985 research outputs found
Developing an Instrument to Assess the Effects of Pre-College Engineering Participation on the Experiences of First-Year Engineering Students
In this Complete Research paper, we describe the development of a survey instrument to measure the ways that students experience the transition from pre-college engineering activities to first-year engineering programs. As the number of opportunities to study and do engineering prior to matriculation in an undergraduate engineering program increases, first-year engineering students draw from a diverse range of pre-college engineering experiences that affect their transition to studying engineering at a university.
The instrument utilizes a theoretical framework developed via a phenomenographic interview process that identified five distinct ways students experience the transition from pre-college to university engineering. These range from foreclosure or a feeling of entrapment in engineering, to frustration, to tedium, to connection, to the ability to help others be successful in first-year engineering. Utilizing the interview data that informed the development of these categories, we identified statements associated with each of these ways of experiencing the transition from pre-college to university engineering and used these statements to develop an initial instrument consisting of 65 Likert-type questions on students’ experiences combined with detailed questions on both the types pre-college engineering experiences the students participated in and the content of these experiences. Validation of the initial instrument involved multiple rounds of feedback from experts in both pre-college and first-year engineering education, followed by an initial administration of the instrument to the first-year student population at two universities. Analysis of these results showed that overall the instrument had good reliability, however we identified 15 low functioning items for removal, reducing the total number of items to 50.
Upon completion of the development process, we administered the final instrument again to another population of first-year engineering students. Analysis of these results using Exploratory Factor Analysis yields components that align well with most elements of the aforementioned theoretical framework. However, we identified several additional independent factors related to ways that students experience disconnects or frustration when transitioning from pre-college to first-year engineering programs.
Pre-college engineering is growing, but students arrive in first-year engineering programs with varying levels of prior exposure to engineering. Understanding how pre-college experiences affect students’ transitions to engineering will provide valuable data for both the creators and instructors of pre-college and first-year engineering curricula, and facilitate better alignment between these interrelated spheres of engineering education
Widespread mRNA Association with Cytoskeletal Motor Proteins and Identification and Dynamics of Myosin-Associated mRNAs in S. cerevisiae
Programmed mRNA localization to specific subcellular compartments for localized translation is a fundamental mechanism of post-transcriptional regulation that affects many, and possibly all, mRNAs in eukaryotes. We describe her e a systematic approach to identify the RNA cargoes associated with the cytoskeletal motor proteins of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in combination with live-cell 3D super-localization microscopy of endogenously tagged mRNAs. Our analysis identified widespread association of mRNAs with cytoskeletal motor proteins, including association of Myo3 with mRNAs encoding key regulators of actin branching and endocytosis such as WASP and WIP. Using conventional fluorescence microscopy and expression of MS2-tagged mRNAs from endogenous loci, we observed a strong bias for actin patch nucleator mRNAs to localize to the cell cortex and the actin patch in a Myo3- and F-actin dependent manner. Use of a double-helix point spread function (DH-PSF) microscope allowed super-localization measurements of single mRNPs at a spatial precision of 25 nm in x and y and 50 nm in z in live cells with 50 ms exposure times, allowing quantitative profiling of mRNP dynamics. The actin patch mRNA exhibited distinct and characteristic diffusion coefficients when compared to a control mRNA. In addition, disruption of F-actin significantly expanded the 3D confinement radius of an actin patch nucleator mRNA, providing a quantitative assessment of the contribution of the actin cytoskeleton to mRNP dynamic localization. Our results provide evidence for specific association of mRNAs with cytoskeletal motor proteins in yeast, suggest that different mRNPs have distinct and characteristic dynamics, and lend insight into the mechanism of actin patch nucleator mRNA localization to actin patches
Convergence of the Magnus series
The Magnus series is an infinite series which arises in the study of linear
ordinary differential equations. If the series converges, then the matrix
exponential of the sum equals the fundamental solution of the differential
equation. The question considered in this paper is: When does the series
converge? The main result establishes a sufficient condition for convergence,
which improves on several earlier results.Comment: 11 pages; v2: added justification for conjecture, minor
clarifications and correction
Causal propagation of geometrical fields in relativistic cosmology
We employ the extended 1+3 orthonormal frame formalism for fluid spacetime
geometries , which contains the Bianchi field
equations for the Weyl curvature, to derive a 44-D evolution system of
first-order symmetric hyperbolic form for a set of geometrically defined
dynamical field variables. Describing the matter source fields
phenomenologically in terms of a barotropic perfect fluid, the propagation
velocities (with respect to matter-comoving observers that Fermi-propagate
their spatial reference frames) of disturbances in the matter and the
gravitational field, represented as wavefronts by the characteristic 3-surfaces
of the system, are obtained. In particular, the Weyl curvature is found to
account for two (non-Lorentz-invariant) Coulomb-like characteristic eigenfields
propagating with and four transverse characteristic eigenfields
propagating with , which are well known, and four
(non-Lorentz-invariant) longitudinal characteristic eigenfields propagating
with |v| = \sfrac{1}{2}. The implications of this result are discussed in
some detail and a parallel is drawn to the propagation of irregularities in the
matter distribution. In a worked example, we specialise the equations to
cosmological models in locally rotationally symmetric class II and include the
constraints into the set of causally propagating dynamical variables.Comment: 25 pages, RevTeX (10pt), accepted for publication by Physical Review
Limits on Gravitational-Wave Emission from Selected Pulsars Using LIGO Data
We place direct upper limits on the amplitude of gravitational waves from 28 isolated radio pulsars by a coherent multidetector analysis of the data collected during the second science run of the LIGO interferometric detectors. These are the first direct upper limits for 26 of the 28 pulsars. We use coordinated radio observations for the first time to build radio-guided phase templates for the expected gravitational-wave signals. The unprecedented sensitivity of the detectors allows us to set strain upper limits as low as a few times 10^(-24). These strain limits translate into limits on the equatorial ellipticities of the pulsars, which are smaller than 10^(-5) for the four closest pulsars
Reactive direction control for a mobile robot: A locust-like control of escape direction emerges when a bilateral pair of model locust visual neurons are integrated
Locusts possess a bilateral pair of uniquely identifiable visual neurons that respond vigorously to
the image of an approaching object. These neurons are called the lobula giant movement
detectors (LGMDs). The locust LGMDs have been extensively studied and this has lead to the
development of an LGMD model for use as an artificial collision detector in robotic applications.
To date, robots have been equipped with only a single, central artificial LGMD sensor, and this
triggers a non-directional stop or rotation when a potentially colliding object is detected. Clearly,
for a robot to behave autonomously, it must react differently to stimuli approaching from
different directions. In this study, we implement a bilateral pair of LGMD models in Khepera
robots equipped with normal and panoramic cameras. We integrate the responses of these LGMD
models using methodologies inspired by research on escape direction control in cockroaches.
Using ‘randomised winner-take-all’ or ‘steering wheel’ algorithms for LGMD model integration,
the khepera robots could escape an approaching threat in real time and with a similar
distribution of escape directions as real locusts. We also found that by optimising these
algorithms, we could use them to integrate the left and right DCMD responses of real jumping
locusts offline and reproduce the actual escape directions that the locusts took in a particular
trial. Our results significantly advance the development of an artificial collision detection and
evasion system based on the locust LGMD by allowing it reactive control over robot behaviour.
The success of this approach may also indicate some important areas to be pursued in future
biological research
Searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars
We present upper limits on the amplitude of gravitational waves from 28
isolated pulsars using data from the second science run of LIGO. The results
are also expressed as a constraint on the pulsars' equatorial ellipticities. We
discuss a new way of presenting such ellipticity upper limits that takes
account of the uncertainties of the pulsar moment of inertia. We also extend
our previous method to search for known pulsars in binary systems, of which
there are about 80 in the sensitive frequency range of LIGO and GEO 600.Comment: Accepted by CQG for the proceeding of GWDAW9, 7 pages, 2 figure
Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134
The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors
presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves
from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of
waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods,
one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time
domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at
Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times .Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo
Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July
200
Improving the sensitivity to gravitational-wave sources by modifying the input-output optics of advanced interferometers
We study frequency dependent (FD) input-output schemes for signal-recycling
interferometers, the baseline design of Advanced LIGO and the current
configuration of GEO 600. Complementary to a recent proposal by Harms et al. to
use FD input squeezing and ordinary homodyne detection, we explore a scheme
which uses ordinary squeezed vacuum, but FD readout. Both schemes, which are
sub-optimal among all possible input-output schemes, provide a global noise
suppression by the power squeeze factor, while being realizable by using
detuned Fabry-Perot cavities as input/output filters. At high frequencies, the
two schemes are shown to be equivalent, while at low frequencies our scheme
gives better performance than that of Harms et al., and is nearly fully
optimal. We then study the sensitivity improvement achievable by these schemes
in Advanced LIGO era (with 30-m filter cavities and current estimates of
filter-mirror losses and thermal noise), for neutron star binary inspirals, and
for narrowband GW sources such as low-mass X-ray binaries and known radio
pulsars. Optical losses are shown to be a major obstacle for the actual
implementation of these techniques in Advanced LIGO. On time scales of
third-generation interferometers, like EURO/LIGO-III (~2012), with
kilometer-scale filter cavities, a signal-recycling interferometer with the FD
readout scheme explored in this paper can have performances comparable to
existing proposals. [abridged]Comment: Figs. 9 and 12 corrected; Appendix added for narrowband data analysi
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