Management of Science

NASA concept, philosophy, and approach to science managemen

Toward a Negri-inspired theory of c/Constitution: a contemporary Canadian case study

This thesis excavates Antonio Negri's theorization of the distinction between 'the material and formal constitution' (one which I distinguish throughout by way of capitalization as 'the material constitution' and 'the formal Constitution' or, in the shorthand contraction, 'c/Constitution'). In the first half of the thesis this is undertaken by way of a theoretical line of inquiry (Chapter I-III) and in the second as a series of concretized case studies drawn from contemporary Canadian constitutional historiography (Chapters IV-VI). The first chapter of this thesis (Chapter I) presents the October 1970 Front de libération de Québec (FLQ) Crisis as an event which contains within itself, not unlike similar events surrounding the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro by the Brigate Rosse (BR) in 1978 Italy, the contours of a Negri-inspired entry into the subject matter. Chapter II offers a more situated analysis of some of Negri's key texts on the c/Constitution from the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties to further ground the conceptual experiment underlying the thesis. Chapter III examines how Negri's thought is developed and brought up to date in his English language collaboration with Michael Hardt. Here, a significant detour will be taken through the critical literature responsive to Empire (2000). This is done first in a contemporary Canadian analysis of the form of sovereignty corresponding to 'Empire' (Chapter IV); second in a Canadian inquiry into the form of collective subjectivity understood by the concept of 'the multitude' (Chapter V); and, third in an Indigenous Canadian consideration of possible alternatives to the Constitution of the State in the 'constitution of the common' (Chapter VI)

Telling the Stars: A Quantitative Approach to Assessing the Use of Folk Tales in Science Education.

This research examines the impact of paired folk tales and science explanations on students in third through sixth grades who viewed program modules from the SkyTeller Project of Lynn Moroney and the Lunar and Planetary Institute of Houston, Texas. The audience consisted of over 3500 students in eight locations in the United States. Because few quantitative studies have been conducted to examine the use of stories in science education, the development of an instrument to assess students\u27 attitudes toward science and stories forms a major part of this research. During the final stage of testing, the revised instrument and methods found significant increase in positive attitude toward science after the presentations. Questionnaires, telephone calls, and on-site visits with program presenters and teachers confirmed quantitative results. Despite the difficulties of conducting large-scale studies and the traditionally small response compliance, quantitative assessment can provide useful information for evaluating storytelling media

Optimizing significance testing of astronomical forcing in cyclostratigraphy

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

On the Numerical Dispersion of Electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell Code : Finite Grid Instability

The Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method is widely used in relativistic particle beam and laser plasma modeling. However, the PIC method exhibits numerical instabilities that can render unphysical simulation results or even destroy the simulation. For electromagnetic relativistic beam and plasma modeling, the most relevant numerical instabilities are the finite grid instability and the numerical Cherenkov instability. We review the numerical dispersion relation of the electromagnetic PIC algorithm to analyze the origin of these instabilities. We rigorously derive the faithful 3D numerical dispersion of the PIC algorithm, and then specialize to the Yee FDTD scheme. In particular, we account for the manner in which the PIC algorithm updates and samples the fields and distribution function. Temporal and spatial phase factors from solving Maxwell's equations on the Yee grid with the leapfrog scheme are also explicitly accounted for. Numerical solutions to the electrostatic-like modes in the 1D dispersion relation for a cold drifting plasma are obtained for parameters of interest. In the succeeding analysis, we investigate how the finite grid instability arises from the interaction of the numerical 1D modes admitted in the system and their aliases. The most significant interaction is due critically to the correct represenation of the operators in the dispersion relation. We obtain a simple analytic expression for the peak growth rate due to this interaction.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure