Understanding Faculty Out-of-Class Interaction with Undergraduate Students at a Research University

While much has been published about the ways in which students gain from contact with faculty, much less is known about the patterns and correlates of such contact for faculty members. Drawing upon data from a survey of faculty (n=901) conducted at a large, highly selective, research-extensive university in spring 2004, this study explores the factors that promote or inhibit faculty members’ engagement in two types of out-of-class interactions with undergraduate students: research-based activities and other out-of-class activities that are less narrowly focused on academic issues. We test four explanations of faculty engagement using OLS regression, and estimate separate models for research-based and other types of out-of-class involvement. Our results provide little support for two of the most prevalent explanations of factors that inhibit faculty involvement: competing time demands, and a lack of institutional rewards or supports for out-of-class interaction. Two other explanations received more support. First, faculty members’ personal values and beliefs were strongly associated with their extent of engagement in out-of-class interactions, particularly for non-research based interactions. Second, the block of variables reflecting faculty members’ interpersonal knowledge and abilities had the strongest association with engagement in out-of-class interactions; this relationship was nearly twice as strong for activities that were not research-based than for those that were circumscribed as research. Our findings suggest that institutions may best be able to support out-of-class interactions between faculty and undergraduate students by brokering information flows concerning opportunities for engagement and the actual “how to’s” of making such interactions work

Western Canada fertilizer market

Non-Peer Reviewe

Re-forging the smith: an interdisciplinary study of smithing motifs in Völuspá and Völundarkviða

This project examines smithing motifs in the Old Norse poems Völuspá and Völundarkviða. The purpose of this research is to develop an understanding of these motifs in the contexts in which these poems were composed and transmitted. The first chapter examines stanza seven of Völuspá and the role of the aflar, “forges/furnaces”, that the Æsir establish as part of their first settlement. I examine the significance of these aflar from literary, linguistic and archaeological perspectives and in relation to metallurgical functions and communal structures. I present a definition of afl and I conclude with a summary of the significance of the aflar in Völuspá stanza seven. The second chapter examines stanza forty of Völuspá and the role of the toponym Járnviðr, “Iron-wood”, in both the mythological and socio-historical landscape. I analyze the derivatives and morphological parallels of this toponym. I conclude that this toponym exhibits a geographical concept of resources related to bog iron smelting. The third chapter examines artisanal motifs in Völundarkviða in comparison to early Germanic customs and possible literary and historical analogues. I study the poem as a performance of spatial, networked relations between artisans and the aristocratic elite. I examine the significance of Völundr’s artisanal revenge as a subversion of early Germanic customs. Whereas smithing motifs and smithing figures have regularly been approached through archetypal and comparative methodologies, this thesis attempts to broaden our understanding of these motifs in relation to specific literary, social and technical features of metalworking in early medieval Scandinavia

On A Computer Science Master Program For Sustainable Development

Sustainable development and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have been pointed out as crucial for our common future, addressing several aspects of a world to be considered as sustainable. From a university perspective it is certainly interesting, and important, to see how research and education contribute to that context, which may be seen from both disciplinary, and multi-disciplinary perspectives. A one-year Master Program in Computer Science for Sustainable Development, at Kristianstad University (HKR), Sweden, has a background in the UN’s Agenda 2030, and in statements, claiming that ‘at the edge’-techniques, from areas such as Artificial Intelligence, and Datamining are crucial to approach each and one of Agenda 2030’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. With this background, that Master program, was initiated to provide, for students at a master level, challenging disciplinary subjects, as well as an interesting and valuable context to contribute to, with their technical skills. To furthermore approach the students’ maturity in the field, the program is supported by courses regarding, on one hand (1), Sustainable Development, and how Computer Science generally may contribute, and on the other hand (2), advanced projects where concepts and techniques shall be practiced within research contexts. It shall also be mentioned that the program is open for students internationally, thus bringing further interesting values through the mutual sharing of experiences from international perspectives. This contribution intends to provide an overview of the program, as well as a more in-depth presentation of the two abovementioned courses

International Research Symposium on Talent Education, Part 5: The challenges of offering group class

This is the fifth installment in a series of articles reporting on a large‐scale demographic survey of North American Suzuki teachers. The last article in this series examined some of the perceived benefits of group class. In this article, we will review participants’ perceptions of the challenges of group class. Participating teachers were asked to respond to the open‐ended question, "What is the greatest challenge of group class?" Their responses were coded and analyzed for important themes

International Research Symposium on Talent Education, Part 6: Parent education in Suzuki studios

This is the sixth installment in a series of articles reporting on a large‐scale demographic survey of North American Suzuki teachers. The previous article in this series examined some of the perceived challenges of group class. In this article, we will review teachers' descriptions of the parent education offerings within their studios. Teachers were asked to provide information about the structure, content, and intensity of their parent education programs. The survey questions included both initial education for new families entering their studios, as well as ongoing education for returning families

A General Kernelization Technique for Domination and Independence Problems in Sparse Classes

We unify and extend previous kernelization techniques in sparse classes [Jochen Alber et al., 2004; Pilipczuk and Siebertz, 2018] by defining water lilies and show how they can be used in bounded expansion classes to construct linear bikernels for (r,c)-Dominating Set, (r,c)-Scattered Set, Total r-Domination, r-Roman Domination, and a problem we call (r,[?,?])-Domination (implying a bikernel for r-Perfect Code). At the cost of slightly changing the output graph class our bikernels can be turned into kernels. We also demonstrate how these constructions can be combined to create "multikernels", meaning graphs that represent kernels for multiple problems at once

Domination Above r-Independence: Does Sparseness Help?

Inspired by the potential of improving tractability via gap- or above-guarantee parametrisations, we investigate the complexity of Dominating Set when given a suitable lower-bound witness. Concretely, we consider being provided with a maximal r-independent set X (a set in which all vertices have pairwise distance at least r+1) along the input graph G which, for r >= 2, lower-bounds the minimum size of any dominating set of G. In the spirit of gap-parameters, we consider a parametrisation by the size of the "residual" set R := V(G) N[X]. Our work aims to answer two questions: How does the constant r affect the tractability of the problem and does the restriction to sparse graph classes help here? For the base case r = 2, we find that the problem is paraNP-complete even in apex- and bounded-degree graphs. For r = 3, the problem is W[2]-hard for general graphs but in FPT for nowhere dense classes and it admits a linear kernel for bounded expansion classes. For r >= 4, the parametrisation becomes essentially equivalent to the natural parameter, the size of the dominating set

International Research Symposium on Talent Education, Part 4: The joys and benefits of Suzuki group class

This is the fourth article in a series reporting the findings of a large-scale demographic study of Suzuki teachers in Canada and the United States. Previous articles introduced the research, reporting on basic demographic statistics, teacher training, studio size, and structure of group classes. In this article we report on the results of an open-ended response question regarding the benefits of student participation in Suzuki group class

Fremont-Smith: The Foundations and Government: State and Federal Law and Supervision

Digimergo är en digitalisering av Emergo Train System, ett system där personal inom räddningstjänst kan öva på olika katastrofscenarion. För att göra Digimergo användbart behövdes ytterligare programvara: ett administrationsverktyg till övningar och en scenarioeditor. I det programvaruutvecklingsprojekt som denna rapport behandlar har ny programvara utvecklats och integrerats med det ursprungliga Digimergosystemet. I den här rapporten diskuteras vilka risker som existerar när ny funktionalitet skall läggas till ett gammalt projekt samt hur dessa risker kan minimeras. Rapporten undersöker också vilka utvecklingsmetoder som lämpar sig i projekt där ny funktionalitet ska läggas till befintliga system. Resultatet visar att den största risken med att utöka befintliga projekt är att underskatta tiden som krävs för att sätta sig in i projektet i fråga. Det mest effektiva sättet att minimera risken för detta är att mycket tidigt studera det tidigare arbetet och utbilda projektmedlemmarna i det gamla systemet. Ett annat angreppssätt är att välja en metod som är flexibel när det kommer till nya risker eller ändringar i projektets plan, förslagsvis iterativa metoder