870 micron Imaging of a Transitional Disk in Upper Scorpius: Holdover from the Era of Giant Planet Formation?

We present 880 micron images of the transition disk around the star [PZ99] J160421.7-213028, a solar-mass star in the nearby Upper Scorpius association. With a resolution down to 0.34 arcsec, we resolve the inner hole in this disk, and via model fitting to the visibilities and spectral energy distribution we determine both the structure of the outer region and the presence of sparse dust within the cavity. The disk contains about 0.1 Jupiter masses of mm-emitting grains, with an inner disk edge of about 70 AU. The inner cavity contains a small amount of dust with a depleted surface density in a region extending from about 20-70 AU. Taking into account prior observations indicating little to no stellar accretion, the lack of a binary companion, and the presence of dust near 0.1 AU, we determine that the most likely mechanism for the formation of this inner hole is the presence of one or more giant planets.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Crystallization kinetics and role of stress in Al induced layer exchange crystallization process of amorphous SiGe thin film on glass

The present study reports Al induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous (a)-SiGe in Al-Ge-Si ternary system at low temperature ~ 350 degree C. In addition to crystallization, the isothermal annealing of a-SiGe/AlOx/Al/corning-glass (CG) structure was found to be accompanied by an Al induced layer exchange (ALILE) phenomenon. The evolution of residual stress in the Al layer during isothermal annealing is evaluated using X-ray diffraction based technique to ascertain the role of stress in the ALILE process. A corroboration of the stress with the growth kinetics, analyzed using Avrami theory of phase transformation gives a comprehensive understanding of the ALILE crystallization process in this system. The grown polycrystalline SiGe thin film is a potential candidate for novel technological applications in semiconductor devices.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

Engaging Science Faculty in Program Assessment – Planting Seeds and Cultivating Growth

This poster describes strategies to build faculty capacity in curriculum design and alignment and ways to plant the seeds for faculty collaboration and engagement in program assessment within the newly formed Astronomy BA & Astrophysics BS program in an effort to address the challenge of the difficulty students face in engaging faculty in discussion and planning of teaching and learning due to the nature of the program schedule. This poster provides personal insights and observed impact from efforts to effect change. In addition to providing examples in skill mapping, writing rubrics, curriculum alignment, and course deisgn, effective ways to engage willing faculty in using course assignments to investigate progress towards key student learning objectivese are also outlined

The Development of the WISE (Writing to Inspire Successful Education) Writing Mentoring Program: A University-School Collaboration

Abstract This paper describes the development of a service learning writing mentoring program designed to close the achievement gap in writing proficiency for economically disadvantaged seventh grade students. Compared to writing mentoring studies found in the published literature, this program has three distinguishing components. First, it focused on economically disadvantaged middle school students. Second, it provided writing mentoring through a university-school partnership in which college students provided the intervention in collaboration with a seventh-grade teacher. Third, the program used technology to facilitate the mentoring process. Over the course of an academic year, mentors created videos with feedback on 19 writing assignments. The writing mentoring program was associated with a four-fold increase in the percentage of students who were graded as ‘proficient’ on a state standardized writing exam. These results suggest that semi-virtual, intensive writing mentoring and individualized feedback from college students can close the achievement gap and improve the quality of middle level education provided to economically disadvantaged students

Coping Ability of Medical and Nursing Students: A Cause of Concern

Background: Medical students today are subject to a variety of stress; academic, social, emotional or stress in the form of affliction of health during their stay at medical school. The physiological response to these depends on various factors including their inherent coping abilities. This study was designed to examine the coping ability of medical and nursing students at the time of admission to medical school. Materials and Methods: 42 medical and 34 nursing students volunteered for the study. They were administered the BAI questionnaire and classified as good and poor adjusters based on their score. Results: The study revealed an unsatisfactory overall coping ability to be prevalent among medical and nursing students. Conclusion: This study showed that there is a need for orientation and counselling of medical and nursing students at the start of college

Time-dependent Circulation Flows: Iron Enrichment in Cooling Flows with Heated Return Flows

We describe a new type of dynamical model for hot gas in galaxy groups and clusters in which gas moves simultaneously in both radial directions. Circulation flows are consistent with (1) the failure to observe cooling gas in X-ray spectra, (2) multiphase gas observed near the centers of these flows and (3) the accumulation of iron in the hot gas from Type Ia supernovae in the central galaxy. Dense inflowing gas cools, producing a positive central temperature gradient, as in normal cooling flows. Bubbles of hot, buoyant gas flow outward. Circulation flows eventually cool catastrophically if the outward flowing gas transports mass but no heat; to maintain the circulation both mass and energy must be supplied to the inflowing gas over a large volume, extending to the cooling radius. The rapid radial recirculation of gas produces a flat central core in the gas iron abundance, similar to many observations. We believe the circulation flows described here are the first gasdynamic, long-term evolutionary models that are in good agreement with all essential features observed in the hot gas: little or no gas cools as required by XMM spectra, the gas temperature increases outward near the center, and the gaseous iron abundance is about solar near the center and decreases outward.Comment: 17 pages (emulateapj5) with 6 figures; accepted by The Astrophysical Journa

NLO-QCD Corrections to Dilepton Production in the Randall-Sundrum Model

The dilepton production process at hadron colliders in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model is studied at next-to-leading order in QCD. The NLO-QCD corrections have been computed for the virtual graviton exchange process in the RS model, in addition to the usual gamma, Z-mediated processes of standard Drell-Yan. K-factors for the cross-sections at the LHC and Tevatron for differential in the invariant mass, Q, and the rapidity, Y, of the lepton pair are presented. We find the K-factors are large over substantial regions of the phase space.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure