71% of Online Adults Now Use Video-Sharing Sites

Presents survey findings about trends since 2006 in Americans' use of online video-sharing sites by gender, age, race/ethnicity, income, education, community type (urban, suburban, or rural), and parental status

The Digital Revolution and Higher Education

Presents survey findings about the views of college presidents and the public on the value of, prevalence of, and experience with online learning, as well as the role of the Internet and related technologies in education and prospects for future growth

Effective and Promising Summer Learning Programs and Approaches for Economically-Disadvantaged Children and Youth

Reviews research on summer learning program outcomes for low-income children and identifies the characteristics of effective programs such as experienced teachers, small groups, and fun activities. Finds reading and math achievement gains are possible

The Impact of Surface Normals on Appearance

The appearance of an object is the result of complex light interaction with the object. Beyond the basic interplay between incident light and the object\u27s material, a multitude of physical events occur between this illumination and the microgeometry at the point of incidence, and also beneath the surface. A given object, made as smooth and opaque as possible, will have a completely different appearance if either one of these attributes - amount of surface mesostructure (small-scale surface orientation) or translucency - is altered. Indeed, while they are not always readily perceptible, the small-scale features of an object are as important to its appearance as its material properties. Moreover, surface mesostructure and translucency are inextricably linked in an overall effect on appearance. In this dissertation, we present several studies examining the importance of surface mesostructure (small-scale surface orientation) and translucency on an object\u27s appearance. First, we present an empirical study that establishes how poorly a mesostructure estimation technique can perform when translucent objects are used as input. We investigate the two major factors in determining an object\u27s translucency: mean free path and scattering albedo. We exhaustively vary the settings of these parameters within realistic bounds, examining the subsequent blurring effect on the output of a common shape estimation technique, photometric stereo. Based on our findings, we identify a dramatic effect that the input of a translucent material has on the quality of the resultant estimated mesostructure. In the next project, we discuss an optimization technique for both refining estimated surface orientation of translucent objects and determining the reflectance characteristics of the underlying material. For a globally planar object, we use simulation and real measurements to show that the blurring effect on normals that was observed in the previous study can be recovered. The key to this is the observation that the normalization factor for recovered normals is proportional to the error on the accuracy of the blur kernel created from estimated translucency parameters. Finally, we frame the study of the impact of surface normals in a practical, image-based context. We discuss our low-overhead, editing tool for natural images that enables the user to edit surface mesostructure while the system automatically updates the appearance in the natural image. Because a single photograph captures an instant of the incredibly complex interaction of light and an object, there is a wealth of information to extract from a photograph. Given a photograph of an object in natural lighting, we allow mesostructure edits and infer any missing reflectance information in a realistically plausible way

Optimizing Reservoir Operations to Adapt to 21st Century Expectations of Climate and Social Change in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon

Reservoir systems in the western US are managed to serve two main competing purposes: to reduce flooding during the winter and spring, and to provide water supply for multiple uses during the summer. Because the storage capacity of a reservoir cannot be used for both flood damage reduction and water storage at the same time, these two uses are traded off as the reservoir fills during the transition from the wet to the dry season. Climate change, population growth, and development in the western US may exacerbate dry season water scarcity and increase winter flood risk, creating a need to critically evaluate the status quo for reservoir operations. Focusing on a system of thirteen reservoirs (the Willamette Project) in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon, we estimated the values of reservoir management for reducing expected damages in the floodplain and for storing water for recreation in and around the reservoirs. We then used these values in a dynamic program to estimate the optimal fill path over the winter-spring transition period for both historical conditions and future scenarios of climate and social change. The value of stored water for summertime reservoir recreation was estimated based on the response of recreational use day counts to variation in water levels at nine of the reservoirs over the period 2001 to 2011. Visitor days were found to decline by as much as 2% per foot of drop in water level below full pool. The implied value of water to recreational users varied from $0.10 to$78 per acre-foot per month, depending on the reservoir. This range of values is comparable to prior estimates of the value of reservoir recreation in other parts of the western US, and is also similar to the value of water to irrigated agriculture in the Willamette River Basin, estimated in other studies. Because water cannot be used for recreation and irrigation at the same time, these results suggest that management of the Willamette reservoirs may benefit society by releasing stored water in summer for downstream needs from some reservoirs, while maintaining full pool for recreation in others, as prescribed currently. The expected value of flood damage reduction was estimated based on the probability of floods, flood inundation depth, and reservoir capacity, for three scenarios of future development in the Willamette River Basin, which were simulated by the Willamette Water 2100 land transition model over the period from present to 2100 using mid-range projections of future climate (MIROC5) and assumption about future population growth. Estimates of expected flood damage reduction varied as a function of flood risk over the course of the winter and spring, as well as the rate of population growth and associated development in the floodplain. At a weekly time scale the expected benefits of flood damage reduction ranged from a high in mid-January of $304 million to$1,284 million (depending on the rate of population growth), to near zero at the end of May. Finally, these analyses were combined in a dynamic programming approach to evaluate the optimal rate of fill for the Willamette Project reservoirs, at a weekly time step over the period from January to the end of May. This was done by treating the system of thirteen reservoirs as a single reservoir. The dynamic program found the fill path that minimized the sum of flood damages and foregone recreation benefits, subject to the constraint of available water inflows to the reservoir system. The estimate optimal fill path depended on the rate of decline of expected flood damages from mid-January to May. Anticipated future increases in winter flood risk and reduced spring streamflow, associated with climate change, shifted the optimal fill path to begin earlier and to fill more slowly, compared to the optimal fill path under historical conditions. The model confirms the intuitive result that the greater the value of stored water the earlier the optimal date to begin filling. Conversely, the greater the expected value of flood damage reduction the later the initiation of fill. Despite uncertainties in the estimated values of expected flood damage reduction and stored water for recreation, as well as the limitations of the dynamic program in modelling the coordinated management of multiple reservoirs, the approach and findings of this analysis contribute to our understanding of how reservoir management may need to adapt to future changes in water supply and demand

Pardon for Good and Sufficient Reasons

The preamble to an executive grant of clemency from the Presi- dent of the United States implies that pardons are granted on the basis of premises,... good and sufficient reasons. Yet, pardons have not always been regarded as the sort of acts that need to be justified by argument. In fact, most presidential pardons are issued without any statement of justification beyond the assurance that good reasons do exist. As a result, the issue of what constitutes good and sufficient reasons for a presidential pardon is seldom addressed and still unresolved

COMPASS CRUSADERS

Grade Level(s): 6-12The purpose of this lesson is to learn how to use a compass and a G.P.S. unit AND how to use that knowledge in the field while applying orienteering and mathematical skills.Westlane Middle School, Indianapolis, I

Global Environmental Problems, the ISA way

This unit asks freshmen to verbally advocate for an assigned policy option from an assigned roll, during a simulation in which they work in teams to influence a mock Presidential Advisory Panel on Environmental Issues. Learning the content (global environmental problems), researching, and collaborating to establish a position will take one month and be taught primarily through Biology and World Geography classes, with support from Math and Multimedia. They will also read Ishmael in English class, and extend their understanding of sustainability issues by taking a week-long field trip immediately following the simulation