ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst

Recent Submissions

  • Publication
    CIE Newsletter - 1976
    (Center for International Education, UMass Amherst, 1976-12)
  • Publication
    CIE Bricolage - 1986
    (Center for International Education, UMass Amherst, 1986-12)
  • Publication
    X-ray Insight into High-Energy Processes in Extreme Galactic Nuclear Environment
    (2022) Wang, Q. Daniel
    Nuclear regions of galaxies apparently play a disproportionately large role in regulating their formation and evolution. How this regulation works, however, remains very uncertain. Here we review a few recent X-ray studies of our Galactic center and the inner bulge region of our major neighboring galaxy, M31, and focusing on addressing such questions as: Why are the majority of supermassive black holes (e.g., Sgr A*) so faint? What regulates the Galactic nuclear environment? Furthermore, what impact does a recent active galactic nucleus have on the ionization state of surrounding gas? These studies have provided new insight into how various relevant high-energy phenomena and processes interplay with extreme galactic nuclear environments and affect global galactic ecosystems.
  • Publication
    Status of deforestation of Madagascar
    (2023-04) Suzzi-Simmons, Amanda
    Several studies have reported tree cover loss at an unprecedented rate in Madagascar because of human population expansion which affects biodiversity, ecosystems, and weather patterns. Here we examine deforestation in Madagascar over the past 20 years (2001–2021). Time-series analysis of Landsat images empirically show that Madagascar, which covers an area of about 59 million hectares (230,000 square miles), has lost 4.85 million hectares of tree cover since 2000, equivalent to a 25% decrease in tree cover, and a gross estimate of 2.52 gigatonnes of CO2e – carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. Without breaking the intertwined cycle of poverty and deforestation, increasing rates of extinction will continue to impact Madagascar's flora and fauna.
  • Publication
    Mentors matter: Association of mentors with project success in the Apache Software Foundation Incubator
    (2022) Atkisson, Curtis
    Mentoring has been a subject of study for 50 years. Most studies of mentoring programs evaluate the effect of the program on the participants but do not evaluate if different mentors have different effects on mentees. Open-source software (OSS) is software with a license that allows it to be freely used by other people. Such software has become foundational to the world economy. However, many OSS projects get abandoned by their creators. Various nonprofit organizations have arisen to help OSS projects become sustainable. One of the key services offered by many of these nonprofit organizations is a mentorship program where experienced OSS developers advise nascent projects on how to achieve sustainability. We use data from the Apache Software Foundation Incubator program where 303 mentors have mentored 286 projects, with most mentoring more than one project, to address this question: Is who a project has as a mentor associated with variation in project success? Who a project has as a mentor accounts for 45% of the variation in project outcomes, with some mentors being associated with positive and some with negative outcomes. These mentors could offer insights into how to improve the mentoring program. This result also demonstrates, more broadly, that the nature of specific mentoring relationships may be important to understanding how mentors impact outcomes in other mentoring programs.

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