Improving instructional effectiveness with computer‐mediated communication

This study explores the use of asynchronous Computer‐Mediated Communication (CMC) in the delivery of instructional content, and points up the interaction among learners, as well as between learners and instructors. The instructional content in the project described was available to learners online as Microsoft Word documents, with email being used for communicating within the student group. Many students, as well as some of the instructors, felt uncomfortable with the flexibility and openness that a CMC environment allowed. However, once familiar with this process of instruction and interaction, learners were able to work consistently at their own pace, and understand that instructors are interested in every individual learner's opinion and in the collective views of the group. It was evident that a CMC‐based instructional delivery system, when carefully planned, has the potential to facilitate that outcome, and to improve instructional effectiveness

A noise assessment and prediction system

A system has been designed to provide an assessment of noise levels that result from testing activities at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The system receives meteorological data from surface stations and an upper air sounding system. The data from these systems are sent to a meteorological model, which provides forecasting conditions for up to three hours from the test time. The meteorological data are then used as input into an acoustic ray trace model which projects sound level contours onto a two-dimensional display of the surrounding area. This information is sent to the meteorological office for verification, as well as the range control office, and the environmental office. To evaluate the noise level predictions, a series of microphones are located off the reservation to receive the sound and transmit this information back to the central display unit. The computer models are modular allowing for a variety of models to be utilized and tested to achieve the best agreement with data. This technique of prediction and model validation will be used to improve the noise assessment system

Three dimensional manifolds all of whose geodesics are closed

We present some results concerning the Morse Theory of the energy function on the free loop space of the three sphere for metrics all of whose geodesics are closed. We also explain how these results relate to the Berger Conjecture in dimension three.Comment: 16 page

Nematodes of rodents in the United States with notes on nematode parasites of rodents in Kansas

Call number: LD2668 .R4 1965 O5

Air Power 2000: review essays on contemporary air power thought

Air power has since 1990 increasingly become the instrument of choice for American and European policymakers in dealing with recalcitrant regimes. It was the principal means of military force in Desert Storm, Deliberate Force, Desert Fox and Allied Force. Russia used air power extensively against Chechnya and no-fly zones have been implemented against Bosnia and Iraq throughout the 1990s. Political leaders and military commanders seem to find air power an unusually tempting instrument of force, believing air power to be a central component to complex international problems. Despite air power’s augmented role in crisis management, its employment and implications are not widely understood even among professional military officers. This volume is a collection of review essays that examine five recently published books on the topic of air power, identifying limitations to air power as well as strengths