The impact of online learning tools on student success in college of business core finance classes

The authors examine the impact of a new online learning system on student performance in a core finance course required of all business majors. They find that the online learning system significantly reduces the number of students that withdraw from the course prior to course completion. Additionally, the benefits of a lower withdrawal rate transcend all modalities of course delivery and are greatest for students with declared majors outside of finance. Finally, though use of the online learning system reduces the withdrawal rate of students, it does not appear to result in significant grade inflation among those students completing the course

A generalized alternating harmonic series

This paper introduces a generalization of the alternating harmonic series, expresses the sum in two closed forms, and examines the relationship between these sums and the harmonic numbers

Affinity-Seeking: Student Desirability and Motivation in the Classroom

Affinity-seeking research once provided teachers with effective strategies to create an overall better classroom environment. Over the last twenty years there has been no continuation of this research and the effectiveness of these strategies seemed to be agreed upon. The purpose of this study is to bring affinity-seeking research back into the modern era and see how motivation is affected for both in-person and online classes. This study is a contribution that adds to these strategies for effectiveness in both in-person and online classrooms

Leading Change in Academic Libraries

Chapter 11: The Evolution of the STEM Libraries at Florida State University, co-authored by Rachel Besara, MSU faculty member. Institutions of higher education and academic libraries are not the traditional organizations they once were. They are subject to a variety of forces, including shifting and changing populations, technological changes, public demands for affordability and accountability, and changing approaches to research and learning. Academic libraries can no longer establish their excellence and ground their missions, visions, and strategic directions using the old means and methods. Leading Change in Academic Libraries is a collection of 20 change stories authored by academic librarians from different types of four-year institutions. Librarians tell the story firsthand of how they managed major change in processes, functions, services, programs, or overall organizations using John Kotter’s Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change as a framework for examining change at their institutions, measuring their successes and areas for improvement, and determining progress.https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/books/1000/thumbnail.jp

A Novel UV Resistance in Rad23-Depleted Tetrahymena thermophila

Rad23 is a highly conserved cellular scaffold protein which participates in the nucleotide excision repair pathway and ubiquitin proteasome system. It is hypothesized that the contradictory roles of Rad23 within these two systems, acting to enhance stability or facilitate degradation respectively, could be regulated via post-translational modification of the ubiquitin-like domain of the protein. To this end, a Rad23 somatic knockout cell line was established in Tetrahymena thermophila, with the eventual goal of knocking in a mutant Rad23 protein lacking potential for UbL ubiquitylation. In contrast to the UV-sensitive phenotype observed in similar models, Rad23-depleted Tetrahymena cell lines displayed significantly increased resistance to UV irradiation. While the mechanism of this survivability remains poorly understood, this model may shed new light on potential compensatory DNA repair mechanisms, pathways of failed apoptotic induction, or additional novel roles of the Rad23 accessory protein that have yet to be explored

A Needs Assessment for the Utilization of Child Life Specialist Bereavement Support Services in an Emergency Veterinary Hospital Setting

Studies indicate that there is an affective attachment bond, and related emotional involvement that exists between the companion animal and their human owners. Patient companion-animal death within the veterinary hospital, is a daily occurrence, with death rates per patient being significantly higher than in human health care. This comparatively higher death rate is due to the commonplace utilization of professionally sanctioned euthanasia to relieve animal pain and suffering. Companion animal death, may elicit grief reactions that are identical to what is experienced upon the death of a family member. A void currently exists in family centered veterinary care in terms of grief support of families; particularly the children who are the most vulnerable due to their level of developmental maturity. Study results suggest that there is a need for child life specialist support of children and families who are experiencing the death or imminent death of a companion animal. Although 80 percent of the participants stated familiarity with the role of a child life specialist, 100 percent of all respondents had never used the therapeutic services of this profession or had any specific knowledge of child life specialist support strategies. Despite this lack of experience and familiarity, most respondents demonstrated an understanding of both the necessity for child life specialist intervention and the ramifications of not providing this support to children, contemporaneous with the companion animal loss. The results of this needs assessment did not, however, support the functional benefit of child life services involvement as a facilitator of the reduction of compassion fatigue experienced by veterinary health care professionals

A Software Source Code Recommendation System for Code Reuse From Private Repositories

Motivated by the idea of reusing existing source code from previous projects within a software company, in this thesis, I present a new source code recommendation technique to help programmers find relevant implementations or sample code based on software requirement specifications. My proposed technique assists programmers to search existing code repositories using natural language query. My approach summarizes the uploaded code into sentences or phrases to match them against user queries. This version of my proposed technique extracts and analyzes the content of Python code (such as variables, functions, docstrings, and comments) to generate code summary for each function which is then mapped to the respective functions. My approach also provides the user query suggestions so that after issuing a generic query the user can reformulate their query based on the suggestions. A web-based deployment of the tool (available at http://socer.razib.info/search) allows a user to enter a textual search query and returns the relevant code search results that were most relevant to the query. It also allows users to upload new code to enrich the codebase with tested code. If adopted, my proposed technique will benefit a software company to build a trusted codebase enabling large-scale software code reuse

Evaluating the Construct Validity of the Peak Comprehensive Assessment: Measuring Language and Cognition

The purpose of the current study was to conduct a pilot investigation of the internal construct validity of the four modules of the PEAK Comprehensive Assessment (PCA). The PCA has been developed through robust research over the past five years (Dixon et al. 2017) and is designed to evaluate language and cognitive skills of individuals with developmental disabilities, including neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Although the PCA contains four modules exemplifying four distinct learning processes (Direct Training, Generalization, Equivalence, and Relational Learning), these four processes may represent one singular learning construct, described loosely as “executive functioning” or “cognitive ability” in domains outside of applied behavior analysis. Within applied behavior analytic models, the common feature among these modules is that all are operant learning accounts. I evaluated the construct validity of the PCA using a principle component analysis in a sample of 55 participants with disabilities collected from multiple clinical sites throughout the United States. Results supported a one-factor model, suggesting that although scores in each module may differentially direct programming decisions, they are representative of a single underlying construct. Implications of these results are discussed

Not All Dreams Are Nightmares, Not All Nightmares Are Dreams

My art deals with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and addiction. It is how I work out the problems in my relationships and within my head. My art is where I explore ideas, alternate possibilities, my dreams, and my fears. Drawing inspiration from photographers such as Jerry Uelsmann, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn; painters like Caravaggio, Picasso, and Bacon, as well as, concepts from the Surrealists and the Futurists, the art I produce is dream-like: familiar objects in unrelated places. The work that I create stems from years of working with patients in their most acute states. For over a decade in an Adult Inpatient Psychiatric Unit, I worked with, and cared for those with mental illnesses. I was drawn to those who were suffering from Schizophrenia. I might be close enough to relate, touched enough to understand, or just insane enough to get a sense of their worlds. I use several juxtaposed images to replicate both movement and multiple points of a figure. This approach shows the struggle that I witnessed in patients and the frustration that I had in trying to go where I couldn’t. Within a stack of juxtaposed images, I display various states of the fight I have with the situation; anger, helplessness, exhaustion, defeat, and acceptance. It is a terrible position not to be able to reach someone who needs help. We often end up harming ourselves in our attempts to save them

Stream Bank and Bar Erosion Contributions and Land Use Influence on Suspended Sediment Loads in Two Ozark Watersheds, Southeast Missouri

In-channel sources and storages of fine-sediment such as in banks and bars can influence sediment loads and overall geomorphic activity in stream systems. However, in-channel processes and effects on sediment load are rarely quantified in geomorphic or water quality studies. This study uses a sediment budget approach to assess the influence of bank erosion and bar deposition on fine sediment loads in Mineral Fork (491 km2) and Mill Creek (133 km2) watersheds located in the Ozark Highlands in Washington County, Missouri. These watersheds were disturbed by historical lead and barite mining which included the construction of large tailings dams across headwater valleys. USEPA’s Spreadsheet Tool for Estimating Pollutant Loads (STEPL) was used to quantify suspended sediment delivery from upland areas and assess land use-load relationships. Aerial photographs from 1995 and 2015 were used to identify spatial patterns of erosion and deposition in bank and bar forms. LiDAR was used to characterize the channel network and determine bank and bar heights. Field measurements were used to ground-truth bank and bar heights and fine-sediment composition of alluvial deposits. Historical tailings dams capture runoff from 27% of Mineral Fork and 28% of Mill Creek drainage areas, trapping 38% and 26% of the suspended sediment load annually, respectively. The total annual sediment yield for Mineral Fork watershed was 92 Mg/km2 /yr with 55% released by bank erosion and \u3c1% reduced by bar storage. The sediment yield for Mill Creek was 99 Mg/km2 /yr with 33% released by bank erosion and 24% reduced by bar storage. These results indicate that in-channel processes are important contributors to sediment yields in these watersheds