ADULT LEARNING ON THE INTERNET: ENGAGING THE eBAY AUCTION PROCESS

The current revolution of the Information Age is rapidly changing the complexion of many personal and corporate societies. This revolution is changing the methods people use to communicate with each other, research new information, solve problems, and transact business. The purpose of this study was to describe the learning strategies that adults use in learning to engage in the eBay auction process. The study used the following research questions: (a) what are the identified learning strategy preferences of adult learners using eBay, (b) how do the learning strategy preferences of eBay users compare to the norms for ATLAS, and (c) how do eBay users describe their learning processes related to getting started on eBay, participating in eBay activities,communicating on eBay, learning through eBay, and experiencing eBay? This study used a descriptive design along with the information and data gathering advantages of the Internet to collect data about how adults learn using the Internet. An online questionnaire which featured 19 qualitative questions and 11 quantitative Likert scale items was used to determine the perceptions of eBay participants. Assessing The Learning Strategies of AdultS (ATLAS) instrument was imbedded within the online questionnaire to determine the preferred strategies of eBay users. The study involved a representative sample of 380 eBay users which was identified by electronically downloading the e-mail addresses of participants in completed auctions. The sample was stratified by the 13 categories of items listed on eBay. Within each of these categories, high-volume completed auctions were selected in which the final sale price was under $10, between$11 and $100, and over$100

Charged particles in crossed and longitudinal electromagnetic fields and beam guides

We consider a class of electromagnetic fields that contains crossed fields combined with longitudinal electric and magnetic fields. We study the motion of a classical particle (solutions of the Lorentz equations) in such fields. Then, we present an analysis that allows one to decide which fields from the class act as a beam guide for charged particles, and we find some time-independent and time-dependent configurations with beam guiding properties. We demonstrate that the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations with all the fields from the class can be solved exactly. We study these solutions, which were not known before, and prove that they form complete and orthogonal sets of functions.Comment: 14 page

Selenium emission control at high temperatures with mineral sorbents, Final report, September 1, 1993--August 13, 1994

The focus of this project is on toxic heavy metal removal by sorbent injection in the upper-furnace region of a coal-fired boiler. Selenium is chosen as the candidate heavy metal to be studied because of its high volatility and associated difficulty in removal. The preliminary sorbent screening experiments were performed in a differential reactor, built in the first year of this project. A host of sorbents, such as, alumina, kaotinite, limestone and also hydrated lime were tested at a reaction temperature of 900{degrees}C, and for reaction duration of 4 hrs. The reason for choosing these minerals was because of their proven moderate to high capability of lead and cadmium capture, and also for moderate selenium capture at high temperatures, reported by recent studies. The sorbent screening experiments have used selenium dioxide as the Se source, since in the oxidizing atmosphere of the furnace, that is reported to be the existing form of selenium species. The preliminary sorbent screening experiments have shown that Ca(OH){sub 2} is the most promising sorbent for selenium capture out of all the sorbents tested. A careful review of the sorption results for Ca(OH){sub 2} has also revealed the strong possibility for occurrence of a chemical reaction. Since Se belongs to group VI of the periodic table along with sulfur, and shares many common properties with the latter, formation of a calcium selenite (CaSeO{sub 3}) or selenate (CaSeO{sub 4}) compound is likely by the reaction of CaO with SeO{sub 2}. The captured selenium has exhibited poor leachability in water, a property which is also shared by CaSeO{sub 4}. The presence of CaSeO{sub 4} is confirmed by the X-ray diffraction analysis of the sorbent sample. Preliminary studies for investigating the effect of temperature on SeO{sub 2}/Ca(OH){sub 2} reaction have shown that the percent of water-leachable selenium increases with decreasing reaction temperature

Bedforms of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica: Character and Origin

Bedforms of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica both record and affect ice flow, as shown by geophysical data and simple models. Thwaites Glacier flows across the tectonic fabric of the West Antarctic rift system with its bedrock highs and sedimentary basins. Swath radar and seismic surveys of the glacier bed have revealed soft-sediment flutes 100 m or more high extending 15 km or more across basins downglacier from bedrock highs. Flutes end at prominent hard-bedded moats on stoss sides of the next topographic highs. We use simple models to show that ice flow against topography increases pressure between ice and till upglacier along the bed over a distance that scales with the topography. In this basal zone of high pressure, ice-contact water would be excluded, thus increasing basal drag by increasing ice-till coupling and till flux, removing till to allow bedrock erosion that creates moats. Till carried across highlands would then be deposited in lee-side positions forming bedforms that prograde downglacier over time, and that remain soft on top through feedbacks that match till-deformational fluxes from well upglacier of the topography. The bedforms of the part of Thwaites surveyed here are prominent because ice flow has persisted over a long time on this geological setting, not because ice flow is anomalous. Bedform development likely has caused evolution of ice flow over time as till and lubricating water were redistributed, moats were eroded and bedforms grew