Critical Connections: Linking States' Unit Record Systems to Track Student Progress

Presents results from a national inventory of student unit record systems and examines how states use this data to track student progress. Offers recommendations on developing a national database, and linking K-12 and higher education records

The Effect of Local Galaxy Surface Density on Star Formation for HI selected galaxies

We present the result of investigations into two theories to explain the star formation rate-density relationship. For regions of high galaxy density, either there are fewer star forming galaxies, or galaxies capable of forming stars are present but some physical process is suppressing their star formation. We use HI Parkes All Sky Survey's (HIPASS) HI detected galaxies and infrared and radio fluxes to investigate star formation rates and efficiencies with respect to local surface density. For nearby (vel<10000 km\s) HI galaxies we find a strong correlation between HI mass and star formation rate. The number of HI galaxies decreases with increasing local surface density. For HI galaxies (1000<vel<6000 km\s) there is no significant change in the star formation rate or the efficiency of star formation with respect to local surface density. We conclude the SFR-density relation is due to a decrease in the number of HI star forming galaxies in regions of high galaxy density and not to the suppression of star formation.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication by MNRAS 2 August 200

Ontology View Query Management

Like views in relational databases, ontology views are expressed as queries, but over source ontologies rather than tables. To enhance the reusability of such views, we are constructing a view Query Manager application. The Query Manager allows queries to be edited, executed, and stored for reuse. View queries are discoverable by searching the Query Manager's metadata catalog. The Query Manager also supports the storage of materialized view results upon which further queries may be issued

The Large Peculiar Velocity of the cD Galaxy in Abell 3653

We present a catalogue of galaxies in Abell 3653 from observations made with the 2dF spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Of the 391 objects observed, we find 111 are bone-fide members of Abell 3653. We show that the cluster has a velocity of cz = 32214 +/- 83 km/s (z=0.10738 +/- 0.00027), with a velocity dispersion typical of rich, massive clusters of sigma_{cz} = 880^{+66}_{-54}. We find that the cD galaxy has a peculiar velocity of 683 +/- 96 km/s in the cluster restframe - some 7sigma away from the mean cluster velocity, making it one of the largest and most significant peculiar velocities found for a cD galaxy to date. We investigate the cluster for signs of substructure, but do not find any significant groupings on any length scale. We consider the implications of our findings on cD formation theories.Comment: 16 pages, including 7 figures and a long table. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Characterization of early graft damage after pancreatic transplantation

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The Effects of Domain Knowledge and Scene Content on Change Detection Using a Change Blindness Paradigm

This thesis was designed to determine how domain knowledge or scene content affects change detection. Twenty-four participants of medical professionals and non-medical professionals performed a change detection task using a flicker paradigm intended to be similar to saccadic movements or blinks. Each participant viewed 24 pictures on a computer screen, each picture flickering with a blank gray screen alternating between the original and modified version of the picture, and was asked to indicate when a change was detected by depressing a key. Twelve of the pictures were medical X-rays while the other 12 were everyday scenes. Reaction time, number of trials exceeding the 60 seconds allowed for the task, and response accuracy were measured. Results indicated that domain knowledge did not have a significant effect on the speed, number of trials exceeding time limit, or accuracy of the change detection task. However, results indicated that scene content did have a significant effect on reaction time, as all participants detected change quicker in the X-rays than in the everyday scenes. Scene content did not have an effect on response accuracy