Developing a Replacement System for Evaluation of a High School Faculty

This study addresses a problem of developing a replacement system for teacher evaluation in a senior high school. The study falls within an action research approach, the findings of which became the basis for an outline of a proposed plan of action. The study also includes among its findings a report of early results of the plan\u27s implementation

Genetic diversity among progenitors and derived lines of two maize (Zea mays L.) populations

Forty-six inbreds related to Iowa Stiff Stalk Synthetic (BSSS) and Iowa Corn Borer Synthetic #1 (BSCB1) were assayed for polymorphism at 227 microsatellite loci. The inbreds consisted of progenitors of BSSS and BSCB1 as well as elite lines derived from those populations. Diversity statistics were used to estimate genetic variability among the derived lines, and to locate regions of the maize genome that have changed as a result of artificial selection. The four groups of germplasm were labeled CBP and SSP for the progenitors of BSCB1 and BSSS, respectively, and CBL and SSL for the lines derived from BSCB1 and BSSS, respectively.;There were means of 3.5 and 3.4 alleles per locus among the CBP and SSP, respectively, and 2.3 and 2.5 alleles per locus among the CBL and SSL. As expected, many more alleles were found in the progenitor groups than in the groups of derived lines. CBL showed only 60% of the alleles found in CBP, while SSL had 66% of the alleles found in SSP. Supporting previous studies in this area, we found that 26% of the alleles in SSP were unique to a single inbred. In CBP, 32% of the alleles were unique, a figure slightly higher than previous results in BSCB1 or BSSS. Of the unique alleles in both progenitor groups, 73% were not found in any of the derived lines. There were 33 marker loci in BSSS and 18 marker loci in BSCB1 that exhibited reductions in gene diversity that can be attributed to artificial selection (P = 0.1).;Genetic distance between the progenitor groups was very low, indicating the progenitors were not highly divergent from each other. Rogers\u27s distance (RD) between progenitor groups and derived line groups was identical in both BSSS and BSCB1, suggesting that the derived lines are equally divergent from their respective progenitor groups. The largest RD was between the two derived-line groups, about 35% greater than the progenitor-to-derived line distance. Rogers\u27s distance between individual derived lines ranged from 15 to 54 in SSL and 25 to 56 in CBL, indicating some of the derived lines are very closely related

A thermodynamically-based viscoelastic-viscoplastic model for the high temperature cyclic behaviour of 9-12% Cr steels

Improving the understanding of the long term rate dependent behaviour of materials is of critical importance in many engineering applications. Without this understanding, it is potentially difficult to ensure safe and effective plant operation while simultaneously satisfying requirements for sustainability and responsible resource management. In the present work, a thermodynamically-based constitutive model is proposed to capture the rate sensitivity, the stress relaxation and the accelerated cyclic softening observed during cyclic deformation of a P91 steel at an elevated temperature (600°C). The model is developed within the framework of Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes and Generalised Standard Materials formalism, thereby offering a thermodynamically grounded coupling of both viscoelasticity (semi-recoverable strain accumulation at vastly different time scales) and viscoplasticity (irreversible strain observed above stress threshold). The later part combines a hyperbolic sine-power flow rule with non-linear isothermal cyclic evolution of isotropic and kinematic hardening. The applicability of the model to various mechanical loadings (e.g., cyclic tensile-compression tests, fatigue-relaxation tests, anhysteretic tests) is validated by designing a heuristic optimization program based on a nonlinear least-squares function coupled with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The optimization procedure is informed (through the estimation of initial material parameter estimates and objective function evaluation) by anhysteretic type experiential data only (wherein long term load hold periods are introduced at various points in the waveform). Rate dependency is determined and validated by considering experimental waveforms with different loading (strain) rates (0.1%.s−1, 0.01%.s−1 and 0.001%.s−1) and ranges (0.25%, 0.4% and 0.5%) to highlight most of the deformation mechanisms involved during the fatigue and relaxation processes. By comparing predicted and experimentally observed material responses, it is demonstrated in the present work that the viscoelastic-viscoplastic strain decomposition has the ability to capture the accelerated cyclic softening and the uncoupled stress relaxation behaviour (below and above yielding) for a P91 steel at elevated temperatures

Transforming Data into Knowledge

Hans Selye, the first major researcher of stress coined the word ‘stress’ in 1936 and defined it as “a non-specific response of the body to any demand for change”. Selye (1974) is of the view that stress is a facet of life which human beings cannot avoid. In fact he confidently declares that “total freedom from stress is death” Selye (1976) stated that stress in moderate levels enhances function. Kaplan and Sadock (2000) in their study on students also found out that moderate stress among students enhances learning ability. Pfeiffer (2001) emphasizes that stress helps students to peak their performance. However, stressors become a problem when they are excessive and tend to decrease the function of the individual

Hard Science and Soft Interpersonal Skills

Carl Carter is a professional photographer who once worked as a grip in movies filmed in New York City. The job of the grip is to install the tracks upon which cameras are mounted and also performs other manual labor as needed on a movie set. Carl was hired many times by both Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet, directors and movie makers who filmed most of their movies in New York City. Allen and Lumet made movies that were very different. Allen is famous for light, romantic comedies, such as Annie Hall, Bullets over Broadway and Everybody says I Love You. Sidney Lumet’s movies are much darker and more dramatic. Among his most famous works are Twelve Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico

A comparison of simple methods to incorporate material temperature dependency in the Green’s function method for estimating transient thermal stresses in thick-walled power plant components

The threat of thermal fatigue is an increasing concern for thermal power plant operators due to the increasing tendency to adopt “two-shifting” operating procedures. Thermal plants are likely to remain part of the energy portfolio for the foreseeable future and are under societal pressures to generate in a highly flexible and efficient manner. The Green’s function method offers a flexible approach to determine reference elastic solutions for transient thermal stress problems. In order to simplify integration, it is often assumed that Green’s functions (derived from finite element unit temperature step solutions) are temperature independent (this is not the case due to the temperature dependency of material parameters). The present work offers a simple method to approximate a material’s temperature dependency using multiple reference unit solutions and an interpolation procedure. Thermal stress histories are predicted and compared for realistic temperature cycles using distinct techniques. The proposed interpolation method generally performs as well as (if not better) than the optimum single Green’s function or the previously-suggested weighting function technique (particularly for large temperature increments). Coefficients of determination are typically above 0.96, and peak stress differences between true and predicted datasets are always less than 10 MPa

Survey of Adult Corn Rootworm Populations in Rotated Cornfields and Relationship to Larval Damage to the Subsequent Corn Crop

Research by Chiang (1965) and Krysan et al. (1984) has demonstrated that eggs of the northern corn rootworm, Djabrotica barberi, are capable of remaining in diapause for longer than a single winter chill period. Subsequently, researchers in several northern Corn Belt states have used controlled environmental and field experiments to confirm the presence of what has come to be known as extended diapause. In 1986 Krysan et al. used empirical evidence provided fortuitously by the Payment-In-Kind program to attribute larval damage in rotated field corn to northern corn rootworms with the extended diapause trait. During 1987 the incidence in Iowa of corn rootworm larval damage in corn grown in an annual rotation with another crop, usually soybeans, made its third consecutive, dramatic increase. The probability of farmers responding by applying a prophylactic soil-insecticide treatment to rotated corn stimulated the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture to support a three-year survey of the seriousness of extended diapause in Northwest Iowa

A miniaturised hybrid ion-atom chip trap and the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of trapped ions

Experiments involving trapped ultracold matter are of great interest to a diverse range of fields, from spectroscopy and quantum computing to ultracold chemistry. Hybrid traps allowing for the simultaneous confinement of charged and uncharged matter extend the scope of these experiments, but have not yet benefited from the miniaturisation of the trapping architectures demonstrated for traps which only confine either ions or neutral particles. This miniaturisation greatly enhances the spatial resolution of the forces with which the trapped particles are manipulated, and this thesis details the design and fabrication of a prototype miniaturised hybrid trap to take advantage of this increased precision. The co-trapping of ions and neutral particles leads to multiple mechanisms by which the energy distributions of the trapped ions may deviate from thermal statistics, which have previously been treated largely empirically. In this thesis, these effects are explored numerically and analytically to provide a theoretical framework for this behaviour through the formalism of superstatistics. The results derived here explain the deviations from thermal statistics observed in precision spectroscopy experiments and resolve outstanding questions about both the mechanism by which ions acquire a non-thermal energy distribution during buffer gas cooling with neutral atoms and the analytical form of this distribution. This significantly improves the ability to correctly interpret the results of experiments, and is applicable not only to the hybrid chip trap developed here, but to hybrid ion-neutral traps in general