Grit Spirit & Character - The Lewis Field Pioneers

A book detailing the entire history of the Lewis Field Pioneer and the mission to help Fort Hays State.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/buildings/1583/thumbnail.jp

Yearbook Handbook: A Manual for the Staff of the Reveille, Yearbook of Fort Hays Kansas State College

This thesis is designed to serve as a manual or guidebook for yearbook staff members to acquaint them with problems and procedures common to yearbook preparation. Basic requirements of all yearbooks are explained, then adapted to give more specific assistance to those responsible for producing The Reveille. An outline of the organization of a staff with duties of the various members sets forth certain procedures which have proved to be practical for Fort Hays Kansas State College. A financial section explains local policies and should serve a new staff or adviser as a ready reference to answer innumerable questions. Methods of printing are explained briefly and compared, to help a staff decide how to choose a publisher and the desired method of printing. Short chapters are devoted to discussing the Reveille Ball, a social event sponsored by the yearbook, and the Spring Supplement which has become a part of The Reveille. Included in the Appendix is a brief history of The Reveille since its founding in 1914, with a list of all past editors, business managers, and the dedications of the book. Also to be found are a glossary of terms used in yearbook production, samples of forms used by the staff, financial reports, and a summary of qualities of award-winning yearbooks

A strategy for reducing turnaround time in design optimization using a distributed computer system

There is a need to explore methods for reducing lengthly computer turnaround or clock time associated with engineering design problems. Different strategies can be employed to reduce this turnaround time. One strategy is to run validated analysis software on a network of existing smaller computers so that portions of the computation can be done in parallel. This paper focuses on the implementation of this method using two types of problems. The first type is a traditional structural design optimization problem, which is characterized by a simple data flow and a complicated analysis. The second type of problem uses an existing computer program designed to study multilevel optimization techniques. This problem is characterized by complicated data flow and a simple analysis. The paper shows that distributed computing can be a viable means for reducing computational turnaround time for engineering design problems that lend themselves to decomposition. Parallel computing can be accomplished with a minimal cost in terms of hardware and software

Highbrow Films Gather Dust: A Study of Dynamic Inconsistency and Online DVD Rentals

We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the film rental and return patterns of a sample of online DVD rental customers over a period of four months. We predict and find that people are more likely to rent DVDs in one order and return them in the reverse order when should DVDs (e.g., documentaries) are rented before want DVDs (e.g., action films). This effect is sizeable in magnitude, with a 2% increase in the probability of a reversal in preferences (from a baseline rate of 12%) ensuing if the first of two sequentially rented movies has more should and fewer want characteristics than the second film. Similarly, we also predict and find that should DVDs are held significantly longer than want DVDs within-customer. Finally, we find that as the same customers gain more experience with online DVD rentals, their "dynamic inconsistency" is attenuated. We interpret our results as evidence that myopia has a meaningful impact on decisions in the field and that people learn about their myopia with experience, allowing them to curb its influence.want/should, intrapersonal conflict, dynamic inconsistency, myopia

Distributed computer system enhances productivity for SRB joint optimization

Initial calculations of a redesign of the solid rocket booster joint that failed during the shuttle tragedy showed that the design had a weight penalty associated with it. Optimization techniques were to be applied to determine if there was any way to reduce the weight while keeping the joint opening closed and limiting the stresses. To allow engineers to examine as many alternatives as possible, a system was developed consisting of existing software that coupled structural analysis with optimization which would execute on a network of computer workstations. To increase turnaround, this system took advantage of the parallelism offered by the finite difference technique of computing gradients to allow several workstations to contribute to the solution of the problem simultaneously. The resulting system reduced the amount of time to complete one optimization cycle from two hours to one-half hour with a potential of reducing it to 15 minutes. The current distributed system, which contains numerous extensions, requires one hour turnaround per optimization cycle. This would take four hours for the sequential system

Commitment Devices: Using Initiatives to Change Behavior

Unhealthy behaviors are responsible for a large proportion of health care costs and poor health outcomes.1 Surveys of large employers regularly identify unhealthy behaviors as the most important challenge to affordable benefits coverage. For this reason, employers increasingly leverage incentives to encourage changes in employees’ health-related behaviors. According to one survey, 81% of large employers provide incentives for healthy behavior change.2 In this Viewpoint, we discuss the potential and limitations of an approach that behavioral science research has shown can be used to influence health behaviors but that is distinct from incentives: the use of commitment devices (Table).

Commitment Devices to Improve Unhealthy Behaviors—Reply

In Reply Our Viewpoint described commitment devices and argued that they should be more widely used in health care. Commitment devices enforce voluntarily imposed restrictions on people until they have accomplished their goals or enforce voluntarily imposed penalties if they do not accomplish their goals

I’ll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time

How do decisions made for tomorrow or 2 days in the future differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases, grocery customers spend less, order a higher percentage of “should” items (e.g., vegetables), and order a lower percentage of “want” items (e.g., ice cream), controlling for customer fixed effects. These field results replicate previous laboratory findings and are consistent with theories suggesting that people’s should selves exert more influence over their choices the further in the future outcomes will be experienced. However, orders placed for delivery tomorrow versus 2 days in the future do not show this want/should pattern, and we discuss a potential explanation

Harnessing Our Inner Angels and Demons: What We Have Learned About Want/Should Conflicts and How That Knowledge Can Help Us Reduce Short-Sighted Decision Making

Although observers of human behavior have long been aware that people regularly struggle with internal conflict when deciding whether to behave responsibly or indulge in impulsivity, psychologists and economists did not begin to empirically investigate this type of want/should conflict until recently. In this article, we review and synthesize the latest research on want/should conflict, focusing our attention on the findings from an empirical literature on the topic that has blossomed over the last 15 years. We then turn to a discussion of how individuals and policy makers can use what has been learned about want/should conflict to help decision makers select far-sighted options

Dementia assessment and management in primary care settings: a survey of current provider practices in the United States.

BACKGROUND:Primary care providers (PCPs) are typically the first to screen and evaluate patients for neurocognitive disorders (NCDs), including mild cognitive impairment and dementia. However, data on PCP attitudes and evaluation and management practices are sparse. Our objective was to quantify perspectives and behaviors of PCPs and neurologists with respect to NCD evaluation and management. METHODS:A cross-sectional survey with 150 PCPs and 50 neurologists in the United States who evaluated more than 10 patients over age 55 per month. The 51-item survey assessed clinical practice characteristics, and confidence, perceived barriers, and typical practices when diagnosing and managing patients with NCDs. RESULTS:PCPs and neurologists reported similar confidence and approaches to general medical care and laboratory testing. Though over half of PCPs performed cognitive screening or referred patients for cognitive testing in over 50% of their patients, only 20% reported high confidence in interpreting results of cognitive tests. PCPs were more likely to order CT scans than MRIs, and only 14% of PCPs reported high confidence interpreting brain imaging findings, compared to 70% of specialists. Only 21% of PCPs were highly confident that they correctly recognized when a patient had an NCD, and only 13% were highly confident in making a specific NCD diagnosis (compared to 72 and 44% for neurologists, both p < 0.001). A quarter of all providers identified lack of familiarity with diagnostic criteria for NCD syndromes as a barrier to clinical practice. CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrates how PCPs approach diagnosis and management of patients with NCDs, and identified areas for improvement in regards to cognitive testing and neuroimaging. This study also identified all providers' lack of familiarity with published diagnostic criteria for NCD syndromes. These findings may inform the development of new policies and interventions to help providers improve the efficacy of their decision processes and deliver better quality care to patients with NCDs