Learning Style Diversity in Post –Secondary Distance Education

During the fall semester of 2005, 153 university graduate students’ preferred learning styles were measured with the Kolb Learning Style Inventory, online version 3.1. The primary findings of the study indicated all of the learning styles and processes described by Kolb were represented in the distance learning population and suggested distance and residential learners uniquely engage the learning process. Biblical references were discussed with respect to the uniqueness displayed by study participants

Feeding site selection by woodland caribou in north-central British Columbia

We examined the foraging habits of the northern woodland caribou ecotype {Rangifer tarandus caribou) at the scale of the individual feeding site. Field data were collected in north-central British Columbia over two winters (Dec 1996-Apr 1998). We trailed caribou and measured vegetation characteristics (species composition and percent cover), snow conditions (depth, density, and hardness), and canopy closure at terrestrial and arboreal feeding sites, and at random sites where feeding had not occurred. Logistic regression was used to determine the attributes of feeding sites that were important to predicting fine scale habitat selection in forested and alpine areas. In the forest, caribou selected feeding sites that had a greater percent cover of Cladina mitis and Cladonia spp, lower snow depths, and a lower percentage of debris and moss. Biomass of Bryoria spp. at the 1-2 m stratum above the snow significantly contributed to predicting what trees caribou chose as arboreal feeding sites. In the alpine, caribou selected feeding sites with a greater percent cover of Cladina mitis, Cladina rangiferina, Cetraria cucullata, Cetraria nivalis, Thamnolia spp., and Stereocaulon alpinum as well as lower snow depths

Upper‐level midlatitude troughs in boreal winter have an amplified low‐latitude linkage over Africa

In boreal winter, strong upper-level midlatitude troughs across the Atlantic–Africa–southwestern Asia sector generate substantial tropical–extratropical interaction and have become recognized as important factors in some extreme weather events. As such, they represent important dynamic features to understand and capture in weather forecasts, as well as in climate models for projections on longer timescales. Here, we empirically study the 20% of winter days with strongest trough signatures during 1982–2020 at each longitude across the sector, and show that the trough impact over northern Africa, most notably in central parts, is particularly strong in magnitude, low-latitude extent and persistence, leading to the characterization of a northern Africa mode of several-days weather fluctuation. Weather conditions that follow strong troughs from the eastern Atlantic to the Central Mediterranean include: (i) a warming tendency across much of northern Africa, generally of several Celsius magnitude ahead of the trough, and >1°C even extending to the south of 10° N in central parts and continuing eastward until the Ethiopian Highlands; (ii) precipitation development further north than normal across northern tropical Africa, especially strong over longitudes corresponding to a northward extension of the main Congo rain belt. The intertropical discontinuity and low-level heat low are also shifted significantly north, with the complex of anomalies persisting for several days, beyond the timescale of the trough. For context, at all other trough longitudes across the sector, a warming signal does emerge (statistically significant), but with much shorter persistence (2–3 days), smaller magnitude and extending southward clearly only to 15–20° N. Mid-level tropical plumes of moisture are also typically present for strong troughs from the eastern Atlantic to southwestern Asia, and these alone can lead to weather extremes. However, low-level warming and mid-level moistening are uniquely juxtaposed at low latitudes over central Africa, where a near-equatorial signature develops

Assessing the level of spatial homogeneity of the agronomic Indian monsoon onset

Over monsoon regions, such as the Indian subcontinent, the local onset of persistent rainfall is a crucial event in the annual climate for agricultural planning. Recent work suggested that local onset dates are spatially coherent to a practical level over West Africa; a similar assessment is undertaken here for the Indian subcontinent. Areas of coherent onset, defined as local onset regions or LORs, exist over the studied region. These LORs are significant up to the 95% confidence interval and are primarily clustered around the Arabian Sea (adjacent to and extending over the Western Ghats), the Monsoon Trough (north central India), and the Bay of Bengal. These LORs capture regions where synoptic scale controls of onset may be present and identifiable. In other regions, the absence of LORs is indicative of regions where local and stochastic factors may dominate onset. A potential link between sea surface temperature anomalies and LOR variability is presented. Finally, Kerala, which is often used as a representative onset location, is not contained within an LOR suggesting that variability here may not be representative of wider onset variability

High surface area sulfur-doped microporous carbons from inverse vulcanised polymers

Industrial by-products sulfur and dicyclopentadiene form a high surface-area microporous carbon with excellent potential to filter gold or mercury.</p

Large-eddy simulation of dust-uplift by a haboob density current

Cold pool outflows have been shown from both observations and convection-permitting models to be a dominant source of dust emissions (“haboobs”) in the summertime Sahel and Sahara, and to cause dust uplift over deserts across the world. In this paper Met Office Large Eddy Model (LEM) simulations, which resolve the turbulence within the cold-pools much better than previous studies of haboobs with convection-permitting models, are used to investigate the winds that uplift dust in cold pools, and the resultant dust transport. In order to simulate the cold pool outflow, an idealized cooling is added in the model during the first 2 h of 5.7 h run time. Given the short duration of the runs, dust is treated as a passive tracer. Dust uplift largely occurs in the “head” of the density current, consistent with the few existing observations. In the modeled density current dust is largely restricted to the lowest, coldest and well mixed layers of the cold pool outflow (below around 400 m), except above the “head” of the cold pool where some dust reaches 2.5 km. This rapid transport to above 2 km will contribute to long atmospheric lifetimes of large dust particles from haboobs. Decreasing the model horizontal grid-spacing from 1.0 km to 100 m resolves more turbulence, locally increasing winds, increasing mixing and reducing the propagation speed of the density current. Total accumulated dust uplift is approximately twice as large in 1.0 km runs compared with 100 m runs, suggesting that for studying haboobs in convection-permitting runs the representation of turbulence and mixing is significant. Simulations with surface sensible heat fluxes representative of those from a desert region during daytime show that increasing surface fluxes slows the density current due to increased mixing, but increase dust uplift rates, due to increased downward transport of momentum to the surface