Graduate Assistant Experience at the Institute - An Interview with Amie Tope

Amie Tope, 2018 graduate of Franklin University’s Master of Science in Instructional Design & Learning Technology (IDLT) program, recently sat down for an interview with the IDLT program chair, Dr. Yi Yang. Amie not only graduated with a 4.0 GPA and gave a speech at the Winter 2018 Commencement—she also accepted a job offer before she graduated from the program! During this interview, she talks about her experience working as a graduate assistant for the International Institute for Innovative Instruction (the Institute), and offers suggestions for future graduate assistants

Relative Reaction Rates of the Amino Acids Cysteine, Methionine, and Histidine with Analogs of the Anti-Cancer Drug Cisplatin

We are studying the reaction of analogs of the anticancer drug cisplatin with amino acids that differ in size and shape. The reaction of cisplatin with proteins likely precedes reaction with DNA in the body, forming a variety of products that may be toxic to the human body. The size and shape of the platinum(II) complexes often affects the rate of reaction with proteins, more so than with DNA. In this study, triamine cisplatin analogs are reacted with the amino acids cysteine, methionine, and histidine simultaneously. These reactions are monitored by NMR spectroscopy. The effect of the bulk of the ligand and the pH under which the reaction occurs was explored. It is seen that the bulkier [Pt(Me5dien)(NO3)]+ complex prefers to coordinate with N-Acetylcysteine than L-methionine or L-histidine. When the pH was raised from 4 to 7, the coordination to the platinum complex and N-AcCys occurred at a much faster rate

Strategic orientations reconfiguring capability, environmental turbulence and export performance of SMES in Nigeria

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), export market orientation (EMO), learning orientation (LO) and export performance (EP) of SMEs in Nigeria. The study also aims at determining the mediating effect of reconfiguring capability (RC) as well as the moderating effect of environmental turbulence (ET) on those relationships. This study emanated from the fact that only few studies have examined how the integration of strategic orientations and RC in the turbulent environment can drive the SMEs’ export performance, and subsequently give rise to growth and employment creation. Based on a theoretical consideration a model was proposed and nine hypotheses were formulated. Survey questionnaires were used in the data collection and a total of 201 useable responses were received from the owner/managers of exporting SMEs in Nigeria. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed in the data analysis. The findings suggest that significant relationship was found to exist between EMO and EP, and between LO and EP, while RC mediates both the relationships between EO and LO on EP. In addition, ET was found to moderate the relationship between EO and EP, and between EMO and EP. The significant of this study can be seen in the incorporation of RC as a mediating tool to explain the relationship between EO, EMO & EO and EP. This suggests that SMEs could benefit from reconfiguring and renewal of their asset base and act in response to opportunities and threat to realize first order transformation in growth and employment creation. Besides, this study provides research conclusion on the appropriateness of LO and EMO when there is environmental turbulence. The study concludes with the discussion on the contributions, limitations as well as the suggestions for future researc

From Information to Sense-Making: Fetching and Querying Semantic Repositories

Information, its gathering, sharing, and storage, is growing at a very rapid rate. Information turned into knowledge leads to sense- making. Ontologies, and their representations in RDF, are increasingly being used to turn information into knowledge. This paper describes how to leverage the power of ontologies and semantic repositories to turn today’s glut of information into sense-making. This would enable better applications to be built making users’ lives easier and more effective

Analsis Kinerja Pembangunan Ekonomi Kabupaten Parigi Moutong

Pembangunan ekonomi Kabupaten Parigi Moutong tidak terlepas dari perkembangan indikator makro. Perkembangan kinerja indikator makro ekonomi Kabupaten Parigi Moutong menunjukkan optimisme ke arah yang lebih baik. Artinya dari kecendrungan yang berlangsung, dan berdasarkan indikator ekonomi sudah ada sinyal positip perbaikan ekonomi. Indikasi ini dapat dilihat pertumbuhan ekonomi, yang tercermin dalam perkembangan Produk Domestik Regional (PDRB) sudah cukup tinggi. Tujuan penulisan ini adalah untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis indikator sosial ekonomi daerah, untuk melihat perkembangannya dari tahun ke tahun. Selain indikator pertumbuhan ekonomi, juga diiamati gambaran tentang pola dan struktur pertumbuhan sektor-sektor ekonomi daerah, analisis Shift-Share digunakan untuk mengkaji pergeseran struktur perekonomian daerah dalam kaitannya dengan peningkatan perekonomian daerah yang bertingkat lebih tinggi dan Location Quetiont (LQ) digunakan untuk menentukan sektor unggulan atau sektor ekonomi basis suatu perekonomian wilayah. Pola dan struktur pertumbuhan sektor-sektor ekonomi daerah juga sudah terlihat mulai bervariasi kalaupun masih didominasi sector pertanian. Ini dapat terlihat dari pergeseran struktur perekonomian daerah. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan bahwa posisi aktivitas ekonomi Parigi Moutong terhadap aktivitas wilayah Sulawesi Tengah menunjukkan kinerja yang sangat kompetitif

The integration of entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities in dynamic environment of small and medium enterprises (Nigeria’s export firms)

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries most especially in Nigeria have performed below expectation in their important roles of promoting and developing economic growth. This poor performance has been of great concern and disturbance to all the stakes holders (government at all levels, professionals, public and private sectors and international agencies). Responses to this critical situation culminated to yearly budgetary allocation, favorable policies, favorable pronouncement incentives and regulations giving by local government, state government and federal government.These efforts and interest of different levels of government and even international agencies to make SMEs sub-sector to be vibrant and leave to their expectation indicated that the crucial roles of SMEs are recognized and acknowledged for nation’s building. However, the situation become more disturbing, confusing and critical when the degree of poverty, unemployment and hunger that SMEs supposed to reduce continue to increase at alarming rate, in spite of all drastic measures and incentives provided yearly.This study realized it is high time to proffer sustainable solutions to SMEs particularly, introducing entrepreneurial orientations and dynamic capabilities as key variables that are necessary to improve the export performance of SMEs, building on the previous literatures that suggested the need for strategic orientations in order to exact great effect on firm performance in dynamic environment and recommend renewal and reconfiguration for SMEs

Generic Strategies, Leader Attributes, Environmental Uncertainty, and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Investigation of Contingencies and Configurational Outcomes

The implications of strategy, environmental uncertainty, and leader attributes to the performance of organizations have been the subject of many research studies. The traditional interaction-based contingency approach that has typically been used in the management literature for examining the interrelationships between these variables, may very often be inadequate to capture the overall pattern of fit among them. A contemporary approach that allows researchers to examine sophisticated relationships between variables is configuration or systems theory— which suggests that inevitable relationships exist between strategic, environmental, contextual, and organizational variables and performance. This study used both the interaction and configuration-based approaches to determine the performance implications of the contingencies and congruencies between strategy and leader attributes in an uncertain environment. A review of the literature— the basis for the formulation of the three contingency and one configuration-based hypotheses— on generic strategies, environmental uncertainty, and the relevant leader attributes was undertaken. From the generic strategies literature review, a conceptual synthesis of previous classification schemes was used to develop a set of attributes that was then used to measure the extent to which organizational leaders pursued the characteristics of different types of strategies. The measures for strategy and all the other variables/constructs were designed in the form of a questionnaire that was sent to the senior ministers of selected Arkansas Southern Baptist churches. Sampling from a religious institution is yet another contribution of this study, in that it adds to the limited number of studies that have investigated the management of these important but scientifically unexplored organizations. The collected data was analyzed in order to test the research hypotheses. The results indicate that the variables in this study may have important performance implications. Furthermore, the findings support the call by previous researchers for using multiple approaches to examine the fit between organizational and contextual variables. Finally, the implications of the results of this study for contingency and configuration-based research and the strategic management field in general were also discussed

Islamic Models of Growth and Wealth Creation

Islamic Model of Economics is surrounded by other models of economics i.e. western economics. And there seems to be unrelenting effort at collaborating to tackle peculiar issues i.e. “Growth and Wealth Creation”. And since it is evident that other models of economics can thrive by Islamic Models Economics, this paper enumerates succinct challenging facts about several Islamic Models and proffers effective, efficient and sustainable Islamic Economic Model in the face of adversities. Keywords: Currency, Resources, Population, (Un) Employment, Globalizatio

Torn between Two Pandemics: Poverty Pandemic and Coronavirus Pandemic in Nigeria

The wave of coronavirus pandemic that hit the world coincides with Nigeria’s struggles with her newly attained position as the poverty capital of the world. This paper argues that prevalent poverty is a pandemic that the world has learnt to live with, and that Nigeria is struggling to overcome. The agony of poverty in the country coupled with the coronavirus pandemic subjects the country to a quandary of a dual-pandemic scourge. The paper relies on secondary data and adopts a descriptive and analytic approach. It concludes that multidimensional poverty in Nigeria is pervasive and has become deepened by the pandemic which led to a shutdown of economic activities in various countries of the world. The paper recommends that the government should commit to schemes, policies and projects that aim at reducing [multidimensional] poverty to avoid the rise of new poor as well as be proactive in treating poverty as a pandemic capable of plunging the country into an abyss of underdevelopment