STEM Education through a Different Lens

Short Abstract: Current STEM education focuses predominantly on specialized knowledge and skills. Even technical background is important, companies have expressed explicitly that they lean towards those graduates well rounded with non-technical skills. This study is a qualitative investigation of students’ and practitioners’ perceptions on the most critical skills for STEM graduates’ success. Full Abstract: Current STEM education focuses predominantly on technically specialized knowledge and skills. Both practitioners and academicians recognize the importance of those non-technical skills. Additionally, many studies are limited in their theoretical justification. More significantly, limited empirical evidence is provided. This study is a qualitative investigation of students’ and practitioners’ perceptions on the most critical skills for STEM graduates’ success through interview. There are alignment in most skills identified by both the industry and student respondents. The identified skills generally fall under four categories of soft skills, technical skills, experience, and managerial skills. Some highlights of data analysis include: (1) Science and engineering professionals seemed to have higher expectations for hands-on work experience and exposures; (2) Technology professionals, indicated a higher expectation in soft skills from incoming talent, and (3) Most training investments made by companies were more focused on the technical skill, which may indicate a higher degree of expectation for soft skill development in College. Therefore, it is concluded that traditional STEM should be expanded and improved to encompass more comprehensive skills. Especially, partnerships between industry and college should be increased to develop curriculum to make STEM students better prepared for work

Diffractive lensing of nano-Hertz gravitational waves emitted from supermassive binary black holes by intervening galaxies

Pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments are expected to detect nano-Hertz gravitational waves (GWs) emitted from individual inspiralling supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs). The GW signals from a small fraction of these SMBBHs may be diffractively lensed by intervening galaxies. In this paper, we investigate the diffractive lensing effects on the continuous GW signals from the lensed SMBBHs and estimate the detectable number of such signals by PTAs, such as the Chinese PTA (CPTA) and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) PTA. We find that the amplitude of the lensed GW signals may be only amplified by a factor of $\sim 1.01-1.14$ ($16\%-84\%$ range) and the phase of the signals may shift somewhat due to the lensing, significantly different from those strongly lensed high frequency GW signals from compact binary mergers in the geometric optics. We estimate that $\sim 0.01\%$ of all detected nano-Hertz GW signals from individual SMBBHs by future PTA experiments are lensed by foreground galaxies (i.e., up to $\sim 106$ for CPTA and up to $\sim 289$ for SKA-PTA). However, the lensed nano-Hertz GW signals are difficult to be distinguished from those without lensing by the PTA observations only. We further discuss the possibility about the identification of the lensed nano-Hertz GW signals from SMBBHs via the electromagnetic detection of their host galaxies or active galactic nuclei.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Applied Ergonomics

The ergonomic injuries and solutions have been extensively studied in the construction industry; however, the prevalence of work-related injuries, risky activities, and effective solutions in the transportation industry are not understood. This study aims to explore the prevalence of work-related injuries, risky activities, and potentially ergonomic solutions among transportation workers. The approach to this study included exploration of worker type, injury types, and activities of top concern through historical injury data and an online survey, and proposal and evaluation of ergonomic solutions through onsite observations and field experiments. Results from this study found that back injuries were the most common type of injury sustained. Performing lifting and pushing/pulling activities have caused the most injuries. Back exoskeletons and ergonomic handles were identified as potential solutions to help reduce the risk of injury. Additionally, higher platforms were also suggested to help prevent workers from being forced to perform activities by exerting their back excessively