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Some leaders of nonprofit Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) focused nonprofit education organizations lack strategies to engage STEM-focused hiring corporations to support their organizations' missions. Nonprofit leaders are concerned about engaging individuals, organizations, and government entities to help support sustainability. Grounded in human capital theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies leaders of nonprofit STEM-focused education organizations use to engage STEM-focused hiring corporations to support their nonprofit organizations' mission. The participants consisted of five board members of a nonprofit partner organization in the U.S. state of Florida who successfully managed STEM-focused stakeholder engagement. Data from semistructured interviews, company documents, a Baldrige Performance Excellence Program analysis, and academic and professional literature were analyzed using thematic analysis. The thematic analysis results revealed four thematic findings: networking, partnership, mission alignment, and communication. Based on research findings, a key recommendation for STEM-focused nonprofit education leaders is to increase engagement of STEM-focused hiring organizations to achieve strategic objectives and fulfill their mission. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase the number of qualified applicants for STEM-focused corporate positions, which may benefit local communities by increasing employment and tax revenue. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Nm23-H1 is elevated in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patient serum, where it is thought to enhance AML cell survival. However, the Nm23-H1 pro-survival mechanism remains poorly understood. Here it is demonstrated that AML samples are heterogeneous in their ability to bind Nm23-H1 and respond to the resultant survival signal. Although rNm23-H1 promoted the survival of the most primitive blasts within responding AMLs, it was not these cells that bound the protein. Instead, Nm23-H1 bound to more mature CD34\(^l\)\(^o\)/CD11b\(^+\)\(^v\)\(^e\) cells indicating that the survival effect on the blasts was indirect. In support of this, the survival of purified blast cells was enhanced by medium conditioned by more mature cells from the clone that had been stimulated by rNm23-H1. It is hypothesised that the AML clone subverts a signaling process between immature and more mature haemopoietic cells; a mechanism involved in controlling haemopoietic maturation.

The purpose of this systematic grounded theory study was to define and explain the development of homeschool teacher self-efficacy and its significance for homeschooling parents in Wisconsin. Bandura’s self-efficacy theory served as the initial theoretical framework for this study, as it defined four general sources of self-efficacy development: enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences through social models, social persuasion, and the regulation of physical and emotional states. Through surveys, open-ended interviews, focus groups, and artifacts received from 10 homeschooling parents, this study attempted to define how homeschooling parents perceive homeschool teacher self-efficacy, to what homeschooling parents attribute the development of homeschool teacher self-efficacy, and what homeschooling parents perceive are the benefits of homeschool teacher self-efficacy. As a result, a theory of homeschool teacher self-efficacy development and significance emerged from the research. This data-grounded theory postulates that homeschool teacher self-efficacy develops, operates, and benefits homeschooling parents through a four-stage agentic lifecycle model consisting of the initial stage, the transition stage, the stabilization and influence stage, and the outcomes stage.

Emergent digital technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Social Media, coding, and robotic technology, provide users with a new way of processing architectural designs. These tools help to explore and enhance the architectural design process to create a powerful link between the design and idea through testing and calculation. With the advancement as well as productive innovations of these technologies, people in the not so distant future will find these platforms instrumental to the design process. For these systems to become innovative, designers must push the field to become more responsive, and not just to the environments that they help. More importantly, designers need to be sensitive to the users of said spaces. In other words, pioneers of these innovations must incorporate feedback from the physical aspects of a project as well as the cultural contexts of the user rather than solely relying on conventional or analytical processes of a project. While designers have their way of working and developing projects, it would be very beneficial for them to learn these new types of techniques and technologies since their prominence within the field of architecture will continue to grow and expand. The knowledge of these new tools will continue to change the way architecture is thought and produced. The potential of new technologies to develop designs and spatial configurations that are perceivable by our sensory system could potentially uncover a latent domain of spatial aesthetics that architects can experiment with, develop, and harness.