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Leveraging Human Capital through Organizational Network Analysis at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee
No full textOrganizational Network Analysis (ONA) provides the analytic framework to understand informational flow, collaboration, and productivity within an organization. At BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, we use ONA to 1) manage change, 2) plan for succession, 3) remove barriers to innovation, and 4) promote total worker health. This allows us to understand our culture in ways previously unattainable through anecdotal evidence and traditional surveys. Further, it improves our ability to more fully quantify the value of human capital within our organization and develop strategies that will have the greatest benefit to our members. In this session, we will provide an overview of ONA, discuss our methodology, present a sample of the results, and discuss practical tips for implementation
Easing the return to normalcy: Reintegrating victims of domestic violence into the workplace
Get PDFThere is a plethora of research regarding domestic violence, but there is a considerable lack of research on when victims of domestic violence return to the workplace. When victims of domestic violence return to work, they may experience symptoms of withdrawal, disengagement, and lower productivity. Therefore, it is important for organizations to understand how to reintegrate victims of domestic violence into the workplace without taking on the role of a psychologist. We propose in order to successfully reintegrate victims of domestic violence into the workforce, it is imperative that organizations provide emotional, psychological, and physical resources to best support the victim. When organizations fail to recognize they have victims of domestic violence in their workforce, the victims are not the only ones adversely affected. This presentation will address the current gap in research regarding when victims of domestic violence return to work, how organizations can best reintegrate victims of domestic violence, and recommendations on how organizations can offer support in the future
Influence of environmental conditions on fatty acid-induced changes in Vibrio cholerae persistence and pathogenicity
Get PDFVibrio cholerae, a Gram-negative bacterium, is responsible for the acute intestinal infection known as cholera. This illness is due in part to V. cholerae’s ability to sense and adapt to changing environments as it is ingested into the human body from brackish environments. It was shown in recent studies that this bacteria has the ability to uptake exogenous fatty acids, resulting in changes to V. cholerae persistence and pathogenicity. The aim of this research is to determine the extent to which these additional exogenous UFAs influence the persistence and pathogenicity of V. cholerae throughout its transitional period from brackish environments to human host conditions. Our hypothesis is that environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, pH, salinity) direct fatty acid-induced changes in V. cholerae’s capacity to spread disease by triggering changes in the bacterium’s virulence factors such as: biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance, and cholera toxin production. Initial work focused on identifying the environmental conditions that trigger fatty acid-induced changes in V. cholerae persistence and pathogenicity using a design of experiments approach. The final work of this project focused on literary analysis of effect of the exogenous fatty acids on V. cholerae’s genetic regulatory pathways
Lipid modification in Aeromonas salmonicida through exogenous polyunsaturated fatty acid incorporation
Get PDFAeromonas salmonicida is a Gram-negative bacterium that can infect a wide host range of fish populations, including salmonids and non-salmonids as well as freshwater and marine life. A. salmonicida causes the disease furunculosis, which can cause lethargy, intestinal inflammation, ulcers, hemorrhaging, and death. The infection is spread through fish-to-fish contact, and the presence of infection can have devastating effects on cultivated fish populations. The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of A. salmonicida to incorporate polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) into its lipid profile and test the phenotypic effects thereof. A. salmonicida cultures were grown in minimal media in the presence or absence of one of seven PUFAs Lipids were extracted from these cultures and analyzed for lipid modification by thin-layer chromatography and ultra performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry, showing A. salmonicida capable of incorporating all seven of the PUFAs studied. Phenotypic effects were determined through the use of assays that tested for biofilm formation, membrane permeability, and antimicrobial peptide susceptibility. It was found that the PUFAs 18:2 and 22:6 caused significant (P \u3c 0.01) decrease in biofilm formation. The PUFAs 18:3γ, 20:4, and 22:6 showed significant (P \u3c 0.001) increases in membrane permeability as tested by the uptake of the hydrophobic compound crystal violet. Additionally, the PUFAs 18:3γ, 20:5, and 22:6 showed significant (P \u3c 0.001) protection against the antimicrobial peptide polymyxin B. The prevalence of 22:6 in significant phenotypic effects could indicate a connection between the ability of A. salmonicida to utilize the long-chain PUFA and its role as a fish pathogen
A proposal and potential use-case for the transition from Gig City to Smart City
Get PDFOver the past decade, smart city concepts have been gaining attention from scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers in both developed and developing nations. A recent proliferation of publications has involved a multitude of disciplines, but have focused almost entirely on the potential for smart cities to change the way cities are managed, operated, and planned. However, there has been little published on the tangible benefits of a specific smart city initiative, nor many use-case studies following smart city initiatives. This paper aims to propose a transition from Gig City to smart city via technological advancement in the form of ICT to monitor, assess, and improve one of Chattanooga\u27s most inefficient urban systems – the city curbside garbage and recycling services. The findings and projections produce implications for city planners and managers, as well as, academics and policy-makers focused on improving urban functions and systems and making urban lifestyles more sustainable
Let’s talk about sex: an analysis of the gaps in effective sex education in the United States and a proposed solution
No full textThe United States is not currently providing effective avenues through which the majority of U.S children are accessing comprehensive information about sexual health. This gap in education is causing serious consequences emotionally, mentally and physically for U.S. youth. It is critical that discourse surrounding sex and healthy relationships be normalized so as not to closet, stigmatize or victim blame children during formative years. Historically, the United States has perverted the right to education by allocating significant federal funding to abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula. Although this content has been repeatedly proven ineffective and the U.S. continues to rank high amongst developing countries for STIs and unplanned pregnancies, advances in sex education remain incremental. Case studies show that it is possible to reverse current trends and turn what has mistakenly been labeled a binary, political debate into an opportunity for American parents who show consistent support for comprehensive sex education in schools to feel security for their children’s health and well-being. The solution proposed in this thesis addresses issues of inconsistency and a lack of data gathered around the way students learn sex education which minimizes room for error in content delivery. The technology combines multiple learning approaches to engage students while curating lesson plans that are unique to each classroom and therefore conducive to multiple intelligences. Thus, solving barriers surrounding the regulation and implementation of effective, comprehensive sex education. As popular topics such as the #MeToo movement draw attention to long standing issues of sexual violence and a lack of sexual health, people need a tool—a lens through which to see a silver lining
Justice according to Reinhold Niebuhr and Gustavo Gutiérrez
No full textReinhold Niebuhr and Gustavo Gutiérrez were two influential theologians. Niebuhr was a Protestant neo-orthodox theologian and Gutiérrez was a Catholic liberation theologian. Both tackled the theological topics of justice and reformation. Niebuhr and Gutiérrez came to similar conclusions on these topics although they shared no explicit connections. Despite this, these two thinkers are not widely compared in scholarship. There is an academic tradition of treating Catholicism and Protestantism separately. This tradition could explain why the similarities between the two are overlooked. This essay explores the beliefs of Niebuhr and Gutiérrez on justice and reformation to demonstrate the similarities and argue that these theologians merit more extensive comparison
Women of the Mere: stories
Get PDFWomen of the Mere is a literary-horror short story collection imagining contemporary, Southern women who have a draw toward the unpredictability and danger of the macabre. Based on personal experiences but fictionalized through the poetic lens of negative capability, each story takes place in modern Tennessee and follows female protagonists with uncanny, “familiar”-like connections to animals that are stereotypically portrayed as horrifying or dangerous. These women feed giant snakes, chase hallucinations, menstruate gray blood, and sneak rats into hotel rooms. My craft essay examines how negative capability can be used to create horror on both a sentence-level and thematic scale, based upon David Jauss’s On Fiction Writing and using examples from my own work as well as others that have influenced my horror writing
Robust optimization of linear optimization problems and an approximation approach to solve robust Knapsack Problem
Get PDFThe goal of classical KP, is to find a subset of items whose total weight does not exceed the knapsack capacity, and whose profit is a maximum. In the robust KP the goal is to find a subset of items whose total weight does not exceed the knapsack capacity, and remains near maximum for the worst scenario. Solving the robust KP exactly is difficult due to this data uncertainty and combinatorial structure of the problem. In this research, a polynomial-time algorithm is proposed to approximately obtain a near optimal solution for the robust KP with a provable quality. The quality is described by an error term and it is derived for the proposed algorithm. It is shown that the error depends on the characteristics of the problem. We verify the accuracy of the algorithm theoretically and computationally. It is shown that the error depends on the characteristics of the problem. We verify the accuracy of the algorithm theoretically and computationally
The effects of urbanization on winter avian diversity: a citizen science and GIS study
Get PDFAs the human population continuously increases, habitat transformation due to urban expansion is inevitable, affecting many wildlife species. Birds have become a frequently used model species for studying the effects of urbanization on wildlife populations due to their environmental sensitivity and ease of observation. While previous studies have investigated changes in species richness and abundance related to urbanization, there is a need for more broad-scale studies geographically associating changes in bird diversity and urban expansion. Through the use of extensive bird census data and high-resolution digitized land use data, this study revealed that species richness, diversity, and evenness within count circles all had significant positive correlations over the 40- year period but no significant pattern directly related to urbanization, suggesting an unidentified independent variable. These results will facilitate implementation of more developed avian and environmental management strategies in the state of Tennessee