Learning Development and Education for Sustainability: what are the links?

Learning Development (LD) is an emerging discipline developing a unique disciplinary identity. In common with many other new fields, it considers its position and relevance to other disciplines and bodies of thought, and in particular, educational development, applied linguistics and the sociology and philosophy of education. This paper considers one such area of debate: the link between Learning Development and Education for Sustainability (EfS). EfS is an area of pedagogic practice and a field of enquiry of considerable and growing importance in Higher Education (HE) and universities. Its underpinning systemic and epistemic philosophies suggest the need for integration across all facets of university activity, including LD. In this paper, we argue that there are identifiable links between LD and EfS that extend these philosophies, practices and fields of enquiry, characterised by the following: 1) commonalities surrounding the foci of their pedagogic practices, 2) shared methodologies for undertaking their practices, and 3) ways in which these methodologies are helping to situate both professions and disciplines within organisational contexts. The commonalities and possible distinctions between LD and EfS form a starting point for discussion, and raise the possibility that explicit identification of the links may encourage increased collaboration between the respective communities of practice, and the development of new ideas and innovative practice

XMDS2: Fast, scalable simulation of coupled stochastic partial differential equations

XMDS2 is a cross-platform, GPL-licensed, open source package for numerically integrating initial value problems that range from a single ordinary differential equation up to systems of coupled stochastic partial differential equations. The equations are described in a high-level XML-based script, and the package generates low-level optionally parallelised C++ code for the efficient solution of those equations. It combines the advantages of high-level simulations, namely fast and low-error development, with the speed, portability and scalability of hand-written code. XMDS2 is a complete redesign of the XMDS package, and features support for a much wider problem space while also producing faster code.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Application of clustering techniques to multispectral optical data over the ocean

MERIS, on Envisat, provides high-resolution radiometric data at nine discrete channels in the visible band. This paper looks at the potential of an unsupervised classification technique for utilizing these multi-spectral data to provide better discrimination between water masses according to their optical properties, and in particular whether phytoplankton groups can be distinguished. Although the majority of data do show a spectral peak associated with chlorophyll's red fluorescence line, clustering using only the red bands was found to separate out coastal waters according to their sediment content. Red-end classification also appeared to identify sub-pixel cloud, and demonstrate that the smile correction had not removed all the striping from the data. Classification using bands from the blue-green end showed a response to changes in chlorophyll concentration, but also indicated other variations. However, without in situ data no firm conclusions can be drawn on which phytoplankton groupings are present

The effect of structure on the consolidation of compacted unsaturated clay soils

Contained in this paper are the results of research which was performed to investigate the relation between the volume-change mechanisms of shrinkage and one-dimensional compression for two clay soils, including some samples whose structures had been altered by the addition of flocculating and dispersing agents. Shrinkage tests were conducted with a special mold designed to facilitate the study of a soil\u27s shrinkage path. consolidation tests on undisturbed samples and one-dimensional compression tests on unsaturated samples compacted in the vicinity of optimum moisture content were performed. A detailed study was made of a highly plastic red Missouri clay. Complications arose in the shrinkage tests which prevented a general comparison of the two means of volume reduction. Specific conclusions are drawn as to the mechanism of unsaturated compression of clays and the related effects of structure, and suggestions are made for further study --Abstract, page ii

Efforts towards the discovery of novel methods for the synthesis of pharmacologically relevant molecular scaffolds

With the introductions of pharmaceuticals into modern day society many people have been using them to improve their lives. Due to this high increase in demand along with the ever-growing concern of environmental impact pharmaceutical companies have been pressed to synthesis new and existing drugs at a higher rate. This increased rate can cause low yield drugs or have a heavy environmental impact. As the use of pharmaceuticals becomes more widespread the need for greener and simpler organic synthesis methods to make these pharmaceuticals becomes more needed. Herein is reported the methodological development of different pharmacologically relevant scaffolds. This work shows Titanium Dioxide (TiO2, rutile) as well as Hydroxylamine-O-Sulfonic Acid (HOSA) can be employed to make a scaffold that is commonly used for the synthesis of amino acids. This work also presents two methods for the formation of heterocyclic compounds that have been found to have antibacterial properties. These works highlight the value of simple methodology to achieve relevant scaffolds for pharmaceuticals

The effect of structure on the consolidation of compacted unsaturated clay soils

Contained in this paper are the results of research which was performed to investigate the relation between the volume-change mechanisms of shrinkage and one-dimensional compression for two clay soils, including some samples whose structures had been altered by the addition of flocculating and dispersing agents. Shrinkage tests were conducted with a special mold designed to facilitate the study of a soil\u27s shrinkage path. consolidation tests on undisturbed samples and one-dimensional compression tests on unsaturated samples compacted in the vicinity of optimum moisture content were performed. A detailed study was made of a highly plastic red Missouri clay. Complications arose in the shrinkage tests which prevented a general comparison of the two means of volume reduction. Specific conclusions are drawn as to the mechanism of unsaturated compression of clays and the related effects of structure, and suggestions are made for further study --Abstract, page ii

State debt repudiations in the United States

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1949. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive