Perceptions of School Reform in a Post-NCLB World: A Cathartic Recovery of the Purpose and a ‘Shining-Through’ of the Spirit of Education

This study used a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology to understand the varying perceptions held by different stakeholding groups (state legislators, superintendents, building administrators, teachers, and parents) about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and other related reform efforts such as the Common Core. 12 participants from these five stakeholding groups were purposefully chosen, all from the state of Idaho, and in-depth interviews were performed, parsed out into three phases to inductively invite themes and categories for inquiry. Following each interview, a socio-semiotic analysis was performed using participant language in an integrated effort to identify deeply held beliefs and perceptions of school reform, both past and present. Through the first two phases of interviewing, participant language strongly suggested that any reform effort, past or present, would not succeed unless stakeholding groups effectively ‘buy-in’ to it, and especially if it is perceived to come from the ‘top-down’. Using this language, participants had trouble transcending deeply-seated perceptions of reform based on power and fear. However, by the third and final phase of interviewing, a more potent genus of language was uncovered, one that not only transcended this dominantly regressive and progressive language, but one that all stakeholding groups seemed to agree upon; what’s more is that once interviewees were able to break through the rhetoric of reform in its past and present forms, a more purposeful, if not spiritual, language based on holistic principles of joy, love, care, honesty, openness, and connection ‘shined through’. It was with this ‘shining-through’ language, that interviewees spoke without fear or concern for power, and a deeply held purpose emerged, helping them to transcend their individual stakeholding roles and perceptions, and thus recover the true ‘core’ of their beliefs as educational stakeholders. Therefore, this study presents a Grounded Theory within which state and local reformers can more responsibly create and implement reform, one that promotes a holistic language of reform that does not come from the ‘top-down’, or even the ‘bottom-up’, but, rather, from the ‘inside-out’. Similarly, it suggests that in order to successfully implement any reform, the true ‘core’ of teaching and learning must be honored – the joy, love, connection, and purpose in education that ‘shined through’ once interviewees were given authentic opportunity to share it

Development of a Laboratory Experiment to Simulate Upper-Stage Rocket Explosions

This report is a summary of the senior project entitled Development of a Laboratory Experiment to Simulate Upper-Stage Rocket Explosions. The goal of the experiment was to recreate a NASA experiment which used aluminum soft drink cans to approximate the shape of an Ariane third stage rocket. The cans were placed in a vacuum chamber and fired upon with a projectile from a light gas gun. The resulting debris was collected and analyzed allowing several conclusions to be made regarding the behavior or rocket breakups and the formation of space debris. In lieu of a light gas gun, energy drink cans, fitted with a one-way valve from a bicycle inner tube and filled with a hydrogen and oxygen mixture, are detonated with an Estes model rocket motor igniter. The cans were successfully detonated and aluminum debris was formed in a manner consistent with the predictions of the original experiment. This report describes in detail the preliminary experiments and testing leading to the development of the final apparatus and procedure implemented in the Aerospace Engineering Department’s Spacecraft Environment Laboratory

Development of dense scintillating hard fluoride glasses for the electromagnetic caorimeter of the proposed compact muon solenoid

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Hafnium based Heavy Metal Fluoride glasses have been produced and evaluated in a search for new dense scintillating materials. The principal motivation was the electromagnetic calorimeter of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), a proposed detector for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva. Incorporating CeF 3 in these transparent glasses results in scintillators with fast time constants that are typical of crystalline CeF 3. Typical decay components of 9 ns (30 %) and 25 ns (70 %) have been measured. To record the time distribution of scintillation light, an extension to the single-photon method, has been developed, it is optimised for materials with low light output. An alternative acquisition system which used a Multi-Channel Scaler has been critically evaluated for this application. A low dose rate (1.2 rads- I) 60CO irradiation has been used to determine the radiation tolerance of the glasses. Radiation induced optical absorbance was predominantly located in the UV with tails extending into the visible region. These glasses show partial recovery of optical absorbance at room temperature. Compositional optimisation has shown that Indium and Cerium enhance radiation tolerance

Effects of Information about Invasive Species on Risk Perception and Seafood Demand by Gender and Race

In this paper we consider the effects of negative and positive risk information on perceived seafood risks and seafood consumption by gender and race. The data is from a Mid-Atlantic survey of coastal seafood consumers. We elicit risk perceptions in three risk scenarios with a dichotomous choice with a follow-up question format. We elicit continuous revealed and stated preference seafood consumption in nine risk and price scenarios. Analysis in four gender and race categories indicates that demographic groups respond to the positive and negative information in different ways. Communication of risk information as risk mitigation policy is a challenge. Key Words:

BRAF Mutation and Its Importance in Colorectal Cancer

BRAF mutation is seen in nearly one in ten patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Despite major improvements in survival for advanced colorectal cancer overall, patients with BRAF mutation continue to have a very poor prognosis often with median survival of less than 12 months. It is important for clinicians to be aware of this subgroup as the treatment approach should be different. Treatment options beyond standard chemotherapy are crucial to achieve better outcomes and the role of anti-EGFR therapy alone remains controversial. Current trials assessing combinations of molecular targeted agents have seen some promise. This chapter explores the background of BRAF mutation and current treatment strategies

Redefining the City Market

Kansas City developed in the tradition of many other midwestern cities which relied on the rivers as a link to the more developed East. Settlement of Kansas City began in the 1840\u27s along the riverfront, an area recently renamed the Rivery Quay

Fitting EXAFS data using molecular dynamics outputs and a histogram approach

The estimation of metal nanoparticle diameter by analysis of extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) data from coordination numbers is nontrivial, particularly for particles <5 nm in diameter, for which the undercoordination of surface atoms becomes an increasingly significant contribution to the average coordination number. These undercoordinated atoms have increased degrees of freedom over those within the core of the particle, which results in an increase in the degree of structural disorder with decreasing particle size. This increase in disorder, however, is not accounted for by the standard means of EXAFS analysis, where each coordination shell is fitted with a single bond length and disorder term. In addition, the surface atoms of nanoparticles have been observed to undergo a greater contraction than those in the core, further increasing the range of bond distances. Failure to account for this structural change results in an increased disorder being measured, and therefore, a lower apparent coordination number and corresponding particle size are found. Here, we employ molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for a range of nanoparticle sizes to determine each of the nearest neighbor bond lengths, which were then binned into a histogram to construct a radial distribution function (RDF). Each bin from the histogram was considered to be a single scattering path and subsequently used in fitting the EXAFS data obtained for a series of carbon-supported platinum nanoparticles. These MD-based fits are compared with those obtained using a standard fitting model using Artemis and the standard model with the inclusion of higher cumulants, which has previously been used to account for the non-Gaussian distribution of neighboring atoms around the absorber. The results from all three fitting methods were converted to particle sizes and compared with those obtained from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. We find that the use of molecular dynamics simulations resulted in an improved fit over both the standard and cumulant models, in terms of both quality of fit and correlation with the known average particle size

Kernel Matrix-Based Heuristic Multiple Kernel Learning

Kernel theory is a demonstrated tool that has made its way into nearly all areas of machine learning. However, a serious limitation of kernel methods is knowing which kernel is needed in practice. Multiple kernel learning (MKL) is an attempt to learn a new tailored kernel through the aggregation of a set of valid known kernels. There are generally three approaches to MKL: fixed rules, heuristics, and optimization. Optimization is the most popular; however, a shortcoming of most optimization approaches is that they are tightly coupled with the underlying objective function and overfitting occurs. Herein, we take a different approach to MKL. Specifically, we explore different divergence measures on the values in the kernel matrices and in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). Experiments on benchmark datasets and a computer vision feature learning task in explosive hazard detection demonstrate the effectiveness and generalizability of our proposed methods

Synchronization of multiple DVB-T USB receivers for use in common radio astronomy applications

DVB-T USB receivers are inexpensive devices that allow the user to stream raw in-phase and quadrature signals to a personal computer through the use of open source software. These signals can then be accessed to perform a wide range of software defined radio operations. The data streams of multiple DVB-T USB receivers were successfully synchronized to have the correct time/phase relationship. This was done to further extend the possible applications of the devices. It was found that the timing and delay between both devices was dependent on the scheduling of the microcomputer being used to process the stream of data. Through sharing of a single clock source and the design of a hardware switching arrangement, synchronization was able to be achieved. As a proof of concept, radio interferometry was to be applied to multiple radio telescopes in order to produce a greater angular resolution than possible by a single radio telescope. Two telescopes were constructed and tested and 21cm hydrogen-line emissions from the Milky Way galaxy were successfully detected. It was found that radio interferometry in this context was not fully possible as the sampling rate of the receivers was a limiting factor tothe system. Further applications to the synchronized devices were investigated