New tools in comparative political economy: The database of political institutions.

[Dataset available: http://hdl.handle.net/10411/15987]

Experienced tutors' deployment of thinking skills and what might be entailed in enhancing such skills

In the context of research that reports weaknesses in adults' critical thinking skills, the primary aim was to examine adults' use of critical thinking skills that are described in taxonomies and to identify areas for development. Position papers written by an opportunity sample of 32 experienced adult educators formed the data for a descriptive sample survey design intended to reveal participants' use of critical thinking skills. Each 6000-word paper was written during a development programme that supported such skills. A content analysis of the papers revealed that when participants drew on personal and published ideas about learning to derive their proposals for change, they accepted the ideas uncritically, thereby implying that they might find it difficult to help learners to examine ideas critically. The evidence supports research that implies that critical thinking skills are unlikely to develop unless overall course design privileges the development of epistemological understanding (King and Kitchener 1994, Kuhn 1999). A fundamental assumption underlying the study is that this understanding influences effective citizenship and personal development, as well as employability. A proposition that merits attention in future research is that the development of epistemological understanding is largely neglected in current curricula in formal post-16 education

Multiple-point statistical simulation for hydrogeological models: 3D training image development and conditioning strategies

Most studies about the application of geostatistical simulations based on multiple-point statistics (MPS) to hydrogeological modelling focus on relatively fine-scale models and concentrate on the estimation of facies-level, structural uncertainty. Much less attention is paid to the use of input data and optimal construction of training images. For instance, even though the training image should capture a set of spatial geological characteristics to guide the simulations, the majority of the research still relies on 2D or quasi-3D training images. In the present study, we demonstrate a novel strategy for 3D MPS modelling characterized by: (i) realistic 3D training images, and (ii) an effective workflow for incorporating a diverse group of geological and geophysical data sets. The study covers an area of 2810 km2 in the southern part of Denmark. MPS simulations are performed on a subset of the geological succession (the lower to middle Miocene sediments) which is characterized by relatively uniform structures and dominated by sand and clay. The simulated domain is large and each of the geostatistical realizations contains approximately 45 million voxels with size 100 m × 100 m × 5 m. Data used for the modelling include water well logs, high-resolution seismic data, and a previously published 3D geological model. We apply a series of different strategies for the simulations based on data quality, and develop a novel method to effectively create observed sand/clay spatial trends. The training image is constructed as a small 3D voxel model covering an area of 90 km2. We use an iterative training image development strategy and find that even slight modifications in the training image create significant changes in simulations. Thus, the study underlines that it is important to consider both the geological environment, and the type and quality of input information in order to achieve optimal results from MPS modelling. In this study we present a possible workflow to build the training image and effectively handle different types of input information to perform large-scale geostatistical modellin

Decision Support Model for Generating Optimal Alternative Scenarios of Watershed Best Management Practices

Surface and subsurface agricultural runoff has been the main cause of water quality problems in Lake Decatur, which is the major s ource of public water supply for the City of Decatur and the Village of Mt. Zion, serving a total population of more than 80,000. The lake has a watershed area of 925 square miles and was created by building a dam on the Sangamon River in 1922 with a modification in 1956 to incr ease its capacity. Extensive siltation is another critical issue, causing loss of significant storage volume. Nearly 90 percent of the Lake Decatur watershed is cropland, of which corn and soyb ean account for 44 and 39 percent, respectively. The watershed is extensively tile -drained to lower the water tabl e, creating favorable conditions for agricultural production. Hydr ologic and water quality monitoring has been conducted from 1993 to 2008 by the Illinois State Wate r Survey (ISWS) with support fr om the City of Decatur in an effort to alleviate the wa ter quality problem in Lake Decatur through watershed management alternatives. Additional waters hed monitoring was carried out from 2005 to 2008 by ISWS for a United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) targeted watershed study with the goal of addressing economic and environmental as pects of nutrient management in the Upper Sangamon River watershed. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) added Lake Decatur to the Illinois 2004 Section 303(d) list as impaired for nitr ogen-nitrate and total phosphorus (IEPA, 2004). Consequently, a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) assessment was completed for the Sangamon River/Lake Decatur watershed in 20 07 and was approved by the USEPA. The TMDL study provided an overview of implementation alte rnatives that reduce nitrate and phosphorous loads, including nutrient manage ment, conservation tillage, conser vation buffers, and restriction of livestock. In addition, practices that limit losses from private sewage discharges and sedimentation were also proposed to reduce phosphorus loading (IEPA, 2007). Most cropland in the Lake Decatur watershed has been extensively tile-drained and therefore, the effectiveness of surface water-based best management practices (BMPs) for reducing nitrate may be limited. Specific placement areas for implementation of thes e alternatives have not been identified, which is the focus of this study. Two tributary watersheds of Lake Decatur we re identified for developing alternative implementation scenarios of selected BMPs that are designed to reduce nonpoint source pollutants (NPS) from agricultural sources. The watersheds are Big/Long Creek and Big Ditch watersheds, as illustrated in Figure 1. The Big/Long Creek watershed is located in the downstream portion of the Lake Decatur watershed, draining directly into the lake. In contrast, the Big Ditch watershed is located about 50 miles fr om the lake in the nort heastern edge of the Lake Decatur watershed. Both are agricultu rally dominated watersheds and their areas considered in this study correspond to the drainage areas of ISWS monito ring stations, which are close to the respective watershed outlets. The objective of this research was to evaluate the water quality benefits of selected BMPs at a watershed scale, generati ng alternative scenarios for implementation in Big Ditch and Big/Long Creek watersheds. This was accomp lished through the development of decision support models (DSMs) for each watershed. The DSMs were developed based on an integrated modeling approach, coupling a watershed si mulation model known as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) with an Archived-B ased Micro-Genetic Algorithm 2 (AMGA2) - a multi-objective optimization algorithm. Such integrated modeling approach, which involves interfacing a simulation model with an optimization algorithm, ha s been extensively applied to solve complex problems in watershed manageme nt (Bekele et al., 2013; Bekele et al., 2011), reservoir operations (Nicklow and Mays, 2000), groundwater monitoring design (Reed and Minsker, 2004), and others. The DSM was design ed to generate cost-effective implementation scenarios of selected conventional and newly em erging BMPs that include nutrient management, cover crops, perennial crops, constructed wetlan ds, drainage water management, bioreactors, saturated buffers, and filter strips. It is capable of providing optimal BMP placement scenarios that result in maximum re duction of NPS pollutants for a prescribed level of BMP implementation. BMP scenarios that strike a ba lance between NPS reducti on and total cost of implementation are identified as best tradeoff so lutions and are recommended for preparation of watershed implementation plans.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewedOpe

Helping education undergraduates to use appropriate criteria for evaluating accounts of motivation

The aim of the study was to compare students in a control group with those in a treatment group with respect to evaluative comments on psychological accounts of motivation. The treatment group systematically scrutinized the nature and interpretation of evidence that supported different accounts, and the assumptions, logic, coherence and clarity of accounts. Content analysis of 74 scripts (using three categories) showed that the control group students made more assertions than either evidential or evaluative points, whereas the treatment group used evaluative statements as often as they used assertion. The findings provide support for privileging activities that develop understanding of how knowledge might be contested, and suggest a need for further research on pedagogies to serve this end. The idea is considered that such understanding has a pivotal role in the development of critical thinking

Reactor Simulation for Antineutrino Experiments using DRAGON and MURE

Rising interest in nuclear reactors as a source of antineutrinos for experiments motivates validated, fast, and accessible simulations to predict reactor fission rates. Here we present results from the DRAGON and MURE simulation codes and compare them to other industry standards for reactor core modeling. We use published data from the Takahama-3 reactor to evaluate the quality of these simulations against the independently measured fuel isotopic composition. The propagation of the uncertainty in the reactor operating parameters to the resulting antineutrino flux predictions is also discussed.Comment: This version has increased discussion of uncertaintie

BMQ

BMQ: Boston Medical Quarterly was published from 1950-1966 by the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals

Absolute Paleointensity Study of Miocene Tiva Canyon Tuff, Yucca Mountain, Nevada: Role of Fine‐Particle Grain‐Size Variations

Fine‐grained, Ti‐poor titanomagnetite in the ~12.7 Ma Tiva Canyon (TC) Tuff systematically increases in grain size from superparamagnetic (SP) at the flow base to single domain (SD) at a few meters height. This allows us to examine the role of grain‐size variation on paleointensity, within the transition from SP to stable SD. We present magnetic properties from two previously unreported sections of the TC Tuff, as well as Thellier‐type paleointensity estimates from the lowermost ~7.0 m of the flow. Magnetic hysteresis, frequency‐dependent susceptibility, and thermomagnetic data show that sample grain‐size distribution is dominated by SP in the lower ~3.6 m, transitioning upwards to mostly stable SD. Paleointensity results are closely tied to stratigraphic height and to magnetic properties linked to domain state. SD samples have consistent absolute paleointensity values of 28.5 ± 1.94 μT (VADM of 51.3 ZAm2) and behaved ideally during paleointensity experiments. The samples including a significant SP fraction have consistently higher paleointensities and less ideal behavior but would likely pass many traditional quality‐control tests. We interpret the SD remanence to be a primary thermal remanent magnetization but discuss the possibility of a partial thermal‐chemical remanent magnetization if microcrystal growth continued at T \u3c Tc and/or the section is affected by post‐emplacement vapor‐phase alteration. The link between paleointensity and domain state is stronger than correlations with water content or other evidence of alteration and suggests that the presence of a significant SP population may adversely impact paleointensity results, even in the presence of a stable SD fraction

The African Political Business Cycle: Varieties of Experience

We seek to understand both the incidence and the impact of the African political business cycle in the light of a literature which has argued that, with major extensions of democracy since the 1990s, the cycle has both become more intense and has made African political systems more fragile. With the help of country-case studies, we argue, first, that the African political business cycle is not homogeneous, and occurs relatively infrequently in so-called ‘dominant-party systems’ where a pre-election stimulus confers little political advantage. Secondly, we show that, in those countries where a political cycle does occur, it does not necessarily cause institutional damage. Whether it does or not depends not so much on whether there is an electoral cycle as on whether this cycle calms or exacerbates fears of an unjust allocation of resources. In other words, the composition of the pre-election stimulus, in terms of its allocation between different categories of voter, is as important as its size