Nonprofit Organizations & Social Media Fundraising: An Analysis of the GoodGiving Guide Challenge

In today’s age of social media and interconnectedness, nonprofit organizations have the ability to be creative in their fundraising efforts. One method of online fundraising is a social media campaign, such as the GoodGiving Guide Challenge, an eight-week online charitable giving campaign for nonprofit organizations across Central Kentucky. A review of related literature shows that previous studies have touched on the growing trend of social media as a nonprofit marketing tool, the role of internet in the nonprofit sector in general, the return on investment in nonprofit internet use, and the importance of accountability and trust in terms of online giving. This paper explores a more specific facet of these trends: the success of a social media charitable giving competition between various nonprofit organizations in a community. This research uses data collected by Blue Grass Community Foundation during the 2013 GoodGiving Guide Challenge. I explore the following questions: 1) Does the frequency of an organization’s social media posts predict success in social media fundraising? 2) Which organization characteristics predict success in social media fundraising? I measure success using three dependent variables: total dollar amount fundraised per organization, number of unique donors per organization, and average amount given per donor per organization. I find that frequency of social media use (Facebook, Twitter, and e-newsletters) is not correlated with any of these measures of success, aside from Twitter which has a positive association with the number of donors. I also explore which organization characteristics, such as finances, management, fundraising intention, volunteers, mission, and age, affect fundraising success. The variables that are positively associated with the various measures of success are program expenses (to a small extent), presence of a capital campaign, and age of organization. The variables that are negatively associated with the various measures of success are number of staff, number of volunteers, CEO term, youth-related mission, animal-related mission, and arts-related mission. Based on these findings, I conclude with recommendations for nonprofit organizations considering entering the GoodGiving Guide Challenge or other similar social media charitable giving campaigns in the future

The geology of the Saddleback Mountain Area, Northwood quadrangle, southeastern New Hampshire

Geology of the coastal lowlands, Boston to Kennebunk, Maine: The 76th annual meeting New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, Danvers, Massachusetts, October 12-14, 1984: Trip B-

Electrochemically Activated Persulfate for Ciprofloxacin Degradation

Electrochemically activated persulfate (EAP) is a potential point source treatment for wastewater effluents containing high pharmaceutical content. This dissertation explores the fundamental mechanisms of EAP to better understand this technology for practical application. Ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, was chosen as the model compound to assess parameters of EAP. Ciprofloxacin was selected for its high environmental risk factor and prevalence in hospital wastewater, a potential application for EAP. During the evaluation of EAP as a point source treatment, degradation kinetics and pathways of ciprofloxacin were elucidated.In the first stage of this study, persulfate activation by solid iron with and without applied current was characterized and applied to the degradation of ciprofloxacin. It was found that persulfate activation increased with iron surface area and increased to a plateau with increasing current. Ciprofloxacin degraded via first-order kinetics; however, applied current did not affect ciprofloxacin removal.In the second part of this study, electrochemical persulfate activation without iron, using boron-doped diamond (BDD) anodes and graphite or platinum cathodes, was examined. Sulfate radical formation at a BDD anode and persulfate activation at a graphite cathode were elucidated using different electrolytes and electrochemical set-ups. In this system, ciprofloxacin degraded via first order-kinetics, with persulfate electrolyte enhancing ciprofloxacin removal over sulfate or nitrate.In the final phase of this study, parameters such as reactor configuration, electrode surface area, persulfate concentrations and the presence of a complex matrix were examined to determine their impact on contaminant removal. Due to mass transfer limitations and relative cathode sizes, a flow-through reactor was least benefited by persulfate addition while a rotating-disk electrode reactor showed enhanced ciprofloxacin removal with persulfate electrolyte. Ciprofloxacin removal from synthetic hospital effluent using electrochemically activated persulfate was found to be less than that in pure electrolyte but still followed a first-order mechanism. Considerable total organic carbon removal of ciprofloxacin and other organic components of the effluent was achieved. Similar degradation was achieved with persulfate and sulfate electrolyte in the effluent. Chlorate, chlorite and perchlorate were formed in significant amounts during the electrochemical process, with formation independent of the presence of persulfate

An Intelligent Crop Planning Tool for Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems

This paper describes a crop planning tool developed for the Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) project which is in the research phases at various NASA facilities. The Crop Planning Tool was developed to assist in the understanding of the long term applications of a CELSS environment. The tool consists of a crop schedule generator as well as a crop schedule simulator. The importance of crop planning tools such as the one developed is discussed. The simulator is outlined in detail while the schedule generator is touched upon briefly. The simulator consists of data inputs, plant and human models, and various other CELSS activity models such as food consumption and waste regeneration. The program inputs such as crew data and crop states are discussed. References are included for all nominal parameters used. Activities including harvesting, planting, plant respiration, and human respiration are discussed using mathematical models. Plans provided to the simulator by the plan generator are evaluated for their 'fitness' to the CELSS environment with an objective function based upon daily reservoir levels. Sample runs of the Crop Planning Tool and future needs for the tool are detailed

Accelerating Bayesian inference for stochastic epidemic models using incidence data

We consider the case of performing Bayesian inference for stochastic epidemic compartment models, using incomplete time course data consisting of incidence counts that are either the number of new infections or removals in time intervals of fixed length. We eschew the most natural Markov jump process representation for reasons of computational efficiency, and focus on a stochastic differential equation representation. This is further approximated to give a tractable Gaussian process, that is, the linear noise approximation (LNA). Unless the observation model linking the LNA to data is both linear and Gaussian, the observed data likelihood remains intractable. It is in this setting that we consider two approaches for marginalising over the latent process: a correlated pseudo-marginal method and analytic marginalisation via a Gaussian approximation of the observation model. We compare and contrast these approaches using synthetic data before applying the best performing method to real data consisting of removal incidence of oak processionary moth nests in Richmond Park, London. Our approach further allows comparison between various competing compartment models

HFF-DeepSpace photometric catalogs of the 12 Hubble frontier fields, clusters, and parallels : photometry, photometric redshifts, and stellar masses

We present Hubble multi-wavelength photometric catalogs, including (up to) 17 filters with the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 from the ultra-violet to near-infrared for the Hubble Frontier Fields and associated parallels. We have constructed homogeneous photometric catalogs for all six clusters and their parallels. To further expand these data catalogs, we have added ultra-deep KS-band imaging at 2.2. mu m from the Very Large Telescope HAWK-I and Keck-I MOSFIRE instruments. We also add post-cryogenic Spitzer imaging at 3.6 and 4.5. mu m with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), as well as archival IRAC 5.8 and 8.0. mu m imaging when available. We introduce the public release of the multi-wavelength (0.2-8 mu m) photometric catalogs, and we describe the unique steps applied for the construction of these catalogs. Particular emphasis is given to the source detection band, the contamination of light from the bright cluster galaxies (bCGs), and intra-cluster light (ICL). In addition to the photometric catalogs, we provide catalogs of photometric redshifts and stellar population properties. Furthermore, this includes all the images used in the construction of the catalogs, including the combined models of bCGs and ICL, the residual images, segmentation maps, and more. These catalogs are a robust data set of the Hubble Frontier Fields and will be an important aid in designing future surveys, as well as planning follow-up programs with current and future observatories to answer key questions remaining about first light, reionization, the assembly of galaxies, and many more topics, most notably by identifying high-redshift sources to target

In vivo construction of recombinant molecules within the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line using short regions of terminal homology

Homologous recombination provides a means for the in vivo construction of recombinant DNA molecules that may be problematic to assemble in vitro. We have investigated the efficiency of recombination within the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line as a function of the length of homology between recombining molecules. Our findings indicate that recombination can occur between molecules that share only 10 bp of terminal homology, and that 25 bp is sufficient to mediate relatively high levels of recombination. Recombination occurs with lower efficiency when the location of the homologous segment is subterminal or internal. As in yeast, recombination can also be mediated by either single- or double-stranded bridging oligonucleotides. We find that ligation between cohesive ends is highly efficient and does not require that the ends be phosphorylated; furthermore, precise intermolecular ligation between injected molecules that have blunt ends can also occur within the germ line

Coincidence analysis: a new method for causal inference in implementation science

Background Implementation of multifaceted interventions typically involves many diverse elements working together in interrelated ways, including intervention components, implementation strategies, and features of local context. Given this real-world complexity, implementation researchers may be interested in a new mathematical, cross-case method called Coincidence Analysis (CNA) that has been designed explicitly to support causal inference, answer research questions about combinations of conditions that are minimally necessary or sufficient for an outcome, and identify the possible presence of multiple causal paths to an outcome. CNA can be applied as a standalone method or in conjunction with other approaches and can reveal new empirical findings related to implementation that might otherwise have gone undetected. Methods We applied CNA to a publicly available dataset from Sweden with county-level data on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaigns and vaccination uptake in 2012 and 2014 and then compared CNA results to the published regression findings. Results The original regression analysis found vaccination uptake was positively associated only with the availability of vaccines in schools. CNA produced different findings and uncovered an additional solution path: high vaccination rates were achieved by either (1) offering the vaccine in all schools or (2) a combination of offering the vaccine in some schools and media coverage. Conclusions CNA offers a new comparative approach for researchers seeking to understand how implementation conditions work together and link to outcomes.publishedVersio