The Railroad’s Impact on Land Values in the Upper Great Plains at the Closing of the Frontier

We show that the impact of transportation improvements on land values is complex with a direct, positive relationship on the price of land and also a positive relationship with the ratio of improved acres to total acres, another important influence on the per acre price of land. We construct a two step estimation that removes the impact of transportation outlets on the ratio of improved to total acres before including the transportation variables and the adjusted ratio variable as independent variables in a regression on price per acre. This estimation gives us the expected positive impact of railroads on land price. We also use Box-Cox regressions to show the semi-log form, a common model specification, may be inappropriate for our data and possibly then for other land price research.Box-Cox, Railroads, Great Plains

Addressing First-Year Retention Through Servant Leadership Guided Change at an Eastern Canadian University

Higher education institutions have long sought to understand and address the attrition of first-year students. This organizational improvement plan (OIP) addresses the high attrition rates for first-year students at a small university campus located in Eastern Canada. Situated within a multicampus university and in a part of the country experiencing declines in university-aged demographics, the campus faces challenges in both student recruitment and retention. The focus of this paper is on improving retention. This OIP begins by unpacking the political, economic, social, technological, and environmental factors that influence the campus as a way forward in analyzing the poor retention rates of first-year students. This analysis, in combination with publically available institutional data, is used as a point of departure in advancing a change plan to improve retention rates. Grounded in both key retention theory and leadership theory, this study provides a path forward that is led by servant leadership in creating change readiness and mobilizing the campus to improve retention. Through servant leadership guided change—and calling upon both appreciative and distributed leadership in operationalizing change—this work culminates in a comprehensive change plan that suggests faculty-based appreciative advising learning communities is the solution to poor attrition. The final change plan includes action planning, communication plans, and mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the change solution

New Geochemical and Isotopic Approaches to Shallow Crust Landform Evolution

Many researchers have studied the Guadalupe Mountains in detail and starting with King (1948), many of them have speculated about the timing of the uplift of the Guadalupe block. There are several competing hypotheses including Laramide, Basin and Range, and Rio Grande Rifting uplift scenarios. Using uranium-lead dating of scalenohedral spar found in small vug caves throughout the study area, I have dated the episodes of spar formation to two major phases, 36 to 33 Ma and 30 to 27 Ma. These two episodes of spar formation are in good agreement with the time frame of the ignimbrite flare up during the formation of the Basin and Range. I have also dated several older phases, all the way back to ~180 Ma, which all correspond to nearby (\u3c100 \u3eKm) known volcanic activity and provide a good argument for the hydrothermal genesis of the spar. By determining the depth of formation of the spar through a new speleogenetic model (supercritical CO2), age dating the cave spar through U-Pb dating techniques, and finding the temperature of formation of the spar through a newly calibrated δ88Sr thermometer and fluid inclusion assemblage analysis, I have been able to develop a thermochronometer in a region that has not had the typical apatite fission track and apatite thorium-helium methods available. Using this new method, along with U-Pb dating of calcite vein spar from the Border Fault Zone, I have constrained the timing of the uplift of the Guadalupe block to between 27 and 16 million years

Beyond Our Backyard: An Inquiry into International Alumni Giving at the University of Kansas

The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore the philanthropic giving behaviors of international alumni to a state public university (University of Kansas) once they graduated from the university. The primary data sample consists of degree holders from 2006 to 2015 who attended the University of Kansas as an international student (international alumni). I distinguished giving behaviors between international alumni living outside the United States and international alumni who reside in the United States (international expatriates). Additionally, giving behaviors of international alumni and domestic alumni who currently reside within the United States for the same time-period were explored for comparative purposes. Lastly, a sample of eight international alumni donors were chosen for qualitative interviews regarding their giving behavior and influences on their philanthropic decisions. Through data collection from the university registrar, endowment association, alumni association, and personal donor interviews, I explored the nature of international alumni giving and domestic alumni populations in order to better understand their varied levels of philanthropic support. Qualitative interview questions were designed to uncover answers and experiences that are difficult to collect through analytical data tables, including: (1) what inspired the participant to give a gift to their alma mater; (2) what did the experience of being a student at the university mean to the participant and their decision to give a gift; and (3) how philanthropy is viewed in the participant’s country of residence. The information gleaned from these interviews describe how these experiences and thoughts shape who they are as a donor. The quantitative portion of the study focused exclusively on giving behavior of the various alumni groups over the ten-year period from 2006 to 2015. Data on biographical demographics, degree type, country of origin, current residence and others were compiled to build a single data table for trend analysis. Patterns emerged showing what countries donors come from and currently reside, in terms of both dollars contributed and gift frequency. Trends provided aggregate data and information useful in understanding the context and overall picture of international alumni giving. The final step of this study utilized thematic analysis, exposing the similarities, patterns, trends and discrepancies within the qualitative interviews and the quantitative data gathered. Themes emerged around alumni giving domestically and from abroad, location, and gift frequency. The research resulted in five findings. First, international alumni populations grew at a higher rate than domestic alumni populations during the time period reviewed, with China replacing India as the top country of origin while KU international student populations overall became more homogeneous with less diversity. Second, comparing domestic alumni to international alumni- domestic alumni are more likely to give a gift, give larger gift amounts, and give more frequently. While international alumni gift amounts and frequency are more consistent with a smaller range. Third, former international students living in the U.S. (international expatriates) are more likely to give a gift than domestic alumni. However, domestic alumni give larger gifts and at a higher frequency than those of international origin living in the U.S. Fourth, international alumni living in the U.S. (international expatriates) are more likely to give than international alumni living abroad. However, international alumni living abroad give larger gifts. Lastly, the connection with a faculty or staff member, positive student experience and family or cultural upbringing are notable factors that influence the individual international alumni giving decision

Phi-four solitary waves in a parabolic potentia: existence, stability, and collisional dynamics

We explore a φ4 model with an added external parabolic potential term. This term dramatically alters the spectral properties of the system. We identify single and multiple kink solutions and examine their stability features; importantly, all of the stationary structures turn out to be unstable. We complement these with a dynamical study of the evolution of a single kink in the trap, as well as of the scattering of kink and anti-kink solutions of the model. We observe that some of the key characteristics of kink-antikink collisions, such as the critical velocity and the multi-bounce windows, are sensitively dependent on the trap strength parameter, as well as the initial displacement of the kink and antikink.Accepted manuscrip

Fibers of Generic Projections

Let X be a smooth projective variety of dimension n in P^r. We study the fibers of a general linear projection pi: X --> P^{n+c}, with c > 0. When n is small it is classical that the degree of any fiber is bounded by n/c+1, but this fails for n >> 0. We describe a new invariant of the fiber that agrees with the degree in many cases and is always bounded by n/c+1. This implies, for example, that if we write a fiber as the disjoint union of schemes Y' and Y'' such that Y' is the union of the locally complete intersection components of Y, then deg Y'+deg Y''_red <= n/c+1 and this formula can be strengthened a little further. Our method also gives a sharp bound on the subvariety of P^r swept out by the l-secant lines of X for any positive integer l, and we discuss a corresponding bound for highly secant linear spaces of higher dimension. These results extend Ziv Ran's "Dimension+2 Secant Lemma".Comment: Proof of the main theorem simplified and new examples adde