Faculty Attitudes Toward Athletics at NCAA Division II Institutions

Faculty members at institutions in three Division II conferences were surveyed regarding their opinions on general issues in intercollegiate athletics. In addition, faculty members at these institutions were asked to express their opinions and understanding as to the role of intercollegiate athletics and the place of faculty governance of athletics at their respective institutions. Analysis revealed that the demographic characteristics of NCAA divisional status, institutional status, gender, and past participation in athletics do influence the attitudes of faculty members and that these attitudes generally differ from faculty colleagues in Divisions I and III. Moreover, analysis noted that Division II faculty members see little faculty engagement with athletics and thus see little faculty governance beyond that of the appointed Faculty Athletics Representative. Finally, Division II faculty members noted a utilitarian function for athletics, often being utilized as a recruitment tool for students or providing activity for some segment of a varied student population

Educated Ignorance: What Faculty Don’t Know and Why Faculty Can’t Lead Intercollegiate Athletics Reform

Contemporary writings on the tension of athletics and academics in American higher education have often focused on the incompatibility of sporting endeavors and institutional missions. In particular, scholarship has stressed the ills of a financially directed collegiate sports machine at odds with the general educational aims of colleges and universities. However, this essay attempts to examine the historical and structural traditions of higher education, particularly those surrounding faculty, as a means of evaluating the tension. Moreover, the essay suggests a radical re-evaluation of those structures as a means to ameliorate the ongoing scandal in our institutions

Multiple-Carrier-Lifetime Model for Carrier Dynamics in InGaN/GaN LEDs with Non-Uniform Carrier Distribution

We introduce a multiple-carrier-lifetime model (MCLM) for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with non-uniform carrier distribution, such as in multiple-quantum-well (MQW) structures. By employing the MCLM, we successfully explain the modulation response of V-pit engineered MQW LEDs, which exhibit an S21 roll-off slower than -20 dB/decade. Using the proposed model and employing a gradient descent method, we extract effective recombination and escape lifetimes by averaging the carrier behavior across the quantum wells. Our results reveal slower effective carrier recombination and escape in MQW LEDs compared with LEDs emitting from a single QW, indicating the advantages of lower carrier density achieved through V-pit engineering. Notably, the effective carrier recombination time is more than one order of magnitude lower than the effective escape lifetime, suggesting that most carriers in the quantum wells recombine, while the escape process remains weak. To ensure the reliability and robustness of the MCLM, we subject it to a comprehensive three-fold validation process. This work confirms the positive impact of spreading carriers into several QWs through V-pit engineering. In addition, the MCLM is applicable to other LEDs with non-uniform carrier distribution, such as micro-LEDs with significant surface recombination and non-uniform lateral carrier profiles.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

The Light, for Two Narrators and Chamber Ensemble

The Light is a twenty-four minute composition for two narrators and chamber orchestra. The two narrators perform the roles of the Apostle John and Moses. After an overview of the piece and a brief history of pieces incorporating narrators, the essay focuses on my compositional process, describing how orchestration, drama, motive, and structure work together in the piece. The Light is organized as a series of five related scenes. In the first scene, God creates light. In the second scene, God places Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden to tend it, allowing them to eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appears, Adam and Eve succumb to his evil influence, and God banishes them from the Garden of Eden. Many generations have passed when Scene Three begins. Moses relates a story from Israel's journey in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The people had become frustrated with Moses and with God. When God sent serpents among them as punishment, they appealed to Moses to pray for them. God's answer was for Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever looked at the serpent would live. In Scene Four, John relates his vision of final redemption. New Jerusalem descends from heaven, with the River of Life and the Tree of Life ready to bring healing to the nations. Sadly, some people are not welcomed into the city, and the drama pauses to give respectful consideration to their fate. Finally, the fifth scene celebrates the eternal victory over sin, death, and the serpent of Eden. As I composed The Light, I had in mind the dramatic profile, the general motivic progression and the fundamental structural progression. However, most of the intricate interrelationships among orchestration, drama, motive, and structure were the result of informed intuition. Throughout the piece, each of these four elements interacts with the others, sometimes influencing and sometimes responding to them. My hope is that these subtle tensions propel the composition forward toward its ultimate resolution

HERMIES-3: A step toward autonomous mobility, manipulation, and perception

HERMIES-III is an autonomous robot comprised of a seven degree-of-freedom (DOF) manipulator designed for human scale tasks, a laser range finder, a sonar array, an omni-directional wheel-driven chassis, multiple cameras, and a dual computer system containing a 16-node hypercube expandable to 128 nodes. The current experimental program involves performance of human-scale tasks (e.g., valve manipulation, use of tools), integration of a dexterous manipulator and platform motion in geometrically complex environments, and effective use of multiple cooperating robots (HERMIES-IIB and HERMIES-III). The environment in which the robots operate has been designed to include multiple valves, pipes, meters, obstacles on the floor, valves occluded from view, and multiple paths of differing navigation complexity. The ongoing research program supports the development of autonomous capability for HERMIES-IIB and III to perform complex navigation and manipulation under time constraints, while dealing with imprecise sensory information