Search

Ocean warming is increasing the incidence, scale, and severity of global-scale coral bleaching and mortality, culminating in the third global coral bleaching event that occurred during record marine heatwaves of 2014-2017. While local effects of these events have been widely reported, the global implications remain unknown. Analysis of 15,066 reef surveys during 2014-2017 revealed that 80% of surveyed reefs experienced significant coral bleaching and 35% experienced significant coral mortality. The global extent of significant coral bleaching and mortality was assessed by extrapolating results from reef surveys using comprehensive remote-sensing data of regional heat stress. This model predicted that 51% of the world’s coral reefs suffered significant bleaching and 15% significant mortality, surpassing damage from any prior global bleaching event. These observations demonstrate that global warming’s widespread damage to coral reefs is accelerating and underscores the threat anthropogenic climate change poses for the irreversible transformation of these essential ecosystems.

Interest in biology education research (BER) has been growing over the last two decades, yet few BER publications focus on community colleges, which serve a large percentage of the undergraduate student population and a majority of those students who identify with historically underserved groups. In this paper, we define community college biology education research (CC BER) as publications with a community college faculty member as an author, publications with a community college study context or a focus on community college biology teaching and learning, and publications that use community college students as a source of data. We conducted a literature review to quantify how CC BER has progressed since initial calls for broadening participation by recording the number of CC BER publications in seven prominent journals between 2016 and 2020. Our formal analysis of peer-reviewed BER literature indicates that there has been a statistically significant increase in CC BER publications from 3.2% to 5.9% of total BER publications since the last analysis in 2017. We conclude with a discussion of strategies for further broadening of participation in CC BER. publishedVersion

Guest editor James Hewlett provides an overview of the spring 2021 Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research on "Undergraduate Research at Community Colleges."

Silicon interposers are being used in 3d stacked assembly applications for an increasing variety of reasons, such as, reduced costs. The inclusion of an interposer opens up the option of fabricating capacitors closer to the devices they need to protect. This paper will present the results of tests and developments ALLVIA has completed on planar and trench capacitors on interposers. Test results up to 6 GHz will be detailed along with reliability results.

Departmental/disciplinary differences aside, newly graduated engineers can be considered to have one of four general and non-exclusive initial employment trajectories: operations, technological innovation, research, and teaching. Survey data from engineering students at the University of Saskatchewan will describe the proportions of students focused on these employment trajectories by year of study, and by discipline. An important implication of this classification is that the desired graduate attributes of these four employment trajectories require divergent knowledge and skills, aside from technical competence. Operations engineers need training in hazard assessment, economics, optimization, schematics, controls, constrained design, and quality control. Technology Innovators require training in creativity, abstract thinking, taking initiative, open-ended design, technical graphics, prototyping, and market research. Research engineers need training in experimental design, statistics, the scientific method, programming, instrumentation, and data analytics. Teaching engineers require training in pedagogy, communications, curriculum design, and social-media tools. All Canadian engineering schools train for Operations. Most have an option/certificate/specialization for Technological Innovation. Some have a minor emphasis on training for the Research stream. Very few systematically prepare for the Teaching role. Are we losing some good engineers by lack of curricular support for these latter three aspirations? Equally important, are sufficient numbers of engineers being prepared in each trajectory? These questions will also be addressed in this study, as data reflecting on the personality characteristics of student respondents was collected and analyzed while looking at their employment trajectories. The potential implications of this type of analysis on attrition and retention, innovation in Canada, and more effective teaching of STEM, will be

This study provides a method of uncovering the brand strengths and weaknesses of major tour operators in the UK. It provides an approach that provides a weighted assessment of attributes which is a culmination of the weighting of all measures from a two stage research model. The study provides a method that can be applied elsewhere but specifically identified Airtours as having the lowest score for brand attributes and image, a result that may well be associated to their previous rejection of branding in favour of maintaining low prices to customers. From the core values identified, it became evident that most operators' worst score was for efficiency. Perhaps the most predictable of the findings was that the Virgin brand was most familiar to younger respondents. Age was a major variable in terms of the ranking of the attributes. Over 55s ranked accommodation, efficiency, reliability and reputation higher than any other age category. Such consistency indicates that the more senior age group has greater ex...

To develop a combined SPECT/CT based on a conventional gamma camera with the following design goals: (i) the subject is scanned on the same bed without moving between SPECT and CT scans, (ii) maintenance of full diagnostic utility of both scanners, (iii) a minimal equipment footprint which is adaptable to different site configurations, (iv) a modular design so that either scanner can be upgraded without impacting the other scanner and (v) cost-effectiveness. A Philips SKYLight gamma camera was combined with a single-slice helical CT. The CT bed has been modified by mounting on wheels and is attached to a track in the floor when required. The CT bed is used for both the CT and the SPECT scans. The CT bed is parked outside the SKYLight’s active area when not required. The CT data are used for anatomical localisation, attenuation correction and definition of anatomical boundaries (e.g. lobar boundaries in the lungs). The combined SPECT/CT system is installed in a 6.2 m×4.6 m room. The CT can scan up to 1.3 m of the subject, which is usually sufficient for registration with the SPECT scan. More than 200 subjects have had SPECT/CT scans in the first year of operation. Initially, the main outcome has been improved confidence of localisation of abnormalities. Attenuation correction for all relevant radionuclides has been implemented. We have developed a combined SPECT/CT using a novel approach based on a low-cost CT scanner. The design is compact, is readily upgradeable and does not compromise either machine’s diagnostic or functional capabilities.

A major reason for the current problems of the nuclear industry is the unprecedented increase in construction costs over time. Cost and leadtime data on 67 completed and nearly complete nuclear plants are used to examine the underlying sources of cost increases. The study is distinguished from other work on nuclear power costs by the approach used to derive the real, overnight construction costs. The results identify an important and overlooked relationship among size, construction leadtime, and overnight costs.