The Scope

Collection of all 2016 articles from The Scope. About The Scope This magazine was produced by students in Science Journalism (MASC 491-005), which was taught during the Fall 2016 semester by Jeff South, an associate professor in the Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Sara Williams, head of academic outreach for VCU Libraries. The course, VCU’s first focusing exclusively on science reporting, was supported by a grant that funds projects aligned with VCU’s strategic plan, called Quest for Distinction. VCU selected the Science Journalism course as a “disruptively innovative idea” and as a way for students to “make it real.” The Quest Innovation Grant funded the publication of this magazine as well as other aspects of the course. The course brought together students from a range of disciplines. The goal was to help journalism and other mass communication majors think like scientists, and to help students in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) write like journalists. We believe the stories demonstrate that the course was a success

Ammonia Emission in Various Star-forming Environments : A Pilot Study of Planck Galactic Cold Clumps

The Planck Catalogue of Galactic Cold Clumps provides an all-sky sample of potential star-forming regions based on the submillimeter emission of their dust content. Around 1000 of these Planck objects were mapped with the James Clerk Maxwell telescope in the submillimeter range during the SCOPE survey, identifying prestellar and protostellar dense clumps inside them. We used the Effelsberg 100 m telescope to observe the emission lines of the NH3 inversion transitions toward a sample of 97 dense objects in varying environments in order to assess the physical parameters of their gas content. We derive their temperature, density, and velocity dispersion, correlating the resulting parameters with the environmental and evolutionary characteristics of the targets and with regard to their distance and physical size. We examine the dependence of physical parameters on distance and Galactic position and compare the gas-based and dust-continuum-based temperatures and densities. Together with the presence of maser emission and higher inversion transitions of ammonia, we may differentiate between certain groups of targets, e.g., filamentary, protostellar clumps, and high-latitude, core-sized, starless sources.Peer reviewe

A preliminary review of the existing literature investigating ethnic and gender differences in early childhood development

There exist well documented inequalities in earnings by gender, race and ethnicity. Those disadvantaged groups are usually referred to together as minorities, where the majority is usually "White-male". Empirical research often attributes the lower earnings of minorities to their lower human capital endowments. One view is that minorities choose to invest less in human capital due to expected labour market discrimination. An alternative view is that lower human capital acquisition among the minorities could be determined by pre-labour market factors, such as their adverse socio-economic status. However, the age at which these ability gaps set in is not clear: one could argue that trajectory of these inequalities is established early on in childhood, and just gets accentuated by the adverse socio-economic status. This paper reports on the findings of a preliminary review of the existing literature investigating ethnic and gender differences in early childhood development

What energy management practice can learn from research on energy cultures?

Purpose – This investigation aims to reframe the sizeable literature on barriers and drivers for energy efficiency measures and the phenomenon of the energy efficiency gap. We identified a gap between academic methods and industrial needs as well as a neglect of the cultural di-mension, despite its considerable impact. Based on this insight, the purpose of this paper is to integrate all of the various influences on industrial energy behavior previously identified in the literature in a refined energy cultures framework. Design/methodology/approach – This paper includes a systematic literature review of re-search in the field of energy management, energy efficiency, and cultural aspects within barri-ers and drivers of energy behavior. We selected and refined an existing energy cultures framework for the industrial context. To meet industrial needs, we applied an ontology map-ping of its core elements onto an international standard common for industrial energy man-agement practice. Findings – First, we present a refined framework for industrial energy cultures incorporating past barriers and drivers as factors. The framework enables an evaluation of attitude and be-havioral aspects, underlying technologies, organizational culture and actions related to energy as a system of interdependencies. Second, the factors are ranked based on number of appear-ances and empirical metadata. Economic aspects such as ‘Purchase, installment, and hidden costs’, ‘General investment and risk behavior’, and ‘Regulatory conditions’ are the highest ranked factors, but ‘Existing knowledge about EEM’, ‘Hierarchy approach: Top down’, and ‘Environmental concerns’ follow closely and represent cultural aspects which are still under-rated. Third, while illustrating a successful mapping onto a standardized process of continuous improvement, we also argue for heightened an academia-practice efforts. Social implications – Targeting the energy efficiency gap is an essential part of the sustainable development goals. The refined energy cultures framework allows for a better understanding of the industrial energy behaviors that are responsible for a significant share of a company’s success. The introduction of energy cultures serves as a starting point for future scholarly re-search within sustainability management accounting. Originality/value – The investigation combines existing research streams, their concepts, and their results about cultural aspects related to energy efficiency for both academics and practi-tioners. This review is the first to capture all of the various factors analyzed in academic litera-ture using the energy cultures framework as a basis. We add to the theoretical development of that framework with its application to the industrial context. This was identified as a gap. Its refinement helps to holistically understand barriers and drivers of industrial energy efficiency measures in order to support its practical implementation

Bayesian Cram\'er-Rao Bound Estimation with Score-Based Models

The Bayesian Cram\'er-Rao bound (CRB) provides a lower bound on the error of any Bayesian estimator under mild regularity conditions. It can be used to benchmark the performance of estimators, and provides a principled design metric for guiding system design and optimization. However, the Bayesian CRB depends on the prior distribution, which is often unknown for many problems of interest. This work develops a new data-driven estimator for the Bayesian CRB using score matching, a statistical estimation technique, to model the prior distribution. The performance of the estimator is analyzed in both the classical parametric modeling regime and the neural network modeling regime. In both settings, we develop novel non-asymptotic bounds on the score matching error and our Bayesian CRB estimator. Our proofs build on results from empirical process theory, including classical bounds and recently introduced techniques for characterizing neural networks, to address the challenges of bounding the score matching error. The performance of the estimator is illustrated empirically on a denoising problem example with a Gaussian mixture prior

Nobeyama Survey of Inward Motions toward Cores in Orion Identified by SCUBA-2

In this study, 36 cores (30 starless and six protostellar) identified in Orion were surveyed to search for inward motions. We used the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope, and mapped the cores in the J = 1 -> 0 transitions of HCO+, (HCO+)-C-13, N2H+, HNC, and (HNC)-C-13. The asymmetry parameter delta V, which was the ratio of the difference between the HCO+ and (HCO+)-C-13 peak velocities to the (HCO+)-C-13 line width, was biased toward negative values, suggesting that inward motions were more dominant than outward motions. Three starless cores (10% of all starless cores surveyed) were identified as cores with blue-skewed line profiles (asymmetric profiles with more intense blueshifted emission), and another two starless cores (7%) were identified as candidate blue-skewed line profiles. The peak velocity difference between HCO+ and (HCO+)-C-13 of them was up to 0.9 km s(-1), suggesting that some inward motions exceeded the speed of sound for the quiescent gas (similar to 10-17 K). The mean of delta V of the five aforementioned starless cores was derived to be -0.5 +/- 0.3. One core, G211.16-19.33North3, observed using the Atacama Compact Array of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in DCO+ J = 3 -> 2 exhibited blue-skewed features. Velocity offset in the blue-skewed line profile with a dip in the DCO+ J = 3 -> 2 line was larger (similar to 0.5 km s(-1)) than that in HCO+ J = 1 -> 0 (similar to 0.2 km s(-1)), which may represent gravitational acceleration of inward motions. It seems that this core is at the last stage in the starless phase, judging from the chemical evolution factor version 2.0 (CEF2.0).Peer reviewe

Uncertainty in life cycle costing for long-range infrastructure. Part I: leveling the playing field to address uncertainties

Purpose Life cycle costing (LCC) is a state-of-the-art method to analyze investment decisions in infrastructure projects. However, uncertainties inherent in long-term planning question the credibility of LCC results. Previous research has not systematically linked sources and methods to address this uncertainty. Part I of this series develops a framework to collect and categorize different sources of uncertainty and addressing methods. This systematization is a prerequisite to further analyze the suitability of methods and levels the playing field for part II. Methods Past reviews have dealt with selected issues of uncertainty in LCC. However, none has systematically collected uncertainties and linked methods to address them. No comprehensive categorization has been published to date. Part I addresses these two research gaps by conducting a systematic literature review. In a rigorous four-step approach, we first scrutinized major databases. Second, we performed a practical and methodological screening to identify in total 115 relevant publications, mostly case studies. Third, we applied content analysis using MAXQDA. Fourth, we illustrated results and concluded upon the research gaps. Results and discussion We identified 33 sources of uncertainty and 24 addressing methods. Sources of uncertainties were categorized according to (i) its origin, i.e., parameter, model, and scenario uncertainty and (ii) the nature of uncertainty, i.e., aleatoric or epistemic uncertainty. The methods to address uncertainties were classified into deterministic, probabilistic, possibilistic, and other methods. With regard to sources of uncertainties, lack of data and data quality was analyzed most often. Most uncertainties having been discussed were located in the use stage. With regard to methods, sensitivity analyses were applied most widely, while more complex methods such as Bayesian models were used less frequently. Data availability and the individual expertise of LCC practitioner foremost influence the selection of methods. Conclusions This article complements existing research by providing a thorough systematization of uncertainties in LCC. However, an unambiguous categorization of uncertainties is difficult and overlapping occurs. Such a systemizing approach is nevertheless necessary for further analyses and levels the playing field for readers not yet familiar with the topic. Part I concludes the following: First, an investigation about which methods are best suited to address a certain type of uncertainty is still outstanding. Second, an analysis of types of uncertainty that have been insufficiently addressed in previous LCC cases is still missing. Part II will focus on these research gaps

Einsatz von cellulose- und stärkehaltigen Naturstoffen zur Abwasserreinigung

Es wurde die sorptive Bindung von in Wasser gelösten Schadstoffen an der Oberfläche von cellulose- und stärkehaltigen Naturstoffen untersucht. In einem umfangreichen Screening wurde die Aufnahme von Schwermetallionen durch Ionenaustausch sowie von organischen Verbindungen durch Adsorption nachgewiesen. Die mathematische Beschreibung der Sorptionsvorgänge erfolgte durch Langmuir- und Freundlich-Isothermen. Durch chemische Modifikationen der Cellulosematrix wurde eine weitere Steigerung der Sorptionskapazitäten angestrebt. Der Einbau von phosphorhaltigen funktionellen Gruppen in verschiedene cellulosebasierte Naturstoffe erbrachte eine deutliche Erhöhung der Schwermetallbeladungen. Die Praxistauglichkeit der Sorbentien wurde in Durchbruchsversuchen mit synthetischen und realen Abwässern nachgewiesen, wobei sowohl native als auch chemisch modifizierte Stoffe einzeln und in Kombinationen zum Einsatz kamen

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