Advanced Undergraduate Students Research Articles

Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America by Shari Rabin

Reviewed by: Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America by Shari Rabin Josh Parshall Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America. By Shari Rabin. (New York: New York University Press, 2017. Pp. viii, 193. $40.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-3883-6.) A historian of nineteenth-century American Jews faces two interesting challenges in writing an influential book. First, she has to make the nineteenth century matter to American Jewish history, which tends to overlook much of American Jewish life before the influx of East European immigrants that began around 1880. Second (and this reflects a general challenge in Jewish studies), she must make the story of nineteenth-century America's small Jewish population relevant to U.S. history or related subfields. In Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America, Shari Rabin accomplishes both tasks, arguing that (white, male) Jewish immigrants' experiences of radical, unfettered mobility in the United States provided the base-level conditions from which American Judaism developed, and that the flexible, eclectic, and improvisatory religious practices of these mobile Jews actually typify the history of religion in the United States. For Rabin, "congregations, denominations, coherent ideologies, and singular identities are not obvious starting points, but rather are particular strategies of stability that coexist and compete with others within a nation overrun by mobile strangers" (p. 2). Rabin organizes her book into three sections, each consisting of two chapters. The first section establishes the novel circumstances of Jewish life in the United States—characterized by unfettered mobility and religious voluntarism—and explores the challenges and opportunities that this new context provided. The second section takes up "distinct but intersecting spheres of religious life" to examine how individual Jews negotiated questions of belief, practice, and community in light of their recurrent migrations (p. 7). The third section considers how Jewish leaders (especially Isaac Mayer Wise and Isaac Leeser) responded to "the diversity and eclecticism of American Jews" with attempts to establish centralized institutions and formalized ideologies (p. 8). In these final chapters, Rabin asserts the long-term significance of nineteenth-century mobility as an "engine" of transformation that prompted American Jews (among others) to develop a "mobile infrastructure" and a "mobile imaginary" that could withstand constant movement (pp. 139, 104, 123). [End Page 161] Rabin's thematic structure helps her maintain a focused and convincing argument even as she pulls examples from across the continent and the century. The text introduces readers to a telegraph operator in Nebraska, a peddler in Georgia, and a mohel (a performer of ritual circumcisions) in Mississippi. The breadth of archival sources enlivens the book, and the frequent jumps between distant locales reinforce the sense of a century defined by mobility. At times, the sheer quantity of examples pulls attention away from the specific conditions of Jewish life in a given place and the distinctions of region, community size, or age of a city. Likewise, the text might benefit from more comparative discussions of non-Jewish religious life in similar contexts. As Rabin notes, however, her Jewish frontier is not simply the American West but a dynamic space of motion, interaction, and change that existed at once in small towns and larger cities, and the experiences of nineteenth-century Jews provide as good a starting place for exploring the religious consequences of mass mobility as anywhere else. Jews on the Frontier is a quick read with something to offer a variety of readers. As a classroom text, it will be accessible for advanced undergraduate students in related fields and will offer graduate students a model for expansive research, crisp writing, and clear argumentation. Scholars of American religion will find a compelling read that integrates Jewish experiences into a national story, and experts in Jewish American history will gain a fresh perspective on the nineteenth century. While Rabin does not dwell on the significance of regional difference, her overall analysis will prove valuable for southern (and southern Jewish) historians, and her thorough archival research will provide useful historical details while pointing to a rich variety of sources. Josh Parshall Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

The Arab Astronomical Society (ArAS): Developing Astrophysics Research in the Arab World

AbstractThe Arab Astronomical Society (ArAS) was officially created during the constitutional assembly held in Marrakech (Morocco) on November 30, 2016, and legally recognized on May 15, 2017. ArAS is composed of a group of Arab researchers and students in the field of astrophysics who aim to develop research in this field in the Arab world (22 countries). ArAS is working on bridging the gap between the Arab astrophysicists in the Arab world and those around the world by organizing collaborative workshops and international scientific meetings, offering scholarships and developing graduate programs in astrophysics. Presently, the Society is working on establishing personal and material scientific infrastructure in the Arab world by training advanced undergraduate and graduate students in astrophysics and stimulating the building of new telescopes on the best sites in the Arab world. This will be accomplished through the hosting of specialized schools and conferences in astrophysics, international collaborations, facilitation of students’ and post-docs’ training in international research centres and universities, the establishment of prizes in astronomy to honour leading Arab scientists in astronomy and to motivate junior researchers to present notable works in astronomy. In this work, we present the on-going ArAS activities as well as future projects. ArAS is a young but energetic organization which is welcoming collaborations and partnership with other groups.

Dirac quantisation condition: a comprehensive review

ABSTRACTIn most introductory courses on electrodynamics, one is taught the electric charge is quantised but no theoretical explanation related to this law of nature is offered. Such an explanation is postponed to graduate courses on electrodynamics, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, where the famous Dirac quantisation condition is introduced, which states that a single magnetic monopole in the Universe would explain the electric charge quantisation. Even when this condition assumes the existence of a not-yet-detected magnetic monopole, it provides the most accepted explanation for the observed quantisation of the electric charge. However, the usual derivation of the Dirac quantisation condition involves the subtle concept of an ‘unobservable’ semi-infinite magnetised line, the so-called ‘Dirac string,’ which may be difficult to grasp in a first view of the subject. The purpose of this review is to survey the concepts underlying the Dirac quantisation condition, in a way that may be accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Some of the discussed concepts are gauge invariance, singular potentials, single-valuedness of the wave function, undetectability of the Dirac string and quantisation of the electromagnetic angular momentum. Five quantum-mechanical and three semi-classical derivations of the Dirac quantisation condition are reviewed. In addition, a simple derivation of this condition involving heuristic and formal arguments is presented.

A robust experimental setup for Johnson noise measurement suitable for advanced undergraduate students

We present a durable and inexpensive construction of a Johnson noise experiment suitable for advanced undergraduate students. By measuring the root-mean-square voltage noises for different resistors and taking into account the input capacitance of the amplifier circuit, we demonstrate that the experimental setup is capable of measuring the value of the Boltzmann’s constant to be J K−1. The setup also allows us to determine the capacitance of an RG-58/U cable to be 80 ± 3 pF m−1. We also provide observations from two years of teaching this experiment, containing common student pitfalls. Finally, we discuss possible adjustments of the experiment according to a time constraint.

Introduction to Terahertz Raman spectroscopy

This work, intended for advanced undergraduate students, explains the basic concepts and an actual scientific use of Terahertz Raman spectroscopy, displaying some of the benefits of this versatile technique for structural analysis of molecules building up materials since this technique has been increasingly used for molecular characterization in chemistry. A good didactic example of the experimentally applied temperature dependence of molecular vibrations according to the Boltzmann distribution is the ratio of anti-Stokes to Stokes Raman peak intensity used to calculate the temperature of a nylon 6,6 sample. The comparison of the temperature of nylon 6,6 calculated from the experimentally determined anti-Stokes to Stokes peak intensity ratio in the Terahertz region with the temperature set with the help of a heating-freezing stage is discussed. The limitations of Terahertz Raman spectroscopy are also part of this fundamental discussion.

Community-University Action Research: Possibilities for Capacity Building

Abstract In this paper, we explore a new university initiative that engages advanced undergraduate students in community-directed, interdisciplinary research where local organizations partner with student inquiry pods to research particular problems. We discuss one partnership with a community organizing group working to support issues important to the immigrant community: access to post-secondary education. This collaboration is expected to build the capacity of students, community members, and the organization itself, yet one of these groups may be privileged over the others at any given time. For whom do these collaborations bolster capacity? Can these collaborations advance social justice for and/or with immigrants?

Cutting Edge of the Contemporary: KNUST, Accra, and the Ghanaian Contemporary Art Movement

Cutting Edge of the Contemporary: KNUST, Accra, and the Ghanaian Contemporary Art Movement

The inverted pendulum

In this paper we study the small oscillations of a charged pendulum in the electric field generated by a couple of point charges. The complexity of the system makes the use of the Lagrangian formalism very convenient. The effect of an oscillating pivot in the spirit of Kapitza is discussed by introducing a rapidly oscillating forcing term and computing the resulting effective potential. The level of the discussion is suitable for advanced undergraduate students in physics.

Digital services in the 21st century: a strategic and business perspective [book review

The rapid development of digital technology and the subsequent novel means of accessing audio and video have resulted in changes in the behaviour of consumers. They are showing a growing interest in customizing what they watch and listen to in order to best fit their needs and schedules. Therefore, to stay relevant and to sustain performance, service providers need to constantly seek new ways to attract and hold the attention of potential users. On the other hand, service provision in the media market is based on the fulfillment of a particular business model, which must guarantee revenue and allow for the achievement and sustainment of a competitive edge. This book addresses a number of topics by taking into account the reason why customers demand the service, as well as the strategic and business perspective of how market players can leverage competitive advantages to provide those services. The book is structured around six sections, each composed of one or more chapters, e.g., the core telecommunications services are considered in the first four chapters. The book offers a good insight for postgr aduate or advanced undergraduate students. It has a wide bibliography, which includes a review of already implemented solutions related to digital services, as well as solutions that are the subject of scientific research. The authors skillfully combine theory with practical use cases. The presented topics allow a reader to understand the capabilities of digital services and learn about their technology. It also points out the benefits the whole IT field can achieve in a strategic and business perspective.

Environmental Application of Cyclodextrin Metal–Organic Frameworks in an Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory

Reported herein is a multidisciplinary laboratory experiment for advanced undergraduate students that includes elements of material synthesis, in the synthesis of cyclodextrin-containing metal–orga...

Exposición Temprana de Nativos Digitales en Ambientes, Metodologías y Técnicas de Investigación en la Universidad

Resumo Conscientes de la problemática relacionada con la motivación en el estudio de las carreras científicas, presentamos dos experiencias en las cuales se expone a estudiantes universitarios a ambientes, metodologías y técnicas del descubrimiento abordando problemas contemporáneos. Estas experiencias se desarrollaron en dos contextos complementarios: un curso de Introducción a la Física, en el cual se motiva a estudiantes de Física a la participación temprana en investigación, y un semillero de investigación multidisciplinario para estudiantes avanzados de pregrado en Ciencias e Ingeniería, el cual produjo incluso contribuciones a eventos internacionales. Si bien los resultados son preliminares y requieren más ediciones para ser estadísticamente significativos, consideramos que son alentadores. En ambos entornos se observó un aumento de la motivación de los estudiantes para continuar sus carreras haciendo énfasis en la investigación. En este trabajo, además de presentar el marco contextual en el cual se soportan las experiencias, describimos seis actividades concretas para vincular a los estudiantes con los ambientes de descubrimiento, las cuales creemos pueden ser replicadas en ambientes similares de otras instituciones educativas.

Vida Alegre: Teaching Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Spanish

ABSTRACTBilingual social workers need specialized training to provide effective mental health services to Spanish-speaking Latinos. Ideally, this training should use the language in which the social workers plan to practice. This article describes an innovative two-semester course offered in Spanish that prepared advanced undergraduate and graduate students to use a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention (Vida Alegre). In the first semester, students learned CBT methods using Vida Alegre training materials. In the second, they conducted a service-learning project that included facilitating a CBT group under the supervision of an instructor. We review their challenges and lessons learned and provide future recommendations.

Predictive Control for Linear and Hybrid Systems [Bookshelf

This book offers new insight in the realm of predictive control. The authors demonstrate how predictive control can be implemented in applications that were thought to be impossible when they started their collaboration about two decades ago. The book not only contains mature, and tried and tested, material but also the fundamentals necessary for understanding recent methods that have been receiving considerable interest in academia and industry. Depending on your perspective, predictive control can be seen as a subset or superset of classical optimal control or as something completely different. Here, predictive control is viewed as a modern optimal control method that builds on classical optimal control results, when possible. The main thesis in predictive control is that most practical control problems are naturally formulated as a sequence of infinite-dimensional, constrained, nonlinear optimal control problems, which are often impossible to solve. For example, in most applications, the optimal controller is not simply a linear, finite-dimensional dynamical system, as in proportional-integral-derivative, linear-quadratic Guassian, or H-infinity control, even if the model of the controlled system is linear and finite dimensional. The optimal control policy can be discontinuous, even if all the functions used to define the optimal control problem are smooth. Researchers in predictive control aim to understand these and other fundamental problems that naturally arise in applications, while finding practical and approximate solutions with appropriate guarantees. The book's emphasis is on the use of multiparametric programming to compute the explicit solution to the FHOCPs. It is divided into five parts: I) Basics of Optimization, II) Multiparametric Programming, III) Optimal Control, IV) Constrained Optimal Control of Linear Systems, and V) Constrained Optimal Control of Hybrid Systems. If readers started at the beginning and worked all the way to the end, they will have been introduced to a variety of fundamental and interesting topics in optimization, geometry, control, and dynamical systems theory that could be applied in a number of areas. In terms of a target audience, the book is suitable for both advanced undergraduate engineering students and in some cases, engineering postgraduates and above.

Study of geometric phase using classical coupled oscillators

We illustrate the geometric phase associated with the cyclic dynamics of a classical system of coupled oscillators. We use an analogy between a classical coupled oscillator and a two-state quantum mechanical system to represent the evolution of the oscillator on an equivalent Hilbert space, which may be represented as a trajectory on the surface of a sphere. The cyclic evolution of the system leads to a change in phase, which consists of a dynamic phase along with an additional phase shift dependent on the geometry of the evolution. A simple experiment suitable for advanced undergraduate students is designed to study the geometric phase incurred during cyclic evolution of a coupled oscillator.

Investigating and improving student understanding of quantum mechanical observables and their corresponding operators in Dirac notation

In quantum mechanics, for every physical observable, there is a corresponding Hermitian operator. According to the most common interpretation of quantum mechanics, measurement of an observable collapses the quantum state into one of the possible eigenstates of the operator and the corresponding eigenvalue is measured. Since Dirac notation is an elegant notation that is commonly used in upper-level quantum mechanics, it is important that students learn to express quantum operators corresponding to observables in Dirac notation in order to apply the quantum formalism effectively in diverse situations. Here we focus on an investigation that suggests that, even though Dirac notation is used extensively, many advanced undergraduate and PhD students in physics have difficulty expressing the identity operator and other Hermitian operators corresponding to physical observables in Dirac notation. We first describe the difficulties students have with expressing the identity operator and a generic Hermitian operator corresponding to an observable in Dirac notation. We then discuss how the difficulties found via written surveys and individual interviews were used as a guide in the development of a quantum interactive learning tutorial (QuILT) to help students develop a good grasp of these concepts. The QuILT strives to help students become proficient in expressing the identity operator and a generic Hermitian operator corresponding to an observable in Dirac notation. We also discuss the effectiveness of the QuILT based on in-class evaluations.

An Experimental Introduction to Acoustics

Learning and understanding physics requires more than studying physics texts. It requires doing physics. Doing research is a key opportunity for students to connect physical principles with their everyday experience. A powerful way to introduce students to research and technique is through subjects in which they might find interest. Presented is an experiment that serves to introduce an advanced undergraduate or high school student to conducting research in acoustics via an experiment involving a standard dreadnought acoustic guitar, recording industry-related equipment, and relevant industrial analysis software. This experimental process is applicable to a wide range of acoustical topics including both acoustic and electric instruments. Also, the student has a hands-on experience with relevant audio engineering technology to study physical principles.

Using Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics to Investigate the Prevalence of Mislabeled Fish Samples

The tools of molecular biology provide a rich platform for teaching the scientific process, as interesting questions pertaining to fields such as evolution and ecology can be pursued on short time scales. In this inquiry-based laboratory project, students investigate the authenticity of fish products purchased in local markets and restaurants by DNA sequence analysis of a segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. In the course of their investigation, students are exposed to fundamental molecular biology techniques such as DNA isolation, agarose gel electrophoresis, polymerase chain reaction, DNA sequencing mechanisms, and DNA database analysis. In addition, students will observe how the evolutionary relatedness of species is reflected in the genetic code, and consider how the ecology of fish species influences their product distribution and environmental impact. This project is suitable for advanced high school or undergraduate students.

Life Cycle Inventory Assessment as a Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering Education Tool

Chemists and chemical engineers are involved in and responsible for the life of a product from the discovery stage to manufacturing, market introduction, and end of life. They participate in and contribute to all segments of the supply chain, from cradle to grave. In the industrial sector, they work hand in hand with other professionals in engineering, business, intellectual property, and environmental safety and health. To better prepare students to understand industry-focused grand challenges and contribute to the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, we designed a course for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the Schools of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The pilot class of 26 students was introduced to chemical manufacturing, the eight sustainability grand challenges, intellectual property, regulatory and registration, and process hazard and safety. Invited speakers from industries such as Albemarle, BASF, Dow,...

Le français en diachronie: nouveaux objets et méthodes éd. par Anne Carlier, et al

Reviews 281 However, its very breadth is also a challenge. Whereas virtually all the chapters are devoted to linguistic change in French, three of the twenty-nine are devoted to different, unrelated languages (Henri for Sungwadia, Pivot for Chibcha, Barjric for Serbo-Croatian, and Haselow for English), the latter being the only contribution written in that language. Moreover, the organization of the volume seems artificial, in that fourteen chapters are in part 3.Yet all in all, this volume is a welcome contribution to the study of language change. University of Nevada, Las Vegas Deborah Arteaga Carlier,Anne, Michèle Goyens, et Béatrice Lamiroy, éd. Le français en diachronie: nouveaux objets et méthodes. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. ISBN 978-3-0343-16606 . Pp. vii + 460. This volume of seventeen papers from the 2012 Diachro conference in Leuven, including pieces from invited speakers Buridant and Lodge, presents some of the latest research in the history of the French language. The first section (seven articles) highlights how translation—mainly Classical, Late and Neo-Latin texts into Old and Middle French—can be a tool to better understand linguistic change, language interference (both conscious and subconscious), and diglossia. The next four articles examine more recent changes (eighteenth to nineteenth century) in French, while the final section pulls together pieces on a variety of topics, such as grammaticalization, coordination, the passé simple, and word order. The selection of articles seems aimed at cutting-edge research stemming from a variety of frameworks, but all involve extensive examination of corpora, including online sources such as the Anglo-Norman Online Hub, Base de Français Médiéval, and Frantext. While clearly aimed at the specialist familiar with Latin and Old and Middle French, many articles contain enough translations and/or glosses to make them approachable to advanced undergraduate and graduate students. A few contributions stand out as possible ancillary readings for History of the Language courses. Schøsler’s article compares thirteenth-century French translations of Cicero’s works alongside a sixteenth-century self-translation of Calvin. Examining the use of discontinuous subjects (common in Latin), verbs of movement, and support verb constructions, she shows how the translator is influenced by, or consciously avoids, constructions from the source language. Ducos questions whether Latin was the only source of neologisms in the early stages of French. Scrutinizing twelfth- and thirteenth-century astronomical texts (which are not glossed) and other scientific works, she shows that neologisms were based not only on Latin, but that French equivalents or variants existed for many scientific terms well before Oresme’s fourteenth-century Latin-based neologisms. Lodge takes a sociolinguistic approach to phonetic, morphological, and syntactic variation in eighteenthto nineteenth-century French, examining texts in the Parisian poissard dialect. He illustrates how postindustrial demographic growth helped level this urban vernacular and argues that linguists should take a multidimensional, holistic approach to language change. Klein reconsiders Mercier’s (1801) controversial lexicographical work and gives the reader a newly found appreciation for Mercier’s innovative approach to neologisms in a well-documented appendix. Tourrette explores the history of the spelling conundrum for adjectives in [il]—differentiated civil/civile, vil/vile versus epicene facile, utile. He examines the undermarking and overmarking of gender agreement from the sixteenth century to present, cleverly concluding:“Si nos étudiants commettent des erreurs, c’est finalement parce qu’ils sont trop grammairiens et qu’ils appliquent trop les règles”(308). Finally, in an extremely well-glossed article, Guillot and Carlier present both the morphological and semantic details of how the Latin ternary system of demonstratives evolved into the French binary system, with special emphasis on Late Latin. Overall, this carefully edited work, with many easy-to-follow tables, charts, and graphics, presents the latest, corpus-based research in the evolution of the French language and will be a great resource for historical linguists. Florida International University Peter A. Machonis Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro, Katrin Schmitz, and Natascha Müller, eds. The Acquisition of French in Multilingual Contexts. Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2016. ISBN 978-1-78309-452-3. Pp. 268. Against a generative theoretical backdrop, eight studies take up the acquisition of French as a second first...

Obesity and Cardiometabolic Defects in Heart Failure Pathology.

Obesity is a major global epidemic that sets the stage for diverse multiple pathologies, including cardiovascular disease. The obesity-related low-grade chronic inflamed milieu is more pronounced in aging and responsive to cardiac dysfunction in heart failure pathology. Metabolic dysregulation of obesity integrates with immune reservoir in spleen and kidney network. Therefore, an integrative systems biology approach is necessary to delay progressive cardiac alternations. The purpose of this comprehensive review is to largely discuss the impact of obesity on the cardiovascular pathobiology in the context of problems and challenges, with major emphasis on the diversified models, and to study cardiac remodeling in obesity. The information in this article is immensely helpful in teaching advanced undergraduate, graduate, and medical students about the advancement and impact of obesity on cardiovascular health. © 2017 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 7:1463-1477, 2017.