948 research outputs found
Understanding Non-profit Organizations in States with Appalachian Counties: Where they Locate and the Missions they Serve
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THE APPALACHIAN COMMITMENT OF BEREA COLLEGE: A REVIEW OF HISTORICAL FIGURES, NARRATIVES, AND AN ANALYSIS OF PROGRAMMATIC OUTCOMES
Since its founding in 1855 Berea College has continuously defined and redefined itself based on eight Great Commitments that collectively shape Bereaâs mission. All Bereans, from students to alums to Presidents, have a responsibility to review and evaluate the ways in which Berea College is acting on each of its eight Commitments. This study offers a review of Bereaâs Appalachian Commitment, âTo engage Appalachian communities, families, and students in partnership for mutual learning, growth, and serviceâ (Berea College, 2017). The following three articles seek to understand some of the ways in which Berea College leaders have interpreted and acted on this Commitment. More specifically, the three articles examine how Berea College serves as an Appalachian Anchor Institution. Berea leaders have developed and led hundreds of outreach programs and services with the goal of improving community outcomes in Appalachia. This type of commitment, to a specific place and its future, separates anchor institutions from other organizations (Boyer, 1996; Bringle et al., 1999; Dubb, 2007; Hodges & Dubb, 2012; Hudson, 2013; Maurrasse, 2002).
Berea is nationally known for being regionally committed and the Appalachian Commitment stands apart from the other seven Great Commitments. There are few higher education institutions that have attempted the type of work it is committed to, and it should be lauded for this work. There is still a need to critically analyze its work and understand how it can improve. This research aims to share some of the untold stories in Bereaâs history and celebrate the efforts and work they conducted at the college. It also casts a critical lens on the ways that the College shifted its mission towards Appalachian service and the narratives utilized to support that aim. The three articles offer various vantage points for this review, but all three are demonstrations of the ways Berea College acts as an Appalachian Anchor Institution.
The first article shares some of the ways that Berea initially stepped into the anchor institution role. The second is a broad review of how the College could strengthen its work as an anchor intuition with asset-based frameworks. The third article shares an example of programming that anchor institutions engage with and describes the outcomes from a specific project. This research was formed out of an interest in how Berea developed into an Appalachian Anchor Institution as well as a desire to understand frameworks these institutions can use to strengthen their work or to analyze outcomes. There are lessons that can be learned from the ways that institutions like Berea have operated historically, and it is helpful to examine the patterns that persist
Credit Card Usage of College Students: Evidence from Louisiana State University (Research Information Sheet #107)
In recent years, there has been a dramatic growth in credit card usage among college students. How are Louisiana State University undergraduates using credit cards? Are LSU students managing credit card debt wisely? What can LSU do to offer the appropriate kinds of help to enable students to be financially literate? These are the issues addressed in this publication.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/agcenter_researchinfosheets/1007/thumbnail.jp
Simons Observatory: Broadband Metamaterial Anti-Reflection Cuttings for Large Aperture Alumina Optics
We present the design, fabrication, and measured performance of metamaterial
Anti-Reflection Cuttings (ARCs) for large-format alumina filters operating over
more than an octave of bandwidth to be deployed on the Simons Observatory (SO).
The ARC consists of sub-wavelength features diced into the optic's surface
using a custom dicing saw with near-micron accuracy. The designs achieve
percent-level control over reflections at angles of incidence up to 20.
The ARCs were demonstrated on four 42 cm diameter filters covering the 75-170
GHz band and a 50 mm diameter prototype covering the 200-300 GHz band. The
reflection and transmission of these samples were measured using a broadband
coherent source that covers frequencies from 20 GHz to 1.2 THz. These
measurements demonstrate percent-level control over reflectance across the
targeted pass-bands and a rapid reduction in transmission as the wavelength
approaches the length scale of the metamaterial structure where scattering
dominates the optical response. The latter behavior enables the use of the
metamaterial ARC as a scattering filter in this limit.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Applied Optic
The ANU WiFeS SuperNovA Program (AWSNAP)
This paper presents the first major data release and survey description for
the ANU WiFeS SuperNovA Program (AWSNAP). AWSNAP is an ongoing supernova
spectroscopy campaign utilising the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS) on the
Australian National University (ANU) 2.3m telescope. The first and primary data
release of this program (AWSNAP-DR1) releases 357 spectra of 175 unique objects
collected over 82 equivalent full nights of observing from July 2012 to August
2015. These spectra have been made publicly available via the WISeREP supernova
spectroscopy repository. We analyse the AWSNAP sample of Type Ia supernova
spectra, including measurements of narrow sodium absorption features afforded
by the high spectral resolution of the WiFeS instrument. In some cases we were
able to use the integral-field nature of the WiFeS instrument to measure the
rotation velocity of the SN host galaxy near the SN location in order to obtain
precision sodium absorption velocities. We also present an extensive time
series of SN 2012dn, including a near-nebular spectrum which both confirms its
"super-Chandrasekhar" status and enables measurement of the sub-solar host
metallicity at the SN site.Comment: Submitted to Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
(PASA). Spectra publicly released via WISeREP at
http://wiserep.weizmann.ac.il
Modeling and characterization of the SPIDER half-wave plate
Spider is a balloon-borne array of six telescopes that will observe the
Cosmic Microwave Background. The 2624 antenna-coupled bolometers in the
instrument will make a polarization map of the CMB with approximately one-half
degree resolution at 145 GHz. Polarization modulation is achieved via a
cryogenic sapphire half-wave plate (HWP) skyward of the primary optic. We have
measured millimeter-wave transmission spectra of the sapphire at room and
cryogenic temperatures. The spectra are consistent with our physical optics
model, and the data gives excellent measurements of the indices of A-cut
sapphire. We have also taken preliminary spectra of the integrated HWP, optical
system, and detectors in the prototype Spider receiver. We calculate the
variation in response of the HWP between observing the CMB and foreground
spectra, and estimate that it should not limit the Spider constraints on
inflation
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River patterns reveal two stages of landscape evolution at an oblique convergent margin, Marlborough Fault System, New Zealand
Here we examine the landscape of New Zealand's Marlborough Fault System (MFS), where the Australian and Pacific plates obliquely collide, in order to study landscape evolution and the controls on fluvial patterns at a long-lived plate boundary. We present maps of drainage anomalies and channel steepness, as well as an analysis of the plan-view orientations of rivers and faults, and we find abundant evidence of structurally controlled drainage that we relate to a history of drainage capture and rearrangement in response to mountain-building and strike-slip faulting. Despite clear evidence of recent rearrangement of the western MFS drainage network, rivers in this region still flow parallel to older faults, rather than along orthogonal traces of younger, active strike-slip faults. Such drainage patterns emphasize the importance of river entrenchment, showing that once rivers establish themselves along a structural grain, their capture or avulsion becomes difficult, even when exposed to new weakening and tectonic strain. Continued flow along older faults may also indicate that the younger faults have not yet generated a fault damage zone with the material weakening needed to focus erosion and reorient rivers. Channel steepness is highest in the eastern MFS, in a zone centered on the KaikĹura ranges, including within the low-elevation valleys of main stem rivers and at tributaries near the coast. This pattern is consistent with an increase in rock uplift rate toward a subduction front that is locked on its southern end. Based on these results and a wealth of previous geologic studies, we propose two broad stages of landscape evolution over the last 25 million years of orogenesis. In the eastern MFS, Miocene folding above blind thrust faults generated prominent mountain peaks and formed major transverse rivers early in the plate collision history. A transition to Pliocene dextral strike-slip faulting and widespread uplift led to cycles of river channel offset, deflection and capture of tributaries draining across active faults, and headward erosion and captures by major transverse rivers within the western MFS. We predict a similar landscape will evolve south of the Hope Fault, as the locus of plate boundary deformation migrates southward into this region with time.</p
Pointing control for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope
We present the technology and control methods developed for the pointing
system of the SPIDER experiment. SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed
to detect the imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of
the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. We describe the two main components
of the telescope's azimuth drive: the reaction wheel and the motorized pivot. A
13 kHz PI control loop runs on a digital signal processor, with feedback from
fibre optic rate gyroscopes. This system can control azimuthal speed with <
0.02 deg/s RMS error. To control elevation, SPIDER uses stepper-motor-driven
linear actuators to rotate the cryostat, which houses the optical instruments,
relative to the outer frame. With the velocity in each axis controlled in this
way, higher-level control loops on the onboard flight computers can implement
the pointing and scanning observation modes required for the experiment. We
have accomplished the non-trivial task of scanning a 5000 lb payload
sinusoidally in azimuth at a peak acceleration of 0.8 deg/s, and a peak
speed of 6 deg/s. We can do so while reliably achieving sub-arcminute pointing
control accuracy.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, Presented at SPIE Ground-based and Airborne
Telescopes V, June 23, 2014. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume
914
The preference for water nipples vs. water bowls in dairy goats
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies have reported that the design of the water dispensers can influence the water intake in farm animals. Horses and dairy cows seem to prefer to drink from an open surface whereas sheep and pigs apparently prefer water nipples, probably because of the worse water quality in water bowls. The aim of the present study was to examine the preference of dairy goats for water nipples or water bowls.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In each of the two experiments (exp. 1, dry goats, exp. 2 lactating goats), 42 dairy goats were allotted into 6 groups of 7 goats. In period 1, the goats had access to a water nipple. In period 2, they had access to a water bowl and in period 3 (preference test) they had access to both a water nipple and a water bowl. Water usage and wastage was recorded and water intake (water usage - water wastage) was calculated for each group for the two last days of each period. In experiment 2, water samples from each dispenser were analyzed for heterotrophy germs at 22°C, <it>Escherichia coli </it>and turbidity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Water usage was higher from water nipples than from water bowls both in experiment 1 (dry goats) and experiment 2 (lactating goats). There was however, no difference in water intake from water nipples and water bowls. In the preference test (period 3), the water intake tended to be higher from the water nipple than from the water bowl both for the dry goats (exp. 1) and lactating goats (exp. 2). Especially for the dry goats, the differences between groups were large. Turbidity and heterotrophy germs were much higher in the samples from the water bowls than from the water nipples.</p> <p>Water wastage from the water bowls was negligible compared to the water nipples. From the water nipples the water wastage was 30% and 23% of water usage for the dry and lactating goats respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that type of water dispenser (nipple or bowl) was probably of minor importance for water intake in goats, but water bowls had a lower water quality.</p
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