Older Adults’ Perceptions Regarding Transportation Services in San Jose, CA: Access, Barriers, and Innovations

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of older adults concerning barriers to the use of public transportation, to identify programs and services that best meet transportation needs, and to obtain suggestions for improvements or innovations in order to enable them to engage more fully in their community. Four focus groups, with a total of 25 participants, were held in three locations in San Jose, CA. While the participants were able to use public transportation to access shopping, medical services and other destinations, they expressed concerns related to physical barriers, frequency of services, the behavior of some drivers, and cost. The groups had limited suggestions for innovations

Aftershock: Reflections on the Politics of Reconstruction in Northern Gorkha

Many commentators have described the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal either (1) through the notion that ‘nothing is going on’ in regards to postquake reconstruction; or (2) through a celebration of grassroots resilience and urban entrepreneurship in the face of disaster and state neglect. In this article, I draw on observations from Kutang and Nubri in the mountains of northern Gorkha District to argue that neither of these descriptions is fully accurate. Even in this remote and inaccessible area, much was being done in the aftermath of disaster, and a great deal of this activity diverges, in multiple ways, from the notions of spontaneous egalitarianism that are often associated with ‘resilience.’ I describe the fraught politics involved in distributing relief aid in a village where the local government has been non-existent for years; the active positioning of new political players on the local scene; and the economic inequalities that can arise from unlucky positioning along geological fault-lines, a recently booming tourist economy, and the specificities of the Nepali government’s post-disaster compensation schemes. This article sketches out the anatomy of disaster ‘aftershock’ as a political environment rife with opportunity, bias, and unintended consequences. As scholars and interested observers of Nepal and the Himalaya, we need to pay close attention to this environment and its potentially unequal outcomes that reverberate past this present moment of taking stock

Aided Communication for Adults with Developmental Disabilities

This honors project is a series of templates that will serve as a guide for residential facilities for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. What is the most effective way to facilitate communication in residential facilities for adults with developmental disabilities? While working at this type of facility during my time at Bowling Green State University, I have witnessed a need for implementation of new communication routes in the homes. While skill building such as communication is stressed in the homes, plans for staff to fulfill these skills can be lacking. The templates I have created can be used by homes such as the ones I work in so communication can become a priority for these individuals to ensure their voices are heard

The design, analysis, and testing of a low-budget wind-tunnel flutter model with active aerodynamic controls

A low budget flutter model incorporating active aerodynamic controls for flutter suppression studies was designed as both an educational and research tool to study the interfering lifting surface flutter phenomenon in the form of a swept wing-tail configuration. A flutter suppression mechanism was demonstrated on a simple semirigid three-degree-of-freedom flutter model of this configuration employing an active stabilator control, and was then verified analytically using a doublet lattice lifting surface code and the model's measured mass, mode shapes, and frequencies in a flutter analysis. Preliminary studies were significantly encouraging to extend the analysis to the larger degree of freedom AFFDL wing-tail flutter model where additional analytical flutter suppression studies indicated significant gains in flutter margins could be achieved. The analytical and experimental design of a flutter suppression system for the AFFDL model is presented along with the results of a preliminary passive flutter test

Wielding water in unwilling works: negotiated management of water scarcity in Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme, winter 1995

A paper on how a government agency tries coping with water harvesting and its management in a difficult rural irrigation scheme in Zimbabwe.This chapter analyzes how a state agency, Agritex, tries to cope with water scarcity in a smallholder irrigation scheme that is complex and difficult to manage, and that has been marred by scarcities since its outset. It does so by looking at the practices of the people involved in the management of the Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme during the winter season of 1995. irrigation management entails the control of infrastructure, managers and the local population, which together results in some kind of control of the movements of water (cf. Bolding etal., 1995). However, different infrastructural ‘improvements’, that were implemented in Nyanyadzi scheme over the years with a view to increasing the scheme’s water supply, have actually increased the complexity of controlling water flows through gates and canals. -A government-imposed (farmer) Irrigation Management Committee (IMC) has replaced the former farmer representative body that was known as the ‘Kraalhead Committee’, and finds itself in the middle ground of a complex field of government departments and their staff, and the various groups of originators trying to manage the „ scheme. The sheer number of people involved in management, as well as the imposed character of the IMC, have certainly not made things easier in controlling the operation of the scheme