Scanning social networking sites as part of a hiring process

This study examined the relationship between personality ratings based on Facebook profiles and ratings of favorability for hire (FFH) for mock “applicants”. The relationship between the amount of Facebook information available to view and FFH was also explored. Participants viewed screenshots taken from the applicants’ Facebook profiles and rated five personality traits and FFH. Descriptive statistics revealed that FFH ratings and final hiring decisions often did not match. Also, it was found that Conscientiousness was correlated with FFH. There was no relationship between available information and the FFH rating. Discussion focuses on ramifications, limitations, and future research directions

Drawing the Blueprint as We Build: Setting up a Library-based Copyright & Permissions service for MOOCs

The rapid growth of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education has raised the question of what services libraries on campus can, and should, provide for these courses. One area in which librarians are frequently the source of advice and assistance is in providing copyright education and obtaining permissions to use copyrighted material, and there is now a pressing need to address those areas for MOOCs. This article describes the creation of a copyright and permissions service for MOOC instructors within the Duke University Libraries. Although the service has not been free of difficulties, and its success in actually obtaining permission for desired uses has been uneven, overall the response from faculty has been positive, and the libraries believe that this service is a fruitful and sensible way for them to support the MOOC phenomenon

Advanced Tall Buildings Systems Integration

The 2020 Skyscraper Collaboratory was a partnership between Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California University’s interdisciplinary design studio (architecture and structural engineering) and the design / structural engineering partners from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s (SOM) San Francisco, California’s Office, an internationally acclaimed firm that specializes in skyscrapers. The academic design studio was set up to mirror the advanced collaborative practice model of the partner firm, by balancing the nine teams (34 students total) with architecture and engineering students and co taught by a faculty architect and structural engineer. No disciplinary hand offs were ever allowed during the iterative design and technical process. The site for the project located in downtown San Francisco, California with a height of 800’, and ½ million square feet of housing with the retail in the lower floors. Sixty percent of the students in the studio were in the third year of the 5-year BARCH program and prior design experience was limited to the design of 1-2 story commercial buildings. The remaining students were 4th year structural engineers (with a handful of graduate students) focused on using this collaboration as their senior project. Over a twenty-week period, six courses (2 design studios, and 4 technical courses) were synced up and coordinated with the partner firm’s lectures, reviews and workshops conducted for design studio. The sequence of coordinated design and technical content was: structural prototyping / physical model weight testing; 51 precedent dissections; structural system optimization, building energy modeling, performative envelopes, housing design with vertical communities and urban placemaking. What started as an in person collaborative design studio was upended by the changes of the pandemic and the need to abandon all foundational hand-crafted large scaled physical model studies. The remote collaboration workflow strategies expertise that our partner firm was able to successfully share with design studio, was a key factor to the success of studio

Mbesese Build: An Experimental Experience

The Same’ Polytechnic College is a proposed vocational training institution in the Kilimanjaro Region of the United Republic of Tanzania to provide supplemental and diversified tertiary educational opportunities which increase human capital and reduce the severe levels of poverty that are endemic in the region. The college is the pilot project for the Mbesese Initiative for Sustainable Design (MISD). MISD has partnered with design firms and Cal Poly-SLO to develop a framework for campus development. The Cal Poly team established overarching planning principles and design goals for buildings and related infrastructure required to support a projected enrollment of 1,200 students. The project provided a platform for collaboration between faculty, students, and design professionals. The campus proposal encompasses architecture and planning, as well as, a variety of engineering disciplines such as mechanical, electrical, structural, water, and transportation. Students researched an array of topics that are requisite to building; energy usage and generation, water conservation and reclamation, natural ventilation and thermal comfort, natural day lighting and solar exposure, construction materials and structural systems, pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns, as well as, site access and maintenance. Additionally, the masterplan recommendations are based on computational analysis and design, results from experiments conducted at Cal Poly, and valuable feedback from the design professionals. The students then developed building strategies for implementing the aforementioned concepts, while learning how those design issues are intertwined. In 2018, students, faculty, and MISD volunteers constructed a micro structure in Tanzania based on the master plan recommendations. Results from block wall testing, wind tunnel/natural ventilation studies, and a thermal comfort study informed the design and construction methods used to build the structure. The building process allowed the team to better understand how cultural, environmental, and technological considerations influence design and building in developing areas. The linkage between experimental research, design, and construction is a hallmark for the project and has served as a selling point for instituting change in building practices in the rural town where the project will be constructed

Challenges of digital twin in high value manufacturing

Digital Twin (DT) is a dynamic digital representation of a real-world asset, process or system. Industry 4.0 has recognised DT as the game changer for manufacturing industries in their digital transformation journey. DT will play a significant role in improving consistency, seamless process development and the possibility of reuse in subsequent stages across the complete lifecycle of the product. As the concept of DT is novel, there are several challenges that exist related to its phase of development and implementation, especially in high value manufacturing sector. The paper presents a thematic analysis of current academic literature and industrial knowledge. Based on this, eleven key challenges of DT were identified and further discussed. This work is intended to provide an understanding of the current state of knowledge around DT and formulate the future research directions

Past, Present, and Future

Seven leading thinkers on the presentation of Native American history and contemporary cultures discuss how the essential ideas behind the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian initially were implemented and potentially could evolve. In addition to honoring the leadership and contributions of the museum’s founding director, W. Richard West, Jr., the authors explore such topics as repatriation, the representation of Native voices in exhibitions and programs, and the museum’s ongoing effort to develop its intellectual authority. Synthesizing the papers presented at a symposium of the same name hosted by the museum in October 2007, Past, Present, and Future takes a candid look at the National Museum of the American Indian’s complex genesis and future challenges

Exercise Intolerance in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is associated with symptoms of dyspnea and fatigue, which contribute to exercise limitation. The origins and significance of dyspnea and fatigue in PAH are not completely understood. This has created uncertainly among healthcare professionals regarding acceptable levels of these symptoms, on exertion, for patients with PAH. Dysfunction of the right ventricle (RV) contributes to functional limitation and mortality in PAH; however, the role of the RV in eliciting dyspnea and fatigue has not been thoroughly examined. This paper explores the contribution of the RV and systemic and peripheral abnormalities to exercise limitation and symptoms in PAH. Further, it explores the relationship between exercise abnormalities and symptoms, the utility of the cardiopulmonary exercise test in identifying RV dysfunction, and offers suggestions for further research

Signal specificity amongst STAT1- and STAT3- inducing cytokines in the context of Th17 differentiation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.The adaptive immune response is very important for our survival in that it gives us the capability of detecting a wide variety of foreign material, allows for the elimination of pathogens, and provides memory to protect against future attacks by the same pathogen. Key mediators of the adaptive immune response are CD4+ T cells, which depending on the cytokine milieu, and the activating conditions during antigen recognition, can differentiate into different effector T cells. One particular type of effector T cell, Th 17, is highly inflammatory and has been implicated in various autoimmune diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis. Three chapters within this thesis investigate the conditions which lead to Th17 differentiation and the mechanisms involved in their regulation. Th 17 cells can be obtained in vitro by culturing naive CD4+ T cells with IL-6 and TGF-p under activating conditions. IL-6 was thought to primarily activate the transcription factor STAT3, which has been shown to be necessary for ThI7 differentiation. Numerous cytokines activate STAT3, but IL-6 is the most potent inducer of TH17 cells, so we sought to find out what is special about IL-6's induction of STAT3. In the first of these three chapters, we propose a simple genetic network which is capable of translating IL-6's high amplitude, transient STAT3 signal into a pro-inflammatory response and IL-10's low amplitude, sustained STAT3 signal into an antiinflammatory response. This network is able to predict that IL-6 and IL-10 would induce an indistinguishable anti-inflammatory response in SOCS3-/- cells where IL-6's STAT3 signal is sustained. In the second of these chapters, we continue our research into the origin of signal specificity in cytokine signaling by systematically characterizing the activation of STAT1 and STAT3 by IL-6, IL-10, IL-21, IL- 27, and different combinations of cytokines in CD4+ T cells. In this analysis we find that the ratio of STAT3 to STAT1 activated is the important quantity in determining whether or not a cytokine will be an inducer of TH17 differentiation (IL-6, IL-21) or an inhibitor (IL-27). We show that in the absence of STAT1, that IL-6 and IL-27 are both potent inducers of TH17 differentiation since they have similar STAT3 activation profiles. In the third of these chapters, we develop a simple algorithm for clustering gene activation profiles for intermediate numbers of genes measured (10-50) and use it to analyze a 96- hour time course of gene activation during Th 17 differentiation for a number of genes of interest. In order for T cells to differentiate into effector cells, they must first recognize antigen which is presented on the surface of an antigen presenting cell by a membrane-bound extracellular complex called MHC. The MHC have a groove which peptide fragments (antigen) are bound in. Without peptide loaded in the pocket, the MHC are quite unstable so they are synthesized with a generic peptide fragment loaded. A protein, DM, is responsible for stabilizing the MHC while the generic peptide is ejected and the peptide fragment of interested is loaded. Two chapters within this thesis investigate the role of DM in peptide loading / unloading and attempt to characterize the interaction of DM with MHC.by Kevin D. Fowler.Ph.D