Should A Program Of Sex Education Be Mandatory in Public Schools From 4th-12th Grade?

For a position paper and presentation in her Changing Family course last fall, Tara explored the debate surrounding sexual education in the public school system. After completing extensive research regarding the policies which are already in place and evaluating their success, Tara formed the position that a program of sexual education should be mandatory in public schools form 4th to 12th grade. During an era where popular reality television shows include “Sixteen and Pregnant” as well as “Teen Mom” depict what a large issue teenage pregnancy is and how mainstream it has become in society. Tara does an excellent job of giving a well rounded view of the issue and supporting her claims with research and statistics

On Nonlocal Energy Transfer via Zonal Flow in the Dimits Shift

The two-dimensional Terry-Horton equation is shown to exhibit the Dimits shift when suitably modified to capture both the nonlinear enhancement of zonal/drift-wave interactions and the existence of residual Rosenbluth-Hinton states. This phenomenon persists through numerous simplifications of the equation, including a quasilinear approximation as well as a four-mode truncation. It is shown that the use of an appropriate adiabatic electron response, for which the electrons are not affected by the flux-averaged potential, results in an $\boldsymbol{E}\boldsymbol{\times}\boldsymbol{B}$ nonlinearity that can efficiently transfer energy nonlocally to length scales on the order of the sound radius. The size of the shift for the nonlinear system is heuristically calculated and found to be in excellent agreement with numerical solutions. The existence of the Dimits shift for this system is then understood as an ability of the unstable primary modes to efficiently couple to stable modes at smaller scales, and the shift ends when these stable modes eventually destabilize as the density gradient is increased. This nonlocal mechanism of energy transfer is argued to be generically important even for more physically complete systems.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures, 4 movie

Improved pulse shape discriminator for fast neutron-gamma ray detection system

Discriminator in nuclear particle detection system distinguishes nuclear particle type and energy among many different nuclear particles. Discriminator incorporates passive, linear circuit elements so that it will operate over a wide dynamic range

Decentralized collaborative transport of fabrics using micro-UAVs

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have generally little capacity to carry payloads. Through collaboration, the UAVs can increase their joint payload capacity and carry more significant loads. For maximum flexibility to dynamic and unstructured environments and task demands, we propose a fully decentralized control infrastructure based on a swarm-specific scripting language, Buzz. In this paper, we describe the control infrastructure and use it to compare two algorithms for collaborative transport: field potentials and spring-damper. We test the performance of our approach with a fleet of micro-UAVs, demonstrating the potential of decentralized control for collaborative transport.Comment: Submitted to 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). 6 page

More Kids, Brighter Futures: Expanding the Union Street Clubhouse to Meet the Needs of the Community

To address the increased need and demand for services offered by the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester, a campaign called More Kids, Brighter Futures was started. This project expanded the existing facility at 555 Union Street by constructing a 4,800 square foot addition. This expansion included a multipurpose activity room, a play room, an office, a quiet/study area, and additional restrooms. Besides solving an immediate need in the community, this project also aligns with the Club’s mission: To reach out to all youth, especially those who need us most, inspiring them to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring individuals. A video recording of this presentation is available here

Fruitless Endeavors

Man waits for a fish to bite on Raystown Lake

If God does not explain parsimony, what does ?

Although many scholars take parsimony for granted today, Elliott Sober shows in his latest book, Ockham’s Razors, that they might not be rationally justified to do so. In particular, he claims that the famous Ockham’s Razor, the heuristic that says one should not postulate more entities than necessary, rests on some implicit assumptions that go back to Newton and his rules of reasoning. The problem is that Newton justified those basic rules on theological grounds, that is, the world is parsimonious because God is orderly. All is not lost : Sober suggests that two contemporary perspectives from probability theory do justify parsimony. The first one is related to Bayesianism, and the fact that Ockham’s Razor is embedded in Bayes’ theorem. Sober criticizes this view and argues for an alternative, one in which predictive accuracy is more fundamental. I suggest that Sober might be right about the unseen role of predictive accuracy, but that this does not entail that Bayesians should adhere to Sober’s framework. It is my contention that Sober’s case against Bayesian model selection has more to do with the Bayesian worldview than the methodology per se