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In this work, the potential for direct major component analysis of lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide variants in solid samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (SS-GF AAS) was critically evaluated, always with the aim of developing a simple and rapid method that relies only on the use of aqueous standards for calibration. The accuracy of the developed method was evaluated against an established wet chemical acid digestion method using an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The most challenging aspect was the selection and use of suitable standards, whereby the analytical performance criteria of liquid standards, single oxide solid standards and multielement solid standards had to be determined. With the result that multi-element liquid standards can be used for calibration, very good agreement with the certified reference values and with the values obtained by ICP-OES was achieved in all cases. The precision of the method was better than 12% with an optimum sample mass of 0.2-0.4 mg. The results show that not only the major components in pure NMC compounds (e.g. starting materials) can be reliably analysed, but also the cathode coatings made from recycled battery materials. This demonstrates the range of applications of the methods and their suitability under industrial conditions, for example in the analysis of recyclates. The technology is almost predestined for use in industrial laboratories in order to quickly and accurately determine the stoichiometric composition of cathode coatings from aged lithium batteries and to ensure battery shredding by type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"I suppose it is still a risky business for those of us in academia to expose and express too much of our inner, authentic selves, right? But why should it be like this?? What does it do to us? I'm glad that we had a chance to explore a little about our true selves with each other and out in the public at the conference! Gloria Anzaldúa was always ahead of her time. She has given us a powerful language to reflect on our experiences, and once again, it is Gloria who has made this intimate space possible for all of us!" (Shirley Tang). "Thanks again to Shirley and Tim for organizing this. It adds another layer of conocimiento about who we all are, don't you think?" (Ann Torke). "But there was/is something different about the work I did for this panel. I didn't simply use a personal insight or struggle to frame my talk or to draw the reader/listener in, I stayed with myself and my experience throughout. I didn't rely on the scholarly literature to lend my insights legitimacy (thanks to Karen who encouraged me to close the damn books) and that led me to feel like a boat lost at sea (how we academics bolster our self confidence with the work of others--and what a false sense of security this creates!). The talk, that is, was itself a rupture--a movement toward conocimiento." (Chris Bobel). "I've been thinking about our presentation and what it has meant to me. I think one of the most illuminating learnings I am taking from this experience is that being in "Nepantla" isn't a stage one goes through, it is in some ways the goal--being able to live and breathe and move and connect to others from within the borderland and having that space take on a different meaning of possibilities, rather than of limitations" (Karen Suyemoto). "I can't help wanting to think and write about why it seems so unusual, fresh, and even liberating to tell the truth about our own human practice as academics. As you all have suggested, this terrain is usually off limits in academic discourse, and I think Karen gives some good reasons for why academia fosters divided, sometimes inauthentic, and dissatisfying selves in our professional lives. Gloria's framework for addressing conocimiento, however, I believe is what saved us in this case, since it insists on the integration of the spiritual, intellectual, political, and personal dimensions, as well as situating all these within historical and biographical process" (Tim Sieber). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anzaldúa inspires my courage to write and speak plainly, and together with encouragement from several good colleagues, I offer personal testimony, as part of a critical reflection on my own long teaching practice, my earlier writing and speaking about education, and an even longer history as a learner. Love is at the heart of it, a concern for students' well being, intellectual and spiritual. As bell hooks has noted, an "engaged pedagogy" involves the teacher in "sharing in the intellectual and spiritual growth" (hooks 1994: 13) of students, not only for the student's sake, but also for the professor's. Of course, only in this sense, in Anzaldúa's terms, can we as professors too begin to define ourselves in terms of who we are becoming, not who we have been, reaching that final step toward conocimiento, where we gain clarity about our own "vision or spiritual activism" (Anzaldúa 2002: 568) and fix on an ethical, compassionate strategy toward our life's work. After all, this furthers our central "human task." Gloria describes that task this way: "to determine what your life means, to catch a glimpse of the cosmic order and your part in that cosmovison" (Anzaldúa 2002: 540). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The symposium for which this is an introduction arose like a flower out of soil usually not known for nourishing vibrant, critical intellectual reflections: routine university governance committee work. All authors have been co-members for two years of the Diversity Committee, of the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Sciences and Mathematics, at the University of Massachusetts Boston. While it is true that most of us share wider intellectual and programmatic collaborations outside this committee, it was genuinely the task of doing our committee work that gave impetus to this panel. For this symposium, we used as an inspiration and foundation Gloria Anzaldúa's chapter "now let us shift…the path of conocimiento…inner work, public acts" in this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation (Anzaldúa & Keating, 2002). Because our contributions to the symposium are so strongly based within the description of this path offered by Anzaldúa, we outline it in this introduction for those unfamiliar with this particular work. This will be followed by five individual essays written by Karen Suyemoto, Ann Torke, Tim Sieber, Chris Bobel and Shirley Tang, who will each engage with Anzaldúa notion of "the path of conocimiento." The symposium of articles will end with a dialogue among us on some of the questions and issues that emerged from the symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the implementation process undergone by the University of Nebraska of the Administrative System Project (ASP). An overview of the ASP aiming to establish an enterprise resource planning (ERP) product for the multiple campuses of the university is given. The various challenges met by the Financial System Task Force assigned to determine the best management trajectory for the issues are highlighted. Guiding principles and the vision statement for the project are included, along with listings of acknowledged deficiencies in the school's existing database infrastructure.

The author comments on Paulo Freire's praxis as well as his social theory. He presented that Freire's theory were focused to question the teaching, learning and theoretical reflections that place educational theory in its social and historical context. He asserts that Freire's pedagogy requires more attention from linking classrooms to social action and service, in order to create more interactions between critical practice and reflection.