Adapting Consulting Practices for Struggling Students

Since 2007, the Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) has consulted with over 22,587 students. In the majority of consultations, the standard 45-minute consultation gives students confidence in their abilities to produce quality papers and empowers them to feel strongly about the improvements they have made. Our over-arching goal is to help students become better writers through nondirective consultation sessions; however, it may be more difficult to achieve this goal with a subgroup of students seeking to overcome internal struggles with the writing experience. Over 23% of the students who utilize the UWC’s services indicate (by self-report) that they struggle with some aspect of the writing processUniversity Writing Cente

Duality for Finite Multiple Harmonic q-Series

We define two finite q-analogs of certain multiple harmonic series with an arbitrary number of free parameters, and prove identities for these q-analogs, expressing them in terms of multiply nested sums involving the Gaussian binomial coefficients. Special cases of these identities--for example, with all parameters equal to 1--have occurred in the literature. The special case with only one parameter reduces to an identity for the divisor generating function, which has received some attention in connection with problems in sorting theory. The general case can be viewed as a duality result, reminiscent of the duality relation for the ordinary multiple zeta function.Comment: 12 pages AMSLaTeX. Submitted for publication October 26, 2003; revised September 14, 2004. New title reflects change in emphasis and new section devoted to connections with inverse pairs and Hoffman duality. References added and typos correcte

The influence of legislative fiscal analysts in the state budget process.

This research found that the majority of all respondents perceived legislative fiscal analysts to be influential in the state budget process, although different degrees of influence were found among the four states under study. Legislative fiscal analysts are influential in the budget process because they are information providers. In addition to providing basic budgetary information, legislative fiscal analysts are influential because they narrow the range of legislative discussion by identifying issues, developing policy alternatives, and/or making specific budget recommendations. The provision of information can occur through a variety of duties and roles that legislative fiscal analysts perform. The most important duty performed by the legislative fiscal analysts is the review and analysis of agency requests and executive recommendations. Of the various roles that analysts can take on during the budget process such as clerical worker, monitor of expenditures, facilitator of information, and policy initiator, the facilitator role was found to be the most appropriate role for most of the legislative fiscal analysts in this study. The ability of some analysts to make budget recommendations for the legislature, a duty associated with the policy initiator role, gave rise to higher perceived levels of influence for some of those analysts. Expertise in a particular policy area, tenure on the job, frequency of contact with other key budget actors, and visibility in the budget process are also important factors conditioning influence.This study assessed the duties, roles, relationships, and influence of legislative fiscal analysts in the state budget process. Key budget actors including legislative fiscal analysts, legislators, agency personnel, and executive budget analysts were interviewed by telephone in four states, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Maine. The research answers several broad questions. First, what are the primary duties and most useful types of information provided to legislators by legislative fiscal analysts? Second, what are legislative fiscal analyst roles and relationships with legislators, agency personnel, and executive budget analysts? Third, what is the perceived level of legislative fiscal analyst influence? Finally, what are the factors that condition this influence

Pre-play Learning and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon

Elicited preference rankings for two lotteries are typically inconsistent in choice and price. We test whether pre-play learning makes preference rankings consistent. Pre-play learning denotes ex-ante lottery learning, where subjects observe playing lotteries before making decisions. We find that pre-play learning makes the average selling prices for the p-bet, of subjects who choose the p-bet, higher than their average selling prices for the $-bet. However, pre-play learning is not strong enough to equalize the rates of standard and non-standard reversals, although pre-play learning reduces the rate of standard reversals

Inclusion and Equity Committee Diverse Recruitment Task Force 1 “Literature Review”

Engage in a literature review of current recruitment of underrepresented groups and from the literature review, recommend a series of policies that encapsulate best practices for use at the UNLV Libraries

Contrast Effects in Investment and Financing Decisions

Contrast effects, a bias caused by a prior stimulus, has not been extensively studied in a financial context. This study develops an experimental design to examine whether contrast effects distort the risk attitudes of individuals under a choice-based elicitation procedure. We find that individuals exposed to a positive stimulus amplify risk-seeking in investment decisions as opposed to individuals exposed to a negative stimulus. However, individuals behave similarly in making financing decisions regardless of different economic stimuli, which could suggest that financing decisions require a high cognitive load. On average, individuals spent 4% more time and changed their answers 4% more often in making financing decisions than investment decisions. The results suggest financing decisions may require a higher mental effort, and provide robust evidence that contrast effects can lead to mistakes in investment decisions

New Maser Emission from Nonmetastable Ammonia in NGC 7538. II. Green Bank Telescope Observations Including Water Masers

We present new maser emission from ^{14}NH_3 (9,6) in NGC 7538. Our observations include the known spectral features near v_LSR = -60 km/s and -57 km/s and several more features extending to -46 km/s. In three epochs of observation spanning two months we do not detect any variability in the ammonia masers, in contrast to the >10-fold variability observed in other ^{14}NH_3 (9,6) masers in the Galaxy over comparable timescales. We also present observations of water masers in all three epochs for which emission is observed over the velocity range -105 km/s < v_LSR < -4 km/s, including the highest velocity water emission yet observed from NGC 7538. Of the remarkable number of maser species in IRS 1, H_2O and, now, ^{14}NH_3 are the only masers known to exhibit emission outside of the velocity range -62 km/s < v_LSR < -51 km/s. However, we find no significant intensity or velocity correlations between the water emission and ammonia emission. We also present a non-detection in the most sensitive search to date toward any source for emission from the CC^{32}S and CC^{34}S molecules, indicating an age greater than \approx 10^4 yr for IRS 1-3. We discuss these findings in the context of embedded stellar cores and recent models of the region.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables; accepted to AJ; color figures only on arxiv; revised to include references and minor proof change

A System for Coding the Interaction in Focus Groups and Dyadic Interviews

Interaction among participants is the fundamental mechanism that generates data in focus groups. Despite calls for ways to analyze interaction in focus groups, there is still an unmet need to develop such tools. We present a coding system to investigate interaction by emphasizing how participants use the substantive aspects of the topics they discuss. We then apply it to the question of how conversations in dyadic interviews (with two participants) compare to discussions in focus groups (with four or more participants). We find that dyadic interviews are more likely to contain explicit connections to the content of the previous speaker’s statement, and to generate more statements of agreement, indicating a higher degree of mutual attunement. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our coding system in one particular context. We conclude by considering both the limitations of this system and the possibilities for extending it in future research

Cellular Scale Anisotropic Topography Guides Schwann Cell Motility

Directed migration of Schwann cells (SC) is critical for development and repair of the peripheral nervous system. Understanding aspects of motility specific to SC, along with SC response to engineered biomaterials, may inform strategies to enhance nerve regeneration. Rat SC were cultured on laminin-coated microgrooved poly(dimethyl siloxane) platforms that were flat or presented repeating cellular scale anisotropic topographical cues, 30 or 60 µm in width, and observed with timelapse microscopy. SC motion was directed parallel to the long axis of the topography on both the groove floor and the plateau, with accompanying differences in velocity and directional persistence in comparison to SC motion on flat substrates. In addition, feature dimension affected SC morphology, alignment, and directional persistence. Plateaus and groove floors presented distinct cues which promoted differential motility and variable interaction with the topographical features. SC on the plateau surfaces tended to have persistent interactions with the edge topography, while SC on the groove floors tended to have infrequent contact with the corners and walls. Our observations suggest the capacity of SC to be guided without continuous contact with a topographical cue. SC exhibited a range of distinct motile morphologies, characterized by their symmetry and number of extensions. Across all conditions, SC with a single extension traveled significantly faster than cells with more or no extensions. We conclude that SC motility is complex, where persistent motion requires cellular asymmetry, and that anisotropic topography with cellular scale features can direct SC motility