Unexploited Efficiencies In Higher Education

In “Unexploited Efficiencies in Higher Education,” Henry C. Eyring, a junior majoring in Economics at Brigham Young University-Idaho, argues that one way that the U.S. can compete globally in college attainment is to decrease cost-per-graduate.  He explains how many stakeholders in higher education stand to benefit from unexploited cost-efficiencies.  Eyring cites strategies implemented by Brigham Young University-Idaho as examples of ways that institutions of higher education can become more cost-efficient in producing graduates.  Administrators at Brigham Young University-Idaho utilize a model called the “Graduate Fishbone” that quantifies the effect of alterations to policy, retention, and instructional delivery at Brigham Young University-Idaho on cost, students served, and annual graduates produced.  That model allows analysis of the efficacy of cost-efficiency promoting strategies, and is available electronically from the author upon request.  An extended version of this paper with additional charts and explanation is also available electronically from the author upon request.    

Performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer-performance comparison

We conduct a field experiment, based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research, to test performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer-performance comparison. Relative to providing the median as a reference point for online students to compare themselves to, providing the top quartile: damps performance for those below the median; boosts performance for those between the median and top quartile; and, in the case of outcome but not process comparison, boosts performance for those above the top quartile. We do not find that either reference point yields a greater average performance effect. However, providing the more effective reference point in each partition of initial performance yields a 40% greater performance effect than providing either reference point uniformly. Students access the online courses intermittently over the span of a year. Our effects derive from small portions of our treatment groups—5% in the case of process comparison and 26% in the case of outcome comparison—who accessed treatment and who were, on average, more active leading up to and during our interventio

Combined experimental and multiphase computational fluid dynamics analysis of surface textured journal bearings in mixed regime of lubrication

This paper investigates the effect of surface texturing in a partial pad journal bearing through a series of controlled experiments at operating conditions, promoting mixed or boundary regimes of lubrication. Improvements to load carrying capacity are observed under certain operating conditions. A comprehensive computational finite volume multiphase fluid dynamics analysis, including vapour transport equation and modified finite-size cavity Rayleigh-Plesset model, is used to study the effect of indented surface textures in the microscale contact domain and within the individual textures themselves. The results show improved conditions with a textured journal through promotion of micro-hydrodynamic effect, delaying the effect of lubricant rupture, thus extending the effective load bearing region. A very good agreement is obtained between measurements and predictions

Kinetics and thermodynamics of DNA hybridization on gold nanoparticles

Hybridization of single-stranded DNA immobilized on the surface of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) into double stranded DNA and its subsequent dissociation into ssDNA were investigated. Melting curves and rates of dissociation and hybridization were measured using fluorescence detection based on hybridization-induced fluorescence change. Two distribution functions, namely the state distribution and the rate distribution, were proposed in order to take interfacial heterogeneity into account and to quantitatively analyze the data. Reaction and activation enthalpies and entropies of DNA hybridization and dissociation on GNPs were derived and compared with the same quantities in solution. Our results show that the interaction between GNPs and DNA reduces the energetic barrier and accelerates the dissociation of adhered DNA. At low surface densities of ssDNA adhered to GNP surface, the primary reaction pathway is that ssDNA in solution first adsorbs onto the GNP, and then diffuses along the surface until hybridizing with an immobilized DNA. We also found that the secondary structure of a DNA hairpin inhibits the interaction between GNPs and DNA and enhances the stability of the DNA hairpin adhered to GNPs

Artificial Adaptive Systems and predictive medicine: a revolutionary paradigm shift

An individual patient is not the average representative of the population. Rather he or she is a person with unique characteristics. An intervention may be effective for a population but not necessarily for the individual patient. The recommendation of a guideline may not be right for a particular patient because it is not what he or she wants, and implementing the recommendation will not necessarily mean a favourable outcome