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POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) is a collaborative learning technique that employs guided inquiry within a cyclic system of exploration, concept invention, and application. This action research explores students' academic performance on a unit of organic chemistry work taught using POGIL, in addition to the effect of POGIL on their academic confidence. The academic performance was measured using a summative assessment at the end of the study whilst academic confidence was measured using a pre- and post- test questionnaire. A qualitative comparison to the previous term's academic scores suggested a varied academic performance, whilst tests of significance indicated an improved level of academic confidence among the students involved. It is hoped that this study will serve as a platform for the use of more student-centred pedagogies in chemistry at the institution at which it was enacted, and education at large.

As an Army health care provider for nearly 40 years and former acting Surgeon General of the Army, I know well the critical needs to ensure troop medical readiness and to respond to changing environments. We must use all the tools available to promote the health and well-being of our military personnel. There is one tool we have yet to deploy which I believe we should. Incorporating nasal decolonization strategies in congregant settings using alcohol-based antiseptics, just as several military hospitals have done, is a cost-effective and clinically-proven solution to help mitigate the risk of infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A university governing board's influence on institutional policy is undeniable. Educating board members about student affairs issues is essential to ensuring a well-informed, effective board. This study examined the relationship between student affairs and the board's student affairs committee (SAC). An 89-item survey was developed and administered to 1,100 NASPA voting delegates with a 33% return rate. The survey focused on Goodale's (1997) four broad areas of responsibilities for the SAC as well as membership, agendas, and their orientation. The results showed significant differences between public and private institutions in the number with a SAC, issues discussed, having a clear mission or charge and having a student voting member. As a result of the study, five recommendations were made to enhance the effectiveness of the SAC. (Contains 5 tables.)

Neither the age nor the origin of the Parramatta River of coastal central New South Wales, Australia is well understood. Despite previous assertions, there is no evidence that the river is underfit or that its drainage pattern has experienced radical rearrangement. Yet the river ignores the obvious route to the sea at Botany Bay, perhaps because its course was set by the Oligo-Miocene when local drainage was realigned in response to the subsidence of the Botany Basin. Similarly anomalous is the river's route through the Hornsby Plateau to the ocean at Port Jackson. This is the result of antecedence, with the river pre-dating the upwarping of the plateau and maintaining its course across an uplifting surface. Two topographically distinct suites of drainage channels are preserved offshore. The earlier is traceable to depths of 260 m and is continuous with modern terrestrial drainage along the Hawkesbury River—the preservation of these channels may be a result of the subsidence of the east Australian margin since the Eocene. The more recent channels extend to depths of 120 m. These may post-date the earliest Oligocene when global sea levels fell by ≫50 m, resulting in intermittent exposure of the continental margin arising from glacio-eustatic oscillations in sea level. Deeper and older paleodrainage is absent offshore of Port Jackson and Botany Bay. Drainage along the proto-Parramatta River thus cannot pre-date the earliest Oligocene and it was only with the subsidence of the Botany Basin in the Oligo-Miocene that terrestrial drainage was realigned to the coast and channels were entrenched across the inner shelf. Sediments representative of a major flow-line sub-parallel to the path of the modern Hawkesbury–Nepean pre-date the uplift of the Blue Mountains Plateau and the upwarp of the Hornsby Plateau. These confirm the long-term role of the Hawkesbury–Nepean–Warragamba as the regionally dominant drainage line. There is no evidence that the Parramatta River is underfit or that it has experienced radical rearrangement. The lower part of the Parramatta River is antecedent, existing prior to the upwarping of the Hornsby Plateau. An older suite of submarine channels may preserve evidence of terrestrial drainage along the Hawkesbury River since the Eocene; a younger suite may post-date the earliest Oligocene when falling global sea levels resulted in the intermittent exposure of the continental margin. The Parramatta River is likely to have originated in the Oligocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces the journal issue's articles and their theme that focuses on the controversy over university practices and mission in responding to changing demographics in a multicultural society. Reviews positions of Eurocentric traditionalists and multicultural perspective proponents. Urges that higher education broaden the constituency of institutional power's inner circle. (NL)

Research on the Samoan volcanic lineament has focussed on shield volcanism and the volcanic origins of the island chain, and has largely ignored the middle and late Quaternary lavas that dominate the islands of Savai'i and Upolu. Yet these rocks may hold clues to the timing, origins and nature of rejuvenation volcanicity and to important questions of ocean island geochemistry and geodynamics. Upolu is particularly interesting for it possesses both shield-stage and rejuvenation-stage lavas. Although the chronology of shield volcanism is well-established, little is known of its history of rejuvenation volcanicity. The 40Ar/39Ar ages of 131.5 ± 7.3 ka (±2 s) and 138.7 ± 2.7 ka (±2 s) from the compound volcano of Mount Lanotō in southeast Upolu represent the first geochronometric determinations on the rejuvenation-stage lavas of the island. These cast doubt on the last glacial age assigned to the Mulifanua Volcanics formation and provide the first ages for the lavas erupted from the axial rift zone that dominates the island's geomorphology. These ages offer cautious endorsement of the proposition that rejuvenation-stage volcanicity was initiated on the westernmost of the Samoan islands and propagated east. Support for this belief comes from the systematic westward increase in the incidence of rejuvenation-stage lavas along the island chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The immune responses to Novavax’s licensed NVX-CoV2373 nanoparticle Spike protein vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 remain incompletely understood. Here, we show in rhesus macaques that immunization with Matrix-MTM adjuvanted vaccines predominantly elicits immune events in local tissues with little spillover to the periphery. A third dose of an updated vaccine based on the Gamma (P.1) variant 7 months after two immunizations with licensed NVX-CoV2373 resulted in significant enhancement of anti-spike antibody titers and antibody breadth including neutralization of forward drift Omicron variants. The third immunization expanded the Spike-specific memory B cell pool, induced significant somatic hypermutation, and increased serum antibody avidity, indicating considerable affinity maturation. Seven months after immunization, vaccinated animals controlled infection by either WA-1 or P.1 strain, mediated by rapid anamnestic antibody and T cell responses in the lungs. In conclusion, a third immunization with an adjuvanted, low-dose recombinant protein vaccine significantly improved the quality of B cell responses, enhanced antibody breadth, and provided durable protection against SARS-CoV-2 challenge.

We demonstrate a high-repetition-rate soliton fiber laser that is based on highly doped anomalously dispersive erbium-doped fiber. By splicing an 11 mm single-mode fiber to the erbium-doped fiber, the thermal damage of the butt-coupled saturable Bragg reflector (SBR) is overcome. The laser generates 187 fs pulses at a repetition rate of 967 MHz with a measured long-term stability of more than 60 h. [c] 2010 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 320.7110, 320.5550, 140.3538.

Describes the Institutes for the Healing of Racism of the University of Louisville (Kentucky), a program designed to address racial intolerance and provide a forum for discussion of racial issues on a personal level. The institute brings racially different groups together to share beliefs and receive information about other groups. (SLD)