Assessing Workplace Wellness for the Occupation of Hairdressing

There is presently a lack of occupational therapy interventions that holistically treat work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) commonly found in the hairdressing population. Current studies found in the literature solely focus on the hairdressers’ symptoms, which leads to a more limited understanding of their situation. Furthermore, this focus on symptoms could lead to the possibility of overlooking confounding variables that could play a role in impacting these workers. This capstone project aims to examine the hairdressing occupation as a whole, assessing the health-related needs of hairdressers and create a holistic program that would address current needs and future preventative treatments for this occupation

Orbiting Rainbows: Optical Manipulation of Aerosols and the Beginnings of Future Space Construction

Our objective is to investigate the conditions to manipulate and maintain the shape of an orbiting cloud of dust-like matter so that it can function as an ultra-lightweight surface with useful and adaptable electromagnetic characteristics, for instance, in the optical, RF, or microwave bands. Inspired by the light scattering and focusing properties of distributed optical assemblies in Nature, such as rainbows and aerosols, and by recent laboratory successes in optical trapping and manipulation, we propose a unique combination of space optics and autonomous robotic system technology, to enable a new vision of space system architecture with applications to ultra-lightweight space optics and, ultimately, in-situ space system fabrication. Typically, the cost of an optical system is driven by the size and mass of the primary aperture. The ideal system is a cloud of spatially disordered dust-like objects that can be optically manipulated: it is highly reconfigurable, fault-tolerant, and allows very large aperture sizes at low cost. See Figure 1 for a scenario of application of this concept. The solution that we propose is to construct an optical system in space in which the nonlinear optical properties of a cloud of micron-sized particles are shaped into a specific surface by light pressure, allowing it to form a very large and lightweight aperture of an optical system, hence reducing overall mass and cost. Other potential advantages offered by the cloud properties as optical system involve possible combination of properties (combined transmit/receive), variable focal length, combined refractive and reflective lens designs, and hyper-spectral imaging. A cloud of highly reflective particles of micron-size acting coherently in a specific electromagnetic band, just like an aerosol in suspension in the atmosphere, would reflect the Sun's light much like a rainbow. The only difference with an atmospheric or industrial aerosol is the absence of the supporting fluid medium. This new concept is based on recent understandings in the physics of optical manipulation of small particles in the laboratory and the engineering of distributed ensembles of spacecraft clouds to shape an orbiting cloud of micron-sized objects. In the same way that optical tweezers have revolutionized micro- and nano-manipulation of objects, our breakthrough concept will enable new large scale NASA mission applications and develop new technology in the areas of Astrophysical Imaging Systems and Remote Sensing because the cloud can operate as an adaptive optical imaging sensor. While achieving the feasibility of constructing one single aperture out of the cloud is the main topic of this work, it is clear that multiple orbiting aerosol lenses could also combine their power to synthesize a much larger aperture in space to enable challenging goals such as exoplanet detection. Furthermore, this effort could establish feasibility of key issues related to material properties, remote manipulation, and autonomy characteristics of cloud in orbit. There are several types of endeavors (science missions) that could be enabled by this type of approach, i.e. it can enable new astrophysical imaging systems, exoplanet search, large apertures allow for unprecedented high resolution to discern continents and important features of other planets, hyperspectral imaging, adaptive systems, spectroscopy imaging through limb, and stable optical systems from Lagrange-points. Future micro-miniaturization might hold promise of a further extension of our dust aperture concept to other more exciting smart dust concepts with other associated capabilities

The Mystery of Misery: Middle-Class Representations of Poverty, 1885-1915

The contemporary conversation on inequality has its roots in the Gilded Age when U.S. slum conditions came to rival those found in a Charles Dickens novel, a permanent lower class became a fact of urban life, and middle-class writers and readers embraced literary realism. In this project, I am pushing against the separation of realist and sentimental literatures as well as the treatment of the Progressive Era as a cultural break which serve to position the era as a unique step in the country’s movement toward greater equality for all. Instead, I am reading realism as a continuation of the project of sentimentalism with its dual concerns of care for others and middle-class superiority. As a material and cultural definition of class begins to pull apart, I argue, the threat to middle-class dominance by competitive capitalism becomes apparent. By reading across multiple genres, including film, and with a longer historical arc, I uncover a discourse on poverty used to critique and revise a nineteenth-century model of manhood unable to keep up. All works of realism in my archive take the instability of the middle class as their starting point, bringing attention to economic, cultural, and technological threats. With very different concerns than reform literature, a concern for the self emerges when realism directs the middle-class reader to portrayals of a precarious middle class. Fundamentally, this dissertation argues, reading realism conditoned the country to accept a deeply impoverished working class needed to produce cheap goods by directing sympathy to the white middle-class male

The effects of aging and unilateral vestibular disorders on the kinematic performance of vestibular rehabilitation exercises and physical function

The overall purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of unilateral vestibular disorders and aging on functional performances of activities of daily living and vestibular rehabilitation exercises by examining the correlations among actual and perceived functional measures, the kinematic measurement differences among young healthy adults, older healthy adults, and older adults with unilateral vestibular deficits, and the correlations between kinematic and functional measures. Perceived and actual functional abilities and kinematic variables were compared for young controls, older healthy controls, and patients with unilateral vestibular hypofunction with no previous vestibular rehabilitation. In older adults, better strength, balance, coordination, and endurance during activities of daily living were associated with better perceived ambulation and reduction in perceived functional handicap. Older adults had difficulties stabilizing their heads relative to the environment during eye exercises and moved their heads more when the exercise required head stabilization relative to the body, probably due to alterations in performance of the exercises. Patients, who were also older adults, were able to suppress some of these movements, likely to prevent dizziness. Both older groups often reduced their head movements and/or moved differently from the young when movements were self-selected and not externally driven by a visual cue. When patients were forced to make greater horizontal head movements with intermittent gaze stabilization, they also made greater head movements orthogonal to the plane of motion for seated exercises. These findings show that some patient differences are linked to declines of normal aging and not that of the disorder. In addition patients took more steps at a slower pace for the gait with head movement exercise. The group differences in exercise kinematics guided the correlations between kinematics and functional data, so that the subject differences in correlations between actual function and head excursion kinematics differed from those for perceived function and head excursion kinematics. These data add to the limited findings on associations between kinematic measurements and functional performances in vestibular patients and are the first to show relationships exist between these measures for healthy young adults, healthy older adults and vestibular patients

Examining the functions of infant musicality within a childcare community

The purpose of this case study was to explore and understand the function of music in an infant community. By observing the musical behaviors of seven children under the age of two in both childcare and home settings, I sought to gain new insights that can inform parents, caregivers, and educators about the engagement with and possible functions of music for infants. The theories of Communicative Musicality and psychobiological needs informed this study and provided the lenses through which I observed infant musicality. Data collection comprised semi-structured interviews with parents at home, interviews with teachers, weekly infant room observation fieldnotes, weekly infant music class video observations, parent and teacher diary entries, and artifacts such as memos, videos, and photos from the childcare and home settings. Data analysis involved identifying infant musical behaviors and their possible functions with respect to the child’s musical experience, framed as episodes. Through the use of portraiture, the individual music making of each infant was described within the contexts of the home, school, field observation, and music class settings, and relationships that developed through musical interactions were highlighted within the infant community. Results indicate that vocal and movement behaviors were the most prominent behaviors identified overall, and communication had the highest frequency of all functions. In contrast to the school-based teacher and researcher field observation settings where vocal behaviors were high, movement behaviors were identified as most prevalent during music class. The child-centered emergent curriculum provided space for the infants to demonstrate choice and leadership by setting up musical toys, pointing to an instrument, moving to indicate direction in a song, bringing song books to adults, singing fragments of songs, participating on the periphery, and gesturing for more. Infants listened and engaged in music class by moving and playing instruments and displayed their attentiveness by later recalling and initiating these activities in other settings. Increased infant room vocalizations outside music time included those resulting from delayed imitation and extensions from music class. Music is a social endeavor wherein infants build community, motivating leadership, friendship, and kinship

Visualisierung komplexer reaktiver Systeme: Annotierte Bibliographie

Reaktive Systeme müssen kontinuierlich auf ihre Umwelt reagieren; die meisten eingebetteten Echtzeitsysteme sind reaktive Systeme. Ein wesentliches Hilfsmittel für die Entwicklung reaktiver Systeme ist die Visualisierung des Systemverhaltens. Der modellbasierte Entwurf unterstützt diese Verhaltensvisualisierung; bisherige Visualisierungsmechanismen sind jedoch nur für Systeme bis zu einer gewissen Größe effektiv einsetzbar. Dieser Bericht untersucht Ursachen hierfür, und fasst bisherige Ergebnisse auf verschiedenen hierfür relevanten Gebieten der Informatik zusammen

19th Annual GC Student Research Conference schedule

19TH ANNUAL GC STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE Friday, April 22, 2016 Health Sciences Buildin

A 'paradox of the Commons'? : The planning and everyday management of Green Point Park

Cape Town's Green Point Park is a legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, built on the then dilapidated, former Common. Initially heavily contested, it is now a beautiful, popular, and well-used public space that attracts diverse people from all over the city. The thesis narrates its paradoxical story by drawing on historical and archival data, park observations, a transect walk, as well as qualitative interviews with city planners, park management, service providers, and the formerly sceptical local public. First, the thesis reflects on the conflictual planning process that led to this new urban park and a changed vision and function for the Common. Second, it explores the park's everyday operation, the management and maintenance that are central to its present acceptance and safe, clean and pristine condition. I argue that the City's planning 'by exception' of the park, and the public-private management vehicle is central to its success and differentiates it from how others operate in the city. I suggest that this neoliberally planned and managed public park produces a paradox: it has restored this space once again as a usable and accessible public 'common'. This argument challenges a literature that assumes neoliberal forms of planning and regulation to limit, at best, or destroy urban spaces, resulting in a similar 'tragedy of the commons' (Hardin, 1968) or 'end of public space' (Sorkin, 1992; Mitchell, 1995). In contrast, the thesis builds on Jerram's (2015) critique in that the traditional commons too often become 'historical fantasy,' a theorised ideal and almost impossible reality, in the contemporary neoliberal era. This more nuanced assessment of the contemporary commons is important in the South African urban context, where there is great concern that neoliberal, market-led, world city agendas perpetuate exclusion and historical legacies of segregation (Marais, 2013). In a 'paradox of the commons', this publicly regulated, privately maintained free-to-the-public park has restored what was previously a Commons, albeit an unsafe and largely unused space. The Green Point Urban Park suggests a need to 'rethink' parks and their planning and management in contemporary and neoliberal post-apartheid South Africa. They do not necessarily result in a certain 'tragedy of the commons' or 'end of public space'