When Business Gets Involved: A case study of business community involvement in Illinois' early childhood education policy

As the first state to offer universal preschool to three?year?olds, Illinois' experience with early childhood education (ECE) policy reform efforts offers valuable lessons about how such change takes shape. The confluence of factors includes well?organized advocacy groups, the endurance to continue efforts over decades, a supportive governor, and an engaged business community. The description below details Illinois' ECE activities from 1992 to the present, with a particular focus on the business role in ECE policy. Chicago Metropolis 2020 was the main business group involved in ECE efforts, but, significantly, advocates and politicians also continuously cast the issues in language that would motivate economic and business interests

An Examination of Demographics, Personal Values, and Philosophical Orientations of College Students from Multiple University Campuses

The purpose of this study is to identify what current students value today and to determine whether there is a link between personal values and student demographics. A brief demographic survey of fourteen questions was developed and distributed, along with a twenty-question survey which is used determine participant’s values, or philosophical orientation (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008). There were two hundred and forty-two subjects who volunteered over a two-week time period for this research project. Analysis was completed comparing various demographics (such as age, gender, nationality, first generation students) to determine if certain demographics strongly correlated with a particular philosophical orientation, such as pragmatic, human or intellectual. This manuscript further describes some of the current research within the field, the method in which the data was collected and analyzed, as well as the results

An Examination of Leadership Theories in Business and Sport Achievement Contexts

This manuscript examines the impact of transformational leadership in multiple contexts, specifically business and competitive sport. An overview of eight major leadership theories discussed date from the 1940s to the present date. These leadership theories include the trait theories, behavioral theories, the path-goal theory, the leader-member exchange theory, authentic leadership, servant leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership. Within these contexts, nine studies highlighted the value of transformational leadership. The review contains a variety of large-scale, multi-site, individual studies as well as meta-analyses on a global scale that are all related to transformational leadership. These studies demonstrate how transformational leadership transcends disciplines and exemplify the value of transformational leadership, resulting in higher achievement outcomes

Evaluation and developmental studies of possible active seismic experiments during the post-Apollo period

Seismic velocity studies pertinent to the lunar crust and mantle are briefly summarized. The compressional and shear wave velocities in loose aggregates are discussed along with the effects of temperature on seismic velocity in compacted powders. Abstracts of papers concerning the lunar structure are included

Development of a variance prioritized multiresponse robust design framework for quality improvement

Robust design is a well-known quality improvement method that focuses on building quality into the design of products and services. Yet, most well established robust design models only consider a single performance measure and their prioritization schemes do not always address the inherent goal of robust design. This paper aims to propose a new robust design method for multiple quality characteristics where the goal is to first reduce the variability of the system under investigation and then attempt to locate the mean at the desired target value. The paper investigates the use of a response surface approach and a sequential optimization strategy to create a flexible and structured method for modeling multiresponse problems in the context of robust design. Nonlinear programming is used as an optimization tool. The proposed methodology is demonstrated through a numerical example. The results obtained from this example are compared to that of the traditional robust design method. For comparison purposes, the traditional robust design optimization models are reformulated within the nonlinear programming framework developed here. The proposed methodology provides enhanced optimal robust design solutions consistently. This paper is perhaps the first study on the prioritized response robust design with the consideration of multiple quality characteristics. The findings and key observations of this paper will be of significant value to the quality and reliability engineering/management community

Development of an experiment-based robust design paradigm for multiple quality characteristics using physical programming

The well-known quality improvement methodology, robust design, is a powerful and cost-effective technique for building quality into the design of products and processes. Although several approaches to robust design have been proposed in the literature, little attention has been given to the development of a flexible robust design model. Specifically, flexibility is needed in order to consider multiple quality characteristics simultaneously, just as customers do when judging products, and to capture design preferences with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Physical programming, a relatively new optimization technique, is an effective tool that can be used to transform design preferences into specific weighted objectives. In this paper, we extend the basic concept of physical programming to robust design by establishing the links of experimental design and response surface methodology to address designers’ preferences in a multiresponse robust design paradigm. A numerical example is used to show the proposed procedure and the results obtained are validated through a sensitivity study

Investigating the role of CHR9 in LFY dependent transcription in regards to flower development and the role of epigenetics in induced response to herbivory

ASPB Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship 2014Many living organisms rely on their DNA to store the information that allows for them to be able to develop, survive, and pass on their genetic information to their eventual offspring. Not all of the genes that DNA codes for are expressed at all the different stages of development in an organism’s life. I was able to work on two projects that involved investigating gene expression in the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana during my time as an undergraduate. Although these projects differed in their approaches and their ultimate aims, both of them involved investigating the role of different mechanisms involved in the regulation of gene expression. Gene expression is tightly controlled to allow for proper development through the use of transcription factors, activators, repressors and other various methods that can allow for the proper expression pattern of a gene product. In Dr. Rebecca Lamb’s laboratory, I investigated the role of CHR9 which is proposed to be a potential cofactor of the LEAFY transcription factor which is a key regulator of reproductive development in Arabidopsis. Under Dr. R. Keith Slotkin, I worked on the effect of herbivory on the epigenetic marks of different areas of the genome and the expression of different genes involved in the regulation of these epigenetic marks.No embargoAcademic Major: Molecular Genetic