Educational programs prepare students theoretically for the workplace, but many programs are still lacking in the real-world skills that the workplace requires. This is especially evident in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education where today’s graduates hold a fundamental role in advancing science, medicine, sustainability, national security, and the economy, yet the programs to prepare them are falling short of employer expectations. At present, there is a lack of information on the necessary skills for workplace success that is specific to Airline, Aerospace, Defense (A&D) and related Industries’ STEM graduates. This paper attempts to fill this gap by offering a model of the skills required of STEM graduates for successful integration into the A&D and related Industries’ workplace. The purpose of the case study is to explore the employer’s perspective on the job skills that influence the success of STEM college graduates. The case study method was used that involved a purposeful sample strategy of hiring individuals for STEM based positions within the A&D and related Industries. The initial interviews support the job performance skills that have been identified in our research. The highest sought after skills are problem solving, team player, ability to gather data, and adaptability. The lowest sought after skill is negotiation. Two additional skills recommended by the interviewees will be added to future studies – time management, active listening skills. The conclusions reached emphasize the importance of real life applications during STEM classes and programs to better prepare future STEM employees for the workplace.
The research presented in this paper reports on making change happen and the challenge of tuming educators into change agents. The project is being carried out at the University of Applied Sciences & Arts Wester Switzerland, where there are over 20'000 students. lt is an action research project related to the inclusion of technology in the higher education classroom to add value to course design and delivery, and preparing educators for the next generation classroom. Following a phase of exploratory research, a series of four workshops have been developed and are currently being delivered across the 28 schools in the University. This project is the implementation of a programme which hopes to make such change becomes a reality and spread throughout the instituts. A description of the programme, its implementation and feedback from those involved provides the basis for discussion and suggestions are made for enabling change in the higher education arena.
Education and the way it is delivered is undergoing profound change. The advent of digital technologies and their increasingly ubiquitous nature has not only educators, but students and administrators alike, on the shifting sands of paradigms in transition. In addition to this, there is a certain amount of conjecture about what is actually happening on the ground. This paper presents research that originates in the practice of sixteen digital technology "champions", all lecturers in the higher education management classroom. The main objective of the research was to explore the impact of technology on teaching practice. Qualitative inquiry, through the use of semi-structured interviews (n=16), provided the methodology for the study. The findings presented in this paper identify issues of major importance to the participants and relate them to the learner-centred paradigm of education. Directions for future paradigm change are discussed and suggestions made for the successful adoption of technology-enhanced learning within this framework.
Food choices are often habitual, which can perpetuate unhealthy behaviors; i.e., selection of foods high in sodium, saturated fat, and calories. This paper extends previous research by examining how marketing incentives can encourage healthy food choices. Building on research examining marketing incentives, temporal goals, and habitual behavior, this research shows that certain incentives (behavioral rewards vs. financial discounts) affect individuals with healthy and less-healthy eating habits differently. A field study conducted at a corporate cafeteria and three lab studies converge on a consistent finding: the effects of marketing incentives on healthy food choice are particularly prominent for people who have less-healthy eating habits. Results showed that behavioral rewards generated a 28.5% (vs. 5.5%) increase in salad sales; behavioral rewards also led to two pounds more weight loss for individuals with less-healthy eating habits. The research offers important implications for scholars, the food industry, consumers, governments, and policy makers.
Nous estimons les élasticités-prix et élasticités croisées de l’offre et de la demande sur le marché suisse pour le bois brut de construction entre 1949 et 2013. Grâce au modèle à correction d’erreurs, nous considérons les relations de long terme et de court terme et utilisons un système d’équation offre-demande pour tenir compte de l’endogénéité du prix. L’importance de la séquestration du carbone dans les produits en bois implique qu’une utilisation plus importante de bois local dans la construction permettrait de réduire les émissions nettes de CO2. Cependant, l’industrie forestière suisse souffre d’un prix trop bas qui n’incite pas à produire davantage, malgré l’important potentiel. Des subventions peuvent aider à améliorer la durabilité environnementale et économique si les acteurs adaptent leur comportement suite aux changements de prix. Nous trouvons que l’offre et la demande sont sensibles aux changements de prix sur le court et long terme mais que l’augmentation de la demande pour le bois-énergie pourrait avoir un effet contreproductif sur la production du bois de construction.
En Suisse, la demande de bois croît, notamment dans le secteur de la construction et le bois-énergie représente une alternative intéressante et neutre en CO2 dans la perspective de l’abandon de l’énergie nucléaire. Dans le même temps, avec l’objectif de la gestion durable des forêts, la politique fédérale encourage la protection des ressources forestières du pays et le grand public considère les fonctions écologiques et sociales comme prioritaires. Cet article étudie la perception des conflits potentiels entre l’augmentation de l’approvisionnement en bois local et les autres fonctions de la forêt. Il répond aux questions suivantes du point de vue de la population et des parties prenantes : est-il possible et souhaitable d’augmenter la production de bois suisse, quels conflits peuvent survenir et quelles solutions peuvent être proposées pour assurer la multifonctionnalité des forêts en Suisse ? La méthode utilisée combine une enquête qualitative réalisée auprès d’experts des fonctions forestières et un sondage représentatif de la population suisse. Nos résultats montrent que, si des conflits peuvent survenir localement et sur une courte durée, notamment avec la biodiversité, d’une manière générale, on ne perçoit pas, aujourd’hui, de conflits marqués entre l’exploitation de bois et les autres fonctions de la forêt. Il existe donc une possibilité d’exploiter davantage le bois des forêts suisses sans affaiblir le bon accomplissement des autres fonctions de la forêt. Cela implique pourtant l’instauration d’un dialogue entre les différentes parties prenantes et une promotion accrue du bois suisse et des produits en bois suisse.
This work studies the ultrasensitivity of multisite binding processes where ligand molecules can bind to several binding sites. It considers more particularly recent models involving complex chemical reactions in allosteric phosphorylation processes and for transcription factors and nucleosomes competing for binding on DNA. New statistics-based formulas for the Hill coefficient and the effective Hill coefficient are provided and necessary conditions for a system to be ultrasensitive are exhibited. It is first shown that the ultrasensitivity of binding processes can be approached using sharp-threshold theorems which have been developed in applied probability theory and statistical mechanics for studying sharp threshold phenomena in reliability theory, random graph theory and percolation theory. Special classes of binding process are then introduced and are described as density dependent birth and death process. New precise large deviation results for the steady state distribution of the process are obtained, which permits to show that switch-like ultrasensitive responses are strongly related to the multi-modality of the steady state distribution. Ultrasensitivity occurs if and only if the entropy of the dynamical system has more than one global minimum for some critical ligand concentration. In this case, the Hill coefficient is proportional to the number of binding sites, and the system is highly ultrasensitive. The classical effective Hill coefficient I is extended to a new cooperativity index Iq, for which we recommend the computation of a broad range of values of q instead of just the standard one I=I0.9 corresponding to the 10%–90% variation in the dose-response. It is shown that this single choice can sometimes mislead the conclusion by not detecting ultrasensitivity. This new approach allows a better understanding of multisite ultrasensitive systems and provides new tools for the design of such systems.
