Developing And Implementing Faculty Performance Evaluation: A Collaborative Model

The quality of education is a core property of what makes a university operate, sustain, and grow. To evaluate and measure this core property encompasses a wide range of critical aspects, but one of the control mechanisms will always involve the faculty, the deliverers of education to the primary customer, the student, but also collaboratively to other faculty, other educators, staff, and the community itself.  Faculty, like students constantly change, the challenge being how to inculcate a viable system of performance evaluation that provides a consistently high quality education in the ever changing and information oriented world we live in.  This paper illustrates the process, and problems we’ve experienced and solutions we have used in implementing a new faculty performance evaluation system at our university.  We describe the development of the system; its components, the intended outcomes, issues and resistance encountered as the system was implemented and now, how we envision the growth of the system, and what it needs to remain viable and in tune with our overall strategic plan

Assessing Undergraduate Business Degree Outcomes: A Comparison Of Two Universities

The importance of outcomes assessment has produced innovative course developments and resulted in enhanced Capstone educational experiences for undergraduate students at both universities.  This collaborative paper compares the evolution and outcomes assessment of the Capstone business course as a fundamental component of the business curriculum, discusses initiatives to provide even greater educational opportunities for students, assessing effectively over the continuum, and keeping the courses current to the university and business environments

What Should A BBA Graduate Be Able To Do?: These Competencies Are Essential

University Schools of Business Administration are continually responding to the demands of stakeholders concerning the quality of the education embodied in the Bachelor of Business Administration degree.  This collaborative paper discusses the competencies that are considered essential from the viewpoint of four stakeholders:  accrediting agencies, faculty/administration, employers, and students/graduates.  The authors present and support their views on competencies—identifying, achieving, assessing, and maintaining currency—in preparing future business leaders.&nbsp

The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud

We present the I-band luminosity function of the red giant branch stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the data from the Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey (Zaritsky, Harris & Thompson, 1997). Selecting stars in uncrowded, low-extinction regions, a discontinuity in the luminosity function is observed at I_0 = 14.54 mag. Identifying this feature with the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB), and adopting an absolute TRGB magnitude of -4.05 +- 0.04 mag based on the calibration of Lee, Freedman & Madore (1993), we obtain a distance modulus of 18.59 +- 0.09 (random) +- 0.16 (systematic) mag. If the theoretical TRGB calibration provided by Cassisi & Salaris (1997) is adopted instead, the derived distance would be 4% greater. The LMC distance modulus reported here, 18.59 +- 0.09, is larger by 0.09 mag (1-sigma) than the value that is most commonly used in the extragalactic distance scale calibrated by the period-luminosity relation of the Cepheid variable stars. Our TRGB distance modulus agrees with several RR Lyrae distances to the LMC based on HIPPARCOS parallaxes. Finally, we note that using the same MCPS data, we obtain a distance modulus of 18.29 +- 0.03 mag using the red clump method, which is shorter by 0.3 mag compared to the TRGB estimate.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Isolated angioedema of the bowel due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency: a case report and review of literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>We report a rare, classic case of isolated angioedema of the bowel due to C1-esterase inhibitor deficiency. It is a rare presentation and very few cases have been reported worldwide. Angioedema has been classified into three categories.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 66-year-old Caucasian man presented with a ten-month history of episodic severe cramping abdominal pain, associated with loose stools. A colonoscopy performed during an acute attack revealed nonspecific colitis. Computed tomography of the abdomen performed at the same time showed a thickened small bowel and ascending colon with a moderate amount of free fluid in the abdomen. Levels of C4 (< 8 mg/dL; reference range 15 to 50 mg/dL), CH50 (< 10 U/mL; reference range 29 to 45 U/ml) and C1 inhibitor (< 4 mg/dL; reference range 14 to 30 mg/dL) were all low, supporting a diagnosis of acquired angioedema with isolated bowel involvement. Our patient's symptoms improved with antihistamine and supportive treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In addition to a detailed comprehensive medical history, laboratory data and imaging studies are required to confirm a diagnosis of angioedema due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency.</p

UBVRI Light Curves of 44 Type Ia Supernovae

We present UBVRI photometry of 44 type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) observed from 1997 to 2001 as part of a continuing monitoring campaign at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The data set comprises 2190 observations and is the largest homogeneously observed and reduced sample of SN Ia to date, nearly doubling the number of well-observed, nearby SN Ia with published multicolor CCD light curves. The large sample of U-band photometry is a unique addition, with important connections to SN Ia observed at high redshift. The decline rate of SN Ia U-band light curves correlates well with the decline rate in other bands, as does the U-B color at maximum light. However, the U-band peak magnitudes show an increased dispersion relative to other bands even after accounting for extinction and decline rate, amounting to an additional ~40% intrinsic scatter compared to B-band.Comment: 84 authors, 71 pages, 51 tables, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. Version with high-res figures and electronic data at http://astron.berkeley.edu/~saurabh/cfa2snIa

Salmonella in Broiler Litter and Properties of Soil at Farm Location

Contamination of litter in a broiler grow-out house with Salmonella prior to placement of a new flock has been shown to be a precursor of the flock's Salmonella contamination further down the production continuum. In the southern USA, broiler grow-out houses are primarily built on dirt pad foundations that are placed directly on top of the native soil surface. Broiler litter is placed directly on the dirt pad. Multiple grow-out flocks are reared on a single litter batch, and the litter is kept in the houses during downtime between flocks. The effects of environmental determinants on conditions in broiler litter, hence Salmonella ecology within it, has received limited attention. In a field study that included broiler farms in the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Texas we assessed Salmonella in broiler litter at the end of downtime between flocks, i.e. at the time of placement of a new flock for rearing. Here we utilized these results and the U.S. General Soil Map (STATSGO) data to test if properties of soil at farm location impacted the probability of Salmonella detection in the litter. The significance of soil properties as risk factors was tested in multilevel regression models after accounting for possible confounding differences among the farms, the participating broiler complexes and companies, and the farms' geographical positioning. Significant associations were observed between infiltration and drainage capabilities of soil at farm location and probability of Salmonella detection in the litter

HD 219134 Revisited: Planet d Transit Upper Limit and Planet f Transit Nondetection with ASTERIA and TESS

HD 219134 is a K3V dwarf star with six reported radial-velocity discovered planets. The two innermost planets b and c show transits, raising the possibility of this system to be the nearest (6.53 pc), brightest (V = 5.57) example of a star with a compact multiple transiting planet system. Ground-based searches for transits of planets beyond b and c are not feasible because of the infrequent transits, long transit duration (~5 hr), shallow transit depths (<1%), and large transit time uncertainty (~half a day). We use the space-based telescopes the Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA) and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to search for transits of planets f (P = 22.717 days and M sin i = 7.3 ± 0.04M_⊕) and d (P = 46.859 days and M sin i = 16.7 ± 0.64M_⊕). ASTERIA was a technology demonstration CubeSat with an opportunity for science in an extended program. ASTERIA observations of HD 219134 were designed to cover the 3σ transit windows for planets f and d via repeated visits over many months. While TESS has much higher sensitivity and more continuous time coverage than ASTERIA, only the HD 219134 f transit window fell within the TESS survey's observations. Our TESS photometric results definitively rule out planetary transits for HD 219134 f. We do not detect the Neptune-mass HD 219134 d transits and our ASTERIA data are sensitive to planets as small as 3.6 R_⊕. We provide TESS updated transit times and periods for HD 219134 b and c, which are designated TOI 1469.01 and 1469.02 respectively

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations