Trends in the HIgher Education Labor Force: Identifying Changes in Worker Composition and Productivity

Higher education is a labor-intensive industry whose primary service, instruction, is delivered by a lecturer, accompanied by administrative support and various other services. Growing student enrollment necessitates some additional staffing; however, one would think that the recent and ongoing technological boom would have lessened the labor burden at colleges, but a close examination of the data suggests otherwise. In fact, the data reveals that colleges have generally increased their staff relative to enrollment and the number of degrees awarded, especially in the back office.One problem, critics claim, is that an onerous regulatory environment has been established that requires a myriad of regulations and reporting requirements, which are often unnecessary and redundant in nature. In order to comply with the government's requirements, colleges need to employ a staff that is responsible for providing the multiple state and federal agencies with compliance reports and data. This may be one piece of the puzzle, but it certainly does not tell the complete story of the burgeoning administrative staffs in higher education.This report will analyze employment trends and labor productivity at institutions of higher education over the past twenty years. What I find is that colleges have altered the composition of their work force by steadily increasing the number of managerial positions and support/service staff, while at the same time disproportionately increasing the number of part-time staff that provides instruction. Meanwhile, employee productivity relative to enrollment and degrees awarded has been relatively flat in the midst of rising compensation

The Bees of A.L. Mangham Jr. Regional Airport, Nacogdoches, Texas

The United States is home to about 4,000 species of native bees, and many are critically important due to the pollination services they provide (Buchman & Nabhan 1996). Most of these are inconspicuous, solitary bees that nest in the ground. In recent years, a number of bee species have been shown to be in decline (Burkle 2013). Due to these declines, it is important to study and provide habitat for local bee populations. As a result of periodic mowing, the surroundings of the A.L. Mangham Jr. Regional Airport in Nacogdoches County, Texas provide a grassy, prairie-like habitat that results in a high diversity of wildflowers. This site may contain high bee diversity as well. In order to explore this possibility, a survey of bees at this location was conducted in the late summer and fall of 2016

On the Lattice Distortion Problem

We introduce and study the \emph{Lattice Distortion Problem} (LDP). LDP asks how "similar" two lattices are. I.e., what is the minimal distortion of a linear bijection between the two lattices? LDP generalizes the Lattice Isomorphism Problem (the lattice analogue of Graph Isomorphism), which simply asks whether the minimal distortion is one. As our first contribution, we show that the distortion between any two lattices is approximated up to a $n^{O(\log n)}$ factor by a simple function of their successive minima. Our methods are constructive, allowing us to compute low-distortion mappings that are within a $2^{O(n \log \log n/\log n)}$ factor of optimal in polynomial time and within a $n^{O(\log n)}$ factor of optimal in singly exponential time. Our algorithms rely on a notion of basis reduction introduced by Seysen (Combinatorica 1993), which we show is intimately related to lattice distortion. Lastly, we show that LDP is NP-hard to approximate to within any constant factor (under randomized reductions), by a reduction from the Shortest Vector Problem.Comment: This is the full version of a paper that appeared in ESA 201

The multi-scale nature of the solar wind

The solar wind is a magnetized plasma and as such exhibits collective plasma behavior associated with its characteristic spatial and temporal scales. The characteristic length scales include the size of the heliosphere, the collisional mean free paths of all species, their inertial lengths, their gyration radii, and their Debye lengths. The characteristic timescales include the expansion time, the collision times, and the periods associated with gyration, waves, and oscillations. We review the past and present research into the multi-scale nature of the solar wind based on in-situ spacecraft measurements and plasma theory. We emphasize that couplings of processes across scales are important for the global dynamics and thermodynamics of the solar wind. We describe methods to measure in-situ properties of particles and fields. We then discuss the role of expansion effects, non-equilibrium distribution functions, collisions, waves, turbulence, and kinetic microinstabilities for the multi-scale plasma evolution.Comment: 155 pages, 24 figure

Sourcing the BBC's live online coverage of terror attacks

The live blog or live page has emerged as a bespoke format for covering breaking news online and represents an important 'site' to investigate the impact of social media on news sourcing. This article assesses whether the adoption of live online coverage has facilitated a more 'multiperspectival' journalism through the inclusion of 'non-official' sources. The article is based on comparative content analyses of the BBC's coverage of Anders Behring Breivik's killing spree in 2011 and the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. The article is strengthened by 'triangulating' data from interviews, access to BBC documents and observation work at the BBC. The comparison reveals that the incorporation of eyewitness accounts has driven an increase in the inclusion of 'non-official' sources in the BBC?s live online coverage, but it suggests that further significant increases are unlikely. In particular, the use of Twitter was becoming normalised by 2011 both in the range of actors who use the microblogging tool and the BBC's approach to sourcing content from Twitter. The article suggests that journalists' approach to sourcing continues to depend as much on conceptions of news values and editorial approach as it does on the live blogging platform through which the news is disseminated

Learning During a Crisis: the SARS Epidemic in Taiwan

When SARS struck Taiwan in the spring of 2003, many people feared that the disease would spread through the healthcare system. As a result, outpatient medical visits fell by over 30 percent in the course of a few weeks. This paper examines how both public information (SARS incidence reports) and private information (the behavior and opinions of peers) contributed to this public reaction. We identify social learning through a difference-in-difference strategy that compares long time community residents to recent arrivals, who are less socially connected. We find that people learned from both public and private sources during SARS. In a dynamic simulation based on the regressions, social learning substantially magnifes the response to SARS.

Theory of polar domains in moir\'e heterostructures

The discovery of unconventional ferroelectric behavior in twisted bilayers has prompted the consideration of moir\'e heterostructures as polar materials. However, misconceptions about the nature and origin of the observed ferroelectricity indicate that a better theoretical understanding of the polar properties of moir\'e heterostructures is needed. In this paper, it is proposed, and verified with first-principles calculations, that all moir\'e heterostructures exhibit an out-of-plane moir\'e polar domain (MPD) structure. In transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers, an interlayer charge transfer occurs due to the change in stacking arrangements throughout the moir\'e superlattice, leading to a local out-of-plane dipole moment, with the magnitude and shape of the MPDs being dominated by the chalcogen atoms. While the MPDs in all heterostructures are sensitive to the moir\'e period, it is only in the homo-bilayers that they can be tuned with an out-of-plane electric field. The misconceptions about ferroelectricity in moir\'e heterostructures are addressed, and it is proposed that the only scenario in which the MPDs can be considered ferroelectric domains is via a global van der Waals sliding by one third of a unit cell in a homo-bilayer. Finally, a general theoretical discussion of the polar properties of moir\'e heterostructures is provided.Comment: Accepted versio

Complex Organizations: A Cultural Analysis of a Christian College

The purpose of this study was to understand the emergent dynamics that shape the organizational culture of a faith-based college incorporating a comprehensive network approach. The study adapted Martin\u27s (2002) Three Perspective Theory of Culture utilizing the Dynamic Network Analysis methodology. To understand the cultural manifestations of the organization, several networks of beliefs and agent interactions were examined. The results demonstrated that religious values are deeply embedded in the institution and there is a rich diversity of beliefs within the institution and its subcultures. The role of resources was examined, and financial resources emerged as a crucial element that stresses the operational culture. These findings combined to identify the emergent dichotomies related to ideological and operational cultural manifestations and how they interact together. Additionally, there were two findings that supported Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT). The first finding was that while organizational learning did occur within homogenous subcultures, greater organizational learning was demonstrated when the subcultures were brought together. This finding supported the premise of CLT, which suggests that a diversity of perspectives foster enhanced organizational learning. The second finding supported CLT through identification of clusters of employees utilizing common resources, tasks, and knowledge sets. The implication is for the organization to create bottom-up approaches that interact with existing top-down structures which would enable organizational learning, knowledge development, and problem-solving

Thermodynamics and the Measure of Entanglement

We point out formal correspondences between thermodynamics and entanglement. By applying them to previous work, we show that entropy of entanglement is the unique measure of entanglement for pure states.Comment: 8 pages, RevTeX; edited for clarity, additional references, to appear as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev.

Design of a Nozzle for the Spyder 2nd Stage Solid Rocket Motor

During the 2019 summer term, the author worked with a group of four interns to complete the preliminary design of a 2nd stage solid rocket motor for Up Aerospaces Spyder Launch Vehicle. The Spyder vehicle is a four stage, solid fuel rocket designed as part of collaboration between NASA and Up Aerospace to develop a vehicle capable of delivering a 10 kg, 6U CubeSat into a 350 km, circular, low Earth orbit. As part of the agreement, NASA is tasked with designing high performance 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stages while Up Aerospace will provide the 1st stage, derived from the first stage of the companys sub-orbital Spaceloft XL vehicle. Previous intern teams have designed the 3rd and 4th stages, which left the preliminary design of the 2nd stage motor to be completed this summer. The purpose of this report is to highlight a trade study which the author conducted to determine the nozzle geometry which would most benefit the performance of the 2nd stage motor. In this study, various nozzle parameters such as throat radius (RSI), expansion ratio, mass and their effects on the Isp and Delta V of the 2nd Stage were investigated. From this study, a nozzle geometry providing the necessary performance was chosen and implemented as part of the preliminary design of the 2nd stage motor. To mature the 2nd stage motor design, a trade space was needed to determine the nozzle configuration which would most benefit the performance of the 2nd stage. The trade space established did not only evaluate different expansion ratios for the same throat radius, but also investigated the possible performance gained from decreasing the throat radius to increase the expansion ratio and Isp capable of being delivered by the nozzle. Decreasing the throat radius would cause the chamber pressure to increase, consequently increasing the case and insulation mass required to safely operate a motor at higher pressures. To account for this factor, accurate estimates of inert mass first needed to be established. After doing so, the effects of varying nozzle expansion ratios, exit half angles, and subsequently length and mass were evaluated against motor and nozzle performance factors such as delta V and Isp. For this study, four throat radii ranging from 1.75 to 2.375 and consequently four different chamber pressures ranging 550 psia to 1200 psia were investigated. BACKGROUND To launch into Low Earth Orbit, a payload needs to be accelerated to the orbital velocity necessary to keep it from falling back to Earth. The change in velocity required between launch and orbital insertion is known as Delta V. The Delta V which a rocket or stage can deliver can be calculated using the Ideal Rocket equation, =0ln() (3) Where 0 is the acceleration due to gravity at the earths surface, is the specific impulse of the rocket, is the initial mass of the rocket, and is the final mass of the rocket after burnout. From preliminary calculations beyond the scope of this paper, it was determined that 30500 ft/s of delta V would be required for a payload to be inserted into a 350 km circular orbit around the Earth. Using the known masses and Isp values of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th stages and equation 3, the delta V of each stage was calculated. The delta V required by the 2nd stage could then be found by taking the difference between the total delta V required and the delta V of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th stages. From this, the required delta V of the 2nd Stage was calculated to be 7340 ft/s. Specific impulse is an efficiency factor of the nozzle which defines the impulse delivered by the motor per unit of propellant weight. The main variables of a nozzles specific impulse investigated in this trade were exit cone half angle, throat radius, and expansion ratio which is affected by the throat radius. The expansion ratio, , of a nozzle is defined as the ratio between the nozzle exit area and throat area, and can be calculated using the equation, =22 (2) Where is the radius of the nozzles exit and is the radius of the nozzles throat. A larger expansion ratio and smaller exit half angle will increase the Isp of a nozzle by allowing the gas to expand more and by allowing more of the exhaust gas to produce thrust in the direction of the motors central axis. A cross section view of the 2nd Stage motor with the major components annotated is provided in figure 1