The Virtual Classroom: What can be Learned from the COVID-19 Lockdown

This paper seeks to examine the teaching practices utilized during the initial COVID-19 lockdown in higher education. This forced switch to the virtual classroom forced many professors to make innovative changes to adapt to this change in teaching modality. These changes can now be examined and evaluated for potential future application. By reviewing the current literature, performing an analysis of grades from Fall 2017 through Summer 2022, and interviewing select professors at the University of South Carolina, this paper seeks to illuminate some of the potential issues that arise when adapting in-person curriculums to the virtual classroom as well as strategies to minimize these drawbacks and taking full advantage of the options this allows

Drug Knowledge Levels and Drug Abuse Attitudes Among Fifth and Sixth Grade Students of Denton and Keene, Texas

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of determining the drug knowledge levels and attitudes toward drug abuse of fifth and sixth grade schoolchildren

Global congruence of carbon storage and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems

Deforestation is a main driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. An incentive mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here we use the best available global data sets on terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage to map and investigate potential synergies between carbon and biodiversity-oriented conservation. A strong association (rS= 0.82) between carbon stocks and species richness suggests that such synergies would be high, but unevenly distributed. Many areas of high value for biodiversity could be protected by carbon-based conservation, while others could benefit from complementary funding arising from their carbon content. Some high-biodiversity regions, however, would not benefit from carbon-focused conservation, and could become under increased pressure if REDD is implemented. Our results suggest that additional gains for biodiversity conservation are possible, without compromising the effectiveness for climate change mitigation, if REDD takes biodiversity distribution into account

Variable gravity research facility

Spin and despin requirements; sequence of activities required to assemble the Variable Gravity Research Facility (VGRF); power systems technology; life support; thermal control systems; emergencies; communication systems; space station applications; experimental activities; computer modeling and simulation of tether vibration; cost analysis; configuration of the crew compartments; and tether lengths and rotation speeds are discussed

The shift from sterling to the dollar 1965-76: evidence from Australia and New Zealand

The management of foreign exchange reserves has recently attracted attention from both policy-makers and historians. Historical research has focussed on the nineteenth century and the interwar period, with less attention to the strategies of smaller countries in the final transition from sterling to the dollar in the post-1945 period. This article examines the evolution of reserve currency policy from the perspective of Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and early 1970s. As in the 1930s, economic uncertainty and a shift in global economic power prompted changes in reserves strategy. Patterns of trade and debt and falling confidence in British economic policy prompted a move away from sterling, but the timing and extent of this transition were affected by the fragility of the sterling exchange rate, lack of alternative assets, and continued dependence on the London capital market. The choices for Australia and New Zealand were thus constrained, but they were able to leverage their position as holders of sterling to engage in agreements that provided an exchange rate guarantee for their sterling holdings and continued access to the London capital market. This mitigated the effect of the final global transition from sterling to the dollar while protecting their interests

Vibration durability testing of Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Oxide (NCA) lithium-ion 18650 battery cells

This paper outlines a study undertaken to determine if the electrical performance of Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Oxide (NCA) 3.1 Ah 18650 battery cells can be degraded by road induced vibration typical of an electric vehicle (EV) application. This study investigates if a particular cell orientation within the battery assembly can result in different levels of cell degradation. The 18650 cells were evaluated in accordance with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) J2380 standard. This vibration test is synthesized to represent 100,000 miles of North American customer operation at the 90th percentile. This study identified that both the electrical performance and the mechanical properties of the NCA lithium-ion cells were relatively unaffected when exposed to vibration energy that is commensurate with a typical vehicle life. Minor changes observed in the cell’s electrical characteristics were deemed not to be statistically significant and more likely attributable to laboratory conditions during cell testing and storage. The same conclusion was found, irrespective of cell orientation during the test

The Environmental Impacts of International Finance Corporation Lending and Proposals for Reform: A Case Study of Conservation and Oil Development in the Guatemalan Petén

This Article presents a case study of lending by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group, in the oil and gas sector in Guatemala. The case study emphasizes the need for additional environmental reform at IFC. With two separate loans in 1994 and 1996, IFC supported the activities of a small international oil company that was operating within a national park in the northern Guatemalan Petdn, an area of rich tropical forests and globally important wetlands. The company\u27s operations had been grandfathered in to the park upon its creation in 1990. Funding from IFC was used to construct a pipeline from the oil field in the park to a refinery outside of the park. The crux of the authors\u27 findings is that the pipeline should have been constructed to follow the path of an existing road, rather than along the chosen route that crosses significant stretches of primary tropical forest and that opened a new right-of-way into a park already facing continued pressure from colonization. The authors conclude that a stronger set of IFC lending policies, combined with a better environmental impact assessment and more extensive public consultation, would have led to a less environmentally damaging outcome. Although the authors acknowledge the complex questions about the role of governments, development agencies, the private sector, conservation organizations, and local communities raised by this issue, they focus on the narrow subject of IFC\u27s role in this matter, stressing the need for a reform agenda at that institution

Advancing the health-promoting prison: a call for global action.

The global prison population has grown exponentially in all five continents and consistent analysis shows that many diseases, illnesses and long-term conditions are over-represented in the prison population. Despite the myriad of health challenges in the population, the concept and practice of health promotion is both contested and underdeveloped with significant variation in its application in prison systems globally. The purpose of this commentary paper is twofold. The first is to provide a short overview of the health-promoting prison concept which we argue, at present, is a largely Eurocentric idea which has not been adopted on a global scale. Second, the paper makes a case for more global action on prison health promotion and invites further dialogue and discussion amongst the health promotion community

Exploring student participation across different arenas of school life

Much has now been written on student participation at school. Yet a lack of conceptual clarity, contestation over purpose and benefits, and uncertainty about how to culturally embed and effectively facilitate participation in school contexts continue to pose considerable challenges. This article reports the qualitative findings from a large‐scale, mixed‐method study that sought to explore how participation is perceived and practised in schools. The qualitative phase involved students from Years 7–10 (n = 177) and staff (n = 32) across 10 government and Catholic secondary schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The data demonstrate that considerable efforts are being made in NSW schools to expand opportunities through which students might ‘participate’, with these explored across three key arenas of school life: the classroom; co‐curricular activities, including formal participatory structures; and informal relational spaces. Although participatory opportunities were largely ad hoc and often dependent upon the approach of individual teachers or school initiatives, differing enactments of childhood and adulthood were identifiable between the three arenas, along with varying expectations in this regard. The classroom emerged as a positive arena at present, and one in which adult–child relations are beginning to become reconfigured. The co‐curricular arena was much more contested, with the breadth of potential participatory opportunities perhaps distracting from the need to address underlying intergenerational issues. However, informal relational encounters between students and teachers were becoming increasingly egalitarian, and these offer scope for creating the cultural preconditions such that student participation might expand more evenly across school life

Understanding children’s constructions of meanings about other children: implications for inclusiveeducation

This paper explores the factors that influence the way children construct meanings about other children, and especially those who seem to experience marginalisation, within school contexts. The research involved an ethnographic study in a primary school in Cyprus over a period of 5 months. Qualitative methods were used, particularly participant observations and interviews with children. Interpretation of the data suggests that children's perceptions about other children, and especially those who come to experience marginalisation, are influenced by the following factors: other children and the interactions between them; adults’ way of behaving in the school; the existing structures within the school; and the cultures of the school and the wider educational context. Even though the most powerful factor was viewed to be the adults’ influence, it was rather the interweaving between different factors that seemed to lead to the creation of particular meanings for other children. In the end, it is argued that children's voices should be seen as an essential element within the process of developing inclusive practices.<br/