Throne of Ames

A map of Ames college communities styled after the Game of Thrones franchise

Do Nurses Credit magnet Status Forces as a Reason for Increased Job Satisfaction?

This study examined the relationship between Magnet status forces and job satisfaction. A survey was administered to compare the job satisfaction factors to Magnet status factors. The results are best described in descriptive statistics as nominal data and through Chi-square goodness of fit testing which gives a similar result to a single sample t-test. The results illustrated that Magnet forces do have an impact on job satisfaction as well as other factors. The biggest finding was through the comments of the participants that felt that while these factors strongly impact their job satisfaction, they are not upheld after the initial earning of Magnet status by the facility

Access Without Equity: Institutional Logics of University Middle Managers and Valuing Diversity

Institutional barriers to Black student success (e.g. a history of exclusion, inaccessibility, and inequity) that exist at the undergraduate level, persist at the graduate level. Though traditionally marginally students have gained access to predominantly and historically White colleges and universities, Black graduate students continue to be marginalized by institutionalized oppression and inequitable structures. When the values, attitudes, and beliefs of individual actors who serve these students are at odds with an institutional mission of equity and inclusion, misalignment and competing priorities emerge. This study seeks to understand the logics university middle managers use in operationalizing equity and inclusion, specifically, in meeting the needs of Black graduate students

Multitasking: The Impact of Spatial and Verbal Working Memory on the Simon Effect

The Simon effect occurs when a person’s reaction time to a stimulus feature such as color is quicker and more accurate when the stimulus occurs in a location that corresponds with the physical response rather than one that does not. For example, if a red circle appears on the right side, the response is the faster when red is assigned to a right physical response than when it is assigned to a left physical response. This effect of irrelevant stimulus location is presumed to be a consequence of having the spatially defined responses active in working memory (WM). Zhao, Chen, and West (2010) studied the influence of WM on this phenomenon using simple spatial or verbal exercises called memory loads. Requiring participants to maintain a verbal memory load eliminated the Simon effect, but requiring them to maintain a spatial memory load had no influence on it. My study was designed to replicate and extend Zhao et al.’s study. The only differences were that the participants were from the United States rather than China, and the verbal material was English letters rather than Chinese characters. Experiment 1 showed that I was able to obtain the Simon effect in a baseline condition for which there was no memory load. In Experiment 2, prior to each trial of the Simon task, participants were presented a set of four letters or four locations of a grid, which they were to remember for a memory test given after making the response for the Simon task. With this method, the working memory loads in the two conditions were more comparable than in Zhao et al.’s study. Results show that the Simon effect was eliminated during the spatial task but not during the verbal task. Possible reasons for the discrepancy between my results and those of Zhao et al. are the demographic background of participants and the stimuli used for the studies. Knowing conditions under which irrelevant location correspondences influence performance is important for design of human-machine interfaces that enable fast and accurate operation

Locally derived nonpoint loading estimates for the Boeuf River/Bayou Lafourche watershed

There is currently a great demand for data and models that can be used to quantify nonpoint source pollutant loads from different land-use types. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) is in the process of implementing management programs for impacted water bodies based on the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of a pollutant. Pollutants of concern include total suspended solids (TSS), nitrogen, and phosphorus. One of the key parameters in determining the TMDL of a water body is the nonpoint source pollutant load from different land-use types. To date, such load estimates in Louisiana are lacking. The primary objective of this research is to develop site specific loading estimates for three different land-use types in the study area using flow proportional sampling techniques. These loading estimates will be used with currently available land-use data and published literature values for pollutant loads from different land-use types within the framework of Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS) to determine the applicability and sensitivity of available loading estimates. The applicability and usefulness of the simulation model known as Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in modeling Boeuf watershed will also be examined. Finally, the performance of three biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) models will be compared using data specific to the Boeuf Watershed and the surrounding area