University of Missouri

About: University of Missouri is a education organization based out in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 41427 authors who have published 83598 publications receiving 2911437 citations. The organization is also known as: Mizzou & Missouri-Columbia.

Leaving Engineering: A Multi‐Year Single Institution Study

Abstract: Background As estimates continue to indicate a growing demand for engineering professionals, retention in engineering remains an issue. Thus, the engineering education community remains concerned about students who leave engineering and must work to identify the factors that influence those students’ decisions. Purpose (Hypothesis) Our purpose was to identify a set of factors describing the experiences of students’ in a college of engineering that are strong influences on decisions to leave and study how those factors are related to both predictor variables (e.g., high school preparation) and future behaviors (e.g., new major chosen). Design/Method We solicited survey data from students who had recently transferred out of a large engineering college. We conducted exploratory factor analysis to determine the main factors for leaving engineering and then used these factors to answer the research questions. Results Results indicate that both academic (e.g., curriculum difficulty and poor teaching and advising) and a non-academic factor (lack of belonging in engineering) contribute to students’ decisions to leave engineering. We did find differences for some factors between majority and non-majority students; however, there were no gender differences. Conclusions Both academic and non-academic factors contribute to students’ decisions to leave engineering; however, our sample indicated the non-academic factors may be a stronger influence. Implications for educators focus on addressing both academic and the belonging factor and include examining pedagogical activities that may be less welcoming to a wide variety of student groups, providing opportunities for meaningful faculty interaction and other activities designed to support students pursuing engineering degrees.

Interpersonal and Economic Resources

Abstract: High population density and increased institutional specialization, which are relatively novel features of human society. have provided conditions for a more efficient exchange of universalistic resources, while decreasing the opportunity for exchanging particularistic ones. The parallel with physical environment is striking: in both cases technology has created new problems in the process of solving old ones. Whether it is natural resources or interpersonal resources, physical ecology or social ecology, recognizing and defining the new problem is the first step toward its solution. The importance of particularistic resources in solving problems of modern society has scarcely been recognized. Welfare institutions, for example, often require clients to lose status for the money they receive. This form of exchange deprives the client of a resource which is already scarce for him, thus further reducing his chances of autonomous performance as a resource exchanger in society. By ignoring the significance of particularistic resources for social functioning, we tend to see the solution of social problems exclusively in terms of a better distribution of economic resources. Improvement of education, for instance, is considered almost equivalent to allocating more money for schools. Truly money is one of the neighbors of information in the order, but the other one is status. Evidence to suggest that higher status improves educational achievement has, indeed, been repeatedly reported (26). The very mention of particularistic resources in social planning causes uneasiness and bafflement. The economist Levitan (27), for example, in reviewing the activities of VISTA (a program of the Office of Economic Opportunity), wonders how to evaluate goals such as dedication, involvement, and good feeling. The reluctance to include particularistic resources in social engineering will hopefully decrease as we improve techniques for their observation and measurement and as we begin to understand their rules of exchange and their relationship to other resources. The work described here may constitute a step in such a direction. The opportunity to progress more decisively toward a comprehensive picture of the state of resources in society is provided by the proposal to institute social indicators (28). Properly constructed they could supply much needed information about resource deficiencies that affect the health of society and could suggest. measures to overcome them. The purpose of this article has been to summarize some of the knowledge we already possess about interpersonal resources and to outline its application to certain problems of modern society. It has been shown that when resources are classified into six categories and plotted on a two-coordinate space a definite structural pattern emerges. The position of each resource class in the structure appears related to certain properties which in turn affect differentially the exchange of resources in an urban environment. The structural charateristics of resources provide a theoretical basis for the understanding and solution of social problems in modern culture.

Genome-wide association study of more than 40,000 bipolar disorder cases provides new insights into the underlying biology

Abstract: Bipolar disorder is a heritable mental illness with complex etiology. We performed a genome-wide association study of 41,917 bipolar disorder cases and 371,549 controls of European ancestry, which identified 64 associated genomic loci. Bipolar disorder risk alleles were enriched in genes in synaptic signaling pathways and brain-expressed genes, particularly those with high specificity of expression in neurons of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Significant signal enrichment was found in genes encoding targets of antipsychotics, calcium channel blockers, antiepileptics and anesthetics. Integrating expression quantitative trait locus data implicated 15 genes robustly linked to bipolar disorder via gene expression, encoding druggable targets such as HTR6, MCHR1, DCLK3 and FURIN. Analyses of bipolar disorder subtypes indicated high but imperfect genetic correlation between bipolar disorder type I and II and identified additional associated loci. Together, these results advance our understanding of the biological etiology of bipolar disorder, identify novel therapeutic leads and prioritize genes for functional follow-up studies.