Showing papers on "Applied science published in 2008"

A Model of Inquiry for Teaching Earth Science

Abstract: Teachers and administrators have heard recent calls for more inquiry-oriented science instruction at roughly the same time more emphasis has been placed on high-stakes testing in science. While these two factors justify an examination on assessment practices, they also justify a refinement in teaching approaches to science inquiry. At their core, models of inquiry-science teaching attempt to engage student in active processes of science knowledge construction, emulating the process of science itself. But each domain in science has unique, if overlapping, histories, traditions, and conventions that have directed inquiry within those sciences. This paper outlines a model of inquiry science teaching that more accurately reflects the nature of the Earth sciences than do generic or physical science-based models do. This model incorporates elements recognizable for any science domain (question posing, methods definition and application, and solution determination), but also provides specific mechanisms within each element that reflect the nature of the Earth sciences, in current, historical, and classroom contexts. These mechanisms include descriptions of materials, space, and time; observations and modeling; and interpretations and historical representations. Possible pathways for short- and long-term instructional planning are also discussed. Teaching Earth science in the K-12 classroom presents a challenge compared to other sciences in the curriculum. Earth science is an interdisciplinary science, encompassing ideas from physics, chemistry, and biology, but applied through geology, meteorology, oceanography, and in K-12 curricula, space science and astronomy. Earth science is not a narrow set of ideas, but a synthesis of many concepts, traditions, and disciplines in science.

Laserneedle-Acupuncture: science and practice

Abstract: ‘Brain activity in and of itself does not explain anything about the healing power of acupuncture’ (p 54). Lasers were first investigated in Hungary for their ability to stimulate biological processes (rather than their ability to ablate tissue) in 1967, and applied to acupuncture points three years later in Kazakhstan. In the 1980s, ‘laser acupuncture’ spread East to China and Japan, and West to North America. Acupuncture usually involves the insertion of needles at several points simultaneously. ‘Laser acupuncture’ is different in that points tend to be stimulated sequentially, using a handheld device. Laserneedle acupuncture (LN-A) was developed by Schikora at the University of Paderborn (Germany) in 2002 to circumvent this limitation. Up to eight 685nm lasers (output power 3040mW, diameter 500μm) are affixed to the skin and activated simultaneously for treatment durations of from five to 20 minutes, 10 minutes giving an energy density of 2.3kJ/cm2. Thus LN-A has the advantage over manual acupuncture (and perhaps even electroacupuncture) in that the treatment ‘dose’ can be accurately measured. Blinded treatment is also much easier with LN-A than with traditional/manual needling, as there is no local sensation from the lasers themselves. There may be distal or generalised sensations of tingling and warmth comparable in some ways to needle de qi – indeed, one contributor to this book insists on this as a prerequisite for effective treatment. In Laserneedle-Acupuncture, Schikora has collaborated with Litscher (from Graz University, Austria), co-editor of the ominously titled ComputerControlled Acupuncture (Pabst 2000), in which monitoring (‘controlling’) the effects of acupuncture is described using such methods as laser Doppler flowmetry. Now, in a series of peer reviewed chapters, these two authors and their colleagues take this further, utilising the latest hi-tech wizardry in their search to demonstrate how LN-A both resembles and differs from ‘laser acupuncture’, manual acupuncture and acupressure. Doppler ultrasonography is used to assess the cerebrovascular effects of LN-A and differentiate between the central effects of stimulation at different acupuncture points, as well as between those of acupressure, manual acupuncture and LN-A. Infrared spectroscopy is employed to objectify the cerebral effects of LN-A and manual acupuncture. Local micromorphological, microcirculatory and skin temperature changes with LN-A are investigated. Even fMRI, EEG and auditory evoked potentials are enrolled in the quest for objective measurement. (Incidentally, during fMRI investigations, LN-A is feasible at points near the head which ‘laser acupuncture’and manual acupuncture are unlikely to be).

Philosophy of Computer Science

Abstract: The Philosophy of Computer Science is concerned with those philo-sophical issues that surround and underpin the academic discipline of computer science. In this paper we provide an introduction to some itsphilosophical concerns.

Ac 2008-906: academic pathways study: processes and realities

Abstract: Amid concerns that U.S. educational institutions are not attracting and graduating sufficient numbers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students with the skills and knowledge needed to tackle the technological challenges of the 21 century, the National Science Foundation granted funding in 2003 to the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), dedicated to advancing the scholarship of engineering learning and teaching. The largest element of the CAEE is the Academic Pathways Study (APS), an in-depth, mixed methods exploration of the undergraduate student experience and the graduate’s transition into professional practice. The APS addresses the following research questions: 1. How do students' engineering skills and knowledge develop and/or change over time? 2. How does one's identity as an engineer evolve? 3. What elements of engineering education contribute to the students' skills/knowledge and identity? What elements contribute to students’ persistence in an engineering major and persistence in the engineering profession? 4. What skills do early career engineers need as they enter the workplace? Given the scale of the APS investigation with multiple schools and student populations, the answers to these questions will allow us to identify educational practices that contribute to students persisting and thriving in engineering, and potential strategies for attracting more students to the study of engineering. This paper describes the evolution and implementation of the Academic Pathways Study (APS), a five year, multi-institution study designed to address these questions and implications for academic practices. As such, this paper is a “welcome mat” or introduction for those interested in learning more about APS. Components of the paper address questions researchers designing new studies may have about the organizational and technical infrastructure that supported this project, or about the quantitative and qualitative research methods, tools, and protocols used. Other components of the paper address questions that researchers and engineering faculty and administrators might have regarding how to explore the findings and insights that are emerging from this extensive longitudinal and cross-sectional study of students’ pathways through engineering. Research findings to date are summarized in a companion paper entitled Findings from the Academic Pathways Study of Engineering Undergraduates, by Atman, et al. 1. APS Background and Goals The past two decades have witnessed an ongoing national dialog about the lack of gender, race and ethnic diversity among those studying and practicing engineering and the adequacy of students’ preparation for today’s engineering challenges. Further complicating the discussions are worries that U.S. educational institutions are not attracting and retaining sufficient students in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields to keep up with the country's demands. In response, the National Science Foundation set out in 2002 to establish Higher P ge 13137.3 Education Centers to promote exemplary education in these fields. One of the centers created by NSF is the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE). CAEE consists of three research elements: Scholarship on Learning Engineering, Scholarship on Teaching Engineering, and the Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education. These elements bring together a team of scholars and experts from an array of backgrounds, disciplines and universities to collaboratively accomplish the mission of improving the knowledge and practice of engineering teaching and learning. This paper focuses on a major undertaking of CAEE’s Scholarship on Learning element, the Academic Pathways Study (APS). The paper begins by situating the APS in the existing knowledge base of engineering education and goes on to describe the study’s organization and execution, starting with the research team and leadership, followed by the study design, research cohorts and methods. The paper closes with a discussion of the research challenges, implications for engineering education, and possible future research. APS results are reported in separate papers as they become available, with findings to date summarized by Atman, et al. The Academic Pathways Study aims to improve educational effectiveness by developing a rich understanding of the engineering student experience. To that end, APS addresses the following student-centric research questions: 1. How do students' engineering skills and knowledge develop and/or change over time? 2. How does one's identity as an engineer evolve? 3. What elements of engineering education contribute to the students' skills/knowledge and identity? What elements contribute to students’ persistence in an engineering major and persistence in the engineering profession? 4. What skills do early career engineers need as they enter the workplace? The first of these questions addresses cognitive outcomes, the second deals with affective learning, and the third cluster of questions examines the interplay of outcomes and environmental factors critical to student success. Taken together, these questions align with the highly durable and influential input-environment-outcome (I-E-O) model of college impact, first proposed by Alexander Astin over thirty years ago. Furthermore, the APS research questions seek to explore the evolutionary nature of outcomes and environmental influences, tracing their development and change over time. Inherent in the research questions is the anticipation that the study will generate recommendations for improving educational practices to enhance the student experience and persistence in engineering studies, as well as suggesting potential strategies for attracting more students to the discipline. This is certainly not the first study of the engineering student experience; there is solid prior work to build on. A few of the studies that have influenced and informed the APS design deserve note. Seymour and Hewitt conducted a three-year study of 460 students at seven institutions, investigating why students leave or persist in science, mathematics and engineering (SME) majors. Using ethnographic interviews, Seymour and Hewitt studied attrition among SME majors, with the aim of deriving a set of testable hypotheses from student reflections. They P ge 13137.4 evaluated how students weighed numerous factors in deciding to leave SME for non-SME majors or, conversely, to persist in SME majors despite challenges and setbacks. Seymour and Hewitt's work suggests that students are leaving engineering not for lack of ability, but because of structural and cultural factors such as inadequate teaching, overly competitive grading, and lack of identification with the associated careers. Seymour and Hewitt’s findings illustrate the complex nature of deciding to study or not study in SME fields, leading APS researchers to include a broad range of questions and prompts in APS research tools so as to not prescribe responses. Astin’s research on student development in higher education relied on large-scale surveys conducted with over 200,000 students. His surveys of first-year and fourth-year students over a twenty-year period led Astin to conclude that the level of student involvement is directly proportional to student learning. Astin defines student involvement as the amount of physical and psychological energy devoted by a student to the academic experience. An environmental factor that Astin identifies as being highly influential is the student’s major. He concludes (page 371) that “Engineering produces more significant effects on student outcomes than any other major field.” Majoring in engineering was positively correlated with the development of strong analytic skills (page 237) and job-related skills (page 240); it was negatively correlated with overall satisfaction with the college experience, satisfaction with curriculum and instruction, and developing a diversity orientation (page 306). Astin’s findings led APS researchers to design a study that examines the effect of an engineering major over time, looks at engineering students relative to others, and considers a variety of institutional factors. Adelman studied engineering undergraduate careers by drawing evidence from the 11-year college transcript history of the High School & Beyond/Sophomore Cohort Longitudinal Study, as well as the high school transcripts, test scores and surveys of this nationally representative sample. Adelman introduces the idea of curricular momentum, which can reinforce student trajectories within engineering and establish preferred pathways for students leaving engineering, as well as boundaries for students who might be interested in entering the engineering field. Adelman's work shows the importance of curricular factors in influencing how students explore and choose majors. His findings illustrate the need to have enough fidelity in research instruments to capture the subtle dimensions of navigating and defining an academic pathway. These studies and others–such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) 10 and the Pittsburgh Freshman Survey–along with the expertise of APS researchers, suggested that multiple methods and multiple student cohorts were needed to fully capture the engineering student experience. To this end, the APS research design included: • Both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods allow for exploration of how students arrive at the decision to major in engineering and how they navigate the educational process, whereas quantitative methods elicit information from larger numbers of students on a broad, but defined range of issues, such as degree of academic engagement, perceptions and attitudes about engineering, and motivations for pursuing an engineering major. • Multiple student cohorts across multiple institutions to explore the overar

Is this a work of science

Abstract: I have thought long, but perhaps not long enough, about whether to contribute to this discussion about the conflict between Bailey and his opponents in the transgendered movement. Unlike Dreger, I do not have even the most minimal belief that whatever is written about this conflict will not be spun by one side or the other. Social conflicts about meaning, such as this one, often play themselves out without much resolution. The sets of combatants are all usually left standing, some more wounded than others, the on-lookers grow bored, and nearly everyone (including most of the combatants) go on to other matters. It is unfortunately true that some few combatants make their participation in such conflicts central to their post-conflict identities, obsessing over the details of the conflict in the same fashion as those with post traumatic stress disorders. Two phrases struck me when I read Dreger’s contemporary history of these events because they accorded with my own first reactions when reading The Man Who Would Be Queen (hereafter, TMWWBQ). The first was the phrase, ‘‘it seemed to me that Bailey had stuck his hand into a buzzing hornet’s nest and he should have expected to be stung...’’ and ‘‘I did read the book sometime around late 2003 or early 2004, and—judging by my marginalia—I found it generally lively and well written, unnecessarily snide or even contemptuous in places, lacking in evidentiary support (the book has ‘‘further reading’’ suggestions but no citations), and full of claims and ideas that I knew very little about. I marked it up copiously and put it down.’’ This pretty much sums up my first reaction to Bailey’s venture and his book, though my judgment of the literary style was more severe and I made no notes because I was reading a library copy. However, I was puzzled that a book with this limited a scientific apparatus and with such a jacket had been published by an imprint of the National Academy of Sciences. I have been a member of scientific committees of the Academy and contributed to official publications of those committees and recalled the rigorous peer review process that the scientific assertions in each of those publications underwent. The imprint series in which TMWWBQ published (The Joseph Henry Press) is described on the website of the National Academies Press as ‘‘created with the goal of publishing well-crafted, authoritative books on science, technology, and health for the science-interested general public’’ (http://www.nap.edu/about.html). I wondered if books in this series were vetted in their pre-publication form by members of the Academy or other appropriate reviewers, but thought no more about it. As Dreger’s history recounts, matters deteriorated rapidly after the publication of TMWWBQ as the blowback against Bailey and his book was mobilized. In her judgment, these attacks went beyond the limits of civilized debate in academic circles. That this blowback has come to include her was apparently one of the stimuli that motivated her to write her version of the events involved. That her ‘‘objectivity’’ might have been influenced by becoming collateral damage in the conflict over Bailey and TMWWBQ is not addressed in any detailed way. I believe that she could have expanded on this question of motivation. In any case, the normative rules of academic discourse are often the first victims of serious conflicts, both those internal to the scientific enterprise and those between scientists and their non-scientist adversaries. J. H. Gagnon (&) Eden Beach, Batiment C-2, 122 Blvd. Carnot, 06300 Nice, France e-mail: jhgagnon@gmail.com

An Undergraduate Computational Science Curriculum

Abstract: Wofford College instituted one of the first undergraduate programs in computational science, the Emphasis in Computational Science (ECS). Besides programming, data structures, and calculus, ECS students take two computational science courses (Modeling and Simulation for the Sciences, Data and Visualization) and complete a summer internship involving computation in the sciences. Materials written for the modeling and simulation course and developed with funding from National Science Foundation served as a basis the first textbook designed specifically for an introductory course in the computational science and engineering curriculum. The successful ECS has attracted a higher percentage of females than in most computer science curricula. The SIAM Working Group on Undergraduate Computational Science and Engineering Education summarized features of Wofford's ECS and other computational science programs. Besides its established curriculum, Wofford has incorporated computational science in other courses, such as in a sequence of three microbiology laboratories on modeling the spread of disease.

1 is Science

Abstract: This chapter will explore the reasons why science is important for people of all ages and why it is a crucial element of an innovative, cross-curricula primary framework requiring a high profile in the primary school. The chapter will outline the nature of science and the development of scientific ideas. Drawing on recent research into learners’ attitudes towards science, the focus will be on how creative science can be developed. Additionally, it will explore the importance of ideas and evidence, starting with learners’ ideas and encouraging them to collect and interpret their own data thereby helping them to think and reason for themselves while developing a respect for evidence. It will also explore the value of group work in science, its importance in the development of key learning skills and take a look at the wider social aspects of science as a collaborative activity. These features will be interwoven to demonstrate that it is the development of learner attitudes towards science that impacts on their learning both in the short and long term.

History of Forensic Science in Canada

Abstract: Welcome to the fascinating world of forensic science! This collection was developed for anyone with an interest in the different scientific methods used to solve crimes.

Replanning: A powerful planning strategy for systems with differential constraints

Abstract: Motion planning is a fundamental problem in robotics. When the differential constraints of a real robot are also modelled, the produced motions can be more realistic and make better use of the hardware’s capabilities. While it is not known if planning under differential constraints is a decidable problem and complete tractable algorithms are not available, sampling-based planners have been very successful at solving such problems. This thesis describes an online planning strategy which uses a sampling-based planner in a loop. Solutions for problems in static and known environments are computed incrementally through consecutive replanning steps. The robot is guided to the goal by a navigation function which is constantly updated to ensure the robot can explore all of its workspace. Experiments on various systems and workspaces show that the proposed approach can solve harder problems and produce paths of shorter duration compared to state-of-the art offline planners using only bounded memory.

Current problems of engineering science

Abstract: The current problems of the establishment and development of fundamental engineering science are exposed in a historical aspect of scientific and technological progress. Shown are the basic directions of studies at the Blagonravov Institute of Engineering Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the near term.