Issues in Evaluating Special Education Teachers: Challenges and Current Perspectives

Educatio

Adolescent Leadership Skill Development Through Residential 4-H Camp Counseling

Camping is a 4-H delivery mode and context for positive youth development. Research suggests that 4-H camping may enhance the life skills outcomes of adolescents who serve in leadership roles. The study reported here was to explore the lived experience of 4-H camp teen counselors and to better understand the leadership and life skill outcomes of 4-H camp participation. Eleven focus groups (n=68) were conducted with 4-H camp teen counselors from across Virginia\u27s six 4-H educational centers. The results indicated that 4-H camp participation positively affected teen counselors by helping them to develop leadership-related knowledge, skills, and behaviors

Optical characterization of complex mechanical and thermal transport properties

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemistry, 2011.Page 176 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-175).Time-resolved impulsive stimulated light scattering (ISS), also known as transient grating spectroscopy, was used to investigate phonon mediated thermal transport in semiconductors and mechanical degrees of freedom linked to structural relaxation in supercooled liquids. In ISS measurements, short optical pulses are crossed to produce a periodic excitation profile in or at the surface of the sample. Light from a probe beam that diffracts off the periodic material response is monitored to observe the dynamics of interest. A number of improvements were put into practice including the ability to separate so-called amplitude and phase grating signal contributions using heterodyne detection. This allowed the measurement of thermal transport in lead telluride and gallium arsenide-aluminum arsenide superlattices, and also provided the first direct observation of the initial crossover from diffusive to ballistic thermal transport in single crystal silicon and gallium arsenide at room temperature. Recent first-principles calculations of the thermal conductivity accumulation as a function of phonon mean free path allowed direct comparison to our measured results. In an effort to test theoretical predictions of the prevailing first principles theory of the glass transition, the mode coupling theory (MCT), photoacoustic measurements throughout much of the MHz acoustic frequency range were conducted in supercooled liquids. Longitudinal and shear acoustic waves were generated and monitored in supercooled liquid triphenyl phosphite in order to compare the dynamics. An additional interferometric technique analogous to ISS was developed to probe longitudinal acoustic waves at lower frequencies than was typically accessible with ISS. Lower frequency acoustic data were collected in supercooled tetramethyl tetraphenyl trisiloxane in conjunction with piezotransducer, ISS, and picosecond ultrasonics measurements to produce the first truly broadband mechanical spectra of a viscoelastic material covering frequencies continuously from mHz to hundreds of GHz. This allowed direct testing of the MCT predicted connection between fast and slow relaxation in supercooled liquids. Measurements of the quasi-longitudinal speed of sound in the energetic material cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (RDX) were also performed with ISS and picosecond ultrasonics from 0.5 to 15 GHz in order to resolve discrepancies in published low and high frequency elastic constants.by Jeremy A. Johnson.Ph.D

Oscillation estimates of eigenfunctions via the combinatorics of noncrossing partitions

We study oscillations in the eigenfunctions for a fractional Schrödinger operator on the real line. An argument in the spirit of Courant's nodal domain theorem applies to an associated local problem in the upper half plane and provides a bound on the number of nodal domains for the extensions of the eigenfunctions. Using the combinatorial properties of noncrossing partitions, we turn the nodal domain bound into an estimate for the number of sign changes in the eigenfunctions. We discuss applications in the periodic setting and the Steklov problem on planar domains

α\alpha-Scale Decoupling of the Mechanical Relaxation and Diverging Shear Wave Propagation Lengthscale in Triphenylphosphite

We have performed depolarized Impulsive Stimulated Scattering experiments to observe shear acoustic phonons in supercooled triphenylphosphite (TPP) from $\sim$10 - 500 MHz. These measurements, in tandem with previously performed longitudinal and shear measurements, permit further analyses of the relaxation dynamics of TPP within the framework of the mode coupling theory (MCT). Our results provide evidence of $\alpha$ coupling between the shear and longitudinal degrees of freedom up to a decoupling temperature $T_c$ = 231 K. A lower bound length scale of shear wave propagation in liquids verified the exponent predicted by theory in the vicinity of the decoupling temperature

Laser-induced plasma generation of terahertz radiation using three incommensurate wavelengths

We present the generation of THz radiation by focusing ultrafast laser pulses with three incommensurate wavelengths to form a plasma. The three colors include 800 nm and the variable IR signal and idler outputs from an optical parametric amplifier. We observe that stable THz is generated when all three colors are present, with a peak-to-peak field strength of ~200 kV cm^(−1) and a relatively broad, smooth spectrum extending out to 6 THz, without any strong dependence on the selection of signal and idler IR wavelengths (in the range from 1300 to 2000 nm). We confirm that three colors are indeed needed, and we present plasma current modeling that corroborates our observations

A Framework to Manage the Complex Organisation of Collaborating: Its Application to Autonomous Systems

In this paper we present an analysis of the complexities of large group collaboration and its application to develop detailed requirements for collaboration schema for Autonomous Systems (AS). These requirements flow from our development of a framework for collaboration that provides a basis for designing, supporting and managing complex collaborative systems that can be applied and tested in various real world settings. We present the concepts of "collaborative flow" and "working as one" as descriptive expressions of what good collaborative teamwork can be in such scenarios. The paper considers the application of the framework within different scenarios and discuses the utility of the framework in modelling and supporting collaboration in complex organisational structures

Laser-induced plasma generation of terahertz radiation using three incommensurate wavelengths

We present the generation of THz radiation by focusing ultrafast laser pulses with three incommensurate wavelengths to form a plasma. The three colors include 800 nm and the variable IR signal and idler outputs from an optical parametric amplifier. We observe that stable THz is generated when all three colors are present, with a peak-to-peak field strength of ~200 kV cm^(−1) and a relatively broad, smooth spectrum extending out to 6 THz, without any strong dependence on the selection of signal and idler IR wavelengths (in the range from 1300 to 2000 nm). We confirm that three colors are indeed needed, and we present plasma current modeling that corroborates our observations