Improving the Curriculum in M. R. Wood Negro School in Sugar Land, Texas

There is a division of opinion as to merits and the purposes of the village school of the present. Many persons who attended one and two-teacher schools at the beginning of the century are of the opinion that the modern village school is inferior to the village school of thirty years ago. Some think that the curriculum of the small school is inadequate in that it attempts to teach subject matter drawn largely from an urban situation. In many respects the present-day rural school is better than the rural school before 1900.1 The physical plants are better equipped; the teachers are younger and better educated. Dilapidated shacks and unsightly log houses have given way in large measure to well constructed, painted and attractive buildings. Instead of the uncomfortable benches, often without backs, are convenient desks. Instead of the ancient school master, one finds a young person, generally a woman, who has completed on the average two years of work above the high school. There is almost universal effort to adapt the curriculum to the needs and interest of the child in the small town situation. But although rural schools have improved greatly there is a general feeling that this improvement has not been proportionately as great as has been improvement in city schools. Contrasts can easily be drawn in the matter of grounds, sanitary toilets, drinking fountains, heating, and even teachers. The small community will more readily accept services of a teacher who has had no experience whereas the city generally demands experience. Because of these contrasts rural people are beginning to demand for their schools, (1) a better and more efficient organization, (2) closer and more effective supervision, and (3) more competent and better trained teachers. The problem may be stated in terms of the following questions: 1. To what extent can the curriculum of M. R. Wood School be improved? 2. How can we measure the improvement of the community in terms of the school curriculum? 1 Sorokin and Zimmerman, Principles of Rural-Urban Sociology, pages 487 - 490

Synthesis and Behavior Characterization of Multi-Scale Hierarchical Structured Composites

The purpose of the synthesis of a multi-scale hierarchical composite material was to create a material with a high specific strength, a low mass, and high strength material. To achieve this the material categorization of the Formlabs Tough V2 resin was conducted. The resin was used in the construction of a bio-mimicry diamond lattice structure. The structure was subjected to compression testing to characterize the material properties. The Tough V2 resin structure combined with cellulose created a multi-scaled material on Macro and Micro levels to show the bio-inspired design to increase the material properties in a favorable manor. The Tough V2 material degrades by time and accounts for the irregularities in this research, and this was overcame using a control sample with the final product. A control and final product were tested producing results that proved the final product had an overall increase in materials properties. An increase in specific strength of 1.75 times with average control value of 0.0495 MPa*m^3/kg to final product value of 0.0750 MPa*m^3/kg. An increase in ultimate strength and young’s modulus also occurred. Ultimate strength increased 1.75 times from 7.849MPa to 14.375MPa and Young’s modulus almost doubled at 1.8 times increase from 156.66MPa to 284.12MPa respectively

Ductile mandrel and parting compound facilitate tube drawing

Refractory tubing is warm drawn over a solid ductile mandrel with a powder parting compound packed between mandrel and the tubes inner surface. This method applies also to the coextrusion of a billet and a ductile mandrel

Countryside biogeography of neotropical herbaceous and shrubby plants

As human impacts on the environment intensify, the future of plant and animal biodiversity will depend increasingly on the floras surviving in human-dominated "countryside" habitats. To begin to characterize these floras for the Neotropics, we investigated the richness and composition of herbaceous and shrubby plant communities in six forested and deforested habitats, in three replicated study areas (7.5-km in diameter), of southern Costa Rica. We chose habitat types that are common throughout the tropics, to begin building a general understanding of both the habitats of origin and the diversity of countryside floras. Focal forest habitats were understory, 1- to 2-year-old tree-fall gaps, and riverbanks, all in primary forest. Focal deforested habitats were ungrazed road verges, grazed pasture, and riverbanks in grazed pasture. Non-riverbank habitats were sampled both near and far from. forest edge. In total, we sampled 772 species from 79 families, similar to 40% of the non-tree plant diversity of the region. Only 6% of identified species are known to be exotic. In each study area, understory and pasture plots were consistently species poor, while tree-fall gaps and road verges near forest were consistently the most species-rich habitats. In each study area, we found the same proportion of species restricted to forested habitats (similar to 45%) and deforested habitats (similar to 37%), and the same proportion of "countryside-habitat generalists" ( similar to 18%) occurring in both forested and deforested habitats. However, different forested habitats supported different proportions of country side-habitat generalists in each study area, although understory plots consistently 'supported the fewest generalists. Among forested habitats, riverbanks were the most similar floristically to deforested habitats. Pasture riverbanks and road verges near forest supported plant communities most similar to those in forested habitats. The uniqueness and richness of each habitat suggests that countrysides with diverse land uses can support many native herbaceous and shrubby plant species. As it becomes increasingly difficult to protect large tracts of undisturbed tropical forest, we suggest that conservation goals expand to encompass maintenance of heterogeneity in countryside landscapes

Productivity, infrastructure, and urban density – an allometric comparison of three European city-regions across scales

Agglomeration-based arguments citing Dutch and German city-regions have been a primary driver in advocating intercity transport strategies in the north of England. In this paper, we adopt an allometric urban model investigating the applicability and transferability of these transport-led agglomerative strategies promoted to address England’s regional economic under-performance. This is undertaken through a comparative study of the size-cost performance balance of three city-regions and the overall urban networks in the Netherlands, Germany, and England and Wales using city units defined at different spatial scales. While our results support a case for better mobility and transport comparing the three urban networks regardless of the spatial scales, comparisons of specific city-regions indicate a more nuanced interplay of productivity, mobility infrastructure, and urban density

Species and functional diversity of native and human-dominated plant communities

Despite growing attention to how human activities alter plant communities, little is known about the ecosystem consequences of these changes. We explore the relationship between species and functional diversity of herbaceous and shrubby plant communities in forested and deforested habitats in three Neotropical landscapes. We focus on six traits: pollination mechanism, dispersal mechanism, growth form, fruit type, fruit size, and seed size. We ask: (1) What is the relationship between species richness and functional diversity (trait state richness)? (2) Do species/functional diversity relationships differ between forested and deforested habitats? and (3) Are observed species/functional diversity patterns more consistent with ecological filtering or differentiation-based assembly processes? We show that species richness is often a weak surrogate for functional diversity, depending on the trait. Species/functional diversity relationships differ significantly between forested and deforested habitats, but the nature of-differences is trait dependent. Dispersal mechanism and fruit type number increased more rapidly in deforested than forested habitats, but the opposite was true for most other traits. Using a null model, we found evidence of ecological filtering for most traits in both habitats. Results demonstrate that deforested habitats do not necessarily contain lower functional diversity than forest but that the ecological assembly processes influencing community function in deforested communities differ dramatically from forest