The Importance of Including Interactive Immersive Technology in Instructional Design to Enhance Learner and User Experience

Americans looking for work and preparing to enter the labor force use technology during every part of the journey. Every generation in the labor force and preparing to enter the labor force as freelancers, contractors, and employees need clear, effective support materials to learn how to do their job, stay abreast of the ever-changing job requirements, and deliver a satisfactory job performance. Solving the labor shortage in America will take a concerted effort from those in the private sector. Technical communicators tasked with the responsibility of designing instructional resources should know how to include interactive immersive technology in product use and training materials to enhance learner and user experience. Employers and clients must provide administrative and financial support in order for technical communicators to include these technologies

Laurel Wilt in Sassafras Along the Leading Edge of Disease Progression in the Carolinas

The laurel wilt disease complex consists of a beetle vector (redbay ambrosia beetle (RAB); Xyleborus glabratus Eichhoff (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae)), a symbiotic fungus and tree pathogen (Raffaelea lauricola (Ophiostomataceae) T.C. Harr., Fraedrich & Aghayeva), and host trees (Lauraceae). RAB originated from Asia and was first discovered in the United States near Savannah, Georgia in 2002. RAB deposits R. lauricola in host trees, including redbay (Persea borbonia) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum), when females tunnel into trees to lay eggs. Xyleborus glabratus attacking sassafras may have far reaching ecosystem impacts due to the expansive range of sassafras in the eastern United States and RABs ability to survive low temperatures. Our objectives were to determine how laurel wilt disease ecology differs in sassafras vs redbay. Specifically, we examined laurel wilt ecology in redbay and sassafras along the leading edge of disease by 1) examining patterns of RAB attack and brood productivity on redbay and sassafras stems and 2) examining the movement of R. lauricola through sassafras roots in the absence of RAB. Overall, there was a clustered pattern of RAB attack on host stems with beetles attacking the North and South faces of sassafras but not redbay. Redbay trees had lower moisture content and more beetle emergence than sassafras. Raffaelea lauricola does have the ability to move via sassafras roots. Site 3 had the most symptomatic trees and mortality, however, site consists of many variables, so the specific environmental variables driving these changes is unknown. Distance from the inoculated tree impacted the final crown condition with the class 0 to \u3c10 ft being the most consistently affected

Development of Future Leaders in the Christian Church

The thesis project, Development of Future Leaders in the Christian Church, was developed to address the decline in youth attendance, retention, and participation in The Mountain Christian Church in Nicholasville, Kentucky. There has been a consistent decline in the number of youths who attend and participate in the church after high school graduation. After a review of literature and case study, which included a survey, questionnaire, and roundtable discussions, this researcher determined that the cause of the problem was that the church lacked programs for youth that lead them to Christian maturity and an opportunity for leadership skills training. The study was divided into five themes; youth needs for religious practice and relationships, development of youth leadership skills endorsed by the church, the influence of leaders and parents on youth retention in church, leadership behavior shaping in youth, and experiences that lead youth to Christian maturity. The questions in the survey, questionnaire, and roundtable discussions were divided into thematic categories, and the responses were analyzed using a qualitative research method. The study yielded information regarding why youth choose to no longer attend church after graduating from high school. Youth and adults agreed that programs that lead to spiritual maturation were foundational to address the problem. An intergenerational approach to guide youth to spiritual maturation and become active participants and leaders in the church is the cornerstone and impetus for change at The Mountain Christian Church

Forced Evictions, Homelessness, and Destruction: Summer Games ? Olympic Violations of the Right to Adequate Housing in Rio de Janeiro

This article details the violations of the right to housing that took place in preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Analyzed under the international, regional, and domestic instruments that enumerate this guarantee, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Charter and the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of the Organization of American States, and the Constitution of Brazil, the aim of this work is to draw attention to the systematic deprivation of one of the most central human rights in the name of the Games

Whole Language Teaching and Learning: Is It For Everyone?

Beginning the formal study of music theory well into mid-life has enabled me to focus with new clarity on a gnawing concern. This concern, which has pursued me as I have walked with my undergraduate majors into the era of whole language, has two dimensions — both young children and novice teachers. The first concern is those particular young children, who when immersed in a print rich environment, fail to make the inductive leaps which allow them to become emergent readers (O\u27Donnell and Wood, 1992). My second concern is the early childhood and elementary preservice teachers who are so indoctrinated in the practice of whole language that they have few alternatives when this approach fails to provide success for every child

Timing of alveolar cleft bone grafting in maxillary alveolar cleft defects

Numerous methods have been attempted to identify the best time for secondary alveolar cleft bone grafting, including chronological age, skeletal age, and dental age. However, few studies have employed objective methods of assessment that would permit statistical analysis. Fifty-nine patients with clefts of the alveolus who acquired secondary alveolar cleft grafts at the Lancaster Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic were studied. A total of 74 affected areas from 15 bilateral and 44 unilateral alveolar cleft patients were available. Timing of the graft was determined utilizing root development of the involved canine, as compared to crown length, from a high quality pre-graft radiograph taken no more than six weeks prior to surgery. A Post-graph radiograph exposed approximately 2 years post-surgery was digitized to assess the final bony architecture

Wind-Driven, Near-Bottom Currents Over the West Louisiana Inner Continental Shelf.

Forcing mechanisms and water column response over the West Louisiana Inner Continental Shelf (WLICS) are investigated at various temporal and spatial scales. The major mechanisms that have an effect on shallow-water currents over the WLICS are winds, runoff from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, and circulation of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Summer wind stress values are low and currents generally meander over the inner shelf during this period. A shift in the direction of the regional wind stress in late June causes a reversal in the current direction over the west Louisiana shelf. Autumn currents are primarily westward in response to predominantly westward wind stress. Winter currents are primarily westward, but during frontal passages the current swings rapidly to the east. As winds become easterly, the currents return to their westward set. During the spring the flood on the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers introduces a large amount of fresh water into the coastal waters. The fresh water causes density gradients, which decouple near-bottom flow from surface winds and increase the intensity of the westward currents. During the autumn and winter regional-scale cyclonic flow, generated by a succession of cold-front passages, helps to maintain flow over the WLICS in a westward direction. Four periods of frontal passage in 1979 are studied in detail. Strong alongshelf wind stress is common during the January and March frontal periods. An investigation of water column dynamics reveals that the alongshelf wind stress accelerates the water column and generates a frictional boundary layer at the bottom. A strong high pressure system pushes a front across the WLICS from the north during February. Dynamically, low alongshelf wind stress accelerates the water column, but it is not strong enough to establish a frictional balance. An alongshelf pressure gradient also influences the water column dynamics. South-southeasterly winds and freshwater runoff dominate the April frontal period. The alongshelf wind stress accelerates the water column, but no frictional balance is established. A pressure gradient term due to the Atchafalaya flood contributes to the momentum balance

Expanding the Bounds of Critique: Kant, Benjamin and the Coming Philosophy

This project attempts to trace a continuity which runs from Walter Benjamin’s early writings on language and the coming philosophy through to his Arcades Project. Benjamin’s early writings on the Kantian critical system stipulate the need to bring the clarity and consistency of the critical system into relation with time, ephemera and history. This project argues that Benjamin’s early demands are developed via his encounter with the literary techniques of surrealism and the artistic techniques of Baudelaire’s Monsieur G. Ultimately, this work contends that Benjamin’s Arcades Project attempts to synthesize both the techniques developed in Benjamin’s middle period and the goals put forward in his early writings

Method for reducing sidelobe impact of low order aberration in a coronagraph

The invention relates to a method for reducing a sidelobe impact of low order aberrations using a coronagraph (2) having an apodized occulting mask (10), comprising the steps of: (a) providing in the coronagraph (2) the apodized occulting disk (10) having a transmission profile which graduates from opaque to transparent along its radius and the negative of whose amplitude transmission is a Gaussian profile; (b) determining a predicted sidelobe impact of the aberrations from a particular mix of low order aberration measured in a system as described by the Zernike polynomials; (c) applying the coronagraph to a system point spread function using a given rms width for the Gaussian profile describing the apodized occulting mask (10) and determining an attenuation level of the aberration sidelobes; (d) scaling the Gaussian occulting mask (10) profile to a wider rms width if the sidelobe attenuation level is too low; and (e) repeating the steps (b) through (d) until the attenuation level is acceptable