The Public and Public Education

This Cousins Research Group report includes two articles by Kettering Foundation president David Mathews that were published previously. "The Public for Public Schools Is Slipping" was first published in Education Week in 1995. The second piece, "Putting the Public Back into Public Education: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for a Troubled Relationship," appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of the National Civic Review. Both pieces look at the growing disconnect between the schools and the public they serve. They suggest that the usual institutional responses to repair the troubled relationship (e.g., standardized tests or better public relations) have failed to remedy the problem. The key to bridging the divide between the schools and the public may actually be found on the citizens' side. Mathews observes, "Citizens themselves and their organizations have to be actors who bring educational resources in the community to complement what the schools do.

Ships Passing In The Night?

In this Cousins Research Group Report, David Mathews describes two different civic engagement movements. One is underway in higher education. On campuses across the country, leadership and service learning programs are growing, and students are taught civic skills, including civil dialogue. In addition, university partnerships with nearby communities offer technical assistance, professional advice, and access to institutional resources. The other is occurring off campus, in communities that are trying to cope with natural disasters, economic change, and other problems that threaten everyone's well-being. In these places, citizens say they want to come together as communities to maintain their communities. Unfortunately, they often have difficulty finding institutions that understand their agenda.Why are these two civic movements in danger of passing like the proverbial ships in the night? Mathews explores this disconnect, noting, "It would seem that two civic engagement movements, occurring at the same time and often in the same locations, would be closely allied -- perhaps mutually reinforcing. That doesn't seem to be happening very often." He goes on to suggest how these efforts might become mutually supportive

With the People: An Introduction to an Idea

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, and he spoke of an ideal of government, one that is of, by, and for the people. Do Americans today think our government is really "of" the people? That's debatable. "By" the people? Doubtful. "For" the people? Perhaps for some, sometimes.This Cousins Research Group Report, based on a forthcoming book by David Mathews, suggests trying another preposition—government with the people. It offers a strategy for bridging some of the divide separating the people of the United States from their government and from the country's major institutions. It envisions a form of collaboration that would have institutions working with citizens, not just for them. Such a "with strategy" sees people as creators and producers rather than consumers or clients. It encourages collaboration through mutually reinforcing efforts between the citizenry and the government, and that could have a cumulative effect on the troubles that our democracy faces

High Performance Data Acquisition and Analysis Routines for the Nab Experiment

Probes of the Standard Model of particle physics are pushing further and further into the so-called “precision frontier”. In order to reach the precision goals of these experiments, a combination of elegant experimental design and robust data acquisition and analysis is required. Two experiments that embody this philosophy are the Nab and Calcium-45 experiments. These experiments are probing the understanding of the weak interaction by examining the beta decay of the free neutron and Calcium-45 respectively. They both aim to measure correlation parameters in the neutron beta decay alphabet, a and b. The parameter a, the electron-neutrino correlation coefficient, is sensitive to λ, the ratio of the axial-vector and vector coupling strengths in the decay of the free neutron. This parameter λ, in tandem with a precision measurement of the neutron lifetime τ , provides a measurement of the matrix element Vud from the CKM quark mixing matrix. The CKM matrix, as a rotation matrix, must be unitary. Probes of Vud and Vus in recent years have revealed tension in this unitarity at the 2.2σ level. The measurement of a via decay of free cold neutrons serves as an additional method of extraction for Vud that is sensitive to a different set of systematic effects and as such is an excellent probe into the source of the deviation from unitarity. The parameter b, the Fierz interference term, appears as a distortion in the mea- sured electron energy spectra from beta decay. This parameter, if non-zero, would indicate the existence of Scalar and/or Tensor couplings in the Weak interaction which according to the Standard Model is purely Vector minus Axial-Vector. This is therefore a search for physics beyond the standard model, BSM, physics search. The Nab and Calcium-45 experiments probe these parameters with a combination of elegant experimental design and brute force collection and analysis of large amounts of digitized detector data. These datasets, particularly in the case of the Nab experiment, are anticipated to span multiple petabytes of data and will require high performance online analysis and precision offline analysis routines in order to reach the experimental goals. Of particular note are the requirements for better than 3 keV energy resolution and an understanding of the uncertainty in the mean timing bias for the detected particles within 300 ps. Presented in this dissertation is an overview of the experiments and their design, a description of the data acquisition systems and analysis routines that have been developed to support the experiments, and a discussion of the data analysis performed for the Calcium-45 experiment

X-ray Isophotes in a Rapidly Rotating Elliptical Galaxy: Evidence of Inflowing Gas

We describe two-dimensional gasdynamical computations of the X-ray emitting gas in the rotating elliptical galaxy NGC 4649 that indicate an inflow of about one solar mass per year at every radius. Such a large instantaneous inflow cannot have persisted over a Hubble time. The central constant-entropy temperature peak recently observed in the innermost 150 parsecs is explained by compressive heating as gas flows toward the central massive black hole. Since the cooling time of this gas is only a few million years, NGC 4649 provides the most acutely concentrated known example of the cooling flow problem in which the time-integrated apparent mass that has flowed into the galactic core exceeds the total mass observed there. This paradox can be resolved by intermittent outflows of energy or mass driven by accretion energy released near the black hole. Inflowing gas is also required at intermediate kpc radii to explain the ellipticity of X-ray isophotes due to spin-up by mass ejected by stars that rotate with the galaxy and to explain local density and temperature profiles. We provide evidence that many luminous elliptical galaxies undergo similar inflow spin-up. A small turbulent viscosity is required in NGC 4649 to avoid forming large X-ray luminous disks that are not observed, but the turbulent pressure is small and does not interfere with mass determinations that assume hydrostatic equilibrium.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication by Ap

Characterisation of polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels modified with chitosan for cardiovascular applications

The use of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) hydrogels combined with chitosan as a vascular tissue substitute for in vitro vascular cell culture studies was investigated. Hydrogels possess many characteristics that can be controlled and adjusted during the fabrication processes, such as tissue-like elasticity, mechanical strength and permeability. In order to develop a material with appropriate inherent material properties that may be used to fabricate a bioartificial vessel with appropriate structural properties, arterial wall mechanics were investigated. A three layer finite element model, incorporating the effects of circumferential and longitudinal residual stresses, was developed to identify the effect of vessel geometry, constitutive properties and residual stresses on the structural response of an arterial segment. Chitosan was blended to the hydrogel to enhance cell adhesion and growth. The effect of fabrication parameters on the mechanical and morphological characterisation of the PVA-chitosan blended hydrogels was determined using uniaxial extension tests, bi-axial inflation tests, opening angle observations and scanning electron microscopy. PVA-chitosan hydrogel vessels were constructed, and the compliance was measured and compared with numerical predictions. In vitro experiments have been conducted to investigate vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cell adhesion and growth to PVA-chitosan hydrogel surfaces. The structure and composition of the cultured cells on the PVA-chitosan hydrogel surfaces was studied using immunocytochemistry techniques. Cellular proliferation and viability under static and shear culture conditions have been explored using fluorescent activated cell sorter analysis. The finite element analysis results showed that the constitutive properties had a significant affect on the overall structural response of the artery wall. The mechanical and morphological studies established that the PVA-chitosan blended hydrogel membranes could be fabricated with similar properties to porcine aortic tissue. The findings of the biological experiments demonstrated that vascular cells adhered to the PVA-chitosan membranes and exhibited comparable proliferation and apoptosis characteristics to control samples. The results described increase understanding of PVA-chitosan blended hydrogel membranes specifically with regard to the development of bioartificial vessels for use in in vitro vascular bioreactors