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Invited talks for the Workshop on Physics with a Positive Cosmological Constant

Invited talks for the Workshop on Physics with a Positive Cosmological Constant

Invited talks for the Workshop on Physics with a Positive Cosmological Constant

Update on accomplishments, projects, and a look ahead.

Giovanna Genard, Co-Leader, Polaris Project
Sean Andrews, Polaris Project Manager

Giovanna Genard, Co-Leader, Polaris Project
Sean Andrews, Polaris Project Manager

Although largely unknown or forgotten today, the story of The Honorable Barbara Hackman Franklin and A Few Good Women shaped the opportunities available to women for generations to come. Franklin, a Penn State graduate, served as the 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

International art dealers sell Swazi traditional art to collectors for thousands of dollars. Numerous non-Profits and non-Governmental Agencies have web sites on the Internet promoting self-help projects to assist Swazi women to sell “beautiful handmade products” to the world. The bustling Manzini market in Swaziland routinely throngs with buyers and sellers of Swazi artifacts. Vendors set up roadside makeshift stands hoping that passing tourists will stop to buy their wares. Rural artists continue to be commissioned by neighbors and acquaintances to make ‘traditional’ objects such a headrests, meat-platters and beaded items for upcoming ceremonies. What is perhaps most interesting is that all of the previously mentioned peoples and organizations are basically dealing with the same types of objects! Who is selling what to whom? And why? How do local ‘crafts’ become transformed into ‘global ‘Art’? Clearly there is an interesting juxtaposition of the Global Market and ‘fine art’ interests, Swazi National aspirations, and local struggles to simply survive, all playing off against each other. This talk will examine the contemporary situation in Swaziland primarily from the perspective of where the artists of ‘traditional’ art find themselves.

Biomechanics and Human Diseases
SUBRA SURESH
Director, National Science Foundation

Ion and Water Motion in Self-Assembled Polymers
MICHAEL HICKNER
Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering,
Virginia S. and Philip L. Walker Jr. Faculty Fellow,
Penn State University

Lab-on-a-Chip Technologies Enabled by Acousto-Opto-Fluidics
TONY HUANG
Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics,
Penn State University

Can a Solid be a Superfluid?

The Colloquium will feature several presentations on diversity-related topics by members of the University Libraries community

Product demonstration

The Global Milking the Rhino: Innovative Solutions Showcase is a venue for students across the world to engage in critical thinking about sustainable community development, developmental entrepreneurship, and the role of technology in enabling new solutions to global inequities. Students explore the ethical intricacies of globalization and loss of indigenous cultures, and the role technology plays in fostering and hurting sustainable self-determined development. The 2011 showcase received more than 60 entries, and actively involved over 200 student participants from eight universities, colleges and high schools from America and Kenya. The showcase was sponsored by several Penn State units and external sponsors and gave away $4,500 in awards.
This talk will present the work of two teams recognized at the showcase that elegantly integrated indigenous knowledge into their solution.One of the teams proposed a novel solution for keeping the Masaai people’s cattle herds, an important source of income, safe from insect-borne diseases by using garlic as an insect repellent. The other team is working on low-cost point-of-use ceramic water filters that can be easily manufactured in rural East Africa.
Student Presenters: Elise Brown (Grad, Agriculture and Extension Education); Nicole O'Block (Senior,, Agricultural Sciences); Alex Gren (Senior, Wildlife and Fisheries); Amanda Perez ( Junior, Energy Engineering); Katelyn Holmes (Grad, Health Policy and Administration)

A critical challenge for higher education is designing learning environments, and providing compelling evidence, for the development of the enduring intellectual skills (reasoning, creativity, adaptability, communication) that we claim accompany the technical competency demonstrated by students who pass tests and earn good grades. Without these, education rapidly reduces to vocational competency.
This presentation will focus on two ideas. First, discipline-centered education research can provide compelling evidence. This research is neither easy to do nor can it be done out of the box, but it can provide evidence for true value in education. Second, in order for student work to have these values, it needs to provoke explicitly the desired intellectual skills. Isolated academic exercises (traditional homework) are limited in what they can accomplish. The more authentic a task is (real work), the better it can capture the complexity of enduring skills. Examples will be provided of how we have designed "real work" learning environments as well as how research has allowed us to understand the educational outcomes.

Ann Marie Daniel and Suzanne Adair
An informational session for students interested in participating in the 2012 Graduate Exhibition

Suzanne Adair
Bill Doan
Kevin Furlong
An informational session for students interested in participating in the 2012 Graduate Exhibition

Meeting of the IPv6 Transition Committee

Presentations by Directors and Staff of TNS