Analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Circadian Rhythms in Continuous Culture

The circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle in the physiological processes of organisms. There have been many studies on the circadian rhythms in other model organisms, but not in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To study the rhythm in S. cerevisiae, the levels of GAP dehydrogenase were observed. After the baseline levels were recorded, the conditions were changed to see if the circadian rhythm could be manipulated. The importance of identifying and studying the circadian oscillators in S. cerevisiae is to understand how the circadian rhythm is altered in differing conditions. The purpose of this experiment was to identify how changing the light and dark cycles affected the overall rhythms of S. cerevisiae

Reactive and Proactive Practices: Educational Stakeholder Perceptions of Grade Retention and Intervention

As contemporary educational models progress at an increasing rate toward assessment-rich, data-based decision-making to support academic growth and achievement, the orientation and perception of educational stakeholders has remained a key interpretive factor in determining the cumulative trajectory for low-performing students in inclusive settings. The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to identify whether there was a difference in the perception of grade retention and Response to Intervention (RtI) practices among educational stakeholders in various professional roles working in states with and without policies regarding grade retention. A sample of teachers, leaders, and educational specialists from 27 US states completed the Grade Retention Survey and the Problem Solving /Response to Intervention Beliefs Survey. A two-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) revealed that the effect of educators’ role on their perception of grade retention (reactive practices) and perception of RtI (proactive practices) is not significantly different (p \u3e .05) for educators working in states with and without grade retention policies. Subsequent individual Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) revealed a statistically significant main effect (p \u3c .05) for educator role on perception of grade retention but not for grade retention policy. Post-hoc analysis revealed that teachers reported a more positive perception of grade retention than leaders or specialists. The present research offers meaningful insight related to the targeted facets of decision-making used by educational stakeholders to address student underachievement at the elementary and middle school level. Further research is recommended to explore variations to participant demographics, sampling methodology, and factors attributed to the dependent and independent variable groups

Development of a Cybersecurity Skills Index: A Scenarios-Based, Hands-On Measure of Non-IT Professionals\u27 Cybersecurity Skills

Completing activities online are a part of everyday life, both professionally and personally. But, conducting daily operations, interacting, and sharing information on the Internet does not come without its risks as well as a potential for harm. Substantial financial and information losses for individuals, organizations, and governments are reported regularly due to vulnerabilities as well as breaches caused by insiders. Although advances in Information Technology (IT) have been significant over the past several decades when it comes to protection of corporate information systems (IS), human errors and social engineering appear to prevail in circumventing such IT protections. While most employees may have the best of intentions, without cybersecurity skills they represent the weakest link in an organization’s IS security. Skills are defined as the combination of knowledge, experience, and ability to do something well. Cybersecurity skills correspond to the skills surrounding the hardware and software required to execute IS security to mitigate cyber-attacks. The main goal of this research study was to develop a scenarios-based, hands-on measure of non-IT professionals’ cybersecurity skills. As opposed to IT professionals, end-users are one of the weakest links in the cybersecurity chain, due to their limited cybersecurity skills. Historically, non-IT professionals (i.e., office assistants, managers, executives) have access to sensitive data and represent 72% to 95% of cybersecurity threats to organizations. This study addressed the problem of threats to organizational IS due to vulnerabilities and breaches caused by employees. Current measures of cybersecurity skills of non-IT professionals are based on self-reported surveys and were found inaccurate. Prior IS and medical research found participants view scenarios as nonintrusive and unintimidating. Therefore, this research study utilized scenarios with observable hands-on tasks to measure and quantify cybersecurity skills of non-IT professionals. This study included developmental research with a sequential-exploratory approach to combine qualitative and quantitative data collection. To ensure validity and reliability of the Cybersecurity Skills Index (CSI), a panel of 18 subject matter experts (SMEs) reviewed the CSI following the Delphi expert methodology. The SMEs’ responses were incorporated into the development of an iPad application (app) prototype (MyCyberSkills™). Following the iPad app prototype development, eight SMEs provided feedback on the scenarios, tasks, and scoring of the app using the Delphi technique. Furthermore, pilot testing of the app was conducted by manually collecting and scoring the hands-on task performance of a group of 21 non-IT professionals. The manually collected data were compared to the app computed results to ensure reliability and validity. All revisions were incorporated into the prototype prior to the start of the empirical research phase. Once the iPad app prototype was completed and fully tested, the quantitative research phase used the prototype to collect data and document the results of the measure. Participants from multiple public organizations were asked to complete the scenarios-based, hands-on tasks as presented in the prototype. Following the pre-analysis data screening, this study used a combination of descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to address the research questions. Results from 188 participants indicate that educational level and experience using technology appear to be significant demographic variables when it comes to the level of cybersecurity skills demonstrated by non-IT professionals. Moreover, job function, hours accessing the Internet, or primary online activity did not appear to be significant variables when it comes to the level of cybersecurity skills of this population. This research validated that the CSI benchmarking index could be used to assess an individual’s cybersecurity skills level. As organizations continue to rely on the Internet for conducting their daily operations, understanding an employee’s cybersecurity skills level is critical to securing an organization’s IS. Moreover, the CSI operationalized into the MyCyberSkills™ iPad app prototype can be used to assess an organization’s employee’s demonstrated skills on cybersecurity tasks. Furthermore, assessing the cybersecurity skills levels of employees could provide an organization insight into what is needed to further mitigate threats due to vulnerabilities and breaches caused by employees. Discussions and implications for future research are provided

Development of the MyCyberSkills™ iPad App: A Scenarios-Based, Hands-On Measure of Non-IT Professionals’ Cybersecurity Skills

Although advances in Information Technology (IT) have been significant over the past several decades when it comes to protection of corporate information systems (IS), human errors and social engineering appear to prevail in circumventing such IT protections. While most employees may have the best of intentions, without cybersecurity skills they represent the weakest link in an organization’s IS security. Skills are defined as the combination of knowledge, experience, and ability to do something well. Cybersecurity skills correspond to the skills surrounding the hardware and software required to execute IS security to mitigate cyber-attacks. However, the current measures of end-user cybersecurity skills are based on self-reported surveys. This study is the second phase of a larger research project that is aimed to develop a scenario-based iPad application to measure cybersecurity skills based on actual scenarios with hands-on tasks that the participants complete in demonstrating their skills. To design a measure that has both high validity and reliability, subject matter experts’ (SMEs) opinion of the top nine cybersecurity skills and their skill importance weight were identified in the first phase of the study following the Delphi method. This phase of the research in progress involves the design and development of the MyCyberSkills™ iPad application (app) using scenario-based, hands-on tasks related to each of the nine SMEs identified cybersecurity skills

Shared Governance at Virginia Commonwealth University: Increasing Awareness of Shared Governance Among Faculty

Abstract SHARED GOVERNANCE AT VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: INCREASING AWARENESS OF SHARED GOVERNANCE AMONG FACULTY By Andrea H. Becker, Carlton H. Goode, Jennifer C. Rivers, Melissa W. Tyler A capstone project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2022. Capstone Chair: Jonathan D. Becker, Ph.D., Department of Educational Leadership The primary focus of this study is to understand and define the concept of shared governance as practiced at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The researchers approached the study through three guiding questions: What is shared governance as understood through relevant literature and practice; What are the current faculty perceptions of shared governance at VCU; How can awareness of shared governance be increased at the institution? A naturalistic study was conducted including a thorough literature review and narrative data collection from focus groups, individual interviews, and a modified charrette. Participants included faculty across the institution from a variety of ranks, units, and demographics. The study found faculty perceptions and literature speak to two overarching ways to experience shared governance at VCU: structure and culture. Structural components included the lack of standardized systems, workflow, and communication methods between university stakeholders. Cultural components encompassed decreased trust, engagement, and value of engaging in shared governance. Using the information collected, this paper offers recommendations for a collective definition of shared governance and strategies for increasing awareness. Keywords: shared governance, faculty governance, participatory governance, structure, communication, recognition, trust, transparenc

Mapping Agricultural Decision Making across the U.S. Corn Belt

Decision calendars help identify opportunities for inserting climate information into a decision process as well as points where other considerations might overrule use of the climate information. Developers of decision calendars are challenged, though, by a potentially infinite number of modifications required to address spatial variability in agricultural decision making. Variability in climate, soils, and agricultural production systems across a region may result in deviations in decision-making times

Useful to Usable: Developing Usable Climate Science for Agriculture

The Useful to Usable (U2U) project was a six-year research and extension project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide both useful and usable climate information for the agricultural (corn) sector in the Midwestern United States. The project adopted an extensive co-production of knowledge and decision-making approach that involved intense iteration with potential end-users, including farmers and a variety of pro- fessional agricultural advisors, through focus groups and surveys, feedback at outreach events, and frequent informal interactions to develop both decision support tools and delivery mechanisms that met stakeholder needs. This overview paper for this special issue illustrates some key ways that the co-production process informed the overall project. Subsequent papers in the special issue span the different objectives of the U2U project, including social, climate, and agronomic sciences. A brief overview of these papers is pre- sented here

Communication, Decision Making, and Cancer: What African Americans Want Physicians to Know

To explore and identify communication and decision making with health care providers for African Americans living with cancer and for their families

Assessing the Readiness of Black Churches to Engage in Health Disparities Research

We assessed church readiness to engage in health disparities research using a newly developed instrument, examined the correlates of readiness, and described strategies that churches used to promote health. We pilot tested the instrument with churches in a church-academic partnership (n = 12). We determined level of readiness to engage in research and assessed correlates of readiness. We also conducted interviews with participating pastors to explore strategies they had in place to support research engagement. Churches scored fairly high in readiness (average of 4.04 out of 5). Churches with a pastor who promoted the importance of good nutrition in a sermon or had a budget for health-related activities had significantly higher readiness scores than churches without such practices. Having a tool to evaluate church readiness to engage in research will inform targeted technical assistance and research projects that will strengthen church-academic partnerships and improve capacity to address health disparities

Multidrug resistant pulmonary tuberculosis treatment regimens and patient outcomes: an individual patient data meta-analysis of 9,153 patients.

Treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is lengthy, toxic, expensive, and has generally poor outcomes. We undertook an individual patient data meta-analysis to assess the impact on outcomes of the type, number, and duration of drugs used to treat MDR-TB