Retaining Employees in a Higher Academic Institution During A Volatile Job Market

The purpose of this study was to investigate the root cause of the increased rate of employee turnover at a higher educational institution and how to retain their current employees. The importance of this study was to help the educational institution reduce their employee turnover so they do not continue to struggle to find new talent to replace their former employees. The methodology that was utilized in this study was mixed methodology with a convergent design where both the quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously. The quantitative data was collected through an anonymous survey that utilized a 4-point Likert scale and open-ended questions for qualitative data collection. The participants chosen for this study were employees who worked in three different departments and had the highest employee turnover. A chi-square analysis was utilized to determine the significance of the quantitative data and if the responses occurred by chance or if there is a commonality regarding the responses between all participants. The key findings in this study showed more positive responses than negative. The majority of the participants had less than 5 years of experience. All the participants agreed they enjoyed their job and had good working relationships with their managers and colleagues. The responses that all participants disagreed on is they were not comfortable expressing themselves to management and did not get recognition for their achievements. The findings in this study supported similar studies that explained why employees chose to leave their employers and utilize strategies to retain their current employees

How to succeed on the Kickstarter?

Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter are becoming increasingly popular. These platforms are widely used by development teams which are trying to get new buyers and supporters using different creative projects. However, success is not guaranteed since two thirds of the project suggestions fail to achieve their goal. In our thesis, we gathered descriptions and success of different projects on Kickstarter. Our goal was to create a model that could predict success of project compaigns. With this model, we also wanted to reach prediction accuracy AUC = 0,85 that could be compared with the results of other related studies. In the thesis, we present our solution and techniques of machine learning that were used to gather data. These models were later assessed with cross validation and new projects. The results showed that the most important attributes are the number of the projects supported by the author, the goal, the number of pictures in the description of the project and the award number. AUC score accomplished on the test data of the new projects was 0,93

How to succeed on the Kickstarter?

Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter are becoming increasingly popular. These platforms are widely used by development teams which are trying to get new buyers and supporters using different creative projects. However, success is not guaranteed since two thirds of the project suggestions fail to achieve their goal. In our thesis, we gathered descriptions and success of different projects on Kickstarter. Our goal was to create a model that could predict success of project compaigns. With this model, we also wanted to reach prediction accuracy AUC = 0,85 that could be compared with the results of other related studies. In the thesis, we present our solution and techniques of machine learning that were used to gather data. These models were later assessed with cross validation and new projects. The results showed that the most important attributes are the number of the projects supported by the author, the goal, the number of pictures in the description of the project and the award number. AUC score accomplished on the test data of the new projects was 0,93

Abundance and Diversity of Organohalide-Respiring Bacteria in Lake Sediments Across a Geographical Sulfur Gradient

Across the U.S. Upper Midwest, a natural geographical sulfate gradient exists in lakes. Sediment grab samples and cores were taken to explore whether this sulfur gradient impacted organohalide-respiring Chloroflexi in lake sediments. Putative organohalide-respiring Chloroflexi were detected in 67 of 68 samples by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Their quantities ranged from 3.5 × 104 to 8.4 × 1010 copies 16S rRNA genes g−1 dry sediment and increased in number from west to east, whereas lake sulfate concentrations decreased along this west-to-east transect. A terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) method was used to corroborate this inverse relationship, with sediment samples from lower sulfate lakes containing both a higher number of terminal restriction fragments (TRFs) belonging to the organohalide-respiring Dehalococcoidetes, and a greater percentage of the TRFLP amplification made up by Dehalococcoidetes members. Statistical analyses showed that dissolved sulfur in the porewater, measured as sulfate after oxidation, appeared to have a negative impact on the total number of putative organohalide-respiring Chloroflexi, the number of Dehalococcoidetes TRFs, and the percentage of the TRFLP amplification made up by Dehalococcoidetes. These findings point to dissolved sulfur, presumably present as reduced sulfur species, as a potentially controlling factor in the natural cycling of chlorine, and perhaps as a result, the natural cycling of some carbon as well

Analysis of mitochondria morphology dynamics during adipogenesis

"There is great concern with an increase in the number of Americans who are overweight and obese. Fat cells or adipocytes play a central role in obesity. These cells are metabolically active and play a fundamental role in energy allocation and storage. The adipocyte functions as the energy storage cell by storing excess energy in the forms of triglycerides in lipid vesicles within the cell. The morphology of mitochondria is a dynamic process that varies from cell type to cell type and in response to a variety of signals and conditions (Wilson-Fritch, 2002; Wilson-Fritch, 2004). The morphology of mitochondria in the cell often reflects the functions of that type of cell. In my thesis I characterize the changes in mitochondrial morphology and actin during adipogenesis. In this thesis I found that mitochondria undergo a radical change in morphology during the first two days of adipogenesis. In the pre-adipocyte cell mitochondria assume a reticular morphology that is distributed uniformly throughout the cell. After stimulation of differentiation this reticular morphology fragments. The fragmented mitochondrial morphology persists throughout adipocyte differentiation and is the form of the mitochondria present in the mature adipocyte. These results suggest that the reorganization of mitochondrial morphology is established early during adipogenesis and may play a role in the functions of fully differentiated adipocytes."--Abstrac

Accounting for autocorrelation in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis predictors using a set of parsimonious orthogonal eigenvectors aggregated in geographic space

Spatial autocorrelation is problematic for classical hierarchical cluster detection tests commonly used in multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) analyses as considerable random error can occur. Therefore, when MDR-TB clusters are spatially autocorrelated the assumption that the clusters are independently random is invalid. In this research, a product moment correlation coefficient (i.e. the Moran’s coefficient) was used to quantify local spatial variation in multiple clinical and environmental predictor variables sampled in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, Peru. Initially, QuickBird (spatial resolution = 0.61 m) data, encompassing visible bands and the near infra-red bands, were selected to synthesize images of land cover attributes of the study site. Data of residential addresses of individual patients with smear-positive MDR-TB were geocoded, prevalence rates calculated and then digitally overlaid onto the satellite data within a 2 km buffer of 31 georeferenced health centres, using a 10 m2 grid-based algorithm. Geographical information system (GIS)- gridded measurements of each health centre were generated based on preliminary base maps of the georeferenced data aggregated to block groups and census tracts within each buffered area. A three-dimensional model of the study site was constructed based on a digital elevation model (DEM) to determine terrain covariates associated with the sampled MDRTB covariates. Pearson’s correlation was used to evaluate the linear relationship between the DEM and the sampled MDR-TB data. A SAS/GIS® module was then used to calculate univariate statistics and to perform linear and non-linear regression analyses using the sampled predictor variables. The estimates generated from a global autocorrelation analyses were then spatially decomposed into empirical orthogonal bases, using a negative binomial regression with a non-homogeneous mean. Results of the DEM analyses indicated a statistically non-significant, linear relationship between georeferenced health centres and the sampled covariate elevation. The data exhibited positive spatial autocorrelation and the decomposition of Moran’s coefficient into uncorrelated, orthogonal map pattern components which revealed global spatial heterogeneities necessary to capture latent autocorrelation in the MDR-TB model. It was thus shown that Poisson regression analyses and spatial eigenvector mapping can elucidate the mechanics of MDR-TB transmission by prioritizing clinical and environmental-sampled predictor variables for identifying high risk populations

Immunizations with pneumococcal surface protein A and pneumolysin are protective against pneumonia in a murine model of pulmonary infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae

Intranasal infection of mice with certain strains of capsular group 19 Streptococcus pneumoniae can result in focal pneumonia in the absence of bacteremia. Using this model of murine pneumonia, we demonstrated that immunization with recombinant forms of either pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) or PdB (a genetically detoxified derivative of pneumolysin) elicited significant protection against focal pulmonary infection. This may be the first demonstration that a proposed vaccine antigen can protect against pneumococcal pneumonia. The best protection was obtained by immunizing mice with a mixture of PspA and PdB, indicating that the protection elicited by these antigens can complement each other. This result is in agreement with previous studies that used pneumococcal sepsis and nasal colonization models and demonstrate that the best protein vaccines for prevention of infection may be those that include more than one protection-eliciting pneumococcal protein.David E. Briles, Susan K. Hollingshead, James C. Paton, Edwin W. Ades, Lea Novak, Frederik W. van Ginkel, and William H. Benjamin, Jr

Immunizations with pneumococcal surface protein A and pneumolysin are protective against pneumonia in a murine model of pulmonary infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae

Intranasal infection of mice with certain strains of capsular group 19 Streptococcus pneumoniae can result in focal pneumonia in the absence of bacteremia. Using this model of murine pneumonia, we demonstrated that immunization with recombinant forms of either pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) or PdB (a genetically detoxified derivative of pneumolysin) elicited significant protection against focal pulmonary infection. This may be the first demonstration that a proposed vaccine antigen can protect against pneumococcal pneumonia. The best protection was obtained by immunizing mice with a mixture of PspA and PdB, indicating that the protection elicited by these antigens can complement each other. This result is in agreement with previous studies that used pneumococcal sepsis and nasal colonization models and demonstrate that the best protein vaccines for prevention of infection may be those that include more than one protection-eliciting pneumococcal protein.David E. Briles, Susan K. Hollingshead, James C. Paton, Edwin W. Ades, Lea Novak, Frederik W. van Ginkel, and William H. Benjamin, Jr