A Difficult Journey: Transitioning from STEM to SoTL

This essay unearths difficulties experienced by scholars trained in the STEM disciplines when transitioning into the research context that is SoTL. We, a scientist and an engineer, engaged in a series of audiotaped reflective discussions (facilitated by a social science researcher) designed to tease out the difficulties associated with this contextual shift. Our discussions pointed to issues that go beyond the oft-quoted methodological differences of a quantitative versus qualitative approach, speaking instead to barriers associated with: time, emotions, intellectual training and world-views. Embracing a complexity approach to the generation of knowledge and understanding led us to an appreciation of the role of narrative and allowed us to dissolve dualisms that we had associated with STEM and SoTL. Our next step is to extend the conversation to include other ‘scholar-travelers’ in a series of workshops aimed at addressing the barriers and bridges associated with journeying from STEM to SoTL

Influencing Student Beliefs About the Role of the Civil Engineer in Society

This study suggests that community service learning experiences facilitate the reconstruction of civil engineering student beliefs about both the type of work performed by civil engineers and the broad impact of civil engineering knowledge. Further, the service learning experiences highlight for students 1) the importance of relationships between people, 2) the value of variations in perspective, and 3) the responsibilities of civil engineers in society as holders of expert knowledge. Meta-cognitive and self-regulated learning activities may be the mechanisms by which student beliefs evolve during service learning. Therefore, the quality of community service learning experiences may be enhanced by increasing the opportunities for students to articulate and organize their knowledge, critique their perspectives, compare and contrast their understanding with the understanding of others, and engaged in activities requiring knowledge integration

Process, improvisation, holarchic learning loops and all that jazz: experiences in transdisciplinary education for sustainable development

This paper explores the experiences of an ‘Interdisciplinary Sustainability Assessment Laboratory’ (‘ISA Lab’) workshop, which took place over a week at Universitat Politècnica de València during April 2017. The workshop drew together students from a range of disciplines from across engineering and science, law and the social sciences and from a range of countries and backgrounds, including North and South America, Europe and Asia. It also facilitated a rich co-creative learning environment as it was led by (engineering) academic faculty from across Europe (Spain, UK, Netherlands and Ireland) as well as North America (Canada), as well as local experts who helped provide participants with appropriate context and guidance. The workshops culminated with a number of presentations from respective student groups, where they outlined an integrated development plan for a selected real life local project

Exploring transdisciplinary education

Because wicked Sustainability Problems (WSPs) are complex, multi-scaled, value-laden, ill-structured, and difficult to address (for example see Lonngren et al., 2016), teams that include engineers and others with expert knowledge are needed to effectively manage WSPs relating to environmental stress and declining ecosystem health, including WSPs stemming from resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and climate change. How do we educate engineers to successfully engage in such transdisciplinary teams? What is transdisciplinary education? This paper explores aspects of these questions. First, we review areas of education literature relevant to transdisciplinary teaching and learning, including frameworks such as “Threshold Concepts” (Meyer & Land, 2006) and “Empathic Thinking” (Walther et al., 2017), and pedagogies reported in the literature, including “Value Analysis”, and “Learning Communities” (McGregor, 2017). We introduce the design-based research methodology (DBR) as a framework for developing transdisciplinary education, and we offer a review of the engineering education literature relevant to transdisciplinary training. Next, a case study employing DBR is presented. This case, inspired by the work of Tejedor & Segalas (2018a) and others, extends the work presented by Morgan et al. (2018), which reports a novel sustainable development workshop experience for masters-level graduate students, organized and hosted by the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in the spring of 2017. A second workshop was deployed in June of 2018, during which students from a variety of backgrounds and institutions gathered in UPV to create locally relevant, sustainable, conceptual designs for the built environment. The DBR case study focuses on this 2nd workshop, during which survey, interview, and focus group data reflecting both the student and the facilitator experiences, were collected. An initial interpretation of this data is presented. This paper contributes to engineering education for sustainable development because it emphasizes a meta- framework which conceptualizes the development of transdisciplinary education experiences and which has the potential to enable faculty to reflect on and improve novel transdisciplinary experiences

Visual consumption, collective memory and the representation of war

Conceiving of the visual as a significant force in the production and dissemination of collective memory, we argue that a new genre of World War Two films has recently emerged that form part of a new discursive “regime of memory” about the war and those that fought and lived through it, constituting a commemoration as much about reflecting on the present as it is about remembering the past. First, we argue that these films seek to reaffirm a (particular conception of a) US national identity and military patriotism in the post–Cold War era by importing World War Two as the key meta‐narrative of America’s relationship to war in order to “correct” and help “erase” Vietnam’s more negative discursive rendering. Second, we argue that these films attempt to rewrite the history of World War Two by elevating and illuminating the role of the US at the expense of the Allies, further serving to reaffirm America’s position of political and military dominance in the current age, and third, that these films form part of a celebration of the generation that fought World War Two, which may accord them a position of nostalgic and sentimental greatness, as their collective spirit and notions of duty and service shine against the foil of what might frequently be seen as our own present moral ambivalence

Global age-sex-specific mortality, life expectancy, and population estimates in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1950–2021, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Estimates of demographic metrics are crucial to assess levels and trends of population health outcomes. The profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on populations worldwide has underscored the need for timely estimates to understand this unprecedented event within the context of long-term population health trends. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 provides new demographic estimates for 204 countries and territories and 811 additional subnational locations from 1950 to 2021, with a particular emphasis on changes in mortality and life expectancy that occurred during the 2020–21 COVID-19 pandemic period. Methods: 22 223 data sources from vital registration, sample registration, surveys, censuses, and other sources were used to estimate mortality, with a subset of these sources used exclusively to estimate excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2026 data sources were used for population estimation. Additional sources were used to estimate migration; the effects of the HIV epidemic; and demographic discontinuities due to conflicts, famines, natural disasters, and pandemics, which are used as inputs for estimating mortality and population. Spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression (ST-GPR) was used to generate under-5 mortality rates, which synthesised 30 763 location-years of vital registration and sample registration data, 1365 surveys and censuses, and 80 other sources. ST-GPR was also used to estimate adult mortality (between ages 15 and 59 years) based on information from 31 642 location-years of vital registration and sample registration data, 355 surveys and censuses, and 24 other sources. Estimates of child and adult mortality rates were then used to generate life tables with a relational model life table system. For countries with large HIV epidemics, life tables were adjusted using independent estimates of HIV-specific mortality generated via an epidemiological analysis of HIV prevalence surveys, antenatal clinic serosurveillance, and other data sources. Excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 was determined by subtracting observed all-cause mortality (adjusted for late registration and mortality anomalies) from the mortality expected in the absence of the pandemic. Expected mortality was calculated based on historical trends using an ensemble of models. In location-years where all-cause mortality data were unavailable, we estimated excess mortality rates using a regression model with covariates pertaining to the pandemic. Population size was computed using a Bayesian hierarchical cohort component model. Life expectancy was calculated using age-specific mortality rates and standard demographic methods. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were calculated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered values from a 1000-draw posterior distribution. Findings: Global all-cause mortality followed two distinct patterns over the study period: age-standardised mortality rates declined between 1950 and 2019 (a 62·8% [95% UI 60·5–65·1] decline), and increased during the COVID-19 pandemic period (2020–21; 5·1% [0·9–9·6] increase). In contrast with the overall reverse in mortality trends during the pandemic period, child mortality continued to decline, with 4·66 million (3·98–5·50) global deaths in children younger than 5 years in 2021 compared with 5·21 million (4·50–6·01) in 2019. An estimated 131 million (126–137) people died globally from all causes in 2020 and 2021 combined, of which 15·9 million (14·7–17·2) were due to the COVID-19 pandemic (measured by excess mortality, which includes deaths directly due to SARS-CoV-2 infection and those indirectly due to other social, economic, or behavioural changes associated with the pandemic). Excess mortality rates exceeded 150 deaths per 100 000 population during at least one year of the pandemic in 80 countries and territories, whereas 20 nations had a negative excess mortality rate in 2020 or 2021, indicating that all-cause mortality in these countries was lower during the pandemic than expected based on historical trends. Between 1950 and 2021, global life expectancy at birth increased by 22·7 years (20·8–24·8), from 49·0 years (46·7–51·3) to 71·7 years (70·9–72·5). Global life expectancy at birth declined by 1·6 years (1·0–2·2) between 2019 and 2021, reversing historical trends. An increase in life expectancy was only observed in 32 (15·7%) of 204 countries and territories between 2019 and 2021. The global population reached 7·89 billion (7·67–8·13) people in 2021, by which time 56 of 204 countries and territories had peaked and subsequently populations have declined. The largest proportion of population growth between 2020 and 2021 was in sub-Saharan Africa (39·5% [28·4–52·7]) and south Asia (26·3% [9·0–44·7]). From 2000 to 2021, the ratio of the population aged 65 years and older to the population aged younger than 15 years increased in 188 (92·2%) of 204 nations. Interpretation: Global adult mortality rates markedly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, reversing past decreasing trends, while child mortality rates continued to decline, albeit more slowly than in earlier years. Although COVID-19 had a substantial impact on many demographic indicators during the first 2 years of the pandemic, overall global health progress over the 72 years evaluated has been profound, with considerable improvements in mortality and life expectancy. Additionally, we observed a deceleration of global population growth since 2017, despite steady or increasing growth in lower-income countries, combined with a continued global shift of population age structures towards older ages. These demographic changes will likely present future challenges to health systems, economies, and societies. The comprehensive demographic estimates reported here will enable researchers, policy makers, health practitioners, and other key stakeholders to better understand and address the profound changes that have occurred in the global health landscape following the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and longer-term trends beyond the pandemic

Flexographic ink behaviour during newspaper repulping

Newspapers printed with water-based flexographic ink create great difficulties in deinking plants by causing unacceptably low levels of product pulp brightness. Therefore, notwithstanding this ink's relatively benign environmental impact and low safety hazard during printing, deinking mills shun flexographically printed newspaper stock. The paper is avoided because mitigating strategies based on a fundamental understanding of flexographic ink behaviour during deinking mill unit operations are scarce. One reason that little scientific work in this area has been published relates to difficulties in quantifying the response of the ink to different deinking conditions. Flexographic ink behaviour has been studied here by performing experiments on a model repulping system. A novel technique has been developed to measure the degree of residual ink in the repulped paper fibre from experimental trials. This technique, along with pulp brightness, has been used to investigate the effect of different operating conditions during repulping on the net detachment of ink. It is hypothesised that the mechanisms of flexographic ink detachment during repulping are pH dependent and relate primarily to the solubility of the ink's resin component. Once detached, the interaction of ink particles with pulp fibres follows the competing capture and escape phenomena predicted by Langmuir. Thus, if the ink particles are sufficiently small and the ratio of colloidal to hydrodynamic forces is appropriate, then deposition onto both the outside and inside surfaces of fibres can occur. Measuring the effects of pH, repulping time, and repulping power during the model experiments has tested the hypothesis. The effect of pH on both ink particle size and ζ-potential has been measured. Also, the solubility of the ink's acrylic polymer binder has been measured indirectly as a function of pH. Results from these trials, as well as analysis of published data, support the hypothesis. It has been found that the residual ink on fibres repulped in model experiments is low when the repulping pH is high and, conversely, high when fibres are repulped under acidic conditions. Ink binder solubility appears to correlate closely with these results. The relatively high degree of ink detachment achieved during basic repulping likely results from binder dissolution and subsequent ink particle dispersion. An estimate of colloidal interaction energies between ink particles and fibres under high pH conditions indicates that the counterion concentration in these repulping experiments is not sufficiently large to extinguish the repulsive electrostatic interaction energy between ink particles and pulp fibres. However, calculations have shown that the dampening of this repulsive energy is significant during conditions typically found during commercial repulping. Thus, although ink particles may be stabilised by both electrostatic and steric effects during the model experiments, during commercial repulping they are likely stabilised only by a steric barrier that results from ink binder adsorption onto the surface of ink pigment particles. Interestingly, the high levels of ink detachment achieved during high pH repulping may not be attained by binder dissolution alone. Experimental results suggest that some mechanical action (i.e., repulping energy) improves ink detachment even under alkaline conditions. It is suggested here that the repulping energy whose purpose is to defibre the paper, also liberates at least some ink particles that would otherwise remain trapped within the tortuous confines of the newsprint. Too much repulping energy decreases the final pulp brightness of repulped fibres. Thus mechanical energy should be optimised in the repulping unit if the pulp brightness is to be maximised. Because ink binder does not dissolve in acidic solutions, it is proposed that ink detachment during low pH repulping occurs as a result of shear induced by mechanical energy at the fibre-ink interface. Experimental results support this explanation of ink detachment. However, it has also been found that high levels of repulping power (i.e. approximately 800 W/kg pulp) cause an increase in the residual ink in pulp. This increase may be due to comminution and subsequent deposition of detached ink particles under high power conditions. It has been shown here that such deposition likely follows the Langmuir model mentioned previously. As in the case of alkaline repulping, the mechanical energy imparted to the acidic repulping system should be optimised if the maximum net ink detachment is to be achieved. Photomicrographs of repulped fibres indicate that, while ink particle deposition onto the inside surfaces of pulp fibres can occur under basic repulping conditions, lumen loading of ink does not occur during acidic repulping. A Langmuir model, that neglects lumen loading has successfully been fitted to data from acidic repulping experiments during which previously dried and ground ink was added to defibred newsprint that had not been printed. This supports the qualitative experimental results and suggests that lumen loading of flexographic ink during neutral or acidic industrial repulping would be insignificant. Data collected under acidic conditions during the model experiments during which printed paper was repulped do not follow the trend predicted by the Langmuir equation. This implies that phenomena other than deposition and detachment, such as particle comminution, occur during low pH repulping.Applied Science, Faculty ofChemical and Biological Engineering, Department ofGraduat

Proceedings of EESD15 : The 7th Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada June 9-12, 2015

Applied Science, Faculty ofScience, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCChemical and Biological Engineering, Department ofChemistry, Department ofCivil Engineering, Department ofMechanical Engineering, Department ofMining Engineering, Keevil Institute ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofReviewedFacult