Curriculum beyond borders

This PhD by project used action research to design, evaluate, and refine a social studies curriculum fostering the development of critical thinking strategies in young adults in the refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border in 2004 - 2005. The broader focus of this action research project is to develop an innovative, collaborative, culturally relevant, community focused curriculum model for young adult refugees in places of temporary asylum. Action research is realized in this project through a constructivist approach to curriculum development where an improved curriculum is being built up from the values and worldviews of the students, teachers, and their community. The exegesis starts by providing a brief political background to the refugee situation and exploring where the participant community stands as far as education is concerned, while providing a concise review of literature on refugee education. The research draws its data from a detailed curriculum evaluation project that has been undertaken by the researcher and the participant teachers in 2004-2005. An integral part of this research project constitutes a set of study modules that have been reworked as a result of this evaluation. The findings and recommendations of this action research stress the importance of a curriculum contextualized to the situation of the learners as this has been found to have a an extremely strong influence on motivation and the development of critical thinking skills

Superconducting Receivers for Space, Balloon, and Ground-Based Sub-Terahertz Radio Telescopes

We give a review of both our own original scientific results of the development of superconducting receivers for sub-terahertz astronomy and the main leading concepts of the global instrumentation. The analysis of current astronomical problems, the results of microwave astroclimate research, and the development of equipment for sub-terahertz radio astronomy studies justify the need and feasibility of a major infrastructure project in Russia to create a sub-terahertz telescope, as well as to enhance the implementation of the ongoing Millimetron and Suffa projects. The following results are discussed: i) superconducting coherent receivers and broadband subterahertz detectors for space, balloon, and ground-based radio telescopes have been developed and tested; ii) ultrasensitive receiving systems based on tunnel structures such as superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) and superconductor-insulator-normal metal-insulator-superconductor (SINIS) have been created, fabricated, and examined; iii) a receiving array based on SINIS detectors and microwave readout system for such structures has been implemented; iv) methods for manufacturing high-quality tunnel structures Nb/AlOx/Nb and Nb/AlN/NbN based on niobium films with a current density of up to 30 kA/cm(2) have been developed. Receivers operated at 200 to 950 GHz and having a noise temperature only a factor of 2 to 5 higher than the quantum limit have been created and tested

An Atmospheric Scientist—The Contributions of Dr. Yitzhak Mahrer

Dr. Yitzhak Mahrer, an Israeli atmospheric scientist, was one of the earliest contributors to the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), a leading model with abilities on a wide range of atmospheric scales. He was involved in many complex-terrain and coastal atmospheric dynamic studies, and was among the pioneers of air-pollution modeling, especially over the Eastern Mediterranean. Dr. Mahrer deceased on September 2017, and RAMS community has lost one of its founders, with his shy smile, funny remarks, and bright mind. While he also led multiple fields observational campaigns and graduated many students as a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, we hereby present only a brief overview of his scientific contribution to the atmospheric modeling community