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An instructor's effort to internationalize a business communication course taught him much about the relationships between cognitive egocentrism and cognitive ethnocentrism. Cognitive egocentrism is the chief obstacle to be overcome in learning to write, even within a culture, while cognitive ethnocentrism is the chief obstacle to be overcome in learning to communicate interculturally. Business writing students at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis exchange simulated job application letters and resumes with business communication and business English students at the Antwerp Business School in Antwerp, Belgium. Students at both institutions read the documents from their counterparts and decide which applicants to "interview" and which to reject. The Indianapolis students write personal, student-to-student critiques of the Belgian applications, and the Antwerp students present videotaped oral evaluations of the American applications. Four subjective outcomes of the internationalizing of this business communication course are: (1) students seem to find the course even more authentic than earlier, noninternational versions; (2) students seem more motivated than their earlier counterparts; (3) as students worked to overcome cognitive egocentrism, they began to overcome cognitive ethnocentrism as well; and (4) in an increasingly international and intercultural communication environment, egocentrism and ethnocentrism are the same thing. (RS)

NASA announced the research opportunity Earth Venture Suborbital -2 (EVS-2) mission in support of the NASA's science strategic goals and objectives in 2013. Penn State University, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), and other academic institutions, government agencies, and industrial companies together formulated and proposed the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport -America (ACT -America) suborbital mission, which was subsequently selected for implementation. The airborne measurements that are part of ACT-America will provide a unique set of remote and in-situ measurements of CO2 over North America at spatial and temporal scales not previously available to the science community and this will greatly enhance our understanding of the carbon cycle. ACT -America will consist of five airborne campaigns, covering all four seasons, to measure regional atmospheric carbon distributions and to evaluate the accuracy of atmospheric transport models used to assess carbon sinks and sources under fair and stormy weather conditions. This coordinated mission will measure atmospheric carbon in the three most important regions of the continental US carbon balance: Northeast, Midwest, and South. Data will be collected using 2 airborne platforms (NASA Wallops' C-130 and NASA Langley's B-200) with both in-situ and lidar instruments, along with instrumented ground towers and under flights of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) satellite. This presentation provides an overview of the ACT-America instruments, with particular emphasis on the airborne CO2and backscatter lidars, and the, rationale, approach, and anticipated results from this mission.

A 2-m DIAL system has been developed at NASA Langley Research Center through the NASA Instrument Incubator Program. The system utilizes a tunable 2-m pulsed laser and an IR phototransistor for the transmitter and the receiver, respectively. The system targets the CO2 absorption line R22 in the 2.05-m band. Field experiments were conducted at West Branch, Iowa, for evaluating the system for CO2 measurement by comparison with in-situ sensors. The CO2 in-situ sensors were located on the NOAA's WBI tower at 31, 99 and 379 m altitudes, besides the NOAA s aircraft was sampling at higher altitudes. Preliminary results demonstrated the capabilities of the DIAL system in profiling atmospheric CO2 using the 2-m wavelength. Results of these experiments will be presented and discussed.

The Couzens Machine is a computerized learning exchange and information service developed for the residents of Couzens Hall, a dormitory at the University of Michigan. Organized as a collective within the framework of a course and supported by an instructional development grant from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, the Couzens Machine provided over 400 dormitory residents with personalized, computer-generated printouts. These printouts included information on: (1) other Couzens residents who shared the recipient's interests, (2) upcoming events in the Ann Arbor area in categories preselected by the recipient, and (3) miscellaneous topics including cafeteria menus, horoscopes, and haircutting, typing, and laundry services. (Author)