Harvey Mudd College

About: Harvey Mudd College is a education organization based out in Claremont, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Finite element method. The organization has 1795 authors who have published 2375 publications receiving 63591 citations. The organization is also known as: Mudd & Harvey Mudd.

Engineering Design Thinking, Teaching, and Learning

Abstract: This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.

Moral emotions and moral behavior

Abstract: Moral emotions represent a key element of our human moral apparatus, influencing the link between moral standards and moral behavior This chapter reviews current theory and research on moral emotions We first focus on a triad of negatively valenced “self-conscious” emotions—shame, guilt, and embarrassment As in previous decades, much research remains focused on shame and guilt We review current thinking on the distinction between shame and guilt, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of these two moral emotions Several new areas of research are highlighted: research on the domain-specific phenomenon of body shame, styles of coping with shame, psychobiological aspects of shame, the link between childhood abuse and later proneness to shame, and the phenomena of vicarious or “collective” experiences of shame and guilt In recent years, the concept of moral emotions has been expanded to include several positive emotions—elevation, gratitude, and the sometimes morally relevant experience o

On Choosing and Bounding Probability Metrics

Abstract: Le choix de metrique de probabilite est une decision tres importante lorsqu'on etudie la convergence des mesures. Nous vous fournissons avec un sommaire de plusieurs metriques/distances de probabilite couramment utilisees par des statisticiens(nes) at par des probabilistes, ainsi que certains nouveaux resultats qui se rapportent a leurs bornes. Avoir connaissance d'autres metriques peut vous fournir avec un moyen de deriver des bornes pour une autre metrique dans un probleme applique. Le fait de prendre en consideration plusieurs metriques vous permettra d'approcher des problemes d'une maniere differente. Ainsi, nous vous demontrons que les taux de convergence peuvent dependre de facon importante sur votre choix de metrique. Il est donc important de tout considerer lorsqu'on doit choisir une metrique.

Boundary conditions for the diffusion equation in radiative transfer

Abstract: Using the method of images, we examine the three boundary conditions commonly applied to the surface of a semi-infinite turbid medium. We find that the image-charge configurations of the partial-current and extrapolated-boundary conditions have the same dipole and quadrupole moments and that the two corresponding solutions to the diffusion equation are approximately equal. In the application of diffusion theory to frequency-domain photon-migration (FDPM) data, these two approaches yield values for the scattering and absorption coefficients that are equal to within 3%. Moreover, the two boundary conditions can be combined to yield a remarkably simple, accurate, and computationally fast method for extracting values for optical parameters from FDPM data. FDPM data were taken both at the surface and deep inside tissue phantoms, and the difference in data between the two geometries is striking. If one analyzes the surface data without accounting for the boundary, values deduced for the optical coefficients are in error by 50% or more. As expected, when aluminum foil was placed on the surface of a tissue phantom, phase and modulation data were closer to the results for an infinite-medium geometry. Raising the reflectivity of a tissue surface can, in principle, eliminate the effect of the boundary. However, we find that phase and modulation data are highly sensitive to the reflectivity in the range of 80-100%, and a minimum value of 98% is needed to mimic an infinite-medium geometry reliably. We conclude that noninvasive measurements of optically thick tissue require a rigorous treatment of the tissue boundary, and we suggest a unified partial-current--extrapolated boundary approach.