Study of the impact of mentoring relationships on the entry level job search process in the field of student affairs

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 7, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Sandy Hutchinson.Vita.Ed. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2010.The purpose of this study was to compare those emerging professionals in the field of student affairs who engaged in a mentoring relationship and those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship. Specific areas assessed included psychosocial support (self confidence, informed level of knowledge about the field, and skill development) and career preparation in the form of job search etiquette. The study population consisted of students who participated in a job search in the spring 2010 recruitment season. These students were accessed through the Oshkosh Placement Exchange (OPE) registration. The survey was distributed to 570 participants, and 183 surveys were collected, therefore yielding a response rate of 32%. The study findings revealed no significant difference in whether or not an emerging professional engaged in a mentoring relationship compared to those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship in the areas of psychosocial support (self confidence, informed level of knowledge about the field, and skill development). Those who had a mentor showed no significant difference in the length of time of the mentoring relationship or the differing modes of communication within the mentoring relationship. In addition, there was no significant difference found within the comparisons of gender pairings within the mentee-mentor relationship. Finally, there was a significant difference found with job search etiquette preparation for those who engaged in a mentoring relationship compared to those who were not engaged in the mentoring relationship. Implications for practice include supporting individuals who are embarking upon the first entry level job as this study showed a significant impact in those that were prepared through a mentoring relationship. Housing/residence life professionals should begin to spend more time on job search preparation programs as well as mentor matching as a student begins to explore the profession. There are also opportunities within the profession to enhance training for our seasoned professionals to understand the mentoring role and responsibilities. Finally, while the focus of this study was on those who did engage in a mentoring relationship, it is important to consider the impact on those who did not engage in a mentoring relationship. As professionals in student affairs, it will be important to seek out students to support who may not have access to a mentoring relationship or may not feel comfortable in approaching a mentor.Includes bibliographical reference

Designing for Community in Online Learning Settings

This chapter is for librarians seeking to improve learning outcomes among adult learners by fostering community in online courses. To help the reader learn how to do this, we make use of recognized community-focused frameworks and concepts, including communities of practice, dimensions of community, modes of belonging, levels of community, the community of inquiry model, and the expanded community of inquiry model

Lessons learned from the development and manufacture of ceramic reusable surface insulation materials for the space shuttle orbiters

Three ceramic, reusable surface insulation materials and two borosilicate glass coatings were used in the fabrication of tiles for the Space Shuttle orbiters. Approximately 77,000 tiles were made from these materials for the first three orbiters, Columbia, Challenger, and Discovery. Lessons learned in the development, scale up to production and manufacturing phases of these materials will benefit future production of ceramic reusable surface insulation materials. Processing of raw materials into tile blanks and coating slurries; programming and machining of tiles using numerical controlled milling machines; preparing and spraying tiles with the two coatings; and controlling material shrinkage during the high temperature (2100-2275 F) coating glazing cycles are among the topics discussed

Environmental interventions for altering eating behaviours of employees in the workplace:A systematic review

Environmental, or ‘choice-architecture’, interventions aim to change behaviour by changing properties/contents of the environment and are commonly used in the workplace to promote healthy behaviours in employees. The present review aimed to evaluate and synthesize the evidence surrounding the effectiveness of environmental interventions targeting eating behaviour in the workplace. A systematic search identified 8157 articles, of which 22 were included in the current review. All included studies were coded according to risk of bias and reporting quality and were classified according to the emergent typology of choice-architecture interventions. More than half of included studies (13/22) reported significant changes in primary measures of eating behaviour (increased fruit/veg consumption, increased sales of healthy options and reduction in calories purchased). However, only one study produced a small significant improvement in weight/body mass index. Many studies had a high or unknown risk of bias; reporting of interventions was suboptimal; and the only trial to measure compensatory behaviours found that intervention participants who ate less during the intervention ate more out with the workplace later in the day. Hence, we conclude that more rigorous, well-reported studies that account for compensatory behaviours are needed to fully understand the impact of environmental interventions on diet and importantly on weight/body mass index outcomes

Exogenously added GPI-anchored tissue inhibitor of matrix metal loproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) displays enhanced and novel biological activities

The family of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) exhibits diverse physiological/biological functions including the inhibition of active matrix metalloproteinases, regulation of proMMP activation, cell growth, and the modulation of angiogenesis. TIMP-1 is a secreted protein that can be detected on the cell surface through its interaction with surface proteins. The diverse biological functions of TIMP-1 are thought to lie, in part, in the kinetics of TIMP-1/MMP/surface protein interactions. Proteins anchored by glycoinositol phospholipids (GPIs), when purified and added to cells in vitro, are incorporated into their surface membranes. A GPI anchor was fused to TIMP-1 to generate a reagent that could be added directly to cell membranes and thus focus defined concentrations of TIMP-1 protein on any cell surface independent of protein-protein interaction. Unlike native TIMP-1, exogenously added GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein effectively blocked release of MMP-2 and MMP-9 from osteosarcoma cells. TIMP-1-GP1 was a more effective modulator of migration and proliferation than TIMP-1. While control hTIMP-1 protein did not significantly affect migration of primary microvascular endothelial cells at the concentrations tested, the GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein showed a pronounced suppression of endothelial cell migration in response to bFGF. In addition, TIMP-1-GPI was more effective at inducing microvascular endothelial proliferation. In contrast, fibroblast proliferation was suppressed by the agent. Reagents based on this method should assist in the dissection of the protease cascades and activities involved in TIMP biology. Membrane-fixed TIMP-1 may represent a more effective version of the protein for use in therapeutic expression

Influence of target material impurities on physical results in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

This paper presents the studies on the influence of the target material impurities on physical observables registered in heavy ion collisions collected by fixed target experiments. It mainly concerns the measures of multiplicity fluctuations which can be used to searches for critical point of strongly interacting matter, e.g. in the {NA61/SHINE} fixed-target experiment at CERN SPS. The elemental composition of the targets used in the NA61/SHINE experiment was determined applying wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) technique. The influence of measured target impurities on multiplicity distributions and scaled variance was estimated using simulation events. The modification of the standard analysis was proposed to reduce this influence.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure

Response to commentary “Zinc is decreased in prostate cancer: an established relationship of prostate cancer!”

10.1007/s00775-010-0737-8Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry1619-13JJBC

Nouvelles trappes à sédiment destinées aux milieux peu profonds vidangeables

Les mesures de taux de sédimentation en milieux aquatiques peu profonds sont rares et sont souvent réalisées à l'aide de méthodes inadaptées. Les trappes à sédiment utilisées ont au minimum 25 cm de haut. Par conséquent, pour beaucoup de milieux peu profonds, plus de 25 % de la colonne d'eau ne sont pas échantillonnés. Nous avons pallié ce problème en développant un réceptacle mis en place dans les sédiments et destiné à recevoir des trappes à sédiment cylindriques. Le sommet des trappes peut alors être situé à moins de 5 cm de la surface des sédiments. Ce système est utilisable pour des milieux de profondeur inférieure à cinq mètres. Nos résultats montrent que les trappes à sédiments généralement utilisées sous-estiment de 35 à 79 % du taux de sédimentation. Les particules négligées proviennent des flux sédimentaires primaire et secondaire.Sediment traps are a unique tool that can be used to investigate particle settling flux throughout the water column, whereas other methods such as sediment dating can only measure accumulation rates of bottom sediments. Several works on trapping efficiency have shown that cylindrical traps with height/diameter ratio greater than to 5 (10 in turbulent systems) are the more appropriate instruments to correctly measure the downward settling flux of particulate matter. Furthermore, traps with a diameter narrower than 5 cm should be avoided. It is well documented that bottle-type vessels overestimate the settling sediment whereas funnels and flat containers underestimate it. All this support the idea that an ideal trap must be at least 25 cm high, and in this sense, numerous studies investigating shallow aquatic systems have neglected a large proportion of the water column. Consequently, mechanical and biological processes occurring in this layer of the water column have not been taken into accountWe have overcome this problem with a structure composed of two parts (figure 2).The first part is a receptacle (bucket) buried in the sediment and intended to receive cylindrical traps. The top of the receptacle is placed 2 cm above the sediment. A guide made of a rope covered with a PVC tube is placed in the centre of the receptacle. This receptacle is intended to receive cylindrical traps whose tops stand less than 5 cm higher than the surface of the sediments.The second part is composed of seven cylinders (height/diameter ratio=10) which are fixed in a PVC disc 600 mm in diameter and 15 mm deep. The cylinders are placed around the central axis of the PVC disc. The bottom of the cylinders is closed with a removable polyethylene cap. Another cylinder, through which the guide can slide, is placed on the central axis. The bottom part of this last cylinder is ballasted with concrete. The stability of this second part, during both deposition and removal steps, is ensured by the low density of the PVC disc, the ballast at the bottom of the central cylinder, and the symmetry of the structure. This removable part may be lifted from the receptacle with three 2 mm diameter ropes attached to the PVC disc and fixed to a float. This apparatus may be used as deep as five meters.The sediment traps were tested in two extensively-managed fish ponds in North-Eastern France. Our investigations showed that tubes with a diameter between 26 and 140 mm could be efficiently used to estimate the sedimentation rate, whereas cylinders with a narrower diameter missed a large amount of particles. The use of tubes with a diameter above 50 mm, which is preferable for the study of turbulent systems, seems to allow the collection of sufficient sediment during a short period of time. We selected tubes with a diameter of 57 mm, which made it possible to handle them easily during the removal. Our investigations showed that in turbulent systems and for high sedimentation rates (> 5 kg·m-2 ·month-1), the top of the cylinders must be placed 1 cm above the top of the PVC disc. When considering low sedimentation rates (< 5 kg·m-2 ·month-1), we did not observe any significant differences between the cylinders placed 0 and 1 cm above the PVC disc.Complementary investigations were conducted in order to compare sedimentation rates estimated 1) by the apparatus we designed, in which the top of the cylinders was placed 5 cm above the sediment surface, 2) by traditional traps (57 mm in diameter and a height/diameter ratio of 5) in which the top of the cylinders was 28.5 cm above the sediment surface.These results showed that in shallow systems (1.2 m deep), traditional traps underestimate the downward settling flux of particulate matter by 35 to 79%. Furthermore, we compared the organic matter content of the sediment collected by the two types of traps with the organic matter content of bottom sediment, suspended particles, and submerged macrophytes. Results showed that the underestimation of particles was not only due to the resuspension of bottom sediment, but also to the sedimentation of phytoplankton and submerged macrophyte fragments which are not collected by the traditional traps

Efficient Procedure Improving Precision of High Conditioned Matrices in Electronic Circuits Analysis

In this article, we propose several improvements that could be done to SPICE simulator. The first is based on a functional implementation of device models. The advantages of functional implementation are demonstrated on basic Shichman-Hodges model of MOS transistor. It starts with a description of primary algorithms used in SPICE simulator for the solution of circuits with nonlinear devices and identify the problems that can occur during simulations.Main part of the article is devoted to improved factorization procedure for simulation of the nonlinear electronic circuits. The primary intention of the proposed method is to increase final precision of the result in a case of high condition linear systems. The procedure is based on a use of the iterative methods for solution of nonlinear and linear equations. Utilizing those methods for one iterative process helps to reduce memory consumption during simulation computation, and it can significantly improve simulation precision. The procedure allows to use enumeration with definable precision in a very efficient way