Transportation Service Provider Collaboration: Benefits and Insights

Truck-based freight transportation in the United States is expected to remain an integral part of the economy for the foreseeable future. Despite its continued importance, the industry remains fragmented and economically, socially, and environmentally unsustainable. The focus of this research is exploring opportunities to reduce costs and increase sustainability through collaboration among transportation service providers (TSPs). The objective is to explore freight routing and consolidation decisions for collaborating transportation service providers, introduce the transportation service provider collaboration problem (TSP-CP), and evaluate the potential benefits of TSP collaboration using industry representative data sets. The results provide new insights on the benefits of collaboration as well as the effects of the type and size of the TSP on the expected benefits derived from collaboration

Targeting Collection Assessment Data to the Intended Audience

At Jacksonville State University, additions of new degree programs have added greater importance to collection assessments as a guide for future budget planning and the accreditation process. Collection assessments give librarians and administrators an overview of the library’s collections, justification for expenditures, and disclosure of areas in need of strengthening. Assessments highlight resources and their access points, while justifying the resources’ presence to faculty stakeholders. An approachable assessment can be a valuable tool to introduce or reacquaint faculty with the collection development process and with classroom and research resources

“Don’t Fear the Literature Review!” A Review of Literature Review Teaching Tools

The literature review is a difficult aspect of research methods courses. The act of artfully weaving together content from an array of scholarly sources is a challenge to teach. This presentation introduces faculty members to literature review teaching strategies, including multiple pathways to better understand a topic\u27s pertinent literature

Freight Sequencing to Improve Hub Operations in the Less-Than-Truckload Freight Transportation Industry

In less-than-truckload freight transportation, hub operations affect the service levels that carriers are able to provide their customers. This paper focuses on improving the efficiency of hub operations by reducing freight handling time and cost. Specifically, the freight sequencing problem (FSP) is investigated to determine the freight unloading and loading sequence that minimizes the time for dock workers to transfer shipments from origin trailers to destination trailers. The FSP is modeled as a Rural Postman Problem (RPP) and three algorithms are compared: trailer-at-atime, nearest neighbor, and balance-and-connect. Using five industrial data sets, the results demonstrate the effectiveness, advantages, and disadvantages of the approaches

Collaborative Freight Transportation to Improve Efficiency and Sustainability

Collaborative distribution offers the potential for substantial improvements in freight transportation. As collaboration increases, more loads are available for sharing among transportation service providers, leading to more fully loaded trailers that travel fewer miles and reduce the cost per load on average. In this study, we develop approaches to analyze improvements in key performance measures as collaboration increases in freight transportation. For the data sets analyzed, improvements include a 34% increase in trailer fullness, a 29% reduction in average costs per load, and a 25% decrease in average miles per load. Based on this analysis, collaboration provides substantial improvements for transportation service providers and opportunities for increased driver retention. Drivers would benefit from a better quality of life, more local routes, and more time home with their families. In addition to the economic and social benefit, the environmental benefit include reducing the miles driven and the resulting CO2 emissions

A Library, a Tailgate, and a Tornado: Outreach Strategies amidst Upheaval

The annual library tailgate event held at a medium-sized academic university library at Jacksonville State University welcomes students, faculty, staff, and community members with the purpose of increasing their comfort and familiarity with the library. The tailgate draws on school spirit to facilitate stronger connections across campus. The event includes activities to highlight the library’s information access points in a relaxed atmosphere. The tailgate has taken many forms based on logistics and student feedback. Despite a tornado that devastated the majority of the campus in March 2018, the library tailgate has continued to evolve by accommodating space constraints and safety issues caused by construction

Democracy and Education: Is This Marriage on the Rocks?

144 leaves. Advisor: A.P. Johnston.The problem: This dissertation investigated the relationship between democracy and education for the purpose of contributing to the on-going dialogue regarding those concepts. It attempted to illustrate the dynamics of that relationship based upon early and contemporary American interpretations. Procedures: Through qualitative documentary analysis, this study examined the ways in which democracy and education were related through the eyes of historical authors-Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, John Dewey, Benjamin Barber-and contemporary educational policy documents-A Nation at Risk, Goals 2000. Comparisons were made first among the selected authors and then between the documents, followed by a comparison between the two bodies of data themselves. Findings: The authors viewed the relationship between democracy and education as reciprocal, considering the concepts mutually supportive and essential to each other's actualization. They specifically saw education crucial in active citizenship, which included participation primarily in a democratic and secondarily in a vocational sense. In contrast, the documents focused on the relationship between democracy and education to a much lesser degree, stressing instead the relationship between education and economics; citizenship was more vocational in nature. Conclusions: Democracy and education exhibit a dynamic, reciprocal relationship, but more than that. They both involve an intellectual process which requires judgments to justify the perpetual balancing of tensions between competing societal goods. Democracy and education also mutually support the preservation of American values since they, when taken together, potentially protect the existence of fundamental human rights. Finally, democracy and economics, both ever-present in America's enactment, demand education. The critical question raised by this analysis is whether the shift indicated in the policy documents from democracy to economics constitutes a difference in degree or a difference in kind. Recommendations: Educational and political philosophers and policy makers should join forces to create a new social awareness of the choices we make. If we believe Jefferson, Mann, Dewey, and Barber, these choices link directly to the American way of life. The implication given the public attention to the policy documents is that the democracy-education marriage is being guided, perhaps inadvertently, towards the rocks

Persistence of Renibacterium salmoninarum in experimentally infected rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

The persistence of Renibacterium salmoninarum (Rs) in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) experimentally infected with either a virulent or non-virulent strain of Rs was examined in this study. Mortalities from bacterial kidney disease (BKD) peaked at 48 % 6 weeks post-challenge with the virulent strain, but no mortality from BKD occurred in fish infected with the avirulent strain. Culture on Selective Kidney Disease Medium (SKDM), a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to monitor the duration of the infection. The presence of bacteria in challenged fish could be detected by PCR at 12 and 20 weeks post-challenge with non-virulent and virulent strains, respectively. On the other hand, it was only possible to detect Rs NCIMB 1113 by ELISA and by culture on SKDM up to 10 weeks and 12 weeks, respectively. Furthermore, the avirulent isolate was not detected in fish injected with this strain on SKDM or by ELISA. Using the methods of detection described, it would appear that the fish were able to clear the virulent Rs by week 22 post-challenge