Co-published with In 2007, the American Association of Colleges and Universities named learning communities a high-impact practice because of the potential of these communities to provide coherence ...to and ultimately improve undergraduate education. Institutional leaders have demonstrated a commitment to providing LLCs, but they currently do so primarily with anecdotal information to guide their work. As a result, there is substantial variation in organizational structure, collaboration, academic and social environments, programmatic integration, student outcomes, and overall quality related to LLC participation. To establish a stronger, more unified basis for designing and delivering effective LLCs, the authors of Living-Learning Communities that Work collaborated on the development of a comprehensive empirical framework for achieving the integrating potential of LLCs. This framework is designed to help practitioners guide the design, delivery, and assessment of LLCs. This book thoughtfully combines research and field-tested practice to document the essential components for best practices in living learning communities and presents them as a clear blueprint - the LLC best practices model - for LLC design. Practitioners, researchers, and institutional leaders can use the book as a guide to more effectively allocate resources to create and sustain LLCs and to realize the potential of these communities to improve undergraduate education.
Adding autonomy to materials science
Shape-memory alloys can alter their shape in response to a change in temperature. This can be thought of as a simple autonomous response, albeit one that is fully ...programmed at the time of fabrication. It is now possible to build materials or combinations of materials that can sense and respond to their local environment, in ways that might also include simple computations and communication. McEvoy and Correll review recent developments in the creation of autonomous materials. They look at how individual abilities are added to a material and the current limitations in the further development of “robotic materials.”
Science
, this issue
10.1126/science.1261689
BACKGROUND
The tight integration of sensing, actuation, and computation that biological systems exhibit to achieve shape and appearance changes (like the cuttlefish and birds in flight), adaptive load support (like the banyan tree), or tactile sensing at very high dynamic range (such as the human skin) has long served as inspiration for engineered systems. Artificial materials with such capabilities could enable airplane wings and vehicles with the ability to adapt their aerodynamic profile or camouflage in the environment, bridges and other civil structures that could detect and repair damages, or robotic skin and prosthetics with the ability to sense touch and subtle textures. The vision for such materials has been articulated repeatedly in science and fiction (“programmable matter”) and periodically has undergone a renaissance with the advent of new enabling technology such as fast digital electronics in the 1970s and microelectromechanical systems in the 1990s.
ADVANCES
Recent advances in manufacturing, combined with the miniaturization of electronics that has culminated in providing the power of a desktop computer of the 1990s on the head of a pin, is enabling a new class of “robotic” materials that transcend classical composite materials in functionality. Whereas state-of-the-art composites are increasingly integrating sensors and actuators at high densities, the availability of cheap and small microprocessors will allow these materials to function autonomously. Yet, this vision requires the tight integration of material science, computer science, and other related disciplines to make fundamental advances in distributed algorithms and manufacturing processes. Advances are currently being made in individual disciplines rather than system integration, which has become increasingly possible in recent years. For example, the composite materials community has made tremendous advances in composites that integrate sensing for nondestructive evaluation, and actuation (for example, for shape-changing airfoils), as well as their manufacturing. At the same time, computer science has created an entire field concerned with distributed algorithms to collect, process, and act upon vast collections of information in the field of sensor networks. Similarly, manufacturing has been revolutionized by advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing, as well as entirely new methods for creating complex structures from unfolding or stretching of patterned 2D composites. Finally, robotics and controls have made advances in controlling robots with multiple actuators, continuum dynamics, and large numbers of distributed sensors. Only a few systems have taken advantage of these advances, however, to create materials that tightly integrate sensing, actuation, computation, and communication in a way that allows them to be mass-produced cheaply and easily.
OUTLOOK
Robotic materials can enable smart composites that autonomously change their shape, stiffness, or physical appearance in a fully programmable way, extending the functionality of classical “smart materials.” If mass-produced economically and available as a commodity, robotic materials have the potential to add unprecedented functionality to everyday objects and surfaces, enabling a vast array of applications ranging from more efficient aircraft and vehicles, to sensorial robotics and prosthetics, to everyday objects like clothing and furniture. Realizing this vision requires not only a new level of interdisciplinary collaboration between the engineering disciplines and the sciences, but also a new model of interdisciplinary education that captures both the disciplinary breadth of robotic materials and the depth of individual disciplines.
(Top) Biological systems that tightly integrate sensing, actuation, computation, and communication and (bottom) the engineering applications that could be enabled by materials that take advantage of similar principles.
(From left) The cuttlefish (camouflage), an eagle’s wings (shape change), the banyan tree (adaptive load support), and human skin (tactile sensing).
CREDITS: CUTTLEFISH: N. HOBGOOD/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; BALD EAGLE ALASKA: C. CHAPMAN/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; BANYAN TREE: W. KNIGHT/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; HUMAN SKIN: A. MCEVOY; MEN IN CAMOUFLAGE HUNTING GEAR: H. RYAN/U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE; 21ST CENTURY AEROSPACE VEHICLE: NASA; SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE: I. BROWN/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; CYBERHAND: PRENSILIA S.R.L/ PRENSILIA.COM
Tightly integrating sensing, actuation, and computation into composites could enable a new generation of truly smart material systems that can change their appearance and shape autonomously. Applications for such materials include airfoils that change their aerodynamic profile, vehicles with camouflage abilities, bridges that detect and repair damage, or robotic skins and prosthetics with a realistic sense of touch. Although integrating sensors and actuators into composites is becoming increasingly common, the opportunities afforded by embedded computation have only been marginally explored. Here, the key challenge is the gap between the continuous physics of materials and the discrete mathematics of computation. Bridging this gap requires a fundamental understanding of the constituents of such robotic materials and the distributed algorithms and controls that make these structures smart.
Abstract
The Douglas Fir Group (2016) argued that applied linguistics needed new interdisciplinary perspectives, and I suggest here that the concepts provided by new materialism might aid in gaining ...such perspectives. New materialism foregrounds the material nature of humans, discourses, machines, other objects, other species, and the natural environment, as well as constant change, non-binary thinking, and the porosity of boundaries; it also asks for the posing of new problems and new concepts to ‘bring forth a world distinct from what we already are’ (Colebrook and Weinstein 2017: 4). Refusing the central binaries and hierarchies of Cartesian thinking, new materialism’s relational ontology stresses becoming; people, discourses, practices, and things are continually in relation and becoming different from what they were before. New materialist conceptions of knowledge/knowing and language/languaging are also relational, processual, and entangled. I review recent new materialist educational research and present two descriptions of events in my own research to show what pedagogical and research-oriented questions might be stimulated from this perspective.
In this paper we introduce the idea of the dual process framework (DPF), an interdisciplinary approach to the study of learning, memory, thinking, and action. Departing from the successful reception ...of Vaisey (2009), we suggest that intradisciplinary debates in sociology regarding the merits of "dual process" formulations can benefit from a better understanding of the theoretical foundations of these models in cognitive and social psychology. We argue that the key is to distinguish the general DPF from more specific applications to particular domains, which we refer to as dual process models (DPMs). We show how different DPMs can be applied to a variety of analytically distinct issues of interest to cultural sociologists beyond specific issues related to morality, such as culture in learning, culture in memory, culture in thinking, and culture in acting processes. We close by outlining the implications of our argument for relevant work in cultural sociology.
Interdisciplinary team working is of paramount importance in the reform of primary care in order to provide cost-effective and comprehensive care. However, international research shows that it is not ...routine practice in many healthcare jurisdictions. It is imperative to understand levers and barriers to the implementation process. This review examines interdisciplinary team working in practice, in primary care, from the perspective of service providers and analyses 1 barriers and facilitators to implementation of interdisciplinary teams in primary care and 2 the main research gaps.
An integrative review following the PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Following a search of 10 international databases, 8,827 titles were screened for relevance and 49 met the criteria. Quality of evidence was appraised using predetermined criteria. Data were analysed following the principles of framework analysis using Normalisation Process Theory (NPT), which has four constructs: sense making, enrolment, enactment, and appraisal. The literature is dominated by a focus on interdisciplinary working between physicians and nurses. There is a dearth of evidence about all NPT constructs apart from enactment. Physicians play a key role in encouraging the enrolment of others in primary care team working and in enabling effective divisions of labour in the team. The experience of interdisciplinary working emerged as a lever for its implementation, particularly where communication and respect were strong between professionals.
A key lever for interdisciplinary team working in primary care is to get professionals working together and to learn from each other in practice. However, the evidence base is limited as it does not reflect the experiences of all primary care professionals and it is primarily about the enactment of team working. We need to know much more about the experiences of the full network of primary care professionals regarding all aspects of implementation work.
International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews PROSPERO 2015: CRD42015019362.
Early detection of cancer Crosby, David; Bhatia, Sangeeta; Brindle, Kevin M ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2022, Letnik:
375, Številka:
6586
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Survival improves when cancer is detected early. However, ~50% of cancers are at an advanced stage when diagnosed. Early detection of cancer or precancerous change allows early intervention to try to ...slow or prevent cancer development and lethality. To achieve early detection of all cancers, numerous challenges must be overcome. It is vital to better understand who is at greatest risk of developing cancer. We also need to elucidate the biology and trajectory of precancer and early cancer to identify consequential disease that requires intervention. Insights must be translated into sensitive and specific early detection technologies and be appropriately evaluated to support practical clinical implementation. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key; advances in technology and biological understanding highlight that it is time to accelerate early detection research and transform cancer survival.
Interdisciplinarity—or the interrelationships among distinct fields, disciplines, or branches of knowledge in pursuit of new answers to pressing problems—is one of the most contested topics in higher ...education today. Some see it as a way to break down the silos of academic departments and foster creative interchange, while others view it as a destructive force that will diminish academic quality and destroy the university as we know it. In Undisciplining Knowledge, acclaimed scholar Harvey J. Graff presents readers with the first comparative and critical history of interdisciplinary initiatives in the modern university. Arranged chronologically, the book tells the engaging story of how various academic fields both embraced and fought off efforts to share knowledge with other scholars. It is a story of myths, exaggerations, and misunderstandings, on all sides.
Touching on a wide variety of disciplines—including genetic biology, sociology, the humanities, communications, social relations, operations research, cognitive science, materials science, nanotechnology, cultural studies, literary studies, and biosciences—the book examines the ideals, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity through comparative case studies. Graff interweaves this narrative with a social, institutional, and intellectual history of interdisciplinary efforts over the 140 years of the modern university, focusing on both its implementation and evolution while exploring substantial differences in definitions, goals, institutional locations, and modes of organization across different areas of focus.
Higher education scholars, faculty members, and administrators and will find the book’s practical advice on building, operating, and avoiding fallacies and errors in interdisciplinary research and education invaluable.
Background
Despite increasing attention to STEM education worldwide, there is considerable uncertainty as to what constitutes STEM education and what it means in terms of curriculum and student ...outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the commonalities and variations in educators’ conceptualizations of STEM education. Sensemaking theory framed our analysis of ideas that were being selected and retained in relation to professional learning experiences in three contexts: two traditional middle schools, a STEM-focused school, and state-wide STEM professional development. Concept maps and interview transcripts from 34 educators holding different roles were analyzed: STEM and non-STEM teachers, administrators, and STEM professional development providers.
Results
Three themes were included on over 70% of the 34 concept maps: interdisciplinary connections; the need for new, ambitious instructional practices in enacting a STEM approach; and the engagement of students in real-world problem solving. Conceptualizations of STEM education were related to educational contexts, which included the STEM education professional development activities in which educators engaged. We also identified differences across educators in different roles (e.g., non-STEM teacher, administrator). Two important attributes of STEM education addressed in the literature appeared infrequently across all contexts and role groups: students’ use of technology and the potential of STEM-focused education to provide access and opportunities for all students’ successful participation in STEM.
Conclusions
Given the variety of institutionalized practices and school contexts within which STEM education is enacted, we are not convinced that a single worldwide definition of STEM education is critical. What we do see as essential is that those working in the same system explore the common elements that are being attributed to STEM education and co-construct a vision that provides opportunities for all their students to attain STEM-related goals. This is especially important in the current reform contexts related to STEM education. We also see that common conceptions of STEM education appear across roles and contexts, and these could provide starting points for these discussions. Explicitly identifying the ideas educators are and are not selecting and retaining can inform professional learning activities at local and larger scales.
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