Making Learners: A Framework for Evaluating Making in STEM Education

The maker movement has strong connections to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as well as art and crafts, but the goals of making are not in perfect alignment with any of these disciplines. Within the problem-based paradigm, however, there is room to incorporate making as situated STEM learning, even in formal, standards-based educational settings. We report on a framework for making in STEM education and describe a rubric for assessing the presence of the essential elements of making within STEM instruction. We present examples of the application of the rubric in a STEM teacher education course

Anisoplanicity studies within NGC6871

Images corrected with adaptive optics benefit from an increase in the amount of flux contained within the diffraction-limited core. The degree of this correction is measured by the Strehl ratio, equal to the ratio of the maximum observed intensity to the maximum theoretical intensity. Natural guide star adaptive optics systems are limited by the need for a guide star of adequate magnitude within suitable proximity to the science target. Thus, the above-described benefit can only be obtained for objects over a fraction of the total sky. Two nights of imaging the central region of the open star cluster NGC6871 with the Palomar Adaptive Optics System has supplied measurements of the Strehl ratio for numerous stars within the field. These measurements were used to calculate K band isoplanatic angles of 39 arcseconds (UT 1999 May 31) and 50 arcseconds (UT 1999 August 1). These isoplanatic angles are compared to those derived from Kolmogorov atmospheric theory, and their implications for adaptive optics systems are discussed

Wind field and sex constrain the flight speeds of central-place foraging albatrosses

By extracting energy from the highly dynamic wind and wave fields that typify pelagic habitats, albatrosses are able to proceed almost exclusively by gliding flight. Although energetic costs of gliding are low, enabling breeding albatrosses to forage hundreds to thousands of kilometers from their colonies, these and time costs vary with relative wind direction. This causes albatrosses in some areas to route provisioning trips to avoid headwind flight, potentially limiting habitat accessibility during the breeding season. In addition, because female albatrosses have lower wing loadings than males, it has been argued that they are better adapted to flight in light winds, leading to sexual segregation of foraging areas. We used satellite telemetry and immersion logger data to quantify the effects of relative wind speed, sex, breeding stage, and trip stage on the ground speeds (Vg) of four species of Southern Ocean albatrosses breeding at South Georgia. Vg was linearly related to the wind speed component in the direction of flight (Vwf), its effect being greatest on Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans, followed by Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophrys, Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses Phoebatria palpebrata, and Gray-headed Albatrosses T. chrysostoma. Ground speeds at Vwf = 0 were similar to airspeeds predicted by aerodynamic theory and were higher in males than in females. However, we found no evidence that this led to sexual segregation, as males and females experienced comparable wind speeds during foraging trips. Black-browed, Gray-headed, and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses did not engage in direct, uninterrupted bouts of flight on moonless nights, but Wandering Albatrosses attained comparable Vg night and day, regardless of lunar phase. Relative flight direction was more important in determining Vg than absolute wind speed. When birds were less constrained in the middle stage of foraging trips, all species flew predominantly across the wind. However, in some instances, commuting birds encountered headwinds during outward trips and tail winds on their return, with the result that Vg was 1.0–3.4 m/s faster during return trips. This, we hypothesize, could result from constraints imposed by the location of prey resources relative to the colony at South Georgia or could represent an energy optimization strategy

Between the Literary and the Visual: Inter-Artistic Approaches to African-American Art History

A stubborn truism vexes African-American art history: the canon of black American literature is viewed as more established and robust than that of black American visual arts. This misconception has more to do with conventional disciplinary divisions, than it does with either the quantity or quality of black visual expression. Segregating the literary from the visual --and assigning these to English and Art History departments, respectively--has obscured the originally inter-artistic nature of much black cultural expression as well as the terms of its early reception and critique. African-American artists have repeatedly worked in black literary contexts--from Aaron Douglas\u27s illustrations for Alain Locke\u27s The New Negro to Glenn Ligon\u27s painted excerpts from Ralph Ellison and Richard Pryor. At the same time, many (nonblack) literary critics have been enthusiastic interpreters of black visual arts. Theater critic and novelist Carl Van Vechten promoted the painters of the Harlem Renaissance; Sidney Hirsch, one of Vanderbilt University\u27s influential literary modernists, discovered black folk sculptor William Edmondson; and French poststructuralist Roland Barthes famously used a photograph by James Van Der Zee to explain his concept of the photographic punctum. This panel seeks papers that take stock of this prodigious overlap between the literary and the visual arts. Participants are invited to address how literature and literary criticism may productively inform African-American art history, to recount the specific historical circumstances that compel this approach, and to consider broadly how attention to inter-artistic histories might helpfully reform both approaches to and canons of black cultural expression

Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations VI: Photometric and Spectroscopic Calibration for the Integral Field Spectrograph

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility instrument for the Gemini Observatory designed to provide direct detection and characterization of planets and debris disks around stars in the solar neighborhood. In addition to its extreme adaptive optics and corona graphic systems which give access to high angular resolution and high-contrast imaging capabilities, GPI contains an integral field spectrograph providing low resolution spectroscopy across five bands between 0.95 and 2.5 $\mu$m. This paper describes the sequence of processing steps required for the spectro-photometric calibration of GPI science data, and the necessary calibration files. Based on calibration observations of the white dwarf HD 8049B we estimate that the systematic error in spectra extracted from GPI observations is less than 5%. The flux ratio of the occulted star and fiducial satellite spots within coronagraphic GPI observations, required to estimate the magnitude difference between a target and any resolved companions, was measured in the $H$-band to be $\Delta m = 9.23\pm0.06$ in laboratory measurements and $\Delta m = 9.39\pm 0.11$ using on-sky observations. Laboratory measurements for the $Y$, $J$, $K1$ and $K2$ filters are also presented. The total throughput of GPI, Gemini South and the atmosphere of the Earth was also measured in each photometric passband, with a typical throughput in $H$-band of 18% in the non-coronagraphic mode, with some variation observed over the six-month period for which observations were available. We also report ongoing development and improvement of the data cube extraction algorithm.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. Proceedings of the SPIE, 9147-30

Mid-Infrared Properties of Luminous Infrared Galaxies II: Probing the Dust and Gas Physics of the GOALS Sample

The Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) is a comprehensive, multiwavelength study of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) in the local universe. Here we present the results of a multi-component, spectral decomposition analysis of the low resolution mid-IR Spitzer IRS spectra from 5-38um of 244 LIRG nuclei. The detailed fits and high quality spectra allow for characterization of the individual PAH features, warm molecular hydrogen emission, and optical depths for silicate dust grains and water ices. We find that starbursting LIRGs, which make up the majority of GOALS, are very consistent in their MIR properties (i.e. tau_9.7um, tau_ice, neon line and PAH feature ratios). However, as their PAH EQW decreases, usually an indicator of an increasingly dominant AGN, LIRGs cover a larger spread in these MIR parameters. The contribution from PAHs to the total L(IR) in LIRGs varies from 2-29% and LIRGs prior to their first encounter show higher L(PAH)/L(IR) ratios on average. We observe a correlation between the strength of the starburst (IR8) and the PAH fraction at 8um but not with the 7.7 to 11.3 PAH ratio, suggesting the fractional PDR emission, and not the overall grain properties, is associated with the rise in IR8 for galaxies off the starburst main sequence. We detect crystalline silicate features in 6% of the sample but only in the most obscured sources (s_9.7um < -1.24). Ice absorption features are observed in 11% (56%) of GOALS LIRGs (ULIRGs). Most GOALS LIRGs have L(H2)/L(PAH) ratios elevated above those observed for normal star-forming galaxies and exhibit a trend for increasing L(H2)/L(PAH) ratio with increasing L(H2). While star formation appears to be the dominant process responsible for exciting the H2 in most of the GOALS galaxies, a subset of LIRGs (10%) show excess H2 emission that is inconsistent with PDR models and may be excited by shocks or AGN-induced outflows.Comment: 21 pages with 20 figures plus 2 table

Surrogate Markers for Time-Varying Treatments and Outcomes

BACKGROUND: A surrogate marker is a variable commonly used in clinical trials to guide treatment decisions when the outcome of ultimate interest is not available. A good surrogate marker is one where the treatment effect on the surrogate is a strong predictor of the effect of treatment on the outcome. We review the situation when there is one treatment delivered at baseline, one surrogate measured at one later time point, and one ultimate outcome of interest and discuss new issues arising when variables are time-varying. METHODS: Most of the literature on surrogate markers has only considered simple settings with one treatment, one surrogate, and one outcome of interest at a fixed time point. However, more complicated time-varying settings are common in practice. In this article, we describe the unique challenges in two settings, time-varying treatments and time-varying surrogates, while relating the ideas back to the causal-effects and causal-association paradigms. CONCLUSION: In addition to discussing and extending popular notions of surrogacy to time-varying settings, we give examples illustrating that one can be misled by not taking into account time-varying information about the surrogate or treatment. We hope this article has provided some motivation for future work on estimation and inference in such settings

The Infrared Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) for TMT: Data Reduction System

IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Spectrograph) is the diffraction-limited first light instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that consists of a near-infrared (0.84 to 2.4 $\mu$m) imager and integral field spectrograph (IFS). The IFS makes use of a lenslet array and slicer for spatial sampling, which will be able to operate in 100's of different modes, including a combination of four plate scales from 4 milliarcseconds (mas) to 50 mas with a large range of filters and gratings. The imager will have a field of view of 34$\times$34 arcsec$^{2}$ with a plate scale of 4 mas with many selectable filters. We present the preliminary design of the data reduction system (DRS) for IRIS that need to address all of these observing modes. Reduction of IRIS data will have unique challenges since it will provide real-time reduction and analysis of the imaging and spectroscopic data during observational sequences, as well as advanced post-processing algorithms. The DRS will support three basic modes of operation of IRIS; reducing data from the imager, the lenslet IFS, and slicer IFS. The DRS will be written in Python, making use of open-source astronomical packages available. In addition to real-time data reduction, the DRS will utilize real-time visualization tools, providing astronomers with up-to-date evaluation of the target acquisition and data quality. The quicklook suite will include visualization tools for 1D, 2D, and 3D raw and reduced images. We discuss the overall requirements of the DRS and visualization tools, as well as necessary calibration data to achieve optimal data quality in order to exploit science cases across all cosmic distance scales.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 6 tables, Proceeding 9913-165 of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 201

Bringing "The Moth" to Light: A Planet-Sculpting Scenario for the HD 61005 Debris Disk

The HD 61005 debris disk ("The Moth") stands out from the growing collection of spatially resolved circumstellar disks by virtue of its unusual swept-back morphology, brightness asymmetries, and dust ring offset. Despite several suggestions for the physical mechanisms creating these features, no definitive answer has been found. In this work, we demonstrate the plausibility of a scenario in which the disk material is shaped dynamically by an eccentric, inclined planet. We present new Keck NIRC2 scattered-light angular differential imaging of the disk at 1.2-2.3 microns that further constrains its outer morphology (projected separations of 27-135 AU). We also present complementary Gemini Planet Imager 1.6 micron total intensity and polarized light detections that probe down to projected separations less than 10 AU. To test our planet-sculpting hypothesis, we employed secular perturbation theory to construct parent body and dust distributions that informed scattered-light models. We found that this method produced models with morphological and photometric features similar to those seen in the data, supporting the premise of a planet-perturbed disk. Briefly, our results indicate a disk parent body population with a semimajor axis of 40-52 AU and an interior planet with an eccentricity of at least 0.2. Many permutations of planet mass and semimajor axis are allowed, ranging from an Earth mass at 35 AU to a Jupiter mass at 5 AU.Comment: Accepted to AJ; added Figure 5 and minor text edit

Additional Common Polymorphisms in the PON Gene Cluster Predict PON1 Activity but Not Vascular Disease

Background. Paraoxonase 1 (PON1) enzymatic activity has been consistently predictive of cardiovascular disease, while the genotypes at the four functional polymorphisms at PON1 have not. The goal of this study was to identify additional variation at the PON gene cluster that improved prediction of PON1 activity and determine if these variants predict carotid artery disease (CAAD). Methods. We considered 1,328 males in a CAAD cohort. 51 tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms (tag SNPs) across the PON cluster were evaluated to determine their effects on PON1 activity and CAAD status. Results. Six SNPs (four in PON1 and one each in PON2/3) predicted PON1 arylesterase (AREase) activity, in addition to the four previously known functional SNPs. In total, the 10 SNPs explained 30.1% of AREase activity, 5% of which was attributable to the six identified predictive SNPs. We replicate rs854567 prediction of 2.3% of AREase variance, the effects of rs3917510, and a PON3 haplotype that includes rs2375005. While AREase activity strongly predicted CAAD, none of the 10 SNPs predicting AREase predicted CAAD. Conclusions. This study identifies new genetic variants that predict additional PON1 AREase activity. Identification of SNPs associated with PON1 activity is required when evaluating the many phenotypes associated with genetic variation near PON1