AN ASSESSMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE IN THE U.S. AIR FORCE’S 87 CONTRACTING SQUADRON UNIT

Collins and Garcia’s 2018 thesis, “A Thematic Assessment of The Organizational Climate in the Army’s Contracting Workforce,” explored the effects on retention and job satisfaction of contracting personnel. Their research suggested the analysis of other service organizational climates could yield a similar report to provide leaders with insights on improving current systemic issues concerning recruitment and retention goals. This thesis considers the culture at an Air Force contracting unit, explicitly focusing on the 87 Contracting Squadron (87CONS) and its 2020 organizational climate survey. The study found that organizational climate, culture, and job satisfaction significantly impacted how satisfied employees felt about their jobs and their willingness to stay with an organization. In addition, the data analyzed concluded that 87CONS’ leadership is focused on improving the organization’s climate and culture and consistently makes significant efforts to satisfy employee needs whenever possible. Last, the recommendations of this research circled around morale, environment, and organizational culture improvements by leadership, thereby providing a supplemental resource to leaders throughout, helping them formulate solutions on specific areas of concern within a particular organization.Civilian, Department of the Air ForceApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Solving the Continual Improvement and Innovation Challenge for the Benefit of Patients: How an Effective Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS) and Risk-Based Approach Could Transform Post-Approval Change (PAC) Management

Patients deserve their medicines on time every time. Regulators safeguard public health by ensuring availability of safe, effective, high-quality medicines. Pharmaceutical companies must continually improve and innovate to deliver such medicines. In spite of these patient-centric objectives, drug shortages have continued to grow as a global public health concern. The drug shortage problem has existed for decades though there has been no shortage of effort, recommendations, papers, and expectations to resolve it. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic even exceptional measures were rapidly implemented to prevent shortages, yet no long-term solutions have been found. This research hypothesis was that due to the high global regulatory complexity of making post-approval changes (PACs), pharmaceutical companies are slow in implementing new knowledge to continually improve and innovate their products and processes – even when this reduces risk to patients or improves the state-of-control. This results in sub-optimal operations, and eventually drug shortages. To date, most efforts and solutions to tackle drug shortages by the industry or regulatory authorities have been from their individual respective perspectives. This research concluded that no one stakeholder can solve this ‘wicked problem’, and that its resolution lies in practical standard solutions collaboratively developed and globally implemented across the pharmaceutical industry and its regulatory authorities. This research explored how an enhanced science and risk basis which considers current product and process knowledge within the framework of an effective Pharmaceutical Quality System (PQS) – could provide a clear pathway to overcome the global regulatory complexity, accelerate continual improvement and innovation, and help reduce drug shortages. It proposed that any PAC which can be demonstrated to not increase risk to product quality or patient safety should be implemented immediately within the construct of an effective PQS, without requiring prior regulatory approval; such changes would still remain under regulatory oversight through routine inspections that assess effectiveness of a company’s PQS. The research resulted in the development of standard practical solutions for the pharmaceutical sector - to enable regulatory flexibility, faster decision-making and implementation of PACs by allowing more changes to be managed in the PQS without requiring prior-approval. The research also defined what constitutes an effective PQS for PAC management, and how companies could demonstrate this during inspections, thereby shifting the regulatory oversight from review of individual PACs by assessors, to evaluation of the PQS effectiveness for PAC management by inspectors. A portion of this research occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the pandemic is still ongoing, it did not assess implications or consequences of the “new normal” state that will emerge post-pandemic. However, the thesis touches on anticipatory considerations and poses relevant questions on how faster risk-based decision-making and collaborative models that emerged during the pandemic could and should continue as part of the “new normal”

Influential factors of academic performance and course retention in college mathematics: face-to-face versus online

Many lower-level mathematics courses were redesigned in the Fall 2012 semester, after the Complete College Tennessee Act of 2010 eliminated developmental programs from state universities. This study examined the predictive relationships between students’ characteristics and their final grades in an entry-level math course that was taught in both online and face-to-face settings. Additionally, the study compared the course grades of students in different learning environments. Research questions: 1. Is there a significant, predictive relationship between students’ final grades in a math course and their characteristics? 2. How well does the combination of students’ characteristics predict academic performance in the face-to-face sections of the math course? 3. How well does the combination of students’ characteristics predict academic performance in the online sections of the math course? 4. Is there a statistically significant difference among students’ final math grades in different classroom environments, while controlling for ACT math subscores? Of the 566 participants, 85.3% and 14.7% were registered in face-to-face and online sections of the math course, respectively. Approximately two-thirds of the participants were female, 72.4% were freshmen, 3.2% were considered adult learners, and 70.1% of the students had ACT math subscores below 22. Multiple regression analyses were used to answer questions 1, 2, and 3. Verification of the assumptions for multiple linear regression revealed that the standardized residuals for the raw data were not normally distributed; therefore, a reverse score, logarithmic transformation was conducted to eliminate the negative skew. Analyses using the raw and transformed data values were conducted to improve the predictive validity and credibility of the models’ results. Gender and ACT math subscore were consistent, significant predictors of students’ grades in the face-to-face sections, whereas ACT math subscore was the only significant predictor of students’ final grades in the online sections. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to answer question 4. The results revealed no significant differences in students’ grades between the large face-to-face, medium face-to-face, and medium online environments. This study provides a foundation to assist in decision-making processes and assists with understanding the relationships between students’ characteristics and course outcomes

Essays on Women\u27s Issues and Economic Development

This dissertation is composed of three essays under the recurring theme of women’s issues, child health and economic development. In the first chapter, I examine the effect of Child Marriage on the health outcomes of offspring in Bangladesh. I use an exogenous variation in drought and flood shocks as an instrument for Child Marriage and measure children’s health outcomes by stunting, from the height-for-age index. I develop a theoretical model to show that the decision to marry a daughter early is driven by the type of income shocks that a household is exposed to. From the empirical estimation, I find that children from Child Marriage unions are more likely to be stunted. I also find that the effect of Child Marriage is concentrated through increases in severe stunting. In the second chapter, I estimate the impact of Child Marriage on the mortality outcomes of offspring in Bangladesh. Similar to the empirical strategy in the first chapter, I focus on the effect of an exogenous temporary shock on the marriage decision, to allow for identification of a causal impact. The results indicate that in comparison to children of later-married women, children from Child Marriage unions are more likely to die before reaching the age of five. Further, I find that the effect of Child Marriage is smaller on infant mortality. By examining the impact by gender, the results suggest that the predominant effect of Child Marriage is focused on increases in male child and infant mortality. In the third chapter, I examine the effect of Sharia Law on the health outcomes of children in Nigeria. The measures of health outcomes are constructed from the height-for-age, weight-for-age and weight-for-height indices. I apply a difference-in-differences estimation strategy and exploit the variation in exposure to Sharia law across time and state of residence. I also explore the effect of Sharia Law on women’s empowerment. The results indicate that Sharia Law substantially increases the probability of stunting in children. In states with high enforcement of Sharia Law, children are more likely to be stunted and underweight. The results suggest a negative association between Sharia Law and women’s empowerment with respect to household and medical decision-making, control over resources and self-worth

Adaptive gene regulatory polymorphisms in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster

It has long been recognized that changes in gene regulation, specifically mutations in cis-regulatory elements that tend to be stable and additive, are important to adaptive processes and phenotypic evolution. Since cis-regulatory elements are found in the vicinity of the genes they regulate, the direct effect of changes in these sequences is typically limited to a particular gene that allows for refined, situation-specific control of gene expression but are not exclusive of downstream or trans-acting elements. This dissertation focuses on examining mechanisms responsible for maintaining adaptive cis-regulatory polymorphisms in two Drosophila melanogaster genes: fezzik (fiz) and Metallothionein A (MtnA) and their associated effect on gene expression and organismal phenotype. Previous experiments show that the 3’ untranslated region of MtnA contains an insertion/deletion (indel) polymorphism, wherein the deletion is rare or absent in the ancestral African range but its deletion frequency appears to follow a latitudinal cline in derived populations worldwide. By genotyping biannual collections of wild caught D. melanogaster across a 5-year period, I show that the deletion is maintained at a high frequency (~90%) in a single German population with no evidence for overdominant, seasonally fluctuating or sexually antagonistic selection. Expression analysis on pairs of nearly-isogenic lines and on data from a North American population indicated significant differences in expression associated to the indel. Furthermore, the data from this North American population showed that expression variation was only partially explained by the deletion and the effect on oxidative stress tolerance was significantly associated with menadione sodium bisulfite and not paraquat. Altogether these findings suggested a scenario in which MtnA expression and consequently oxidative stress tolerance is likely a polygenic adaptation that varies with genomic background. Indeed, the effect of the deletion allele on oxidative stress tolerance was dependent on the genomic background with some indication of sign epistasis. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that MtnA expression was induced by oxidative stress independent of the indel status, indicating a general role of this gene in stress tolerance as well as suggesting additional levels of context-dependent expression regulation. The transcriptional response to oxidative stress between lines with and without the deletion was mostly similar but interestingly, there were consistently larger numbers of differentially expressed genes associated with the deletion which is possibly related to regulatory cascades resulting from aberrant microRNA epigenetic regulation due to the loss of microRNA binding sites in the deleted region. In general, the response to MSB indicated the significance of functional categories such as general stress response, oxidative stress response, metabolism, apoptosis and autophagy. In particular among the differentially expressed genes with the largest fold-change in response to MSB-induced oxidative stress were several genes related to glutathione metabolism and biosynthesis, suggesting a strong association between this pathway and oxidative stress tolerance. Another instance of expression divergence between ancestral and cosmopolitan populations being associated with a regulatory polymorphism is represented by a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) located 67 base pairs upstream of the start codon, in the enhancer region of the gene fezzik, referred to here as “SNP67”. SNP67 has two variants segregating in natural populations of D. melanogaster: the ancestral “C” variant, and the derived “G” variant that is found outside of the ancestral range at intermediate frequencies and is associated with increased fiz expression. Previous studies suggest that this SNP was a recent target of balancing selection; therefore to determine the forces of selection maintaining this SNP in cosmopolitan populations we genotyped biannually collected wild-caught D. melanogaster from a single European (Munich, Germany) population. A model-based approach using allele and genotype frequency data of the SNP67 variants across seasons and sexes was employed. The model indicated that sexually antagonistic and temporally fluctuating selection may help maintain variation at this site, with the derived variant likely being female-beneficial but there was some uncertainty of dominance estimates in the model. Gene expression and body-size phenotypes that were dependent on genomic background and developmental stage indicated that variable dominance may play a role in the maintenance of this polymorphism. Lastly, we identified a novel sex-dependent association between fiz expression and starvation resistance that may suggest that this trait is a potential phenotypic target of selection. Interestingly our findings for the MtnA and fiz regulatory polymorphisms both indicated that the relationship between gene expression divergence and population-level genetic mechanisms underlying phenotypic evolution is potentially complicated by context-dependent factors such as genomic background or spatial and temporal differences. By integrating extensive experimental work to identify the mechanisms of selection in natural populations along with functional characterizations, a refined understanding of these adaptive regulatory polymorphisms was achieved

Музичко извођаштво као приповедање: памћење, европске интеграције и Балтичка филхармонија младих

Storytelling has been theorized as a performative, narrative practice, but it has not been employed often as a trope in studies of musical performance. This article outlines a theoretical context for exploring the possibilities of such a conceptual move within musicology by referring to the anthropological and performance studies approaches of Turner and Schechner. Benjamin’s reflection on the storyteller as a narrator of memory and history frames the presentation of a case-study on the Baltic Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.Приповедање је у теоријама разматрано као перформативна, наративна пракса, али се не употребљава често као троп у студијама музичког извођаштва. Ова студија скицира теоријске контексте, преузете из антропологије и студија перформанса, како би истражила могућности наведеног концептуалног помака у оквиру музикологије. Разматрање Валтера Бењамина (Walter Benjamin) о приповедачу као наратору памћења и историје уоквирује студију случаја о Балтичкој филхармонији младих, као и о капацитету музичког извођења за промовисање политичких идеологија, у овом случају нарочито истакнутих европских интеграција. Виђење идеологија као прича одговара антрополошком поимању прича које могу стварати друштвене системе, обликовати друштвене промене и наглашавати односе моћи. Схватање оркестарске праксе као начина мишљења о друштвеним процесима приповедања значајно је зато што се дискурси о оркестрима често преусмеравају од разматрања извођења до политике, чак до те мере да односи који се везују за оркестар бивају концептуализовани попут политичких односа. Студија случаја контекстуализована је у односу на оркестре младих уопште. Оркестри представљају музичке институције високе вредности, са доминантним системом преношења у оквиру музичког образовања. Оркестри младих испрва су оснивани у Сједињеним Америчким Државама и Европи почетком XX века, те су анализирани у погледу процеса аудиција, избора репертоара, финансирања и административних структура. Имајући у виду кратку историју оркестара младих као институција, значајно је навести да су они заузимали све значајнију улогу у оквиру политичких и економских пројеката широм света. Ова студија указује на то како су оркестри укључени у поновна посматрања прошлости, и начине на које су политичке и културне границе реоркестриране у оквирима различитих представа националног, обликујући политичке визије европских интеграција. Мноштво претходно саопштених, различитих приступа промишљању Балтичке филхармоније младих, у етнографском наративу, истакнути су у закључним разматрањима. Кључно место ових закључака подразумева да мишљење о музичком извођењу, као приповедању, наглашава наративне, интерпретативне и интерсубјективне улоге свих учесника, укључујући саму улогу етнографа. Ми представљамо приповедаче са сопственим политичким искуствима музичара и истраживача, и као такви одражавамо општа кретања нашег времена. Али, коју причу бисмо испричали истражујући музичко извођење, и које приче музичка извођења преносе?My research on orchestras has been funded by the AHRC and undertaken within the AHRC Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice. My case-study was presented as part of a keynote lecture at the international conference on Baltic Musics and Musicologies in collaboration with the Sounds New Music Festival in May 2011. I am grateful to the conference chair, Eva Mantzourani for the invitation. I am also grateful for opportunities to present versions of this paper at the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology 2012, chaired by Ana Hofman, and at a seminar on Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters at the University of Eastern Finland (2014) at the invitation of Jopi Nyman

Music and Northern Forest Cultures

This article argues that it is critical to recognize the importance of northern forests in Finno-Ugric musical contexts (Finnish and Karelian) by focusing on the question of cultural survival, which is connected with thinking about global challenges, including climate change and environmental pressure. The discussion highlights cultural survival by outlining the significance of the forest, the politics of language transmission with reference to the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic), Sibelius’s nature-based aesthetic (especially in Tapiola, 1926), and the evocation of the forest in contemporary folk and popular music. Overall, the main aims are to consider the resilience of northern forest cultures in the nexus of music, language, and ecology, and to emphasize that resilience cannot be taken for granted under environmental pressure.  This article argues that it is critical to recognize the importance of northern forests in Finno-Ugric musical contexts (Finnish and Karelian) by focusing on the question of cultural survival, which is connected with thinking about global challenges, including climate change and environmental pressure. The discussion highlights cultural survival by outlining the significance of the forest, the politics of language transmission with reference to the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic), Sibelius’s nature-based aesthetic (especially in Tapiola, 1926), and the evocation of the forest in contemporary folk and popular music. Overall, the main aims are to consider the resilience of northern forest cultures in the nexus of music, language, and ecology, and to emphasize that resilience cannot be taken for granted under environmental pressure. &nbsp

Genetic Imputation: Accuracy to Application

Genotype imputation, the process of inferring genotypes for untyped variants, is used to identify and refine genetic association findings. This body of work focuses on assessing imputation accuracy and uses imputed data to identify genetic contributors to mentholated cigarette preference. Inaccuracies in imputed data can distort the observed association between variants and a disease. Many statistics are used to assess accuracy; some compare imputed to genotyped data and others are calculated without reference to true genotypes. Prior work has shown that the Imputation Quality Score (IQS), which is based on Cohens kappa statistic and compares imputed genotype probabilities to true genotypes, appropriately adjusts for chance agreement; however, it is not commonly used. To identify differences in accuracy assessment, we compared IQS with concordance rate, squared correlation, and accuracy measures built into imputation programs. Genotypes from the 1000 Genomes reference populations (AFR N = 246 and EUR N = 379) were masked to match the typed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) coverage of several SNP arrays and were imputed with BEAGLE 3.3.2 and IMPUTE2 in regions associated with smoking behaviors. Additional masking and imputation was conducted for sequenced subjects from the Collaborative Genetic Study of Nicotine Dependence and the Genetic Study of Nicotine Dependence in African Americans (N = 1,481 African Americans and N =1,480 European Americans). Our results offer further evidence that concordance rate inflates accuracy estimates, particularly for rare and low frequency variants. For common variants, squared correlation, BEAGLE R2, IMPUTE2 INFO, and IQS produce similar assessments of imputation accuracy. However, for rare and low frequency variants, compared to IQS, the other statistics tend to be more liberal in their assessment of accuracy. IQS is important to consider when evaluating imputation accuracy, particularly for rare and low frequency variants. This work directly impacts the interpretation of association studies by improving our understanding of accuracy assessments of imputed variants. Mentholated cigarettes are addictive, widely available, and commonly used, particularly by African American smokers. We aim to identify genetic variants that increase susceptibility to mentholated cigarette use in hopes of gaining biological insights into risk that may ultimately improve cessation efforts. We begin by pursuing hypothesis-driven candidate genes and regions (TAS2R38, CHRNA5/A3/B4, CHRNB3/A6, and CYP2A6/A7) and extend to a genome-wide approach. This study involves 1,365 African Americans and 2,206 European Americans (3,571 combined ancestry) nicotine dependent current smokers from The Collaborative Genetic Study of Nicotine Dependence (COGEND) and Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (UW-TTURC). Analyses were conducted within each cohort, and meta-analysis was used to combine results across studies and across ancestral groups. We identified some suggestively associated variants, although none meet genome wide significance. This study represents a new, important aspect to understanding menthol cigarette preference. Further work is necessary to better understand this smoking behavior in efforts to improve cessation

Learning by Game Design for Library Instruction: A Multiple Case Study

Despite the importance placed on information literacy in fostering lifelong learning, helping students develop the skills required of critical thinkers and independent learners are limited. This study contributes to the burgeoning discourse on alternative instructional approaches to teaching information literacy and focuses on the use of game design in learning environments. The appeal of gaming among the younger generation of learners has led to the increasing use of games in learning environments. Within recent years, some innovative academic libraries have begun adopting games as a platform for information literacy instruction. While the literature recognizes game design as fostering higher-level learning in educational contexts, it is not commonly adopted in the classroom. Typically, there is a preference among instructors to have students play games. Therefore, a more thorough understanding on the ways game design best facilitate learning is needed to assist towards its more frequent adoption. This study focuses on the use of game design within library spaces. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of undergraduate students learning by game design in information literacy classes. The overarching research question looks at how an instructor can incorporate motivational theories into an information literacy class through learning by game design and how students engage with the content and each other in this environment. More specific supporting questions address: How can an instructor incorporate motivational theories into an information literacy class through “learning by game design”? How does the “learning by game design” approach within information literacy classes foster the sharing of knowledge among undergraduate students? How do undergraduate students represent information literacy concepts in the game-based artifacts they design? What were undergraduate students’ motivations to use information literacy practices they were exposed to throughout their class experiences? Applying a descriptive multi-site case study methodology, this study draws upon the theories of social constructivism, experiential learning, and motivation to explore the phenomenon of learning by game design in information literacy classes. Data was collected from two sites using various methods to provide a comprehensive view of the phenomenon. Data sources included: student\u27s artifacts, submitted class assessment materials, recorded observation, participant observation, items from the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) and interviews. Analysis was done by drawing meanings across the multiple instances of data. Findings from this study show that learning by game design is a viable option for teaching information literacy classes, when effectively scaffolded into the classroom. Students were able to draw upon a higher order of cognition and described situated instances where information literacy skills were applied, such as use in complex assignments and real world situations