The Death of Superman

THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN is an autobiographical novel that covers the years from 7 to 17 in the life of Shane McFarlane, who struggles to overcome the effects of his inner-city environment and an addict father in and out of incarceration. The title is a metaphor for the decaying presence of the narrator’s father in his and his older brother’s life and the resulting consequences of that absence. With the narrator’s father in prison, new threats emerge, including his mother’s ruthless boyfriend and his brother’s attraction to the allure of fast money. The narrator must ultimately make decisions governed by his fear that someday he’ll end up incarcerated just like his father. Desperate for an escape, he buries himself in sports and academics in hopes of earning a scholarship, his ticket out of his environment. The novel opens in second person, but soon makes a transition to first person past tense, allowing the reader to gain a heightened level of intimacy with the characters much like in Junot Diaz’ novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or in John Edgar Wideman’s novel Sent for You Yesterday, where young narrators struggle with life altering discoveries. Carlos, a mail carrier, and Mrs. Cathy Williams, a teacher at the local high school, become key voices in the “village” who help Shane navigate the chaos in his life. As Shane conquers his fear of becoming yet another statistic of his environment, he learns the importance of allowing others to be there for him and listening to the positive influences around him

The application of inelastic neutron scattering to investigate the interaction of methyl propanoate with silica

A modern industrial route for the manufacture of methyl methacrylate involves the reaction of methyl propanoate and formaldehyde over a silica-supported Cs catalyst. Although the process has been successfully commercialised, little is known about the surface interactions responsible for the forward chemistry. This work concentrates upon the interaction of methyl propanoate over a representative silica. A combination of infrared spectroscopy, inelastic neutron scattering, DFT calculations, X-ray diffraction and temperature-programmed desorption is used to deduce how the ester interacts with the silica surface

Compassionate mind training in adolescents.

Depression is one of the most common psychological disorders and is associated with a wide range of impairments. Whilst prevalence rates in childhood are relatively low they increase in adolescence and a number of programmes have now been developed which aim to prevent depression in this age group. This paper reviews those programmes that target children and adolescents considered at risk by virtue of their already elevated depression symptoms. A range of such programmes exist the majority are cognitive behavioural but a number also focus on interpersonal influences on depression. Whilst results provide evidence that such programmes can potentially reduce depression symptoms only a few studies have considered diagnoses and more research is needed in this area. Differences in who programmes target, their setting, length of interventions and in design make studies difficult to compare and further coherence will be needed in the field if a picture of 'what works for whom' is to emerge

Effects of waterlogging on crop and pasture production in the Upper Great Southern, Western Australia

Separate estimates of the effect of waterlogging on cereal yields were made using rainfall and crop yield statistics, and remote sensing. Both methods showed that waterlogging costs tens of millions of dollars each year in lost crop production in the Upper Great Southern Statistical Division. The costs will be over $100 m in wet years. Losses in pasture production are likely to be of a similar magnitude, but are harder to quantify

An inquiry-based learning approach to teaching information retrieval

The study of information retrieval (IR) has increased in interest and importance with the explosive growth of online information in recent years. Learning about IR within formal courses of study enables users of search engines to use them more knowledgeably and effectively, while providing the starting point for the explorations of new researchers into novel search technologies. Although IR can be taught in a traditional manner of formal classroom instruction with students being led through the details of the subject and expected to reproduce this in assessment, the nature of IR as a topic makes it an ideal subject for inquiry-based learning approaches to teaching. In an inquiry-based learning approach students are introduced to the principles of a subject and then encouraged to develop their understanding by solving structured or open problems. Working through solutions in subsequent class discussions enables students to appreciate the availability of alternative solutions as proposed by their classmates. Following this approach students not only learn the details of IR techniques, but significantly, naturally learn to apply them in solution of problems. In doing this they not only gain an appreciation of alternative solutions to a problem, but also how to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. Developing confidence and skills in problem solving enables student assessment to be structured around solution of problems. Thus students can be assessed on the basis of their understanding and ability to apply techniques, rather simply their skill at reciting facts. This has the additional benefit of encouraging general problem solving skills which can be of benefit in other subjects. This approach to teaching IR was successfully implemented in an undergraduate module where students were assessed in a written examination exploring their knowledge and understanding of the principles of IR and their ability to apply them to solving problems, and a written assignment based on developing an individual research proposal

Is It Time To Consider Global Sharing of Integral Physics Data?

The innocent days of the Atoms for Peace program vanished with the suicide attack on the World Trade Center in New York City that occurred while the GLOBAL 2001 international nuclear fuel cycle conference was convened in Paris. Today’s reality is that maintaining an inventory of unirradiated highly enriched uranium or plutonium for critical experiments requires a facility to accept substantial security cost and intrusion. In the context of a large collection of benchmark integral experiments collected over several decades and the ongoing rapid advances in computer modeling and simulation, there seems to be ample incentive to reduce both the number of facilities and material inventory quantities worldwide. As a result of ongoing nonproliferation initiatives, there are viable programs that will accept highly enriched uranium for down blending into commercial fuel. Nevertheless, there are formidable hurdles to overcome before national institutions will voluntarily give up existing nuclear research capabilities. GLOBAL 2005 was the appropriate forum to begin fostering a new spirit of cooperation that could lead to improved international security and better use of precious research and development resources, while ensuring access to existing and future critical experiment data

Experiments with hydrocarbon bubble chambers

Abstract Not Provided

From the Top: Surface-derived Carbon Fuels Greenhouse Gas Production at Depth in a Neotropical Peatland

Tropical peatlands play an important role in global carbon (C) cycling but little is known about factors driving carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions from these ecosystems, especially production below the surface. This study aimed to identify source material and processes regulating C emissions from deep in a Neotropical peatland on the Caribbean coast of Panama. We hypothesized that: 1) surface derived organic matter transported down the soil profile is the primary C source for respiration products at depth and 2) high lignin content results in hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis as the dominant CH4 production pathway throughout the profile. We used radiocarbon isotopes to determine whether CO2 and CH4 at depth (measured to 2 m) are produced from modern substrates or ancient deep peat, and we used stable C isotopes to identify the dominant CH4 production pathway. Peat organic chemistry was characterized using 13C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (13C-NMR). We found that deep peat respiration products had radiocarbon signatures that were more similar to surface dissolved organic C (DOC) than deep solid peat. Radiocarbon ages for deep peat ranged from 1200 – 1800 yrBP at the sites measured. These results indicate that surface derived C was the dominant source for gas production at depth in this peatland, likely because of vertical transport of DOC from the surface to depth. Carbohydrates did not vary with depth across these sites, whereas lignin, which was the most abundant compound (55–70 % of C), tended to increase with depth. These results suggest that there is no preferential decomposition of carbohydrates, but preferential retention of lignin. Stable isotope signatures of respiration products indicated that hydrogenotrophic rather than acetoclastic methanogenesis was the dominant production pathway of CH4 throughout the peat profile. These results suggest, even C compounds that are typically considered vulnerable to decomposition (i.e., carbohydrates) are preserved deep in these tropical peats, highlighting the importance of anaerobic, waterlogged conditions for preserving tropical peatland C