Charting Success: Using Practical Measures to Assess Information Literacy Skills in the First-Year Writing Course

Objective – The aim was to measure the impact of a peer-to-peer model on information literacy skill-building among first-year students at a small commuter college in the United States. The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is the state’s flagship public university and UNH Manchester is one of its seven colleges. This study contributed to a program evaluation of the Research Mentor Program at UNH Manchester whereby peer writing tutors are trained in basic library research skills to support first-year students throughout the research and writing process. Methods – The methodology employed a locally developed pre-test/post-test instrument with fixed-choice and open-ended questions to measure students’ knowledge of the library research process. Anonymized data was collected using an online survey with SurveyMonkey™ software. A rubric was developed to score the responses to open-ended questions. Results – The study indicated a positive progression toward increased learning for the three information literacy skills targeted: 1) using library resources correctly, 2) building effective search strategies, and 3) evaluating sources appropriately. Students scored higher in the fixed-choice questions than the open-ended ones, demonstrating their ability to more effectively identify the applicable information literacy skill than use the language of information literacy to describe their own research behavior. Conclusions – The assessment methodology used was an assortment of low-key, locally-developed instruments that provided timely data to measure students understanding of concepts taught and to apply those concepts correctly. Although the conclusions are not generalizable to other institutions, the findings were a valuable component of an ongoing program evaluation. Further assessment measuring student performance would strengthen the conclusions attained in this study

Optimizing Expected Utility in a Multinomial Logit Model with Position Bias and Social Influence

Motivated by applications in retail, online advertising, and cultural markets, this paper studies how to find the optimal assortment and positioning of products subject to a capacity constraint. We prove that the optimal assortment and positioning can be found in polynomial time for a multinomial logit model capturing utilities, position bias, and social influence. Moreover, in a dynamic market, we show that the policy that applies the optimal assortment and positioning and leverages social influence outperforms in expectation any policy not using social influence

Prediction of inherited genomic susceptibility to 20 common cancer types by a supervised machine-learning method.

Prevention and early intervention are the most effective ways of avoiding or minimizing psychological, physical, and financial suffering from cancer. However, such proactive action requires the ability to predict the individual's susceptibility to cancer with a measure of probability. Of the triad of cancer-causing factors (inherited genomic susceptibility, environmental factors, and lifestyle factors), the inherited genomic component may be derivable from the recent public availability of a large body of whole-genome variation data. However, genome-wide association studies have so far showed limited success in predicting the inherited susceptibility to common cancers. We present here a multiple classification approach for predicting individuals' inherited genomic susceptibility to acquire the most likely phenotype among a panel of 20 major common cancer types plus 1 "healthy" type by application of a supervised machine-learning method under competing conditions among the cohorts of the 21 types. This approach suggests that, depending on the phenotypes of 5,919 individuals of "white" ethnic population in this study, (i) the portion of the cohort of a cancer type who acquired the observed type due to mostly inherited genomic susceptibility factors ranges from about 33 to 88% (or its corollary: the portion due to mostly environmental and lifestyle factors ranges from 12 to 67%), and (ii) on an individual level, the method also predicts individuals' inherited genomic susceptibility to acquire the other types ranked with associated probabilities. These probabilities may provide practical information for individuals, heath professionals, and health policymakers related to prevention and/or early intervention of cancer

Prey body size mediates the predation risk associated with being "odd"

Despite selection pressures on prey animals to maintain phenotypically homogeneous groups, variation in phenotype within animal groups is commonly observed. Although many prey animals preferentially associate with size-matched individuals, a lack of preference or a preference for nonmatching group mates is also commonly observed. We suggest that the assortative response to predation risk may be mediated by body size because larger bodied prey may be at greater risk of predation than smaller bodied prey when in a mixed group due to their greater potential profitability. We test this idea by observing attacks by three-spine sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus on mixed groups of large and small Daphnia magna prey. We find that smaller Daphnia are at greatest risk when they form the majority of the group, whereas larger Daphnia are at the greatest predation risk when they form the minority. Thus, we predict that both large and small prey should benefit by association with large prey, generating a potential conflict over group membership that may lead to the mixed phenotype groups we observe in nature

Extended Inclusive Fitness Theory bridges Economics and Biology through a common understanding of Social Synergy

Inclusive Fitness Theory (IFT) was proposed half a century ago by W.D. Hamilton to explain the emergence and maintenance of cooperation between individuals that allows the existence of society. Contemporary evolutionary ecology identified several factors that increase inclusive fitness, in addition to kin-selection, such as assortation or homophily, and social synergies triggered by cooperation. Here we propose an Extend Inclusive Fitness Theory (EIFT) that includes in the fitness calculation all direct and indirect benefits an agent obtains by its own actions, and through interactions with kin and with genetically unrelated individuals. This formulation focuses on the sustainable cost/benefit threshold ratio of cooperation and on the probability of agents sharing mutually compatible memes or genes. This broader description of the nature of social dynamics allows to compare the evolution of cooperation among kin and non-kin, intra- and inter-specific cooperation, co-evolution, the emergence of symbioses, of social synergies, and the emergence of division of labor. EIFT promotes interdisciplinary cross fertilization of ideas by allowing to describe the role for division of labor in the emergence of social synergies, providing an integrated framework for the study of both, biological evolution of social behavior and economic market dynamics.Comment: Bioeconomics, Synergy, Complexit

Cross-cultural comparison of genetic and cultural transmission of smoking initiation using an extended twin kinship model

Background: Considerable evidence from twin and adoption studies indicates that genetic and shared environmental factors play a role in the initiation of smoking behavior. Although twin and adoption designs are powerful to detect genetic and environmental influences, they do not provide information on the processes of assortative mating and parent–offspring transmission and their contribution to the variability explained by genetic and/or environmental factors. Methods: We examined the role of genetic and environmental factors in individual differences for smoking initiation (SI) using an extended kinship design. This design allows the simultaneous testing of additive and non-additive genetic, shared and individual-specific environmental factors, as well as sex differences in the expression of genes and environment in the presence of assortative mating and combined genetic and cultural transmission, while also estimating the regression of the prevalence of SI on age. A dichotomous lifetime ‘ever’ smoking measure was obtained from twins and relatives in the ‘Virginia 30,000’ sample and the ‘Australian 25,000’. Results: Results demonstrate that both genetic and environmental factors play a significant role in the liability to SI. Major influences on individual differences appeared to be additive genetic and unique environmental effects, with smaller contributions from assortative mating, shared sibling environment, twin environment, cultural transmission, and resulting genotype-environment covariance. Age regression of the prevalence of SI was significant. The finding of negative cultural transmission without dominance led us to investigate more closely two possible mechanisms for the lower parent–offspring correlations compared to the sibling and DZ twin correlations in subsets of the data: (1) age × gene interaction, and (2) social homogamy. Neither of the mechanism provided a significantly better explanation of the data. Conclusions: This study showed significant heritability, partly due to assortment, and significant effects of primarily non-parental shared environment on liability to SI

The Effect of UNH Undergraduate Student Exercise on Academic Achievement

A number of existing studies focus on the effect exercise and dietary habits have on social relationships; however, few studies examine the relationship between exercise and academic performance on college students. In this study, surveys were administered to 202 students at the University of New Hampshire. Although the data presented no statistically significant findings to prove a correlation between exercise and academic performance, students who never exercised were shown to be more likely to do poorly rather than excel academically. Future research should consist of a larger sample using a random sampling method for better reliability and validity in determining a relationship between student exercise and academic performance

Frequency of Parental Psychopathology in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Parental mental health concerns place children at a significantly greater risk of lower social, psychological and physical health than children in families not affected by mental illness. Several studies have examined the extent to which psychopathology in children are closely related to parental substance use disorders or to other mental disorders. This study intended to investigate the frequency of occurrence of parental psychopathology in children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and compare the characteristics of children with and without parental psychopathology. Fifty children between 7-14 years of either sex fulfilling the ICD-10 criteria for ADHD comprised the sample of this study.It would be a chart review of in-patients and out-patients who have consulted at Kasturba Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Manipal over a two year period. Parents diagnosed with Substance Use Disorders (SUD) and other psychiatric morbidity according to ICD-10 was compared with those parents without any psychiatric illness on various Sociodemographic, clinical characteristics. Most of the parents were in the second or third decade of their life. Of the fifty patients 41(82%) were males and 9 (18%) were females. In 36(87.0 %) of the fathers had a history of substance use disorder and 5(13.0 %) it was absent. Other morbidities were also present in both parents. The findings are discussed in light of the implications

A Current Overview of Materials and Strategies for Potential Use in Maxillofacial Tissue Regeneration

Tissue regeneration is rapidly evolving to treat anomalies in the entire human body. The production of biodegradable, customizable scaffolds to achieve this clinical aim is dependent on the interdisciplinary collaboration among clinicians, bioengineers and materials scientists. While bone grafts and varying reconstructive procedures have been traditionally used for maxillofacial defects, the goal of this review is to provide insight on all materials involved in the progressing utilization of the tissue engineering approach to yield successful treatment outcomes for both hard and soft tissues. In vitro and in vivo studies that have demonstrated the restoration of bone and cartilage tissue with different scaffold material types, stem cells and growth factors show promise in regenerative treatment interventions for maxillofacial defects. The repair of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disc and mandibular bone were discussed extensively in the report, supported by evidence of regeneration of the same tissue types in different medical capacities. Furthermore, in addition to the thorough explanation of polymeric, ceramic, and composite scaffolds, this review includes the application of biodegradable metallic scaffolds for regeneration of hard tissue. The purpose of compiling all the relevant information in this review is to lay the foundation for future investigation in materials used in scaffold synthesis in the realm of oral and maxillofacial surgery