538 research outputs found
Academic Success and Christian Affiliation in College
The goal of our study was to provide a more thorough understanding of the relationship between religious attitudes and academic success, and will provide direction for future research in this domain. Our research examined the relationship between Christianity, academic achievement, and mediating variables in college-aged students. Past studies regarding religion and academic success have found that in some communities, academic success is positively correlated with religious involvement. However, these studies primarily looked at academic success in relation to involvement in a religious community, and not to personal attitudes regarding religion. To gain a better understanding of the role of personal religious attitudes in academic success, this study specifically examined academic success in relation to Christian affiliation and spirituality, as well as intrinsic dispositions of positivity and mastery. These mediating variables were included to control for factors that may relate to both academic success and religiosity, providing a more complete view of the relationship between religious attitudes and academic success. Study participants included college students currently attending a small, public, liberal-arts university. The study utilized a descriptive research design in which participants self-reported details about their demographics, academic performance (i.e. GPA and participation in honors programming), religious beliefs, and personality characteristics associated with outlook and hopefulness. Our presentation will examine the results of our study in relation to questions regarding the role of personal beliefs and dispositions in academic success.https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/urs_2015/1002/thumbnail.jp
Probability density function of turbulent velocity fluctuations in rough-wall boundary layer
The probability density function of single-point velocity fluctuations in
turbulence is studied systematically using Fourier coefficients in the
energy-containing range. In ideal turbulence where energy-containing motions
are random and independent, the Fourier coefficients tend to Gaussian and
independent of each other. Velocity fluctuations accordingly tend to Gaussian.
However, if energy-containing motions are intermittent or contaminated with
bounded-amplitude motions such as wavy wakes, the Fourier coefficients tend to
non-Gaussian and dependent of each other. Velocity fluctuations accordingly
tend to non-Gaussian. These situations are found in our experiment of a
rough-wall boundary layer.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Physical Review
Structure of Charge Density Waves in LaBaCuO
Although charge-density wave (CDW) correlations exist in several families of
cuprate supercon-ductors, they exhibit substantial variation in CDW wavevector
and correlation length, indicating a key role for CDW-lattice interactions. We
investigated this interaction in LaBaCuO using single
crystal x-ray diffraction to collect a large number of CDW peak intensities,
and determined the Cu and La/Ba atomic distortions induced by the formation of
CDW order. Within the CuO planes, the distortions involve a periodic
modulation of the Cu-Cu spacing along the direction of the ordering wave
vector. The charge ordering within the copper-oxygen layer induces an
out-of-plane breathing modulation of the surrounding lanthanum layers, which
leads to a related distortion on the adjacent copper-oxygen layer. Our result
implies that the CDW-related structural distortions do not remain confined to a
single layer but rather propagate an appreciable distance through the crystal.
This leads to overlapping structural modulations, in which CuO planes
exhibit distortions arising from the orthogonal CDWs in adjacent layers as well
as distortions from the CDW within the layer itself. We attribute this striking
effect to the weak c-axis charge screening in cuprates and suggest this effect
could help couple the CDW between adjacent planes in the crystal.Comment: 9 pages; Accepted in Phys. Rev.
De Novo Design of Bioactive Protein-Resembling Nanospheres via Dendrimer-Templated Peptide Amphiphile Assembly
Self-assembling peptide amphiphiles (PAs) have been extensively used in the development of novel biomaterials. Because of their propensity to form cylindrical micelles, their use is limited in applications where small spherical micelles are desired. Here we present a platform method for controlling the self-assembly of biofunctional PAs into spherical 50 nm particles using dendrimers as shape-directing scaffolds. This templating approach results in biocompatible, stable protein-like assemblies displaying peptides with native secondary structure and biofunctionality
Stacking disorder in -RuCl via x-ray three-dimensional difference pair distribution function analysis
The van der Waals layered magnet -RuCl offers tantalizing
prospects for the realization of Majorana quasiparticles. Efforts to understand
this are, however, hampered by inconsistent magnetic and thermal transport
properties likely coming from the formation of structural disorder during
crystal growth, postgrowth processing, or upon cooling through the first order
structural transition. Here, we investigate structural disorder in
-RuCl using x-ray diffuse scattering and three-dimensional
difference pair distribution function (3D-PDF) analysis. We develop a
quantitative model that describes disorder in -RuCl in terms of
rotational twinning and intermixing of the high and low-temperature structural
layer stacking. This disorder may be important to consider when investigating
the detailed magnetic and electronic properties of this widely studied
material.Comment: 6 pages; 3 figures; accepted in Physical Review
Lattice dynamical analogies and differences between SrTiO3 and EuTiO3 revealed by phonon-dispersion relations and double-well potentials
A comparative analysis of the structural phase transitions of EuTiO3 and
SrTiO3 (at TS = 282 and 105 K, respectively) is made on the basis of
phonon-dispersion and density functional calculations. The phase transition of
EuTiO3 is predicted to arise from the softening of a transverse acoustic
zone-boundary mode caused by the rotations of the TiO6 octahedra, as also found
for the phase transition of SrTiO3. While the temperature dependence of the
soft mode is similar in both compounds, their elastic properties differ
drastically due to a large difference in the double-well potentials associated
with the soft zone boundary-acoustic mode.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure
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