A microscopic view of the yielding transition in concentrated emulsions

We use a custom shear cell coupled to an optical microscope to investigate at the particle level the yielding transition in concentrated emulsions subjected to an oscillatory shear deformation. By performing experiments lasting thousands of cycles on samples at several volume fractions and for a variety of applied strain amplitudes, we obtain a comprehensive, microscopic picture of the yielding transition. We find that irreversible particle motion sharply increases beyond a volume-fraction dependent critical strain, which is found to be in close agreement with the strain beyond which the stress-strain relation probed in rheology experiments significantly departs from linearity. The shear-induced dynamics are very heterogenous: quiescent particles coexist with two distinct populations of mobile and `supermobile' particles. Dynamic activity exhibits spatial and temporal correlations, with rearrangements events organized in bursts of motion affecting localized regions of the sample. Analogies with other sheared soft materials and with recent work on the transition to irreversibility in sheared complex fluids are briefly discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Soft Matte

Examining Beliefs About The Use of Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices When Planning Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationships between beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices when planning literacy instruction, reading course enrollment, and demographic factors among undergraduate K-6 elementary teacher candidates. Specifically, the study participants are K-6 elementary undergraduate teacher candidates attending a small, rural university within the Mid-south. The researcher sought to understand factors that may affect teacher candidates beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices as they begin making specific pedagogical adjustments to the classroom when planning literacy instruction. Data for this study was collected using a structured survey in Qualtrics which contained the Culturally Responsive Instruction and Curriculum Survey and self-reported demographic information. The results of this study found that there are no significant relationships between reading course enrollment, demographic factors, and overall beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices when planning literacy instruction. This study was guided by the following research questions:1.Is there a relationship between reading course enrollment and beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices when planning literacy instruction among undergraduate elementary teacher candidates?2.Is there a relationship between demographic factors (educational demographics, community demographics) and beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices when planning literacy instruction among undergraduate elementary teacher candidates?3.Is there a relationship between reading course enrollment, demographic factors, and beliefs about the use of culturally responsive teaching practices when planning literacy instruction among undergraduate elementary teacher candidates?Keywords: teacher candidate, teacher education, culturally responsive teaching, critical pedagogy, diversity, critical literac

Coyote space use in relation to prey abundance

Food abundance is an important factor determining space use in many species, but its effect on carnivore home range and territory size has rarely been investigated. We explored the relationship between food abundance for the coyote (Canis latrans) and space use in two study areas in the northern Great Basin, where the primary prey, the black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus), fluctuates dramatically in abundance. At one site, home ranges and temtories were significantly larger during a time of prey scarcity than when prey was abundant. Coyotes on the second site had similar-size home ranges and territories at low and high prey abundance, but a higher proportion and probably a higher number of individuals were transients during the prey-scarcity period. We propose mortality rates of coyotes as an important factor mediating adjustments in space use to food abundance, and suggest two mechanisms by which mortality might interact with food abundance. Higher mortality rates may simply permit more rapid adjustment of home range size to changing food conditions. Alternatively, higher mortality may selectively eliminate transients, thus reducing the impact of intruders in limiting the size of the remaining territories

Assessing Ozone-Related Health Impacts under a Changing Climate

Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of ozone episodes in future summers in the United States. However, only recently have models become available that can assess the impact of climate change on O(3) concentrations and health effects at regional and local scales that are relevant to adaptive planning. We developed and applied an integrated modeling framework to assess potential O(3)-related health impacts in future decades under a changing climate. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration–Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model at 4° × 5° resolution was linked to the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model 5 and the Community Multiscale Air Quality atmospheric chemistry model at 36 km horizontal grid resolution to simulate hourly regional meteorology and O(3) in five summers of the 2050s decade across the 31-county New York metropolitan region. We assessed changes in O(3)-related impacts on summer mortality resulting from climate change alone and with climate change superimposed on changes in O(3) precursor emissions and population growth. Considering climate change alone, there was a median 4.5% increase in O(3)-related acute mortality across the 31 counties. Incorporating O(3) precursor emission increases along with climate change yielded similar results. When population growth was factored into the projections, absolute impacts increased substantially. Counties with the highest percent increases in projected O(3) mortality spread beyond the urban core into less densely populated suburban counties. This modeling framework provides a potentially useful new tool for assessing the health risks of climate change

Cavity Resonant Mode in a Metal Film Perforated with Two-Dimensional Triangular Lattice Hole Arrays

The transmission property of metallic films with two-dimensional hole arrays is studied experimentally and numerically. For a triangular lattice subwavelength hole array in a 150 nm thick Ag film, both cavity resonance and planar surface modes are identified as the sources of enhanced optical transmissions. Semi-analytical models are developed for calculating the dispersion relation of the cavity resonant mode. They agree well with the experimental results and full-wave numerical calculations. Strong interaction between the cavity resonant mode and surface modes is also observed