Study of the impact of mentoring relationships on the entry level job search process in the field of student affairs

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 7, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Sandy Hutchinson.Vita.Ed. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2010.The purpose of this study was to compare those emerging professionals in the field of student affairs who engaged in a mentoring relationship and those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship. Specific areas assessed included psychosocial support (self confidence, informed level of knowledge about the field, and skill development) and career preparation in the form of job search etiquette. The study population consisted of students who participated in a job search in the spring 2010 recruitment season. These students were accessed through the Oshkosh Placement Exchange (OPE) registration. The survey was distributed to 570 participants, and 183 surveys were collected, therefore yielding a response rate of 32%. The study findings revealed no significant difference in whether or not an emerging professional engaged in a mentoring relationship compared to those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship in the areas of psychosocial support (self confidence, informed level of knowledge about the field, and skill development). Those who had a mentor showed no significant difference in the length of time of the mentoring relationship or the differing modes of communication within the mentoring relationship. In addition, there was no significant difference found within the comparisons of gender pairings within the mentee-mentor relationship. Finally, there was a significant difference found with job search etiquette preparation for those who engaged in a mentoring relationship compared to those who were not engaged in the mentoring relationship. Implications for practice include supporting individuals who are embarking upon the first entry level job as this study showed a significant impact in those that were prepared through a mentoring relationship. Housing/residence life professionals should begin to spend more time on job search preparation programs as well as mentor matching as a student begins to explore the profession. There are also opportunities within the profession to enhance training for our seasoned professionals to understand the mentoring role and responsibilities. Finally, while the focus of this study was on those who did engage in a mentoring relationship, it is important to consider the impact on those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship. As professionals in student affairs, it will be important to seek out students to support who may not have access to a mentoring relationship or may not feel comfortable in approaching a mentor.Includes bibliographical reference

Lessons learned from the development and manufacture of ceramic reusable surface insulation materials for the space shuttle orbiters

Three ceramic, reusable surface insulation materials and two borosilicate glass coatings were used in the fabrication of tiles for the Space Shuttle orbiters. Approximately 77,000 tiles were made from these materials for the first three orbiters, Columbia, Challenger, and Discovery. Lessons learned in the development, scale up to production and manufacturing phases of these materials will benefit future production of ceramic reusable surface insulation materials. Processing of raw materials into tile blanks and coating slurries; programming and machining of tiles using numerical controlled milling machines; preparing and spraying tiles with the two coatings; and controlling material shrinkage during the high temperature (2100-2275 F) coating glazing cycles are among the topics discussed

Exogenously added GPI-anchored tissue inhibitor of matrix metal loproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) displays enhanced and novel biological activities

The family of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) exhibits diverse physiological/biological functions including the inhibition of active matrix metalloproteinases, regulation of proMMP activation, cell growth, and the modulation of angiogenesis. TIMP-1 is a secreted protein that can be detected on the cell surface through its interaction with surface proteins. The diverse biological functions of TIMP-1 are thought to lie, in part, in the kinetics of TIMP-1/MMP/surface protein interactions. Proteins anchored by glycoinositol phospholipids (GPIs), when purified and added to cells in vitro, are incorporated into their surface membranes. A GPI anchor was fused to TIMP-1 to generate a reagent that could be added directly to cell membranes and thus focus defined concentrations of TIMP-1 protein on any cell surface independent of protein-protein interaction. Unlike native TIMP-1, exogenously added GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein effectively blocked release of MMP-2 and MMP-9 from osteosarcoma cells. TIMP-1-GP1 was a more effective modulator of migration and proliferation than TIMP-1. While control hTIMP-1 protein did not significantly affect migration of primary microvascular endothelial cells at the concentrations tested, the GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein showed a pronounced suppression of endothelial cell migration in response to bFGF. In addition, TIMP-1-GPI was more effective at inducing microvascular endothelial proliferation. In contrast, fibroblast proliferation was suppressed by the agent. Reagents based on this method should assist in the dissection of the protease cascades and activities involved in TIMP biology. Membrane-fixed TIMP-1 may represent a more effective version of the protein for use in therapeutic expression

Nouvelles trappes à sédiment destinées aux milieux peu profonds vidangeables

Les mesures de taux de sédimentation en milieux aquatiques peu profonds sont rares et sont souvent réalisées à l'aide de méthodes inadaptées. Les trappes à sédiment utilisées ont au minimum 25 cm de haut. Par conséquent, pour beaucoup de milieux peu profonds, plus de 25 % de la colonne d'eau ne sont pas échantillonnés. Nous avons pallié ce problème en développant un réceptacle mis en place dans les sédiments et destiné à recevoir des trappes à sédiment cylindriques. Le sommet des trappes peut alors être situé à moins de 5 cm de la surface des sédiments. Ce système est utilisable pour des milieux de profondeur inférieure à cinq mètres. Nos résultats montrent que les trappes à sédiments généralement utilisées sous-estiment de 35 à 79 % du taux de sédimentation. Les particules négligées proviennent des flux sédimentaires primaire et secondaire.Sediment traps are a unique tool that can be used to investigate particle settling flux throughout the water column, whereas other methods such as sediment dating can only measure accumulation rates of bottom sediments. Several works on trapping efficiency have shown that cylindrical traps with height/diameter ratio greater than to 5 (10 in turbulent systems) are the more appropriate instruments to correctly measure the downward settling flux of particulate matter. Furthermore, traps with a diameter narrower than 5 cm should be avoided. It is well documented that bottle-type vessels overestimate the settling sediment whereas funnels and flat containers underestimate it. All this support the idea that an ideal trap must be at least 25 cm high, and in this sense, numerous studies investigating shallow aquatic systems have neglected a large proportion of the water column. Consequently, mechanical and biological processes occurring in this layer of the water column have not been taken into accountWe have overcome this problem with a structure composed of two parts (figure 2).The first part is a receptacle (bucket) buried in the sediment and intended to receive cylindrical traps. The top of the receptacle is placed 2 cm above the sediment. A guide made of a rope covered with a PVC tube is placed in the centre of the receptacle. This receptacle is intended to receive cylindrical traps whose tops stand less than 5 cm higher than the surface of the sediments.The second part is composed of seven cylinders (height/diameter ratio=10) which are fixed in a PVC disc 600 mm in diameter and 15 mm deep. The cylinders are placed around the central axis of the PVC disc. The bottom of the cylinders is closed with a removable polyethylene cap. Another cylinder, through which the guide can slide, is placed on the central axis. The bottom part of this last cylinder is ballasted with concrete. The stability of this second part, during both deposition and removal steps, is ensured by the low density of the PVC disc, the ballast at the bottom of the central cylinder, and the symmetry of the structure. This removable part may be lifted from the receptacle with three 2 mm diameter ropes attached to the PVC disc and fixed to a float. This apparatus may be used as deep as five meters.The sediment traps were tested in two extensively-managed fish ponds in North-Eastern France. Our investigations showed that tubes with a diameter between 26 and 140 mm could be efficiently used to estimate the sedimentation rate, whereas cylinders with a narrower diameter missed a large amount of particles. The use of tubes with a diameter above 50 mm, which is preferable for the study of turbulent systems, seems to allow the collection of sufficient sediment during a short period of time. We selected tubes with a diameter of 57 mm, which made it possible to handle them easily during the removal. Our investigations showed that in turbulent systems and for high sedimentation rates (> 5 kg·m-2 ·month-1), the top of the cylinders must be placed 1 cm above the top of the PVC disc. When considering low sedimentation rates (< 5 kg·m-2 ·month-1), we did not observe any significant differences between the cylinders placed 0 and 1 cm above the PVC disc.Complementary investigations were conducted in order to compare sedimentation rates estimated 1) by the apparatus we designed, in which the top of the cylinders was placed 5 cm above the sediment surface, 2) by traditional traps (57 mm in diameter and a height/diameter ratio of 5) in which the top of the cylinders was 28.5 cm above the sediment surface.These results showed that in shallow systems (1.2 m deep), traditional traps underestimate the downward settling flux of particulate matter by 35 to 79%. Furthermore, we compared the organic matter content of the sediment collected by the two types of traps with the organic matter content of bottom sediment, suspended particles, and submerged macrophytes. Results showed that the underestimation of particles was not only due to the resuspension of bottom sediment, but also to the sedimentation of phytoplankton and submerged macrophyte fragments which are not collected by the traditional traps

A 2D position sensitive germanium detector for spectroscopy and polarimetry of high-energetic x-rays

We report on a first prototype 2D μ-strip germanium detector, developed at IKP-Jülich, and its performance test at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Beside an accurate determination of the detector response function, the polarization sensitivity has been addressed in this study. For this purpose photon beams at energies of 60 keV and 210 keV have been used

Relativistic quantum dynamics in strong fields: Photon emission from heavy, few-electron ions

Recent progress in the study of the photon emission from highly-charged heavy ions is reviewed. These investigations show that high-$Z$ ions provide a unique tool for improving the understanding of the electron-electron and electron-photon interaction in the presence of strong fields. Apart from the bound-state transitions, which are accurately described in the framework of Quantum Electrodynamics, much information has been obtained also from the radiative capture of (quasi-) free electrons by high-$Z$ ions. Many features in the observed spectra hereby confirm the inherently relativistic behavior of even the simplest compound quantum systems in Nature.Comment: Version 18/11/0

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde