Designing by decorating: The use of pictures in primary school

Introduction. This paper concerns the concept of information use. The aim of the study is to understand how information use, as an activity, is shaped when project-based methods are used in primary school. The particular focus here is information use which involves visual information resources. It relates to the overarching aim of a set of studies describing and illustrating how information literacies are enacted and socially shaped in Swedish primary schools. Method. 25 booklets, produced by children at a Swedish primary school when working with project-based assignments, were collected during an ethnographical study. Analysis. An analysis of the relationships between pictures and text in the 25 booklets was conducted. Results. The analysis suggests that the pictures in the booklets are subordinated to written text and their functions are decorative and illustrative. Pictures are seldom used for explaining or narrating. Conclusions. An underpinning idea of the study is to understand information activities as purposeful within the settings where they take place. Given earlier research indicating that project-based working methods tend to be focused on the reproduction of facts and the making of products rather than on contents, it could be argued that the children's use of pictures in this study is purposeful. However, if this use of pictures is a desirable outcome could be a matter of discussion. The findings may be relevant for developing teaching in the multimodal aspects of information use

Emittance Growth and Energy Loss due to Coherent Synchrotron Radiation in a bunch compressor

Bunches of high charge (10 nC) are compressed in length in the CTF II bunch compressor from 1.2 mm rms to less than 0.4 mm. The short bunches start to radiate coherently, thus affecting the horizontal and longitudinal phase spaces of the beam. This paper reports the results of measurements and simulations concerning the increase of the beam emittance and the impact on the energy distribution. Beam emittances were measured for different bunch compression factors and bunch charges. For each compressor setting, the energy spectrum of the beam was recorded in order to measure the energy loss due to coherent synchrotron radiation. For bunch charges of 10 nC a maximum increase of the horizontal emittance of 50% was observed at full compression, while the mean beam energy decreased by 5% from 39 MeV to 37 MeV. Both effects are correlated with an increase of the energy spread from 2.3% to 8.5% rms. The experimental results are compared with simulations

Information Research

Introduction. This study explored how various meanings are attributed to the term facts in Swedish schools and how this may shape conditions for students' learning. The understanding of information activities as social, communicative, and discursive, which motivates the study, is informed by a sociocultural perspective of learning and information interaction. Method. The study re-analyses empirical data from four previous research projects, where material was collected through various qualitative methods, mainly interviews, observations, and document analysis. The material involved 14 classes from year 2 to year 12.Analysis. The data were analysed thematically. In the material, 565 occurrences of facts are identified and categorised. Results. The analysis generated three themes. Firstly, facts were associated with specific genres or modalities. Secondly, facts were seen as distinguishable, external, and tangible. Thirdly, facts came across as having strong connections to neutrality and they were viewed as evidence. Conclusions. The analysis showed variation in how the study participants talked about facts. Despite the dominant associations, each theme displayed more complex meanings of the term, which indicates that fact cannot be equated to how the term has been used as an analytical term in previous research. The frequent use of the term facts can be understood as a result of the strong focus on students seeking and using certain types of information for writing school reports. The results show how important it is that information researchers adopt an open and explorative approach to the meaning of the language used in school activities that they study

“Bibliostory—Educational Comic Stories.” A Social Constructivist Approach to Media and Information Literacy Education for Children and Adolescents

Our paper presents a theoretical background for a Polish comic book “Bibliostory—educational comic stories” (Pl. Bibliostory—edukacyjne historie komiksowe). The comic targets children between 9 and 12 years of age and youths from 13 to 16 years of age. Each story illustrates one issue, such as information searching, organization of information, plagiarism, and information problem solving strategy. Bibliostory is based on two constructivist pedagogical concepts: the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and case-based learning/teaching. These concepts, on application level, are first of all associated with designing educational situations and relationships between teachers and students (educators and learners). The aim of our paper is to present the possibilities of application of these concepts in the educational comic books. We describe the general assumptions of two concepts, then we focus on elements applied in Bibliostory project. We also provide a review of literature on the educational potential of comic books.Zuza Wiorogórska’s work was carried out during her stay as the visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, thanks to a scholarship from the Kosciuszko Foundation. Ewa Rozkosz’s work was carried out thanks to the grant awarded by the Faculty of Education of the University of Lower Silesia for the project “Społeczno-kulturowe podejście w projektowaniu materiałów edukacyjnych na potrzeby edukacji medialnej I inforamacyjnej dzieci i młodzieży na przykładzie »Bibliostory«” (nr 05/ WGW/dok/2016)

First Observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission in a Free-Electron Laser at 109 nm Wavelength

We present the first observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) in a free-electron laser (FEL) in the Vacuum Ultraviolet regime at 109 nm wavelength (11 eV). The observed free-electron laser gain (approx. 3000) and the radiation characteristics, such as dependency on bunch charge, angular distribution, spectral width and intensity fluctuations all corroborate the existing models for SASE FELs.Comment: 6 pages including 6 figures; e-mail: [email protected]

Effects and tolerances of injection jitter in the SLC and future linear colliders

The bunch injected into the main linac of a linear collider may have offsets in transverse angle and position, may have a phase error (longitudinal position offset) and, furthermore, may be optically mismatched. Each of these injection errors reduces the luminosity and must be held within tolerances. The effect of optical mismatches on the emittance at the end of the linac is calculated analytically. The tightest tolerances on magnetic elements stemming from these effects are listed. The phase tolerance is determined by the energy acceptance of the final focus system. It imposes tolerances to the integrated field strength of the damping ring and RTL bending magnets and the bunch compressor rf-phase. In this paper, measurements of injection jitter and the effect of betatron oscillations caused by changes of the angle or position of the incoming beam are described. These measurements were taken with BNS damping which relaxes certain tolerances by an order of magnitude. The injection jitter tolerances for a linac of the next generation are given. As an example, parameters for the Next Linear Collider (NLC) being designed at SLAC are used

Coherent Synchrotron Radiation Measurements in the CLIC Test Facility (CTF II)

Bunches of high charge (up to 10 nC) are compressed in length in the CTF II magnetic chicane to less than 0.2 mm rms. The short bunches radiate coherently in the chicane magnetic field, and the horizontal and longitudinal phase space density distributions are affected. This paper reports the results of beam emittance and momentum measurements. Horizontal and vertical emittances and momentum spectra were measured for different bunch compression factors and bunch charges. In particular, for 10 nC bunches, the mean beam momentum decreased by about 5% while the FWHM momentum spread increased from 5% to 19%. The experimental results are compared with simulations made with the code TraFiC4.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to the LINAC 2000 Conferenc

Acute Intermittent Hypoxia Does Not Impact Vascular Function in Young, Healthy Individuals

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