Paul Feder Observatory Upgrades and Exoplanet and Variable Star Data

Before the upgrade to the dome and telescope, much of the work to use the telescope was done manually. One had to drive an hour round trip to the observatory at dusk and dawn to ensure that the telescope started up and shutdown properly. Proper startup included manually opening the lower dome flap via hand crank and briefly plugging in the top part of the dome to raise the upper slit. Shutting down the telescope during the summer required a person to be at the telescope by 5:00AM, before sunrise to make sure that the dome closed before the sun rose. Normally this prep work would take about 2 hours including driving time

Three Essays on Emotion Exchange in Marketing Relationships

Relationships are an integral part of everyday life and play a large role in how products are negotiated, delivered, and consumed. As researchers, our understanding of, and ability to predict relationship outcomes is being held back because emotions are complex. Not isolating emotion from the rest of the social exchange process limits our understanding of social exchange relationships. My dissertation begins to address this gap in social exchange relationship research and separates emotion from other forms of communication or information exchange. In essay 1, I describe the development and validation of a parsimonious, generalizable scale that measures emotion exchange in social exchange interactions. In essay 2, I demonstrate the exchange of emotion between two relational partners and examine potential factors that may influence the process of emotion exchange. I show that violating relational norms rules during an interaction will lead to emotion exchange. Through these studies, I begin to identify the impact that expressing emotion during a social exchange interaction has on the social exchange relationship. Using a social exchange framework, in essay 3, I empirically test the relationships between emotion exchange and the dimensions of trust. I find support for the positive influence of emotion exchange on relational outcomes such as salesperson-sales manager rapport. Finally, I show that sales manager calculative commitment negatively impacts the employee�s trust and calculative commitment.Business Administratio

Evaluation of the Adult Learning Grant cohort 2 (wave 1)

"The Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) are evaluating ALG on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills and the National Office of the Learning and Skills Council... The Adult Learning Grant (ALG) aims to support adults who have not yet obtained their first Level 2 or first Level 3 qualification. The ALG is intended to help adults with the additional costs of learning (for example, books, travel) through the provision of a means-tested monetary grant." - pp. i-ii