Building Middle-Level Mathematics Teachers\u27 Capacities as Teachers and Leaders: The Math in the Middle Institute Partnership

This article describes professional development for middle-level mathematics teachers offered through the Math in the Middle Institute Partnership, a National Science Foundation-funded project to build teachers’ capacities to improve mathematics learning for all students. An overview of the project, including descriptions of its goals and curriculum are provided. Detailed descriptions of two mathematics courses and one pedagogy course are offered. The mathematics courses included here are the introductory course to the Math in the Middle Institute, as well as one of the final math courses of the Institute in which participants apply mathematical knowledge and processes to real-world problems. The pedagogy course features curriculum that enables teachers to acquire an understanding of the nature and purpose of action research, and launches teachers into planning and implementing systematic inquiry in their own mathematics classrooms around topics of their choosing. The varied abilities of teachers, as well as growth in teachers’ mathematical and pedagogical capacities, are represented by several samples of student work provided within the article. In addition, mathematical and pedagogical products of student work are also provided through the project’s URL links. Improving teacher quality is identified as a national need in mathematics education and one many universities and schools across the country are working in partnership to try to address. This article describes a professional development project aimed at improving mathematics teaching and learning in the middle grades. An overview of the project, along with a close look at several of its course offerings, are presented highlighting mathematical and pedagogical goals, challenges, and accomplishments

Space shuttle: Structural integrity and assessment study

A study program was conducted to determine the nondestructive evaluation (NDE) requirements and to develop a preliminary nondestructive evaluation manual for the entire space shuttle vehicle. The rationale and guidelines for structural analysis and NDE requirements development are discussed. Recommendations for development of NDE technology for the orbiter thermal protection system and certain structural components are included. Recommendations to accomplish additional goals toward space shuttle inspection are presented

Strange-quark Current in the Nucleon from Lattice QCD

The contribution of the strange-quark current to the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon is studied using lattice QCD. The strange current matrix elements from our lattice calculation are analyzed in two different ways, the differential method used in an earlier work by Wilcox and a cumulative method which sums over all current insertion times. The preliminary results of our simulation indicate the importance of high statistics, and that consistent results between the varying analysis methods can be achieved. Although this simulation does not yet yield a number that can be compared to experiment, several criteria useful in assessing the robustness of a signal extracted from a noisy background are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, Presented at EMI 200

Intensity-Correlation Spectroscopy

A survey is given of techniques for spectroscopic analysis using intensity fluctuations. Particular attention is given to counting times, the role of macroscopic sources and detectors, and the electronic constraints placed on the observations

Piloted simulation of one-on-one helicopter air combat at NOE flight levels

A piloted simulation designed to examine the effects of terrain proximity and control system design on helicopter performance during one-on-one air combat maneuvering (ACM) is discussed. The NASA Ames vertical motion simulator (VMS) and the computer generated imagery (CGI) systems were modified to allow two aircraft to be independently piloted on a single CGI data base. Engagements were begun with the blue aircraft already in a tail-chase position behind the red, and also with the two aircraft originating from positions unknown to each other. Maneuvering was very aggressive and safety requirements for minimum altitude, separation, and maximum bank angles typical of flight test were not used. Results indicate that the presence of terrain features adds an order of complexiaty to the task performed over clear air ACM and that mix of attitude and rate command-type stability and control augmentation system (SCAS) design may be desirable. The simulation system design, the flight paths flown, and the tactics used were compared favorably by the evaluation pilots to actual flight test experiments

Spectrophotometry of Michigan-Tololo quasars

Emission-line quasar characteristics are confirmed for 80% of the objects observed, including at least four new quasars with spectral features indicative of supernova-like outflow. Approximately 73% of the redshifts predicted from the discovery plates are found accurate with a mean error in z of 0.03, and a large range of z (from about 0.1 to 3.16) is represented in the sample. The observed redshift distribution for quasars is marginally consistent with a constant co-moving quasar density above z approximately 2.0. The shape of the redshift distribution may be used as an isotropy probe with a cosmic time resolution of a few times one-hundred million years in the early universe; therefore, continued surveys of this sort are important even if accurate magnitudes are not determined

Circular 73

An assessment of Growth of Infrastructure Booms have been a common element in the development of frontier areas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most commonly, the booms have been associated with resource development such as the mineral booms of the western United States. Booms usually involve some type of dramatic short- term change which has wide-ranging implications (Gilmore, 1976). Since the arrival of the Russians in Alaska, six major booms have occurred: furs, whales, salmon, minerals, military, and petroleum. Each of these booms has, to some degree, created changes in the landscape of Alaska, in particular, the infrastructural base, which in turn has facilitated subsequent development, either another major boom, or a smaller development. For example, agricultural development has been enhanced by mineral, military, and petroleum booms in Alaska. The cumulative impact on infrastructure of more than one boom, or multibooms, as it is referred to here, is the focus of this paper. One problem encountered in studying booms is that there is no general agreement on what constitutes a boom. Detailed studies of booms in communities such as Dixon’s (1978) analysis of Fairbanks and Gilmore’s multi-community work in the Great Plains—Rocky •mountain regions, contained no specific definition of the term “boom”. Yet it was clear in each study that something dramatic had occurred. More general historical studies of the Western mineral bonanzas (Greever, 1963) or the Klondike gold rush (Berton, 1958) likewise suggest a number of factors such as population rise, influx of money, resource extraction, and infrastructure expansion. But in each case, there is no specific factor or define rate of something that specifically qualifies a time period as a boom. In this study, we are concerned with dramatic change of events which have had a major impact on the geographic landscape of an area, As a framework for the initial study, we review those events which have been given attention as boom-type activities in the historical literature of Alaska (Rogers, 1962; Naske and Slotnick, 1987)