Salient Factors in Predicting Student Success, Including Course Modality

Much discussion in higher education has focused upon predicting student learning, and how to identify students who may be at particular risk of failure. Little research has actually tackled that challenge, and research on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in this areas is scarce; this study does so by measuring students across three semester of study in a variety of courses and course formats. Our results indicate that a set of characteristics predicting student success can be identified, and that course modality affects overall student success rate. Our results are discussed in terms of how they might inform faculty and administrators how best to identify at risk groups of students, and who other researchers might expand on these results to produce a more nuanced interactive understanding of the interplay among students, courses, course modalities, and other characteristics to identify ideal combinations of those factors leading to student success

Evolution of Ultracold, Neutral Plasmas

We present the first large-scale simulations of an ultracold, neutral plasma, produced by photoionization of laser-cooled xenon atoms, from creation to initial expansion, using classical molecular dynamics methods with open boundary conditions. We reproduce many of the experimental findings such as the trapping efficiency of electrons with increased ion number, a minimum electron temperature achieved on approach to the photoionization threshold, and recombination into Rydberg states of anomalously-low principal quantum number. In addition, many of these effects establish themselves very early in the plasma evolution ($\sim$ ns) before present experimental observations begin.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

Soft wood grafting of Garcinia xanthochymus (Hook. f.) [Syn. G. tinctoria (Wight)]

Soft wood grafting of Garcinia xanthochymus was standardized on 9 month old rootstocks ofthe same species with 90% success. The grafted plants flowered within 3 years after graftingand set fruits in the fourth year,  while seed propagated plants did not flower even 6½years after planting in the field. &nbsp

The 2-D electron gas at arbitrary spin polarizations and arbitrary coupling strengths: Exchange-correlation energies, distribution functions and spin-polarized phases

We use a recent approach [Phys. Rev. Letters, {\bf 84}, 959 (2000)] for including Coulomb interactions in quantum systems via a classical mapping of the pair-distribution functions (PDFs) for a study of the 2-D electron gas. As in the 3-D case, the ``quantum temperature'' T_q of a classical 2-D Coulomb fluid which has the same correlation energy as the quantum fluid is determined as a function of the density parameter r_s. Spin-dependent exchange-correlation energies are reported. Comparisons of the spin-dependent pair-distributions and other calculated properties with any available 2-D quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) results show excellent agreement, strongly favouring more recent QMC data. The interesting novel physics brought to light by this study are: (a) the independently determined quantum-temperatures for 3-D and 2-D are found to be approximately the same, (i.e, universal) function of the classical coupling constant Gamma. (b) the coupling constant Gamma increases rapidly with r_s in 2-D, making it comparatively more coupled than in 3-D; the stronger coupling in 2-D requires bridge corrections to the hyper- netted-chain method which is adequate in 3-D; (c) the Helmholtz free energy of spin-polarized and unpolarized phases have been calculated. The existence of a spin-polarized 2-D liquid near r_s = 30, is found to be a marginal possibility. These results pertain to clean uniform 2-D electron systems.Comment: This paper replaces the cond-mat/0109228 submision; the new version include s more accurate numerical evaluation of the Helmholtz energies of the para- and ferromagentic 2D fluides at finite temperatures. (Paper accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett.

In vitro proliferation of nutmeg aril (mace) by tissue culture

Mace from Myristica fragrans Routt. is one of the most expensive of spices. Mace tissue could be successfully multiplied on Me Cown's Woody Plant Medium (WPM) supplemented with 0.5 mgl-1 of IBA. The multiplied tissue retained both the colour and flavour components even after 2 months of culture indicating that their biosynthesis is continuing in culture. Gas chromatographic analysis of the mace oil extracted from the cultured tissue was similar to that of original mace in its qualitative profile. &nbsp

Micropropagation of Kaempferia spp. (K. galanga L. and K. rotunda L.)

Protocols were standardised for micropropagation of Kaempferia galanga and K. rotunda. Young sprouting buds of both the species could be established in Murashige and Skoog basal medium supplemented with 0.5 mgl-1 kinetin and 1.5% sucrose solidified with 0.7% agar. The buds produced multiple shoots and well developed roots in Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with 0.5 mgl-1 anaphthaleneacetic acid and 1.0 mgl-1 6-benzylaminopurine. A multiplication ratio of 1:10 and 1:6 with an average of 7 and 5 roots per shoot was obtained in K galanga and K. rotunda, respectively. The micropropagated plants were successfully planted out in pots with over 90 per cent survival. The morphological characters and yield of these two species for three crop seasons were also studied. &nbsp

Objective and subjective evaluation of High Dynamic Range video compression

A number of High Dynamic Range (HDR) video compression algorithms proposed to date have either been developed in isolation or only-partially compared with each other. Previous evaluations were conducted using quality assessment error metrics, which for the most part were developed for qualitative assessment of Low Dynamic Range (LDR) videos. This paper presents a comprehensive objective and subjective evaluation conducted with six published HDR video compression algorithms. The objective evaluation was undertaken on a large set of 39 HDR video sequences using seven numerical error metrics namely: PSNR, logPSNR, puPSNR, puSSIM, Weber MSE, HDR-VDP and HDR-VQM. The subjective evaluation involved six short-listed sequences and two ranking-based subjective experiments with hidden reference at two different output bitrates with 32 participants each, who were tasked to rank distorted HDR video footage compared to an uncompressed version of the same footage. Results suggest a strong correlation between the objective and subjective evaluation. Also, non-backward compatible compression algorithms appear to perform better at lower output bit rates than backward compatible algorithms across the settings used in this evaluation

Micropropagation of betel vine (Piper betle L.)

Betel vine (Piper betle L,) cv. Lakkuvalli was successfully micropropagated on Woody Plant Medium (WPM). Different explants from shoot, leaf and root tissues developed multiple shoots and rengenerated into plantlets either directly or through intervening callus phase on WPM supplemented with 3 mgl-1 benzyladenine and 1 mgl-1 kinetin. The excised shoots developed good root system on growth regulator free medium of the same composition. The plantlets were transferred to soil with 80% success. &nbsp