Learning at a Distance: Engaged or Not?

Distance learning is the fastest growing segment of postsecondary education. Almost 3 million students took at least one online course in fall 2005, an increase of more than 800,000 over the previous year (Allen and Seaman 2006). At the same time, questions persist about the quality of online learning. In one recent study, about two-fifths of senior academic officers at U.S. degree-granting higher education institutions expressed a belief that distance learning is inferior to face-to-face learning (Allen and Seaman 2006). Although some studies show that distance education learners benefit from their experiences to the same degree as campus-based learners (Dutton, Dutton, and Perry 2002; Neuhauser 2002), most of the work demonstrating positive outcomes in distance learning has focused on older students, who are often more motivated and have the self-discipline to manage effectively the unstructured nature of the distance learning environment (Dibiase 2000; Hardy and Boaz 1997)

Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining

This NIAC (NASA Advanced Innovative Concepts) work will focus on Mars and will build on previous efforts at analyzing atmospheric mining at Earth and the outer solar system. Spacecraft systems concepts will be evaluated and traded, to assess feasibility. However the study will primarily examine the architecture and associated missions to explore the closure, constraints and critical parameters through sensitivity studies. The Mars atmosphere consists of 95.5 percent CO2 gas which can be converted to methane fuel (CH4) and Oxidizer (O2) for chemical rocket propulsion, if hydrogen is transported from electrolyzed water on the Mars surface or from Earth. By using a highly elliptical Mars Molniya style orbit, the CO2 atmosphere can be scooped, ram-compressed and stored while the spacecraft dips into the Mars atmosphere at periapsis. Successive orbits result in additional scooping of CO2 gas, which also serves to aerobrake the spacecraft, resulting in a decaying Molniya orbit

“Putting Out Fires”: An Original Situational Comedy Pilot Episode Examining Modern Motherhood

Even in an age of easily accessible and ever-changing digital content, television remains one of the most influential modes of media. Shows, on television and on streaming services, play key roles in informing their audiences of societal conventions. Situational comedies are an easily identifiable genre on television and their popularity has not wavered as seen by their steadfast presence during primetime viewing slots. This thesis explores and analyzes how situational comedies have created spaces for potentially harmful stereotypes for their female characters, specifically mothers. The creative work of this thesis offers an original situational comedy pilot episode that looks to provide an example of a mother character that evades and defies the stereotypes that would be expected of her

The scaling of postcranial muscles in cats (Felidae) I: forelimb, cervical, and thoracic muscles

The body masses of cats (Mammalia, Carnivora, Felidae) span a ~300‐fold range from the smallest to largest species. Despite this range, felid musculoskeletal anatomy remains remarkably conservative, including the maintenance of a crouched limb posture at unusually large sizes. The forelimbs in felids are important for body support and other aspects of locomotion, as well as climbing and prey capture, with the assistance of the vertebral (and hindlimb) muscles. Here, we examine the scaling of the anterior postcranial musculature across felids to assess scaling patterns between different species spanning the range of felid body sizes. The muscle architecture (lengths and masses of the muscle‐tendon unit components) for the forelimb, cervical and thoracic muscles was quantified to analyse how the muscles scale with body mass. Our results demonstrate that physiological cross‐sectional areas of the forelimb muscles scale positively with increasing body mass (i.e. becoming relatively larger). Many significantly allometric variables pertain to shoulder support, whereas the rest of the limb muscles become relatively weaker in larger felid species. However, when phylogenetic relationships were corrected for, most of these significant relationships disappeared, leaving no significantly allometric muscle metrics. The majority of cervical and thoracic muscle metrics are not significantly allometric, despite there being many allometric skeletal elements in these regions. When forelimb muscle data were considered in isolation or in combination with those of the vertebral muscles in principal components analyses and MANOVAs, there was no significant discrimination among species by either size or locomotory mode. Our results support the inference that larger felid species have relatively weaker anterior postcranial musculature compared with smaller species, due to an absence of significant positive allometry of forelimb or vertebral muscle architecture. This difference in strength is consistent with behavioural changes in larger felids, such as a reduction of maximal speed and other aspects of locomotor abilities