Sleep Environment Recommendations for Future Spaceflight Vehicles

Current evidence demonstrates that astronauts experience sleep loss and circadian desynchronization during spaceflight. Ground-based evidence demonstrates that these conditions lead to reduced performance, increased risk of injuries and accidents, and short and long-term health consequences. Many of the factors contributing to these conditions relate to the habitability of the sleep environment. Noise, inadequate temperature and airflow, and inappropriate lighting and light pollution have each been associated with sleep loss and circadian misalignment during spaceflight operations and on Earth. As NASA prepares to send astronauts on long-duration, deep space missions, it is critical that the habitability of the sleep environment provide adequate mitigations for potential sleep disruptors. We conducted a comprehensive literature review summarizing optimal sleep hygiene parameters for lighting, temperature, airflow, humidity, comfort, intermittent and erratic sounds, and privacy and security in the sleep environment. We reviewed the design and use of sleep environments in a wide range of cohorts including among aquanauts, expeditioners, pilots, military personnel and ship operators. We also reviewed the specifications and sleep quality data arising from every NASA spaceflight mission, beginning with Gemini. Finally, we conducted structured interviews with individuals experienced sleeping in non-traditional spaces including oil rig workers, Navy personnel, astronauts, and expeditioners. We also interviewed the engineers responsible for the design of the sleeping quarters presently deployed on the International Space Station. We found that the optimal sleep environment is cool, dark, quiet, and is perceived as safe and private. There are wide individual differences in the preferred sleep environment; therefore modifiable sleeping compartments are necessary to ensure all crewmembers are able to select personalized configurations for optimal sleep. A sub-optimal sleep environment is tolerable for only a limited time, therefore individual sleeping quarters should be designed for long-duration missions. In a confined space, the sleep environment serves a dual purpose as a place to sleep, but also as a place for storing personal items and as a place for privacy during non-sleep times. This need for privacy during sleep and wake appears to be critically important to the psychological well-being of crewmembers on long-duration missions

Teachers’ Perspectives on Year Two Implementation of a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment

In this study we examined teachers’ perspectives regarding the second year of implementing a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). Using a mixed-methods approach, we focused on the administration process, the perceived benefits of the assessment, and how teachers used the assessment to inform instruction. We also investigated whether these differed by teacher and district characteristics and how KRA experiences were different in the second year of implementation. Research Findings: Teachers generally did not view the KRA as beneficial for instruction or for students, reporting administration difficulties, inadequate KRA content, and limited utility of KRA data for supporting instruction as ongoing barriers to KRA use. Although the administration process seemed to be easier in the second year, teachers still reported it as burdensome, cutting into important beginning of kindergarten activities. Notably, teacher training and experience were associated with perceptions. Practice or Policy: Reasons for perceived lack of utility have important implications for future KRA design and implementation. These include better integration of KRAs into existing assessment systems, recognizing the added burden of KRAs to teachers (particularly at the beginning of kindergarten), and the role that additional training may have in supporting use of KRAs at the local level

The Boundaries of the Role of Women in Political Life

Each year, the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for Maine high school seniors. We feature here Erin Flynn’s 2008 first place prize-winning essay. Students were asked to assess whether the ideals of the 19th Amendment, granting voting rights to women, have been fulfilled and to discuss the social and cultural barriers remaining for women to overcome in the pursuit of political power, long after legal barriers to equal participation have been removed

Process Change at an All-Volunteer Run Clinic with PCMH Level 1 Recognition

This project directly involves the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) essential Informatics and Healthcare Technologies, and the CNL role function will be to act as a Team Manager. (AACN, 2013). The global aim of this process improvement is to improve the clinic workflow to increase patient and provider satisfaction in a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). The need for this project was discovered during the process of applying for PCMH recognition (of which the clinic has now earned level 1), and successful implementation of this project will meet PCMH guidelines. While applying for PCMH recognition, a clinic workflow document had to be drawn up to meet the requirements; it became clear during that workflow assessment that there was no standardized process in place for providers. ABC Clinic is an entirely volunteer-run clinic with no paid clinical positions, and without a clear leader in place, processes were completed by providers however they felt was best. The purpose of this project is to update and refine the clinic workflow in order to better provide patient-centered care and increase both patient and provider satisfaction.The expected results of this project will be an increase in patient and provider satisfaction due to an improved workflow, as well as an increase in reimbursements for the clinic due to the improved provider understanding of billing and the workflow in a PCMH

Searching for Archaic Semi-Subterranean Habitation At the Halls Swamp Site in Southern New England

Abstract Semi-subterranean habitation structures, also referred to as pithouses have been interpreted on archaeological sites across North America and over a long span of time, up to 9,000 radiocarbon years before present (RCYBP) and are still used today. Although pithouses or earth lodges may vary in their size, shape, and construction, they share the following attributes: a floor, hearth, depression, and post molds. Experimental archaeology based on ethnographic studies used to reconstruct pithouses has helped define the archaeological signatures of pre-contact pithouses. The high investment of time and labor needed for the construction of large features, such as pithouses, storage pits, and ossuaries has been documented for pre-contact period peoples. Understanding how these large features fit into the Archaic period (10,000 to 3,000 RCYBP) has been challenging for archaeologists in the Northeast, and more specifically in southern New England where soil strata and depositional events are often blurred or erased by bioturbation. By evaluating and comparing archaeological features from known pithouses in southern New England, this thesis aimed to develop a model and test the suspected pithouse features at the Halls Swamp site in Kingston, Massachusetts. The model was used to evaluate a concentration of features identified at the Halls Swamp site which confirmed a Late Archaic period pithouse at this multi-component site. The presence of this feature type suggests fall and winter occupations along wetlands often taking advantage of slopes in sandy soils. Additional spatial, depositional, and grain size analysis along with a newly acquired radiocarbon date, was used in conjunction with previously reported data to test the model and overall connect this concentration of features to one single event

Anonymous, Oral History Interview, 2022

In October and November of 2022, You Li\u27s Journalism 313 students conducted oral history interviews with one another to document the student experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, an EMU undergraduate student describes the transition from high school to college in a pandemic and gives advice to incoming freshmen.https://commons.emich.edu/covidoralhist/1013/thumbnail.jp

Walking the Tightrope: The United States’ Policy in Vietnam, 1952-1954

This thesis demonstrates how the Truman and Eisenhower administrations sought to avoid direct intervention in Indochina and halt the spread of communism at the same time. This purpose is achieved through careful analysis of primary and secondary sources, with a particular focus on the primary documentation found in Foreign Relations of the United States: 1952-1954. Through examination of these day-by-day recordings and memos, the futility of pursuing the two conflicting aims becomes clear

Rape myth prevalence among resident assistants at Rowan University

College campuses have become the front lines in the battle to end sexual assaults. One in five college-aged women will experience sexual assault during their time in school (Muehlenhard et al., 2017). This study explores whether mandatory reporters may disregard a report of sexual misconduct due to their belief in rape myths. Rape Myths are defined as any belief that exonerates the perpetrator while placing blame on the victim. This study aims to explore the relationship between rape myths and the largest population of mandatory reporters on campus, Resident Assistants. This study explores the degree of understanding Resident Assistants hold in the behaviors covered under Title IX, their ability to comfort and take information from a student reporting their experience, and whether they were familiar with the protocol to report the incident. This study identifies the most common rape myths held by Resident Assistants as well as the impact that these myths have in the likelihood of Resident Assistants to report the incident, as stated in the requirements of the mandatory reporting policy at Rowan University