A Question of Equity: The Effect of Home Value On Need Analysis

Mandatory need analysis for federal financial aid programs determines what a family can reasonably contribute toward higher education costs. In most cases, the need analysis system accurately reflects a family\u27s ability to contribute toward funding a college or university education. But in the last several years the system used to determine need has shown inequities to families in certain regions where home values have increased at much faster rates than in other parts of the country

Letter from Sean McHugh (Box Office Assistant) to Resident Assistants

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film Letter from Sean McHugh (Box Office Assistant) to Resident Assistants about group sales for On The Verge. March 17, 1997https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/verge_pubs/1003/thumbnail.jp

Letter from Sean McHugh (Box Office Assistant) to Resident Assistants

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film Letter from Sean McHugh (Box Office Assistant) to Resident Assistants about group sales for Chain Saws, Orgies, and Chase Scenes: 3 Experiments in Comedy November 7, 1997https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/experiments_comedy_1997_pubs/1002/thumbnail.jp

Developing an Open-Book Online Exam for Final Year Students

Like many others, our institution had to adapt our traditional proctored, written examinations to open-book online variants due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the process applied to develop open-book online exams for final year (undergraduate) students studying Applied Machine Learning and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning courses as part of a four-year BSc in Computer Science. We also present processes used to validate the examinations as well as plagiarism detection methods implemented. Findings from this study highlight positive effects of using open-book online exams, with 85% of students reporting that they either prefer online open-book examinations or have no preference between traditional and open-book exams. There were no statistically significant differences reported comparing the exam results of student cohorts who took the open-book online examination, compared to previous cohorts who sat traditional exams. These results are of value to the CSEd community for three reasons. First, it outlines a methodology for developing online open-book exams (including publishing the open-book online exam papers as samples). Second, it provides approaches for deterring plagiarism and implementing plagiarism detection for open-book exams. Finally, we present feedback from students which may be used to guide future online open-book exam development

Studies toward optimization of energy migration in rigid-rod surfactant polymers

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemistry, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70).by Sean Konrad McHugh.M.S

ARCONS: a highly multiplexed superconducting UV to near-IR camera

ARCONS, the Array Camera for Optical to Near-infrared Spectrophotometry, was recently commissioned at the Coude focus of the 200-inch Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. At the heart of this unique instrument is a 1024-pixel Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID), exploiting the Kinetic Inductance effect to measure the energy of the incoming photon to better than several percent. The ground-breaking instrument is lens-coupled with a pixel scale of 0.23"/pixel, with each pixel recording the arrival time (<2 microsec) and energy of a photon (~10%) in the optical to near-IR (0.4-1.1 microns) range. The scientific objectives of the instrument include the rapid follow-up and classification of the transient phenomena.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of IAU symposium number 285; New Horizons in Time Domain Astronomy, eds. R.E.M Griffin, R. J. Hanisch & R. Seama

Tungsten silicide films for microwave kinetic inductance detectors

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) provide highly multiplexed arrays of detectors that can be configured to operate from the sub-millimeter to the X-ray regime. We have examined two tungsten silicide alloys (W5Si3 and WSi2), which are dense alloys that provide a critical temperature tunable with composition, large kinetic inductance fraction, and high normal-state resistivity. We have fabricated superconducting resonators and provide measurement data on critical temperature, surface resistance, quality factor, noise, and quasiparticles lifetime. Tungsten silicide appears to be promising for microwave kinetic inductance detectors

Titanium Nitride Films for Ultrasensitive Microresonator Detectors

Titanium nitride (TiNx) films are ideal for use in superconducting microresonator detectors because: a) the critical temperature varies with composition (0 < Tc < 5 K); b) the normal-state resistivity is large, \rho_n ~ 100 $\mu$Ohm cm, facilitating efficient photon absorption and providing a large kinetic inductance and detector responsivity; and c) TiN films are very hard and mechanically robust. Resonators using reactively sputtered TiN films show remarkably low loss (Q_i > 10^7) and have noise properties similar to resonators made using other materials, while the quasiparticle lifetimes are reasonably long, 10-200 $\mu$s. TiN microresonators should therefore reach sensitivities well below 10^-19 WHz^(-1/2).Comment: to be published in AP

A targeted e-learning program for surgical trainees to enhance patient safety in preventing surgical infection.

INTRODUCTION: Surgical site infection accounts for 20% of all health care-associated infections (HCAIs); however, a program incorporating the education of surgeons has yet to be established across the specialty. METHODS: An audit of surgical practice in infection prevention was carried out in Beaumont Hospital from July to November 2009. An educational Web site was developed targeting deficiencies highlighted in the audit. Interactive clinical cases were constructed using PHP coding, an HTML-embedded language, and then linked to a MySQL relational database. PowerPoint tutorials were produced as online Flash audiovisual movies. An online repository of streaming videos demonstrating best practice was made available, and weekly podcasts were made available on the iTunes© store for free download. Usage of the e-learning program was assessed quantitatively over 6 weeks in May and June 2010 using the commercial company Hitslink. RESULTS: During the 5-month audit, deficiencies in practice were highlighted, including the timing of surgical prophylaxis (33% noncompliance) and intravascular catheter care in surgical patients (38% noncompliance regarding necessity). Over the 6-week assessment of the educational material, the SurgInfection.com Web pages were accessed more than 8000 times; 77.9% of the visitors were from Ireland. The most commonly accessed modality was the repository with interactive clinical cases, accounting for 3463 (43%) of the Web site visits. The average user spent 57 minutes per visit, with 30% of them visiting the Web site multiple times. DISCUSSION: Interactive virtual cases mirroring real-life clinical scenarios are likely to be successful as an e-learning modality. User-friendly interfaces and 24-hour accessibility will increases uptake by surgical trainees

Preventing infection in general surgery: improvements through education of surgeons by surgeons.

Surgical patients are at particular risk of healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) due to the presence of a surgical site leading to surgical site infection (SSI), and because of the need for intravascular access resulting in catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI). A two-year initiative commenced with an initial audit of surgical practice; this was used to inform the development of a targeted educational initiative by surgeons specifically for surgical trainees. Parameters assessed during the initial audit and a further audit after the educational initiative were related to intra- and postoperative aspects of the prevention of SSIs, as well as care of peripheral venous catheters (PVCs) in surgical patients. The proportion of prophylactic antibiotics administered prior to incision across 360 operations increased from 30.0% to 59.1% (P72h (10.6% vs 3.1%,