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No / This article investigates the relationships between various types of educational value generated by the Markstrat simulation game. Considering several theoretical models of experiential learning and the research framework proposed by previous studies, an educational value generation model is developed and validated, using primary data collected from 305 UK-based students. Four types of educational value are identified: experience generation, conceptual understanding, skills development, and affective evaluation. The application of structural equation modelling indicates several significant relationships: experience generation has a strong impact on conceptual understanding, and both of them have medium to high direct impacts on skills development. On the other hand, the participants’ perception regarding the professional skills developed during the simulation game determines their affective evaluation of the Markstrat exercise. The model presented in this study is generalizable to other simulation games, and to other academic disciplines that implement the same experiential learning approach.

There is "no one-size-fits-all solution" to school safety (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, 2022. p. 7). The growing number of school shootings and health problems at schools raise serious questions about the dimensions of school safety that should be measured. Prior extensive surveys measuring elementary student's views of safety in relation to relevant safety issues have not been conducted. There were four objectives for this study: 1) to investigate relevant dimensions of school safety and understand safety procedures that are currently in use; 2) to formulate and organize questions that would be approved to gauge elementary students' perceptions about school safety; 3) to assess validity and reliability of expert's perceived school safety relevancy scores of the SPSS Scale's items and theoretical dimensions of school safety; and 4) to determine whether school guardians and law enforcement share the same concerns about school safety. A preliminary analysis using Q-Method was run which led to approximately 27% reduction of items; differences in officer and teacher ratings were found. The primary task called for law enforcement and school guardians' expert judgement on relevancy and suitability of the SPSS Scale. A series of tests were performed to examine the scores to assess the validity and reliability of the safety expert's ratings. A Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to evaluate target hardening to ascertain whether the safety experts have similar concerns regarding school safety. Findings concluded that there were no statistically significant differences among the experts' ratings of the items; they share the same view. Strong reliability was shown in the close correlation between the expert's judgments of the scale items and the theoretical constructs of school safety. The SPSS Scale's applicability to comprehensively evaluate school safety was raised by agreement over themes discovered on the relevant but unreported school safety issues.

A FDA tem incentivado a indústria farmacêutica a implantar no seu sistema de controle de qualidade métodos rápidos para avaliação do produto durante seu processo de produção e/ou na sua forma final para comercialização. Na indústria farmacêutica, o doseamento microbiológico é amplamente utilizado pelo setor de Controle de Qualidade com objetivo de avaliar a eficácia e segurança do medicamento produzido, principalmente no que diz respeito a produção de antibióticos. No caso desses, a aplicabilidade de métodos rápidos é de suma importância a fim de se obter uma avaliação rápida e confiável do produto, garantindo assim a comercialização de medicamentos com a qualidade e segurança necessárias para o sucesso do tratamento terapêutico. O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver e validar método para doseamento microbiológico de nistatina, com leitura cinética em microplaca, perfeitamente intercambiável com o método tradicional de difusão em ágar, porém com redução do tempo de execução e de liberação do resultado final. Os parâmetros definidos para este ensaio foram: utilização de inóculo com 5% de Candida albicans (ATCC 10231), meio de cultura líquido, tempos de 48 horas para crescimento do micro-organismo e 8 horas para leitura das micro-placas, , temperatura de análise de 30 °C e absorbância de 630 nM. Os parâmetros avaliados no processo de validação, de acordo com os códigos oficiais vigentes, demonstraram que o método é sensível, robusto, linear (r = 0,97332), precisão (repetibilidade: 96 %, DPR= 6 % / precisão intermediária: 97 %; DPR = 7 %) e exato ( 97 %, DPR = 7 %). Em comparação ao método de difusão em ágar tradicional, o método desenvolvido demonstrou a mesma eficiência do método já utilizado, contemplando todos os parâmetros do processo de validação, com a vantagem de ser realizado em menor tempo e com o uso reduzido de material de análise, como meio de cultura, padrão e amostra. Em função disso, pode-se concluir que o método desenvolvido e validado além de representar uma tendência mundial, por ser efetuado de modo rápido, eficaz e econômico, é perfeitamente aplicável a rotina laboratorial. / The FDA have been encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to deploy in their system of quality control a rapid method for assessment of the product during its production process and/or in their final form for sale. In the pharmaceutical industry, the microbiological assay is widely used by the Quality Control sector to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the product produced, especially as regards the production of antibiotics. In such case, the applicability of rapid methods is very important in order to obtain a rapid and reliable evaluation of the product, thus ensuring the marketing of medicinal products with the quality and security necessary for the success of therapeutic treatment. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an method for the microbiological assay of Nystatin with kinetic micro-plate reading, perfectly interchangeable with the traditional method of agar diffusion, but with reduced time for implementation and release of the final result. The parameters set for this assay were using 5 % inoculum of Candida albicans (ATCC 10231), liquid culture medium, time of 48 hours for growth of micro-organisms and 8 hours for reading the micro-plate temperature analysis of 30 °C and absorbance of 630 nM. The parameters evaluated in the validation process, according to the current official codes, shows that the method is sensitive, robust, linear (r = 0,97332), precision (repeatability: 96 %, RDS = 6 % / inter-day precision = 97 %, RSD = 7%) and accurate (97 %, RDS = 7%). Compared to the traditional method of diffusion in agar, the developed method demonstrated the same efficiency of the method already used, covering all parameters of the validation process, with the advantage of being performed in less time and with reduced use of material for analysis, as the culture medium and standard sample. As a result, it can be concluded that the method developed and validated besides representing a global trend, being made fast, effective and economical way, is perfectly applicable to routine clinical practice.

A FDA tem incentivado a indústria farmacêutica a implantar no seu sistema de controle de qualidade métodos rápidos para avaliação do produto durante seu processo de produção e/ou na sua forma final para comercialização. Na indústria farmacêutica, o doseamento microbiológico é amplamente utilizado pelo setor de Controle de Qualidade com objetivo de avaliar a eficácia e segurança do medicamento produzido, principalmente no que diz respeito a produção de antibióticos. No caso desses, a aplicabilidade de métodos rápidos é de suma importância a fim de se obter uma avaliação rápida e confiável do produto, garantindo assim a comercialização de medicamentos com a qualidade e segurança necessárias para o sucesso do tratamento terapêutico. O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver e validar método para doseamento microbiológico de nistatina, com leitura cinética em microplaca, perfeitamente intercambiável com o método tradicional de difusão em ágar, porém com redução do tempo de execução e de liberação do resultado final. Os parâmetros definidos para este ensaio foram: utilização de inóculo com 5% de Candida albicans (ATCC 10231), meio de cultura líquido, tempos de 48 horas para crescimento do micro-organismo e 8 horas para leitura das micro-placas, , temperatura de análise de 30 °C e absorbância de 630 nM. Os parâmetros avaliados no processo de validação, de acordo com os códigos oficiais vigentes, demonstraram que o método é sensível, robusto, linear (r = 0,97332), precisão (repetibilidade: 96 %, DPR= 6 % / precisão intermediária: 97 %; DPR = 7 %) e exato ( 97 %, DPR = 7 %). Em comparação ao método de difusão em ágar tradicional, o método desenvolvido demonstrou a mesma eficiência do método já utilizado, contemplando todos os parâmetros do processo de validação, com a vantagem de ser realizado em menor tempo e com o uso reduzido de material de análise, como meio de cultura, padrão e amostra. Em função disso, pode-se concluir que o método desenvolvido e validado além de representar uma tendência mundial, por ser efetuado de modo rápido, eficaz e econômico, é perfeitamente aplicável a rotina laboratorial. / The FDA have been encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to deploy in their system of quality control a rapid method for assessment of the product during its production process and/or in their final form for sale. In the pharmaceutical industry, the microbiological assay is widely used by the Quality Control sector to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the product produced, especially as regards the production of antibiotics. In such case, the applicability of rapid methods is very important in order to obtain a rapid and reliable evaluation of the product, thus ensuring the marketing of medicinal products with the quality and security necessary for the success of therapeutic treatment. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an method for the microbiological assay of Nystatin with kinetic micro-plate reading, perfectly interchangeable with the traditional method of agar diffusion, but with reduced time for implementation and release of the final result. The parameters set for this assay were using 5 % inoculum of Candida albicans (ATCC 10231), liquid culture medium, time of 48 hours for growth of micro-organisms and 8 hours for reading the micro-plate temperature analysis of 30 °C and absorbance of 630 nM. The parameters evaluated in the validation process, according to the current official codes, shows that the method is sensitive, robust, linear (r = 0,97332), precision (repeatability: 96 %, RDS = 6 % / inter-day precision = 97 %, RSD = 7%) and accurate (97 %, RDS = 7%). Compared to the traditional method of diffusion in agar, the developed method demonstrated the same efficiency of the method already used, covering all parameters of the validation process, with the advantage of being performed in less time and with reduced use of material for analysis, as the culture medium and standard sample. As a result, it can be concluded that the method developed and validated besides representing a global trend, being made fast, effective and economical way, is perfectly applicable to routine clinical practice.

Despite heightened efforts to increase gender parity, organizations in the technology industry are struggling to implement and enact Gender Diversity and Inclusion policies (GDIPs). This purpose of this dissertation was to enhance understandings of obstacles to policy enactment and unearth ways in which organizations can create more equitable work environments. Specifically, this project investigated how members of technology organizations construct knowledge about Gender Diversity and Inclusion policies through their personal experiences, attitudes and beliefs, and interactions with others within and external to their organization. Utilizing a critical-interpretivist and intersectional feminism as ontological and epistemological frameworks, this dissertation study draws from structurating activity theory (SAT; Canary, 2010) and theories of organizational identification (Scott, 2007) to explore issues of policy knowledge construction, implementation, and enactment. Completed in two phases,this dissertation employed a mixed-methods design. Phase One used DeVellis’ (2017) framework to develop a Gender Diversity and Inclusion policy attitude scale (GDIPAS) to evaluate how personal opinions about GDIPs and larger constructs like sexism, feminism, identification, and social desirability contribute to the policy knowledge construction process. Phase Two used a parallel analysis design to quantitatively (i.e., surveys) and qualitatively (i.e., interviews) investigate how members of tech-based organizations construct GDIP knowledge through intra- and extra-organizational interactions, as well as personal beliefs and attitudes (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). Phase One resulted in five-factors underlying Gender Diversity and Inclusion policy attitude: perception of policy abuse, policy familiarity, perception of workforce gender inequity, policy support, and perception of organizational gender diversity. Results from Phase Two indicated that members of technology organizations interact within and across activity systems to construct knowledge about GDIPs through structural contradictions that (re)produce barriers to policy implementation and enactment.This project contributed to organizational communication theory by investigating the role of organizational identification in the policy knowledge construction process. Further, this dissertation extended SAT by identifying two new structural contradictions and a primary system-level contradiction, and by centralizing power in the investigation of policy knowledge construction. Methodologically, this dissertation offers a new policy attitude measure for scholars and practitioners. Finally, results of this project provide practical insights into barriers to policy implementation and enactment.

Increase in the awareness environmental conservation is leading the automotive industry into the adaptation of alternatively fueled vehicles. Electric, Fuel-Cell as well as Hybrid-Electric vehicles focus on this research area with aim to efficiently utilize vehicle powertrain as the first step. Energy and Power Management System control strategies play vital role in improving efficiency of any hybrid propulsion system. However, these control strategies are sensitive to the dynamics of the powertrain components used in the given system. A kinematic mathematical model for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) has been developed in this study and is further optimized by determining optimal power management strategy for minimal fuel consumption as well as NOx emissions while executing a set drive cycle. A multi-objective optimization using weighted sum formulation is needed in order to observe the trade-off between the optimized objectives. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm has been used in this research, to determine the trade-off curve between fuel and NOx. In performing these optimizations, the control signal consisting of engine speed and reference battery SOC trajectory for a 2-hour cycle is used as the controllable decision parameter input directly from the optimizer. Each element of the control signal was split into 50 distinct points representing the full 2 hours, giving slightly less than 2.5 minutes per point, noting that the values used in the model are interpolated between the points for each time step. With the control signal consisting of 2 distinct signals, speed and SOC trajectory, as 50 element time variant signals, a multidimensional problem was formulated for the optimizer. Novel approaches to balance the optimizer exploration and convergence, as well as seeding techniques are suggested to solve the optimal control problem. The optimization of each involved individual runs at 5 different weight levels with the resulting cost populations being compiled together to visually represent with the help of Pareto front development. The obtained results of simulations and optimization are presented involving performances of individual components of the PHEV powertrain as well as the optimized PMS strategy to follow for given drive cycle. Observations of the trade-off is discussed in the case of Multi-Objective Optimizations.

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Job Crafting – durch Beschäftigte initiierte Veränderungen des Jobs – hat in der Wissenschaft und Praxis in den letzten Jahren einen hohen Stellenwert eingenommen. Die Job Crafting Literatur hebt besonders die positive Seite des Job Craftings hervor – sowohl auf inter- als auch intraindividueller Ebene. Allerdings scheinen Job Crafting und seine Folgen komplexer zu sein und benötigen ein besseres Verständnis. Daher war das Ziel der Dissertation bisherige Job Crafting Theorien anhand von drei Ansätzen zu erweitern. Dafür habe ich vier Studien durchgeführt, aus denen drei Manuskripte hervorgingen. Erstens, in Studie 1 bezog ich mich auf die ressourcen-konsumierende Natur des Job Craftings und fand einen kurvilinearen Job Crafting-Effekt auf das Arbeitsengagement. Dies galt nur für erschöpfte Beschäftigte (d.h. Moderationseffekt). Zweitens, Studie 2 fokussierte sich auf den fluktuierenden Anteil des Job Craftings innerhalb von Beschäftigten (d.h. intraindividuelle Ebene) und untersuchte reziproke Beziehungen zwischen Job Crafting, Arbeitsengagement und Leistung von einer zur nächsten Woche. Daten aus einer wöchentlichen Tagebuchstudie wurden mit Hilfe eines Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Modells (RI-CLPM) analysiert. Es gab keine reziproken Beziehungen zwischen Job Crafting, Arbeitsengagement und Leistung auf intraindividueller Ebene zwischen den Wochen, die Beziehungen waren sehr heterogen. Drittens, in Studien 3 und 4 haben wir die Approach-Avoidance Job Crafting Skala basierend auf dem Approach-Avoidance Crafting Model entwickelt und validiert. Die Skala bildet Approach und Avoidance Crafting als unabhängige Faktoren ab und misst 8 verschiedene Dimensionen resultierend aus einer hierarchischen Struktur, die frühere Job Crafting Konzepte integriert. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigten inkrementelle Validität von Approach und Avoidance Crafting bei der Vorhersage von arbeitsbezogenen Outcomes. / Job crafting – employee-initiated changes to the job – has received a high priority in science and practice in the recent years. Job crafting literature often emphasizes its positive effects – both at the between-person and within-person level. However, job crafting and its consequences seem to be more complex and, thus needs further understanding. Doing so, the aim of the dissertation was to expand current job crafting theories by using three approaches. Therefore, I conducted four studies resulting in three manuscripts. Firstly, in Study 1, I referred to the resource-consuming nature of job crafting and found a curvilinear effect (U-shaped curve) of the job crafting strategy crafting social resources (i.e., increasing social resources) on work engagement. This only applied to exhausted employees (i.e., a moderation effect). Secondly, in Study 2 focused on the fluctuating portion of job crafting within employees and investigated reciprocal relationships between job crafting, work engagement, and performance from one week to the next at the within-person level. Data from a weekly diary study were analyzed with a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM). There were no reciprocal relationships between job crafting, work engagement, and performance at the within-person level across weeks, rather the relations were more heterogeneous than anticipated. Thirdly, in Study 3 and 4, we developed and validated the Approach-Avoidance Job Crafting Scale based on my approach-avoidance crafting model. The scale depicts approach and avoidance crafting as two independent factors and assesses eight different job crafting dimensions. These result from a hierarchical structure in which previous job crafting concepts are integrated. Our results showed that approach and avoidance crafting have incremental validity in predicting work-related outcomes beyond previous job crafting scales.

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