Multisystem, longitudinal study of resilience factors and positive educational outcomes for Mexican youth, A

Department Head: Ernest L. Chavez.2010 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.This study uses an ecodevelopmental framework to examine factors related to positive educational outcomes for Mexican adolescents. This framework allows exploration of a number of microsystem and mesosystem factors in middle adolescence to explain high school graduation and college graduation. Additional theoretical support for individual factors comes from the developmental assets framework. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) was used to address two primary aims: 1) to determine if high school and college graduation of Mexicans vary as a function of gender and immigrant generation; 2) to determine if individual factors, the family and friend microsystems, and the family-friend mesosystem predict high school and college graduation. No differences in these educational outcomes were found by gender or immigrant generation. An individual's aspirations and expectations about college, parent-child relationship quality, expectations for high school/college graduation, and friends' GPAs were the important predictors of both outcomes and friends' substance use was also significant for college graduation

Generalized Expression of Chorochronic Periodicity in Turbomachinery Blade-Row Interaction

The unsteady flow which is generated when 2 turbomachinery blade-rows are in relative angular motion is periodic in time with a different period in the frame of reference associated with each blade-row, and is characterized by a pitchwise traveling wave chorochronic periodicity. This periodicity is studied for arbitrary angular velocities and pitch-ratio of the 2 blade-row and simple formulae for the corresponding interblade-phase angles are given

Integration of CFD tools in aerodynamic design of contra-rotating propellers blades

A strategy for Contra-Rotating Open Rotors blades design is presented. It is based on several analytical or CFD tools with increasing levels of accuracy. A preliminary design is made with a lifting-line code. These first geometries are then validated and improved with more advanced CFD methods. Steady CFD computations on a blade passage using the mixing-plane technique permit to perform an accurate sensitivity analysis of the main blade geometrical parameters. The key parameters driving the propulsion efficiency are thus identified. Modeling rotor-rotor interactions require more costly unsteady simulations such as chorochronic computations on a blade passage, or chimera/sliding-mesh techniques on the full model for assessing even the installation effects. These methods are performed at the end of the process to validate the robustness of advanced designs to those interactions. The relevance of this strategy is discussed highlighting the results and limitations

Potential Applications of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to Organizational Research: A Primer and Sample Study

The first purpose of this manuscript is to provide a primer for organizational researchers on both fMRI and brain physiology because few are likely to have encountered an in-depth treatment of either previously. The second purpose is to present the results of an actual fMRI study on an organizational topic (structured employment interviews) as a sample to help illustrate the potential of this type of research. Results of the sample study enhanced understanding of the brain processes behind responding to situational (SI) and behavior description (BDI) interviews, and offered several promising directions for follow-up research. To illustrate the latter, there appears to be separate region of the brain for handling complex social situations, which was activated only in the SI scans. This region could help explain the common use of the impression management tactic ingratiation in SIs. Given the emerging trend for larger universities to acquire fMRI equipment for research purposes, this type of research may be more viable then ever for organizational researchers