Millennial Alumni Perceptions of Communications: A Look at One Land Grant University’s Media Use

An important aspect of higher education is alumni relationship cultivation, because it keeps alma maters connected to graduates. To assess this relationship, researchers sought to describe Millennial alumni perceptions of media distributed by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences (Bumpers College) from 2012 through 2014. Assessed media included alumni magazines, an e-newsletter, key event invitations, College website, and social media presences. Active and inactive alumni responses were gathered via telephone interviews and qualitatively analyzed for emergent themes. Researchers identified Building the Professional and Interest in Giving Back as themes related to respondents’ connection to Bumpers College. Five additional themes emerged related to assessed media and included Message Relationship, Specialized Content, Communications Medium, Message Barriers, and Need for Promotion. No alumni were dissatisfied with their collegiate experience and favored monetary donations for its convenience. Alumni sought a personable-angle communications media and were drawn by updates about the College’s research and global impacts. Respondents consumed print and digital media differently with engagement based on personal preference and flexibility. Subthemes emerged related to Message Barriers and included time, distance, vague messages, too much information, non-relatable subject matter, technical errors, and outdated information. Finally, there was little brand recognition between Bumpers College and University messaging, and most alumni were unaware of the College’s social media presences

Millennial Alumni Perceptions of Communications: A Look at One Land Grant University’s Media Use

An important aspect of higher education is alumni relationship cultivation, because it keeps alma maters connected to graduates. To assess this relationship, researchers sought to describe Millennial alumni perceptions of media distributed by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences (Bumpers College) from 2012 through 2014. Assessed media included alumni magazines, an e-newsletter, key event invitations, College website, and social media presences. Active and inactive alumni responses were gathered via telephone interviews and qualitatively analyzed for emergent themes. Researchers identified Building the Professional and Interest in Giving Back as themes related to respondents’ connection to Bumpers College. Five additional themes emerged related to assessed media and included Message Relationship, Specialized Content, Communications Medium, Message Barriers, and Need for Promotion. No alumni were dissatisfied with their collegiate experience and favored monetary donations for its convenience. Alumni sought a personable-angle communications media and were drawn by updates about the College’s research and global impacts. Respondents consumed print and digital media differently with engagement based on personal preference and flexibility. Subthemes emerged related to Message Barriers and included time, distance, vague messages, too much information, non-relatable subject matter, technical errors, and outdated information. Finally, there was little brand recognition between Bumpers College and University messaging, and most alumni were unaware of the College’s social media presences

Examining the Effect of Perceived Responsibility On Online Bystander Intervention, Target Hardening, and Inaction

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analyze data from the Pew American Trends Panel (N = 3709) to estimate the effects of respondents’ perceptions of the role different groups should play in addressing online harassment on their likelihood to engage in intervention, target hardening, or inaction in response to witnessing online harassment, conditioned upon their likelihood of having witnessed such behavior. Findings indicate that the greater role respondents believe online users should have in addressing online harassment, the more likely they are to intervene. (b = .310). The greater role respondents believe law enforcement or elected officials should have in addressing online harassment, the less likely they are to intervene (b = −.135 and −.072, respectively). These findings have implications for future efforts to curb online harassment through users’ crime prevention efforts

Who Wears the MAGA Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump

On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents (n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism—a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally—was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism increased willingness to wear a MAGA hat. Future research on the political consequences of racial beliefs should focus on what whites think not only of blacks but also of themselves

Predictive response-relevant clustering of expression data provides insights into disease processes

This article describes and illustrates a novel method of microarray data analysis that couples model-based clustering and binary classification to form clusters of ;response-relevant' genes; that is, genes that are informative when discriminating between the different values of the response. Predictions are subsequently made using an appropriate statistical summary of each gene cluster, which we call the ;meta-covariate' representation of the cluster, in a probit regression model. We first illustrate this method by analysing a leukaemia expression dataset, before focusing closely on the meta-covariate analysis of a renal gene expression dataset in a rat model of salt-sensitive hypertension. We explore the biological insights provided by our analysis of these data. In particular, we identify a highly influential cluster of 13 genes-including three transcription factors (Arntl, Bhlhe41 and Npas2)-that is implicated as being protective against hypertension in response to increased dietary sodium. Functional and canonical pathway analysis of this cluster using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis implicated transcriptional activation and circadian rhythm signalling, respectively. Although we illustrate our method using only expression data, the method is applicable to any high-dimensional datasets

Galaxy and mass assembly (GAMA) : The wavelength-dependent sizes and profiles of galaxies revealed by MegaMorph

We investigate the relationship between colour and structure within galaxies using a large, volume-limited sample of bright, low-redshift galaxies with optical-near-infrared imaging from the Galaxy AndMass Assembly survey.We fit single-component,wavelength-dependent, elliptical Sérsic models to all passbands simultaneously, using software developed by the MegaMorph project. Dividing our sample by n and colour, the recovered wavelength variations in effective radius (Re) and Sérsic index (n) reveal the internal structure, and hence formation history, of different types of galaxies. All these trends depend on n; some have an additional dependence on galaxy colour. Late-type galaxies (nr 2.5), even though they maintain constant n with wavelength, revealing that ellipticals are a superimposition of different stellar populations associated with multiple collapse and merging events. Processes leading to structures with larger Re must be associated with lower metallicity or younger stellar populations. This appears to rule out the formation of young cores through dissipative gas accretion as an important mechanism in the recent lives of luminous elliptical galaxies.Peer reviewe

Temporal Partitioning and Overlapping Use of a Shared Natural Resource by People and Elephants

In social-ecological systems around the world, human-wildlife interactions are on the rise, often with negative consequences. This problem is particularly salient in areas where populations of humans and wildlife are increasing and share limited space and resources. However, few studies look at how both people and wildlife navigate shared spaces. To better examine people and wildlife within the same environment, we used methods from social science and spatial ecology to investigate how humans and elephants in Botswana utilize trees, a shared natural resource. Trees provide an opportunity to study shared resource use because they are important for people as firewood and for elephants as food and habitat. We compared tree species gathered on 49 firewood collections with the species damaged by elephants in 83 vegetation plots. We found that many tree species were damaged by elephants in ways that would generate firewood. There was also a strong overlap in the tree species that people collected and the species that elephants browsed and/or damaged. We compared spatially-explicit firewood collection locations and movement data from elephant GPS collars to model resource selection by people and elephants. Proximity to settlements was a strong driving factor for people in firewood collection, while various factors including vegetation characteristics played a role in predicting elephant movement. We found that areas where people collect firewood were negatively correlated with daytime elephant movement and positively correlated with nighttime elephant movement. We further compared the times that people collected firewood with the times when elephants were near the villages and found that people collected firewood during daylight hours when elephants were not nearby, providing further evidence of temporal partitioning. People and elephants utilized the same species of trees, and also had correlated spatial patterns of resource selection. Therefore, elephant foraging of trees provides a previously unrecognized utility to people in the form of firewood creation, and temporal partitioning allows this to occur without direct human-elephant interaction

Design of the Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcome Measures in COPD (SPIROMICS) AIR Study.

IntroductionPopulation-based epidemiological evidence suggests that exposure to ambient air pollutants increases hospitalisations and mortality from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but less is known about the impact of exposure to air pollutants on patient-reported outcomes, morbidity and progression of COPD.Methods and analysisThe Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcome Measures in COPD (SPIROMICS) Air Pollution Study (SPIROMICS AIR) was initiated in 2013 to investigate the relation between individual-level estimates of short-term and long-term air pollution exposures, day-to-day symptom variability and disease progression in individuals with COPD. SPIROMICS AIR builds on a multicentre study of smokers with COPD, supplementing it with state-of-the-art air pollution exposure assessments of fine particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, ozone, sulfur dioxide and black carbon. In the parent study, approximately 3000 smokers with and without airflow obstruction are being followed for up to 3 years for the identification of intermediate biomarkers which predict disease progression. Subcohorts undergo daily symptom monitoring using comprehensive daily diaries. The air monitoring and modelling methods employed in SPIROMICS AIR will provide estimates of individual exposure that incorporate residence-specific infiltration characteristics and participant-specific time-activity patterns. The overarching study aim is to understand the health effects of short-term and long-term exposures to air pollution on COPD morbidity, including exacerbation risk, patient-reported outcomes and disease progression.Ethics and disseminationThe institutional review boards of all the participating institutions approved the study protocols. The results of the trial will be presented at national and international meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals

Boss competence and worker well-being

Nearly all workers have a supervisor or “boss.” Yet little is known about how bosses influence the quality of employees’ lives. This study offers new evidence. First, the authors find that a boss’s technical competence is the single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction. Second, they demonstrate using longitudinal data, after controlling for fixed-effects, that even if a worker stays in the same job and workplace, a rise in the competence of a supervisor is associated with an improvement in the worker’s well-being. Third, the authors report a variety of robustness checks, including tentative instrumental variable results. These findings, which draw on U.S. and British data, contribute to an emerging literature on the role of “expert leaders” in organizations