Perspectives on the design of the school geometry curriculum

The question of how to construct an appropriate geometry curriculum is a long-standing one. A recent estimate suggests that there are more than fifty geometries. This creates a fundamental problem in devising a geometry curriculum: there are just too many interesting things to include so some decision has to be made as to what to include and what to exclude. This report features three perspectives on the issue of the design of the school geometry curriculum

Effectiveness of stratospheric solar-radiation management as a function of climate sensitivity

If implementation of proposals to engineer the climate through solar-radiation management (SRM) ever occurs, it is likely to be contingent on climate sensitivity. However, modelling studies examining the effectiveness of SRM as a strategy to offset anthropogenic climate change have used only the standard parameterizations of atmosphere–ocean general circulation models that yield climate sensitivities close to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project mean. Here, we use a perturbed-physics ensemble modelling experiment to examine how the response of the climate to SRM implemented in the stratosphere (SRM-S) varies under different greenhouse-gas climate sensitivities. When SRM-S is used to compensate for rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, its effectiveness in stabilizing regional climates diminishes with increasing climate sensitivity. However, the potential of SRM-S to slow down unmitigated climate change, even regionally, increases with climate sensitivity. On average, in variants of the model with higher sensitivity, SRM-S reduces regional rates of temperature change by more than 90% and rates of precipitation change by more than 50%.Engineering and Applied Science

School's out: what are urban children doing? The Summer Activity Study of Somerville Youth (SASSY)

Background: Research indicates that in the United States, children experience healthier BMI and fitness levels during school vs. summer, but research is limited. The primary goal of this pilot study was to assess where children spend their time during the months that school is not in session and to learn about the different types of activities they engage in within different care settings. A secondary goal of this pilot study was to learn what children eat during the summer months. Methods: A nine-week summer study of 57 parents of second and third grade students was conducted in an economically, racial/ethnically and linguistically diverse US urban city. Weekly telephone interviews queried time and activities spent on/in 1) the main caregiver’s care 2) someone else’s care 3) vacation 4) and camp. Activities were categorised as sedentary, light, moderate, or vigorous (0-3 scale). For each child, a mean activity level was calculated and weighted for proportion of time spent in each care situation, yielding a weighted activity index. On the last phone call, parents answered questions about their child’s diet over the summer. Two post-study focus groups were conducted to help interpret findings from the weekly activity interviews. Results: The mean activity index was 1.05 ± 0.32 and differed between gender (p = 0.07), education (p = 0.08) and primary language spoken in the household (p = 0.01). Children who spent a greater percentage of time in parent care had on average a lower activity index (β = -0.004, p = 0.01) while children who spent a greater percentage of time in camp had a higher activity index (β = 0.004, p = 0.03). When stratified into type of camp, percentage of time spent in active camp was also positively associated with mean activity index (β = 0.005, p =\u3c 0.001). With regards to diet, after adjusting for maternal education, children who attended less than five weeks of camp were four times more likely to eat their meals in front of the TV often/almost all of the time (OR = 4.0, 95%CI 1.0-16.2, p \u3c 0.06). Conclusions: Summer activities and some dietary behaviours are influenced by situation of care and sociodemographic characteristics. In particular, children who spend a greater proportion of time in structured environments appear to be more active. We believe that this pilot study is an important first step in our understanding of what children do during the summer months

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Diplomazia creativa al servizio di strategie di nicchia di una piccola potenza

In the year marking the centenary since the foundation of the Azerbaijani Diplomatic Service, Baku’s foreign policy is increasingly characterised by a broader understanding of diplomacy, shaped by the gradual yet steady expansion of both areas and the tools for intervention. Guided by the attempt to develop a ‘niche strategy’ aiming at safeguarding and promoting Azerbaijani national interest, the Humanitarian Diplomacy emerges as a privileged field for Baku to adopt a pro-active and creative foreign policy. Building upon the debate around the interests behind the aid-providing activities of traditional and emerging donors, the article aims at introducing the motivations and the aims behind Azerbaijani aid policy. In particular, it aims at demonstrating that Baku’s Humanitarian Diplomacy aims chiefly at achieving immaterial benefits, having to do with international prestige and with the construction and international projection of a Good International Citizenship

A Turke turn'd Quaker: conversion from Islam to radical dissent in early modern England

The study of the relationship between the anglophone and Islamic worlds in the seventeenth century has been the subject of increas- ing interest in recent years, and much attention has been given to the cultural anxiety surrounding “Turning Turke”, conversion from Christianity to Islam, especially by English captives on the Barbary coast. Conversion in the other direction has attracted far less scrutiny, not least because it appears to have been far less com- mon. Conversion from Islam to any form of radical dissent has attracted no scholarship whatsoever, probably because it has been assumed to be non-existent. However, the case of Bartholomew Cole provides evidence that such conversions did take place, and examining the life of this “Turke turn’d Quaker” provides an insight into the dynamics of cross-cultural conversion of an exceptional kind