Leadership Practices for Undocumented and DACA students in the Heartland

Continuous demographic changes are shaping the future of higher education institutions and as a result, leaders in educational institutions must adapt to those changes. Community college leaders, in particular rural leaders, are in a unique position and need to constantly evolve to serve different students, including undocumented and DACA students. The US Department of Education (2015) estimates that approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools every year, however, “only 5 to 10% of undocumented students pursue higher education, and far fewer successfully graduate with a degree” (US Dept. of Education, 2015, p. 3). On June 15, 2012, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also know as DACA program. The DACA program opened a new window of opportunity for these students as it allowed them to obtain job authorization and granted them the opportunity to attend higher education institutions. Overall, what we know from research regarding the barriers, experiences, and educational outcomes of DACA recipients and DACA eligible students (collectively, DACA students), along with related policy considerations, naturally comes out of large populations coastal centers and other major population centers (Gonzalez, 2010; Gonzalez, Heredia, & Negron-Gonzalez, 2015; Suarez-Orozco, et.al. 2015). This body of research has established implications for what leaders can and should do to serve the interests of this segment of the population, even as most research has been concerned with student services staff and diversity officers (Kezar, 2000; Kezar, 2008; Nienhusser, 2018) rather than executive leadership per se

Optimal investment timing using Markov jump price processes

In this work, we address an investment problem where the investment can either be made immediately or postponed to a later time, in the hope that market conditions become more favourable. In our case, uncertainty is introduced through market price. When the investment is undertaken, a fixed sunk cost must be paid and a series of cash flows are to be received. Therefore, we are faced with an irreversible investment. Real options analysis provides an adequate framework for this type of problems by recognizing these two characteristics, uncertainty and irreversibility, explicitly. We describe algorithmic solutions for this type of problems by modelling market prices evolution by Markov jump processes.Irreversible investment, optimal stopping, dynamic programming, Markov jump processes

Real Options using Markov Chains: an application to Production Capacity Decisions

In this work we address investment decisions using real options. A standard numerical approach for valuing real options is dynamic programming. The basic idea is to establish a discrete-valued lattice of possible future values of the underlying stochastic variable (demand in our case). For most approaches in the literature, the stochastic variable is assumed normally distributed and then approximated by a binomial distribution, resulting in a binomial lattice. In this work, we investigate the use of a sparse Markov chain to model such variable. The Markov approach is expected to perform better since it does not assume any type of distribution for the demand variation, the probability of a variation on the demand value is dependent on the current demand value and thus, no longer constant, and it generalizes the binomial lattice since the latter can be modelled as a Markov chain. We developed a stochastic dynamic programming model that has been implemented both on binomial and Markov models. A numerical example of a production capacity choice problem has been solved and the results obtained show that the investment decisions are different and, as expected the Markov chain approach leads to a better investment policy.Flexible Capacity Investments, Real Options, Markov Chains, Dynamic Programming

Age and growth of the alfonsino Beryx decadactylus (Cuvier, 1829) from the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands, based on historical data

Age and growth of the alfonsino Beryx decadactylus from the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands were studied based on otolith readings. Alfonsino otoliths are thin and show clear annual growth rings. Specimens ranged in size from 21.0 to 50.0 cm fork length (aged 2 to 10 years) in the Azores, 20.0 to 45.0 cm fork length (1 to 11 years) in Madeira, and 21.0 to 44.0 cm fork length (0 to 9 years) in the Canary Islands. No significant differences in growth parameters were found between males and females in any of the three archipelagos. [...]

Psychosocial determinants of recovery in depression

There is a growing body of literature on residual symptoms after apparently successful treatment The strong prognostic value of subthreshold symptomatology upon remission and the relationship between residual and prodromal symptomatology (the rollback phenomenon) have been outlined. Most residual symptoms also occur in the prodromal phase of depression and may progress to become prodromes of relapse. These findings entail important implications. It is necessary to closely monitor the patient throughout the different phases of illness and to assess the quality and extent of residual symptoms. A more stringent definition of recovery, which is not limited to symptomatic assessment, but includes psychological well-being, seems to be necessary. Wen therapeutic strategies for improving the level of remission, such as treatment of residual symptoms that progress to become prodromes of relapse and/or increasing psychological well-being, appear to yield more lasting benefits. The sequential model may provide room for innovative treatment approaches, including the use of drugs for specifically addressing residual symptoms. As occurs in other medical disorders (such as diabetes and hypertension), the active role of the patient in achieving recovery (self-therapy homework) should be pursued

Investigation on the effect of reciprocating sliding wear test for titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V under frequency set up

Reciprocating sliding wear test of uncoated titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V is investigated using pin-on-flat arrangement under variables of reciprocal frequency set up (1, 2 and 2.5 Hz) for contact pin Ø6.5 mm. Frictional force resulted 60 – 80 N tangential force in range and the graph pattern for COF resulted running-in condition at earlier second and highest peak experienced in value 0.45-0.48 in range. The micrography shows more sticking at the end of the wear track and significant at parameter 1 Hz frequency. The profilometry shows the result of wear width and wear area where the wear width is increasing with the increasing of frequency set up while wear area decreasing with the increasing of frequency. The hardness shows high value for 2.5 Hz. The cyclic plasticity presence is examined using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The black spot present at the end of wear track are identified as an accumulation of ploughing during sliding and approved by the hardness result where the accumulation part experienced highest value 962 HV. This value proved that plastic deformation is formed during the sliding with the adhesive and abrasive mechanism

A decision support system for planning promotion time slots

We report on the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) to plan the best assignment for the weekly promotion space of a TV station. Each product to promote has a given target audience that is best reached at specific time periods during the week. The DSS aims to maximize the total viewing for each product within its target audience while fulfilling a set of constraints defined by the user. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and successful implementation of a heuristic-based scheduling software system that has been developed for a major Portuguese TV station.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)- FCT/POCI 2010/FEDER, Projecto POCTI/MAT/61842/2004Estação de Televisão SI

Desenvolvimento de um processo de microencapsulação baseado em quitosano para proteção do α-tocoferol

Este trabalho foi realizado no âmbito da unidade curricular de Projeto da Licenciatura em Engenharia Biomédica do Instituto Politécnico de Bragança. Teve como principal objetivo desenvolver um processo de microencapsulação para proteção do α-tocoferol, a principal forma da vitamina E. O α-tocoferol é um antioxidante que possui um papel importante na proteção do organismo contra certos tipos de cancro e do envelhecimento da pele. Contudo, apresenta instabilidade à temperatura, oxigénio e luz, sendo importante a sua microencapsulação para garantir a sua proteção. Os estudos preliminares levados a cabo no âmbito da unidade curricular supramencionada consideram a utilização de duas matrizes poliméricas (quitosano e alginato), optando-se neste trabalho por apresentar os resultados obtidos com o quitosano e na perspetiva do desenvolvimento do processo de microencapsulação. Numa última etapa, o comportamento das microesferas produzidas foi testado para diferentes condições de pH

A genetic algorithm approach for the TV self-promotion assignment problem

We report on the development of a Genetic Algorithm (GA), which has been integrated into a Decision Support System to plan the best assignment of the weekly self-promotion space for a TV station. The problem addressed consists on deciding which shows to advertise and when such that the number of viewers, of an intended group or target, is maximized. The GA proposed incorporates a greedy heuristic to find good initial solutions. These solutions, as well as the solutions later obtained through the use of the GA, go then through a repair procedure. This is used with two objectives, which are addressed in turn. Firstly, it checks the solution feasibility and if unfeasible it is fixed by removing some shows. Secondly, it tries to improve the solution by adding some extra shows. Since the problem faced by the commercial TV station is too big and has too many features it cannot be solved exactly. Therefore, in order to test the quality of the solutions provided by the proposed GA we have randomly generated some smaller problem instances. For these problems we have obtained solutions on average within 1% of the optimal solution value