Digital Commons Network^™

Natural Areas, Regions, And Two Centuries Of Environmental Change On The Great Plains, David J. Wishart

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A careful reading of recent issues of the Natural Areas Journal, the publication of the Natural Areas Association, will leave you with the conclusion that humans are not a part of natural areas. When humans do appear, it is either as disturbing agents, disrupting the naturalness through, for example, the introduction of exotic plants and animals, or as managers, enhancing the naturalness through, for example, prescribed burning. This is an explicit and purposeful exclusion: "We can probably all agree," wrote the editor of the journal in 2004, "that 'natural' places are areas where human actions have minimally changed the …

Alexandre Hogue's Passion: Ecology And Agribusiness In The Crucified Land, Mark Andrew White

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In 1939, Texas artist Alexandre Hogue completed The Crucified Land (Fig. 1), a striking comparison of water erosion on a Denton, Texas, wheat farm to the martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth. The Crucified Land was originally intended as the final canvas of Hogue's Erosion series, which the artist began in 1932 as a condemnation of the careless agricultural practices that had produced wind and water erosion in his home state. When Hogue exhibited The Crucified Land that year at the Carnegie International, the painting's provocative religious overtones drew the notice of one critic, who referred to it as the latest …

Book Review: Barbed Wire: An Ecology Of Modernity, Alan Krell

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The first years of this century were "barbed" in more ways than one. Three books were published in quick succession on barbed wire: the first by Olivier Razac, then by me, and, most recently, by Reviel Netz. Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity builds on Netz's sagacious essay written for the London Review of Books (July 20, 2000).

Book Review: Teaching In Eden: Lessons From Cedar Point, Gregg Siewert

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Judging from the title, one might expect this book to offer some resolution to America's ongoing debate regarding the teaching of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design. It is, instead, Janovy's attempt to shake higher education by the shoulders and bring it to its senses, asking that university instruction shift its focus from content to larger questions of process and values (for want of a better term: liberal arts and sciences). As Janovy states, "I contend that the arts and sciences ideals - breadth of understanding, courage to explore anywhere, patience with disagreement - are the best antidotes to our current …

Migration Out Of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights For Climate Change Research, Robert Mcleman

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

I undertook an investigation of how rural populations responded to a period of adverse climatic conditions in rural eastern Oklahoma during the 1930s, with particular interest in those households that adapted by migrating to rural California. This is not the first time that 19305 Oklahoma has been the subject of research into how people and communities adapt to difficult environmental conditions. In the wake of a 1985 conference entitled "Social Adaptation to Semi-Arid Environments" at the Center for Great Plains Studies in Lincoln, Great Plains Quarterly presented a series of papers by well-known scholars exploring human-environment interactions that gave rise …

Not Making Or Shaping: Finding Authenticity In Faculty Development, Patricia Cranton

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Authenticity is defined as a multifaceted concept that includes self-awareness, awareness of others, genuine relationships, awareness of contextual constraints, and living a critical life. Authenticity develops over time and with experience; a developmental continuum for authenticity is discussed. Drawing on a three-year research project on authenticity in teaching in higher education, this chapter suggests ways in which faculty developers can help foster authentic practice.

Helping Faculty Learn To Teach Better And “Smarter” Through Sequenced Activities, Barbara J. Millis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers can help faculty learn to intentionally sequence assignments and activities to promote greater learning when they understand the convergent research—with its practical implications for teaching—on how people learn, on deep learning, and on cooperative learning. Such a sequence includes a motivating out-of-class assignment (homework), in-class “processing” that includes active learning and student interactions, and feedback and assessment, often given in multiple ways. This approach is modeled through two examples using graphic organizers.

Practicing What We Preach: Transforming The Ta Orientation, Patricia Armstrong, Peter Felten, Jeffrey Johnston, Allison Pingree

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Brookfield (1995), Schön (1983), and others articulate the necessity and complexity of being critically reflective in our work. Indeed, the value of critical reflection is inherent to educational development as a field in that we frequently encourage such thinking in our consultations with instructors. But practicing what we preach can be difficult. This chapter reflects on an experiment in the transformation of a teaching assistant orientation, a central event of our teaching center. We not only describe and assess the process of revising this orientation, but we also reflect on the implicatiom of this case for broader programming issues in …

Expeditionary Learning: A Low–Risk, Low–Cost, High–Impact Professional Development Model, Chris Carlson-Dakes, Alice Pawley

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We describe a low-risk, low-cost, high-impact professional development program to help faculty, instructional staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students create space in their lives to explore the diversity of their campus community and reflect on beliefs about teaching and learning in higher education. Along with small group discussions, participants have “expeditions” onto campus to explore learning situations and academic life in ways that they have never before experienced. We describe our theoretical model, programmatic and evaluation structure, and some participants’ insights into why they participated and what they learned from our first implementation.

Honors College, Honors 298: Special Topics, 3 Credits, John Charpie, Michael Shea

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Students explore the logic of science by examining the language and writing about science, using various thinking-writing exercises to stimulate their research. While hearing lectures about fundamental scientific principles and analyzing knowledge structures of scientific discourse, students write cause-and- effect explanations of a variety of phenomena by building them up from first principles; science essays are developed using standard rhetorical devices of scientific discourse. Small-group exercises include “work shopping” each student’s writing regarding tone, clarity, fluidity, and accuracy. Twenty-three students enroll in this course.

Honors In Chile: New Engagements In The Higher Education System, Juan Carlos Skewes, Carlos Alberto Cioce Sampaio, Frederick J. Conway

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Honors programs are rare in Latin America, and in Chile they were unknown before 2003. At the Universidad Austral de Chile, an interdisciplinary group of scholars linked to environmental studies put forward a pilot project for implementing a new experience in higher education. Challenged by an educational environment where (i) apathy and mediocrity have taken over the classrooms, (ii) monodisciplinary training rules the university campus, and (iii) authoritarian teaching persists, this has been an experiment in new ways of approaching the classroom. Stimulated by experiences in the USA, a project proposal was written, finding support in the Chilean Ministry of …

Exemplar, Spring/Summer 2006, Eastern Michigan University

Alumni News: Eastern Magazine

No abstract provided.

Quantifying The Importance Of The Atmospheric Sink For Polychlorinated Dioxins And Furans Relative To Other Global Loss Processes, Rainer Lohmann, Elena Jurado, Jordi Dachs, Ulrike Lohmann, Kevin C. Jones

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Previous attempts to establish global mass balances for polychlorinated dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) have focused on the terrestrial sink, thereby neglecting deposition to the oceans and atmospheric losses. In this study, the atmospheric sink of polychlorinated dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) was calculated on the basis of their presence in soils. OH radical ([OH]) depletion reactions compete with atmospheric deposition fluxes for the fate of atmospheric PCDD/Fs. Three different steady state scenarios were considered: scenario A was a one‐box atmosphere with globally averaged [OH], temperature (T), atmospheric lifetime (t_life), and a constant gas‐particle partitioning (Φ); in scenario B, [OH], …

Biological Formation Of Ethane And Propane In The Deep Marine Subsurface, Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, John M. Hayes, Wolfgang Bach, Arthur J. Spivack, Laura R. Hmelo, Nils G. Holm, Carl G. Johnson, Sean P. Sylva

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Concentrations and isotopic compositions of ethane and propane in cold, deeply buried sediments from the southeastern Pacific are best explained by microbial production of these gases in situ. Reduction of acetate to ethane provides one feasible mechanism. Propane is enriched in ¹³C relative to ethane. The amount is consistent with derivation of the third C from inorganic carbon dissolved in sedimentary pore waters. At typical sedimentary conditions, the reactions yield free energy sufficient for growth. Relationships with competing processes are governed mainly by the abundance of H₂. Production of C₂ and C₃ hydrocarbons in …

Currents, Eddies, And A "Fish Story" In The Southwestern Japan/East Sea, D. Randolph Watts, Mark Wimbush, Karen L. Tracey, William J. Teague, Jae-Hun Park, Douglas A. Mitchell, Jong-Hwan Yoon, Moon-Sik Suk, Kyung-Il Chang

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

As part of the Japan/East Sea (JES) initiative supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, we conducted an observational experiment to understand the physics of the mesoscale circulation in the Ulleung Basin, located in the southwestern corner of the JES. The current passing through the Korea Strait divides upon entering the JES, with portions of the current flowing along the Korean and Japanese coasts. The variability of these currents is especially energetic in our study region. Our objectives were to measure the time-varying currents in the upper and deep levels of the JES. We relate the population density of …

Immigration Status And The Best Interests Of The Child Standard, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Journal Of Women In Educational Leadership, Vol. 4, No. 1-January 2006

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

No abstract provided.

Women Engineering Faculty: Expanding The Pipeline, Nadene Deiterman Greni

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

The purpose for this case study was to explore the features of undergraduate engineering departmental and college support that influenced the persistence of women students. Women engineering faculty members were among the participants at three Land Grant universities in the Midwest. The data revealed the theme, Expanding the Pipeline, and demonstrated how women engineering faculty perceived their role in helping to encourage women students to persist in engineering majors.

Focus Emu, November 28, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Focus Emu, April 11, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Focus Emu, April 4, 2006, Office Of Public Information

Focus EMU

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of An Aza-Cope Rearrangement - Mannich Cyclization Precursor From L-Proline, Patricia T. Sinawe

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Lipid Metabolism In A549 And 9hte Cells Quantitation Of Lipid Peroxidation, Elizabeth Quintus

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Retrotransposition Efficiency Of Non-Autonomous Mobile Dna, Erin Radloff

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Nearly half of the human genome consists of transposable element (TE) DNA sequences. Most of these sequences were derived from the process of retrotransposition. This term refers to a gene being transcribed into RNA, converted back to DNA and the copy integrated elsewhere in the genome. Short interspersed DNA elements (SINEs) from various rodent species were isolated, using PCR, with the intent of being incorporated into a plasmid construct and analyzed for retrotransposition efficiency. SINE copy numbers vary among rodents; therefore, efficiency can be determined by contrasting copy numbers in respective genomes in different rodents. In future studies, a novel …

Analysis Of The Transcriptional Levels Of Guinea Pig Sines And Lines, Nicole D. Jamison

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Short and long interspersed DNA elements (SINEs and LINEs, respectively) can “jump” in germ-line cells generating new copies in other chromosomal regions. There is a sharp contrast in the number of SINEs within various rodent genomes. The purpose of this investigation is to assess the relative paucity of SINEs in the guinea pig genome in relation to other rodents. RNA was isolated from brain and kidney tissues of guinea pigs, and from the brain tissue of mice, in order to develop a method to assess the transcriptional regulation of SINEs and the loci that serve as source genes. This involved …

An Excuse-Centered Approach To Transitional Justice, David Gray

Faculty Scholarship

"Transitional justice" asks what successor regimes, committed to human rights and the rule of law, can and should do to seek justice for atrocities perpetrated by and under their predecessors. The normal instinct is to prosecute criminally everyone implicated in past wrongs; but practical conditions in transitions make this impossible. As a result, most transitions pursue hybrid approaches, featuring prosecutions of those "most responsible," amnesties, truth commissions, and reparations. This approach is often condemned as a compromise against justice. This article advances a transitional jurisprudence that justifies the hybrid approach by taking normative account of the unique conditions that define …

Convocation Video (2006), California State University, San Bernardino

CSUSB Sound and video recordings

No abstract provided.

Interdependency Of Pharmacokinetic Parameters: A Chicken-And-Egg Problem? Not!, Reza Mehvar

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Pharmacokinetic (PK) software packages are widely used by scientists in different disciplines to estimate PK parameters. However, their use without a clear understanding of physiological parameters affecting the PK parameters and how different PK parameters are related to each other may result in erroneous interpretation of data. Often, mathematical relationships used for the estimation of PK parameters obscure the true physiological relationships among these parameters, prompting a discussion of which parameter came first and giving the appearance of the-chicken-and-the-egg dilemma. In this article, the author attempts to show how different PK parameters are related to physiological parameters and each other …

Stromal Haze, Myofibroblasts, And Surface Irregularity After Prk, Marcelo V. Netto, Rajiv R. Mohan, Sunilima Sinha, Ajay Sharma, William Dupps, Steven E. Wilson

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the level of stromal surface irregularity after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and myofibroblast generation along with the development of corneal haze.

Variable levels of stromal surface irregularity were generated in rabbit corneas by positioning a fine mesh screen in the path of excimer laser during ablation for a variable percentage of the terminal pulses of the treatment for myopia that does not otherwise generate significant opacity. Ninety-six rabbits were divided into eight groups[.]

Slit lamp analysis and haze grading were performed in all groups. Rabbits were sacrificed at 4 hr …

Why It Mattered To Dover That Intelligent Design Isn’T Science, Richard B. Katskee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.