Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer water reserves in Western Kansas

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Kansas, Geography, 2003

Preparing Tomorrow’s World Language Teacher Today: The Case for Seamless Induction

This essay is a call to action. It offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges facing world language (WL) teacher educators and their employers, the K-12 schools, during the teacher induction period. We propose a new paradigm for WL teacher education based on national accreditation standards, best-practice pedagogy, insights from the professional literature on methods education, and the enhanced role of the methods instructor/supervisor. In order to become successful in the classroom, the pre-service educator undergoes a seamless period of induction that is student-centered and college/university-supported beyond the classroom arena

Development of an advanced pitch active control system for a wide body jet aircraft

An advanced PACS control law was developed for a commercial wide-body transport (Lockheed L-1011) by using modern control theory. Validity of the control law was demonstrated by piloted flight simulation tests on the NASA Langley visual motion simulator. The PACS design objective was to develop a PACS that would provide good flying qualities to negative 10 percent static stability margins that were equivalent to those of the baseline aircraft at a 15 percent static stability margin which is normal for the L-1011. Also, the PACS was to compensate for high-Mach/high-g instabilities that degrade flying qualities during upset recoveries and maneuvers. The piloted flight simulation tests showed that the PACS met the design objectives. The simulation demonstrated good flying qualities to negative 20 percent static stability margins for hold, cruise and high-speed flight conditions. Analysis and wind tunnel tests performed on other Lockheed programs indicate that the PACS could be used on an advanced transport configuration to provide a 4 percent fuel savings which results from reduced trim drag by flying at negative static stability margins

International Sojourning in the U.S.: Perceptions from Children of a Visiting Scholar

The experiences of visiting university faculty have been documented in the literature, yet, there appears to be a dearth of studies concerning the impact of sojourning abroad on children of visiting scholars who join a parent for an extended visit to a host country. This article will present a case study that qualitatively examined the perceptions, expectations and reflections of two young Koreans who accompanied their father during his 10-month sabbatical at a large, public university in the South East United States. Specifically, data collected by the researchers through a series of interviews investigated socio-cultural and situational experiences and challenges reported by the participants who were living in a host country. The results of this study suggest that in order to have a successful international sojourn experience, prior to their departure, both visiting scholars and their accompanying family members should have a certain level of cultural competence and linguistic proficiency of the language of the host country, and be open to new life experiences and challenges that they will encounter abroad

Illegal or Undocumented: An Analysis of Immigrant Terminology in Contemporary American Media

This purpose of this study was to analyze the terms illegal alien, illegal immigrant, and undocumented immigrant in order to determine if these legal synonyms exhibit pragmatic differences in actual practice found in American media. Studies have reported that differences in terminology, metaphor, and discourse framing largely serve to dehumanize or empower immigrants for partisan purposes in legal language (Johnson 1996), politics (Mehan 1997), and in the media (Santa Ana, 1999). Given the semantic presumption of criminality with the terms illegal alien and illegal immigrant, it can be argued that undocumented immigrant is used in more positive contexts in the media when compared with the terms illegal alien or illegal immigrant. In order to test this theory, the authors used the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, 2016) to analyze the frequency, presumption of criminality in context, and different media outlets’ use of illegal alien, illegal immigrant, and undocumented immigrant. Results of this study found that the terms illegal immigrant and illegal alien have been used significantly more in American media than the term undocumented immigrant, although that trend appears to be shifting. While there was little difference in the presumption of criminality with illegal immigrant and undocumented immigrant, contexts using illegal alien assumed criminality twice as often as the other terms. Fox News and CNN used terms with illegal much more than any other group, although CNN has largely phased the terms out of use in recent years; NPR used the term undocumented immigrant significantly more than other media