Geology of Virginia for Teachers at Radford University

The Radford University version of the Virginia Earth Science Collaborative‘s Geology of Virginia was taught during Summer 2006 and 2007, and was entitled, Geology of Virginia for Teachers (GEOL 691). A total of eighteen teachers, primarily from southside and southwestern Virginia, attended the class. The goal of the course was to provide essential knowledge and advanced skills in geology in general, and the geology of Virginia in particular. The course had a strong field emphasis, using Virginia as a natural teaching laboratory to illustrate such concepts as plate tectonics, rock interpretation, and Steno‘s Laws. Lectures and lab activities were used to guide and inform the field trips, and to provide an overall “big picture” of the time and scale of geology. Maps and materials provided in the course, plus samples and pictures collected by the teachers, created a wealth of materials that can be used in teaching. Teachers developed fmal projects that highlighted the geology of their home counties. The course featured the experimental use of “podcasts” as a way to deliver content to geographically dispersed teachers. Evaluation results show that teachers gained substantial geologic knowledge, and felt better prepared and more confident in their own teaching

Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS)

The 2018 Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies was held on March 22-25 at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C

Aesthetic and Social Community: Multicultural Poetry and the Anthologizing of Poems

Scholars from various disciplines have explored the concept of multiculturalism from the perspectives of citizenship, recognition, representation, tokenism, constitutionalism, and other vantage points, with politics and education receiving most of the attention. I While many efforts have been made to explore these aspects of multiculturalism, its significance in poetry, particularly in poetry\u27s composition and critique, has not been duly taken into account. Multicultural poetry designates a critical abstraction in which poetry is classified by relation to a communal culture, history, or customs. In this definition, multicultural poetry is therefore inclusive of poetry written by ethnic minorities, women, non-mainstream religious practitioners, and members of other communities. To maintain a focus, this article delimits its discussion to poetry\u27s relationship with ethnicity and probes the interplay between aesthetic and ethnicity in three sections–Mainstream Poetry Anthologies: Tastes, Schools, and the Issue of History, Multicultural Poetry Anthologies: Situated Poetry and Group Poetics, and Ethnopoetics as a Choice

Measuring violations of General Relativity from single gravitational wave detection by non-spinning binary systems: higher-order asymptotic analysis

A frequentist asymptotic expansion method for error estimation is employed for a network of gravitational wave detectors to assess the amount of information that can be extracted from gravitational wave observations. Mathematically we derive lower bounds in the errors that any parameter estimator will have in the absence of prior knowledge to distinguish between the post-Einsteinian (ppE) description of coalescing binary systems and that of general relativity. When such errors are smaller than the parameter value, there is possibility to detect these violations from GR. A parameter space with inclusion of dominant dephasing ppE parameters $(\beta, b)$ is used for a study of first- and second-order (co)variance expansions, focusing on the inspiral stage of a nonspinning binary system of zero eccentricity detectible through Adv. LIGO and Adv. Virgo. Our procedure is an improvement of the Cram\'{e}r-Rao Lower Bound. When Bayesian errors are lower than our bound it means that they depend critically on the priors. The analysis indicates the possibility of constraining deviations from GR in inspiral SNR ($\rho \sim 15-17$) regimes that are achievable in upcoming scientific runs (GW150914 had an inspiral SNR $\sim 12$). The errors on $\beta$ also increase errors of other parameters such as the chirp mass $\mathcal{M}$ and symmetric mass ratio $\eta$. Application is done to existing alternative theories of gravity, which include modified dispersion relation of the waveform, non-spinning models of quadratic modified gravity, and dipole gravitational radiation (i.e., Brans-Dicke type) modifications.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Better positioning through competitor analysis and enhancement of brand awareness on website

Brand positioning is not just a core marketing concept, it is a foundation for the sustainable development of a business. However, some companies might either overlook the importance of brand positioning or fail to get their positioning message across to their customers. Therefore, this organisational research project aimed to help the organisation develop and communicate its brand positioning. Based on the literature review, the researcher decided on a number of scopes, or themes, to investigate, which were: brand personality, point of difference, customer benefits, marketing communication, as well as competitors’ branding strategies. To answer all these sub-problems, this research adopted a mixed method (qualitative and quantitative), in which a competitor analysis of 11 subjects, staff interviews of four individuals, and a customer questionnaire survey of nine participants, were carried out. Some significant results include: the organisation has a sincerity brand personality; its points of difference are a variety of in-house technical skills, good customer relationship, flexibility, and efficiency; its customer benefits are increased online presence, enhanced competitiveness, and making clients’ life easier. Based on the findings, this research proposed four recommendations for the organisation: creating a positioning statement, bringing the brand promise to life, modifying the website, and displaying case studies. For each recommendation there is a suggested implementation plan applying the insights gained from the research result. Although there are some limitations, this research managed to provide a clear direction and framework for the better positioning of the organisation

Teaching Shakespeare to young ESL learners in Hong Kong

Teaching Shakespeare to young ESL learners can be one of the most challenging tasks for English teachers and parents. Because of the difficult vocabulary and unusual language, Shakespeare is often left unread and unexplored both in school and at home. With a view to helping children overcome reading obstacles and learn to appreciate Shakespeare and his plays, the Hong Kong Public Libraries and I co-hosted a weekly Shakespeare teens’ reading club for K12 learners from local grammar schools. Four Shakespearean plays were introduced to about twenty Cantonese child participants who had no or little experience reading or studying Shakespeare’s works. To enhance imagination and interactions among child readers, various learner-centred, interactive, and multimedia pedagogical activities such as the reader’s theatre, movie screenings, creative writing tasks, comics reading and drawing, etc. were used in the reading club. In this paper, I will share teaching ideas and reading activities that make Shakespeare understandable and enjoyable for ESL young readers

Female Cross-Dressing in Chinese Literature Classics and their English Versions

Cross-dressing, as a cultural practice, suggests gender ambiguity and allows freedom of self expression. Yet, it may also serve to reaffirm ideological stereotypes and the binary distinctions between male and female, masculine and feminine, homosexual and heterosexual. To explore the nature and function of cross-dressing in Chinese and Western cultures, this paper analyzes the portrayals of cross-dressing heroines in two Chinese stories: 《木木木》 The Ballad of Mulan (500–600 A.D.), and 《梁梁梁梁梁梁台》The Butterfly Lovers (850–880 A.D.). Distorted representations in the English translated texts are also explored

Essential gene pathways for glioblastoma stem cells: clinical implications for prevention of tumor recurrence.

Glioblastoma (World Health Organization/WHO grade IV) is the most common and most aggressive adult glial tumor. Patients with glioblastoma, despite being treated with gross total resection and post-operative radiation/chemotherapy, will almost always develop tumor recurrence. Glioblastoma stem cells (GSC), a minor subpopulation within the tumor mass, have been recently characterized as tumor-initiating cells and hypothesized to be responsible for post-treatment recurrence because of their enhanced radio-/chemo-resistant phenotype and ability to reconstitute tumors in mouse brains. Genome-wide expression profile analysis uncovered molecular properties of GSC distinct from their differentiated, proliferative progeny that comprise the majority of the tumor mass. In contrast to the hyperproliferative and hyperangiogenic phenotype of glioblastoma tumors, GSC possess neuroectodermal properties and express genes associated with neural stem cells, radial glial cells, and neural crest cells, as well as portray a migratory, quiescent, and undifferentiated phenotype. Thus, cell cycle-targeted radio-chemotherapy, which aims to kill fast-growing tumor cells, may not completely eliminate glioblastoma tumors. To prevent tumor recurrence, a strategy targeting essential gene pathways of GSC must be identified and incorporated into the standard treatment regimen. Identifying intrinsic and extrinsic cues by which GSC maintain stemness properties and sustain both tumorigenesis and anti-apoptotic features may provide new insights into potentially curative strategies for treating brain cancers

The nature and role of empathy in public librarianship

This article presents two recent studies, an AHRC-funded exploration of the role of empathy in community librarianship (Study 1) and an investigation of the role of empathy in service to minority ethnic users (Study 2). Qualitative elements of each methodology are presented, namely a series of focus groups with frontline staff, interviews with senior managers and a research workshop (Study 1), and a case study investigation of a public library in the heart of a Chinese community (Study 2). Synthesizing the data of both studies, an analysis is conducted of the relationship between the cultural identities of library staff and their ability to empathize with the public. It is concluded that empathy plays a role in facilitating effective communication between staff and users, but that a distinction should be made between intuitive and cognitive empathy, in considering the potential of staff training to develop appropriate levels of emotional response to members of all communities