A study of ignimbrites in the Cordilleran region as a basis for interpretation of lunar plains

Progress in a study of lunar topography and geology by analyzing and mapping the earth's mantle is presented. Data from the study are used for the construction of a 600 page lunar topographic atlas. A list of research publications from the study is also included

Chapter 11- Preparing the Effective Mentee

The purpose of this chapter is to help the mentoring program director create, implement, and evaluate academic mentoring programs after identifying structures that can effectively prepare their mentors and mentees for a successful mentoring experience. Some of the considerations explored are mentor program structures that are relationally based, goal-oriented, and grounded in autonomy supportive strategies. This chapter opens with the author’s lens in order to describe a human development approach to mentoring and then how to prepare mentees to be self-directed. The third section portrays mentoring program structures that promote self-directed mentees. This chapter concludes with generalizable findings and recommendations based on key lessons learned. It is the author’s belief that mentees and mentors are learners who benefit most when they (a) have a clear understanding about the mentoring program’s purpose and objectives, (b) understand the rationale for and benefits of participating in a mentoring relationship, and (c) hold accurate schema for what is expected of them regarding program tasks and activities

Chapter 22- The Well-Prepared Adjunct: Peer Mentoring, Autonomy Supports, and Values-Based Pedagogy

This mentoring program was developed to meet two needs in the School of Human Development: college alumni who applied for adjunct faculty positions lacked college teaching experience, and non-alumni applicants lacked pedagogical skill with nontraditional adult learners. This college is a Hispanic-serving institution with core values of inclusion, diversity, respect, and social justice. Their transformational, culture-centered pedagogy is grounded in seven faculty values that develop learner competence across five domains: development, diversity, communication, research, and growth. The program meta-mentor describes how and why autonomy-supportive instruction (ASI), based on self-determination theory, is embedded into all elements of the adjunct faculty mentoring program structure: program design, implementation, assessment, and improvement. Two cross-generational and cross-cultural mentor-mentee pairs describe how they engaged with and applied ASI strategies in their relationship, teaching and peer observations, and reflective practice conversations. The case study concludes with lessons learned about the quality of faculty mentor-mentee relationships and its impact on their own professional learning and development

THE PARATEXT IN THE AGE OF ITS TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY: EXAMINING PARATEXTUALITY IN MODERN MASS MEDIA

This project complicates and expands upon the Genettian concept of paratext, focusing on paratextual functionality and meaning-making practices related to the development of American mass media during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Utilizing Ellen McCracken’s “interior” and “exterior” pathways as a basis for paratextual vector analysis, this dissertation examines paratextual functionality in four case studies focusing on the late 19th-century newspaper advertising of John Wanamaker, the WWII-era radio serial Captain Midnight, the 1950s television program The Disneyland Story, and the comment section of Breitbart News during the second decade of the 21st century

Increasing Community College Basic Skills English Instructors\u27 Use of Autonomy Supportive Instruction to Impact Students\u27 Perceptions of Autonomy and Engagement

There is concern in California community colleges about student success because persistence rates have decreased and graduation rates have declined. Basic skills students are underserved and underprepared, and their success rates are lower than traditional students. Nine California Community College Student Success Task Force recommendations were designed to increase basic skills student success. In this quasi-experimental study three basic skills English instructors were trained on two of the six autonomy-supportive instruction strategies. The training design was based on characteristics of effective ASI interventions and addressed recommendations to improve community college basic skills instruction with professional development on research-based pedagogies. The purpose of this study was to describe the impact of instructors\u27 use of autonomy supportive statements that nurtured students\u27 inner motivational resources and that provided informational feedback on their students\u27 perceived autonomy and engagement. Instructors attended a training session and two coaching sessions facilitated using ASI strategies. Data to measure instructors\u27 autonomy orientation were collected using a slightly modified Problems in Schools questionnaire and transcriptions of instructors comments during classroom instruction, that were coded on the ASI Observation Coding Guide, a new instrument based on the literature. Student autonomy and engagement was measured with a new instrument, the Student Learning Survey that combined autonomy items from the Learning Climate Questionnaire and classroom engagement items from the National Survey of Student Engagement. Results were compared between groups and across measurement times for control and treatment groups. Results showed that treatment instructors increased use of autonomy supportive statements and decreased use of controlling statements. Students reported higher perceived autonomy and increased engagement immediately following treatment, compared to pretest, but perceptions returned to pretest levels at the maintenance measure 3 weeks after posttest. Limitations were related the small population of instructors and a small student sample with missing data due to inconsistent classroom attendance. Suggestions for future research include replicating this study with a larger sample, providing scaffolds for faculty to sustain their provision of autonomy during maintenance, and providing an internet-based student survey available over a short amount of time to reduce the amount of missing student data

First Impressions, Second Appraisals: Going Beyond the “Paratextual Contract” in The American Televisual Opening Title Sequence

Much of the existing academic discourse surrounding opening title sequences suggests that they function primarily by providing viewers with information concerning a program’s characters, settings, genre and themes. Such accounts seemingly fail to recognize more nuanced concurrent functions. Utilizing the concept of paratexts originally proposed by Gerard Genette in combination with a neoformalist approach to analysis, this project identifies patterns, narrative components, stylistic elements and various industrial and authorial characteristics within the field of American televisual opening title sequences in order to explore some of these underlying concomitant functions, and classify the segments that perform them accordingly

Characterization of Ultra Wideband Multiple Access Performance Using Time Hopped-Biorthogonal Pulse Position Modulation

The FCC\u27s release of its UWB First Report and Order in April 2002 spawned renewed interest in impulse signaling research. This work combines Time Hopped (TH) multiple access coding with 4-ary UWB Biorthogonal Pulse Position Modulation (TH-BPPM). Multiple access performance is evaluated in a multipath environment for both synchronous and asynchronous networks. Fast time hopping is implemented by replicating and hopping each TH-BPPM symbol NH times. Bit error expressions are derived for biorthogonal TH-BPPM signaling and results compared with previous orthogonal TH-PPM work. Without fast time hopping (NH = 1), the biorthogonal TH-BPPM technique provided gains equivalent to Gray-coded QPSK; improved BER at a given Eb/No and an effective doubling of the data rate. A synchronized network containing up to NT = 15 transmitters yields an average BER improvement (relative to an asynchronous network) of approximately -6.30 dB with orthogonal TH-PPM and approximately 5.9 dB with biorthogonal TH-BPPM. Simulation results indicate that doubling the number of multipath replications (NMP) reduces BER by approximately 3.6 dB. Network performance degrades as NT and NMP increase and synchronized network advantages apparent in the NMP = 0 case diminish with multipath interference present. With fast time hopping (NH \u3e 1) improves BER performance whenever NMP \u3c NH while reducing effective data rate by 1/NH. Compared to the NH = 1 synchronized network, TH-BPPM modulation using NH = 10 provides approximately 5.9 dB improvement at NMP = 0 and approximately 3.6 dB improvement at NMP = 5. At NMP = 10, the BER for the hopped and NH = 1 cases are not statistically different; with NH = 10 hops, BER improvement varies from approximately 0.57 to 0.14 dB (minimal variation between synchronous and asynchronous network performance)

Downsizing : an analysis of organisational strategies and human resource management outcomes

The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between loss and retention of key employees in downsizing organisations and organisational performance. The purpose of this was to develop an understanding of the organisational performance that results when downsizing organisations are unable to retain their key workers. The secondary objective of the research was to examine the factors that make up a downsizing organisation\u27s employee selection process in order to determine how these factors affect loss and retention of key workers. The research was guided by a theoretical framework developed by Kozlowski et al (1993) and Thornhill and Saunders (1998) and utilised a multi-method research approach suggested by Creswell (1994) and Eisenhardt (1989). The contextual issues in downsizing employee selection were examined through analysis of seven Western Australian case study organisations. The case studies, through structured interviews and secondary data, provided insight into the complexity of the employee selection process, enabled a rich contextual base which aided in understanding the downsizing process, informed the development of a survey instrument, and provided for triangulation of the data. Each organisation was analysed as a unique site. Cross-site analysis techniques, based on pattern analysis, provided a better understanding of the selection process (Miles and Huberman, 1984). The downsizing process for each organisation was mapped as a process model in order to compare the employee selection process across the organisations. The survey sampling frame was based on the Kompass Australia (1999) data set, which included around 26,000 organisations. A random sample of the data set resulted in selection of 1860 Australian organisations for survey. The firms constituted a wide cross-section of Australian private and public sector organisations and varied in size as well as type of company. Some 422 organisations responded to the survey for a response rate of 23%. Firms provided demographic information as well as data on the process used for employee selection, whether or not the firm lost key employees and managers, use of redundancy packages, use of selection strategies, and organisational performance subsequent to the downsizing. Factor analysis was used to develop a simplified classification system for organisational performance. This resulted in a reduction of the performance variables to two categories: employee performance and financial performance. The two factors of organisational performance were then used for cluster analysis in order to classify the organisations according to the two performance dimensions. The results of this stage of the analysis suggested that the best fit for modelling the groupings of performance was based on a three-cluster solution. It was discovered that most of the organisations, 52%, exhibited declines in both employee and financial performance. Additionally only 33% of the organisations improved both financial and employee performance, and some 15% of the organisations improved financial performance despite declines in employee performance. The three groups of organisations were then examined for differences in loss and retention of key managers and employees. Using chi-square tests, it was discovered that 66% of the organisations that suffered declines in both financial and employee performance lost key employees during the downsizing process and that only 32% of those organisations that improved both financial and employee performance lost key managers. The results were statistically significant and supported the premise that loss and retention of key managers and key employees is closely associated with organisational performance in downsizing firms. The effects of the employee selection process on loss and retention of key managers and employees were next examined. It was discovered that larger organisations tended to lose a disproportionate level of both key managers and key employees, that the greater the proportion of staff that were shed the greater the probability of loss of key managers and employees, and that certain types of industries, such as mining companies, insurance and financial institutions, and utilities, demonstrated a high proportion of loss of key managers. The factors influencing loss of key managers included transfers to lower paying jobs as a downsizing alternative to cost reduction, the use of delayering as a downsizing target, and use of across-the-board staff .cuts to achieve cost reduction. Strategies that resulted in retention of key managers included the use of a competitive selection process that utilised selection criteria such as skills and experience. Key employees were lost to organisations that transferred workers to lower paying jobs, reduced the number of working hours, downsized as a result of merger or takeover, downsized in order to achieve economic turnaround as the primary goal, close specific work sites, and used voluntary redundancy as the primary downsizing strategy. It is argued that these results have significant implications for human resource management theory and practice, suggesting that employees must be valued as strategic assets not only in periods of expansion, but during organisational contraction

Service Learning: The Right Thing for the Wrong Reasons?

It is a deep and abiding truth that in helping others we help ourselves. Among the many benefits is knowledge. We learn things about others, life, and ourselves that are enriching, even ennobling