Engineering\u27s Effects on Communities through an Ethical Framework

Engineering is at the forefront of innovation and progression in our society, but often has various impacts on the communities in which projects take place. This article focuses on several ethical guidelines established through education and engineering’s effects on surrounding communities. Ethics inside of community actions and approach will also be explored

The Regional Response to Federal Funding for Bicycle and Pedestrian Projects

Examines the efficacy of federal funding for non-motorized modes of transportation based on funding patterns across metropolitan regions, case studies of policies and projects, and an analysis of the funding's impact on bicycling and walking behavior

Pre-service science teachers’ understanding of science and engineering practices, engineering design process, and scientific method

This study examined secondary pre-service science teachers’ understanding of science and engineering practices, the engineering design process, and the scientific method before and after an intervention. Participants were ten pre-service science teachers. Data were collected through a survey and semi-structured interviews. Results show that after the intervention pre- service science teachers developed understanding of science and engineering practices and used more engineering-specific language when describing them. They also developed an understanding that both engineering design process and scientific method are cyclical and iterative and that the two processes share many practices, but the biggest difference between them is in their purposes. Pre-service teachers also said that the redesign process in engineering design, and the repetition of steps can occur at any point in engineering design process and scientific method. These findings have implications for science teacher education, and teaching and learning of science and engineering design in schools

Scottish Common Sense and Nineteenth-Century American Law: A Critical Appraisal

One overriding concern I have with Susanna Blumenthal\u27s insightful and stimulating article, The Mind of a Moral Agent: Scottish Common Sense and the Problem of Responsibility in Nineteenth-Century American Law, is whether there is anything sufficiently distinctive about Scottish Common Sense philosophy that justifies the role Blumenthal ascribes to it. One could probably replace Common Sense philosophy in Blumenthal\u27s formulation with something as diffuse as The Enlightenment, or even Western jurisprudence, without significantly altering its import, because the assumption that rational and moral faculties are innate and universal is common to most writers in these traditions. There are subtle differences among individual authors, of course, but most embrace the notion in one form or another, and their differences often trace to questions of nomenclature

The SPORT-C Intervention: An Integration of Sports, Case-Based Pedagogy and Systems Thinking Learning

The STEM field is unrepresentative of the population it serves. Due to a lack of cultural relevance in STEM courses, there is a dissociation between the lived experience of students from underrepresented racial groups (URG) and STEM course material. The SPORT-C intervention is a framework that combines sports, systems thinking learning, and a case-based pedagogy into an activity that can be used in any STEM course. A pilot study was conducted to determine the viability of the SPORT-C intervention in a classroom setting and determine if it was worth further investigating and if any impact differed by racial identity. The findings from this study implicate that the SPORT-C intervention has an impact on the motivation levels of students to participate in STEM courses

A microscopic study of the trichomes on gynoecia of normal and tetraploid Clark cultivars of Glycine max and seven near isogenic lines

The surfaces of gynoecia of Glycine max cultivars—normal Clark, a tetraploid Clark, and seven isolines—display variations in at least three types of trichomes. The normal Clark soybean gynoecium has at least three and possibly four types of trichomes: a two‐ to four‐celled, elongate, thick‐walled trichome (TWT), an elongate thin‐walled unicellular trichome (UCT), a secretory multicellular trichome (MCT), and an elongate thin‐walled bicellular trichome that we have interpreted as an immature TWT. All these types are present on the gynoecium by 1 d before anthesis. After fertilization, the UCT is rare, but the other types continue to initiate and develop on the young pod. During flowering, the UCT and the MCT are distributed along the ovary from the base of the gynoecium to the top of the ovary. The TWT forms primarily along the dorsal side of the style. The Clark tetraploid and the extra-dense, dense 1, dense 2, sharp hair tip, sparse, and puberulent isolines have all four types of trichomes on their gynoecia, although TWTs and UCTs are very short in the puberulent isoline. The glabrous isoline is missing the TWT but has a short, thin‐walled trichome that occurs infrequently, mainly along the dorsal side of the style. The ratio of TWTs on the gynoecium of the normal Clark to those on the isolines is 1:4 on extra-dense, 1:3 on dense 2, 1:1.6 on dense 1, 1:2 on the tetraploid, 1:0.5 on the sparse, and 1:0.2 on the puberulent. There is a positive correlation between the expanded distribution of TWTs onto other parts of the gynoecium and increased pubescence of TWTs on the gynoecium. The numbers and morphology of MCTs are similar in the normal Clark, the tetraploid, and the seven isolines, except for extra-dense, where the numbers of MCTs are suppressed. The numbers of UCTs were significantly greater on the extra-dense, dense 2, and dense 1 isolines than on the normal Clark, but distribution was the same. During early pod development, TWTs and MCTs are most prominent, indicating that the UCTs either disappear or may be a precursor of TWTs. No functions are known for any of the types of trichomes on soybean gynoecia, but possible roles are discussed

25-Hydroxyvitamin D Threshold for the Effects of Vitamin D Supplements on Bone Density:Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Most trials of vitamin D supplementation have shown no benefits on bone density (BMD), though severe vitamin D deficiency causes osteomalacia which is associated with profound BMD deficits. Recently, the ViDA-BMD study from New Zealand demonstrated a threshold of baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D (30 nmol/L) below which vitamin D supplementation did benefit BMD. We have now re-examined data from a similar trial in Aberdeen to determine whether a baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D threshold of 30 nmol/L is also observed in that database. The Aberdeen study recruited 305 postmenopausal women in late winter and randomized them to receive placebo, vitamin D 400 IU/day or vitamin D 1000 IU/day over one year. As previously reported, BMD loss at the hip was reduced by vitamin D 1000 IU/day only, and there was no significant treatment effect of either dose at the lumbar spine. In the present analysis, when the trial participants were grouped according to whether their baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D was ≤30 nmol/L or above this threshold, significant treatment effects were apparent at both the spine and hip in those with baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D ≤30 nmol/L, but no significant effects were apparent in those with baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D above this level. There was evidence of a similar threshold for effects on parathyroid hormone, but no groups showed changes in bone turnover markers during the study. It is concluded that vitamin D supplements only increase bone density in adults with nadir 25-hydroxyvitamin D ≤30 nmol/L. This moves us further towards a trial-based definition of vitamin D deficiency in adults with adequate calcium intakes, and suggests that supplement use should be targeted accordingly. Future trials of vitamin D supplementation should focus on individuals with 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in this range

DETC2004-57620 RUNNING UNDERGRADUATE PROJECTS IN DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES: IMPLEMENTING A HEALTHCARE INFORMATION SYSTEM IN A HISPANIC, BORDER COMMUNITY

ABSTRACT An information system was designed for a non-profit organization located in an international, developing community for an undergraduate engineering course. The project team went through the process of identifying needs, generating concepts, selecting a design, and implementing and testing the final design. In this paper, similarities and differences of this project compared to other projects in the course are explored. The team was confronted with unique problems resulting from working with an international sponsor in a developing community. Communication and donations of varying types were important players in overcoming these obstacles. FRAME OF REFERENCE Interdisciplinary Design at the University of Arizona ENGR 498, Cross-disciplinary Engineering Design, is a two-semester course at the University of Arizona in which teams of students from different majors work with a project sponsor on a single design project. A highly abstracted version of the design process taught in ENGR 498 is shown i

Why New Zealand’s Indigenous reconciliation process has failed to empower Māori fishers: Distributional, procedural, and recognition-based injustices

How is it that the New Zealand government’s process for re-establishing Indigenous fishing rights has failed to deliver thriving Māori fisheries? This paper examines why, at Te Waihora, a coastal lake, and site of one of the nation’s longest running and best-funded state-Māori co-governance agreements, Māori fishers have been unable to use their rights to support their fishery. As of 2018, the lake’s culturally and ecologically significant eel population was no longer commercially viable, a decline fishers have attributed to rampant dairy industry expansion upstream. Drawing on environmental justice literatures, we deploy a multi-dimensional framework to identify factors shaping possibilities for justice in the wake of rights reconciliation, as experienced by Māori fishers, scientists, and leaders. We engage theories of political economic relations to interpret the implications of these experiences for environmental justice theory and politics. Ethnographic accounts demonstrate that the New Zealand government’s process for re-establishing Māori rights falls short of achieving distributional, procedural, and recognition-based dimensions of environmental justice, and that these effects are interlinked. In particular: (i) downstream fishers are placed to bear disproportionate costs of runoff from upstream land use change; (ii) Māori fishers have little influence over governance decisions that affect land use; and (iii) government claims, including that Māori should, “move beyond grievance mode,” obscure logics for resistance. We suggest that the government’s support for dairy industry expansion represents an attempt to mitigate crises of overaccumulation, characteristic of competitive markets. Unlike those who identify persistent injustice as a logic for turning away from the state, we argue that the recurring nature of these crises, and the role state organizations play in directing responses, indicates a rationale for continued engagement with state governing bodies to advance justice

The Dwarf Spheroidal Companions to M31: Variable Stars in Andromeda VI

We have surveyed Andromeda VI, a dwarf spheroidal galaxy companion to M31, for variable stars using F450W and F555W observations obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. A total of 118 variables were found, with 111 being RR Lyrae, 6 anomalous Cepheids, and 1 variable we were unable to classify. We find that the Andromeda VI anomalous Cepheids have properties consistent with those of anomalous Cepheids in other dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We revise the existing period-luminosity relations for these variables. Further, using these and other available data, we show that there is no clear difference between fundamental and first-overtone anomalous Cepheids in a period-amplitude diagram at shorter periods, unlike the RR Lyrae. For the Andromeda VI RR Lyrae, we find that they lie close to the Oosterhoff type I Galactic globular clusters in the period-amplitude diagram, although the mean period of the RRab stars, = 0.588 d, is slightly longer than the typical Oosterhoff type I cluster. The mean V magnitude of the RR Lyrae in Andromeda VI is 25.29+/-0.03, resulting in a distance 815+/-25 kpc on the Lee, Demarque, & Zinn distance scale. This is consistent with the distance derived from the I magnitude of the tip of the red giant branch. Similarly, the properties of the RR Lyrae indicate a mean abundance for Andromeda VI which is consistent with that derived from the mean red giant branch color.Comment: 23 pages, including 13 figures and 6 tables, emulateapj5/apjfonts style. Accepted by the Astronomical Journal. We recommend the interested reader to download the preprint with full-resolution figures, which can be found at http://www.noao.edu/noao/staff/pritzl/M31dwarfs.htm