Grace Mission University

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A Personal Learning Environment or PLE is described as a process that helps students organize the influx of information and resources that they are faced with on a daily basis into a personalized digital learning space or experience. A PLE is primarily facilitated by cloud-based Web 2.0 technologies and services designed to help students create, organize, and share content, participate in collective knowledge generation, and manage their own meaning making. Hence, a PLE is student-designed around each student’s goals or learning approach. In a PLE, the student develops an individualized digital identity through the perceptual cues and cognitive affordances that the personalized learning environment provides such as what information to share and when, who to share it with, and how to effectively merge formal and informal learning experiences. To gather data on PLEs, Mason students were asked what do they like to learn about; what hardware (devices) and software do they use to learn; what digital tools they wish they had access to for learning; and what their ideal PLE might look like. In this presentation, we will share student responses to these questions and provide recommendations for supporting the development PLEs in teaching and learning contexts.

the 4th International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery Using Cloud and Distributed Computing Platforms (KDCloud-13: http:

The multistage Wiener filter (MWF) is an iterative Schur complement procedure for estimating a scalar or a vector of random variables in the linear minimum mean square error sense. When a complementary orthogonal projector is used as a blocking matrix, intermediate vectors in the development of the MWF have singular covariance matrices, and the rationale of the MWF is undermined. For this situation, we validate the structure of the MWF by showing that it can be developed as an iterative generalized Schur complement procedure which relies on the Moore-Penrose generalized inverse. The validated filter does not require any generalized inverse, and it can be implemented as usual by using scalar Wiener filters when estimating a scalar random variable. Next, we show, under a condition which is commonly met in practice, that the MWF is a least squares reduced rank estimate of the Wiener filter from the Krylov subspace associated with the Wiener-Hopf equation. The MWF is then compared with Brillinger's reduced rank minimum mean square error filter. The two filters differ in the subspaces from which signal estimation is performed and in the order in which projection onto the respective subspaces and Wiener estimation are performed. A forward recursion for the mean square estimation error in each stage of the MWF is provided, and the performance of the MWF is demonstrated by a numerical example.

We report the detection of a weak X-ray point source coincident with the nucleus of the bulgeless disk galaxy NGC 3621, recently discovered by Spitzer to display high ionization mid-infrared lines typically associated with AGN. These Chandra observations provide confirmation for the presence of an AGN in this galaxy, adding to the growing evidence that black holes do form and grow in isolated bulgeless disk galaxies. Although the low signal-to-noise ratio of the X-ray spectrum prevents us from carrying out a detailed spectral analysis of the nuclear source, the X-ray results, combined with the IR and optical spectroscopic results, suggests that NGC 3621 harbors a heavily absorbed AGN, with a supermassive black hole of relatively small mass accreting at a high rate. Chandra also reveals the presence of two bright sources straddling the nucleus located almost symmetrically at 20" from the center. Both sources have X-ray spectra that are well-fitted by an absorbed power-law model. Assuming they are at the distance of NGC 3621, these two sources have luminosities of the order of 1.e39 erg/s, which make them ULXs and suggest that they are black hole systems. Estimates of the black hole mass based on the X-ray spectral analysis and scaling laws of black hole systems suggest that the 2 bright sources might be intermediate mass black holes with M_BH of the order of a few thousand solar masses. However, higher quality X-ray data combined with multi-wavelength observations are necessary to confirm these conclusions.

Aims: We investigate the origin of X-rays and the nature of accretion flow in 4 LINERs hosted by radio galaxies, namely NGC1692, PKS0625-35, 3C88, 3C444, recently observed with XMM. Methods: We combine the results from the time-averaged spectral analysis with model-independent information from X-ray temporal and spectral variability analyses, and with additional broadband information (UV and radio). Results: The values of the Eddington ratios of our sample span 2 orders of magnitude. The 4 AGN are adequately fitted by the same continuum model that comprises at least one thermal component and a partially absorbed power law, whose relative contribution and photon index vary substantially from source to source. NGC1692 and PKS0625-35 have fairly steep power-law components, perhaps indicative of synchrotron emission from a jet. Conversely, the flat photon index derived for 3C88 may be indicative of a heavily absorbed object. Finally, the time-averaged spectral properties of 3C444 (Gamma~1.9 and an apparent line-like excess around 6.7 keV) are more in line with Seyfert galaxies. The temporal analysis reveals that PKS0625-35 and 3C88 are significantly variable in the soft energy band. PKS0625-35 also shows suggestive evidence of spectral variability on timescales of months. The main findings from the broadband analysis can be summarized as follows: 1) 3C444, PKS0625-35, and NGC1692 have alpha_OX values consistent with the well known alpha_OX -l_UV correlation. 2) No positive correlation is found between L_X and the inclination angle, suggesting that the X-ray emission is not beamed. 3) The values of the radio-loudness are inversely proportional to the Eddington ratio and locate our objects in between the ``radio-loud'' and ``radio-quiet'' branches in the R- l_UV plane.

We present deep (70-80 ks) Chandra and multicolor HST ACS images of two jets hosted by the powerful quasars 1136-135 and 1150+497, together with new radio observations. The sources have an FRII morphology and were selected from our previous X-ray and optical jet survey for detailed follow up aimed at obtaining better constraints on the jet multiwavelength morphology and X-ray and optical spectra of individual knots, and to test emission models deriving physical parameters more accurately. All the X-ray and optical knots detected in our previous short exposures are confirmed, together with a few new faint features. The overlayed maps and the emissivity profiles along the jet show good correspondence between emission regions at the various wavelengths; a few show offsets between the knots peaks of <1". In 1150+497 the X-ray, optical, and radio profiles decrease in similar ways with distance from the core up to ~7", after which the radio emission increases more than the X-ray one. No X-ray spectral variations are observed in 1150+497. In 1136-135 an interesting behavior is observed, whereby, downstream of the most prominent knot at ~ 6.5" from the core, the X-ray emission fades while the radio emission brightens. The X-ray spectrum also varies, with the X-ray photon index flattening from ~2 in the inner part to ~1.7 to the end of the jet. We intepret the jet behavior in 1136-135 in a scenario where the relativistic flow suffers systematic deceleration along the jet, and briefly discuss the major consequences of this scenario (abridged).

We present a comprehensive classification of all observed QPOs within the framework of the transition layer model using a large set of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) data for Sco X-1. The model assumes an optically thin material along the observer's line of sight in the horizontal branch and an increasingly optically thick material while in the other two branches that is consistent with X-ray and radio observations and the disk transition layer model of QPOs. We identify the ~ 6 Hz frequencies in the normal branch as acoustic oscillations of a spherical shell around the neutron star (NS) that is formed after radiation pressure near the Eddington accretion rate destroys the disk. The size of the shell is on the order of one NS radii from the NS. We also estimate the upper limit of Sco X-1's magnetic field to be 0.7 x 10^6 G at about one NS radii above the NS surface while in the horizontal X-ray branch.