Aeroelastic Tailoring of Transport Aircraft Wings: State-of-the-Art and Potential Enabling Technologies

This paper provides a brief overview of the state-of-the-art for aeroelastic tailoring of subsonic transport aircraft and offers additional resources on related research efforts. Emphasis is placed on aircraft having straight or aft swept wings. The literature covers computational synthesis tools developed for aeroelastic tailoring and numerous design studies focused on discovering new methods for passive aeroelastic control. Several new structural and material technologies are presented as potential enablers of aeroelastic tailoring, including selectively reinforced materials, functionally graded materials, fiber tow steered composite laminates, and various nonconventional structural designs. In addition, smart materials and structures whose properties or configurations change in response to external stimuli are presented as potential active approaches to aeroelastic tailoring

Community engagement to reduce inequalities in health: a systematic review, meta-analysis and economic analysis

Overall, community engagement interventions are effective in improving health behaviours, health consequences, participant self-efficacy and perceived social support for disadvantaged groups. There are some variations in the observed effectiveness, suggesting that community engagement in public health is more likely to require a ‘fit for purpose’ rather than ‘one size fits all’ approach. We identified trends in the evidence that could provide useful directions for future intervention design and evaluation. Although there is a trend to suggest that there is greater effectiveness of peer-/lay-delivered interventions than interventions that take an empowerment approach or those that involve community members in the design of the intervention, this finding was not statistically significant. We cannot, therefore, conclude that one particular model of community engagement or theory of change is clearly more effective than any other. Albeit from a small number of studies, there also appear to be gains to human and social capital. There is evidence of benefits for engagees, including skills acquisition and future employment. Also, there is evidence that interventions improve participants’ perceived social support. There is weak but inconsistent evidence that different types of community engagement interventions can be cost-effective, and that implementation factors may affect intervention success. The new conceptual framework and the identification of three main theories of change can be used in intervention design and evaluation. Community engagement interventions need evaluations to include long-term assessment; the full range of potential beneficiaries; rigorous process evaluation; and collection of costs and resources data. We anticipate that these additions will help to disentangle the relative effectiveness of different models of community engagement and encourage sustainable initiatives with a lasting health legacy for the community

Increasing Cessation Motivation and Treatment Engagement among Smokers in Pain

Tobacco smokers are at increased risk for the development and progression of chronic pain, and smokers with co-occurring pain tend to report greater difficulty and less confidence in quitting. Smokers in pain face unique cessation challenges and may benefit from tailored interventions that address smoking in the context of pain. This pilot study is the first to test the effects of an intervention tailored for smokers with co-occurring pain on motivation to quit and engage cessation treatment. Smokers with chronic pain (N = 76, 57.9% Female, 52.6% White, Mcpd = 17.64) were randomly assigned to either the tailored or control intervention. Results indicated that the tailored intervention (vs. control) increased knowledge of pain-smoking interrelations, motivation to quit smoking, desire to quit, and expected success in quitting (ps \u3c .01). Participants who received the tailored intervention were also more likely to accept information about available smoking cessation treatments (p = .015), and to report interest (p = .006) and intention to engage treatment in the next month (p = .003). Effects of the tailored intervention on desire to quit and willingness to learn about cessation treatments were mediated by increased knowledge of pain-smoking interrelations. At one-month follow-up, treatment gains in knowledge of pain-smoking interrelations were maintained (p = .009), and participants who received the tailored intervention were more likely to report having subsequently talked to their doctor about smoking (p = .034). These data support the notion that smokers with co-occurring pain may benefit from interventions that have been tailored to address tobacco smoking in the context of pain. Collectively, these findings suggest that smokers with co-occurring pain may become more motivated to quit and engage cessation treatment as they become aware of how continued smoking may be incongruent with their desired pain outcomes

The antenatal psychological experiences of women during two phases of the COVID-19 pandemic: A recurrent, cross-sectional, thematic analysis

Initial COVID-19-related social distancing restrictions, imposed in the UK in March 2020, and the subsequent lifting of restrictions in May 2020 caused antenatal disruption and stress which exceeded expected vulnerabilities associated with this lifecourse transition. The current study aimed to explore the antenatal psychological experiences of women during different phases of pandemic-related lockdown restrictions in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were held with 24 women about their antenatal experiences: twelve were interviewed after the initial lockdown restrictions (Timepoint 1; T1), and a separate twelve women were interviewed after the subsequent lifting of those restrictions (Timepoint 2; T2). Interviews were transcribed and a recurrent, cross-sectional thematic analysis was conducted. Two themes were identified for each timepoint, and each theme contained sub-themes. T1 themes were: ‘A Mindful Pregnancy’ and ‘It’s a Grieving Process’, and T2 themes were: ‘Coping with Lockdown Restrictions’ and ‘Robbed of Our Pregnancy’. COVID-19 related social distancing restrictions had an adverse effect on women’s mental health during the antenatal period. Feeling trapped, anxious, and abandoned were common at both timepoints. Actively encouraging conversations about mental wellbeing during routine care and adopting a prevention opposed to cure attitude toward implementing additional support provisions may serve to improve antenatal psychological wellbeing during health crises

Randomizing Law

Governments should embrace randomized trials to estimate the efficacy of different laws and regulations. Just as random assignment of treatments is the most powerful method of testing for the causal impact of pharmaceuticals, randomly assigning individuals or firms to different legal rules can help resolve uncertainty about the consequential impacts of law. We explain why randomized testing is likely to produce better information than nonrandom evaluation of legal policies and offer guidelines for conducting legal experimentation successfully, considering a variety of obstacles, including ethical ones. Randomization will not be useful for all policies, but once government gains better experience with randomization, administrative agencies should presumptively issue randomization impact statements justifying decisions to implement particular policies. Making the content of law partially contingent on the results of randomized trials will promote ex ante bipartisan agreements, as politicians with different empirical predictions will tend to think that the experiments will support their position

Randomizing Law

Governments should embrace randomized trials to estimate the efficacy of different laws and regulations. Just as random assignment of treatments is the most powerful method of testing for the causal impact of pharmaceuticals, randomly assigning individuals or firms to different legal rules can help resolve uncertainty about the consequential impacts of law. We explain why randomized testing is likely to produce better information than nonrandom evaluation of legal policies and offer guidelines for conducting legal experimentation successfully, considering a variety of obstacles, including ethical ones. Randomization will not be useful for all policies, but once government gains better experience with randomization, administrative agencies should presumptively issue randomization impact statements justifying decisions to implement particular policies. Making the content of law partially contingent on the results of randomized trials will promote ex ante bipartisan agreements, as politicians with different empirical predictions will tend to think that the experiments will support their position

ISDM tailoring on complex information systems projects

This thesis explores issues related to how methodologies for guiding the development of complex Information Systems (“Information Systems Development Methodologies” or “ISDMs”) are tailored in practice. A model of ISDM tailoring was proposed, refined and tested through case studies. The tailoring of an ISDM was observed in three large, commercial IS development projects undertaken by Sysco, a global provider of Information Technology (IT) hardware, software, and services. The model represents an ISDM as existing in three states: the Methodology-as-Documented, the Methodology-as-Anticipated, and the Methodology-in-Action. The model also proposes that transitions between pairs of states can occur in two fundamentally different ways: Contingent tailoring, which is a pro-active response to known or assumed project characteristics; and Improvised tailoring, which is a reactive response to emerging project conditions, drawing on the knowledge and experience of the tailoring practitioner. Exemplars of the three states, and of transitions of both types between these states, have been identified and documented. The implications for theory include: Identifying and defining the three states in which an ISDM can exist; Identifying and defining two types of transition between states; and Developing a model which represents the different states and the transitions between them observed in the course of this research. Implications for the practice of ISDM tailoring include: Identifying the need to incorporate into documentation and training materials associated with an ISDM, recognition of the third, intermediate state in which an ISDM can exist, the Methodology-as-Anticipated, and the identification of the two types of transitions between states. These findings are captured in a “Model of Methodology Tailoring”, developed and refined in the course of the thesis

Reborn in Adversity - Memoir Excerpt and Review of Resiliency Research: Risks and Traits

Reborn in Adversity describes the journey one young girl makes as she seeks to self-actualize amidst multiple risk factors or packages. Raised in an abusive, hypocritical, and assaultive family, the author is faced with crisis after crises along each milestone of life. Once she leaves her abusive family, the risks and crises multiply in magnitude and number. In this journey she exhibits multiple resiliency traits that allow at risk children to rebound from adversity. She does more than rebound, as she is convinced that she has become a “better person” than she would have been had she not been tested and tried at so many levels in so many ways. With the assistance of surrogates, mentors, spirituality, education, and more she learns to adapt to the crises and grow from them. Her life story is an example of thriving in adversity, and it provides insights into how she was able to resist succumbing to risk and be true to her self

The Limits of Quantitative Legal Analyses: Chaos in Legal Scholarship and FDIC v. W.R. Grace & Co.

This Article identifies a few of those techniques by examining a number of quasi-quantitative legal analyses that have addressed a range of legal relationships. The methodology of this Article consists of reviewing the relationship between those legal analyses and their associated non-legal disciplines. The unifying theme of the discussed examples is that a useful, well constructed quantitative analysis or approach has been improperly extended into a legal context