The List Is In: Top Values in Public Colleges
The top school on the list returned to its perch for the eleventh straight year.
A relatively moderate sticker price, generous financial aid and a competitive admission rate are among the key attributes that make UNC numero uno, Kiplingers explains.
Here are Kiplingers top 10 public school values for in-state students, with total in-state/out-of-state annual sticker prices:
1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($17,628/$37,454) 2. University of Florida ($15,526/$37,803) 3. University of Virginia ($21,626/$45.948) 4. The College of William and Mary ($23,054/$45,331) 5. New College of Florida ($15,458/$38,487) 6. University of Georgia ($19,258/$37,468) 7. University of California Berkeley ($29,027/$51,905) 8. University of Maryland ($19,409/$36,780) 9. University of California, Los Angeles ($28,174/$51,052), and 10. University of California, San Diego ($26,232/$49,110).
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Should a school costing more than $50,000 a year be included on a best value list? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Benefits of Continuing Education for New Writers
Schooling Can Enhance One’s Writing Skills – Photo From: SXC Would you like to develop skills as a writer? Go back to school!
In most cases, writers are paid on their talent, not on how many high-powered degrees they have. Sometimes, however, schooling can have its benefits, especially for new writers who are still trying to find their voice and develop their skills. At school, writers are able to access a wide social network of people who can help them carve a successful writing career in all kinds of ways.
Notes Toward a Toy Model of the Arrow of Time
I’m fairly certain somebody has already done this, because it’s such an obvious idea. It’s a little beyond my cargo-cult VPython skills right at the moment, though (I can probably learn to do it, but not right now), and I none of the applets I Googled up seemed to be doing this, so I’m posting this sketchy description because I’ve spent some time thinking about it, and might as well get a blog post out of the deal.
So, as we said back in the holiday season, one of the most fundamental concepts in the modern understanding of thermodynamics and statistical physics is the notion of entropy. You can also argue that entropy is in some sense responsible for our perception of time– that is, the reason we see time marching forward into the future, not backwards into the past is that entropy increases as we move forward, and it’s the increase in entropy that determines the arrow of time.
We can define entropy using Boltzmann’s formula:
which says that the entropy of a given arrangement of microscopic objects (atoms or molecules in a gas, say) is related to the number of possible ways that you can arrange those objects to produce states that are macroscopically indistinguishable. The more states that look the same on a coarse scale, the higher the entropy. This makes the arrow of time a sort of statistical property: entropy tends to increase because it’s easy for a collection of stuff to randomly move toward a high-entropy state (which you can do lots of ways) but unlikely that a random motion will take you to a low-entropy state (which can only be made a few ways).
Boltzmann’s idea is simple and powerful, but it can be a little hard to do anything more than qualitative hand-waving with it at the intro level. It’s kind of hard to explain how you “count” microstates of things that are (classically) continuous variables, like the velocities of atoms in a gas, without getting infinite results.
So, here’s my rough idea, that I might still try to code into a model for my timekeeping class this term: Rather than thinking about continuous variables, let’s think about a lattice of points that may or may not contain an atom. It’s easiest to picture in 1-d, where a low-entropy starting state might look something like this:
1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
This represents all of the “atoms” being on one side of the lattice representing space.. Then you just allow each “atom” some probability of moving either left or right to an unoccupied space. So, for example, a few time steps later, the state might look like this:
1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
This is a state where the one atom on the boundary has shifted right one space.
What does this have to do with entropy? Well, to use Boltzmann’s formula, we need to define a set of “macrostates” of the system that can be made up from the “microstates” in multiple ways. For this, we can imagine a “density” distribution for our line of numbers, which we’ll take as the number of atoms in each half-lattice. The total entropy will be the sum of the entropies for each of the halves.
So, for the initial state above, you have five atoms in the five sites of the left half-lattice, which can only be done one way. You also have five vacancies in the right half-lattice, which can also only be done one way. Each of these halves has an entropy of zero (up to some possible additive constant, depending on how you do the counting).
The second state has four atoms on the left, and one on the right. Each of these “macrostates” can be put together in one of five ways, so the “entropy” for each half is a constant times log(5). This is an increase in the entropy of the system. Some time later, you’ll have two atoms on the right and three on the left, each of which can be done 20 different ways, so the entropy increases to log(2) for each half. At which point you’ve hit the maximum entropy.
So, we have a system where a purely random hopping from one spot to another leads to a clear increase in the entropy of the system, without having to put any explicit rules in place to generate that. The nice thing about this is that it’s purely combinatorical– even intro students can tally up the possibilities (for small numbers of sites) and see that the entropy as defined by Boltzmann does, indeed, increase.
It should be relatively easy to code this up on a computer, too, at least for somebody having some familiarity with the right tools. (I’ve never done anything with arrays in VPython, though, which makes this difficult to do right.) This would also allow you to run if for longer times and larger numbers of states. It’s also easy to extend this to a two-dimensional array,using, say, the number of atoms in each quadrant of a square grid as the macrostates.
The other nice thing about this is that it should make it possible to demonstrate that entropy does occasionally decrease– it’s perfectly possible for a random fluctuation to take you to a state with lower entropy than the previous state. It’s just highly unlikely to do so, because there are more ways to move to higher entropy than to move to lower entropy. And, again, it’s relatively easy to see this because you can readily count the states involved.
So, there’s my toy model idea, which I’m sure is not remotely original. I’ll probably try to cobble together some version of this for use in the later part of my timekeeping class this term (after we get into more modern ideas about relativity and so forth). Though if anybody has such a program lying around, I wouldn’t object to being sent a working example in one of the tools I’ve got easy access to (VPython, Mathematica, or potentially MatLab (though I don’t have that installed at the moment).
Pioneering diabetes research earns UTSW scientist state’s top honor for medicine
DALLAS – Jan. 12, 2012 – Dr. Philipp Scherer, director of the Touchstone Center for Diabetes Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center, was recognized today as a rising star in Texas research by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST).
Dr. Philipp Scherer
Dr. Scherer, professor of internal medicine and cell biology at the medical center, is one of four winners of the 2012 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Awards presented by TAMEST.
Each year, the awards honor outstanding achievements by early-career investigators in science, medicine, engineering and technology innovation. Each award consists of a $25,000 honorarium, a citation, a trophy and an invitation to speak at the conference.
Dr. Scherer has directed the Touchstone Center since 2007. He received the O’Donnell Award in medicine based in part on his research into fat-derived hormones that control sensitivity to insulin. The blood levels of adiponectin – a protein he discovered in 1994 – decline as a person gains weight, which offers potential as a good predictor of diabetes, heart disease and cancer risk.
“This is a reflection of all the outstanding collaborators that I have had the privilege to work with over the years, as well as a tribute to the exceptional metabolism group here at UT Southwestern,” Dr. Scherer said. “I am deeply honored to get this award.”
The award selection committee cited Dr. Scherer’s research on fat cells called adipocytes and their impact on body energy homeostatis, inflammation and cancer. The committee noted Dr. Scherer’s discovery of how fat cells communicate with other tissues and regulate the release of their hormones. Adiponectin, for instance, is secreted almost reciprocally with another fat-derived hormone, leptin.
In 2007, Dr. Scherer found that excess adiponectin in mice can prompt fat tissue to expand in a healthy, non-inflamed way, thereby generating the “world’s fattest healthy mice” resistant to development of diabetes.
“Fat tissue remains one of the most enigmatic tissues we have. It fulfills an essential role in storing excess calories, yet too much of it increases our risk to develop diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer,” Dr. Scherer said. “We hope that our efforts highlight new avenues of how we can maintain proper function of fat cells, while still allowing them to effectively absorb the excess of toxic lipids that we expose ourselves to in our daily diet.”
Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, president of UT Southwestern, said, “Dr. Scherer’s research contributes to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of how fat cells communicate with organs and may lead to new ways of fighting diabetes and other obesity-related diseases.”
Dr. Roger Unger, professor of internal medicine and former Touchstone Center director who nominated his UT Southwestern colleague, called Dr. Scherer a leader in diabetes and obesity research whose “innovative approaches have created new avenues of investigating disease causes.”
Dr. Scherer, who joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2007, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology as well as a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Basel in Switzerland. He completed postdoctoral training in cell biology at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
The author of more than 200 publications, Dr. Scherer received the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award of the American Diabetes Association in 2005. He has served on review panels at the National Institutes of Health, received numerous visiting professorships and given named lectures at national and international institutions.
Other 2012 O’Donnell Award winners are Dr. Michael Deem of Rice University for engineering; Dr. Karl Gebhardt of UT Austin for science; and Dr. Ted Moise of Texas Instruments for technology innovation. To view a video about Dr. Scherer,
Three principals share instructional leadership tips
School leaders play an important role in guiding educators as they strive to improve student achievement. School principals, charged with so many tasks already, also must be confident instructional leaders who can help teachers organize instruction, comprehend standards, and develop curriculum.
During a Jan. 12 Education Trust webinar about how principals can be strong, positive, and effective leaders, three school principals shared their tips and strategies for creating a school atmosphere in which instructional leadership thrives.
“Instructional leadership is one of the hardest things for principals to bring about in their schools, because of the historical nature of teaching [as] a closed-door profession,” said Ricci Hall, principal of University Park Campus School in Worcester, Mass.
“I think the notion of instructional leadership being led by the principal and carried out and enhanced by teachers is one of the hardest jobs to really get into the culture of the school,” said webinar leader Kyla Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota.
June Eressy, a founding teacher and former principal of University Park Campus School and the current principal of Chandler Elementary School in Worcester, Mass., said it’s important for principals to articulate their vision for their school in order to establish a strong instructional leadership model.
“The culture here was previously not collaborative … and teachers’ voices were not heard,” Eressy said. “The whole first year was spent building teacher collaboration … and establishing a culture of trust where teachers are my partners. This is such hard work, and I don’t think any principal would say they could do it in isolation.”
SALUD Medical Spanish: First Days in Cusco!
Finally I have made it to my final destination of Cusco, Peru. I was greeted at the airport by my gracious house mom, Nancy. She has many children and two grandchildren Fabio and Francesca who are over at the house all the time and are so fun! We take turns singing the alphabet (them in English, me in Spanish) and practice our colors, shapes, numbers etc. It´s like I´m in 1st grade all over again!
In the morning, my roommate, Dalya, and I walk to our schoolwhich is about a 20 minute walk. We have spanish classes from 8-11:15, which can be a little long, but on our half hour break, its fun to meet the other students who have come from all over the world to be here. Thereare 2 girls from Belgium, a guy from England, one from Switzerland and several from all over the US, but so far, I think I´m the only California girl!After our classes, we go back home for lunch which is the biggest meal of the day here. Usually 3 courses consisting of these huge cornkernels that you are supposed to eat whole, cheese, a hearty soup, anda main dish of rice and some sort of thick potatoe stew. For drinks we have Maize Jugo (purple corn juice) which is pretty plain but good. After lunch, its back to schoolfor tours….yesterday we had a walking tour of the city and while the whole thing was in spanish, surprisingly I learned a lot! Today we go back to have a tour of a huge market here called Market San Pedro and are also going to be given a tour of several medicinal plants. The main center of the city is the Plaza Del Armas and it is absolutely gorgeous! I want to go there every day and just take in the beautiful churches, fountains and parks. It´s crazy how completely immersed I´ve been in spanish here…you really have no choice! Today I 
even had a slight politcal discussion with Nancy´s son as this Sunday is Peru´s independence day from their socialist rule to their newcommunist government. Wish I could have talked to him more, but the communica tio n barrier was a little tough talking politics. But we both definitely agreed that we hope things will change for Peru in this upcoming year! Time to go back to school for the tour!