Best Practices in the use of Employee Assessment Instruments in Leadership Development

Companies both large and small have been interested for decades in offering skill, talent and leadership development opportunities for their employees. These experiences can take place through a variety of talent management methods through selection, formal and informal training, performance management and succession planning. One of the most common ways to begin or enhance any development for teams or individuals is through the use of assessments, surveys and instruments employees complete online or fill out in paper format. Utilization of assessment instruments is a beneficial practice in creating a foundation where individuals begin to understand differences in leadership styles, decision making approaches and work preferences. This study focused on defining best practices for companies using assessment instruments across the spectrum of talent management systems and in particular leadership development

Comparison of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Graft Materials and Risk of Rupture/Reinjury in Young Athletes

The anterior cruciate ligament tear is a standard surgical injury seen with young athletes competing at elite, amateur, and recreational capacities. The purpose of this literature review is to determine the rehabilitation guidelines and risks associated with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, as well as determining the role of rehabilitation in graft rupture. This literature review also serves to determine if graft choice for surgical repair plays a role in an increased risk of rupture or reinjury. This literature review used various online databases, including Dynamed, Cochran, and Pubmed, with the utilization of MeSH terms listed below in “keywords” in order to identify applicable data. A systematic review of the literature was then completed. Data showed that athletes near or younger than the age of 25 were at a higher risk of graft rupture. The patellar tendon graft shows a decreased risk of rupture and instability when compared to hamstring grafts. Allografts were found to have an increased risk of rupture in young athletes when compared to hamstring grafts and should not be considered for young athletes. Failure to complete a rehabilitation program was also determined to play a role in graft rupture. Keywords

The Ins and Outs of Undergraduate Research and Leadership: A Student\u27s Perspective

This manuscript is a reflective write-up of Regina Hockert’s experience in completing KINE 462, Honors Kinesiology Senior Project, during the 2022 Fall Quarter. It describes their experience as an undergraduate research leader, including specific milestones and artifacts related to a broader replication study and the daily activities of Dr. Jafrā Thomas’ lab. This essay was designed to be a written reflection around their senior project presentation and the insights shared through that medium about the senior project experience. It is created to showcase lessons learned in relationship with the tasks and responsibilities required of working in-depth on student-led research. There are a series of appendices to this manuscript that include images, documents, and other artifacts that were collected and analyzed for the end-of-course presentation. This essay mirrors that presentation. Specifically, it focuses on three main milestones of (a) turning a literature review into a manuscript, (b) creating a recruitment sign-up form, and (c) creating recruitment tabling material to sign up participants for the broader replication study. The overarching goal of this essay submission was to provide information on the inner workings of a senior project and student research, as well as personal insight into challenges and skills developed through unexpected hurdles whilst working on the components of the senior project experience. This information contained within the insights presented can be used to advise the creation of future senior projects, assist in designing student-led research experiences, and allow people to become familiar with how student-led research may unfold

A systematic method for identifying vital areas at complex nuclear facilities.

Identifying the areas to be protected is an important part of the development of measures for physical protection against sabotage at complex nuclear facilities. In June 1999, the International Atomic Energy Agency published INFCIRC/225/Rev.4, 'The Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities.' This guidance recommends that 'Safety specialists, in close cooperation with physical protection specialists, should evaluate the consequences of malevolent acts, considered in the context of the State's design basis threat, to identify nuclear material, or the minimum complement of equipment, systems or devices to be protected against sabotage.' This report presents a structured, transparent approach for identifying the areas that contain this minimum complement of equipment, systems, and devices to be protected against sabotage that is applicable to complex nuclear facilities. The method builds upon safety analyses to develop sabotage fault trees that reflect sabotage scenarios that could cause unacceptable radiological consequences. The sabotage actions represented in the fault trees are linked to the areas from which they can be accomplished. The fault tree is then transformed (by negation) into its dual, the protection location tree, which reflects the sabotage actions that must be prevented in order to prevent unacceptable radiological consequences. The minimum path sets of this fault tree dual yield, through the area linkage, sets of areas, each of which contains nuclear material, or a minimum complement of equipment, systems or devices that, if protected, will prevent sabotage. This method also provides guidance for the selection of the minimum path set that permits optimization of the trade-offs among physical protection effectiveness, safety impact, cost and operational impact

Designing a Replication Study in Kinesiology: Lessons from the Field

The submitted presentation material summarizes a project presented at the 2021 Cal Poly Virtual BEACoN Symposium. The title of the project which the presentation is based is, “Towards Equitable Communication: Explorations to Guide Knowledge Translation in Kinesiology.” The uploaded file document presents the presentation abstract, student testimony, as well as suggested citations for individual aspects of the presentation material. Please follow the social media profiles of the faculty mentor to the project, Dr. Thomas, for timely project updates. You may find related work from this lab group published to Cal Poly Digital Commons under the Kinesiology and Public Health section (see URL): https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/kinesp/ . Finally, a copy of the video presentation itself has been attached. Patrons are encouraged to use the file itself in their work. The video has English subtitles

Accessibility Rating Form for Websites and Other Online Platforms

Background. This file provides a coding form developed to judge how accessible websites and other online platforms are to users. Accessibility may be defined as the ease to which a person can perceive content and navigate material (Ross & Ross, 2021). Users are encouraged to adapt this form for their use. Purpose. The rating form can be used to judge the pages of online media, using 14 criteria under two areas: Accessible Media and Accessible Design. One of three grades could be assigned to each criterion: Not Accessible (0 point), Somewhat Accessible (1 point), Accessible (2 points), adapted from published research by Wallace et al. (2010). Initially, this form was developed to rate the website created using the Learning Management System platform, Canvas (Instructure, n.d.), which was adapted as a research survey website. Form validity and reliability. This form was based on guidelines for accessible websites, provided from the World Wide Web Consortium (Zahra, 2019). This form was found to have excellent rater agreement within a preliminary study, which was presented at the 2022 Southwest Chapter Conference Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (October 28-29, Costa Mesa, California). The intraclass coefficient statistic was used (four raters, M = .91, LL = .82, UL = .94; Landers, 2015). Results were interpreted using Cicchetti’s (1994) interpretive cut-points. Further detail is reported in the published abstract to the study’s presentation (Wu et al., in press)

Evaluating Research Survey Websites in Kinesiology: A Case Study Using An Accessibility Rating Form

Advancing equity in the research and educational practice of kinesiology requires intentional efforts to ensure access divides do not widen nor persist (Ross et al., in press, JOPERD). PURPOSE: Given knowledge of suitability assessment of materials (SAM) principles supports the equitable design of lay print and online material, we evaluated the extent they would also support developing a research survey website consistent with accessibility guidelines for digital technology. METHODS: The study website was adapted from the Canvas learning management system. A cross-sectional formative assessment was performed. Using their knowledge of SAM principles (eg, clear layout, text ≤ 8th grade reading level), the second and third author (JDT, RFH) constructed the website webpages (eg, site welcome page, online questionnaire; Jun.-Jul. 2022). The first author (YSW), using guidelines from two reputable sources (ie, a Canvas tutorial and W3C website), developed a 14-item accessibility rating form to critically appraise the website’s 10 webpages (ie, 1 = Not Accessible, 2 = Somewhat Accessible, 3 = Accessible; Wallace et al., 2010, JPAH). Authors 1-4 then performed a formative assessment of the adapted Canvas websites’ accessibility independently (Jul.-Aug. 2022). Form reliability was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient and its interpretive cut-points for average absolute-rater agreement (Cicchetti, 1994, Psych Assess; Landers, 2015, Winnower). RESULTS: Average rater agreement was excellent per webpage (M = .91, LL = .82, UL = .94). Mean webpage score ranged between 2.55 (±0.78) to 2.77 (±0.58). Informational pages (eg, welcome page) had greater accessibility than interactive pages (eg, forms). Five discrepant items were systematic, resulting in redundant rater differences (eg, keyboard navigation was hard to notice). All discrepancies were resolved with 100% consensus. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study suggest knowledge of SAM principles ensures developers can design lay friendly and accessible research survey websites. They further suggest rating forms inclusive of digital accessibility guidelines should be used as a supplement to further meet accessibility and equity goals. We will share our form, then discuss our results using the universal design for learning framework

The Pion in Electromagnetic and Weak Neutral Current Nuclear Response Functions

The impact of pionic correlations and meson--exchange currents in determining the (vector) response functions for electroweak quasielastic lepton scattering from nuclei is discussed. The approach taken builds on previous work where the Fermi gas model is used to maintain consistency in treating forces and currents (gauge invariance) and to provide a Lorentz covariant framework. Results obtained in first-order perturbation theory are compared with infinite-order summation schemes (HF and RPA) and found to provide quite successful approximations for the quasielastic response functions. The role of pionic correlations in hardening the responses R_L and R_T is investigated in some detail, including studies of the relative importance of central and tensor pieces of the force and of exchange and self-energy diagrams; in addition, their role in significantly modifying the longitudinal parity-violating response R_{AV}^L is explored. The MEC are shown to provide a small, but non-negligible, contribution in determining the vector responses.Comment: TeX, 21 figures (Postscript, available from the authors), MIT preprint CTP\#219

Integrating Safeguards and Security with Safety into Design

There is a need to minimize security risks, proliferation hazards, and safety risks in the design of new nuclear facilities in a global environment of nuclear power expansion, while improving the synergy of major design features and raising operational efficiency. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) launched the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI) covering many safeguards areas. One of these, launched by NNSA with support of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, was a multi-laboratory project, led by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), to develop safeguards by design. The proposed Safeguards-by-Design (SBD) process has been developed as a structured approach to ensure the timely, efficient, and cost effective integration of international safeguards and other nonproliferation barriers with national material control and accountability, physical security, and safety objectives into the overall design process for the nuclear facility lifecycle. A graded, iterative process was developed to integrate these areas throughout the project phases. It identified activities, deliverables, interfaces, and hold points covering both domestic regulatory requirements and international safeguards using the DOE regulatory environment as exemplar to provide a framework and guidance for project management and integration of safety with security during design. Further work, reported in this paper, created a generalized SBD process which could also be employed within the licensed nuclear industry and internationally for design of new facilities. Several tools for integrating safeguards, safety, and security into design are discussed here. SBD appears complementary to the EFCOG TROSSI process for security and safety integration created in 2006, which focuses on standardized upgrades to enable existing DOE facilities to meet a more severe design basis threat. A collaborative approach is suggested