Creating learning solutions for executive education programs

Executive education is both a growing and increasingly competitive industry. The traditional business school, once a dominant player in this space, now faces competition from sophisticated and focused consultants and for-profit training specialists offering a variety of face-to-face and on-line instructional vehicles. An abiding question has become ever more prevalent for business schools – are executive education clients getting meaningful, long-term value for their significant investments? Demonstrating value and building capabilities is different for a generic, open enrolment course than for a custom program. This paper proposes a solutions-based approach to the development and implementation of customized executive programs, arguing that the tailored customer focus and the operational rigor of a solutions perspective leads to sustainable and measurable client value both at the individual and corporate level. A case study involving a global high technology company is used to demonstrate the steps required to apply a solutions roadmap. The results show that a solutions approach – carefully and collaboratively undertaken in selected settings – can provide considerable benefits to both client and provider. Further research is proposed to validate and develop the learning points

Steel Industry Slags Compared with Calcium Carbonate in Neutralizing Acid Mine Soil

Author Institution: Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute, OHOhio has substantial lands impacted by surface mining for coal and an active steel industry. Steel industry slags have been used as liming compounds for agriculture and acid mine soil reclamation. This 3-year study evaluates slags from Ohio steel mills in greenhouse trials where these materials are compared to reagent grade CaCO3 in their ability to improve plant growth on acid mine soil. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of these materials at two rates of application in raising acid mine soil pH and to address concerns about metals in such slags. Three slags and reagent grade CaCO3 were applied at rates equivalent to 12.5 and 25 g CaCO3 kg-1 soil on acid mine soil (pH = 3.5). Five consecutive crops of oats (Avena sativa L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), corn (Zea mays L.), wheat and soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) were grown and harvested at the seedling stage. The slags and CaCO3 increased yields (P <0.01 level) compared to unlimed control pots. Soil and plant Ca were increased and plant Al and Mn decreased by application of all four materials. The slags increased soil and plant Mg. Particle size of the slags was somewhat coarse which decreased their effectiveness, but overall these slags proved to be satisfactory liming materials. The fineness efficiency developed for carbonate forms of lime may not adequately characterize slag effectiveness. Micronutrient metals including iron were not found to be in excess in plant tissue treated with slags despite the steel slags’ high Fe content

Potassium Relationships of Three Ohio Soils

Author Institution: The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute; Department of Agronomy, The Ohio State UniversityThree Ohio soils, Hoytville clay, Brookston silty clay loam, and Wooster silt loam located at various branches of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, were studied. Bulk samples from each horizon were tested for exchangeable basic cations, pH, sulfuric acid extractable potassium (K+), and particle-size distribution. The surface horizons of each soil were characterized by measurement of cation exchange capacity, quantity-intensity adsorption isotherms for K+ and x-ray diffraction of the clay ( times greater than that for Wooster. Hoytville clay was predominantly illitic while the Brookston and Wooster clays were of a more mixed mineralogical nature. The potassium content and crystallinity of the illite in the Hoytville clay is lower than those of the Brookston and Wooster clays

Economic Impact of Wildlife-Associated Recreation Expenditures in the Southeast United States: A General Equilibrium Analysis

The economic impact of wildlife-associated recreation in the Southeast United States was evaluated using a general equilibrium model. Exogenous demand shocks to the regional economy were based on estimates of expenditures by wildlife recreationists on hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching activities. Counterfactual simulations were carried out, making alternative assumptions about labor and capital mobility and their supply. Without wildlife-associated recreation expenditures, regional employment would have been smaller by up to 783 thousand jobs, and value added would have been $22 to$48 billion less. These findings underscore the significance of regional factor market conditions in economic impact and general equilibrium analysis.general equilibrium modeling, input-output analysis, regional economic impact, wildlife-associated recreation activities, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, R13, R15, Q26,

Learning transfer from an in-sessional ESAP module to International Relations and Development students’ core disciplinary writing assignments: teaching semantic gravity to support cumulative knowledge building

Supporting English as an Additional Language (EAL) students in higher education to become aware of, and develop, the academic and knowledge practices of their chosen disciplines is a key role of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioner. The transfer of this knowledge from the contexts of an EAP course or module to students’ disciplinary concerns points to the success of these teaching interventions (James, 2014). This action research investigates International Relations and Development (IR & D) undergraduate students’ learning transfer of semantic gravity (SG) in Legitimation Code Theory, which was taught in an in-sessional English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) module, to students’ disciplinary writing assignments. SG presents a lens to view knowledge practices of writing in students’ subject disciplines. It helps to make knowledge displayed in a text visible, through ‘meaning-making profiles’ (Kirk, 2017), to those trying to understand and organise written work to the expected standards of their academic discipline (Martin, Maton & Doran, 2020). Teaching SG in the ESAP module aims to help students visualise, and, in turn, compose their own written arguments in line with the expected standards of their academic discipline. The researcher interviewed three students who had taken the ESAP module and, combined with a textual analysis of writing assignments produced for their core IR & D modules, the study reveals important pedagogical considerations for supporting students' cumulative knowledge building (Maton, 2013). The results indicate that students are able to demonstrate understanding and application of taught features of SG to written work produced for their IR & D modules. The researcher’s recommendations to improve teaching practice in the ESAP module include differentiation of semantic wave profiles for a wider selection of essay question types; a precise semantic wave profile to help differentiate knowledge types within IR & D texts; and potential to embed SG into the students’ subject teachings as an effective way of supporting cumulative knowledge building

Empty pews take a financial toll on many US congregations

Most Christian churches were relying heavily on 'collection plates' to pay their bills before the pandemic struck. And less than half were doing any online fundraising as of 2018.Lilly Endowment Inc

The Luminosity Function for L>L* Galaxies at z > 3

Through use of multiband (U, B, R, I) photometry we have isolated high redshift (3.0<z<3.5) galaxy candidates in a survey of 1.27 deg^2 to R = 21.25 and a survey of 0.02 deg^2 to R = 23.5. Our pool of candidates constrains the nature of the 3.0 < z < 3.5 luminosity function over the range L* < L < 100 L*, if we grant a similar level of completeness to these data as for very faint samples (to R = 25.5) selected in a similar fashion. Our constraints agree with the high redshift sky density at R = 20.5 estimated from Yee et al.'s (1996) serendipitous discovery of a bright, z = 2.7 galaxy, as well as the density at R ~ 23 by Steidel et al. (1996b). We strongly rule out -- by more than two orders of magnitude at M(R) = -25 -- the L > L* luminosity function for z = 3-5 galaxies obtained by a photometric redshift analysis of the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) by Gwyn & Hartwick (1996). Our results at R ~ 23 are more consistent with the photometric redshift analysis of the faint HDF galaxies by Sawicki & Yee (1996), but our present upper limits at the brightest magnitudes (R < 21.5, M(R) < -24) allow more generous volume densities of these super-L* galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters; 14 pages Latex, including 3 figure

Modulation of Tumor Tolerance in Primary Central Nervous System Malignancies

Central nervous system tumors take advantage of the unique immunology of the CNS and develop exquisitely complex stromal networks that promote growth despite the presence of antigen-presenting cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. It is precisely this immunological paradox that is essential to the survival of the tumor. We review the evidence for functional CNS immune privilege and the impact it has on tumor tolerance. In this paper, we place an emphasis on the role of tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells in maintaining stromal and vascular quiescence, and we underscore the importance of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase activity as a myeloid-driven tumor tolerance mechanism. Much remains to be discovered regarding the tolerogenic mechanisms by which CNS tumors avoid immune clearance. Thus, it is an open question whether tumor tolerance in the brain is fundamentally different from that of peripheral sites of tumorigenesis or whether it simply stands as a particularly strong example of such tolerance

Survey incompleteness and the evolution of the QSO luminosity function

We concentrate on a type of QSO survey which depends on selecting QSO candidates based on combinations of colors. Since QSO's have emission lines and power-law continua, they are expected to yield broadband colors unlike those of stellar photospheres. Previously, the fraction of QSO's expected to be hiding (unselected) within the locus of stellar (U-J, J-F) colors was estimated at about 15 percent. We have now verified that the KK88 survey is at least 11 percent incomplete, but have determined that it may be as much as 34 percent incomplete. The 'missing' QSO's are expected to be predominantly at z less than or = 2.2. We have studied the proper motion and variability properties of all stellar objects with J less than or = 22.5 or F less than or = 21.5 in the SA 57 field which has previously been surveyed with a multicolor QSO search by KK88