Unlearn

Timothy P. Schultz, PhD, Associate Dean of Academics at the Naval War College, delivered a version of the following as an address at NWC’s 13 November 2019 graduation ceremony

Generalized reciprocal identities

Included in Ramanujan’s Notebooks are two reciprocal identities. The first identity connects the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction with an eta quotient. The second identity is a level thirteen analogue. These are special cases of a more general class of relations between eta quotients and modular functions defined by product generalizations of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction. Each identity is shown to be a relation between generators for a certain congruence subgroup. The degree, form, and symmetry of the identities is determined from behavior at cusps of the congruence subgroup whose field of functions the parameters generate. The reciprocal identities encode information about fundamental units and class numbers for real quadratic fields

Ramanujan–Sato series for 1/π

We compute Ramanujan–Sato series systematically in terms of Thompson series and their modular equations. A complete list of rational and quadratic series corresponding to singular values of the parameters is derived

Can I teach that? Negotiating Taboo Language and Controversial Topics in the Language Arts Classroom

Book Revie

Level 17 Ramanujan-sato Series

Two level 17 modular functions r=q2∏n=1∞(1−qn)(n17),s=q2∏n=1∞(1−q17n)3(1−qn)3 are used to construct a new class of Ramanujan–Sato series for 1/π. The expansions are induced by modular identities similar to those level of 5 and 13 appearing in Ramanujan’s Notebooks. A complete list of rational and quadratic series corresponding to singular values of the parameters is derived

Who Are The Planetarians? A Demographic Survey Of Planetarium - Based Astronomy Educators

Over the last 100 years since the planetarium was invented and began to spread across the planet, discipline-based planetarium education researchers have worked diligently to catalog what concepts are taught in the planetarium and what audiences learn when attending a planetarium show. What is not clearly known is precisely ‘who’ it is that are teaching astronomy in planetaria. Numerous small-scale studies give hints about who plantarians are, but the existing participant demographics provided shed precious little insight about them as broad field of professional experts. Knowing “who planetarians are” is critical to education researchers who need to know when they are studying planetarium educators who are more or less typical of most people in the field and when, instead, they are studying people who are unusual outliers and far less representative of the broader population. As a first step toward obtaining a glimpse of who planetarium educators are, a brief survey was broadly distributed through contemporary social media networks frequented by planetarium educators posing the question, “who are you?” The results from 61 respondents showed that 90% had undergraduate degrees, half of which were in physics or astronomy, and 38% hold graduate degrees. Additionally, only 8% have amateur astronomy or hobbyist backgrounds or any substantive K-12 classroom teaching experience. Perhaps unique to planetarium-based astronomy educators, 38% report having extensive backgrounds in theater and performance, These findings suggest that planetarium educators are a fundamentally different sort of individual than those who teach K-12 astronomy or do outreach as an amateur astronomer and, as such, perhaps have very different professional development requirements and expectations from those other astronomy-education related professional development consumers

Oxygen transfer during aerobic exercise in a varanid lizard Varanus mertensi is limited by the circulation

Oxygen transfer during sustained maximal exercise while locomoting on a treadmill at 0.33 m s(-1) was examined in a varanid lizard Varanus mertensi at 35degreesC. The rate of oxygen consumption ((V)over dot (O 2)) increased with locomotion from 3.49+/-0.75 (mean+/-S.D.) to 14.0+/-4.0 ml O-2 kg(-1) min(-1). Ventilation (V-E) increased, aided by increases in both tidal volume and frequency, in direct proportion to (V)over dot(O 2). The air convection requirement ((V)over dot(E)/(V)over dot(O 2)=27) was therefore maintained, together with arterial Pa-CO 2 and Pa-O 2. The alveolar-arterial P-O 2 difference (PA(O 2)-Pa-O 2) also remained unchanged during exercise from its value at rest, which was approximately 20 mmHg. Pulmonary diffusion for carbon monoxide (0.116+/-0.027 ml kg(-1) min(-1) mmHg(-1)) was double the value previously reported in V. exanthematicus and remained unchanged with exercise. Furthermore, exercise was associated with an increase in the arterial-venous O-2 content difference (Ca-O2-Cv(O 2)), which was assisted by a marked Bohr shift in the hemoglobin saturation curve and further unloading of venous O-2. During exercise the increase in cardiac output ((Q)over dot(tot)) did not match the increase in (V)over dot(O2) such that the blood convection requirement ((Q)over dot(tot)/(V)over dot (O 2)) decreased from the pre-exercise value of approximately 35 to 16 during exercise. Together, the results suggest that ventilation and O-2 transfer across the lung are adequate to meet the aerobic needs of V. mertensi during exercise, but the decrease in the blood convection requirement in the presence of a large arterial-venous O-2 content difference suggests that a limit in the transport of O-2 is imposed by the circulation

Effects of seasonal variation in prey abundance on field metabolism, water flux, and activity of a tropical ambush foraging snake

The responses of animals to seasonal food shortages can have important consequences for population dynamics and the structure and function of food webs. We investigated how an ambush foraging snake, the northern death adder Acanthophis praelongus, responds to seasonal fluctuations in prey availability in its tropical environment. In the dry season, field metabolic rates and water flux, as measured by doubly labeled water, were significantly lower than in the wet season. Unlike some other reptiles of the wet-dry tropics, death adders showed no seasonal difference in their resting metabolism. About 94% of the decrease in energy expended in the dry season was due to a decrease in activity and digestion, with lower body temperatures accounting for the remainder. In the dry season, death adders were less active and moved shorter distances between foraging sites than in the wet season. Analysis of energy expenditure suggested that adders fed no more than every 2-3 wk in the dry season but fed more frequently during the wet season. Unlike many lizards that cease feeding during the dry season, death adders remain active and attempt to maximize their energy intake year-round

Hospital nurse staffing models and patient and staff-related outcomes

Background Nurse staffing interventions have been introduced across countries in recent years in response to changing patient requirements, developments in patient care, and shortages of qualified nursing staff. These include changes in skill mix, grade mix or qualification mix, staffing levels, nursing shifts or nurses’ work patterns. Nurse staffing has been closely linked to patient outcomes, organisational outcomes such as costs, and staff-related outcomes. Objectives Our aim was to explore the effect of hospital nurse staffing models on patient and staff-related outcomes. Search methods We searched the following databases from inception through to May 2009: Cochrane/EPOC resources (DARE, CENTRAL, the EPOC Specialised Register), PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL Plus, CAB Health, Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library, the Joanna Briggs Institute database, the British Library, international theses databases, as well as generic search engines. Selection criteria Randomised control trials, controlled clinical trials, controlled before and after studies and interrupted time series analyses of interventions relating to hospital nurse staffing models. Participants were patients and nursing staff working in hospital settings. We included any objective measure of patient or staff-related outcome. Data collection and analysis Seven reviewers working in pairs independently extracted data from each potentially relevant study and assessed risk of bias. Main results We identified 6,202 studies that were potentially relevant to our review. Following detailed examination of each study, we included 15 studies in the review. Despite the number of studies conducted on this topic, the quality of evidence overall was very limited. We found no evidence that the addition of specialist nurses to nursing staff reduces patient death rates, attendance at the emergency department, or readmission rates, but it is likely to result in shorter patient hospital stays, and reductions in pressure ulcers. The evidence in relation to the impact of replacing Registered Nurses with unqualified nursing assistants on patient outcomes is very limited. However, it is suggested that specialist support staff, such as dietary assistants, may have an important impact on patient outcomes. Self-scheduling and primary nursing may reduce staff turnover. The introduction of team midwifery (versus standard care) may reduce medical procedures in labour and result in a shorter length of stay without compromising maternal or perinatal safety. We found no eligible studies of educational interventions, grade mix interventions, or staffing levels and therefore we are unable to draw conclusions in relation to these interventions. Authors’ conclusions The findings suggest interventions relating to hospital nurse staffing models may improve some patient outcomes, particularly the addition of specialist nursing and specialist support roles to the nursing workforce. Interventions relating to hospital nurse staffing models may also improve staff-related outcomes, particularly the introduction of primary nursing and self scheduling. However, these findings should be treated with extreme caution due to the limited evidence available from the research conducted to date