Mercy Charism and Its Relationship to Effective Schooling

Digitized thesi

A Stationary Cylindrically Symmetric Electrovac Space-time

A stationary cylindrically symmetric electrovac solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations is derived in which the electromagnetic field is null. The resulting space-time contains no hypersurface orthogonal killing fields so that it is non-static

A Comparison of Adolescents\u27 Digital and Print Reading Experiences: Does Mode Matter?

The purpose of this mixed-methods research study was to investigate the comprehension and motivation of 36, sixth-grade students reading moderately challenging text under two conditions: Nook or book. Using a Sequential Explanatory Design model, quantitative data were collected prior to qualitative data collection (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). A Matched Pairs Design model (Hinkle, Wiersma, & Jurs, 2003) was employed for the quantitative portion of the study with 18 participants randomly assigned to the Nook group and 18 participants randomly assigned to the book group. Nook group participants were instructed to use the following electronic features during reading: highlighting, note taking, and dictionary usage. The book group participants received instruction for using actual highlighters, sticky notes, and dictionaries during reading. Participants read and responded to Sounder (Armstrong, 1969) in either a traditional or digital (Nook) format. Quantitative data included scores on a reading motivation survey and summative comprehension test. Qualitative data included students’ journal entries, researcher’s field notes, and participants’ verbal responses to interview questions. Results indicate the Nook group achieved higher overall comprehension scores with statistically significant higher inferential comprehension scores than the book group. Nook group participants also read approximately 3 minutes longer per day, chose a free-write response option (as opposed to responding to researcher-constructed writing prompts), and cited text more frequently in journal responses than book group participants. Findings suggest that engaging students in reading digital text and teaching them to use the technology’s facilitative features has the potential to improve student’s reading comprehension of moderately challenging text

Agro-environmental project duration and effectiveness in South-east Asia

Considerable emphasis has been placed on developing technologies for agricultural sustainability. Many bilateral projects are working to achieve this outcome. A desk review was conducted to study the importance of project duration for the effectiveness of sustainable agricultural projects. Longer-duration projects were successful in addressing more holistic issues than short projects. However, funding agencies tend to fund shorter-duration projects, so projects become progressively shorter. At the same time, the number of projects implemented each year is increasing. Despite the decrease in total development assistance, increases in project numbers, particularly since 1986, appear to be at the cost of project duration. Short project duration was one of the most cited reasons for not completing essential dissemination activities for wider adoption, whereas longer- duration projects were usually considered more successful in addressing more holistic issues. It is difficult to produce tangible outputs from agricultural and soil conservation projects within five years. Considering the slow changes in the system and in agricultural and environmental sustainability, the authors suggest that project developers should be advised to plan for a minimum of 5–10 years, depending on the nature of activities. It is time for funding agencies to reconsider their tendency to fund shorter-duration projects

Virtual Diagnostic Interface: Aerospace Experimentation in the Synthetic Environment

The Virtual Diagnostics Interface (ViDI) methodology combines two-dimensional image processing and three-dimensional computer modeling to provide comprehensive in-situ visualizations commonly utilized for in-depth planning of wind tunnel and flight testing, real time data visualization of experimental data, and unique merging of experimental and computational data sets in both real-time and post-test analysis. The preparation of such visualizations encompasses the realm of interactive three-dimensional environments, traditional and state of the art image processing techniques, database management and development of toolsets with user friendly graphical user interfaces. ViDI has been under development at the NASA Langley Research Center for over 15 years, and has a long track record of providing unique and insightful solutions to a wide variety of experimental testing techniques and validation of computational simulations. This report will address the various aspects of ViDI and how it has been applied to test programs as varied as NASCAR race car testing in NASA wind tunnels to real-time operations concerning Space Shuttle aerodynamic flight testing. In addition, future trends and applications will be outlined in the paper

The Promise of an Accumulation of Care: Disadvantaged African-American Youths’ Perspectives About What Makes an After School Program Meaningful

African-American youth growing up in dangerous, deprived homes and communities are at great risk of developing impaired relationship capabilities, which disadvantages them further in the workplace and in their personal lives. While after-school programs have well-documented positive effects, researchers have called for better understanding of improving youths\u27 engagement in services and their constructive relationship skills. Here, we report on a project using participatory action methods to engage poverty-level African-American youth in developing a leadership development program they would find most meaningful. Stand Up Help Out (SUHO) gave youth three layers of caregiving experience: receiving care from instructors, giving and receiving care from peers, and providing care through constructive community action initiatives and mentoring elementary school children. Findings were that: (1) participation and retention of youth in SUHO were considerably higher than national averages; (2) youth reported that SUHO made it possible for them to have better relationships as friends, romantic partners, and in academic settings, and they looked forward to being better parents, (3) youth developed positive peer relationships despite a context of mistrust and gang violence, (4) youth actively sought out relationships with caring adults and identified what was most meaningful in those relationships, and (5) youth deeply valued the opportunity to develop their ability to care for others

Estimating uncertainties in incoherent scatter radar parameters from random variations in time series data

International audienceThe variation of parameters in time series data from the EISCAT UHF incoherent scatter radar has been used to estimate the uncertainties in measurements of electron concentration, electron and ion temperature and line-of-sight ion velocity. Good agreement was found with the results of previous analyses that estimated uncertainties in velocity and electron temperature from similar data using a complementary method. By contrast, uncertainties in ion temperature and electron concentration estimated from the same time series data were found to differ from the expected theoretical values by factors of 1.8 and 2.7, respectively. It was found that the relative sizes of these uncertainties more closely matched those predicted by a previous Monte Carlo simulation than values predicted by currently accepted theoretical formulae. Although the specific measured and theoretical uncertainties reported here relate to a very simple kind of ISR experiment, the method itself is general and can be applied to data from any incoherent scatter radar

Mind Mapping: An Experiential Approach to Syllabus Review

On the first day of class most management faculty review or “go over” the syllabus, typically through an instructor-led presentation. However, research indicates that students retain little, if any, of the syllabus material, leading to frustrating outcomes for both students and instructors. Here we report the results of a post hoc natural experiment, where we compared the effectiveness of the traditional, review-and-discuss method to the effectiveness of a mind map approach used in another undergraduate management course. Before we conceived of the natural experiment, each faculty member reviewed the syllabus using his or her preferred method. One week later, the faculty members administered the same unannounced quiz in each section to measure both the amount and type of information the students recalled. Overall, the mind map approach was more effective, with mind-mapping students correctly answering more questions, especially regarding higher order concepts like course learning objectives and the nature of major assignments