Zhuang Zi and the Education of the Emotions

This paper examines and defends a conception of the education of emotions found in the Zhuang-Zi. I begin by exploring four principal features of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy as it relates to the emotions: his epistemological perspectivism, his view of the self, his ethics of wandering and natural spontaneity, and his playful non-seriousness. Together these four features allow us to discern a general orientation to the education of the emotions, including a normative account of a good emotional life as well some suggestions for a pedagogy for the development of such a life

An empirical investigation into the use of product development in the educational furniture industry : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

An empirical investigation into the use of product development in the educational furniture industry is summarised in this thesis. New Zealand furniture manufacturers are facing increased competition from imported furniture and are also exporting more and more furniture. Developing new products is therefore important to the New Zealand furniture industry's growth. This research was based on a small furniture-manufacturing firm from Hastings, New Zealand called Furnware Industries Limited (Furnware). A product development process was developed to their specific needs by comparing their current product development activities with identified best practices in product development. Those parts of the current activities that worked well were amalgamated with the structured Stage-Gateœ process of Cooper (1998). This process was tested by using it to develop a Mobile Technology Education Workstation range for Furnware. The aim of the project was to develop a new product for Furnware to sell and to simultaneously test the developed process. Once the project was completed, an evaluation of the product development process used was undertaken. Several areas for improvement were identified and a revised process outlined. The use of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software was identified as another area of improvement that would assist both product development activities and existing manufacturing processes at Furnware. Consequently, a CAD package best suited to Furnware is selected using a structured process. The three main outcomes of the research were: 1. A product development process suited to Furnware. 2. A Mobile Technology Education Workstation range of products ready for launch, pending minor adjustments and testing. 3. A CAD software package suggested for use at Furnware

Investigating how Students Think About and Learn Quantum Physics: An Example from Tunneling

Much of physics education research (PER) has focused on introductory courses and topics, with less research done into how students learn physics in advanced courses. Members of The University of Maine Physics Education Research Laboratory (PERL) have begun studying how students in advanced physics courses reason about classical mechanics, thermal physics, and quantum physics. Here, we describe an investigation into how students reason about quantum mechanical tunneling, and detail how those findings informed a portion of a curriculum development project. Quantum mechanical tunneling is a standard topic discussed in most modern physics and quantum physics courses. Understanding tunneling is crucial to making sense of several topics in physics, including scanning tunneling microscopy and nuclear decay. To make sense of the standard presentation of tunneling, students must track total, potential, and kinetic energies. Additionally, they must distinguish between the ideas of energy, probability density, and the wave function. They need to understand the complex nature of the wave function, as well as understand what can and cannot be inferred from a solution to the time-independent Schrödinger equation. Our investigations into student understanding of these ideas consisted of a series of interviews, as well as a survey. Both centered around asking students to reason about energy, probability, and the wave function solutions for the standard square potential energy barrier scenario presented in most textbooks. We describe ideas that students seem to successfully learn following standard instruction, as well as common difficulties that remain. Additionally, we present multiple data points from a small population of physics majors over three years and describe how some of their reasoning about tunneling changed, while other portions seemed to remain unaffected by instruction. We used the results of these investigations to write tutorials on tunneling and applications of tunneling. The tutorials were part of a course on introductory quantum physics for non-science majors. In this course, most of the ideas were introduced in the small-group, student-centered tutorial-labs. We present evidence that this population can learn some basic ideas of quantum physics, and on certain tunneling questions perform as well or better than advanced undergraduate students

Effects of Grain Size and Dopants on the Irradiation Response of Actinide Oxides

High energy irradiation can induce physical and chemical changes in nuclear materials, impacting their properties and performance in reactor systems. Of particular interest is the radiation response of actinide oxides, such as UO2 [Uranium Dioxide] and ThO2 [Thorium Dioxide], as well as analogue materials such as CeO2 [Cerium Dioxide]. During the course of reactor operations, these nuclear materials are exposed to high energy ionizing radiation in the form of nuclear fission fragments. This study simulates the extreme conditions found in a nuclear reactor by utilizing accelerated heavy ions with mass and kinetic energy comparable to fission fragments in order to examine the effects of microstructure and rare earth doping on the irradiation response of nuclear-fuel materials. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments performed at the Advanced Photon Source and transmission electron microscopy were used to characterize the samples before and after ion irradiation. The effect of grain subdivision on radiation response at the outer rim of fuel pellets is simulated through the irradiation of oxide powders of ~20 nm grain size. Structural modifications were compared to the effect of the same irradiation of oxide powders of ~1 μm [micrometer] grain size. Samples of each grain size for three materials (UO2, ThO2, and CeO2) were irradiated with 945.6 MeV Au ions to fluence values ranging from 1×10¹¹ [one times ten to the eleventh] – 3×1013 [three times ten to the thirteenth] ions/cm2 [ions per square centimeter]. The grain size was shown to have a considerable effect on the defect-induced unit-cell expansion with an increased radiation resistance of microcrystalline samples. The highly ionizing irradiation caused additional redox effects in CeO2 resulting in significant structural changes. Compositional changes which occur during the course of reactor operation, due to the accumulation of heavy fission products, were simulated via swift heavy ion irradiation of UO2 samples doped with an increasing amount of rare earth elements (La, Y, and Nd). These samples were irradiated along with undoped reference samples using 167 MeV Xe ions at fluences ranging from 1×1011– 5×1014 [five times ten to the fourteenth] ions/cm2. Initial results show that doping of rare earth elements up to 32.87 weight % does not significantly affect the radiation response as compared to undoped UO2

Geology of Pluto and Charon Overview

Pluto's surface was found to be remarkably diverse in terms of its range of landforms, terrain ages, and inferred geological processes. There is a latitudinal zonation of albedo. The conspicuous bright albedo heart-shaped feature informally named Tombaugh Regio is comprised of several terrain types. Most striking is Texas-sized Sputnik Planum, which is apparently level, has no observable craters, and is divided by polygons and ovoids bounded by shallow troughs. Small smooth hills are seen in some of the polygon-bounding troughs. These hills could either be extruded or exposed by erosion. Sputnik Planum polygon/ovoid formation hypotheses range from convection to contraction, but convection is currently favored. There is evidence of flow of plains material around obstacles. Mountains, especially those seen south of Sputnik Planum, exhibit too much relief to be made of CH4, CO, or N2, and thus are probably composed of H2O-ice basement material. The north contact of Sputnik Planum abuts a scarp, above which is heavily modified cratered terrain. Pluto's large moon Charon is generally heavily to moderately cratered. There is a mysterious structure in the arctic. Charon's surface is crossed by an extensive system of rift faults and graben. Some regions are smoother and less cratered, reminiscent of lunar maria. On such a plain are large isolated block mountains surrounded by moats. At this conference we will present highlights of the latest observations and analysis. This work was supported by NASA's New Horizons projec

Do Titan's Mountains Betray the Late Acquisition of its Current Atmosphere

Titan may have acquired its massive atmosphere relatively recently in solar system history [1,2,3,4]. Prior to that time, Titan would have been nearly airless, with its volatiles frozen or sequestered. Present-day Titan experiences only small (approximately 4 K) pole-to-equator variations, owing to efficient heat transport via the thick atmosphere [5]; these temperature variations would have been much larger (approximately 20 K) in the absence of an atmosphere. If Titan's ice shell is conductive, the change in surface temperature associated with the development of an atmosphere would have led to changes in shell thickness. In particular, the poles would move down (inducing compression) while the equator would move up. Figure 1 shows the predicted change in surface elevation as a result of the change in surface temperature, using the numerical conductive shell thickness model of [6

Schools in Balance: Comparing Iowa Physics Teachers and Teaching in Large and Small Schools

In 2009 we surveyed all known Iowa high school physics teachers to gain insight into their educational backgrounds, instructional styles, content coverage, and available resources. Based upon a suggestion made at a subsequent presentation, we reexamined the collected data, comparing the responses of teachers from small and large schools to see if there were notable differences between the two populations. We found that teachers at larger schools teach a wider variety of physics courses, including more advanced and “physics first” style courses, and report stronger educational backgrounds in physics. While larger schools also have more financial resources allocated for physics teaching, the larger enrollments in physics courses at these schools means there is roughly the same amount of available money per student at all schools