KeyLime

This project creates an iOS mobile app geared specifically toward the students of California Polytechnic State University. The app aims to provide the ability for users to discover new restaurants to checkout in the central coast area. These restaurants can be filtered to the user’s choosing based on the price of food, rating the restaurant has received, distance away from the user, and type of food. In addition, featured deals that local restaurants currently offer can be found on the app. Each restaurant can be favorited by the user to allow for better filtering of discovering new restaurants and to easily access deals of the user’s favorite restaurants. Overall, the app serves to provide a fresh experience to finding delicious and affordable places to eat for college students who have become accustomed to social media communication and aesthetic. This report dives further into how the app was designed and developed as well as decisions that were made throughout the development process

Provincial Government of the Western Cape : senior management perceptions of their social-structural and psychological empowerment in the workplace

The South African work place is a dynamic one. All sectors are Iegislatively obligated to ensure that groups marginaIized p re-1994 are developed and fast-tracked into positions that would ensure greater representivity of the population. The result of this inclusive process has been that the Provincial Government of the Western Cape's working context is diverse with respect to gender and race bringing with it a myriad of cultures and so meaning into the workplace. Considering the context of workplace empowerment the researcher endeavoured to explore the perceptions senior managers of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape had on their psychological and social-structural empowerment using Sprietzer ( 199S) and Kanter's ( 199 3) em power ment principles in combination as a theoretical framework. A quantitative research design was chosen to reach a large sample and the total population comprised 1 622 senior managers selected using a probabiIity sampIing methodology. High representivity was gained across all twelve departments of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape which included Senior Management Service designations as well as junior level management from saIary levels 9 through to 16. The researcher expanded the provincial government's definition of senior management to include junior management to ensure a valid and comprehensive dataset which included women. Using a 5 point Likert structured questionnaire, the entire sample received an email link to the electronic survey and a 17.3% response rate meant that 281 senior managers completed the survey

Challenges facing the implementation of community and home-based early childhood development programmes for vulnerable children aged 0-4 years in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa

This thesis examined the challenges facing the public sector implementation of community and home based early childhood development (ECD) programmes for vulnerable children aged 0-4 years in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa. A qualitative case-study approach was used. The unit of analysis was the Department of Social Development (DoSD) as they are the public sector funders of non-profit organizations (NPOs) who deliver these services. The thesis included a literature review, a policy document review, and the collection and analysis of six interviews with officials involved in implementation of the National Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development 2005–2010 (NIP for ECD). The data was organised using organizational coding and conceptually ordered displays, and analysed using the 5-C protocol of implementation as the overarching conceptual framework. The findings of the study showed that the main challenges facing the DoSD in the implementation of community and home-based ECD are: (1) Human resources that are stretched to capacity at the provincial and district level, primarily social workers who are unable to manage current services; (2) inadequate line item funding to scale up the provision of services in order to fulfill the mandate of the NIP for ECD (2005); (3) a shortage of NPOs to scale up services, current service providers already suffer with their own capacity constraints; (4) a lack of norms and standards for funding community and home-based ECD; (5) the social sector currently prioritizes centre-based ECD (in terms of funding and training) over community and home-based ECD. Another critical shortcoming is a lack of information regarding provision of services and a lack of South African evidence based research to assist implementers in making rationing decisions at the provincial level. Officials at the DoSD however display commitment to, and recognize the need to, support community and home-based ECD. The officials are however limited in doing so due to capacity constraints

Investigating the trajectories of academic staff who identify as DBER scholars

One of the growing areas of research in Australia is the discipline-based education research (DBER) field. In 2012 a National Research Council report stated “[DBER is a] vital area of scholarship [with] potential to improve undergraduate science and engineering education” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1), meeting recommendations given by the Chief Scientist of Australia (2014) to improve the education of STEM graduates. The primary intent of this study was to collect the motivations, journeys and trajectories of DBER researchers and find factors that can lead to supporting the growth and retention of these scholars. Given the regional differences in academic landscapes between continents, we have chosen to focus (for now) on the Australian DBER community. Additionally, we know representation within our teaching faculty has direct and measurable impact on the students themselves. As such, we have also explored the diversity of backgrounds of those who participated alongside their perceptions of the diversity seen within the Australian DBER community. To achieve the above aims, a series of interviews were undertaken with Australian academics who identify as being a part of the DBER community. The population represented was across a range of experience levels, from early career to senior, as well as multiple gender identities and varied academic pathways. In this presentation, the outcomes of analysing this data will be used to describe the types of academics that are becoming DBER researchers in Australia, as well as the initial motivations and pathways that have led them to this point in their careers. REFERENCES National Research Council. (2012). Discipline-based education research: Understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Office of the Chief Scientist. (2014). Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future. Australian Government, Canberra

A set of genes previously implicated in the hypoxia response might be an important modulator in the rat ear tissue response to mechanical stretch

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Wounds are increasingly important in our aging societies. Pathologies such as diabetes predispose patients to chronic wounds that can cause pain, infection, and amputation. The vacuum assisted closure device shows remarkable outcomes in wound healing. Its mechanism of action is unclear despite several hypotheses advanced. We previously hypothesized that micromechanical forces can heal wounds. To understand better the biological response of soft tissue to forces, rat ears in vivo were stretched and their gene expression patterns over time obtained. The absolute enrichment (AE) algorithm that obtains a combined up and down regulated picture of the expression analysis was implemented.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>With the use of AE, the hypoxia gene set was the most important at a highly significant level. A co-expression network analysis showed that important co-regulated members of the hypoxia pathway include a glucose transporter (slc2a8), heme oxygenase, and nitric oxide synthase2 among others.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It appears that the hypoxia pathway may be an important modulator of response of soft tissue to forces. This finding gives us insights not only into the underlying biology, but also into clinical interventions that could be designed to mimic within wounded tissue the effects of forces without all the negative effects that forces themselves create.</p

Unexpected vertical structure of the Saharan Air Layer and giant dust particles during AER-D

The Saharan Air Layer (SAL) in the summertime eastern Atlantic is typically well mixed and 3-4 km deep, overlying the marine boundary layer (MBL). In this paper, we show experimental evidence that at times a very different structure can be observed. During the AERosol properties - Dust (AER-D) airborne campaign in August 2015, the typical structure described above was observed most of the time, and was associated with a moderate dust content yielding an aerosol optical depth (AOD) of 0.3-0.4 at 355 nm. In an intense event, however, an unprecedented vertical structure was observed close to the eastern boundary of the basin, displaying an uneven vertical distribution and a very large AOD (1.5-2), with most of the dust in a much lower level than usual (0.3-2 km). Estimated dust concentrations and column loadings for all flights during the campaign spanned 300-5500 and 0.8-7.5 g m−2, respectively. The shortwave direct radiative impact of the intense dust event has been evaluated to be as large as −260±30 and −120±15 W m−2 at the surface and top of atmosphere (TOA), respectively. We also report the correlation of this event with anomalous lightning activity in the Canary Islands. In all cases, our measurements detected a broad distribution of aerosol sizes, ranging from ∼0.1 to ∼80 µm (diameter), thus highlighting the presence of giant particles. Giant dust particles were also found in the MBL. We note that most aerosol models may miss the giant particles due to the fact that they use size bins up to 10-25 µm. The unusual vertical structure and the giant particles may have implications for dust transport over the Atlantic during intense events and may affect the estimate of dust deposited to the ocean. We believe that future campaigns could focus more on events with high aerosol load and that instrumentation capable of detecting giant particles will be key to dust observations in this part of the world

Workshop - Pre-IS Involvement Workshop

This is a workshop that was presented during the AIS National Student Chapter Leadership Conference (SCLC) 2021 covering the pre-IS involvement of students

Absolute Enrichment: Gene Set Enrichment Analysis for Homeostatic Systems

The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) identifies sets of genes that are differentially regulated in one direction. Many homeostatic systems will include one limb that is upregulated in response to a downregulation of another limb and vice versa. Such patterns are poorly captured by the standard formulation of GSEA. We describe a technique to identify groups of genes (which sometimes can be pathways) that include both up- and down-regulated components. This approach lends insights into the feedback mechanisms that may operate, especially when integrated with protein interaction databases