870 micron Imaging of a Transitional Disk in Upper Scorpius: Holdover from the Era of Giant Planet Formation?

We present 880 micron images of the transition disk around the star [PZ99] J160421.7-213028, a solar-mass star in the nearby Upper Scorpius association. With a resolution down to 0.34 arcsec, we resolve the inner hole in this disk, and via model fitting to the visibilities and spectral energy distribution we determine both the structure of the outer region and the presence of sparse dust within the cavity. The disk contains about 0.1 Jupiter masses of mm-emitting grains, with an inner disk edge of about 70 AU. The inner cavity contains a small amount of dust with a depleted surface density in a region extending from about 20-70 AU. Taking into account prior observations indicating little to no stellar accretion, the lack of a binary companion, and the presence of dust near 0.1 AU, we determine that the most likely mechanism for the formation of this inner hole is the presence of one or more giant planets.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

The Development of the WISE (Writing to Inspire Successful Education) Writing Mentoring Program: A University-School Collaboration

Abstract This paper describes the development of a service learning writing mentoring program designed to close the achievement gap in writing proficiency for economically disadvantaged seventh grade students. Compared to writing mentoring studies found in the published literature, this program has three distinguishing components. First, it focused on economically disadvantaged middle school students. Second, it provided writing mentoring through a university-school partnership in which college students provided the intervention in collaboration with a seventh-grade teacher. Third, the program used technology to facilitate the mentoring process. Over the course of an academic year, mentors created videos with feedback on 19 writing assignments. The writing mentoring program was associated with a four-fold increase in the percentage of students who were graded as ‘proficient’ on a state standardized writing exam. These results suggest that semi-virtual, intensive writing mentoring and individualized feedback from college students can close the achievement gap and improve the quality of middle level education provided to economically disadvantaged students

Engaging Science Faculty in Program Assessment – Planting Seeds and Cultivating Growth

This poster describes strategies to build faculty capacity in curriculum design and alignment and ways to plant the seeds for faculty collaboration and engagement in program assessment within the newly formed Astronomy BA & Astrophysics BS program in an effort to address the challenge of the difficulty students face in engaging faculty in discussion and planning of teaching and learning due to the nature of the program schedule. This poster provides personal insights and observed impact from efforts to effect change. In addition to providing examples in skill mapping, writing rubrics, curriculum alignment, and course deisgn, effective ways to engage willing faculty in using course assignments to investigate progress towards key student learning objectivese are also outlined

Drell-Yan, ZZ, W+W- production in SM & ADD model to NLO+PS accuracy at the LHC

In this paper, we present the next-to-leading order QCD corrections for di-lepton, di-electroweak boson (ZZ, W+W-) production in both the SM and the ADD model, matched to the HERWIG parton-shower using the aMC@NLO framework. A selection of results at the 8 TeV LHC, which exhibits deviation from the SM as a result of the large extra-dimension scenario are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, search sensitivity for the 14 TeV LHC discussed, version to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Finger Enucleation of the Tonsil:

n/

"No Sign Language if you want to get him talking": Power, Transgressions/Resistance and Discourses of d/Deafness in the Republic of Ireland

Over the last number of decades, recognition of the fact that Deaf people comprise a Deaf Community which shares a common language, Sign Language, with its own grammar and syntax (Stokoe, 1960), cultural norms and values, and history (Groce, 1985; Bienvenu, 1989; Lane, 1989; Sacks, 1989; van Cleve and Crouch, 1989; Lane et al., 1996; Mow, 2001; Woll and Ladd, 2005) has highlighted the need for a socio-cultural perspective on Deafness, breaking away from the traditional medical view of hearing impairment. This rise of the socio-cultural model of Deafness, sometimes known as ‘Big-D Deaf’ is signified by the capitalisation of the word Deaf, indicating membership to a cultural and linguistic minority group, as opposed to lowercase deaf which signifies an audiological deficiency.1 Although those identifying with the socio-cultural model of Deafness do not identify as disabled (Lane, 2002), the progress made in establishing a socio-cultural model must be situated within a generalised shift away from viewing disabilities as inherently personal obstacles towards one which examines the role of the physical, social, economic, or political environment in creating disability (Oliver, 1990). While this shift has occurred within the social and care sciences (including Geography) and Deaf Studies itself, with a transference from a medical model of disability to various kinds of social models, the predominant mode of research concerning d/Deaf people in medical and educational fields still favours the medical model of deafness as a disabling condition best corrected through audiological treatment and speech instruction (as highlighted by research reported in journals such as Audiology, International Journal of Audiology, the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, and The Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research). There is little room for the role of Sign Language or Deaf identity in this medical model, which instead prioritises acquisition of speech and integration with hearing society as the goal of deaf education. While due consideration must be given to the complexities of d/Deaf identity and the diffculties in implementing any binary between deaf/Deaf or d/Deaf/hearing (Skelton and Valentine, 2003a) for the purpose of this paper, I will limit this discussion to the ‘two dominant constructions of d/Deafness: medical deafness and sociocultural Deafness (Valentine and Skelton, 2007: 108)