Adapting Consulting Practices for Struggling Students

Since 2007, the Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) has consulted with over 22,587 students. In the majority of consultations, the standard 45-minute consultation gives students confidence in their abilities to produce quality papers and empowers them to feel strongly about the improvements they have made. Our over-arching goal is to help students become better writers through nondirective consultation sessions; however, it may be more difficult to achieve this goal with a subgroup of students seeking to overcome internal struggles with the writing experience. Over 23% of the students who utilize the UWC’s services indicate (by self-report) that they struggle with some aspect of the writing processUniversity Writing Cente

Exciton Condensation in a Holographic Double Monolayer Semimetal

The formation of intra-layer and inter-layer exciton condensates in a model of a double monolayer Weyl semi-metal is studied in the strong coupling limit using AdS/CFT duality. We find a rich phase diagram which includes phase transitions between inter-layer and intra-layer condensates as the charge densities and the separation of the layers are varied. The tendency to inter-layer condensation is strongest when the charge densities are balanced so that the weak coupling electron and hole Fermi surfaces would be nested. For systems with multiple species of massless Fermions, we find a novel phase transition where the charge balance for nesting occurs spontaneously.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Repository as a service (RaaS)

In his oft-quoted seminal paper ‘Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure For Scholarship In The Digital Age’ Clifford Lynch (2003) described the Institutional Repository as “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.” This paper seeks instead to define the repository service at a more primitive level, without the specialism of being an ‘Institutional Repository’, and looks at how it can viewed as providing a service within appropriate boundaries, and what that could mean for the future development of repositories, our expectations of what repositories should be, and how they could fit into the set of services required to deliver an Institutional Repository service as describe by Lynch.<br/

Disruptive New Firms in the Sharing Economy: A Process View of Corporate Reputations

This thesis addresses the formation of corporate reputations for digital platform-based disruptive new firms (DNFs) in the sharing economy. I provide one of the first empirical studies to examine the process by which reputations unfold over time, taken from a socially constructed view. I offer a nuanced understanding into the formation of both market and character reputations. I conduct a longitudinal qualitative analysis of a typical case of DNFs in the sharing economy, Uber Technologies Inc. The findings highlight that DNFs develop rapid market reputations and may sustain it in light of misconduct and wrongdoing. The impact of enduring misconduct, places a negative pressure on DNFs’ character reputations, however limited. I evaluate stakeholder sensemaking in two marketplaces: the marketplace of goods and services and the marketplace of ideas (Mahon & Wartick, 2003). In the former, DNFs are subject to rapid market responses by primary stakeholders, investors, who by rewarding firms on meeting economic imperatives, incite the adoption of precarious practices. In the marketplace of ideas, misconduct and wrongdoing evoke more significant tensions between economic and social values. The nature of DNFs wrongdoing often resides in a grey zone, which drives contested understandings in the marketplace of ideas. Enduring and positive market signals of DNFs’ market reputations also interfere with stakeholder sensemaking. As a result, character reputations take time to form and place limited pressure on market reputations. I also highlight that the embeddedness of a CEO-founder and the firm is a critical mechanism by which DNFs may ward off damage to character reputations

Mating Patterns and Post-Mating Isolation in Three Cryptic Species of the Engystomops Petersi Species Complex

Determining the extent of reproductive isolation in cryptic species with dynamic geographic ranges can yield important insights into the processes that generate and maintain genetic divergence in the absence of severe geographic barriers. We studied mating patterns, propensity to hybridize in nature and subsequent fertilization rates, as well as survival and development of hybrid F1 offspring for three nominal species of the Engystomops petersi species complex in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador. We found at least two species in four out of six locations sampled, and 14.3% of the wild pairs genotyped were mixed-species (heterospecific) crosses. We also found reduced fertilization rates in hybrid crosses between E. petersi females and E. “magnus” males, and between E. “magnus” females and E. “selva” males but not in the reciprocal crosses, suggesting asymmetric reproductive isolation for these species. Larval development times decreased in F1 hybrid crosses compared to same species (conspecific) crosses, but we did not find significant reduction in larval survival or early metamorph survival. Our results show evidence of post-mating isolation for at least two hybrid crosses of the cryptic species we studied. The general decrease in fertilization rates in heterospecific crosses suggests that sexual selection and reinforcement might have not only contributed to the pattern of call variation and behavioral isolation we see between species today, but they may also contribute to further signal divergence and behavioral evolution, especially in locations where hybridization is common and fertilization success is diminished

Mating Patterns and Post-Mating Isolation in Three Cryptic Species of the Engystomops Petersi Species Complex

Determining the extent of reproductive isolation in cryptic species with dynamic geographic ranges can yield important insights into the processes that generate and maintain genetic divergence in the absence of severe geographic barriers. We studied mating patterns, propensity to hybridize in nature and subsequent fertilization rates, as well as survival and development of hybrid F1 offspring for three nominal species of the Engystomops petersi species complex in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador. We found at least two species in four out of six locations sampled, and 14.3% of the wild pairs genotyped were mixed-species (heterospecific) crosses. We also found reduced fertilization rates in hybrid crosses between E. petersi females and E. “magnus” males, and between E. “magnus” females and E. “selva” males but not in the reciprocal crosses, suggesting asymmetric reproductive isolation for these species. Larval development times decreased in F1 hybrid crosses compared to same species (conspecific) crosses, but we did not find significant reduction in larval survival or early metamorph survival. Our results show evidence of post-mating isolation for at least two hybrid crosses of the cryptic species we studied. The general decrease in fertilization rates in heterospecific crosses suggests that sexual selection and reinforcement might have not only contributed to the pattern of call variation and behavioral isolation we see between species today, but they may also contribute to further signal divergence and behavioral evolution, especially in locations where hybridization is common and fertilization success is diminished

Patterns of female nest attendance in northern pintails and mallards

I examined the accuracy of using data collected by temperature sensing dummy eggs (hollow and switch) to determine female nest attendance in waterfowl. I monitored 3 northern pintails (Anas acuta) and 6 mallards (A. platyrhynchos) using closed circuit video recording. Differences in the time spent on the nest for an 8-hour recording period between dummy eggs and camera were similar between type (hollow and switch eggs, P = 0.93), species (P = 0.07), and date (P = 0.42). My results show that temperature data from hollow and switch eggs are an effective and accurate method to monitor female nest attendance for prairie-nesting waterfowl. I investigated the effects of nest site cover and nest site temperatures on the patterns of female nest attendance in pintails and mallards. I monitored nest attendance of 82 pintails (1094 days) and 94 mallards (761 days) in North Dakota in 2000-2001 using temperature sensing dummy eggs in nest bowls. Time spent on the nest per day (constancy) was lower for pintails (81.6 ± 0.31%) than mallards (83.2 ± 0.46%; P = 0.03), and pintails took more recesses per day (2.64 ± 1.07) than mallards (1.77 ± 1.07, P \u3c 0.001). For early nesting pintails and mallards, constancy decreased with increasing nest site cover (lateral concealment) and increased slightly for late nesting females (P \u3c 0.01). However, experimentally adding or removing nest site cover at mallard nests did not affect constancy (P = 0.13). For both species, females spent more time on the nest late in incubation when it rained than when it did not rain (P = 0.02). Pintails spread their incubation recesses more evenly over the daylight period than mallards, which concentrated their recesses in the evening (P \u3c 0.001). Maintaining a higher constancy resulted in a shorter incubation period for pintails (P \u3c 0.01) but not for mallards (P = 0.59). My results suggest that other factors such as body size and condition, or trade-offs between female condition and the risk of predation may influence female nest attendance in pintails and mallards to a greater extent than nest site cover