Assessing the Role of Academic Advisors in Retention of International Students

The retention of international students should not be viewed as the responsibility of only international student advisors on the college campus. Instead, as suggested by Mamiseishvili (2012), it should become a joint responsibility of a broader campus community, including faculty, academic advisors, English language program staff, and student affairs professionals. Inspired by these ideas, this qualitative research study focused on international students\u27 experiences during their advising sessions with their academic advisors at a four-year, post-secondary private institution in Massachusetts. The study was conducted by interviewing ten international students from different majors. This research explored the necessary information and resources international students require to be successful. The results showed that international students go through a period of struggle when they fail to integrate with the American education system. The findings also suggest that international students’ needs more guidance from their academic advisors on course requirements, major requirements, and career information. Participants wanted their advising sessions to be focused on international students’ needs. Recommendations include providing group advising, offering information sessions to help international students gain important skills and knowledge, and expanded training for advisors

Broadcasting in Harary Graphs

With the increasing popularity of interconnection networks, efficient information dissemination has become a popular research area. Broadcasting is one of the information dissemination primitives. Broadcasting in a graph is the process of transmitting a message from one vertex, the originator, to all other vertices of the graph. We follow the classical model for broadcasting. This thesis studies the Harary graph in depth. First, we find the diameter of Harary graph. We present an additive approximation algorithm for the broadcast problem in Harary graph. We also provide some properties for the graph like vertex transitivity, circulant graph and regularity. In the next part we introduce modified harary graph. We calculate the diameter and broadcast time for the graph. We will also provide 1-additive approximation algorithm to find the broadcast time in the modified harary graph

Synthesis and characterization of superconductor composite Bi2Sr2Ca1Cu2O8/La0.85Sr0.15MnO3

Superconductor Bi2Sr2Ca1Cu2O8 is prepared by solid state route and the substituent element La0.85Sr0.15MnO3 is prepared by sol-gel combustion route. Then the composite of BSCCO(2212) with LSMO having different composition are prepared by solid state route. X-ray diffraction of BSCCO(2212) sintered at 8800C for 12hrs and LSMO sintered at 8200C for 5hrs are taken.The sharp and well defined peak of both BSCCO (2212)and LSMO is observed which shows the presence of the single phase having crystal structure tetragonal (a = 3.82 Å, b = 3.82 Å & c = 30.60 Å) and monoclinic (a = 5.48Å, b = 5.53 Å & c = 7.79 Å) for for BSCCO(2212) and LSMO respectively. In XRD pattern of compisites, some extra peaks are also observed. SEM analysisis done to know the morphology of BSCCO(2212) and its composites. EDXS analysis revels exact constituent of the different element free from the other element. Resistivity vs temperature measurement is done for all the sample. The Tc of the sample was found to be 74.91K and for the other composition of LSMO added BSCCO(2212) the Tc value gradually decreases which indicates the decrement in the transition peak and the disorderness of the sample

Targeting Estrogen Receptor Sites in Human Breast Cancer Cell Line T47D With Copper Conjugates of Nonsteriodal Anti-inflammatory Drug Derivatives: Antiproliferative Activity of Ketoprofen Derivative and its Copper Complex

A square planar copper complex of derivatized NSAID drug (Ketoprofen thiosemicarbazone [3-benzoyl-α-methyl benzene acetic acid thiosemicarbazone]), is characterized by elemental analysis, spectroscopy, electrochemistry and magnetic susceptibility studies which exhibits dose-dependent and enhanced antiproliferative effects on human breast cancer cell line T47D rich in progesterone receptors

Identification of the sit still gene – shaky suspicions about flies, fats and multiple sclerosis

Lipids are known to be important for proper cellular and metabolic functions. Lipid disorders include Tay Sach's, Gaucher's, Neimann-Pick, diabetes, adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), and macular degeneration. Macular degeneration has been linked to mutations in a lipid elongase, of which 7 exist in humans and 20 in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. To understand the contributions of elongases to development, I surveyed their function in Drosophila using RNAi. I identified sit still (sit), whose phenotype suggests a model for neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis

Modified Eigen Vectors Arrangement for Better Representation of Images in Low Dimension

AbstractDimension reduction techniques, PCA and LDA give preference to eigenvectors corresponding to higher Eigen values. This theory is not appropriate for all types of applications. In this work a new way of arranging the eigenvectors is explored. The proposed method combines the concept of correlation with a variability measure ‘range’ to rank dimensions and hence the eigenvectors. PCA and LDA are modified to incorporate the proposed dimension ranking method. Experiments are conducted with WANG and ZuBuD databases, and the performance is evaluated using precision values of a developed CBIR system for traditional as well as modified versions of PCA and LDA

Co-extraction of opinion targets and opinion words from online reviews based on opinion and semantic relations

Mining opinions from online reviews is a fundamental step in obtaining the overall sentiment of a product. Detection of opinion relations among the words play an important role in the opinion target (OT) and opinion word (OW) extraction. In this paper, Partially Supervised Word Alignment Model is used to find opinion relations among words. Graph based co-ranking algorithm is used in estimating the confidence of each OT and OW. Candidates having confidence value higher than the threshold are extracted as final OT and OW. We propose a hybrid method that considers semantic relations along with opinion relations that results in fine grained opinion target (OT) and opinion word (OW) extraction. This semantic relations and opinion relations affects the confidence calculation of the OT and OW and improves the precision of extraction

Models for Greening Urban Redevelopment Projects: A Case Study of the Blackstone Canal District in Worcester, Massachusetts

This project explored the feasibility of incorporating green infrastructure, as a supplement to gray infrastructure, into urban redevelopment projects in the Blackstone Canal District of Worcester, Massachusetts. Interviews, aerial photos and secondary research were used to assess urban runoff volumes, the projected costs of infrastructural upgrades and the savings associated with green infrastructure. Our final recommendation was that green infrastructure would provide a valuable complement to the current waste water system utilized by the city.