Measurement of high-voltage and radiation-damage limitations to advanced solar array performance

A description is given of the reconfigured Photovoltaic Array Space Power (PASP) Plus experiment: its objectives, solar-array complement, and diagnostic sensors. Results from a successful spaceflight will lead to a better understanding of high-voltage and radiation-damage limitations in the operation of new-technology solar arrays

Lecture object: an architecture for archiving lectures on the Web

A new software architectural model for the archival of slide-based presentations on the Internet is proposed. This architecture is based on the concept of the "lecture object," a persistent format, independent of the lecture production and viewing technology. The work has been undertaken in the context of the Web Lecture Archive Project, a collaboration of the CERN HR Division Training and Development group and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. To date some 250 lectures have been archived and are viewable worldwide using standard Web browsers and freely available video player software

WLAP the Web Lecture Archive Project: The Development of a Web-Based Archive of Lectures, Tutorials, Meetings and Events at CERN and at the University of Michigan

This paper summarizes the results of a project to develop an electronic repository of "content-rich" lectures, talks, and training activities on the World-Wide Web. The work was carried out from July 1999 to July 2001 by a collaboration consisting of the University of Michigan ATLAS Collaboratory Project, the University of Michigan Media Union, the CERN HR Division, supported by the CERN IT and ETT Divisions and the CERN Academic and Summer Student Programs. In this document, we describe the software application chosen to synchronize the slide presentations to the video recordings, provide technical solutions to the various recording and archival challenges encountered during the project, and propose a set of research and development issues we feel merit further investigation. We also present the concept of a "Lecture Object" and suggest the adoption of standards so that lectures at multiple institutes can be seamlessly shared and incorporated into federated databases world-wide

Analysing the Impact of Built-In and External Social Tools in a MOOC on Educational Technologies

Proocedings of: 8th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning: Scaling Up Learning for Sustained Impact (EC-TEL 2013). Paphos, Cyprus, September 17-21, 2013MOOCs have been a disruptive educational trend in the last months. Some MOOCs just replicate traditional teaching pedagogies, adding multimedia elements like video lectures. Others go beyond, trying to engage the massive number of participants by promoting discussions and relying on their contributions to the course. MOOC platforms usually provide some built-in social tools for this purpose, although instructors or participants may suggest others to foster discussions and crowdsourcing. This paper analyses the impact of two built-in (Q&A and forum) and three external social tools (Facebook, Twitter and MentorMob) in a MOOC on educational technologies. Most of the participants agreed on the importance of social tools to be in touch with their partners and share information related to the course, the forum being the one preferred. Furthermore, the lessons learned from the enactment of this MOOC employing social tools are summarized so that others may benefit from them.This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Project TIN2011-28308-C03-01, the Regional Government of Madrid project S2009/TIC-1650, and the postdoctoral fellowship Alianza 4 Universidades.Publicad

On the Web Platform Cornucopia

Peer reviewe

Location-Specific Responses to Thermal Stress in Larvae of the Reef-Building Coral Montastraea faveolata

The potential to adapt to a changing climate depends in part upon the standing genetic variation present in wild populations. In corals, the dispersive larval phase is particularly vulnerable to the effects of environmental stress. Larval survival and response to stress during dispersal and settlement will play a key role in the persistence of coral populations.To test the hypothesis that larval transcription profiles reflect location-specific responses to thermal stress, symbiont-free gametes from three to four colonies of the scleractinian coral Montastraea faveolata were collected from Florida and Mexico, fertilized, and raised under mean and elevated (up 1 to 2 degrees C above summer mean) temperatures. These locations have been shown to exchange larvae frequently enough to prevent significant differentiation of neutral loci. Differences among 1,310 unigenes were simultaneously characterized using custom cDNA microarrays, allowing investigation of gene expression patterns among larvae generated from wild populations under stress. Results show both conserved and location-specific variation in key processes including apoptosis, cell structuring, adhesion and development, energy and protein metabolism, and response to stress, in embryos of a reef-building coral.These results provide first insights into location-specific variation in gene expression in the face of gene flow, and support the hypothesis that coral host genomes may house adaptive potential needed to deal with changing environmental conditions

Real jurors' understanding of the law in real cases

A survey of 224 Michigan citizens called for jury duty over a 2-month period was conducted to assess the jurors' comprehension of the law they had been given in the judges' instructions. Citizens who served as jurors were compared with a base line of those who were called for duty but not selected to serve, and with those who served on different kinds of cases. Consistent with previous studies of mock jurors, this study found that actual jurors understand fewer than half of the instructions they receive at trial. Subjects who received judges' instructions performed significantly better than uninstructed subjects on questions about the procedural law, but no better on questions about the substantive (criminal) law. Additionally, jurors who asked for help from the judge understood the instructions better than other jurors. Since the results replicate previous research using simulated trials, this study provides evidence for the generalizability of earlier work to actual trials.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45310/1/10979_2005_Article_BF01044622.pd

Long Distance Dispersal and Connectivity in Amphi-Atlantic Corals at Regional and Basin Scales

Among Atlantic scleractinian corals, species diversity is highest in the Caribbean, but low diversity and high endemism are observed in various peripheral populations in central and eastern Atlantic islands and along the coasts of Brazil and West Africa. The degree of connectivity between these distantly separated populations is of interest because it provides insight into processes at both evolutionary and ecological time scales, such as speciation, recruitment dynamics and the persistence of coral populations. To assess connectivity in broadly distributed coral species of the Atlantic, DNA sequence data from two nuclear markers were obtained for six coral species spanning their distributional ranges. At basin-wide scales, significant differentiation was generally observed among populations in the Caribbean, Brazil and West Africa. Concordance of patterns in connectivity among co-distributed taxa indicates that extrinsic barriers, such as the Amazon freshwater plume or long stretches of open ocean, restrict dispersal of coral larvae from region to region. Within regions, dispersal ability appears to be influenced by aspects of reproduction and life history. Two broadcasting species, Siderastrea siderea and Montastraea cavernosa, were able to maintain gene flow among populations separated by as much as 1,200 km along the coast of Brazil. In contrast, brooding species, such as Favia gravida and Siderastrea radians, had more restricted gene flow along the Brazilian coast