90 research outputs found
Large Scale Quality Engineering in Distance Learning Programs
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Worldwide serves more than 36,000 online students across the globe, many of whom are military and other non-traditional students, offering 34 undergraduate, graduate, and professional education/workforce certificate programs, presented both online and via blended delivery modes. The centralized model of online course production and management produces and maintains more than 200 high quality turnkey-style courses, including several award winners. Faculty members in partnership with an instructional design production team design worldwide courses, working together to ensure course goals and learning objectives are achieved. The more than 800 geographically dispersed faculty members are monitored and coached throughout the course delivery process by a quality management team. With a student satisfaction rate above 85%, how does Worldwide ensure that quality is pervasive at every stage in the distance learning process? In addition, how does Worldwide innovate and continue to ensure the quality of design and instruction remains our top priority? The article addresses quality assurance components of the distance learning model at Worldwide, including administration, course design, instructor professional development, and course delivery. The actors and processes employed to harness Web 2.0, mobile, and cloud technologies to facilitate distance learning administration, teaching, and learning are detailed
Fire retardant action of mineral fillers
Endothermically decomposing mineral fillers, such as aluminium or magnesium hydroxide, magnesium carbonate, or mixed magnesium/calcium carbonates and hydroxides, such as
naturally occurring mixtures of huntite and hydromagnesite are in heavy demand as sustainable, environmentally benign fire retardants. They are more difficult to deploy than the
halogenated flame retardants they are replacing, as their modes of action are more complex, and are not equally effective in different polymers. In addition to their presence (at levels up to 70%), reducing the flammable content of the material, they have three quantifiable fire
retardant effects: heat absorption through endothermic decomposition; increased heat capacity of the polymer residue; increased heat capacity of the gas phase through the presence of water or carbon dioxide. These three contributions have been quantified for eight of the most common fire retardant mineral fillers, and the effects on standard fire tests such as the LOI, UL 94 and cone calorimeter discussed. By quantifying these estimable
contributions, more subtle effects, which they might otherwise mask, may be identified
Thermodynamics of the incommensurate state in Rb_2WO_4: on the Lifshitz point in A`A``BX_4 compounds
We consider the evolution of the phase transition from the parent hexagonal
phase to the orthorhombic phase that occurs in several
compounds of family as a function of the hcp lattice parameter
. For compounds of type with larger than the threshold
value 1.26 the direct first-order transition is characterized
by the large entropy jump . For compounds , ,
with this transition occurs via an intermediate
incommensurate phase. DSC measurements were performed in
to characterize the thermodynamics of the transitions. It
was found that both transitions are again of the first order with entropy jumps
0.3Rln2c/a ~ 1.26A'A''BX_{4}BX_{4}$ tetrahedra
orientation as a possible source of the transitions discontinuity.Comment: 13 pages,1 Postscript figure. Submitted as Brief Report to Phys. Rev.
B, this paper reports a new work in Theory and Experiment, directed to
Structural Phase Transition
Calculation of molecular thermochemical data and their availability in databases
Thermodynamic properties of molecules can be obtained by experiment, by statistical mechanics in conjunction with electronic structure theory and by empirical rules like group additivity. The latter two methods are briefly re-viewed in this chapter. The overview of electronic structure methods is intended for readers less experienced in electronic structure theory and focuses on concepts without going into mathematical details. This is followed by a brief description of group additivity schemes; finally, an overview of databases listing reliable thermochemical data is given
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