An Analysis of a University Reclassification Effect on Applications Following a Move to a New Intercollegiate Athletic Association

Scholars have argued that athletics are utilized by universities to advertise their school to all individuals (Collins, 2012; Dwyer, Eddy, Havard, & Braa, 2010; Toma & Cross, 1998; Washington & Ventresca, 2004; Weaver, 2010). Expectedly, university officials are willing to contribute resources in order to develop an effective athletics program to establish an institution’s legitimacy among other universities (Collins, 2012; Toma & Cross, 1998; Washington & Ventresca, 2004). One tactic employed by schools focuses on the process of athletic association reclassification into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from other member associations (e.g., National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics). Officials consider this move due to the NCAA’s identity as the premiere intercollegiate athletic association. As such, studies on college movement recognized that universities are more likely to move to the NCAA if other universities with shared characteristics have reclassified in order to become legitimate among peers (Smith, Williams, Soebbing, & Washington, 2013; Washington, 2004; 2004-05). However, research has not been conducted to estimate the quantity and duration of a potential \u27reclassification\u27 effect. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine if a change in athletic association will increase the number of application receives after reclassification. The dissertation analyzes this phenomenon through the movement of former NAIA member schools from 1959 to 2012 to the NCAA

Chemistry Student Perceptions of Transferable & Workplace Skills Development

The perceptions of transferable and workplace skills development of year one and two chemistry undergraduate students at the University of Leicester were measured using two questionnaires. This group of students is taught be a variety of approaches including Problem and Context Based Learning (C/PBL). Over 60% of respondents agreed that all discipline specific and transferable skills included in the first questionnaire were important skills for chemistry graduates to have. The perceived importance of most skills does not vary between year groups but there are small increases in perceived importance for most transferable skills. In a separate questionnaire, first year students were asked to rate their skills development following a series of Context and Problem Based Learning (C/PBL) activities. "problem solving", "time management", "working in a team“ and "oral communication" were the most developed skills based on student responses. This element of the study also provided evidence to suggest that students believe the “real-world”, authentic nature of C/PBL problems may be an important factor in determining the extent of skills development.Keywords: Transferable skills, Workplace skills, Employability, Chemistry educatio

The Influence of a University’s Social Identity on NCAA Divisional Affiliation

Several scholars noted universities changing their intercollegiate athletic association are influenced by rival schools with similar social identities (Smith, 2011; Smith, Williams, Soebbing, & Washington, 2013; Washington, 2004, 2004–05; Weaver, 2010). Specifically, most of these studies reviewed institutions that were former members of the NAIA and moved to the NCAA since 1973, noting university officials affiliated with the NAIA considered the organization as a detriment to their own firm’s identity (Smith, 2011; Washington, 2004–05). Thus, many of these universities departed the NAIA to join the NCAA. However, NCAA affiliation requires institutions to review NCAA rules and regulations to determine which division best suit their respective school’s needs (i.e., Division II or III). Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine if a school’s many social identities influence the likelihood of movement from the NAIA to either Division II or Division III. The results from a logistic regression model showed schools located in the Southeast region of the United States, designated as an HBCU or a women’s college, considered a small or a large school according to the Carnegie Foundation or sponsor women’s basketball are more likely to leave the NAIA for Division II. Schools located in the Great Lakes region or affiliated with a Mainline Protestant denomination have higher tendencies to leave the NAIA for Division III. These results could assist the NAIA in the recruitment of new members and talk to current members possessing these identifies to create new mechanisms to retain their NAIA affiliation

Multimedia resources for teaching chemistry

A series of short, focused multimedia resources was developed based on areas of the chemistry degree course with which students often have difficulty. The resources were generated by undergraduate project students using Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Connect. Incorporation of animations and other interactive elements was found to be difficult. Evaluation of student attitudes towards the resources revealed that they were appreciated by students and were particularly useful for distance learners and for examination revision. A number of improvements were suggested such as the inclusion of more in-depth content. The development of these types of resources can be carried out by final year undergraduate project students

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Career Preparedness of Chemistry Graduates

Recent research has established that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a shift in University student expectations of their graduate prospects due to unavoidable changes in their learning experiences during the pandemic, as well as the decrease in number of available jobs because of the economic impact of measures put in place to reduce COVID-19 transmission. This study used a survey to investigate: (a) the impact of the pandemic on student destinations six months after graduation and (b) the variations in perceptions of personal level of career preparedness between pre-pandemic graduates and graduates at different stages of the pandemic (i.e. the graduating classes of 2020 and 2021). 40 University of Leicester chemistry graduates engaged with the survey and analysis of the data revealed a non-statistically significant negative impact on employment six-months after graduation that appears to only affect graduates in 2020. The data also suggests that increased experience of the blended learning approaches adopted at the University of Leicester during the pandemic studies may better prepare graduates for remote working practices (e.g. using remote video conferencing software)

Children and Virtual Reality: Emerging Possibilities and Challenges

Virtual Reality is fast becoming a reality, with estimates that over 200m headsets will have been sold by 2020, and the market value for VR hardware and software reaching well over $20bn by then. Key players in the market currently include PlayStation with PSVR, Facebook with Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard and Daydream, Mattel with Viewmaster, and many other brands investing in content production for various audiences. One of those audiences is young people and children. “Children and Virtual Reality” is a collaboration between Dubit, Turner, WEARVR and the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action DigiLitEY. Dubit, Turner and WEARVR are companies that specialise in digital, TV and VR content, with an interest in developing best practices around VR and children. DigiLitEY is a five year (2013-2017) academic network that focuses on existing and emerging communicative technologies for young children. This includes wearable technologies, 3D printers, robots, augmented reality, toys and games and relevant aspects of the Internet of Things. This report brings together industry research into the effects of VR on 8 to 12 year olds, and ideas that arose from a COST funded Think Tank to explore what the research findings might mean for the use of VR by under 8s

A novel systems biology approach to evaluate mouse models of late-onset Alzheimer\u27s disease.

BACKGROUND: Late-onset Alzheimer\u27s disease (LOAD) is the most common form of dementia worldwide. To date, animal models of Alzheimer\u27s have focused on rare familial mutations, due to a lack of frank neuropathology from models based on common disease genes. Recent multi-cohort studies of postmortem human brain transcriptomes have identified a set of 30 gene co-expression modules associated with LOAD, providing a molecular catalog of relevant endophenotypes. RESULTS: This resource enables precise gene-based alignment between new animal models and human molecular signatures of disease. Here, we describe a new resource to efficiently screen mouse models for LOAD relevance. A new NanoString nCounter® Mouse AD panel was designed to correlate key human disease processes and pathways with mRNA from mouse brains. Analysis of the 5xFAD mouse, a widely used amyloid pathology model, and three mouse models based on LOAD genetics carrying APOE4 and TREM2*R47H alleles demonstrated overlaps with distinct human AD modules that, in turn, were functionally enriched in key disease-associated pathways. Comprehensive comparison with full transcriptome data from same-sample RNA-Seq showed strong correlation between gene expression changes independent of experimental platform. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, we show that the nCounter Mouse AD panel offers a rapid, cost-effective and highly reproducible approach to assess disease relevance of potential LOAD mouse models

In-pandemic development of an application ontology for COVID-19 surveillance in a primary care sentinel network

Background: Creating an ontology for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surveillance should help ensure transparency and consistency. Ontologies formalise conceptualisations at either domain or application level. Application ontologies cross domains and are specified through testable use cases. Our use case was extension of the role of the Oxford Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) to monitor the current pandemic and become an in-pandemic research platform. Objective: To develop an application ontology for COVID-19 which can be deployed across the various use case domains of the Oxford- RCGP RSC research and surveillance activities. Methods: We described our domain-specific use case. The actor was the RCGP RSC sentinel network; the system the course of the COVID-19 pandemic; the outcomes the spread and effect of mitigation measures. We used our established three-step method to develop the ontology, separating ontological concept development from code mapping and data extract validation. We developed a coding system–independent COVID-19 case identification algorithm. As there were no gold standard pandemic surveillance ontologies, we conducted a rapid Delphi consensus exercise through the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Primary Health Care Informatics working group and extended networks. Results: Our use case domains included primary care, public health, virology, clinical research and clinical informatics. Our ontology supported: (1) Case identification, microbiological sampling and health outcomes at both an individual practice and national level; (2) Feedback through a dashboard; (3) A national observatory, (4) Regular updates for Public Health England, and (5) Transformation of the sentinel network to be a trial platform. We have identified a total of 8,627 people with a definite COVID-19 status, 4,240 with probable, and 59,147 people with possible COVID-19, within the RCGP RSC network (N=5,056,075). Conclusions: The underpinning structure of our ontological approach has coped with multiple clinical coding challenges. At a time when there is uncertainty about international comparisons, clarity about the basis on which case definitions and outcomes are made from routine data is essential

Study protocol for a type III hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial of strategies to implement firearm safety promotion as a universal suicide prevention strategy in pediatric primary care

BACKGROUND: Insights from behavioral economics, or how individuals\u27 decisions and behaviors are shaped by finite cognitive resources (e.g., time, attention) and mental heuristics, have been underutilized in efforts to increase the use of evidence-based practices in implementation science. Using the example of firearm safety promotion in pediatric primary care, which addresses an evidence-to-practice gap in universal suicide prevention, we aim to determine: is a less costly and more scalable behavioral economic-informed implementation strategy (i.e., Nudge ) powerful enough to change clinician behavior or is a more intensive and expensive facilitation strategy needed to overcome implementation barriers? METHODS: The Adolescent and child Suicide Prevention in Routine clinical Encounters (ASPIRE) hybrid type III effectiveness-implementation trial uses a longitudinal cluster randomized design. We will test the comparative effectiveness of two implementation strategies to support clinicians\u27 use of an evidence-based firearm safety practice, S.A.F.E. Firearm, in 32 pediatric practices across two health systems. All pediatric practices in the two health systems will receive S.A.F.E. Firearm materials, including training and cable locks. Half of the practices (k = 16) will be randomized to receive Nudge; the other half (k = 16) will be randomized to receive Nudge plus 1 year of facilitation to target additional practice and clinician implementation barriers (Nudge+). The primary implementation outcome is parent-reported clinician fidelity to the S.A.F.E Firearm program. Secondary implementation outcomes include reach and cost. To understand how the implementation strategies work, the primary mechanism to be tested is practice adaptive reserve, a self-report practice-level measure that includes relationship infrastructure, facilitative leadership, sense-making, teamwork, work environment, and culture of learning. DISCUSSION: The ASPIRE trial will integrate implementation science and behavioral economic approaches to advance our understanding of methods for implementing evidence-based firearm safety promotion practices in pediatric primary care. The study answers a question at the heart of many practice change efforts: which strategies are sufficient to support change, and why? Results of the trial will offer valuable insights into how best to implement evidence-based practices that address sensitive health matters in pediatric primary care. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04844021 . Registered 14 April 2021