Evaluating for Public Value: Clarifying the Relationship Between Public Value and Program Evaluation

This article presents a framework that integrates the concept of public value, known primarily in public administration and public sector economics circles, with program evaluation. We identify four components of this Evaluating for Public Value (EPV) framework. These are: (1) the “publicness” of the participant and the participant’s goals; (2) organizational credibility, which incorporates participant and stakeholder perceptions of the program, as well as the delivery organization; (3) program outcomes, with an emphasis on the value gained by program participants; and (4) broader impacts. The notion of measuring a program’s publicness is perhaps the most novel aspect of this framework. Extension professionals tend to think about who they are serving when they design programs, but often do not revisit these issues as part of program evaluation. This paper also provides guidance on strategies for measuring broader impacts, such as use of the community capitals framework or measurement of social capital creation

Terahertz Atmospheric Windows for High Angular Resolution Terahertz Astronomy from Dome A

Atmospheric transmission from Dome A, Antarctica, presents new possibilities in the field of terahertz astronomy, where space telescopes have been the only observational tools until now. Using atmospheric transmission measurements from Dome A with a Fourier transform spectrometer, transmission spectra and long-term stabilities have been analyzed at 1.461 THz, 3.393 THz, 5.786 THz and 7.1 THz, which show that important atmospheric windows for terahertz astronomy open for a reasonable length of time in the winter season. With large aperture terahertz telescopes and interferometers at Dome A, high angular resolution terahertz observations are foreseen of atomic fine-structure lines from ionized gas and a water ice feature from protoplanetary disks.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Advances in Polar Scienc

An Engaging Leadership Framework (ELF) Project Investigating How Gen Y Students Learn

This paper describes a research project to improve teaching methods to cater for Gen Y and Millennium student learning. The project was initiated by participation in using the Engaging Leadership Framework project and is designed to undertake research to inform teaching. Planned to take 18 months, it aims to spawn parallel projects on improving teaching for current younger generation university students. The objective is to improve student engagement in their own learning whilst also improving the research group members’ individual teaching approaches. Two academics from different disciplines identified a common concern that their teaching styles may not be meeting the needs of the current young cohort of students. The project design uses an action research methodology with several iterations of data collection, action and review. In the initial cycle existing data from student surveys was analysed to ascertain the current level of engagement and what students perceived as needed to improve their learning. In addition, a preliminary investigation of the literature on Gen Y learning indicated that technology and flexibility were significant factors in their learning style. The preliminary results suggest that students want increased interactivity, yet beyond this they have not reflected sufficiently on what may assist them. The impact of this research is that whilst the academics focus on their own professional practice, this in turn provides an opportunity to impact on student learning

High Energy Heavy Ion Beam Enhanced Adhesion of Gold Films to GaAs

Improvement of the adhesion of gold films to GaAs substrates by irradiation with a beam of high energy heavy ions was studied by Scotch Tape, scrub, and scratch test methods. Simple measurements of the effect of irradiation on the electrical contact properties of the Au/GaAs interface were also made. Substrate materials were taken from four differently doped GaAs wafers, thus providing a selection of substrate electronic properties. The results indicate dependence of the ion dose threshold for improved adhesion on the bulk electronic properties of the substrate.</p

Psychophysiological responses to visceral and somatic pain in functional chest pain identify clinically relevant pain clusters

Background: Despite chronic pain being a feature of functional chest pain (FCP) its experience is variable. The factors responsible for this variability remain unresolved. We aimed to address these knowledge gaps, hypothesizing that the psychophysiological profiles of FCP patients will be distinct from healthy subjects. Methods: 20 Rome III defined FCP patients (nine males, mean age 38.7 years, range 28-59 years) and 20 healthy age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched controls (nine males, mean 38.2 years, range 24-49) had anxiety, depression, and personality traits measured. Subjects had sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system parameters measured at baseline and continuously thereafter. Subjects received standardized somatic (nail bed pressure) and visceral (esophageal balloon distension) stimuli to pain tolerance. Venous blood was sampled for cortisol at baseline, post somatic pain and post visceral pain. Key Results: Patients had higher neuroticism, state and trait anxiety, and depression scores but lower extroversion scores vs controls (all p < 0.005). Patients tolerated less somatic (p < 0.0001) and visceral stimulus (p = 0.009) and had a higher cortisol at baseline, and following pain (all p < 0.001). At baseline, patients had a higher sympathetic tone (p = 0.04), whereas in response to pain they increased their parasympathetic tone (p ≤ 0.008). The amalgamating the data, we identified two psychophysiologically distinct 'pain clusters'. Patients were overrepresented in the cluster characterized by high neuroticism, trait anxiety, baseline cortisol, pain hypersensitivity, and parasympathetic response to pain (all p < 0.03). Conclusions & Inferences: In future, such delineations in FCP populations may facilitate individualization of treatment based on psychophysiological profiling

A map of OMC-1 in CO 9-8

The distribution of 12C16O J=9-8 (1.037 THz) emission has been mapped in OMC-1 at 35 points with 84" resolution. This is the first map of this source in this transition and only the second velocity-resolved ground-based observation of a line in the terahertz frequency band. There is emission present at all points in the map, a region roughly 4' by 6' in size, with peak antenna temperature dropping only near the edges. Away from the Orion KL outflow, the velocity structure suggests that most of the emission comes from the OMC-1 photon-dominated region, with a typical linewidthof 3-6 km/s. Large velocity gradient modeling of the emission in J=9-8 and six lower transitions suggests that the lines originate in regions with temperatures around 120 K and densities of at least 10^(3.5) cm^(-3) near theta^(1) C Ori and at the Orion Bar, and from 70 K gas at around 10^(4) cm^(-3) southeast and west of the bar. These observations are among the first made with the 0.8 m Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Receiver Lab Telescope, a new instrument designed to observe at frequencies above 1 THz from an extremely high and dry site in northern Chile.Comment: Minor changes to references, text to match ApJ versio

Atmospheric Phase Correction Using Total Power Radiometry at the Submillimeter Array

Phase noise caused by an inhomogeneous, time-variable water vapor distribution in our atmosphere reduces the angular resolution, visibility amplitude and coherence time of millimeter and submillimeter wavelength interferometers. We present early results from our total power radiometry phase correction experiment carried out with the Submillimeter Array on Mauna Kea. From accurate measurements of the atmospheric emission along the lines of sight of two elements of the array, we estimated the differential atmospheric electrical path between them. In one test, presented here, the phase correction technique reduced the rms phase noise at 230 GHz from 72◦ to 27◦ over a 20 minute period with a 2.5 second integration time. This corresponds to a residual differential electrical path of 98 µm, or 15 µm of precipitable water vapor, and raises the coherence in the 20 minute period from 0.45 to 0.9.AstronomyPhysic

Atmospheric Phase Correction Using Total Power Radiometry at the Submillimeter Array

Phase noise caused by an inhomogeneous, time-variable water vapor distribution in our atmosphere reduces the angular resolution, visibility amplitude and coherence time of millimeter and submillimeter wavelength interferometers. We present early results from our total power radiometry phase correction experiment carried out with the Submillimeter Array on Mauna Kea. From accurate measurements of the atmospheric emission along the lines of sight of two elements of the array, we estimated the differential atmospheric electrical path between them. In one test, presented here, the phase correction technique reduced the rms phase noise at 230 GHz from 72\degr to 27\degr over a 20 minute period with a 2.5 second integration time. This corresponds to a residual differential electrical path of 98 $\mu$m, or 15 $\mu$m of precipitable water vapor, and raises the coherence in the 20 minute period from 0.45 to 0.9.Comment: Accepted for publication in the SMA Special Volume of the ApJ Letters (9 pages of text, 3 figures