Refugee Children’s Adaptation to American Early Childhood Classrooms: A Narrative Inquiry

Researchers have suggested that a paucity of research exists on refugee youth in early child hood education settings. Arguing that children’s stories provide educators a valuable resource for understanding the meaning children make of initial cross - cultural experiences, this article presents a narrative inquiry into the stories and artwork of three early childhood students, along with the narratives of their families, all Karen refugees from Myanmar. Examining what these stories reveal about the children’s initial experiences in an American early childhood setting, we share their stories of adaptation, their experiences of cultural dissonance, and their illustrations of change over time. In addition to developing these themes, we also promote the use of multi - modal storytelling and the collection of family stories in narrative inquiries into young children’s experience. As educators strive to provide high - quality educational experiences for all children, listening to children’s stories of their adaptation experience and the narratives of their families may help us to foster smooth transitions into American early childhood classrooms for young refugee students

The challenge of Automatic Level Generation for platform videogames based on Stories and Quests

In this article we bring the concepts of narrativism and ludology to automatic level generation for platform videogames. The initial motivation is to understand how this genre has been used as a storytelling medium. Based on a narrative theory of games, the differences among several titles have been identified. In addition, we propose a set of abstraction layers to describe the content of a quest-based story in the particular context of videogames. Regarding automatic level generation for platform videogames, we observed that the existing approaches are directed to lower abstraction concepts such as avatar movements without a particular context or meaning. This leads us to the challenge of automatically creating more contextualized levels rather than only a set of consistent and playable entertaining tasks. With that in mind, a set of higher level design patterns are presented and their potential usages are envisioned and discussed

A Model of Gas-Phase Transport During the Initial Stages of Sintering of Silicon Carbide

New Jersey 08854 Carbon, which is often used as an additive to silicon carbide powder, is thought to facilitate densification during sintering by aiding the removal of the native SiO 2 layer, which is present on the starting SiC powder. The mechanism is the reduction of SiO 2 to SiC with the formation of primarily CO gas, which diffuses out from the porous compact at a temperature below the normal sintering temperature. It has been found beneficial to hold the compact at an intermediate temperature to allow time for the CO and other gases to diffuse out before the pores close. We investigate this process using a computational model based on codiffusion of multiple gas species, which enables prediction of the gas and condensed phase compositions as a function of time and position in the specimen. The results are used to determine the optimum holding time for complete SiO 2 removal as a function of key parameters, such as specimen thickness, particle size, temperature, etc., as well as the necessary amount of C additive. The results of the modeling are consistent with the experimentally observed spatial variation of density and composition in SiC compacts

Two-phase densification of cohesive granular aggregates

When poured into a container, cohesive granular materials form low-density, open granular aggregates. If pressed upon with a ram, these aggregates densify by particle rearrangement. Here we introduce experimental evidence to the effect that particle rearrangement is a spatially heterogeneous phenomenon, which occurs in the form of a phase transformation between two configurational phases of the granular aggregate. We then show that the energy landscape associated with particle rearrangement is consistent with our interpretation of the experimental results. Besides affording insight into the physics of the granular state, our conclusions are relevant to many engineering processes and natural phenomena.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

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Modifying the acidic properties of PtZSM-5 and PtY zeolites by appropriately varying reduction methods

PtZSM-5 and PtY catalysts were prepared by the wet ion-exchange method from their Na-forms. The modified zeolites were reduced by either NaBH, or gaseous H, Reduction with NaBH, did not alter the original Lewis acidity of the samples (Lewis acidity due to the sodium ions), while reduction with H, generated new Bronsted and Lewis acid sites. Reduction with NaBH, did not modify the ZSM-5 crystal lattice, however, treatment with H-2 led to some structural decomposition. Thus, Lewis sites due to extraframework alumina and Bronsted sites due to hydroxyl groups of the heeled defect sites were formed. For the Y zeolite, after reduction the platinum atoms moved out from the ion-exchange positions and started to migrate toward the supercage. On their way they aggregated and the large crystallites pushed apart portions of the zeolite crystal. The detrimental effect was of a higher extent when reduction occurred with gaseous H-2. The resulting SiO2-Al2O3 supported catalyst contained many "true" Lewis sites due to extraframework alumina species as well as acidic OH groups connected to defect sites, however, it has lost shape-selective properties connected to the zeolitic structure