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Communiqué: College Of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine,Volume 2, Winter 2013, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts, And Sciences.

Communiqué: College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences Alumni Magazine

Contents:

-- Dean's Message
-- Major Change
-- The Art of Teaching
-- Briefs: Humanities and Fine Arts
-- Square Peg, Round Hole
-- Brazil and Back
-- CHAS Applause
-- News in Short
-- Going Viral
-- NASA: We Have an Intern
-- Get Energized, Iowa!
-- Blowin' Up
-- Briefs: Sciences
-- New Exchanges
-- Change and Innovation
-- Transitions
-- Donor Feature
-- Alumni News

The Update, January/February 2013, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts And Sciences.

Update

Inside this issue:

-- UNI Debate and Speech Finish the Year
-- Department News
-- Allison Arp, Senior PR Major, Wins PRSSA Ron Culp Scholarship
-- School of Music Events
-- Diversity Inclusion Lecturer for 2013: James Loewen
-- Mary Frisbee Johnson: FERROUS: International Metals Exhibition
-- Student Spotlight: Department of Art: Brittany Deal
-- Student Spotlight: School of Music: Rhys Talbot

The Contribution Of Social Simulation In The Advancement Of Marketing Issues And Challenges, Mario V. González Fuentes

School of Business Faculty Research

For some years now, marketers have been praising for a more holistic approach of a company’s marketing efforts across all areas. However, traditional models show serious limitations to address the complexities of managing all of a company’s touch points with a customer. Agent-based modeling (ABM) has opened the door to explore the unfolding behaviors and outputs of an increasingly connected and interactive marketplace. The contribution of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it provides researchers with a state-of-the-art repository for this strand of research. This facilitates the identification of relevant gaps in the literature and future research avenues. …

The Wright Message, 2013-2014, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Mathematics.

The Wright Message

Inside this issue:

-- Dear Department Alumni and Friends
-- Around Wright Hall
-- New Faculty: C. Adam Feldhaus
-- 2013 - 2014 Tenure-Stream Faculty
-- Faculty Spotlight: Syed Kirmani
-- UNI on the March
-- The Litwiller Bequest: A Gift that Keeps on Giving
-- Retiring Faculty Member: Glenn Nelson
-- The Center for Teaching and Learning Mathematics
-- David & Lois Kail: Donor Spotlight
-- Addresses by Mathematics Faculty
-- Department of Mathematics Goes Digital
-- Alumni Spotlight: Slade Hovick & Sarah Miesner
-- Student Spotlight: Jesse Moeller, Katherine Pearce, & Adam Feller
-- The 2013 Math Shindig …

Biology News, Winter 2013, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Biology.

Biology News

Contents:

-- Greetings from the Department of Biology
-- Focus on UNI Biology Alumni
-- Focus on UNI Biology Students
-- Microscopes purchased with Carver Trust Grant
-- Two-headed planarian!
-- UNI Day in the Capitol on February 11, 2013
-- Letter of appreciation......
-- Dr. Kimberly Cline-Brown Receives Excellence in Teaching Award
-- Joan Smothers attends national advising meeting
-- Public speaking engagements for Biology faculty
-- Pre-Vet Club project gives aid to shelter animals
-- Faculty on Professional Development Assignment
-- Tri-Beta
-- Reconnect with the Department of Biology
-- Retiring Faculty
-- New Faculty
-- Floyds receive …

Storytelling In Comics: Who, When, And Where In “Here”, Michael W. Hancock

Comics and Graphic Novels

Richard McGuire’s groundbreaking short comic “Here” (1989) revolutionized storytelling possibilities in comics. It may be used within a short story unit to demonstrate familiar elements of fiction, including setting, plot, and character. Moreover, its inventive use of panels within panels to juxtapose past, present, and future can serve as a model for students’ visual rendering of multiple points in time within a single location.

Impacts And Recovery Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill On Vegetation Structure And Function Of Phragmites Australis, Chad Robert Judy

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill on the common reed Phragmites australis, and the processes controlling species effects and recovery, via a greenhouse mesocosm study. In the greenhouse DWH source oil, weathered approximately 40% by weight and emulsified, was applied to the aboveground shoots of P. australis growing in marsh sods to produce the following treatment-levels: (1) oil coverage of the lower 30% of shoot-height, (2) the lower 70% of shoot-height, (3) repeated oil coverage of the lower 70% of shoot-height, (4) 100% oil coverage of shoots, (5) …

The Effect Of Teaching Biology Concepts With Animations Compared To Static Cartoons On Content Retention, Rebecca Adams Polk

LSU Master's Theses

This study explores the effect of animations versus static cartoons on students’ content retention in a high school biology classroom. Students were pre-tested prior to the introduction of content in three units of study: cellular transport, protein synthesis, and mitosis. After instruction on the topic via PowerPoint presentations, students were randomly assigned to either the test group or experimental group for each unit. The control group was removed from the room and given a series of static cartoons with captions to view. The experimental group viewed an animation on the topic, accompanied by teacher narration, which consisted of the captions …

The Feasibility Of Using Vanadium And Nickel To Track Oil Spills In Coastal Environments, Sean Patrick Kenny

LSU Master's Theses

Crude oil has been increasing in world demand over the past century. It is known that oil is resistant to weathering processes and if spilled, can cause serious environmental damage to an area, on land or sea. A complementary approach to current methods of tracking oil and identifying spill-impacted sediments may be to measure trace metals associated with crude oil. Trace metals, such a vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) are known to be elevated in concentration in some oil sources, but little work has been done on this topic. This research explored less expensive and time-consuming methods to track or …

Temporal And Spatial Variations In The Subsurface Salinity Of Lake Charles, Louisiana : An Investigation Of Saline Sources, Alexandria Suding

LSU Master's Theses

One of the most pressing issues facing groundwater managers is saltwater intrusion. In coastal Louisiana this issue is especially prevalent. One location that is currently threated by saltwater intrusion is the industrial area of Lake Charles, Louisiana, where three high chloride areas have been detected within the underlying Chicot aquifer. Three sand units of the Chicot aquifer are present in Lake Charles: the 200-foot (200’) sand, the 500’ sand, and the 700’ sand. Groundwater with elevated chloride concentrations was first noticed by industries in the early 1970s. An initial investigation determined that the northern and southern bodies had formed by …

Predicting Mechanical Properties Of Southern Pine Lumber With Nondestructive Measurements, Jacob Romer

LSU Master's Theses

Predictive models were developed for stiffness and bending strength of southern pine 2x6, eight ft. lumber using nondestructive measurements of stresswave velocity, density and visual characteristics such as knots, slope of grain and rate of growth. To account for local areas of weakened material due to knots and slope of grain, a grid system was developed to quantify general knot size and location. Multiple regression models were created using these physical and visual measurements. Two sets of models were developed: one that removed influential samples with abnormal wavespeeds (greater than 18,000 ft./s) indicative of poor wood quality; and, models that …

Forensic Bibliography: Reconstructing The Library Of George Wythe, Linda K. Tesar

Library Staff Publications

The Wolf Law Library at the College of William and Mary initiated a project to re-create the library of George Wythe, the founding father of American legal education. A relatively small number of Wythe’s books are still extant today; for some volumes, there is strong documentary evidence to prove conclusively he owned specific editions of particular titles. Additionally, four bibliographies with varying levels of substantiating information provide insight into the contents of Wythe’s library. Examination of these sources launched an excursion into bibliographic history and rare book collecting that illuminates the difficulties in attempting to establish the exact editions contained …

Study On Effects Of Supply Voltage Asymmetry And Distortion On Induction Machine, Prashanna Dev Bhattarai

LSU Master's Theses

Performance of induction motor supplied with asymmetrical and nonsinusoidal supply voltages is studied in this thesis. Theory of induction motor is first presented for sinusoidal symmetrical supply voltages. Equations for the torque, losses, currents and efficiency are derived. Appropriate changes are made to apply this theory to induction motors operating at nonsinusoidal and asymmetrical supply voltages. Single phase equivalent circuit of the induction motor is presented for both asymmetrical and nonsinusoidal supply voltages. The equations governing operating characteristics are presented. Machine torque, losses, current and efficiency for asymmetrical and nonsinusoidal supply voltages are compared with the same for sinusoidal symmetrical …

Uncertainty Quantification Of Film Cooling Effectiveness In Gas Turbines, Hessam Babaee

LSU Master's Theses

In this study the effect of uncertainty of velocity ratio on jet in crossflow and particual- rly film cooling performance is studied. Direct numerical simulations have been combined with a stochastic collocation approach where the parametric space is discretized using Multi-Element general Polynomial Chaos (ME-gPC) method. Velocity ratio serves as a bifurcation parameter in a jet in a crossflow and the dynamical system is shown to have several bifurcations. As a result of the bifurcations, the target functional is observed to have low-regularity with respect to the paramteric space. In that sense, ME-gPC is particularly effective in discretizing the parametric …

Experimental Fragility Analysis Of Aluminum Storm Panels Subject To Windborne Debris, Taylor C. Alphonso

LSU Master's Theses

The research presented in this thesis focused on the derivation of experimental fragility curves for windborne debris (WBD) impact risk assessment of building envelope components (BECs) with ductile behavior (in particular, aluminum storm panels) within the performance-based hurricane engineering (PBHE) framework. Using a pneumatic wind cannon, rod-type WBDs were fired at aluminum storm panels to represent real-life WBD impact hazard. The experimental data from testing were used to derive the probability of failure relative to specific damage measures (DMs) versus its corresponding interaction parameter (IP). These experimentally derived probabilities were compared with results that are available in the literature and …

Scientific Modeling & Scientific Realism : A View From Biological Morphology, Bradley Morgan Wood

LSU Master's Theses

In the ongoing philosophical debates between scientific realists and antirealists, scientific modeling is often taken as an exemplar antirealist scientific methodology due to the abstract, idealized, and metaphorical nature of most scientific models. I argue against the antirealist view and in favor of a realist view of scientific modeling as it is performed in biological morphology. On my view, morphological modeling is a type of what I call multiperspectival modeling, which involves multiple related models deployed to represent a single target phenomenon. I show how multiperspectival morphological modeling can be incorporated into the version of scientific realism developed by Richard …

Learning And Identification Of Wireless Network Internode Dynamics Using Software Defined Radio, Benjamin Elliott Carroll

LSU Master's Theses

The recently developed paradigm of cognitive radio wireless devices has been developed with the goal of achieving more customizable and efficient spectrum utilization of commonly used wireless frequency bands. The primary focus of such spectrum utilization approaches has been to discern occupancies and vacancies over portions of the wireless spectrum without necessarily identifying how specific radio frequency (RF) devices contribute to the temporal dynamics of these occupancy patterns within the spectrum. The aim of this thesis is to utilize a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM) statistical analysis to infer the individual occupancy patterns of specific users from wireless RF observation traces. …

The Unequal Distribution Of Professional Autonomy In Schools, Joseph Cleary

LSU Master's Theses

This qualitative study examines the ways in which educators interpret and respond to government interventions in public schools. I conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven teachers and two principals at two public high schools in Baton Rouge, Louisiana . By comparing the perceptions of educators at a low-performing school (which serves high percentages of minority and low-income students) with perceptions of educators at a high-performing school (which serves fewer numbers of minority and low-income students), this study demonstrates how an educator’s sense of autonomy relates to students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. Findings show that educators, who work in schools with high numbers of …

Impacts Of Artificial Reef Addition On The Nekton Community Of Louisiana Marsh Ponds: A Before-After-Control-Impact Analysis, Kari Elizabeth Klotzbach

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana’s coastal estuaries are dynamic, highly variable environments that provide nursery areas for numerous recreationally and commercially important species. Louisiana’s coastline is constantly changing due to natural and anthropogenic processes, and it is important to know how nektonic species are impacted by such changes. This study sought to assess the effects of introducing a hard substrate artificial reef on the nekton community of a Louisiana estuary. A before-after-control-impact (BACI) design was used to assess the impacts of artificial reef addition on nektonic fishes and crustaceans in four shallow marsh ponds near Empire, Louisiana. Marsh ponds were sampled by purse seine …

Blind Ldpc Encoder Identification, Tian Xia

LSU Master's Theses

Nowadays, adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) techniques can facilitate flexible strategies subject to dynamic channel quality. The AMC transceivers select the most suitable coding and modulation mechanisms subject to the acquired channel information. Meanwhile, a control channel or a preamble is usually required to synchronously coordinate such changes between transmitters and receivers. On the other hand, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes become more and more popular in recent years due to their promising capacity-approaching property. The broad range of variations in code rates and codeword lengths for LDPC codes makes them ideal candidates for future AMC transceivers. The blind encoder identification …

Teaching Mirr To Improve Comprehension Of Investment Performance Evaluation Techniques

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

NPV and IRR are frequently used to evaluate investment performance, yet when they conflict many firms base capital budgeting decisions on IRR, though NPV is superior in specific cases. Teaching the MIRR technique should reinforce academia’s preference of the NPV technique. The reinvestment assumptions of NPV and IRR are implicit and hidden from students, while the calculation of the MIRR technique forces explicit decisions regarding the investment and discounting of interim cash flows. Thus, by teaching the MIRR calculation students may gain a better understanding of the differences between the three techniques reinforcing the primacy of NPV.

Wet Meadow Plant Associations, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon, John A. Christy

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

In July 2012, we sampled 131 plots in wet meadow habitat at the southern end of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Analysis of the data identified eleven different plant associations: Alopecurus pratensis, Carex aquatilis var. aquatilis, Carex nebrascensis, Carex pellita, Carex praegracilis, Carex sheldonii, Distichlis spicata, Juncus balticus, Leymus triticoides, Phalaris arundinacea, and Sparganium eurycarpum. Plant associations spanned a wetland gradient from seasonally moist to seasonally or perennially flooded, but surface water had left most stands at time of sampling. Mean Wetland Indicator Status scores help to place the plant associations within gradients in soil moisture and alkalinity. The Alopecurus …

Two-Step Arithmetic Word Problems, Enrique Castro-Martínez, Antonio Frías-Zorilla

The Mathematics Enthusiast

This study uses the perspective of schemes to analyze characteristics of arithmetic word problems that can influence the process of translation from the verbal statement to an arithmetical representation. One characteristic that we have detected in the two-step word problems is the presence of one or two connections (nodes) in schemes that represent them, and this paper explores whether the number of nodes affects the activation of the associated schemas. With students from the 5th and 6th grades of elementary school (11 and 12 years of age), we analyze the written productions and would stress that the number of connections …

Trajectory Of A Problem: A Study In Teacher Training, Alain Kuzniak, Bernard Parzysz, Laurent Vivier

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Problems are frequently used in mathematics to introduce and convey new notions and skills. Hence, teachers transform and adjust those problems to their students' level. The present study focuses on this transformation process on the particular case of a geometric problem posed by two teacher educators in one French Institute for Teacher Training. The whole process is described as a trajectory of the problem through various institutions from training center to secondary school and back. Before presenting the notion of trajectory of the problem, some elements about a general theoretical frame which refers to didactics of mathematics are presented.

Primary School Teacher’S Noticing Of Students’ Mathematical Thinking In Problem Solving, Ceneida Fernández, Salvador Llinares, Julia Valls

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Professional noticing of students’ mathematical thinking in problem solving involves the identification of noteworthy mathematical ideas of students’ mathematical thinking and its interpretation to make decisions in the teaching of mathematics. The goal of this study is to begin to characterize pre-service primary school teachers’ noticing of students’ mathematical thinking when students solve tasks that involve proportional and non-proportional reasoning. From the analysis of how pre-service primary school teachers notice students’ mathematical thinking, we have identified an initial framework with four levels of development. This framework indicates a possible trajectory in the development of primary teachers’ professional noticing.

Tme Volume 10, Numbers 1 And 2

The Mathematics Enthusiast

No abstract provided.

Structural And Photoluminescent Characterization Of Substituted A3mo4f (A = Sr, Ba, Ca; M = Al, Ga, In, Si And Ge), Robert Lenwood Green

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, the structure and photoluminescent properties of A3MO4F-type materials (A = Sr, Ba, Ca; M =Al, Ga, In, Si, Ge) are studied as potential phosphors for compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and phosphor converted light emitting diode (pc LED) lights. Chapter 1 outlines background information of the evolution of lighting technology as well as detailing the synthesis, structural characterization and photoluminescence measurements. Chapter 2 focuses on the changes that the Sr3AlO4F structure undergoes as a result of exposure to a 5% H2/95% Ar atmosphere. High-resolution neutron powder diffraction is used to probe for minute structural changes. Chapter 3 is …

The Complete Plus-Minus: A Case Study Of The Columbus Blue Jackets, Nathan Spagnola

Theses and Dissertations

A new hockey statistic termed the Complete Plus-Minus (CPM) was created to calculate the abilities of hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). This new statistic was used to analyze the Columbus Blue Jackets for the 2011-2012 season. The CPM for the Blue Jackets was created using two logistic regressions that modeled a goal being scored for and against the Blue Jackets. Whether a goal was scored for or against the team were the responses, while events on the ice were the predictors in the model. It was found that the team's poor performance was due to a weak …

Education As Class Warfare. An Interview With Scholar/Author Peter Mclaren, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

An interview with Peter McLaren about educational reform and how his work is influenced by Marxist theory.

Response Of Materials To Various Shock Loading Conditions Generated By Plate Impact Experiments, Gifford W. Plume Iv

Open Access Dissertations

The response of materials to shock loading has been investigated through use of a plate impact experimental technique. A single stage gas gun was utilized to drive projectiles to velocities between 50-500 m/s, facilitating investigations into low to moderate shock loading conditions. Temporal records of the dynamic events were captured with the use of commercial manganin stress gauges that were embedded within layers of test material.

Within this thesis, there is a bimodal theme. The first portion of this thesis investigated the spall fracture of cast irons with varying microstructure. Although the study of the spall fracture of materials is …