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Employee resignation study in Fairfax County

Zhang et al. | Mar 03, 2023

Employee resignation study in Fairfax County

In this study, the authors address potential reasons why employees may voluntarily resign. This is in response to the currently observed economic trend The Great Resignation. Through analysis of federal and local government data along with survey results from Fairfax County, they concluded that adding additional benefits will help companies retain talented empolyees.

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Predicting college retention rates from Google Street View images of campuses

Dileep et al. | Jan 02, 2024

Predicting college retention rates from Google Street View images of campuses
Image credit: Dileep et al. 2024

Every year, around 40% of undergraduate students in the United States discontinue their studies, resulting in a loss of valuable education for students and a loss of money for colleges. Even so, colleges across the nation struggle to discover the underlying causes of these high dropout rates. In this paper, the authors discuss the use of machine learning to find correlations between the built environment factors and the retention rates of colleges. They hypothesized that one way for colleges to improve their retention rates could be to improve the physical characteristics of their campus to be more pleasing. The authors used image classification techniques to look at images of colleges and correlate certain features like colors, cars, and people to higher or lower retention rates. With three possible options of high, medium, and low retention rates, the probability that their models reached the right conclusion if they simply chose randomly was 33%. After finding that this 33%, or 0.33 mark, always fell outside of the 99% confidence intervals built around their models’ accuracies, the authors concluded that their machine learning techniques can be used to find correlations between certain environmental factors and retention rates.

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Do Initial Strategies or Choice of Piece Color Lead to Advantages in Chess Games?

Ponnaluri et al. | Feb 07, 2017

Do Initial Strategies or Choice of Piece Color Lead to Advantages in Chess Games?

White pieces make the first move in chess games, and there are several opening strategies and consequent defense strategies that white and black pieces, respectively, can take . The author of this paper investigated whether taking a specific opening and defense strategy, as well as playing as white vs. black, can increase the chances of winning the game, by playing against various human and computer opponents.

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Rhizosphere metagenome analysis and wet-lab approach to derive optimal strategy for lead remediation in situ

Bhat et al. | Jul 18, 2023

Rhizosphere metagenome analysis and wet-lab approach to derive optimal strategy for lead remediation <i>in situ</i>
Image credit: Karolina Grabowska

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports a significant number of heavy metal-contaminated sites across the United States. To address this public health concern, rhizoremediation using microbes has emerged as a promising solution. Here, a combination of soil microbes were inoculated in the rhizosphere in soil contaminated with 500 parts per million (ppm) of lead. Results showed rhizoremediation is an effective bioremediation strategy and may increase crop productivity by converting nonarable lands into arable lands.

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Osmotic characteristics of water retention structures of Bursera microphylla in relation to soil salinity

Groom et al. | Jul 12, 2023

Osmotic characteristics of water retention structures of <i>Bursera microphylla</i> in relation to soil salinity
Image credit: Lisa Fotios

This study hypothesized that sodium chloride was taken up through plant root structures to facilitate water transportation, and that sodium chloride accumulation was directly proportional to the soil salinity. Results showed that most cells within the “bulb” structures were isotonic at a concentration approximately twice as high as that of root tissue and ambient soil salinity, therefore supporting the presented hypothesis.

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A Cloud-Enabled Communication Strategy for Wildfire Alerts

Vinaithirthan et al. | Jul 19, 2020

A Cloud-Enabled Communication Strategy for Wildfire Alerts

The traditional alert system in California consists of Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs), which lack location specificity, and sign-up-based technology which is limited by the number of sign ups. Those who do not have phones or have a silence option on their devices are most at risk from the current alert system. Here the authors developed cloud-enabled crisis connection for disaster alerts (CRISIS-CONNECT) to mitigate problems associated with the current alert system.

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Development of a Novel Treatment Strategy to Treat Parkinsonian Neurodegeneration by Targeting Both Lewy Body Aggregation and Dopaminergic Neuronal Degradation in a Drosophila melanogaster Model

Sama et al. | Sep 25, 2019

Development of a Novel Treatment Strategy to Treat Parkinsonian Neurodegeneration by Targeting Both Lewy Body Aggregation and Dopaminergic Neuronal Degradation in a <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em> Model

In this article the authors address the complex and life quality-diminishing neurodegenerative disease known as Parkinson's. Although genetic and/or environmental factors contribute to the etiology of the disease, the diagnostic symptoms are the same. By genetically modifying fruit flies to exhibit symptoms of Parkinson's disease, they investigate whether drugs that inhibit mitochondrial calcium uptake or activate the lysosomal degradation of proteins could improve the symptoms of Parkinson's these flies exhibit. The authors report the most promising outcome to be that when both types of drugs were used together. Their data provides encouraging evidence to support further investigation of the utility of such drugs in the treatment of human Parkinson's patients.

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Effects on Learning and Memory of a Mutation in Dα7: A D. melanogaster Homolog of Alzheimer's Related Gene for nAChR α7

Sanyal et al. | Oct 01, 2019

Effects on Learning and Memory of a Mutation in Dα7: A <em>D. melanogaster</em> Homolog of Alzheimer's Related Gene for nAChR α7

Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves the reduction of cholinergic activity due to a decrease in neuronal levels of nAChR α7. In this work, Sanyal and Cuellar-Ortiz explore the role of the nAChR α7 in learning and memory retention, using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. The performance of mutant flies (PΔEY6) was analyzed in locomotive and olfactory-memory retention tests in comparison to wild type (WT) flies and an Alzheimer's disease model Arc-42 (Aβ-42). Their results suggest that the lack of the D. melanogaster-nAChR causes learning, memory, and locomotion impairments, similar to those observed in Alzheimer's models Arc-42.

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