Digital Commons Network^™

Match Made In Heaven: Blackboard Vista, Information Literacy, And College Freshmen, Julie Nichols, Kristin Johnson

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2011

Northeast Lakeview College (NLC) serves over 6000 students in the greater San Antonio area. Our diverse student body includes many "first generation" students. To address the needs of a growing library instruction program and to introduce students to academic research, NLC librarians developed a program, using Blackboard Vista (BBV) to deliver library instruction to first semester freshmen English students. The highly interactive, self-paced BBV tutorials emphasize basic information literacy skills that are reinforced with a follow-up face-to-face library instruction session. Since Fall 2009, we have evolved these tutorials from an optional, self-registration model to a listed course in our college …

Reducing Digestible Tidbits From Meaty Stock: Satisfying Varied Tastes With An Attractive Instructional Assessment Menu, Erika Bennett, Jennie Simning, Kim Staley

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2011

Do you collect streams of data that never see the light of day? Libraries are more frequently being held accountable for metrics via scorecards, dashboards, and other short snapshots of performance. Information Literacy practitioners have meanwhile moved away from tick-marks to a learning outcome assessment culture. This means that the full array of evaluative, formative and summative approaches-- competencies, tests, self-reports and rubrics-- can leave new librarians' heads spinning.

Learning outcomes data are hard to wrangle, let alone, in a digestible format, but fresh assessment approaches can fully illustrate the benefits of our varied media and modes of instruction. Instead …

Knowledge-Based Assessment For Library Instruction, Laura Saunders

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2011

Authentic assessment remains a challenge for many information literacy programs. Despite progress developing and integrating learning outcomes into curricula, many programs fail to demonstrate changes in knowledge or behavior as a result of their instruction. Instead, the majority of programs rely on indirect measures such as surveys and self-reporting, or tests that rely on student regurgitation of information. Through hands-on exercises and demonstrations, participants in this interactive workshop will rework indirect measures into authentic forms of assessment directly connected to student learning. Participants should bring examples of existing tools to use as a basis for developing authentic assessment measures

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: How Do Special Education Administrators Prevent And Resolve Conflict With Families?, Tracy Gershwin Mueller, Shawn Piantoni

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

Conflict between parents of children with disabilities and school district members has been an ongoing issue for decades. Special education administrators are often designated to address conflict with the intent to find an amicable resolution. Otherwise, conflict can lead to due process hearings that move valuable time and money away from general district funds. Understanding how administrators informally address such conflict can guide leaders as they promote collaboration between the home and school. This paper presents a qualitative interview study of special education directors’ experiences with conflict prevention and resolution. Seven key action-based strategies that prevent and resolve conflict with …

Examining Co-Teaching Through A Socio-Technical Systems Lens, Robert S. Isherwood, Richael Barger-Anderson, Matthew Erickson

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

Qualitative research was conducted in a large suburban school district implementing co-teaching as a new service delivery model for special education. Researchers examined the changes that resulted from the new service delivery model using a socio-technical systems lens. This framework views schools as open systems that contain a structural, task, human, and technical subsystem. The intent of the study was to document the changes in each of these subsystems resulting from the implementation of co-teaching and to provide educators with strategies to implement co-teaching in a seamless and effective manner. Unanticipated challenges included scheduling, teacher work ethic, personality compatibility, classroom …

Teacher Needs For Educating Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders In The General Education Classroom, Kim Finch, Robert Watson, Cynthia Macgregor, Natalie Precise

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

The purpose of this study was to gather information on experiences of general education teachers concerning inclusion practices for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In this case study third, fourth, and fifth grade general education teachers in a rural Southwest Missouri school district provided the data source to keep a narrowed focus on the needs of education teachers for inclusion. The sample accounted for 16 elementary education teachers. Surveys were sent to all third, fourth, and fifth grade general education teachers in the district. Perceptions of general education teachers on proper inclusion training were identified as necessary for the …

Lack Of Csk-Mediated Negative Regulation In A Unicellular Src Kinase, Kira Schultheiss

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Tyrosine kinases play important roles in cellular communication in animals. c-Src is a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase that is involved in survival, angiogenesis, proliferation, and invasion pathways. There are 9 Src family kinases, and they have a conserved domain arrangement (SH3-SH2-kinase) that is necessary for regulation. The basal activity of c-Src is normally kept low due to phosphorylation by C-terminal Src kinase (Csk). This regulatory relationship has been conserved throughout the evolution of animals. Until recently, it was thought that complex signaling molecules, such as the tyrosine kinases, did not exist outside of multicellular animals. Newly discovered unicellular precursors to mammalian …

A Distributed Mac Protocol For Efficient Channelization In Wireless Networks, Seyed Kaveh Fayazbakhsh

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

There is a significant interest in designing new wireless multiple access protocols that split a wide frequency channel into multiple sub-channels and assign these sub-channels to competing transmissions. Doing this adaptively depending on the number of competing transmissions has a tremendous potential both in high-speed and white-space networks. While such protocols have been developed, they suffer from limitations such as considerable protocol overheads, dependence on a centralized controller, and assumptions about the network being static, etc. In this work, we develop a new multiple access protocol, Ez-Channel, that adaptively and efficiently channelizes the spectrum for improving throughput, without encountering the …

Tyrone Guthrie And The American Regional Theater Movement, Hannah Alice Schneider

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

In the past 50 years regional theater has grown tremendously in America. This thesis will connect the origins of the regional theater movement to the role played by Tyrone Guthrie in it's founding. While many of Guthrie's ideas are still resonant today, his vision was not always successful. But the regional theater movement learned a great deal from his experiences and transcended them to develop the vibrant scene we see today. His concepts of developing an intimacy with the audience and actors, or development of a resident company with a repertory program and a cohesiveness that resembled family and his …

Molecular Movie Magic: Real-Time Picosecond To Microsecond Structural Dynamics Of Photoactive Flavoproteins, Richard James Brust

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Femtosecond (fs) excitation of photoreceptors results in protein structural changes that occur on the microsecond to millisecond timescale or longer. It is thus of fundamental interest to understand how these fast timescale events dictate large scale protein dynamics that occur on much longer (106 orders of magnitude) timescales. AppA is a blue light using FAD (BLUF) protein which acts as a transcriptional antirepressor in Rhodobacter sphaeroides. The ultrafast photocycle and IR spectra are well characterized and involve a near instantaneous (<100 fs) response of the protein matrix that surrounds the chromophore. While there has been extensive study on the ultrafast time scales there has never been an observation of the kinetics of the light induced structural changes in the protein. Here we investigated the ultrafast (ps) to ms structural dynamics through transient IR. The data show that significant structural changes occur on the sub microsecond timescale following photoactivation. In addition our work has expanded to other BLUF proteins. BlsA is a BLUF protein found in the pathogenic bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii. Vibrational data together with homology modeling identify significant differences in β 5 strand caused by photoactivation, a region of BLUF photoreceptors proposed to be essential for signal modulation, that are unique for BlsA. In addition, the BLUF protein PixD, from Synechocystis, was characterized by transient IR, where photoexcitation results in radical pair formation, an event not observed in AppA. Transient IR also revealed that light state formation is complete within nanoseconds for PixD, suggesting a unique mechanism for single and multidomain BLUF systems. | 254 pages

Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage Between Metastable And Rydberg States Of Helium, Yuan Sun

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

We investigate the coherent population transfer and associated effects for a three level atomic system, with the third level being a Rydberg state. The scheme adopted here is the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). An atomic beam of metastable helium is orthogonally crossing two laser beams in a tunable dc electric field. The ir laser of 790 - 830 nm connects the triplet 3P state to the Rydberg states (n = 12 - 50) and the uv laser of 389 nm connects the metastable triplet 2S state to the triplet 3P state. A third laser of 1083 nm driving 2S-2P …

System Evaluation And Design Of Delay-Sensitive Wireless Networks, Xi Deng

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Wireless networks have now been widely used and enjoyed in many aspects of human life and the society. Delay-sensitive wireless network, in a strict sense, is not a particular type of wireless networks. It represents a large number of wireless networks whose performance is greatly affected by the packet end-to-end delay, defined as the duration between a packet's generation at the source node and its delivery to the destination. Such network has been growing rapidly in recently years due to the tremendous demands from network applications. Emerging multimedia applications including Video-on-demand (VOD) and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) have become one of the …

Comparisons Of Intermediate Oxidation State Sulfur Compounds In The Episodically, Lan Thi Tong

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The anoxic Cariaco Basin located on the Venezuela continental shelf and the seasonally anoxic Forge River located on the south shore of Long Island are two quite different aquatic systems. However, they are both characterized by the pulsed intrusion of oxygen into sulfidic waters, where sulfur intermediates including sulfite (SO32-), thiosulfate (S2O32-), and zero-valent sulfur (So) are usually found. In this study, I investigated the distribution of sulfur intermediates and the relative importance of chemical and biological hydrogen sulfide oxidation to the sulfur intermediates distribution in these two systems. The sulfide oxidation rate, determined using Forge River water with an …

Biomimetic Calcium Phosphate Coatings Synthesized By Electrochemical Deposition And Air Plasma Spray: Morphology, Composition And Bioactive Performance, Ling Li

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

In this project, with the aim to develop bioactive biomimetic coatings for dental and orthopedic applications, calcium phosphate based coatings deposited by electrochemical deposition and plasma spray were investigated. Different combinations of process parameters were used to achieve coatings with various chemical compositions and morphologies. The obtained coating composition was investigated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The microstructure of the coatings were studied through scanning electron microscopy while the cytocompatibility and bioactivity of the strontium-doped calcium phosphate coatings were evaluated using bone cell culture using MC3T3-E1 osteoblast-like cells. A set of designed experiments were performed to study …

Defects Analysis Of Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Single Crystals Via Synchrotron White Beam X-Ray Topography, Shun Sun

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

While the mature and well-established silicon technology, though after a long marvelous progress, exhibits some critical limitations with respect to its switching frequency, operation temperature, high power reliability and efficiency, a new generation of semiconductors, commonly referred to as " wide bandgap semiconductors" , has emerged as promising candidate substrate materials that bear the capabilities to overcome those performance limitations. The inherent superior properties of those novel materials help broaden the extensions of semiconductor devices applications beyond those have been made from conventional materials like silicon, indium phosphide, and gallium arsenide. Potential revolutionary improvements coming into the cost, size, weight …

Comparisons Of Intermediate Oxidation State Sulfur Compounds In The Episodically, Lan Thi Tong

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The anoxic Cariaco Basin located on the Venezuela continental shelf and the seasonally anoxic Forge River located on the south shore of Long Island are two quite different aquatic systems. However, they are both characterized by the pulsed intrusion of oxygen into sulfidic waters, where sulfur intermediates including sulfite (SO32-), thiosulfate (S2O32-), and zero-valent sulfur (So) are usually found. In this study, I investigated the distribution of sulfur intermediates and the relative importance of chemical and biological hydrogen sulfide oxidation to the sulfur intermediates distribution in these two systems. The sulfide oxidation rate, determined using Forge River water with an …

Scalable Particle And Mesh Algorithms For Elliptic Components Of Multiphase Problems, Tongfei Guo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

New mesh and meshless algorithms for elliptic boundary and elliptic interface problems have been developed. By utilizing the embedded boundary method, a mesh based algorithm to solve elliptic interface problem is implemented as an extension of hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian hydrodynamic library FronTier which employs the method of front tracking for interface propagation and this implementation is parallelized for distributed memory clusters. The use of embedded boundary method supports arbitrary discontinuities of density and other physics properties across the interfaces and significantly improves methods that smear interface discontinuities across several grid cells. This code has been applied to process simulation for heat …

Blood Of The Earth: Natural Resources, Economic Visions, And Revolution In La Paz, Bolivia, 1927-1971, Kevin Young

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Natural resource extraction and resource nationalism are central to understanding recent protests around the world. These mobilizations have important precedents in mid-twentieth-century Bolivia. The quest for national control over natural resources--particularly tin and oil--was the central factor uniting urban sectors in the years before and after the 1952 Bolivian Revolution, which brought to power the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) party. Focusing on La Paz, this dissertation examines the contours of popular economic thought and the conflicts among urban popular sectors, the MNR regime, and the United States to define economic policy. Natural resources were the key locus of contention in …

Manufacturing Malinche: Socio-Sexual Narratives Of Imperialism, Colonialism, And Nationalism, Sibyl Gallus-Price

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Malinche's ever changing myth has contributed to the view that one woman is answerable for the legacy of conquest. This view, evoking worship and revile, operates more as a litmus test of the prevailing weltanschauung than as a claim of historical authenticity. In the context of imperialism, colonialism, and post-colonialism, this study seeks to examine the socio-sexual system as it defines the production of an enduring national mythic symbol. Exposing the ideological underpinnings of the narratives that have contributed to the Malinche myth, exemplar works will demonstrate the impact of: the ontological understanding of gendered models of imperialism; the historical …

On The Optimization Of Grid Systems, Kai Wang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Grid systems are widely used to transfer power and information in various forms in many engineering and scientific areas such as grid computing systems, electrical grids, control grid and etc. A good handling of task partition, task allocation and load balancing can significantly increase a grid systems' efficiency. In this dissertation, balancing the loads in electrical grid systems and optimizing grid computing systems are analyzed. Unbalanced loads on feeders increase power system investment and operating costs. Three-phase lateral loads phase swapping is one of the popular methods to balance such systems. We employed a dynamic programming algorithm that makes optimal …

Tiers 2 & 3 Intervention: Behavior Contracting, Jenna Strahun, Ann O'Connor, Reece L. Peterson

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Conclusion

The research on behavior contracts suggests that the procedure is a positively oriented intervention for students with problematic and disruptive behaviors. Behavior contracts are also a tool in which students can generate input in deciding their own goals and rewards for academic and behavioral performance. In addition, behavior contracts are often a smaller element of a larger intervention package that is used to gain compliance and reward the student for adhering to and participating in the intervention. Although much of the research on behavior contracts is outdated and uses small participant sample sizes, behavior contracts may serve to increase …

Review: Advertising At War: Business, Consumers, And Government In The 1940s By Inger L. Stole, Gerd Horten

CUP Faculty Research

A review of the book Advertising at War: Business, Consumers, and Government in the 1940s by Inger L. Stole (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012)

Appendix: Thoughts On John Evans And Sand Creek, Gary L. Roberts

John Evans Study Report

Apart from political rivalry, there was little reason to oppose John Evans as governor of Colorado. He was a success by almost any standard one chose to apply. He was a self-made man, a son of the Middle West. He grew up in a Quaker family in Indiana, and although he converted to Methodism later, Protestant evangelism was a central feature of his character and experience. As a young man, he set his goals high—to build a city, to found a college, to create a fortune, to become a governor, to be elected to the United States Senate, and to …

Business Associations, Crystal J. Clark

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys notable cases in the areas of corporate, limited liability company, partnership, agency, and joint venture law decided between June 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013, by the Georgia Supreme Court, the Georgia Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States district courts located in Georgia.' This Article also discusses relevant legislation enacted during the survey period.

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Elinor H. Hitt

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses significant case law that arose during the survey period. There were no statutory changes specific to domestic relations during this period, though substantial changes were made to the evidence code.

Insurance, Dean A. Calloway

Mercer Law Review

This survey period, from June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013, proved eventful. Over the past year, state and federal courts in Georgia had occasion to interpret key provisions of Georgia's Insurance Code, address novel issues of first impression, and resolve disputes with significant policy implications for Georgia's insurance industry.

The following are among the more notable developments: (1) the Georgia Supreme Court formally extended application of the rule in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Mabry (the Mabry rule), which is the requirement that an insurer compensate an insured for his vehicle's diminished value resulting from an automobile …

Table Of Cases

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Loss Of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (Vegfa) Isoforms In The Testes Of Male Mice Causes Subfertility, Reduces Sperm Numbers, And Alters Expression Of Genes That Regulate Undifferentiated Spermatogonia, Ningxia Lu, Kevin M. De Avila, Debra T. Clopton, William E. Pohlmeier, Vanessa M. Brauer, Renee M. Mcfee, John S. Weber, Napoleone Ferrara, David W. Silversides, Andrea S. Cupp

Department of Animal Science: Faculty Publications

Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) isoform treatment has been demonstrated to alter spermatogonial stem cell homeostasis. Therefore, we generated pDmrt1-Cre;Vegfa^−/− (knockout, KO) mice by crossing pDmrt1-Cre mice to floxed Vegfa mice to test whether loss of all VEGFA isoforms in Sertoli and germ cells would impair spermatogenesis. When first mated, KO males took 14 days longer to get control females pregnant (P < .02) and tended to take longer for all subsequent parturition intervals (9 days; P < .07). Heterozygous males sired fewer pups per litter (P < .03) and after the first litter took 10 days longer (P < .05) to impregnate females, suggesting a more progressive loss of fertility. Reproductive organs were collected from 6-month-old male mice. There were fewer sperm per tubule in the corpus epididymides (P < .001) and fewer ZBTB16-stained undifferentiated spermatogonia (P < .003) in the testes of KO males. Testicular mRNA abundance for Bcl2 (P < .02), Bcl2:Bax (P < .02), Neurog3 (P < .007), and Ret was greater (P = .0005), tended to be greater for Sin3a and tended to be reduced for total Foxo1 (P < .07) in KO males. Immunofluorescence for CD31 and VE-Cadherin showed no differences in testis vasculature; however, CD31-positive staining was evident in undifferentiated spermatogonia only in KO testes. Therefore, loss of VEGFA isoforms in Sertoli and germ cells alters genes necessary for long-term maintenance of undifferentiated spermatogonia, ultimately reducing sperm numbers and resulting in subfertility.

Ambitious Student Seeks Valuable Internship: Will You Mentor Me?, Cara B. Stone, Anne Marie Gruber

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2011

How does a random email become a graduate student internship and what can be learned from the mentoring experience? What started as email correspondence from an MLS student seeking librarian mentors in her home state turned into meeting in person, and eventually an internship at University of Dubuque's Charles C. Myers Library. Spring 2011 is the first time library staff have had the opportunity to welcome a MLS graduate student intern. The internship primarily focuses on information literacy, involving the student in a thriving, curriculum-integrated program that consists of over 500 class sessions per year, delivered by five librarians. Staff …

Continuous Assessment, The Catalyst For Building A Successful Information Literacy Program That Focuses On Student Needs, Jon R. Hufford, Arlene K. Paschel

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2011

In keeping with the requirements of Texas Tech University's current strategic planning initiative, assessment, and in particular student-learning assessment, has become a crucial step in the process of continuously developing and improving the Libraries' Information Literacy program. This presentation reviews developments in the program, training for the librarians who participate in the program, the outreach and collaboration efforts to expand the program, and the important role that assessment plays in the process of discovering student needs, improving content, teaching, learning, and the operation of the program. The emphasis is on assessment as a catalyst in the process of continually improving …