Boise State University

About: Boise State University is a education organization based out in Boise, Idaho, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3698 authors who have published 8664 publications receiving 210163 citations. The organization is also known as: BSU & Boise State.

Being business-like while pursuing a social mission: Acknowledging the inherent tensions in US nonprofit organizing

Abstract: Nonprofit organizations face an increasing expectation to be more business-like Although scholars have theoretically explored this phenomenon and studied its influence in various contexts, there has been little empirical examination of the ways in which nonprofit practitioners themselves describe and make sense of their organizations and their work as business-like Specifically, scholars have not explored the ways in which nonprofit practitioners communicatively reconcile the inherent tensions between being business-like and the pursuit of a social mission Based on findings from an eight-month ethnographic field study of a US nonprofit organization, this article describes the sophisticated ways in which nonprofit practitioners understand, define and negotiate the need to be business-like within the nonprofit context and the central role of communication in that process Additionally, critical assessment of these findings reveals the political qualities of talking about nonprofit organizing as being business-like, leading to potential transformative redefinitions of the business-like imperative that acknowledge rather than suppress conflicts inherent in the practice of nonprofit organizing

A New Chronology for Middle Eocene-Early Miocene South American Land Mammal Ages

Abstract: Cenozoic South American Land Mam- mal Ages (SALMAs) have historically been correlated to the geologic time scale using 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating and magnetostratigraphy. At Gran Barranca (68.7°W, 45.7°S)—one of South America's key areas for constraining SALMAs—existing radioisotopic ages have uncertainties of up to 4 m.y. To better con- strain the ages of mammalian assemblages, we employed high-precision (±<40 k.y.) U-Pb dating using single zircon crystals. We dated nine tuffs from the Sarmiento Formation containing middle Eocene-early Miocene faunas (Barrancan, Mustersan, Tinguiriri- can, Deseadan, Colhuehuapian, and "Pin- turan"). The new dates span from 39.861 ± 0.037 Ma to 19.041 ± 0.027 Ma. The La Can- cha Tuff, occurring within the Tinguirirican faunal level yielded an age of 33.581 ± 0.015 Ma, confi rming that the Vera Member con- tains the only fossiliferous geologic section encompassing the Eocene-Oligocene transi- tion in the Southern Hemisphere. The pre- Deseadan fauna, La Cantera, is ≤30.77 Ma, the age of the Colhuehuapian is expanded to 21.1-20.1 Ma, and the Pinturan may be as old as ca. 19 Ma. The new U-Pb dates confi rm that at- mospheric temperatures and vegetation remained constant across the Eocene- Oligocene transition in Patagonia and that hypsodonty occurred in South American un- gulates much earlier than on any other conti- nent. Additionally, refi nement of the SALMA boundaries will eventually provide the con- text necessary to compare faunal transitions across continents, although currently too much data are missing to allow such compar- isons. Finally, the new ages provide a high- resolution age model from which hypotheses about rates of environmental and evolution- ary change at Gran Barranca can be tested.

A field assessment of the value of steady shape hydraulic tomography for characterization of aquifer heterogeneities

Abstract: [1] Hydraulic tomography is a promising approach for obtaining information on variations in hydraulic conductivity on the scale of relevance for contaminant transport investigations. This approach involves performing a series of pumping tests in a format similar to tomography. We present a field-scale assessment of hydraulic tomography in a porous aquifer, with an emphasis on the steady shape analysis methodology. The hydraulic conductivity (K) estimates from steady shape and transient analyses of the tomographic data compare well with those from a tracer test and direct-push permeameter tests, providing a field validation of the method. Zonations based on equal-thickness layers and cross-hole radar surveys are used to regularize the inverse problem. The results indicate that the radar surveys provide some useful information regarding the geometry of the K field. The steady shape analysis provides results similar to the transient analysis at a fraction of the computational burden. This study clearly demonstrates the advantages of hydraulic tomography over conventional pumping tests, which provide only large-scale averages, and small-scale hydraulic tests (e.g., slug tests), which cannot assess strata connectivity and may fail to sample the most important pathways or barriers to flow.

A Radial Basis Function (RBF)-Finite Difference (FD) Method for Diffusion and Reaction---Diffusion Equations on Surfaces

Abstract: In this paper, we present a method based on radial basis function (RBF)-generated finite differences (FD) for numerically solving diffusion and reaction---diffusion equations (PDEs) on closed surfaces embedded in $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$Rd. Our method uses a method-of-lines formulation, in which surface derivatives that appear in the PDEs are approximated locally using RBF interpolation. The method requires only scattered nodes representing the surface and normal vectors at those scattered nodes. All computations use only extrinsic coordinates, thereby avoiding coordinate distortions and singularities. We also present an optimization procedure that allows for the stabilization of the discrete differential operators generated by our RBF-FD method by selecting shape parameters for each stencil that correspond to a global target condition number. We show the convergence of our method on two surfaces for different stencil sizes, and present applications to nonlinear PDEs simulated both on implicit/parametric surfaces and more general surfaces represented by point clouds.

Exploring and Addressing Faculty-to-Faculty Incivility: A National Perspective and Literature Review

Abstract: This is the first-known quantitative study to measure nursing faculty perceptions of faculty-to-faculty incivility A total of 588 nursing faculty representing 40 states in the United States participated in the study Faculty-to-faculty incivility was perceived as a moderate to serious problem The behaviors reported to be most uncivil included setting a coworker up to fail, making rude remarks or put-downs, and making personal attacks or threatening comments The most frequently occurring incivilities included resisting change, failing to perform one's share of the workload, distracting others by using media devices during meetings, refusing to communicate on work-related issues, and making rude comments or put-downs Stress and demanding workloads were two of the factors most likely to contribute to faculty-to-faculty incivility Fear of retaliation, lack of administrative support, and lack of clear policies were cited as the top reasons for avoiding addressing the problem of incivility