Elizabethtown College

ABSTRACT: As society and the field of engineering evolves, it is necessary for engineering tools to evolve as well. Through a co-design approach, this work explores the re-design of Pugh’s Product Design Specifications tool for engineering design courses to increase scaffolding of the tool for student learning and incorporate societal implications drawing upon design justice. This re-design was conducted in collaboration with Elizabethtown College faculty members, instructors and students. This paper details the iterative co-design process, showcasing the evolution of the tool that culminated in the latest iteration of the re-designed PDS tool. We conclude with a reflection on this co-design process and recommendations for evolving other engineering design tools to incorporate social justice concepts.

Arctic ecosystems are affected by accelerated warming as well as the intensification of the hydrologic cycle, yet understanding of the impacts of compound climate extremes (e.g., simultaneous extreme heat and rainfall) remains limited, despite their high potential to alter ecosystems. Here, we show that the aquatic ecosystems in historically arid west Greenland have undergone an ecological transformation after a series of atmospheric rivers that simultaneously produced record heat and rainfall hit the region in autumn 2022. We analyzed a unique, long-term lake dataset and found that compound climate extremes pushed Arctic lakes across a tipping point. As terrestrial-aquatic linkages were strengthened, lakes synchronously transformed from "blue" lakes with high transparency and low pelagic primary production to "brown" in less than a year, owing to a large influx of dissolved organic material and metals, with iron concentrations increasing by more than two orders of magnitude. The browning of lake waters reduced light penetration by 50% across lakes. The resulting light limitation altered plankton distributions and community structure, including a major reduction in prokaryotic diversity and an increase in algal groups capable of metabolizing organic carbon sources. As a result, lakes shifted from being summer carbon sinks to sources, with a >350% increase in carbon dioxide flux from lakes to the atmosphere. The remarkably rapid, coherent transformation of these Arctic ecosystems underscores the synergistic and unpredictable impacts of compound extreme events and the importance of their seasonal timing, especially in regions with negative moisture balance.

Abstract Maxwell unified the disparate concepts of electric and magnetic fields with one theory (electromagnetism) and Einstein then unified the disparate theories of electromagnetism and mechanics with one kinematics (Minkowski space of special relativity). In this talk, we will briefly explain how the disparate kinematics of quantum mechanics (finite-dimensional Hilbert space) and special relativity can be unified with one principle (relativity principle). This result follows from the axiomatic reconstruction of quantum mechanics via information-theoretic principles, which has successfully recast quantum mechanics as a principle theory a la Einstein, i.e., the formalism of the theory follows from an empirically discovered fact, just like special relativity. According to the quantum reconstruction program, the empirically discovered fact whence the Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics is Information Invariance & Continuity. Of course, the empirically discovered fact whence the Lorentz transformations of special relativity is the light postulate, i.e., everyone measures the same value for the speed of light c, regardless of their relative motions. Obviously, the light postulate can be justified by the relativity principle—the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames—because c is a constant of Nature per Maxwell’s electromagnetism. [We label this “NPRF + c” for short, where NPRF stands for “no preferred reference frame.”] As we will show, Information Invariance & Continuity can also be justified by the relativity principle by first spatializing the quantum reconstruction program’s operational notion of measurement. In that case, Information Invariance & Continuity entails the empirically discovered fact that everyone measures the same value for Planck’s constant h, regardless of their relative spatial orientations or locations (Planck postulate). Since Poincar’e transformations relate inertial reference frames via spatial rotations and translations as well as boosts, and h is a constant of Nature per Planck’s radiation law, the relativity principle justifies the Planck postulate (NPRF + h) just like it justifies the light postulate (NPRF + c). Thus, the kinematics of quantum mechanics and special relativity are unified in that both follow most fundamentally from the relativity principle in the adynamical global constraints NPRF + h and NPRF + c. This approach provides a principle solution to the mystery of quantum entanglement that does not violate locality, statistical independence, intersubjective agreement, or the uniqueness of experimental outcomes and it does not alter quantum mechanics as a principle theory. An ontology consistent with this unification is introduced and we deflate both the ‘big’ and ‘small’measurement problems.

n June 2022, the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, revoking the constitutional right to abortion for the first time in 50 years. To date, fourteen U.S. states have completely banned abortion. Consequently, individuals residing in states with restrictive legislation are forced to travel to neighboring states to access abortion care and other reproductive services. Extended travel time disproportionately affects individuals from communities of color, low-income patients, and rural residents, increasing the risk for maternal health complications and death. The United States holds the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, with 33 deaths per 100,000 births (Katella 2023). Alarmingly, 84% of these deaths are considered preventable (Katella 2023). Thus, it is imperative that state healthcare policymakers prioritize equitable access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare for all patients (Katella 2023). This care should incorporate strategies to decrease on-site patient volume, such as implementing shield laws to protect abortion providers treating out-of-state patients, enhancing telehealth services for abortion medication services, and incentivizing the establishment of physical infrastructure. For state officials in destination states, specifically the 23 governors of the non-partisan Reproductive Freedom Alliance, we recommend immediately prioritizing the establishment and anticipated enforcement of provider shield laws. To ensure widespread and equitable access to reproductive healthcare services, a more robust three-tiered approach is outlined herein, prioritizing: (1) shield laws, (2) telehealth services, and (3) physical infrastructure.

Abstract Engineering Statics is a fundamental engineering science course taken by many, if not most, engineering students. A basic skill of Statics is the addition of vectors (also referred to as vector resultants). Typically, textbook and exam questions on this topic are algebraic in nature, with less attention given to graphical interpretation and representation. The authors of this study are interested in investigating the relationship between students' algebraic and graphical reasoning skills. The following research questions have been posed and are being studied: R1. Does mastery of vector algebra imply mastery of graphical interpretations of vector addition? R2. Do students adopt the habit of redrawing generic figures to scale when given particular parameter values? To answer these questions, the authors draw on their common approach to testing students on this and related topics. In particular, test questions on vector addition require students to perform both the algebraic calculations as well as a corresponding sketch, to good scale and proportion. The results demonstrate that in general, a moderate number of students who do not attain the correct calculated values, nevertheless show some ability to achieve a reasonably accurate corresponding diagram. This suggests that use of graphical reasoning is a valid means to develop knowledge and skills with vectors.

Malware is one of the leading cybersecurity challenges, as it disrupts the normal use of devices, causes financial losses, and steals user information. Deep learning-based methods have been increasingly used in the malware analysis field recently. In this work, we propose a novel multi-input Transformer-based approach for detecting malicious Portable Executable (PE) files. The PE raw bytes were partitioned into different byte sequences as multiple inputs in our proposed multi-input framework. This framework is comprised of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and Transformer networks and is capable of independent learning of each input, thereby enabling a more expressive representation of the data. As a result, it is possible to capture both local spatial and time-series features, resulting in greater data comprehension. Our proposed approach outperforms the two reference methods, a LightGBM and a CNN-based model, as indicated by four metrics: accuracy, recall, precision, and F1 score.