Cal Poly Construction Management Student’s Main Determinants for Potential Employment Opportunities: A Guide for Employers

California Polytechnic State University’s Construction Management department has an excellent reputation. This reputation, boosted by a 100% placement rate, attracts an abundant number of recruiters, a number that continues to grow every year. With the large number of recruiters coming to campus, students often find themselves in the fortunate situation of having multiple offers and having the opportunity to select amongst various companies. To be competitive, employers would best serve to cater their recruitment process to suit the needs of the students they are trying to hire. While plenty of research has been conducted to investigate and determine how recruiters choose students to interview or hire, the way students make decisions about the sort of company they might want to work for has received modest attention. Included in this study is data that reveals Construction Management student’s main determinants for potential employment. An analysis was conducted by placing students in two groups, those looking for full-time employment and those looking for internship positions. The study revealed that students are influenced by many factors, namely company culture, salary, perks, and raises

The Impact Of Different Feedback Types On Decision-Making In Simulation Based Training Environments

The performance of complex decision-making requires not only domain specific knowledge, but also a clear understanding of how to accurately make decisions. It is our belief that when training decision-making skills, feedback type will play an important role in increasing learning gains. In an attempt to understand this relationship, we investigated the effects of three types of feedback (process, outcome, and normative) on the task performance of college students within a complex, real time, computer based simulation. We collected data from 48 participants. Data analyses showed a statistically significant difference between groups. Specifically, the results revealed that participants who received process feedback outperformed participants who received normative feedback, outcome feedback, and a no feedback (control) condition. The implications of these results for optimal feedback delivery methods within scenario based training environments will be discussed

The Intermetallic Reactivity Database: Compiling Chemical Pressure and Electronic Metrics toward Materials Design and Discovery

The advent of high-throughput density functional theory (DFT) calculations has supported the creation of large databases containing the quantitative output necessary for constructing theoretical phase diagrams and predicting physical properties. In this article, we present a complementary resource, the Intermetallic Reactivity Database (IRD), focused on the chemical bonding features of solid-state structures and indicators of potential structural transformations. Each IRD entry augments common features, such as band structures and density of states (DOS) distributions, with chemically motivated information including DFT-Chemical Pressure (CP) schemes and visualizable representations of the atomic charges. Together, these data types enable the rationalization and prediction of potential structural phenomena encountered in intermetallic chemistry, as we illustrate with four examples: the origins of the Y2Ni2Mg structure in terms of CP features of its parent structures, the anticipation of intergrowth phases from the net atomic CPs collected in Al-containing binary phases, the correlation between trends in the CP schemes of CaCu5-type phases and experimentally observed structural variations, and finally, the development of theoretical methodology with the testing of a streamlined method for generating DFT-CP schemes. Altogether, these examples highlight how the IRD supports the creation of models of structural chemistry that extend beyond the bounds of its entries

Respiratory syncytial virus disease morbidity in Australian infants aged 0 to 6 months: a systematic review with narrative synthesis

Abstract Background A significant proportion of the global respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) associated morbidity is accounted for by infants aged 0 to 6 months, who are particularly vulnerable to severe disease. In 2015, 44% of global hospitalisations in infants in this age group were secondary to RSV. The objective of this systematic review is to appraise and synthesise the local evidence of RSV infection morbidity among Australian infants aged 0 to 6 months and to assess the implications for future immunisation strategies. Methods Electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Pubmed and Global Health) were searched for full-text articles published between 2000 and 2023 in English language. Studies that examined markers of RSV disease morbidity in infants aged 0 to 6 months in Australia who had laboratory confirmed RSV infection were eligible for inclusion. The outcomes of interest were incidence, prevalence, testing rate, positivity rate, mortality, emergency department visits, community health visits, hospitalisation, intensive care unit admission, supplementary oxygen use, mechanical ventilation, risk factors for disease severity and monoclonal antibody use. Results The database search identified 469 studies. After removal of duplicates and full-text review, 17 articles were eligible for inclusion. This review was reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses and Synthesis without meta-analysis guidelines. Conclusions Qualitative analysis of the included studies showed that Australian infants aged 0 to 6 months have higher rates of RSV testing, positivity and incidence; and more likely to develop severe disease that requires hospitalisation, intensive care unit admission or respiratory support, compared to children and adults of all ages. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants aged 0 to 6 months demonstrated higher rates of RSV infection and hospitalisation, compared to non-Indigenous infants. Age-related trends persisted in geographic areas with varying seasonal transmission of RSV, and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Passive immunisation strategies targeting infants in their first 6 months of life, either via vaccination of pregnant women or administration of long-acting monoclonal antibody during infancy, could effectively reduce RSV disease burden in Australia

Factors impacting resident outcomes from COVID-19 outbreaks in Residential Aged Care Facilities in Sydney Local Health District: testing an infection prevention and control scoring system

Abstract Background COVID-19 outbreaks have disproportionately affected Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) around the world, with devastating impacts for residents and their families. Many factors such as community prevalence, facility layout, and infection control practices have been linked to resident outcomes. At present, there are no scoring systems designed to quantify these factors and assess their level of association with resident attack rates and mortality rates. Methods We constructed a novel Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) scoring system to quantify facility layout, ability to cohort residents, and IPC practices in RACFs. We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study of COVID-19 outbreaks, applying our IPC scoring system to all COVID-19 outbreaks occurring in RACFs in Sydney Local Health District during the Delta and Omicron waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales, Australia. Results Twenty-six COVID-19 outbreaks in 23 facilities in the Delta wave, and 84 outbreaks in 53 facilities in the Omicron wave were included in the study. A linear Generalised Estimating Equation model was fitted to the Omicron data. Higher IPC scores were associated with higher attack rates and mortality rates. Facilities with IPC scores greater than 75.0% had attack rates 19.6% higher [95% CI: 6.4%-32.8%] and mortality rates 1.7% higher [95% CI: 0.6%-2.7%] than facilities with an IPC score of less than 60.0%. Conclusions The results of this study suggest the utility of the IPC scoring system for identifying facilities at greater risk of adverse outcomes from COVID-19 outbreaks. While further validation and replication of accuracy is required, the IPC scoring system could be used and adapted to improve planning, policy, and resource allocation for future outbreaks