Motivation and Performance, Blog 3

Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Moral aspirations and ideals

My aim is to vindicate two distinct and important moral categories – ideals and aspirations – which have received modest, and sometimes negative, attention in recent normative debates. An ideal is a conception of perfection or model of excellence around which we can shape our thoughts and actions. An aspiration, by contrast, is an attitudinal position of steadfast commitment to, striving for, or deep desire or longing for, an ideal. I locate these two concepts in relation to more familiar moral concepts such as duty, virtue, and the good to demonstrate, amongst other things, first, that what is morally significant about ideals and aspirations cannot be fully accommodated within a virtue ethical framework that gives a central role to the Virtuous Person as a purported model of excellence. On a certain interpretation, the Virtuous Person is not a meaningful ideal for moral agents. Second, I articulate one sense in which aspirations are morally required imaginative acts given their potential to expand the realm of practical moral possibility

SUITABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Preparing teachers to support inclusion: The benefits of interaction between a group of pre-service teachers and a teaching assistant who is disabled.

This qualitative study investigates the development of preservice teachers' attitudes toward people with disabilities during a semester-long unit. Ten students enrolled in a special education teaching elective were interviewed before and after they were engaged in a teaching program designed to expose them to direct, structured interactions with a teaching assistant who was physically disabled. The teaching assistant interacted with students in both small and large group tutorial discussions throughout the semester. Also, students kept a reflective journal on their experiences with people with disabilities throughout the teaching program. Data were collected through the use of semi-structured interviews and journals, and analysis indicated that: (i) students developed a more positive attitude and became more comfortable in interacting with the teaching assistant during the semester, and (ii) learning experience improved their knowledge about disability issues

Whole-grain foods and chronic disease: evidence from epidemiological and intervention studies

Cereal-based foods are key components of the diet and they dominate most food-based dietary recommendations in order to achieve targets for intake of carbohydrate, protein and dietary fibre. Processing (milling) of grains to produce refined grain products removes key nutrients and phytochemicals from the flour and although in some countries nutrients may be replaced with mandatory fortification, overall this refinement reduces their potential nutritional quality. There is increasing evidence from both observational and intervention studies that increased intake of less-refined, whole-grain (WG) foods has positive health benefits. The highest WG consumers are consistently shown to have lower risk of developing CVD, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. WG consumers may also have better digestive health and are likely to have lower BMI and gain less weight over time. The bulk of the evidence for the benefits of WG comes from observational studies, but evidence of benefit in intervention studies and potential mechanisms of action is increasing. Overall this evidence supports the promotion of WG foods over refined grain foods in the diet, but this would require adoption of standard definitions of 'whole grain' and 'whole-grain foods' which will enable innovation by food manufacturers, provide clarity for the consumer and encourage the implementation of food-based dietary recommendations and public health strategies

A comparison of Halley dust with meteorites, interplanetary dust and interstellar grains

The variability of the mineral forming elements in the submicron Halley grains provides a powerful basis for comparison of Halley with the different classes of meteoritic materials that have been studied in the lab. The degree of variability in the Halley samples is larger than that seen in chondrites implying that Halley is more heterogeneous at the submicron scale. A critical distinction is that Halley contains abundant pure Mg silicates at the size scale while the carbon rich meteorites do not. The submicron dispersion composition seen in Halley is dramatically different from the narrowly constrained compositions seen in CI and CM (type 1 and 2) carbonaceous chondrites. These meteorites are carbon rich but are dominated by a hydrated silicate with a very narrow range of Mg/Si ratio. The Halley results are also unlike the composition variations seen in most of interplanetary dust types that are dominated by hydrated materials. The only known class of meteoritic material that appear to closely resemble the Halley data is a class of cosmic dust composed entirely of anhydrous minerals. The composition implies that Halley is dominated by olivine, pyroxene, iron sulfide, glass and amorphous carbonaceous matter

An experimental investigation of unstable combustion in solid propellant rocket motors

Unstable combustion in solid propellant rocket motors is characterized by high frequency chamber pressure oscillations, often accompanied by changes in the mean burning rate. Experiments with casebonded, cylindrically perforated motors using a polysulfide, ammoniumperchlorate propellant were reproducible as a result of careful manufacturing control and extended propellant curing time. In these motors the oscillations were in the fundamental standing tangential mode and were accompanied by increases in the average burning rate. At sufficiently high pressure levels all firings were stable. Reduction of the operating level led to mild instability. A sufficient further reduction produced a sudden change to maximum instability. Continued reduction in pressure level from this point resulted in a gradual decrease in the degree of instability but it could not be experimentally verified that a low pressure stable region existed. The levels at which these events took place were frequency dependent and generally increased as the tangential frequency was reduced. At a given operating leve1, the instability became less severe when the grain length was reduced below a critical value. Increasing the length above the critical value did not affect the level at which the motors became stable. The pressure levels for stability and for maximum instability moved to lower values with decreases in the propellant grain temperature in a manner not entirely accounted for by the effect of grain temperature on burning rate. Stable, mildly unstable and severely unstable operation was observed throughout the range -80°F to 180°F. The maximum instability decreased with grain temperature