Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Engaging Math-Avoidant College Students, M. Paul Latiolais, Wendi Laurence

Numeracy

This paper is an informal, personal account of how we, as two college teachers, became interested in math anxiety, decided to explore it amongst students at our institution in order to inform our teaching, and became convinced that the massive problem is math avoidance. We tried discussion groups, but few students attended, although those that did made useful suggestions. Thus informed, we designed an innovative course, Confronting College Mathematics as a Humanities course with the possibility of credit toward the math requirement, but it was undersubscribed in its first offering and had to be canceled. How can we get college …

Measuring Resource Inequality: The Gini Coefficient, Michael T. Catalano, Tanya L. Leise, Thomas J. Pfaff

Numeracy

This paper stems from work done by the authors at the Mathematics for Social Justice Workshop held in June of 2007 at Middlebury College. We provide a description of the Gini coefficient and some discussion of how it can be used to promote quantitative literacy skills in mathematics courses. The Gini Coefficient was introduced in 1921 by Italian statistician Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality. It is defined as twice the area between two curves. One, the Lorenz curve for a given population with respect to a given resource, represents the cumulative percentage of the resource as a function …

Quantitative Literacy Assessments: An Introduction To Testing Tests, Dorothy Wallace, Kim Rheinlander, Steven Woloshin, Lisa Schwartz

Numeracy

This paper describes how professional evaluators construct assessment instruments that work properly to measure the right thing. Constructing an assessment tool begins with getting feedback from relevant experts on the content of questions. The tool is developed and refined through comparison with existing instruments, focus groups and cognitive interviews. The final instrument is formally tested for content validity, usability, reliability and construct validity through a variety of statistical measures. This process of construction is illustrated by two examples relevant to quantitative literacy: the Medical Data Interpretation Test and the Math Attitudes Survey.

Integration With Writing Programs: A Strategy For Quantitative Reasoning Program Development, Nathan D. Grawe, Carol A. Rutz

Numeracy

As an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, quantitative reasoning (QR) risks falling through the cracks between the traditional “silos” of higher education. This article describes one strategy for developing a truly cross-campus QR initiative: leverage the existing structures of campus writing programs by placing QR in the context of argument. We first describe the integration of Carleton College’s Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge initiative with the Writing Program. Based on our experience, we argue that such an approach leads to four benefits: it reflects important aspects of QR often overlooked by other approaches; it defuses the commonly raised objection that QR is …

Assessing Quantitative Reasoning, Corrine H. Taylor

Numeracy

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of Minesoils At A Coal Waste Pile: A Case Study From Rosice-Oslavany (Czech Republic), Martin Ivanov, Jiri Faimon, Petr Jarmara, Lubomir Pesak

Studia UBB Geologia

Mine soil development at abandoned coal waste pile (Kukla-Václav Nosek mine, Oslavany) represents a possibility to study initial stages of pedogenetic process. Seven soil profiles were uncovered by digging pits at the base and on the slopes and top of the waste pile. Several conclusions concerning soil development at waste pile are possible on the basis of soil profiles description and basic chemistry: 1. Intensive humification was the main pedogenetic process in the initial stages of mine soil evolution at the Kukla waste pile. There is no translocation of clay minerals even in the soil profiles evolving for about 60 …

Culture And Landslide Risk In The Central Andes Of Bolivia And Peru, Nicholas Roberts

Studia UBB Geologia

Culture and its heritage play a major role in determining landslide risk in the Central Andes. Examples of some of these many possible influences are provided from natural and social science literature and from the author’s recent work in Bolivia. Landslide risk appears to have generally increased throughout the last millennium, due largely to anthropogenic modification of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity. These changes result from both local and distant pressures and from contemporaneous and pervious cultural factors. Consequently, holistic examination of landslide risk necessitates consideration of culture and its heritage.

Natural And Historic Heritage Of The Bochnia Salt Mine (South Poland), Janusz Wiewiorka, Krzysztof Dudek, Józef Charkot, Małgorzata Gonera

Studia UBB Geologia

The Bochnia Salt Mine, presented in this paper, is situated ca. 40 km E of Cracow, in the southern part of the Neogene Carpathian Foredeep, close to the Carpathian edge. In this region the rock-salt deposits formed as a result of the Late Miocene folding and local tectonic thickening of Badenian evaporites. The Bochnia deposit, situated in the almost vertical N limb of the Bochnia Anticline, stretches ca. 7 km WE, but only 15-200 m NS. Salt mining in Bochnia began in the thirteenth c. and continued until 1990. The historic part of the mine, since 1995 operated by a …

Roşia Montană Cultural Heritage In The Context Of A New Mining Development, Adrian Gligor, Calin Tamas

Studia UBB Geologia

The Roşia Montană Project represents a responsible mining project in progress in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania. It is the first mining project developed in Romania according to up-to-date Romanian and international (EU) standards. Besides specific geological and mining aspects, the Project comprises various other aspects concerning the culture and the community. The present paper presents the cultural heritage of Roşia Montană in the framework of the new mining development proposed by Roşia Montană Gold Corporation.

Baia Mare Geological And Mining Park – A Potential New Geopark In The Northwestern Part Of Romania, Marinel Kovacs, Alexandrina Fülöp

Studia UBB Geologia

The Baia Mare region is a very well known mining area, with an excellently studied regional geology in Romania. The geological heritage has been strongly incorporated in the economic and social development of the region which is now subject to the cease of the mining-based activities. The natural heritage, as well as the historical and cultural values of the region, will contribute substantially to the future development. The region of Baia Mare has a high potential for founding a new Geopark in the Gutâi Mts. volcanic area. The main geological, mining/archaeological/historical, ecological and cultural issues of the Baia Mare region …

Archaeometric Comparison Between The Neolithic Pottery Of Different Cultures At The Archaeological Site Of Alba Iulia (Transylvania, Romania), Bruno Fabbri, Mihai Gligor, Sabrina Gualtieri, Simona Varvara

Studia UBB Geologia

A large quantity of pottery has been discovered at the Lumea Nouă Neolithic and Eneolithic settlement in Alba Iulia City (Romania). It belongs to different cultures, and in this paper a comparison among three of them is made: Vinča, Lumea Nouă and Foeni. An analogous number of samples has been selected for each of the three cultures, together with some clay samples collected in the Alba Iulia settlement area. The samples have been analysed by means of XRF, XRPD, and in thin section. Significant differences among the three cultures are only related to the alkalis contents. The Lumea Nouă pottery …

Dimension Stones Of The Old City Wall Of Cluj-Napoca, Romania – An Overview On History, Mapping, Weathering, And Damages, Paul Calin Racataianu, Roman Koch

Studia UBB Geologia

The dimension stones used in the construction of the Old City Wall of Cluj-Napoca, Romania are Eocene limestones, which were quarried in close vicinity of Cluj. Different facies types reveal different weathering features. The weathering processes are complex and the weathering features vary markedly depending on the rock types, composition, weather conditions, geographical position, moisture/dry cycles, position in the building, and exposure to pollutants. The internationally accepted non-destructive method of mapping conjunctively with the new method of determining the “damage indices” allow a precise classification and evaluation of the rock types and damages and also an overview on the development …

Teaching Principal Plate Tectonic Processes By Means Of Analogue Modeling, Hans-Peter Steyrer

Studia UBB Geologia

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Deep Time In Geoscience Education: Linking ‘Interest’, ‘Threshold Concepts’, And ‘Self-Determination Theory’, Roger Trend

Studia UBB Geologia

No abstract provided.

Why We Do It – The University Of South Florida Tampa Library’S Commitment To Open-Access Publishing, Todd Chavez

Studia UBB Geologia

No abstract provided.

Automatic Red Tide Detection Using Modis Satellite Images, Wijian Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Red tides pose a significant economic and environmental threat in the Gulf of Mexico. Detecting red tide is important for understanding this phenomenon. In this thesis, machine learning approaches based on Random Forests, Support Vector Machines and K-Nearest Neighbors have been evaluated for red tide detection from MODIS satellite images. Detection results using machine learning algorithms were compared to ship collected ground truth red tide data. This work has three major contributions. First, machine learning approaches outperformed two of the latest thresholding red tide detection algorithms based on bio-optical characterization by more than 10% in terms of F measure and …

Fore-Arc Motion And Cocos Ridge Collision In Central America, Peter Lafemina, Timothy Dixon, Rob Govers, Edmundo Norabuena, Henry Turner, Armando Saballos, Glen Mattioli, Marino Protti, Wilfried Strauch

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We present the first regional surface velocity field for Central America, showing crustal response to interaction of the Cocos and Caribbean plates. Elastic half-space models for interseismic strain accumulation on the dipping subduction plate boundary fit the GPS data well and show strain accumulation offshore and beneath the Nicoya and Osa peninsulas in Costa Rica but not in Nicaragua. Since large subduction zone earthquakes occur in Nicaragua, we suggest that interseismic locking in Nicaragua and some other parts of Central America occurs but is mainly shallow, depth, too far offshore to be detected by our on-land GPS measurements. Our data …

Performance Of Upham Beach T-Groin Project And Its Impact To The Downdrift Beach, Ping Wang, Tiffany M. Roberts

Geology Faculty Publications

The field of 5 T-groins installed at Upham Beach was designed to maintain a portion of the nourished beach at this chronically eroding location without negative impacts to the downdrift beach. The T-groin project area was renourished in September 2006 and all the structures were buried. During the initial 3 months after the nourishment, rapid beach erosion at the north segment, as typical of Upham Beach, was measured. Since all the structures were buried, this rapid erosion should not be directly related to the T-groin field. The downdrift beach remained largely stable to slightly accretionary, benefiting from the sand supply …

Restoration Of Seagrass Habitat In Tampa Bay Using Large Manatee Grass (Syringodium Filiforme) Sod Units And A Discussion Of Planting Site Sediment Elevation Dynamics, Roger Johansson, Walt Avery, K. B. Hennenfent, J. J. Pacowta

Reports

The final project monitoring results show that the manatee grass transplanting effort was completed successfully. First, the donor site monitoring indicated that disturbances caused by harvesting were fully mitigated within the two year study period. Second, about 1300m2 of manatee grass were established in an area previously devoid of this species. Third, at the end of the study period the per unit area above ground biomass of the restored manatee grass in several of the planting plots was similar to, or may have exceeded the biomass of the donor grass at the time of harvest. Finally, several of the restored …

Parts Of The Whole: Is Everything Equally Important?, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

Two strategies are proposed for sorting out priorities and goals in education. At the college level the column argues that goals, and therefore requirements, should be set based on the desired knowledge base of the entire population rather than the individual. At the scale of a single K-12 classroom the column argues that priority be given to content requiring most instructor intervention, describing how the structure of class time and school activities would change as a result. Implementation of these strategies would lead to more efficient use of teacher’s time and effort, better allocation of systemic resources, and clarity of …

Review Of The Chicago Guide To Writing About Numbers By Jane E. Miller, Neil Lutsky

Numeracy

Miller, J. E. 2004. The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 304 pp. Cloth $45 ISBN: 9780226526300, Softcover $17. ISBN: 9780226526317.

The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers is a reference work suitable for anyone interested in understanding, using, or promoting quantitative thinking. Its primary aim is to identify and illustrate ways in which information associated with numbers can be conveyed most effectively given a particular communication purpose and context. The book is directed at writers who incorporate numbers in verbal or visual displays in documents, in oral presentations, or on the Web. The …

Quantitative Literacy On The Web Of Science, 2 – Mining The Health Numeracy Literature For Assessment Items, H L. Vacher, Todd Chavez

Numeracy

A topic search of the Web of Science (WoS) database using the term “numeracy” produced a bibliography of 293 articles, reviews and editorial commentaries (Oct 2008). The citation graph of the bibliography clearly identifies five benchmark papers (1995-2001), four of which developed numeracy assessment instruments. Starting with the 80 papers that cite these benchmarks, we identified a set of 25 papers (1995-2008) in which the medical research community reports the development and/or application of health-numeracy assessments. In all we found 10 assessment instruments from which we have compiled a total of 48 assessment items. There are both general and context-specific …

The Case For Infusing Quantitative Literacy Into Introductory Geoscience Courses, Jennifer M. Wenner, Eric M. Baer, Cathryn A. Manduca, R. Heather Macdonald, Samuel Patterson, Mary Savina

Numeracy

We present the case for introductory geoscience courses as model venues for increasing the quantitative literacy (QL) of large numbers of the college-educated population. The geosciences provide meaningful context for a number of fundamental mathematical concepts that are revisited several times in a single course. Using some best practices from the mathematics education community surrounding problem solving, calculus reform, pre-college mathematics and five geoscience/math workshops, geoscience and mathematics faculty have identified five pedagogical ideas to increase the QL of the students who populate introductory geoscience courses. These five ideas include techniques such as: place mathematical concepts in context, use multiple …

Establishing The Quantitative Thinking Program At Macalester, David Bressoud

Numeracy

In November 2005, the faculty of Macalester College voted to institute a graduation requirement in Quantitative Thinking (QT) that is truly interdisciplinary. It currently draws on courses from thirteen departments including Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Political Science, Theater, Mathematics, Environmental Science, and Geology. This article describes the process that led to the creation of this program. It explains how we were able to get broad buy-in at the beginning and the long process of trial and error—informed by formative assessment—that was needed to refine the initial vision and shape it into a viable program that would be accepted by most of …

Confronting Challenges, Overcoming Obstacles: A Conversation About Quantitative Literacy, Bernard L. Madison, Lynn A. Steen

Numeracy

An edited transcript of the opening session of a workshop on quantitative literacy held Oct. 10-12, 2008 at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. The workshop, which brought together interdisciplinary teams from two dozen colleges and universities, was sponsored by the Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge (QuIRK) Initiative at Carleton and the Washington-based Project Kaleidoscope. Two mathematicians in the forefront of quantitative literacy initiatives over the period 1997-2008, Lynn Arthur Steen and Bernard L. Madison, converse about attitudes, obstacles, changes and accomplishments. The conversation, structured as an interview, begins with the relationship between mathematics and quantitative literacy and moves through issues central …

All The More Reason For Qr Across The Curriculum, Bernard L. Madison

Numeracy

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Secrets Of The Three-Dimensional Architecture Of Phototrophic Biofilms In Caves, Mònica Roldán, Mariona Hernández-Mariné

International Journal of Speleology

Caves with dim natural light, and lighted hypogean environments, have been found to host phototrophic microorganisms from various taxonomic groups. These microorganisms group themselves into assemblies known as communities or biofilms, which are associated with rock surfaces. In this work, the phototrophic biofilms that colonise speleothems, walls and floors in three tourist caves (Spain) were studied. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study these organisms and acquire three-dimensional data on their biofilm structure. CLSM was used in a multi-channel mode whereby the different channels map individual biofilm components. Cyanobacteria, green microalgae, diatoms, mosses …

Observations On The Cave-Associated Beetles (Coleoptera) Of Nova Scotia, Canada, Max Moseley

International Journal of Speleology

The cave-associated invertebrates of Nova Scotia constitute a fauna at a very early stage of post-glacial recolonization. The Coleoptera are characterized by low species diversity. A staphylinid Quedius spelaeus spelaeus, a predator, is the only regularly encountered beetle. Ten other terrestrial species registered from cave environments in the province are collected infrequently. They include three other rove-beetles: Brathinus nitidus, Gennadota canadensis and Atheta annexa. The latter two together with Catops gratiosus (Leiodidae) constitute a small group of cave-associated beetles found in decompositional situations. Quedius s. spelaeus and a small suite of other guanophiles live in accumulations of …

Oxidation Capacity Of The City Air Of Santiago, Chile, Yasin F. Elshorbany, R. Kurtenbach, P. Weisen, E. Lissi, R. Rubio, G. Villena, E. Gramsch, A. R. Rickard, M. J. Pilling, J. Kleffmann

USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications

The oxidation capacity of the highly polluted urban area of Santiago, Chile has been evaluated during a summer measurement campaign carried out from 8-20 March 2005. The hydroxyl (OH) radical budget was evaluated employing a simple quasi-photostationary-state model (PSS) constrained with simultaneous measurements of HONO, HCHO, O-3, NO, NO2, j((OD)-D-1), j(NO2), 13 alkenes and meteorological parameters. In addition, a zero dimensional photochemical box model based on the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCMv3.1) has been used to estimate production rates and total free radical budgets, including OH, HO2 and RO2. Besides the above parameters, the MCM model has been constrained by the …

Influences Of Channel Dredging On Flow And Sedimentation Patterns At Microtidal Inlets, West-Central Florida, Usa, Tanya M. Beck, Ping Wang

Geology Faculty Publications

Four inlets (Johns Pass and Blind Pass; and New Pass and Big Sarasota Pass) in two multi-inlet systems along the West-central Florida coast were studied. Johns Pass, New Pass, and Blind Pass are dredged every 4-9 years, whereas Big Sarasota Pass has never been dredged. The goal of this study was to investigate the morphodynamics of the four inlets and the influences of channel dredging on the flow patterns over the ebb tidal delta and sediment bypassing. Time-series aerial photographs and bathymetric maps starting from the 1920s were analyzed to assess the pathways of sand bypassing and morphodynamics at the …