The Cost of Ignorance: Shell-Shock in Britain during World War I

Because shell-shock is a term specific to World War I but describes a condition which remains today, this paper sets the context for studying the British experience of shell-shock by carefully explaining what modern psychology says regarding PTSD and examining a few select texts by Wilfred Owen to demonstrate the psychological concepts in historic pieces. A historical comparison is made between the modern understanding of PTSD and the historic understanding of shell-shock as set forth in the Freudian paradigm between 1914 and 1920. The final pages examine the effects of this paradigm on the conclusions drawn by the War Office Committee of Enquiry into ‘Shell-Shock’. The argument set forth in this paper asserts that the attempts by British Officials to effectively respond to the consequences of the emergence of shell-shock as a widespread condition among English soldiers in World War I, particularly in the conclusions of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into Shell-Shock, demonstrate a pervasive ignorance of the underlying causes of mental illness due to prevailing paradigms for cultural behavior and psychological understanding. Because the committee’s conclusions emphasized military training rather than a better understanding of shell-shock psychologically, officials failed to implement significant changes in mental health treatment as a precedent for future wars. The logical conclusion made from this argument emphasizes that historians, not condemning past officials for their lack of understanding, they must understand the tragic cost of this ignorance in Britain and globally if they are to be of use to future policy makers

Creativity in Asynchronous Online Discussions

It is vital for online educators to know whether the strategies they use help students gain 21st-century skills. One skill that has been identified as important in the 21st century is creativity; however, a gap existed in the literature concerning whether online courses could help students to develop creativity. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether participation in online courses can help students develop creativity using asynchronous online discussions, textbooks, and teacher developed materials. Amabile\u27s componential model of creativity formed the study\u27s conceptual framework. A case-study approach was used to examine the question of whether asynchronous online discussions and other materials used in online courses could help students develop creativity. One professor, recognized by her peers for her expertise in online education, and three of her online graduate students who volunteered for the study, were interviewed using Zoom. Twenty-nine transcripts of asynchronous online discussions were analyzed using a sequential process of building an explanation, checking the explanation against the data, and repeating the process. Key results from the study indicated that project-based prompts, problem-based prompts, and heuristics used in asynchronous online discussions can help promote creativity. Recommendations for future research include conducting a similar case study with a more diverse group of participants and with a course in a different specialty. These findings may promote social change by helping online instructors use appropriate prompts for asynchronous online discussions that will help students refine their creative skills to ultimately use them in the 21st-century workplace

A Little Something for Me and Maybe for You, too: Promotions that Relieve Guilt

The goal of this research was to investigate whether considering the balances of intrapersonal and interpersonal consumption would reduce consumption guilt. Feelings of guilt discourage many consumers from purchasing products and services they associate primarily with pleasure (Okada 2005), especially when consuming them is considered unhealthy or improper (Prelec and Herrnstein 1991), models or packages that are higher priced because they include unnecessary features (Nowlis and Simonson 1996), and other items whose purchase is perceived as violating social or cultural norms (Lascu 1991; Thaler and Shefrin, 1981). We show that gift-with-purchase promotions designed with careful attention to the nature of the gift and its intended user can reduce guilt by counterbalancing the self-indulgence or creating a favorable comparison with another’s consumption

Near Threshold Sediment Transport by a Forced Jet Impinging on a Mobile Sediment Bed

Although sediment transport has been extensively studied in the past, flows such as rotorcraft brownout with large-scale coherent structures call many of the simplifying assumptions into question. The objective of this study is to develop a model for the prediction of sediment removal, referred to as erosion, based on independent measurements of the single-phase flow and the evolution of bedforms on the surface of a mobile sediment bed. A series of phase-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) flow measurements have been conducted to quantify the stress induced by an acoustically forced impinging jet, analagous to tip-vortices within the rotor wake. The threshold conditions for incipient particle motion are quantified through a series of PIV measurements of the single-phase flow at conditions found to produce quantifiable erosion of the surface. A force balance approach is used to develop a model, following the theory presented by Bagnold (1966), to predict the transport of sediment due to the stress above the theshold. A series of surface elevation measurements are analyzed to quantify the removal of sediment, for the evaluation of the predicted model. An additional series of PIV measurements are performed on a prototype bedform, modeled after the observed bedforms, to quantify the changes in the flow field caused by their developement. The proposed model is shown to provide a better prediction of the observed erosion than classical sediment transport models, especially for cases close to the threshold conditions. For higher speed cases however, the model dramatically over predicts the observed erosion. Several physcially-based explanations are provided for this kink in the trend

Prospects and problems in modeling group decisions

This paper summarizes some of the major issues related to group decision modeling. We briefly review the existing work on group choice models in marketing and consumer research. We draw some generalizations about which models work well when and use those generalizations to provide guidelines for future research.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47074/1/11002_2004_Article_BF00554128.pd

Demonstration of natural gas reburn for NO{sub x} emissions reduction at Ohio Edison Company`s cyclone-fired Niles Plant Unit Number 1

Electric utility power plants account for about one-third of the NO{sub x} and two-thirds of the SO{sub 2} emissions in the US cyclone-fired boilers, while representing about 9% of the US coal-fired generating capacity, emit about 14% of the NO{sub x} produced by coal-fired utility boilers. Given this background, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Gas Research Institute, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center, and the Ohio Coal Development Office sponsored a program led by ABB Combustion Engineering, Inc. (ABB-CE) to demonstrate reburning on a cyclone-fired boiler. Ohio Edison provided Unit No. 1 at their Niles Station for the reburn demonstration along with financial assistance. The Niles Unit No. 1 reburn system was started up in September 1990. This reburn program was the first full-scale reburn system demonstration in the US. This report describes work performed during the program. The work included a review of reburn technology, aerodynamic flow model testing of reburn system design concepts, design and construction of the reburn system, parametric performance testing, long-term load dispatch testing, and boiler tube wall thickness monitoring. The report also contains a description of the Niles No. 1 host unit, a discussion of conclusions and recommendations derived from the program, tabulation of data from parametric and long-term tests, and appendices which contain additional tabulated test results

How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program