Importance of Religious Beliefs to Ethical Attitudes in Business

One would expect a relationship between the ethical attitudes and the religion of individuals. Published research into this relationship has found somewhat mixed results. While some studies have found a significant, positive relationship between religious belief and ethical attitudes, other studies have found either no effect or only a “marginal effect”. In this study, we investigate the relationship between religious convictions and attitudes toward ethical dilemmas. We find strong evidence to suggest that business professionals who self-report higher levels of religious importance are significantly less accepting of ethically questionable behavior – for all 16 vignettes studied. This result is far more consistent and significant than for respondents who simply self-classify as “Christian.” Further, we find evidence, consistent with the literature, that older respondents and females also tend to be less accepting of ethically questionable behavior than are younger, male respondents. Finally, we find that professionals working at larger firms tend to be less accepting of ethically questionable behavior than their counterparts at smaller firms

1ST LGBTQ MIXER AT URI 2011

The LGBTQ President\u27s Commission press release and flyer for their first LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Mixer here on the URI campus

The Relationship between Participation in the Access Program and the Academic Achievement and Retention of Minority and Non-Minority First-Year Undergraduates

Executive Summary: Fostering the success of students of color and students admitted academically at risk has become an important goal for many institutions of higher education. In order to increase the success of these special student populations, some researchers believe that universities must be proactive in their efforts to help students. In fact, studies indicate that proactive programs are crucial, for it is often the students who need help the most that tend not to seek it. Numerous programs have been implemented to encourage increased academic achievement and retention among minority students and students admitted at higher risk of academic failure. The Access Program at Western Washington University is an example of such an effort. This study seeks to replicate and expand upon a previous thesis addressing the Access Program. The intent is to analyze the relationship between voluntary participation in Access and two benchmarks of student progress: 1) academic achievement, as measured by cumulative grade point average (GPA) over the first academic year, and 2) retention, as measured by continued enrollment from the Fall quarter of the first year to the Fall quarter following the first year. A survey was also conducted, to obtain qualitative data regarding why students depart from Western Washington University. Results indicate higher cumulative GPA\u27s and higher rates of retention for students who elect to participate in the Access Program than for those who are eligible, but choose not to participate. Furthermore, minority students who participate in the Access Program are found to be more successful in the above two measures than their eligible minority counterparts who do not participate. However, minority students as a whole score lower on both measures than nonminority students. Prominent reasons for departers to leave the institution were transfer to another school, social/cultural reasons, and financial concerns

Chose Not to Enroll: Survey Results of Nonenrolled Students Admitted to Western Washington University

Executive Summary: This report analyzes survey results from a questionnaire sent to a sample of 2,000 Fall Quarter, 1991, non-enrolled students who were accepted for admission to WWU but declined to attend. Both general survey results and written results are reported. The sample was made up mostly of single, Caucasian females aged 21 and under who had permanent residency in Washington State. Over three-quarters of respondents had been enrolled in a college prep program, and had a 3.00 or higher overall high school GPA. Two-thirds of the respondents were employed, with half working more than 21 hours a week. The college catalog and/or brochures, visits to campus, and friends at WWU were listed as the most frequent sources of information about WWU. Very few people had a negative impression from any of the sources listed. Nearly all survey respondents attended another institution during the 1991-92 academic year after declining to attend WWU (93.9%). Most attended a public, 4-year college in Washington State; most attended the school of their first choice, and had made the decision to apply to that institution while in the 12th grade. The highest percentage of respondents said that academic reputation, availability of a particular program of study, and cost of attending were very important in the decision to attend their current college. Over two-thirds of respondents agreed that WWU has high-quality academic programs, and that the cost of attending VVWU is reasonable. Most respondents had visited the WWU campus, had a positive or very positive overall impression of WVVU, and considered WWU a high choice for attending college. Less than a quarter, however, indicated that wanted further information about WWU, or that they planned to enroll at WWU in the future. Of note was the fact that while WWU was considered a high choice for survey respondents, a majority of respondents marked that they ended up attending the institution of their first choice. For many respondents attending WWU might have been desirable only if their first choice was unavailable; or, they might have been shopping. In this regard, the 1991 Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Survey data (OIAT Report 1992- 06) provided an interesting comparison. While 12.5% of CIRP survey respondents (admitted and enrolled students) had applied to four or more colleges for admissions, 33.1% of the non-enrollment survey respondents had applied to four or more colleges for admissions. Another analysis of interest was the enrollment activity of ethnic groups. While overall, ethnic minorities opted to enroll more often than to not enroll, they did so in lower percentages than Caucasians (63.7% of accounted for Caucasians enrolled; 52.5% of accounted for ethnic-minorities enrolled). This trend was especially true for Asian students. Of the 179 admitted Asian students accounted for, half had decided not to enroll. Of all the ethnic groups, it was the only one in which more potential WWU students had opted to not enroll rather than to enroll

Chose Not to Enroll: Survey Results of Nonenrolled Students Admitted to Western Washington University

Analyses of survey data of students admitted to Western but who chose not to enroll. These students were admitted to the Fall, 1991, Quarter

Carbon nanotube dosimetry: from workplace exposure assessment to inhalation toxicology

BACKGROUND: Dosimetry for toxicology studies involving carbon nanotubes (CNT) is challenging because of a lack of detailed occupational exposure assessments. Therefore, exposure assessment findings, measuring the mass concentration of elemental carbon from personal breathing zone (PBZ) samples, from 8 U.S.-based multi-walled CNT (MWCNT) manufacturers and users were extrapolated to results of an inhalation study in mice. RESULTS: Upon analysis, an inhalable elemental carbon mass concentration arithmetic mean of 10.6 μg/m(3) (geometric mean 4.21 μg/m(3)) was found among workers exposed to MWCNT. The concentration equates to a deposited dose of approximately 4.07 μg/d in a human, equivalent to 2 ng/d in the mouse. For MWCNT inhalation, mice were exposed for 19 d with daily depositions of 1970 ng (equivalent to 1000 d of a human exposure; cumulative 76 yr), 197 ng (100 d; 7.6 yr), and 19.7 ng (10 d; 0.76 yr) and harvested at 0, 3, 28, and 84 d post-exposure to assess pulmonary toxicity. The high dose showed cytotoxicity and inflammation that persisted through 84 d after exposure. The middle dose had no polymorphonuclear cell influx with transient cytotoxicity. The low dose was associated with a low grade inflammatory response measured by changes in mRNA expression. Increased inflammatory proteins were present in the lavage fluid at the high and middle dose through 28 d post-exposure. Pathology, including epithelial hyperplasia and peribronchiolar inflammation, was only noted at the high dose. CONCLUSION: These findings showed a limited pulmonary inflammatory potential of MWCNT at levels corresponding to the average inhalable elemental carbon concentrations observed in U.S.-based CNT facilities and estimates suggest considerable years of exposure are necessary for significant pathology to occur at that level

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy mutations in the calponin-homology domain of ACTN2 affect actin binding and cardiomyocyte Z-disc incorporation

α-Actinin-2 (ACTN2) is the only muscle isoform of α-actinin expressed in cardiac muscle. Mutations in this protein have been implicated in mild to moderate forms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We have investigated the effects of two mutations identified from HCM patients, A119T and G111V, on the secondary and tertiary structure of a purified actin binding domain (ABD) of ACTN2 by circular dichroism and X-ray crystallography, and show small but distinct changes for both mutations. We also find that both mutants have reduced F-actin binding affinity, although the differences are not significant. The full length mEos2 tagged protein expressed in adult cardiomyocytes shows that both mutations additionally affect Z-disc localization and dynamic behaviour. Overall, these two mutations have small effects on structure, function and behaviour, which may contribute to a mild phenotype for this disease

Comparison of polychlorinated biphenyl levels across studies of human neurodevelopment.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent pollutants that are ubiquitous in the food chain, and detectable amounts are in the blood of almost every person in most populations that have been examined. Extensive evidence from animal studies shows that PCBs are neurotoxins, even at low doses. Interpretation of human data regarding low-level, early-life PCB exposure and subsequent neurodevelopment is problematic because levels of exposure were not similarly quantified across studies. We expressed the exposure levels from 10 studies of PCB and neurodevelopment in a uniform manner using a combination of data from original investigators, laboratory reanalyses, calculations based on published data, and expert opinion. The mainstay of our comparison was the median level of PCB 153 in maternal pregnancy serum. The median concentration of PCB 153 in the 10 studies ranged from 30 to 450 ng/g serum lipid, and the median of the 10 medians was 110 ng/g. We found that (a)) the distribution of PCB 153 exposure in most studies overlapped substantially, (b)) exposure levels in the Faroe Islands study were about 3-4-fold higher than in most other studies, and (c)) the exposure levels in the two recent U.S. studies were about one-third of those in the four earlier U.S. studies or recent Dutch, German, and northern Québec studies. Our results will facilitate a direct comparison of the findings on PCBs and neurodevelopment when they are published for all 10 studies

GOALS-JWST: Small neutral grains and enhanced 3.3 micron PAH emission in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 7469

We present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) integral-field spectroscopy of the nearby luminous infrared galaxy, NGC 7469. We take advantage of the high spatial/spectral resolution and wavelength coverage of JWST /NIRSpec to study the 3.3 um neutral polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) grain emission on ~60 pc scales. We find a clear change in the average grain properties between the star-forming ring and the central AGN. Regions in the vicinity of the AGN, with [NeIII]/[NeII]>0.25, tend to have larger grain sizes and lower aliphatic-to-aromatic (3.4/3.3) ratios indicating that smaller grains are preferentially removed by photo-destruction in the vicinity of the AGN. We find an overall suppression of the total PAH emission relative to the ionized gas in the central 1 kpc region of the AGN in NGC 7469 compared to what has been observed with Spitzer on 3 kpc scales. However, the fractional 3.3 um to total PAH power is enhanced in the starburst ring, possibly due to a variety of physical effects on sub-kpc scales, including recurrent fluorescence of small grains or multiple photon absorption by large grains. Finally, the IFU data show that while the 3.3 um PAH-derived star formation rate (SFR) in the ring is 8% higher than that inferred from the [NeII] and [NeIII] emission lines, the integrated SFR derived from the 3.3 um feature would be underestimated by a factor of two due to the deficit of PAHs around the AGN, as might occur if a composite system like NGC 7469 were to be observed at high-redshift.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, Submitted to ApJ