the standard model physics and more
specifically as a way of evaluating the success of the naturalness paradigm.
While the LHC experiments have ruled out much of the relevant parameter space,
there are "stop gaps", i.e., values of sparticle masses for which existing LHC
analyses have relatively little sensitivity to light stops. We point out that
techniques involving on-shell constrained M_2 variables can do much to enhance
sensitivity in this region and hence help close the stop gaps. We demonstrate
the use of these variables for several benchmark points and describe the effect
of realistic complications, such as detector effects and combinatorial
backgrounds, in order to provide a useful toolkit for light stop searches in
particular, and new physics searches at the LHC in general.Comment: 49 pages, 28 figures, revised version published in JHEP, references
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