Most Popular Books by Michael Johns

Nauplii from 4 commercially available geographical collections of Artemia and nauplii hatched from the Reference Artemia Cysts were compared for their effects on survival and growth of Rhithropanopeus harrisii larvae. In addition, nauplii from these sources were analyzed for their fatty acid and chlorinated hydrocarbon contents. Despite differences in the amounts of a few important polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as in the chlorinated hydrocarbon content, there was little variation in the survival and development rates of R. harrisii fed these Artemia sources as food. However, growth of R. harrisii from hatching to megalopa was significantly higher on the strain from France, intermediate in the Reference, Brazil and Chinese strains, and poorest on the Chaplin Lake (Canada) strain. The Reference strain is shown to be one of the better sources of Artemia nauplii with regard to their use in crab culture and therefore represent a good standard for future research studies.

Spectacular vision of short poetic stories, redefining life, love, happiness, and sorrow, with mildly graphic overtones throughout.

Describing a test as a measure of an ability certain groups are stereotyped to lack can hurt the performance of members of those groups. Steele and his colleagues call this effect stereotype threat (1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). Now well established, less is known about how stereotype threat reduces performance. The studies described in this dissertation were designed to follow up on past research showing that stereotype threat reduces performance by constraining working memory (Schmader & Johns, 2003). The primary hypothesis is that people experiencing stereotype threat devote cognitive resources that would normally be used for task performance to trying to avoid feelings of anxiety. In the first study, women completed an implicit reaction time measure of anxiety and a measure of working memory capacity under stereotype threat or non-stereotype threat conditions. The implicit measure was described as either related or unrelated to anxiety. The results revealed that women under stereotype threat showed evidence of increased anxiety when the implicit measure was described in neutral terms. However women in this condition showed evidence of anxiety avoidance when it was described as a measure of anxiety. Performance on the implicit measure was also correlated with stereotype threat-induced reductions in working memory. The second study tested whether eliminating the need to avoid feeling anxious would increase working memory. Caucasian and Latino participants completed the same implicit measure and working memory task under conditions that have been shown to create stereotype threat for Latinos. Half the participants were told that anxiety would not harm their performance on an intelligence test and the remaining participants were not given any information about the effect of anxiety on performance. The results showed that informing Latino participants that anxiety would not harm performance reduced anxiety avoidance on the implicit measure and also improved their working memory. However, anxiety avoidance was not correlated with working memory reductions. The results of these studies provide evidence that anxiety avoidance might be one factor that contributes to the effect of stereotype threat on test performance. Limitations of these studies and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The paper discusses the design and specification of a general purpose operating system for the proposed All Application Digital Computer. The objective is to develop a system which is relatively hardware independent, adaptable, comprehensive, maintainable and functional in a multiprocessing, multiprogramming environment. The operating system model is defined by using the techniques of Structured Programming, Decision Hiding, and Multi-Level Hierarchical Ordering. An initial set of functional requirements and system constraints are postulated from which additional functions are defined and assigned to modules for further specification. (Modified author abstract).

Community college students often lack an academic plan to guide their choices of coursework to achieve their educational goals, in part because counseling departments typically lack the capacity to advise students at scale. This randomized controlled trial tests the impact of guaranteed access to one of two alternative counseling sessions (group workshops or one-on-one counseling), each of which was combined with targeted "nudging." Outcome measures included scheduling and attending the counseling session, completing an academic plan, and re-enrolling in the following semester. Evidence suggests that both variations on the intervention increase academic plan completion rates by over 20 percentage points compared to a control group that did not receive guaranteed access to a counseling session or the automated nudges. Exploratory evidence suggests that when combined with nudging, the guarantee of workshop counseling is as effective as the guarantee of one-on-one counseling in causing students to schedule and attend academic planning appointments. The following are appended: (1) Study background and intervention characteristics; (2) Study data sources, design and analysis; (3) Supplemental tables; and (4) Descriptions of MySite, Sherpa, and My Academic Plan systems.