Summary of Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics Sessions

Astrophysics is gaining increased attention from the particle and nuclear physics communities, as budget cuts, delays, and cancellations limit opportunities for breakthrough research at accelerator laboratories. Observations of cosmic rays (protons and nuclei), gamma rays and neutrinos present a variety of puzzles whose eventual solution will shed light on many issues ranging from the nature of fundamental interactions at extreme energies to the mechanisms of astrophysical sources. Several important detectors are just beginning full-scale operation and others are beginning construction.Comment: Rapporteur Talk at Intersections Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, 6/9

Needs assessment: strategies for raising awareness of construction management programs among high school counselors

2014 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.High school students comprise a high percentage of prospective students entering Construction Management (CM) departments. High school counselors are in a unique position to impart significant influence on these students as they make decisions about attending college. This is significant to CM departments because it has been observed by department advisors that high school counselors do not heavily influence current CM student's decisions to pursue a CM degree. The authors performed a needs assessment to test the accuracy of this observation, determine counselor's knowledge and perceptions of CM, and determine strategies for raising awareness. Phase I of the needs assessment surveyed first semester CM students to determine if counselors played a significant role in their decision to pursue a CM degree. The results revealed that students were meeting with their counselor for advice, but few reported the counselor influenced their decision. This confirmed the need to further explore the high school counselor's knowledge and perceptions of CM. Phase II of the needs assessment surveyed high school counselors in the state of Colorado. The results show that counselors do not possess a high level of knowledge regarding CM degrees and careers, but also shows that they would be willing to learn more if the right information and training opportunities were provided to them. The results also highlight the counselor's barriers to learning more about CM, namely lack of available information, lack of time, lack of training opportunities, and lack of student interest. In Phase III of the needs assessment, the High School Counselor Outreach Program (HSCOP) was developed with the specific goal of raising counselor's knowledge of CM programs. The HSCOP was specifically developed to address the counselor's need while respecting the barriers reported in Phase II. This two stage program closes the counselor's CM knowledge gap by giving CM departments an outline to provide targeted information packages to counselors in Stage 1 and accessible training opportunities in Stage 2

Cosmic physics data analysis program

A data analysis program was carried out to investigate the intensity, propagation, and origin of primary Cosmic Ray Galactic electrons. Scanning was carried out on two new balloon flight experiments as well as the border area of previous experiments. The identification and evaluation of the energies of the primary electrons were carried out. A new analysis of these data were incorporated into an overall evaluation of the roll of electrons in the problem of the origin of cosmic rays. Recent measurements indicate that the earth may be within the expanding Geminga supernova shock wave which is expected to have a major effect upon the propagation and the energy spectrum of galactic electrons. Calculations with the Geminga model indicate that the cut-off energy may be very close to the observed highest energy electrons in our analysis

Recoilless resonant neutrino experiment and origin of neutrino oscillations

We demonstrate that an experiment with recoilless resonant emission and absorption of tritium antineutrinos could have an important impact on our understanding of the origin of neutrino oscillations.Comment: The report at the Workshop on Next Generation Nucleon Decay and Neutrino Detectors, NNN06, September 21-23, 2006, University of Washington, Seattle, US