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University Belongingness Among Professional Doctoral Alumni in the US Transnational Education in China: A Mixed Methods Case Study
No full textThis mixed-methods case study investigates university belongingness among professional doctoral alumni within a US transnational education program in China. Guided by socialization theories, the study employed explanatory sequential design, beginning with an online survey and followed by in-depth interviews. The study addresses two main questions (RQ): RQ1: What are the key factors shaping the sense of belonging in transnational education programs? RQ2: How does the transnational nature of educational programs shape students’ sense of belonging toward the US and Chinese partner universities? The findings indicated that the academic reputation of partner universities, curriculum design, peer relationships, career background, and professional development were the primary influential factors of professional doctoral alumni's sense of belonging. Secondary influential factors included institutional culture, academic support, location and geopolitics, instructional methods, program requirements and structure, faculty-student interaction, staff-student relationships, educational background, interpersonal connections, and networking and collaboration in professional community, which interacted with primary factors to significantly affect alumni satisfaction and their sense of belonging toward both partner universities. The transnational setting itself enabled alumni to navigate multiple cultural and educational landscapes, thereby shaping a dual sense of belonging. This study addresses a gap in the literature on university belongingness among professional doctoral students and alumni in US transnational education in China. It contributes to the theoretical framework of socialization in contexts of transnational and professional community contexts, offering insights for administrators to enhance practice and policy, thereby improving the sense of belonging among transnational alumni. These insights are instrumental in guiding the design of structured student and alumni services that enhance the educational experience with both partner universities
Soil Health – Summary of the Nutrient Mobility Concept
No full textThis article, published in the VegIPM Newsletter (Vol. 16, No. 1), summarizes Bray’s nutrient mobility concept, contrasting mobile and immobile nutrients, and reviewing management strategies such as fertilizer placement and soil testing for efficient crop nutrition.Documents in the Arizona Pest Management Center collection are made available by the Arizona Pest Management Center (APMC) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact https://acis.cals.arizona.edu/about-us/arizona-pest-management-center
4R Nutrient Management
No full textThis article, published in the VegIPM Newsletter (Vol. 16, No. 2), introduces the 4R framework for nutrient stewardship. Silvertooth highlights its role in improving agronomic, economic, and environmental outcomes in Arizona crop systems.Documents in the Arizona Pest Management Center collection are made available by the Arizona Pest Management Center (APMC) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact https://acis.cals.arizona.edu/about-us/arizona-pest-management-center
Colorado River Basin-Wide Negotiations for the New 2026 Operational Guidelines
No full textThis article, published in the VegIPM Newsletter (Vol. 16, No. 3), reviews the history and future of Colorado River water allocation, outlining challenges of basin-wide negotiations to establish new operational guidelines before the 2007 Interim Guidelines expire in 2026.Documents in the Arizona Pest Management Center collection are made available by the Arizona Pest Management Center (APMC) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact https://acis.cals.arizona.edu/about-us/arizona-pest-management-center
Innovative Precision Alignment, Stray Light Suppression Solutions for UV Space-Borne and Suborbital Missions
No full textThis dissertation addresses key optical engineering challenges in modern astronomicalinstruments, focusing on stray light contamination, optical misalignments, and design limitations that affect the performance of space-based and balloon-borne telescopes. These challenges hinder the precision of measurements critical for scientific discovery, and this work presents novel solutions to optimize instrument performance. In Chapter 2, we focus on re-aligning the FIREBall-2 spectrograph, a NASA/CNES balloon-borne telescope designed to study the circumgalactic medium. During its first flight, optical misalignments led to suboptimal resolution, with spatial resolution degrading to 7′′ and spectral resolution to 1300. Post-flight evaluation revealed significant misalignments of optical elements beyond tolerance. We detail a re-alignment procedure that uses Computer-Generated Holograms (CGHs) with a Zygo interferometer to achieve precise alignment of the focal corrector system, resulting in improved performance in the 2023 re-flight. Chapter 3 addresses stray light contamination in the Aspera SmallSat mission, a NASA-funded project aimed at studying galaxy evolution by detecting diffuse O VI emission at 103.2 nm. Stray light degrades the signal-to-noise ratio in spectroscopic observations of galaxy halos. To mitigate this, a two-stage baffle design is proposed, featuring optimized vane geometries and strategically placed shared baffles coated with Acktar Magic Black. Simulation results show that this design effectively meets the mission’s stringent stray light suppression requirements. A third study in Chapter 4 investigates the performance of a dual-ruled grating spectrometer as part of the Spatial Heterodyne Extreme Ultraviolet Interferometer (SHEUVI) project. SHEUVI is a wide-field, all-reflective spatial heterodyne spectrometer that utilizes a single, dual-ruling grating to diffract incoming normal-incidence light into symmetric orders, thereby generating a dispersion-based interference pattern on a detector. Designed to operate at wavelengths below the transmissive optics cutoff (approximately 105 nm), this innovative design minimizes optical path differences by producing both interfering beams from the same grating location. Experimental characterization of the 800 gr/mm ruling, optimized for approximately 590 nm at m = ±1 with a symmetric blaze angle of 13.8, confirms the grating’s effectiveness in isolating and sampling discrete passbands. In conclusion, Chapter 5 of this dissertation presents solutions to common optical challenges including stray light suppression, optical alignment, and diffraction efficiency, that affect astronomical instruments. These contributions enhance the performance of current space missions and provide valuable insights for optimizing the design of future telescopes.Release after 03/19/202
Variations, Causes, And Consequences of Bureaucrat-Led Public Engagement In A Hybrid Regime: A Case of Thailand
No full textResearch on direct public participation has largely focused on stable democracies with only recent extensions to some stable authoritarian contexts, while hybrid or oscillating regimes remain understudied. This dissertation addresses this gap using Thailand as the empirical setting. It asks: (1) what do direct participation or public engagement practices look like in a developing democracy with volatile politics, and (2) what drives variation in those practices? I conceptualize public engagement variation along three dimensions (recruitment inclusiveness, information flow or communication mode, and perceived impact) and operationalize them as indices at the policy-task level rather than at the level of individual public engagement activity, to better reflect how public managers make decisions. The study uses administrative data, original interview data, and original survey data conducted on K3-level Thai public managers and their equivalents covering 230 policy tasks, nested in 125 managers, across 8 organizations. At the policy-task level, multilevel linear models with random intercepts for individuals and organizations show that higher Public Service Motivation (PSM) and greater political autonomy are associated with higher scores across all three indices. Other variables, such as technocratic orientation and legal requirements, have different relationships with different dimensions. For example, having no legal requirement but having norms to engage the public has a significant relationship only with the perceived impact of the engagement activities of a policy task, not with inclusiveness or communication. These findings suggest that it might be useful to model public engagement as multidimensional dependent variables, since disaggregating the dimensions can reveal more specific ways that independent variables influence variations of public engagement. The study also compares the policy-task level results with results from analyses at the engagement-activity level. These results diverge in theoretically informative ways. No predictor is consistently significant across all dimensions within one activity. Attitude toward democracy shows a significant negative relationship with committee meeting’s information flow while it does not appear as a significant driver at the policy-task level. Technocratic orientation has positive relationship with committee’s inclusiveness but not task-level inclusiveness. These patterns are consistent with managers making policy-task-level design choices rather than thinking about each engagement venue or activity in isolation. Overall, modeling participation with policy-task-level indices aligns more closely with theoretical expectations, but these indices still have limitations and should be further refined
Silvertooth on the Bill Buckmaster Radio Program- Feb. 4, 2025
No full textDocuments in the Arizona Pest Management Center collection are made available by the Arizona Pest Management Center (APMC) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact https://acis.cals.arizona.edu/about-us/arizona-pest-management-center
Table of Contents
No full textTable of ContentsThis material published in Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy is made available by the James E. Rogers College of Law, the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library, and the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact the AJELP Editorial Board at https://ajelp.com/contact-us
More Than Morrill: The Intertwined History of Indian Land Dispossession, Arizona Statehood, and University Enrichment [Article]
No full textArticleThrough the federal government’s university land-grant programs, which began with the Morrill Act in 1862 and continue today, Congress has systematically allocated millions of acres of land in the western United States to states to create endowments to support the public higher education of its citizens. In Arizona, land was taken from Indigenous people, communities, tribes, and nations by treaty, act of congress, executive order, and force to accomplish this. As a result, by the time of statehood in 1912, the state of Arizona had accumulated approximately 850,000 acres of land around the state on behalf of higher education including the University of Arizona, then the state’s only university and its designated land-grant institution. Today, the Arizona State Land Department still holds and manages 688,706 acres of land in trust for the benefit of public higher education. All three of Arizona’s public universities receive distributions from the revenue generated by these trust lands. The goal of this paper is to explore and analyze the University of Arizona’s historical and ongoing enrichment from land taken from Indigenous peoples by the federal government and transferred to the territory and, later, the state of Arizona for the benefit of institutions of higher education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A comprehensive understanding of Arizona’s history and the state’s current holdings and financial benefits is required to examine the policy implications and moral and legal obligations that Arizona and its universities have to Indigenous peoples in Arizona.This material published in Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy is made available by the James E. Rogers College of Law, the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library, and the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact the AJELP Editorial Board at https://ajelp.com/contact-us
Cretaceous to Cenozoic evolution of the southern Central Andes and basins therein
No full textThe Andean Cordillera exhibits a striking contrast between the high, broad Altiplano-Puna plateau in its central portion and the narrower, lower-elevation Patagonian Andes to the south. The transition between these end-members across the southern Central Andes (~28°–36°S) reflects fundamental, yet poorly understood, differences in crustal architecture and tectonic evolution. The four interconnected studies of this dissertation integrate synorogenic sedimentary, magmatic, and stable-isotope records to clarify these issues. The first study (Appendix A) analyzes the well-preserved Eocene–Miocene Manantiales foreland basin (~32°S), documenting evolution from distal foredeep to syndepositionally deformed wedge-top. Facies, detrital zircon U–Pb, and structural data indicate episodic wedge growth characterized by phases of eastward thrust belt propagation alternating with significant out-of-sequence deformation. This finding reconciles conflicting kinematic models: apparent westward-younging deformation is consistent with cyclic behavior predicted by Coulomb-wedge theory, rather than exotic west-vergent tectonics.
The second study (Appendix B) expands on the preceding basin analysis by evaluating the isotopic stratigraphy of the Manantiales basin. Volcanic glass ?D and carbonate ?18O/?13C stable-isotope data are compared to seasonal Rayleigh fractionation models and an empirical isotope–elevation curve to estimate paleoelevation under differing moisture regimes. This analysis supports a two-step basin evolution: (1) ca. 18 Ma moisture-source reorganization during Cordillera del Tigre uplift; (2) post-16.5 Ma isotopic enrichment from enhanced evaporation and/or monsoonal influence during the Miocene Climatic Optimum. This work develops paired carbonate–glass proxies as a tool to deconvolve climate versus uplift signals in tectonically complex settings near moisture source transitions. The third study (Appendix C) uses whole-rock geochemistry and zircon petrochronology to assess the Late Cretaceous–Quaternary evolution of crustal thickness below the Andean arc at ~35°S. Results suggest minor Late Cretaceous crustal thinning, coinciding with normal faulting and Farallon plate subduction initiation below the region. Little change in crustal thickness is evident across Paleogene time, challenging popular models invoking widespread extension. Crustal thickening of at least 8.4 ± 4.7 km is found to have initiated after ca. 20 Ma, linking Neogene shortening to construction of the Andean crustal root. This work also evaluates zircon trace elements as crustal thickness proxies, finding that Sm/Yb, Gd/Yb, and Dy/Yb may most reliably track the depth of the sub-arc Moho.
The fourth study (Appendix D) integrates sedimentology and geochronology results from Cretaceous–Miocene deposits across the High Andes (~31.5–32.5°S) with the broader basin record of the southern Central Andes. Newly recognized outcrops of the Diamante Formation are interpreted as the northernmost deposits of a mid-Cretaceous foreland basin. This basin was interrupted after ca. 84 Ma by low-silica alkaline magmatism, likely recording passage of the Aluk–Farallon slab window. By the Late Eocene, deposits of the Río de los Patos Formation mark establishment of a foreland basin in front of thrust belt structures near the international border. Growth strata and angular unconformities help constrain Early Miocene (ca. 21–17 Ma) fold-thrust belt propagation and later (ca. 13–9 Ma) out-of-sequence deformation. Through the framework of flexural wave migration, these results suggest that foreland basin development was more episodic in the southern Central Andes than in regions to the north. This dissertation improves understanding of the tectonic framework of the southern Central Andes, showing a fundamentally different orogenic development than sectors to the north. Thus, modern along-strike change in Andean topography are shown to have ancient origins in divergent Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonic histories. Mountain building in the region is seen as an unsteady process modulated by both internal dynamics—such as wedge mechanics and sedimentation feedbacks—and external forces like plate reorganizations and ridge subduction. This framework advances understanding of how upper- and lower-plate factors interact to produce along-strike variations in Cordilleran orogenic systems globally.Release after 09/08/202