A Sense of Belonging: New Technologies\u27 Effect on Recruitment Practices of Graduate Programs

College recruiting has changed drastically as a result of new technology such as interactive Web sites, blogs, social media, and on-line videos. This study surveyed 144 college undergraduates about their attitudes and interests in enrolling in their institution’s graduate program as well as different types of recruitment technology. Video, printed handouts, and Web sites, were explored to assess their effectiveness as recruitment tools and discover how views of effectiveness are constructed. The study found video is perceived as the most interactive and influential recruitment tool and Web sites are the most credible, trustworthy, and user-friendly recruitment tool. This study allowed for making note of possible new ideas for recruiting which may be used by various universities and recruiters in the future including the incorporation of video to current social media plans and conveying a sense of belonging to potential students

Estimating Core Unemployable And Workforce Non-Participants: A Study Of Rural Pennsylvania's Labor Force

Rural unemployment rates persistently have run higher than the national average for many years.  In addition, multiple studies have established that rural underemployment also remains a long-running problem. Unfortunately, it is not yet fully understood how the various factors contributing to rural unemployment and underemployment interact to adversely affect rural labor markets.  The contribution of this paper is to gain insight as to the amount of slack labor force at the county level, focusing on the application to the labor force of rural Pennsylvania. By comparing the actual number of working-age adults presently not in a county’s labor force (using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census) against an estimated number of core unemployable and workforce non-participants (Core NPW) individuals in the county we can generate estimates of the potential up-swing in employment for the regional labor market if participation rates were to become among the best in their national peer group. The study’s methodology and findings provide guidance to policy makers in identifying regions most likely in need of greater assistance as to how to best spend scarce public dollars across various programs aimed at improving local labor markets.

Rural Pennsylvania Underemployment And Its Determinants

This paper investigates the impact of age distribution and educational attainment on the level of underemployment in Appalachian regions of the United States.  Furthermore, this study shows the similarities and differences at the state and county levels for Pennsylvania.  Following the methodology of Price and Wail (2005) linear regression models are used to estimate the marginal impacts of general economic conditions measured by the unemployment rate, as well as age and educational attainment, on the level of underemployment in the state.  In rural Appalachia, younger workers and those with some post-baccalaureate education are more likely to find themselves underemployed.  Keywords: rural economics, Appalachian studies, unemployment, underemployment, measurement issues

Interactive Virtual Laboratory for Experience with a Smart Bridge Test

Virtual laboratory experiments can be cost effective, convenient instructional resources that have appeal to a wide range of learning styles. Expensive, time-consuming laboratory tests can be experienced repeatedly and remotely using interactive simulations and original video footage or animations. A virtual experiment can incorporate meaningful exercises, procedural options, and background hyperlinks to create a comprehensive hands on environment. Also, it may be used as preliminary training for the actual experiment. An interactive LabVIEW-based laboratory for a load test simulation of an existing demonstration bridge was created. This smart truss bridge is instrumented with fiber optic strain sensors situated on the trusses. The user interface incorporates a synchronized image of the loaded bridge and a graph of the associated strains. A static display mode allows the choice of load placement and of data for single or multiple sensors. A continuous display mode shows the dynamic images of the bridge and strains on truss members. Options include the display of experimental data or of theoretical calculations. Hyperlinks give access to information on the sensors, the bridge construction, and the theoretical analysis. The program interface can also be used in the actual experiment to display data. The intended application is a laboratory for an interdisciplinary class on smart materials and sensors. The Lab VIEW program can be easily modified for tests on other structures such as a full-scale bridge

Medial knee joint loading during stair ambulation and walking while carrying loads

Carrying loads while walking or using stairs is a common activity of daily living. Knee osteoarthritis is associated with increased external knee adduction moment (KAM) during walking, so understanding how the additional challenges of stairs and carrying loads impact these moments is of value. Sixteen healthy individuals performed three types of MOTION (walking, stair ascent, stair descent) under three LOAD conditions (no load, carrying a 13.6 kg front load, carrying 13.6 kg load in a backpack). Three-dimensional gait analysis was used to measure KAM. Results of ANOVA showed a significant main effect of both MOTION and LOAD on peak KAM (p \u3c 0.001), but no significant MOTION × LOAD interaction (p = 0.250). Peak KAM during stair ascent was about two-times those seen in stair descent (p \u3c 0.001) and was significantly higher than those seen in walking (p \u3c 0.001). Conditions with LOAD generated significantly greater KAM as compared to the no-LOAD conditions (p \u3c 0.001). These findings suggest that carrying a load of moderate magnitude while climbing stairs significantly increases the peak KAM – a risk factor associated with knee osteoarthritis

Comment on "Local accumulation times for source, diffusion, and degradation models in two and three dimensions" [J. Chem. Phys. 138, 104121 (2013)]

In a recent paper, Gordon, Muratov, and Shvartsman studied a partial differential equation (PDE) model describing radially symmetric diffusion and degradation in two and three dimensions. They paid particular attention to the local accumulation time (LAT), also known in the literature as the mean action time, which is a spatially dependent timescale that can be used to provide an estimate of the time required for the transient solution to effectively reach steady state. They presented exact results for three-dimensional applications and gave approximate results for the two-dimensional analogue. Here we make two generalizations of Gordon, Muratov, and Shvartsman’s work: (i) we present an exact expression for the LAT in any dimension and (ii) we present an exact expression for the variance of the distribution. The variance provides useful information regarding the spread about the mean that is not captured by the LAT. We conclude by describing further extensions of the model that were not considered by Gordon,Muratov, and Shvartsman. We have found that exact expressions for the LAT can also be derived for these important extensions..

Prolyl-peptidyl isomerase, Pin1, phosphorylation is compromised in association with the expression of the HFE polymorphic allele, H63D

AbstractThere is substantial interest in HFE gene variants as putative risk factors in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD). Previous studies in cell models have shown the H63D HFE variant to result in increased cellular iron, oxidative stress, glutamate dyshomeostasis, and an increase in tau phosphorylation; all processes thought to contribute to AD pathology. Pin1 is a prolyl-peptidyl cis/trans isomerase that can regulate the dephosphorylation of the amyloid and tau proteins. Hyperphosphorylation of these later proteins is implicated in the pathogenesis of AD and Pin1 levels are reportedly decreased in AD brains. Because of the relationship between Pin1 loss of function by oxidative stress and the increase in oxidative stress in cells with the H63D polymorphism it was logical to interrogate a relationship between Pin1 and HFE status. To test our hypothesis that H63D HFE would be associated with less Pin1 activity, we utilized stably transfected human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell lines expressing the different HFE polymorphisms. Under resting conditions, total Pin1 levels were unchanged between the wild type and H63D HFE cells, yet there was a significant increase in phosphorylation of Pin1 at its serine 16 residue suggesting a loss of Pin1 activity in H63D variant cells. To evaluate whether cellular iron status could influence Pin1, we treated the WT HFE cells with exogenous iron and found that Pin1 phosphorylation increased with increasing levels of iron. Iron exposure to H63D variant cells did not impact Pin1 phosphorylation beyond that already seen suggesting a ceiling effect. Because HFE H63D cells have been shown to have more oxidative stress, the cells were treated with the antioxidant Trolox which resulted in a decrease in Pin1 phosphorylation in H63D cells with no change in WT HFE cells. In a mouse model carrying the mouse equivalent of the H63D allele, there was an increase in the phosphorylation status of Pin1 providing in vivo evidence for our findings in the cell culture model. Thus, we have shown another cellular mechanism that HFE polymorphisms influence; further supporting their role as neurodegenerative disease modifiers

Coloron Phenomenology

A flavor-universal extension of the strong interactions was recently proposed in response to the apparent excess of high-$E_T$ jets in the inclusive jet spectrum measured at the Tevatron. This paper studies the color octet of massive gauge bosons (`colorons') that is present in the low-energy spectrum of the model's Higgs phase. Constraints from searches for new particles decaying to dijets and from measurements of the weak-interaction $\rho$ parameter imply that the colorons must have masses greater than 870-1000 GeV. The implications of recent Tevatron data and the prospective input from future experiments are also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 4 embedded Postscript figures, LaTeX, full postscript version also available at http://smyrd.bu.edu/htfigs/htfigs.html rectified confusing phrase at end of sub-section on 'dijets

Approaches to improve the determination of eligibility for plant variety protection: I evaluation of morphological characteristics

The demonstration of distinctness through comparisons of morphological characteristics is an essential require¬ment in order to obtain Plant Variety Protection (PVP) and registration. Desires for increased international harmoni¬zation and the increasing size of reference collections place increased emphasis on improving the efficiency of the process. Morphological characteristics are notoriously affected by environment and many may be correlated in their expression. We developed an approach using inbred lines of maize (Zea mays L.) to evaluate characteristics according to their performance for 9 parameters encompassing 3 categories of Variability, Power and Genotype by Environment interaction. These data provide a basis for selecting a reduced core set of characteristics with the goal of retaining discriminational ability while decreasing the time and resources required to obtain and to compare morphologies

Ni Mg mixed metal oxides for p-type dye-sensitized solar cells

Mg Ni mixed metal oxide photocathodes have been prepared by a mixed NiCl2/MgCl2 sol-gel process. The MgO/NiO electrodes have been extensively characterized using physical and electrochemical methods. Dye-sensitized solar cells have been prepared from these films and the higher concentrations of MgO improved the photovoltage of these devices, however, there was a notable drop in photocurrent with increasing Mg2+. Charge extraction and XPS experiments revealed that the cause of this was a positive shift in the energy of the valence band which decreased the driving force for electron transfer from the NiO film to the dye and therefore the photocurrent. In addition, increasing concentrations of MgO increases the volume of pores between 0.500 to 0.050 μm, while reducing pore volumes in the mesopore range (less than 0.050 μm) and lowering BET surface area from approximately 41 down to 30 m2 g-1. A MgO concentration of 5% was found to strike a balance between the increased photovoltage and decreased photocurrent, possessing a BET surface area of 35 m2 g-1 and a large pore volume in both the meso and macropore range, which lead to a higher overall power conversion efficiency than NiO alone