The Story of the Gary, Indiana Crucifix

In the spring of 1955, the Knights of Columbus erected an enormous crucifix in a public park in Gary, Indiana. Incensed by this flagrant constitutional violation, Harrison J. Mellman, a bright, well-liked, but still green local lawyer, began making plans to challenge the towering structure in court. Today, more than half a century later, the edifice remains, undisturbed, in its original spot. And so begins, and ends, a most unusual tale

From computer assisted language learning (CALL) to mobile assisted language use

This article begins by critiquing the long-established acronym CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). We then go on to report on a small-scale study which examines how student non-native speakers of English use a range of digital devices beyond the classroom in both their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. We look also at the extent to which they believe that their L2-based activity helps consciously and/or unconsciously with their language learning, practice, and acquisition. We argue that these data, combined with other recent trends in the field, suggest a need to move from CALL towards a more accurate acronym: mobile assisted language use (MALU). We conclude with a definition of MALU together with a brief discussion of a potential alignment of MALU with the notion of the digital resident and a newly emerging educational theory of connectivism

It\u27s Fun, But Is It Science? Goals and Strategies in a Problem-Based Learning Course

All students at Hampshire College must complete a science requirement in which they demonstrate their understanding of how science is done, examine the work of science in larger contexts, and communicate their ideas effectively. Human Biology: Selected Topics in Medicine is one of 18-20 freshman seminars designed to move students toward completing this requirement. Students work in cooperative groups of 4-6 people to solve actual medical cases about which they receive information progressively. Students assign themselves homework tasks to bring information back for group deliberation. The goal is for case teams to work cooperatively to develop a differential diagnosis and recommend treatment. Students write detailed individual final case reports. Changes observed in student work over six years of developing this course include: increased motivation to pursue work in depth, more effective participation on case teams, increase in critical examination of evidence, and more fully developed arguments in final written reports. As part of a larger study of eighteen introductory science courses in two institutions, several types of pre- and post-course assessments were used to evaluate how teaching approaches might have influenced students’ attitudes about science, their ability to learn science, and their understanding of how scientific knowledge is developed [1]. Preliminary results from interviews and Likert-scale measures suggest improvements in the development of some students’ views of epistemology and in the importance of cooperative group work in facilitating that development

Sampling Properties of the Spectrum and Coherency of Sequences of Action Potentials

The spectrum and coherency are useful quantities for characterizing the temporal correlations and functional relations within and between point processes. This paper begins with a review of these quantities, their interpretation and how they may be estimated. A discussion of how to assess the statistical significance of features in these measures is included. In addition, new work is presented which builds on the framework established in the review section. This work investigates how the estimates and their error bars are modified by finite sample sizes. Finite sample corrections are derived based on a doubly stochastic inhomogeneous Poisson process model in which the rate functions are drawn from a low variance Gaussian process. It is found that, in contrast to continuous processes, the variance of the estimators cannot be reduced by smoothing beyond a scale which is set by the number of point events in the interval. Alternatively, the degrees of freedom of the estimators can be thought of as bounded from above by the expected number of point events in the interval. Further new work describing and illustrating a method for detecting the presence of a line in a point process spectrum is also presented, corresponding to the detection of a periodic modulation of the underlying rate. This work demonstrates that a known statistical test, applicable to continuous processes, applies, with little modification, to point process spectra, and is of utility in studying a point process driven by a continuous stimulus. While the material discussed is of general applicability to point processes attention will be confined to sequences of neuronal action potentials (spike trains) which were the motivation for this work.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figure

Storying and Deaf Children

Peer reviewe

Possible High-Redshift, Low-Luminosity AGN Activity in the Hubble Deep Field

In the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), twelve candidate sources of high-redshift (z > 3.5) AGN activity have been identified. The color selection criteria were established by passing spectra of selected quasars and Seyfert galaxies (appropriately redshifted and modified for "Lyman forest" absorption), as well as stars, observed normal and starburst galaxies, and galaxy models for various redshifts through the filters used for the HDF observations. The actual identification of AGN candidates also involved convolving a Laplacian-of-Gaussian filter with the HDF images, thereby removing relatively flat galactic backgrounds and leaving only the point-like components in the centers. Along with positions and colors, estimated redshifts and absolute magnitudes are reported, with the candidates falling toward the faint end of the AGN luminosity function. One candidate has been previously observed spectroscopically, with a measured redshift of 4.02. The number of sources reported here is consistent with a simple extrapolation of the observed quasar luminosity function to magnitude 30 in B_Johnson. Implications for ionization of the intergalactic medium and for gravitational lensing are discussed.Comment: 10 pages LaTex plus 2 separate files (Table 1 which is a two-page landscape LaTex file; and Figure 6 which is a large (0.7 MB) non-encapsulated postscript file). Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

The 6C** Sample and the Highest Redshift Radio Galaxies

We present a new radio sample, 6C** designed to find radio galaxies at z > 4 and discuss some of its near-infrared imaging follow-up results.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, to appear in proceedings of 'Multi-wavelength AGN surveys', Cozumel, 200

Covariant spinor representation of iosp(d,2/2)iosp(d,2/2) and quantization of the spinning relativistic particle

A covariant spinor representation of $iosp(d,2/2)$ is constructed for the quantization of the spinning relativistic particle. It is found that, with appropriately defined wavefunctions, this representation can be identified with the state space arising from the canonical extended BFV-BRST quantization of the spinning particle with admissible gauge fixing conditions after a contraction procedure. For this model, the cohomological determination of physical states can thus be obtained purely from the representation theory of the $iosp(d,2/2)$ algebra.Comment: Updated version with references included and covariant form of equation 1. 23 pages, no figure