Abu Ghraib: (Un)becoming Photographs: How Can Art Educators Address Current Images from Visual Culture Perspectives?

On Friday, May 7, 2004 the front page of The New York Times contained two photographs and a headline: From Picture of Pride to Symbol of Abuse (Dao, 2004, p.1). In the top photograph Lynndie R. England appears in 2003, smiling, standing in a relaxed family setting, and wearing a blue Authentic USA hooded sweatshirt with red and white lettering. Until early May that photo had been displayed in the Mineral County West Virginia Courthouse with other photographs of local soldiers stationed in Iraq

The Use of Reading Guides as a Teaching Method for Mathematics Word Problem Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of reading guides as a teaching method for word problem comprehension. Attitudes toward mathematics were also examined. A quasi-experimental, nonrandomized, pretest-posttest, treatment group design was used for the investigation. The sample consisted of 40 students (two classes) taught by the same instructor and was equated in terms of mathematics levels, ages, and IQ scores. One treatment group used reading guides to comprehend mathematics word problems. The other treatment group utilized a general approach to comprehend the same set of problems. The students were pretested on a word problem comprehension test based on word problems used in the study. Each form consisted of five sets of fifteen statements sequenced in the literal, interpretive, and applied orders. Attitudes toward mathematics were also pretested on the mathematics section of the Estes Attitude Scales (Secondary Form). The instructor presented twenty-one word problems throughout the investigation. One treatment group received instruction using reading guides designed by the researcher. The other treatment group received instruction using a general approach to solving the same set of problems. Upon completion of the eight week treatment period, students were posttested. A one-tailed t-test for independent means was used to analyze the data at a .05 level of significance. The results indicated that overall mean posttest scores were not significantly different between the reading guide and general approach groups for word problem comprehension. This was also the case when the scores were analyzed in terms of sex differences. Analysis of posttest scores for the attitude toward mathematics inventory revealed a significant gain in attitude for those students who were instructed using reading guides. Recommendations for classroom use of reading guides as well as suggestions for future research were given

Serving Safe Barbeques for a Crowd

At many gatherings—such as athletic or church events, summer festivals, county fairs, and family reunions—large amounts of ground beef barbeque (BBQ) are prepared. For many volunteers, “cooking for a crowd” is not a common practice and their kitchens are not equipped to cook large amounts of food. If you are called upon to be in charge of the BBQ for a large group or concession, consider the following safe food-handling techniques

How to Enroll in Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Insurance After May 15, 2006

If you did not meet the May 15, 2006, deadline for open initial enrollment in Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Insurance, what can you do to get enrolled? This depends on your income, Medicare enrollment status, existing prescription drug coverage, and possible change of residence. Find the statement that best describes your situation to determine your options for enrollment in Medicare Part D

Cell-Type-Specific Complement Expression in the Healthy and Diseased Retina

Complement dysregulation is a feature of many retinal diseases, yet mechanistic understanding at the cellular level is limited. Given this knowledge gap about which retinal cells express complement, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing on similar to 92,000 mouse retinal cells and validated our results in five major purified retinal cell types. We found evidence for a distributed cell-type-specific complement expression across 11 cell types. Notably, Muller cells are the major contributor of complement activators c1s, c3, c4, and cfb. Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) mainly expresses cfh and the terminal complement components, whereas cfi and cfp transcripts are most abundant in neurons. Aging enhances c1s, cfb, cfp, and cfi expression, while cfh expression decreases. Transient retinal ischemia increases complement expression in microglia, Muller cells, and RPE. In summary, we report a unique complement expression signature for murine retinal cell types suggesting a well-orchestrated regulation of local complement expression in the retinal microenvironment

Profiles in Community-Engaged Learning

To provide a snapshot of the many impressive manifestations of community-engaged learning at the University of San Francisco, a 2014-2015 Faculty Learning Community (FLC), supported by the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), has collected the following profiles of selected faculty members across all the schools and colleges. This report was prepared by members of the CTE’s Faculty Learning Community on Community-Engaged Learning: Kevin D. Lo, Facilitator (School of Management), Emma Fuentes (School of Education), David Holler (College of Arts and Sciences), Tim Iglesias (School of Law), Susan Roberta Katz (School of Education), Star Moore (Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good), Chenit Ong-Flaherty (School of Nursing and Health Professions), Jennifer Parlamis (School of Management) Susan Pauly-O’Neill (School of Nursing and Health Professions). Our intent with this report is to offer USF administrators and incoming faculty members a sense of what’s being done well in community-engaged learning (CEL), while also pointing out what challenges remain as we establish our identity as a university that prioritizes community engagement. (Incidentally, we prefer the term “community-engaged learning” to “service-learning,” which we feel more precisely defines the scope of our activities. For more about this designation, please see the Executive Report on Community Engaged Learning issued by this same committee in June 2015.) Community-engaged learning as defined by Eyler and Giles is “a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students . . . seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves. In the process, students link personal and social development with academic and cognitive development . . . experience enhances understanding; understanding leads to more effective action.” (qtd. in Bandy, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, “What Is Service Learning or Community Engagement?”). We invited at least two faculty members from each school/college to answer several questions about the application of CEL in their courses. After providing a brief overview of activities in each course, we asked each professor what works well and what challenges persist. The successes and the challenges, as you’ll see, vary widely, and yet they clearly delineate, limited though our present sample size is, the great variety and energy and commitment our faculty have demonstrated in working with community partners and students. It is our hope that this report is merely the beginning of a much more ambitious project to be taken up by the McCarthy Center which will provide many more profiles of professors in the months and years to come

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure