Forensics as a Business: A Business Ethics Approach to Ethical Violations

In a way, I consider myself to be an outsider in the forensics community. Although I did major in Speech Communication, I also received a major in Management with minors in Marketing and Business Administration. Due to this background I view the activity of forensics differently, while I think it is one of the greatest educational activities, I also see it as a business. Just like businesses, forensic programs have stakeholders they are responsible to and trophies are considered to be the profits that we can show our supervisors and investors. Because of this idea that forensics is a business, I have decided to utilize a business ethics approach to viewing and solving current ethical violations occurring in forensics

Retrospective Analysis of Participatory Decision-Making in a Park\u27s Construction in Lafayette, Indiana

The Creative Park project has been an ongoing collaboration between Purdue Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), Faith Community Development Corporation, and the residents of Lincoln Neighborhood in Lafayette, Indiana. It was initiated by Faith in 2017 as an open-ended attempt to increase local children’s interactions with creative and complex thinking as well as decreasing time spent indoors at the Hartford Hub. Through several iterations of designs, an interdisciplinary team with one consistent member has developed a plan to build a treehouse-themed park to be constructed in spring 2020. Throughout this time two major themes have arisen: that the collaboration with Lincoln residents is both complex and important to maintain the nature of the project, and the park project has connections to feelings of inequality, stagnation, and colonization for the neighborhood that are underdiscussed. Almost all interactions between EPICS and Lincoln residents is facilitated through a neighborhood meeting group that was resurrected in fall 2016, a semester before the project began. This limits the scope of discussion of the project as only regular attendees can participate and is likely to skew perceived opinion because of the demographic differences between the neighborhood and meeting group. Lincoln is considered one of the poorest neighborhoods in Lafayette as well as being predominately black compared to adjacent neighborhoods. Discussions in the meeting group acknowledge lack of income growth compared to Wabash neighborhood, continued neglect by the City of Lafayette, and decisions by powerful forces resulting in maintenance of the status quo. The Creative Park itself hopes to provide an asset to the community according to their desires without requiring investment of funds by residents. Whether this primary goal will be a success is yet to be determined, but the relationship between EPICS and the community has already been cemented over the last four years

Graviton Propagators, Brane Bending and Bending of Light in Theories with Quasi-Localized Gravity

We derive the graviton propagator on the brane for theories with quasi-localized gravity. In these models the ordinary 4D graviton is replaced by a resonance in the spectrum of massive Kaluza-Klein modes, which can decay into the extra dimension. We find that the effects of the extra polarization in the massive graviton propagator is exactly cancelled by the bending of the brane due to the matter sources, up to small corrections proportional to the width of the resonance. Thus at intermediate scales the classic predictions of Einstein's gravity are reproduced in these models to arbitrary precision.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, requires JHEP.cl

Evaluation of Biological Thatch Control on Golf Greens

Thatch is a layer of living and dead plant material (stems and roots) between turfgrass leaf tissue and the soil surface and if excessive, it can decrease playability of turf surfaces, increase mower scalping and disease pressure, reduce pesticide efficacy and water infiltration, plus harbor insects. In golf greens, mechanical, thus, disruptive practices such as vertical mowing, core cultivation, grooming, and topdressing are traditional agronomic methods for managing thatch/organic matter. Greenhouse and field experiments were conducted for two years to evaluate two commercial biostimulant products, Worm Power and Earth MAX, and their impact on thatch and rooting depth. Earth MAX had two rates, and was named Earth MAX (1) and Earth MAX (2). In addition to the biostimulants, two industry standards were included: blackstrap molasses and sand topdressing. Greenhouse studies yielded results showing Earth MAX (1), and sand topdressing provided an average of 16% greater root length than untreated control in year 1. However, in year 2, Worm Power provided 16% greater root length than untreated control. Earth MAX (1) provided 117% greater root mass than untreated control in year 2. No treatments provided greater root mass in Year 1. For both years, blackstrap molasses, Earth MAX (1), and Earth MAX (2) reduced thatch thickness by 30%, 24%, and 18% respectively, versus the untreated; however, no decrease in thatch weight by treatments was observed. Whereas, results from the two-year field trials, showed that all treatments, with the exception of blackstrap molasses, provided an average of 18% greater root length than untreated control. However, blackstrap molasses provided 146% greater root mass, and 9% less thatch weight over the two-year study when compared to the untreated control. For both years, blackstrap molasses, Earth MAX (1), and Earth MAX (2), and Worm Power reduced thatch thickness an average of 26% versus the untreated

The correlation between sleep and lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster

”Adequate sleep is associated with an individual’s health. Too little sleep is associated with many health problems, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and a general increase in all-cause mortality. Yet the molecular changes that link poor sleep and changes in health are still not well understood. Individuals have a unique daily need for sleep, and deviations from the animal’s regular sleeping patterns can be indicative of, or result in, underlying changes in its health. Therefore, we hypothesize that changes in the sleep architecture in Drosophila melanogaster reflect changes in the fly’s health. We determined sleep architecture in wild-type male flies over their entire lifespan. We converted activity into sleep and wake-bout parameters and determined the best multiple linear regression model that described lifespan. Variables describing sleep stability can predict the actual lifespan with an adjusted R2 of 0.42. We then re-calculated the model using sleep data to predict lifespan by approximately midlife. The animals were separated into cohorts consisting of short-lived and long-lived flies, giving us the opportunity to study their underlying molecular differences. Short-lived flies have significantly increased Amylase mRNA expression in the heads, a biomarker for sleepiness. Moreover, long-lived flies had significantly increased levels of the endogenous antioxidant glutathione (GSH) in their bodies when compared to their short-lived counterparts. There were increased levels of polyubiquitinated proteins in our short-lived samples, which is often observed in older animals. Our results indicate that sleep architecture can be used to separate biological aging in flies in a non-invasive manner to study the molecular changes that occur with an individual’s sleep patterns”--Abstract, page iii

Comparison of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity using Geospatial Analysis of Field and SSURGO data for septic tank suitability assessment

Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) is a soil property linked to ecosystem services and it is often used in septic tank suitability determination at various scales. Field and laboratory measurements of Ksat and septic tank suitability are time-consuming and expensive. Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) data are available for the United States, but limitations of using SSURGO data for Ksat and septic suitability determination are not fully understood. The objectives of this study were to quantify and compare depth to limiting layer, thickness of limiting layer, and Ksat values for a 147-hectare Cornell University Willsboro Research Farm, located in upstate New York based on the following procedures: a) using values reported by SSURGO for each soil map unit (SMU) within the farm and applying that value across each SMU; b) averaging the values of soil cores collected within a specific SMU boundary and applying the averaged value across each SMU; and c) interpolating values across the farm based on the individual soil cores. SSURGO overestimated the depth to the limiting layer and the thickness of the limiting layer when compared to field measured values. Average soil core values representing limiting layer, thickness of limiting layer, and Ksat values were not significantly correlated with SSURGO reported values. Similarly, interpolated soil core values of limiting layer, thickness of limiting layer, and Ksat values were not significantly correlated with SSURGO reported values. Both SSURGO data and field measurements are necessary for proper septic tank suitability determination due to the uncertainties, which often arise from field, laboratory and geospatial variability in data necessary for such determinations. Application of technological advances may reduce the uncertainty in data collection

Campus Paper Waste

The fall of 2004 at Minnesota State University, a new program called MavPrint was introduced. The user submits a document to be printed at a computer, the expense is deducted from their account, and then their document can be retrieved from any MavPrint station. In years past printing had been free, but seeing how according to Bryan Schneider, the director of Technical Services at Minnesota State University – Mankato, from the year 2003 to the year 2004 the printing costs for the University rose 200 percent, they felt it was time to make a change. MSU students printed out over 4 million pages in 2003, when stacked that is enough paper to reach over 54 stories high, half of the height of the Sears Tower. Clearly, paper waste on campuses is a significant predicament. In order to understand the predicament that campuses are in, the problem of paper waste, the causes of these problems and some solutions to solving these problems will be addressed in my paper

An Investigation of Student Perspectives on Classroom Resource Usefulness

Central to the post-secondary education is the textbook, and central to complaints regarding post-secondary education is also the textbook. Textbook use and price are a serious issue at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and at other colleges and universities around the country. Concern regarding textbooks inspires students to become very vocal, filing complaint after complaint regarding the price, the quality, and the utilization of textbooks in the status quo. This is an issue that inflames the hearts (and empties the wallets) of many students, and therefore should be an issue of concern with the university. In two separate studies surveying students at MSU, it has come to our attention that textbooks are overpriced and underutilized, and something ought to be done to help remedy this problem