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Description of the development and use of a dynamic portal for supporting an alliance of colleges and universities focused on supporting students with disabilities and transitioning to careers in science and technology. Called SOAR, the portal is designed to support separate institutes achieve collective impact through shared measures. Significant aspects of SOAR are the user-driven design with three different communication roles, dynamic generation of survey forms, the ability to schedule surveys, collecting data through the surveys, and data presentation through dynamic chart generation. SOAR utilizes and advances the best practices of Universal Access and is central to the alliance’s ability to empower individuals with disabilities to live their best lives. One of the most interesting features is the ability for different institutes to customize their forms and collect campus-relevant data that can be changed and the application of machine learning to produce the dynamic chart generation. SOAR allows the alliance to meet individual campus needs and the reporting and evaluation needs of the National Science Foundation. 

A controlled amount of helium-4 is adsorbed onto a microelectromechanical oscillator. The number of 4He atomic monolayers is extracted from the change of the effective mass of the oscillator by measuring the resonance frequency shift of the oscillator in its shear eigenmode. The method gives a mass resolution of ≈7×10−17kg, and allows for direct measurement of the 4He adsorption level with the same device that is used in 3He experiments. 

A new 3D focal control system composed of arrayed optofluidic prisms is presented. Through dynamic control of the fluid-fluid interface via electrowetting, incoming rays are spatially steered to achieve 3D focal control. Analytical study identifies the prism angle required to obtain a focal point at Pfocal = (fx, fy, fz) located in 3D space. Experimentally, an arrayed system has demonstrated its 3D focal tunability along 0 ≤ fx ≤ 30, 0 ≤ fy ≤ 30, and 500 ≤ fz ≤ ∞ in millimeters. This new lens capability for 3D focal control can be potentially used for tracking eye movement for smart displays, or solar tracking for smart compact concentrated photovoltaic systems. 

Engineering education researchers and practitioners have driven instructional innovation in undergraduate engineering instruction. Much of the research about educational innovation has focused on undergraduate classrooms in large enrollment courses and/or research-intensive institutions. Propagation of innovations across settings, especially those quite unlike the original context, has received less attention in the literature. This includes liberal arts institutions, which collectively educate a large number of undergraduate engineering students in various contexts. Therefore, this study focuses on the implementation of an instructional innovation in a liberal arts institution that started a new engineering program to educate a regional engineering workforce. This qualitative study documented the experiences of one engineering instructor who adopted and adapted a blended learning environment for undergraduate dynamics designed to promote active and collaborative learning in undergraduate engineering courses. We analyzed interviews, documents, artifacts, visual materials, and field notes to examine the propagation of the instructional system in context with cultural features in local institution settings. Our findings show how an engineering instructor orchestrated a culture-aligned adoption and adaptation of an instructional innovation. Using reflective practice, the research participant adapted the implemented innovative instruction to their hands-on institution culture, such as adjusting expectations in content, adapting resources to students’ individual needs, adjusting uncertainty of problem solving, and adapting to a hands-on institution culture. This research highlights the important role of institutional culture in local adaptations of educational innovations, and it provides the community with an expanded way to think about innovation propagation. 

In WSe2 intense THz fields are found to enhance transmission at 400 nm, while reducing it at 800 nm. The differential transmission is proportional to the field amplitude. The nonlinear responses are fast, yet non-adiabatic.