College - Western Oregon Style

Student assignment: Create a board or video game which enhances or improves student engagement and success. Projects must include a visual component (working prototype) and four components of a game (voluntary participation, rules, goal, and feedback)

Pamphlets for War: The Role of Lord Burghley’s Pamphlet Discourse in Avoiding Civil War

During the sixteenth century, England sat as a conflicted nation among a continent of tumultuous civil wars and reformations. While neighboring countries fought within and among themselves, England somehow managed to avoid a formal civil war. The confounding lack of war in England during the latter half of the sixteenth century could be related to the constant discourse between prominent protestants and catholics. One such prominent protestant was Lord Cecil Burghley, who served as a royal minister and maintained good relations with Queen Elizabeth I. Lord Burghley’s pamphlet, The Execution of Justice in England, and other documents of discourse at the time may contribute to a war of pamphlets based on the rhetoric and relationship Burghley demonstrated. With our research, we hope to discover what within the pamphlets contributed to keeping the religious turbulence within the realms of a war of discourse rather than a full-fledged civil war. Based on preliminary investigation, we have found that the rhetoric of the pamphlets, the sheer amount of discourse and correspondence, and the relationship between the writers and the audiences could have contributed to England’s abstinence from civil war. Observing the discourse within Burghley’s pamphlet and other responding documents, we can gain an understanding of what set England apart from other surrounding countries facing similar religious and political tumult. Our findings may also contribute to a greater conversation surrounding the power of conversation, dialogue, and discourse to either prevent or incite war

Earnings Management and the Role of Moral Values in Investing

In this study, we use earnings management to examine (1) how investors regard a CEO’s commitment to honesty and (2) the impact of their perceptions, in light of their own moral values, on their investment decisions. In two laboratory experiments using students as investor proxies, we find that investors perceive a CEO as being more committed to honesty when they believe the CEO has engaged less in earnings management. A one standard deviation increase in a CEO’s perceived commitment to honesty, compared to that of another CEO, leads to a 40% reduction in the importance the investors assigned, when making investment decisions, to differences in the two CEOs’ claimed future returns. This effect is particularly pronounced among investors with a proself value orientation. For prosocial investors, their moral values and those they attribute to the CEO directly influence their investment decisions, with returns playing a secondary role. Our findings contrast with the idea, implicit in the literature on ‘sin’ stocks, that morality is a niche concern. By contrast, we find that moral values play a significant role for distinct types of investors and that they influence investment decisions for both moral and pecuniary reasons

The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward

Highlights ▪ The triple dividend of resilience (TDR) is an approach that considers avoided losses (first dividend), induced economic or development benefits (second dividend), and additional social and environmental benefits (third dividend) of adaptation actions. The second and third dividends are especially important since they accrue regardless of whether the actual climate risk materializes. ▪ The second and third dividends are often highly significant. They can exceed the value of avoided losses and can generate project benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) greater than 1 even when the value of avoided losses is not considered. ▪ Accounting for the full range of benefits demonstrates higher BCRs for adaptation investments than are often assumed. In turn, this can help increase access to project finance, improve project design, and improve ex post monitoring and evaluation. ▪ Researchers and practitioners are developing more effective appraisal tools for analyzing the benefits of climate resilience investments and are generating more information useful in decision-making. ▪ Investors in the public sector stand to benefit from increased use of the TDR by having more consistent and comparable assessments across sectors and donors. The private sector stands to benefit by better understanding both second dividend financial benefits and third dividend nonmarket benefits that flow from investing in resilience

Investigating the Genetics of Chronic Intractable Migraine with Reactive Hypoglycemia

Migraines affect roughly 1-in-6 males and 1-in-5 females in the United States. Of these, approximately 5-30% experience intractable migraines, or migraines resistant to abortive treatments. Despite this large population, relatively little is known about intractable migraines compared to other types of migraines. Our recent work indicates that reactive hypoglycemia is common among these individuals. Additionally, empirical evidence suggests that individuals in families with chronic intractable migraines are more likely to have the same condition than people of the general population, suggesting a possible genetic link between both migraines and metabolic abnormalities. Previous Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have found several genetic markers for migraines, but the studies have not differentiated groups by important factors including severity and frequency of migraines or treatment response. Furthermore, GWA studies investigate only common variation. Despite these limitations, a variant in the LEPR gene (rs751167), the leptin receptor gene was found to be significantly associated with migraines. Variants in the LEPR gene are associated with weight gain and metabolic syndrome, indicating a link between metabolism and migraines. In the present study, we aim to broaden the scope, investigating chronic intractable migraine with reactive hypoglycemia specifically, and using all variant types including small insertions/deletions, rare variants, and copy number variants. To investigate heritability, we will take pedigrees of individuals that fit this phenotype

Changes in Chemical Composition of ISS Archive Water Samples from Collection to Analysis

No abstract availabl

Black Box Spring 2022/2023

The Black Box is a creative publication dedicated to displaying the talented work of the Embry-Riddle Prescott community - endless creativity and ingenuity flow throughout the Prescott area and our goal is to display it

Liposomal Bupivacaine Reduces Opioid Requirements Following Ravitch Repair of Pectus Excavatum

Presented as a poster at Indiana Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting 2021

DNA Extraction Method Development for Solid Tissues

Although germline variation testing is traditionally performed using DNA obtained from blood or other liquid samples, determining somatic variation in cancer samples requires DNA extraction directly from tissues. Additionally, epigenetic markers, such as 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) are tissue-specific and change in selected disease states. However, several substances present in tissues are known to inhibit downstream reactions, including polymerase chain reaction PCR). For this project, we are assessing the quantity and quality of DNA obtained from extractions of various vital organs using 30 different commercially available DNA extraction kits to determine optimal kits for each tissue