Academia – Page 36 – Public Intelligence Blog

Three-Dimensional Orientation Mapping in the Transmission Electron. This image shows the arrangement of crystals in a 150nm thick nanometal aluminium film. The crystals have identical lattice structure (arrangement of atoms) but they are orientated in different ways in the 3-D sample as illustrated by the labels 1 and 2.

The colours represent the orientations of the crystals and each crystal is defined by volumes of the same colour. The individual crystals of various sizes (from a few nm to about 100 nm) and shapes (from elongated to spherical) are clearly seen and mapped with a resolution of 1 nanometer.

(Credit: Image courtesy of Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy)

Looking Inside Nanomaterials in 3-D

ScienceDaily (May 16, 2011) — Scientists from Denmark, China and USA have developed a new method for revealing 3-D images of the structure inside a material.

Read complete article….

2011/05/162011/05/16

Economic Complexity Visualized–A New Mind Tool

03 Economy, Academia, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Key Players

face michael ostrolenk — Michael Ostrolenk

The Art of Economic Complexity

A new way to visualize a country’s development.

By TIM HARFORD

Graphic by CÉSAR A. HIDALGO and ALEX SIMOES

New York Times, 11 May 2011

EXTRACT: Strip away the mathematical language of economists, and conventional theories of economic growth are rather crude. Economies produce “stuff,” and if you want more stuff to come out of the process, put more stuff in (like human capital, say). Yet economies do not produce stuff so much as billions of distinct types of goods — perhaps 10 billion, according to Eric Beinhocker of the McKinsey Global Institute — ranging from size 34 dark stonewash bootcut jeans to beauty therapies involving avocado. The difference between China's economy and that of the United States is not simply that China's is smaller; it has a different structure entirely.

Read article, see graphs

Visit the MIT Economic Complexity Observatory

Phi Beta Iota: This is a very promising line of inquiry. It does not include the vital but poorly understood interactions among political-legal (integrity), socio-economic (fairness), ideo-cultural (education), and techno-demographic (balance), and natural-geographic (true cost, sustainability). As with most intellectual work these days, it is a thin slice across one dimension of very complex sphere–the world is NOT flat.

2011/05/06

Seth Godin: High School Done Right

04 Education, 11 Society, Academia, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

What's high school for?

Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:

How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
How to read critically.
The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

2011/05/01

Teachers: Our Front Line at Home, Abused

Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

What would taking $5B from Defense and put into nation wide teacher's salaries (not administrators who are grossly overpaid in comparison to their teachers) do?

The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI

The New York Times, April 30, 2011

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

Full article….

Phi Beta Iota: It is helpful to compare the salaries of teachers, responsible for the future of the country, and financial arbitragers allowed to destroy the entire economy without penalty.

2011/04/252011/04/25

New Student Group Questions 9-11 “Findings”

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Academia, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

New RSO questions validity of 9/11 attacks, calls for explanations

By David Oltean || April 24, 2011

Central Michigan Life

Nearly a decade has passed since Sept. 11, 2001, and many still vividly remember the fateful day when about 3,000 Americans lost their lives.

However, some are demanding a new explanation for the disaster.

A new registered student organization, 9/11 Truth, has been formed at Central Michigan University in an attempt to raise awareness of the physically unique collapses of the World Trade Center towers. The group follows the views of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group of more than 1,400 architects and engineers who have signed a petition demanding a federal investigation to re-explore the nature of the collapses.

Waterford junior Jared Weston formed the group after spending years conducting his own research on the 9/11 skyscraper collapses. Weston believes one of the most peculiar happenings on Sept. 11, 2001 was the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, which was not struck by a plane.

“What motivated me was the failure of the 9/11 Commission report to adequately address the collapse of building seven,” Weston said. “No steel high rises have ever collapsed from fire in the history of steel high rises, yet we have three instances all on the same day.”

Read rest of story…

See Also:

wtc7 series — A four-image progression of photos showing World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing down into its footprint. (click image to enlarge)

Source of photo

Journal: 9-11 WTC 7 You Tube Videos

911Truth.org Resource List

9-11 Truth Books & DVDs (29 Reviews)

2011/04/15

Harvard “Boys” Crash, Burn, No Apology

04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Academia, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Impotency

economicprincipals.com

March 27, 2011, David Warsh, Proprietor

A Recent Exercise in Nation-Building by Some Harvard Boys

It was worth a smile at breakfast that morning in February 2006, a scrap of social currency to take out into the world. Michael Porter, the Harvard Business School management guru, had grown famous offering competitive strategies to firms, regions, whole nations. Earlier he had taken on the problems of inner cities, health care and climate change. Now he was about to tackle perhaps the hardest problem of all (that is, after the United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).

He had become adviser to Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya.

Phi Beta Iota: Harvard is now the poster child for all that is wrong with education–no intelligence, no ethics, and grotesquely expensive. Yale can now claim the mantle in the East.

Read full original….

Safety copy below the line.

Continue reading “Harvard “Boys” Crash, Burn, No Apology”

2011/04/15

Seth Godin on Education Bubble & Alternative

04 Education, Academia, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

Buying an education or buying a brand?

It's reported that student debt in the USA is approaching a trillion dollars, five times what it was ten years ago.

Are those in debt buying more education or are they seeking better branding in the form of coveted diplomas?

Does a $40,000 a year education that comes with an elite degree deliver ten times the education of a cheaper but no less rigorous self-generated approach assembled from less famous institutions and free or inexpensive resources?

If not, then the money is actually being spent on the value of the degree, on the doors it will open and the jobs it will snag. If this marketing strategy works big, it pays for itself in no time.

A marketing tactic might move the dial, but that doesn't mean it's always worth the money.

The question is whether a trillion dollars is the right amount for individuals to spend marketing themselves. What would happen if people spent it building up a work history instead? On becoming smarter, more flexible, more self-sufficient and yes, able to take more risk because they owe less money…

There's no doubt that we need smarter and more motivated people in our organizations. I'm not sure we need them to be better labeled or more accredited.

Phi Beta Iota: This is why we feel very strongly that a Vice President for Education, Intelligence, & Research is needed; the corollary of this is that Cyber/IO should be about EDUCATION, not about corporate vapor-ware pretending to do attack and defend of systems that are in the proverbial Stone Age.

Category: Academia

3D Images of the Structure Inside Material