Handing on the Charism: Reporting on an Oral History Project

“Handing on the Charism,” part of a larger oral history project, was a series of interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 among the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, their associates, and other women the Sisters helped or influenced. The article gives this New Jersey community’s history, explains the project’s methodology, and provides long excerpts from the interview transcripts. It provides conclusions about how the Sisters’ charism is being passed down as well as recommendations for how to further include the laity in it

The impact of language factors on learner achievement in Science

South African learner achievement remains poor, despite large investment in schooling over the last two decades. Literature and research findings offer no single explanation or solution. In this article, the authors explored the relative contribution of specific language factors such as the role of home- and school-language equivalence, cultural and economic capital, and other school and classroom factors to Science achievement. The analysis identified specific language and/or contextual factors having the biggest influence on learner achievement. This was achieved through secondary analysis of South African Grade Nine (N = 12,000) data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011. Multiple-regression modelling using contextual and achievement data suggested that home- and school-language equivalence and how frequently learners used the school language at home were strongly associated with the Science achievement results of Grade Nine learners in South Africa. Several other language factors that could be seen as cultural capital, beyond broader economic capital, some classroom-related contextual conditions and selected school-level factors, also showed strong influences. It is concluded that language, teacher training, and broader economic policy changes and their thorough implementation are required to address these concerns.Keywords: cultural capital; economic capital; home language; language factors; language of assessment; language of learning; language of teaching; Science achievement; Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS

Education, the science of learning, and the COVID-19 crisis

In the COVID-19 crisis, the science of learning has two different responsibilities: first, to offer guidance about how best to deal with the impact of the current situation, including lockdown and home-schooling; and second, to consider bigger questions about what this large-scale educational experiment might mean for the future. The first part of this Viewpoint summarises advice for parents on mental health, and on becoming stand-in-teachers. The second part, taking the longer view, considers the potential negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis in increasing inequality in education; but also the potential positive impact of driving innovations in technology use for educating children. Alongside the many new challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis is a somewhat familiar one: how to translate scientific evidence into public policy. Politicians (in the UK at least) recite the mantra “we are led by the science”, but in reality politicians, not scientists, lead. Science focuses on mechanisms, the how and the why, while politicians have the daunting job of turning that into the “so what do we do?”. On a smaller scale, the science of learning faces the same challenge. How can a scientific understanding of teaching and learning inform the much broader canvas of education policy and educational practices? More specifically, how can the slow, cumulative knowledge built up through research translate to meet classroom teachers’ immediate needs

ASTEC -- the Aarhus STellar Evolution Code

The Aarhus code is the result of a long development, starting in 1974, and still ongoing. A novel feature is the integration of the computation of adiabatic oscillations for specified models as part of the code. It offers substantial flexibility in terms of microphysics and has been carefully tested for the computation of solar models. However, considerable development is still required in the treatment of nuclear reactions, diffusion and convective mixing.Comment: Astrophys. Space Sci, in the pres

Numerical Schemes for Rough Parabolic Equations

This paper is devoted to the study of numerical approximation schemes for a class of parabolic equations on (0, 1) perturbed by a non-linear rough signal. It is the continuation of [8, 7], where the existence and uniqueness of a solution has been established. The approach combines rough paths methods with standard considerations on discretizing stochastic PDEs. The results apply to a geometric 2-rough path, which covers the case of the multidimensional fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index H \textgreater{} 1/3.Comment: Applied Mathematics and Optimization, 201

Percolation model for structural phase transitions in Li1−x_{1-x}Hx_xIO3_3 mixed crystals

A percolation model is proposed to explain the structural phase transitions found in Li$_{1-x}$H$_x$IO$_3$ mixed crystals as a function of the concentration parameter $x$. The percolation thresholds are obtained from Monte Carlo simulations on the specific lattices occupied by lithium atoms and hydrogen bonds. The theoretical results strongly suggest that percolating lithium vacancies and hydrogen bonds are indeed responsible for the solid solution observed in the experimental range $0.22 < x < 0.36$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Secondary education reform in Lesotho and Zimbabwe and the needs of rural girls: Pronouncements, policy and practice

Analysis of the educational needs of rural girls in Lesotho and Zimbabwe suggests a number of shortcomings in the current form of secondary education, and ways in which it might be modified so as to serve this sizeable group of students better. Several of the shortcomings, notably in relation to curricular irrelevance and excessive focus on examinations, have long been recognised, including by politicians. Yet political pronouncements are seldom translated into policy, and even where policy is formulated, reforms are seldom implemented in schools. This paper makes use of interviews with educational decision-makers in the two southern African countries and a range of documentary sources to explore why, despite the considerable differences between the two contexts, much needed educational reforms have been implemented in neither

Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies

Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade. Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models, and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies, such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc