Academic freedom and faculty careers: A case study of four Nobel laureate exiles, 1930-1940

The purpose of this historical study was to evaluate the consequences that the politically-determined conventions of academic freedom in Germany and in the United States had on the careers of four elite scientists before and after their emigration resulting from the threats of Nazism. This problem consisted of three distinct conceptual parts: (1) academic freedom, as a concept, (2) the political conventions of academic freedom within pre-World War II Germany and within pre- and World War II America, and (3) the effect that these definitions had on the careers of Albert Einstein, James Franck, Otto Meyerhof, and Otto Stern. The methodology that best suited this evaluation was the historical case study.;In Germany, I followed academic freedom\u27s evolution beginning with Humboldt\u27s work at the University of Berlin, continuing through to the Weimar Republic, and concluding with the National Socialists. In the United States, I traced academic freedom\u27s development from its classically-based roots, moving through the entrance of the German model, and closing with the impact of the American Association of University Professors.;Incumbent in this discussion was the effects that German nationalism, National Socialism, the Great Depression, communism, and anti-semitism had upon the evolution of academic freedom. I concluded that the nature and development of academic freedom was formed and directed by the constructs of and the constraints upon intellectual liberty. its politically-determined conventions influenced, both positively and negatively, the careers of four particular scientists.;More in-depth study is necessary to further evaluate the relationship between various governing bodies and the academic freedom of the Jewish professoriate. Additionally, insight into the degree and manner of influence of university presidents upon the careers of faculty is also needed

Modeling of Corrugated Graphite Foam Heat Exchangers

A new manufacturing process was recently developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the production of graphite foam. The high thermal conductivity and heat transfer area of the foam make it desirable for thermal management applications such as compact heat exchangers. The heat transfer capabilities of the foam are especially useful in internal forced convection applications. However, due to the very low permeability of graphite foam, pressure-drop is very high compared to other porous media, and pressuredrop reduction schemes are necessary to ensure its practical application. Pressure-drop reduction can be achieved through the strategic machining of graphite foam into complex geometries. In this study, a corrugated configuration is analyzed. Computational methods are employed to determine optimal geometric parameters of corrugated graphite foam heat exchangers that result in a significant reduction in pressure-drop without severely affecting heat transfer performance. The results indicate that pressure-drop in optimal corrugated configurations is reduced by nearly two orders of magnitude when compared to a full graphite foam block of the same overall size. These optimal cases are characterized by relatively uniform flow in the transverse direction across the foam, and this uniformity is reduced by slot widths that are too long and narrow and by flowrates that are too high. These optimal configurations decrease the heat transfer coefficients by nearly fifty percent when compared to a full block, but the reduction of pressure-drop is much more significant. Therefore, corrugating the foam is shown to be an effective method to significantly reduce the pressure-drop without severely affecting the heat transfer performance of graphite foam heat exchangers

Investigating business casual dress policies: Questionnaire development and exploratory research

This study had two primary goals: to develop a questionnaire that can be used to determine what types and categories of attire are acceptable in today’s work environment for men and women and to provide a preliminary test of whether these policies impact work attitudes and behavior. Because of the lack of past theory and research to guide the project, human resource professionals were interviewed to help generate ideas for questionnaire design. Once developed, this questionnaire was completed by 95 students, most of whom worked full- or part-time. Analyses revealed that there are clear trends and categories that can be identified in determining acceptable attire for dress policies, and that these may differ for men and women. Further, the results suggest that business casual dress policies may have no impact on employee behavior and only minor impact on attitudes. Implications for dress code policies are discussed

The Relationship of Grade Span in 9th Grade to Math Achievement in High School

Purpose, Scope, and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to determine if a correlation exists between grade span for ninth grade and gains in math achievement test scores in 10th grade and 12th grade. A quantitative, longitudinal, correlational research design was employed to investigate the research questions. The population was high school students in the United States from public and private schools who were in the ninth grade for the first time during the 1989-1990 school year. The data collection instrument was the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Further sampling and data analysis was conducted through SPSS and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) software programs. A three-level, repeated-observations, HLM model was employed. The first level included scores and data collected over time nested within students. The second level included within schools data. Data were compared between schools for the third level of the full model. Findings and Conclusion: This study confirmed the significance of race, socioeconomic status, math courses taken, math credits earned, different rates of growth in mathematics, and school level factors that affect individual student math performance. School level factors also contributed to student learning at a significant level. Although this study did not identify a correlation between grade span and math achievement, it may have provided other researchers and practitioners’ recommendations that will guide practice and further research. This study also indicated the need, based on the unexplained variance, to identify additional factors that may contribute to improvement in learning for students

The effect of relative plasma plume delay on the properties of complex oxide films grown by multi-laser multi-target combinatorial pulsed laser deposition

We report the effects of relative time delay of plasma plumes on thin garnet crystal films fabricated by dual-beam, combinatorial pulsed laser deposition. Relative plume delay was found to affect both the lattice constant and elemental composition of mixed Gd3Ga5O12 (GGG) and Gd3Sc2Ga5O12 (GSGG) films. Further analysis of the plasmas was undertaken using a Langmuir probe, which revealed that for relative plume delays shorter than ~200 µs, the second plume travels through a partial vacuum created by the first plume, leading to higher energy ion bombardment of the growing film. The resulting in-plane stresses are consistent with the transition to a higher value of lattice constant normal to the film plane that was observed around this delay value. At delays shorter than ~10 µs, plume propagation was found to overlap, leading to scattering of lighter ions from the plume and a change in stoichiometry of the resultant films

Detection of Mutated K- ras DNA in Urine, Plasma, and Serum of Patients with Colorectal Carcinoma or Adenomatous Polyps

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72277/1/annals.1448.027.pd

Meaning and Practice of Palliative Care for Hospitalized Older Adults with Life Limiting Illnesses

Objective. To illustrate distinctions and intersections of palliative care (PC) and end-of-life (EOL) services through examples from case-centered data of older adults cared for during a four-year ethnographic study of an acute care hospital palliative care consultation service. Methods. Qualitative narrative and thematic analysis. Results. Description of four practice paradigms (EOL transitions, prognostic uncertainty, discharge planning, and patient/family values and preferences) and identification of the underlying structure and communication patterns of PC consultation services common to them. Conclusions. Consistent with reports by other researchers, study data support the need to move beyond equating PC with hospice or EOL care and the notion that EOL is a well-demarcated period of time before death. If professional health care providers assume that PC services are limited to assisting with and helping patients and families prepare for dying, they miss opportunities to provide care considered important to older individuals confronting life-limiting illnesses

Acoustic diffraction by deformed edges of finite length : theory and experiment

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122 (2007): 3167-3176, doi:10.1121/1.2405126.The acoustic diffraction by deformed edges of finite length is described analytically and in the frequency domain through use of an approximate line-integral formulation. The formulation is based on the diffraction per unit length of an infinitely long straight edge, which inherently limits the accuracy of the approach. The line integral is written in terms of the diffraction by a generalized edge, in that the “edge” can be a single edge or multiple closely spaced edges. Predictions based on an exact solution to the impenetrable infinite knife edge are used to estimate diffraction by the edge of a thin disk and compared with calculations based on the T-matrix approach. Predictions are then made for the more complex geometry involving an impenetrable thick disk. These latter predictions are based on an approximate formula for double-edge diffraction [Chu et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, 3177 (2007)] and are compared with laboratory data involving individual elastic (aluminum) disks spanning a range of diameters and submerged in water. The results of this study show this approximate line-integral approach to be versatile and applicable over a range of conditions.This research was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (Grant No. N00014-02-0095), WHOI, and by a grant of computer time at the U.S. Department of Defense High Performance Computing Shared Resource Center (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC)