Oral History Interview: Earl Balderson

Mr. Balderson has spent most of his life in Lockhart, West Virginia. He worked at a variety of jobs before purchasing a grocery store in Lockhart where in 1976 he continued to reside. This interview deals with Mr. Balderson\u27s work experiences. He discusses teaching school, the army, and his grocery store.https://mds.marshall.edu/oral_history/1195/thumbnail.jp

The effects of a personal responsibility model on individual student and class-wide social behaviors

Teaching students social values has long been associated with K-12 education (Solomon, Watson, Delucchi, Schaps, 1988). With the rise of anti social behavior among children and youth in schools (Volokh & Snell, 1998) practitioners and scholars alike are re-focusing their attention on implementing and empirically documenting social skill programs (Hellison, 2003; Solomon, Watson, Battistich, Schaps, & Delucchi, 1996; Martinek & Hellison, 1998; Shields & Bredemeier, 1995; DeBusk & Hellison, 1989). The context of physical education, due to its naturally interactive and conflict oriented environment, may be an ideal setting for social skill development. Although widely used but with little research support, the personal responsibility model encourages students to apply positive social behavior through group discussion, goal setting and reflection (Hellison, 2003; Hellison & Walsh, 2002). The current research examined the effects of the personal responsibility intervention on individual and class wide anti and positive social behavior. Three students were chosen as participants based on the observed persistence of anti social behavior. A multiple baseline, behavior analytic design was used to best determine the effects of the intervention on the students. A pre-test--post-test, control group design was also used to determine the effects of the intervention on the entire class in which the intervention was implemented. The results showed immediate effects on the three observed students in the reduction of socially and personally irresponsible behavior. In addition, data from all three students demonstrated increases in the amount of time the students were fully participating without direct teacher supervision (self direction). Data also showed similar increases in caring types of behaviors. The results from the group comparisons showed a statistically significant difference (p\u3c.01) between the group that received the interventions pre and post test scores for both anti and positive social behavior. A statistically significant difference (p\u3c.01) was also found between the post-test scores for the group of students who received the intervention and the students who did not

The effects of a personal accountability and personal responsibility model on urban elementary student positive social and off-task behaviors

In the past few decades, the challenge of violent and disruptive behaviors among our children and youth has been on the rise. This study provides one intervention model focused on personal accountability and personal responsibility designed to reduce off-task and disruptive behavior in school settings, and designed to increase positive social behaviors among children and youth. A multiple treatment ABAD, ACAD, ADA, control behavior analysis design was implemented across four distinct elementary physical education classes matched for participant and setting similarity. Measures included number of occurrence and percentage of class time across Teacher Management, Student Leadership, Passive and Disruptive Student Off-Task, Positive Social Behavior, and Student Conflict and Student Conflict Resolution Behaviors. Results indicated that both Personal Accountability and Personal Responsibility treatments were effective in changing all behavioral measures in the desired direction, with Personal Responsibility particularly effective with more complex behaviors such as Positive Social Behavior and Student Conflict Resolution. Given the short duration of this study, recommendations include studying the long range and generalized effect of physical education-based treatments for children and youth in need of social skill instruction

Knowledge’s value: internalism and externalism.

This thesis engages with epistemology’s value problem. That is, is knowledge epistemically preferable to true belief? If so, how is that the case? The issue under discussion is whether epistemic justification can account for a value discrepancy between true belief and knowledge. First of all, the contours of the justificatory landscape are presented—in particular, the division between externalist and internalist styles. The thesis then considers whether solely truth-directed justification (which includes externalism) can possibly account for a value unique to knowledge. The preliminary conclusion is that solely truth-directed justification cannot solve the value problem. A discussion of internalism then ensues. The discussion does not focus explicitly on which benefits internalism may offer in terms of value; instead, the focus is on whether internalism qua internalism can solve the value problem. It is concluded that, if internalism is the sole provider of the value of knowledge (above that of true belief), then epistemology must forgo the belief that knowledge is preferable to a Gettiered belief. I do not accept such a concession; therefore, I reject the thesis that internalism exclusively solves the value problem. Throughout the thesis, the importance of externalism to epistemology becomes apparent. This feature invites a reconsideration of the value of externalism (in particular, of reliabilism). The thesis closes by reconsidering the value of reliabilism and concludes that the value problem can be solved, but only by an appeal to externalist justification

Reinforcing Additives for Ice Adhesion Reduction Coatings

Adhesion of contaminants has been identified as a ubiquitous issue for aeronautic exterior surfaces. In-flight icing is particularly hazardous for all aircraft and can be experienced throughout the year under the appropriate environmental conditions. On larger vehicles, the accretion of ice could result in loss of lift, engine failure, and potentially loss of vehicle and life were it not for active deicing or anti-icing equipment. Smaller vehicles though cannot support the mass and mechanical complexity of active ice mitigating systems and thus must rely upon passive approaches or avoid icing conditions altogether. One approach that may be applicable to all aircraft is the use of coatings. Durability remains an issue and has prevented realization of coatings for leading edge contamination mitigation. In this work, epoxy coatings were generated as a passive approach for ice adhesion mitigation and methods to improve durability were evaluated. Highly cross-linked epoxy systems can be extremely rigid, which could have deleterious consequences regarding application as a leading edge coating. Incorporation of flexible species, such as poly(ethylene glycol) may improve coating toughness.8 Additionally, core-shell rubber (CSR) particles have been utilized to improve fracture toughness of epoxies.9 Both of these more established additives are investigated in this work. An emerging additive that is also evaluated here is holey graphene. This nanomaterial possesses many of the advantageous properties of graphene (excellent mechanical properties, thermal and electrical conductivity, large surface area, etc.) while also exhibiting behaviors associated with flexible, porous materials (i.e., compressibility, increased permeation, etc.). Holey graphene, HG, was synthesized by the oxidation of defect-rich sites on graphene sheets through controlled thermal expo-sure.10 It is envisioned that the porous nature of HG would allow resin penetration through the graphitic plane, resulting in better interfacial interaction and therefore better translation of the nanomaterials properties to the surrounding matrix

A shorter working week for everyone: How much paid work is needed for mental health and well-being?

There are predictions that in future rapid technological development could result in a significant shortage of paid work. A possible option currently debated by academics, policy makers, trade unions, employers and mass media, is a shorter working week for everyone. In this context, two important research questions that have not been asked so far are: what is the minimum amount of paid employment needed to deliver some or all of the well-being and mental health benefits that employment has been shown to bring? And what is the optimum number of working hours at which the mental health of workers is at its highest? To answer these questions, this study used the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2018) data from individuals aged between 16 and 64. The analytical sample was 156,734 person-wave observations from 84,993 unique persons of whom 71,113 had two or more measurement times. Fixed effects regressions were applied to examine how changes in work hours were linked to changes in mental well-being within each individual over time. This study found that even a small number of working hours (between one and 8 h a week) generates significant mental health and well-being benefits for previously unemployed or economically inactive individuals. The findings suggest there is no single optimum number of working hours at which well-being and mental health are at their highest - for most groups of workers there was little variation in wellbeing between the lowest (1-8 h) through to the highest (44-48 h) category of working hours. These findings provide important and timely empirical evidence for future of work planning, shorter working week policies and have implications for theorising the future models of organising work in society

Depression and the Relationship Between Sleep Disturbances, Nightmares, and Suicidal Ideation in Treatment-Seeking Canadian Armed Forces Members and Veterans

Background: Research on the relationship between insomnia and nightmares, and suicidal ideation (SI) has produced variable findings, especially with regard to military samples. This study investigates whether depression mediated the relationship between: 1) sleep disturbances and SI, and 2) trauma-related nightmares and SI, in a sample of treatment-seeking Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and veterans (N = 663). Method: Regression analyses were used to investigate associations between sleep disturbances or trauma-related nightmares and SI while controlling for depressive symptom severity, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity, anxiety symptom severity, and alcohol use severity. Bootstrapped resampling analyses were used to investigate the mediating effect of depression. Results: Approximately two-thirds of the sample (68%; N = 400) endorsed sleep disturbances and 88% (N = 516) reported experiencing trauma-related nightmares. Although sleep disturbances and trauma-related nightmares were both significantly associated with SI on their own, these relationships were no longer significant when other psychiatric conditions were included in the models. Instead, depressive symptom severity emerged as the only variable significantly associated with SI in both equations. Bootstrap resampling analyses confirmed a significant mediating role of depression for sleep disturbances. Conclusions: The findings suggest that sleep disturbances and trauma-related nightmares are associated with SI as a function of depressive symptoms in treatment-seeking CAF personnel and veterans. Treating depression in patients who present with sleep difficulties may subsequently help mitigate suicide risk