Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program: The Intersection of Business and Social Good

Over the past few years, Molloy College has produced a series of conference papers that illustrate what can be made possible when a disposition toward social responsibility becomes an academic program learning outcome. The belief that business can both damage the world, but also save the world, is at the foundation of why graduate students are required to demonstrate that the skills and knowledge gained can be applied to solve a real-world business problem. The twist is that the business problem must emerge from an organization that traditionally would not have available to it a team of consultants who can think creatively and proactively about the problem. These student consultants are charged to make actionable recommendations that potentially solve the organization’s business problem. This is a paper that couples a pedagogical philosophy with evidence of learning. This paper demonstrates that the students were able to draw from academic program learning to focus on the development of a solution-driven plan. The Molloy College mission establishes the founding belief in social responsibility, service, community, and study. The college’s commitment to academic excellence and the promotion of lifelong learning demonstrates the transformative education experienced by the students. This paper focuses on the consulting work performed for the not-for-profit organization, The Health and Welfare Council of Long Island

The development, implementation and evaluation of an Evidence-Based Biohazard Training Program within a Pediatric Ambulatory Practice

Background: Communicable disease(s) such as Ebola or Coronavirus can cause a catastrophic health crisis within the United States healthcare system, especially among the pediatric and elderly population. Lack of knowledge, skills and confidence among health care professionals in the pediatric setting regarding these infectious organisms can affect early identification, proper isolation, early treatment, and increased risk of a possible pandemic and/or fatalities. Aims/Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop, implement and evaluate an evidence-based biohazard training program-using the Identify, Isolate and Inform (3I) tool within a pediatric urgent care center to increase the staff’s knowledge, skills and confidence in managing these high-risk patients. Methods: This quality improvement project involved sixteen pediatric urgent care center staff members who took part in the biohazard-training program utilizing a pre and posttest via a modified Knowledge, Skills, Attitude (KAP) survey. Results: A 70% knowledge (K) score, 96.9% attitude (A) score and 87.5% practice (P) score including a total KAP score of 84.8% were obtained at baseline with 56.2% self-report confidence. After the completion of the evidencebased biohazard-training program, a 10% increase in the categories of knowledge, attitude and practice was found and maintained for 60-days post training with an increased confidence level of 74.5%. Conclusion: An evidence-based biohazard-training program using the 3I tool is useful in the identification and management of communicable disease(s). The training program may be an effective preventative measure to minimize infection and prevent the spread of a contagion. Therefore, more research is needed with a larger sample size to determine its usefulness within a clinical setting

Transformative Business Education: Heart, Hands, Head - All In!

This paper emerges from a pedagogical philosophy that business students should experience real-world problem solving that allow them to demonstrate evidence of learning and its application to the world of business. This paper builds the case that business education must lead the student toward a professional outcome where he or she can apply the knowledge and skills gained during the college journey so that he or she is prepared for all that is expected of the student as a business professional

Business Education: Real-World Capstone

This paper emerges from a pedagogical philosophy that a business student should experience real-world problem solving that allows him or her to demonstrate evidence of learning and its application to the world of business. This paper builds the case that business education must lead the student toward a professional outcome where he or she can apply the knowledge and skills gained during the college journey so that he or she is prepared for all that is expected of the student as a business professional. The outcome of this paper is one college’s journey to develop a capstone consulting experience that is transformative for the student and serves society. An important component of this capstone experience is the opportunity for the students to study a problem and to make a set of solution-driven recommendations that will lead to social good

Marketing Social Responsibility: MBA Capstone that Leads to Social Good

This paper emerges from a series of articles that have been presented at the NBEA Annual Conference over the past few years. The pedagogical philosophy is that business students should experience working with a real-world client prior to earning the MBA Degree. The mission of the institution establishes the founding belief in social responsibility, service, community, and study. The college’s commitment to academic excellence and the promotion of lifelong learning demonstrates the transformative education experienced by the students. As a result, the evidence of learning for the MBA program is a set of solution-driven recommendations that will lead to social good. This paper focuses on the consulting work performed for the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island (HWCLI). The student consultants were charged with recommending a set of solutions that would increase the number of individual members as well as increase the revenue to HWCLI

An Exploratory Examination of Two Models for the Distribution of Property and Casualty Insurance

Many smaller insurance agents and brokers are losing ground as a result of sluggish economic growth. Much of the dwindling market share is due in part to an unstable and hostile economic market, negligible leveraging capability, and inability to adapt swiftly to constant social and economical changes. As more distribution networks form, the value of insurance professionalism is diminishing. In the insurance industry, the customer’s need for proper insurance protection should be considered the single most important commitment by the firm. With the present drive to classify insurance products as a convenience good that can be purchased with minimum effort, the significance of the insurance product is being reduced to impulse shopping. Insurance offers a crucial safety net and must continue to be recognized as the remedy that prevents financial ruin. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study, which examines the specific growth strategy, mergers and strategic alliances, which responds directly to the business practices of the small insurance broker

Flipping 419 Cybercrime Scams: Targeting the Weak and the Vulnerable

Most of cyberscam-related studies focus on threats perpetrated against the Western society, with a particular attention to the USA and Europe. Regrettably, no research has been done on scams targeting African countries, especially Nigeria, where the notorious and (in)famous 419 advanced-fee scam, targeted towards other countries, originated. How- ever, as we know, cybercrime is a global problem affecting all parties. In this study, we investigate a form of advance fee fraud scam unique to Nigeria and targeted at Nigerians, but unknown to the Western world. For the study, we rely substantially on almost two years worth of data harvested from an on-line discussion forum used by criminals. We complement this dataset with recent data from three other active forums to consolidate and generalize the research. We apply machine learning to the data to understand the criminals' modus operandi. We show that the criminals exploit the socio-political and economic problems prevalent in the country to craft various fraud schemes to defraud vulnerable groups such as secondary school students and unemployed graduates. The result of our research can help potential victims and policy makers to develop measures to counter the activities of these criminal groups

A study on helicopter main gearbox planetary bearing fault diagnosis

The condition monitoring of helicopter main gearbox (MGB) is crucial for operation safety, flight airworthiness and maintenance scheduling. Currently, the helicopter health and usage monitoring system, HUMS, is installed on helicopters to monitor the health state of their transmission systems and predict remaining useful life of key helicopter components. However, recent helicopter accidents related to MGB failures indicate that HUMS is not sensitive and accurate enough to diagnose MGB planetary bearing defects. To contribute in improving the diagnostic capability of HUMS, diagnosis of a MGB planetary bearing with seeded defect was investigated in this study. A commercial SA330 MGB was adopted for the seeded defect tests. Two test cases are demonstrated in this paper: the MGB at 16,000 rpm input speed with 180 kW load and at 23,000 rpm input speed with 1760 kW load. Vibration data was recorded, and processed using signal processing techniques including self-adaptive noise cancellation (SANC), kurtogram and envelope analysis. Processing results indicate that the seeded planetary bearing defect was successfully detected in both test cases

Using frequency domain analysis techniques for diagnosis of planetary bearing defect in a CH-46E helicopter aft gearbox

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Condition monitoring for helicopters has always been one of the most critical technologies to guarantee the integrity of the rotorcrafts, enhance operational and personnel safety, and reduce the overall maintenance costs. Over the past decades, health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) has been developed and implemented in helicopters to monitor the health status for the main gearbox (MGB) and other key components of the transmission system, improving condition-based maintenance for helicopters. However, many studies have indicated that current HUMS has a limited sensitivity to MGB planetary bearing defects. To enhance HUMS’ performance, this paper presents an approach based on frequency domain analysis techniques to diagnose planetary bearing defects using real helicopter data collected from a CH-46E helicopter aft MGB. Vibration data was processed using signal processing techniques including self-adaptive noise cancellation (SANC), discrete-random separation (DRS), cepstrum editing, kurtogram, envelope analysis and iterative envelope cancellation. Processing results conclude that frequency domain analysis techniques can provide distinct and intuitive indications of the seeded defects at both the inner race and the outer race of the faulty planetary bearing

The Measurement of Student Motivation: Does one Scale do it All?

This article focuses on the use of the Academic Motivation Scale in measuring motivation levels in undergraduate business students. The article poses the question whether this scale, which works in tandem with Self Determination Theory is an adequate motivation scale in the measure of student motivation. Other measurement scales are explored which do not have a corresponding motivation theory in order to highlight the complexity of this area of research. 232 undergraduate business students are administered the Academic Motivation Scale and results indicate that these students are severely lacking in subject motivation to such an extent that other options of measurement must be considered before research can validate the scale as being an appropriate measurement of business student motivation