460 research outputs found

    A Q-method investigation of individual value priorities in subjective well-being: understanding what makes well-being matter.

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    Objectives: The current investigation aimed to inform theory by exploring the question: How do individual value-priorities influence participants’ constructions of personal well-being? Design: The study employed Q Methodology, which assembles a comprehensive concourse of literature-informed viewpoints, operationalised as numbered qualitative statements for objective quantitative analysis. Q Method provided the ability to operationalise and integrate complex subjective values, facilitating subsequent interpretative analysis of how values influence subjective well-being. Methods: An opportunity sample of 30 participants (12 male, 18 female; 19-66 years), ranked 60 value statements according to subjective importance on a 13-point forced choice distribution grid ranging from -6 (most unimportant) to +6 (most important). Data were subjected to factor analysis and factor extraction using principle component analysis with Varimax rotation. Data sets loading on separate factors with an Eigenvalue of .06 or above were merged to form holistic factor arrays, each subjected to holistic interpretive analyses. Results: Thirteen participants (8 male 5 female), loaded significantly on five factors, (factors 1,2 and 3; three loadings), (factors 4 and 5; two loadings), accounting for 53% of the sample variance. Holistic analyses identified five themes: Exploring Life through my Choices; Faith Family Acceptance and Balance; Keeping Family Close and Embracing Life; Finding Positive Meaning in the World; Being True to Myself and Defining my Boundaries. Conclusions: Findings demonstrate that individual values have a significant influence on subsequent development of subjective constructs of personal well-being. These constructs do not conform to components associated with one distinct domain of well-being, but incorporate dynamic, interactive components from multiple domains

    Design and construction of a configurable full-field range imaging system for mobile robotic applications

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    Mobile robotic devices rely critically on extrospection sensors to determine the range to objects in the robot’s operating environment. This provides the robot with the ability both to navigate safely around obstacles and to map its environment and hence facilitate path planning and navigation. There is a requirement for a full-field range imaging system that can determine the range to any obstacle in a camera lens’ field of view accurately and in real-time. This paper details the development of a portable full-field ranging system whose bench-top version has demonstrated sub-millimetre precision. However, this precision required non-real-time acquisition rates and expensive hardware. By iterative replacement of components, a portable, modular and inexpensive version of this full-field ranger has been constructed, capable of real-time operation with some (user-defined) trade-off with precision

    Sexual signaling and immune function in the black field cricket Teleogryllus commodus

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    The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis predicts that male sexual trait expression should be positively correlated with immunocompetence. Here we investigate if immune function in the cricket, Teleogryllus commodus, is related to specific individual components of male sexual signals, as well as to certain multivariate combinations of these components that females most strongly prefer. Male T. commodus produce both advertisement and courtship calls prior to mating. We measured fine-scale structural parameters of both call types and also recorded nightly advertisement calling effort. We then measured two standard indices of immune function: lysozyme-like activity of the haemolymph and haemocyte counts. We found a weak, positive relationship between advertisement calling effort and lysozyme-like activity. There was, however, little evidence that individual structural call components or the net multivariate attractiveness of either call type signalled immune function. The relationships between immunity and sexual signaling did not differ between inbred and outbred males. Our data suggest that it is unlikely that females assess overall male immune function using male calls.This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP0555943 to M.D.J.). J.H. was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and a Royal Society Fellowship. J.M.D. was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award

    Static Controls Performance Tool for Lunar Landers

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    This document presents a static analysis tool used to evaluate the controllability of Lunar landers. This was created as part of the NASA Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) program. This tool is capable of accepting typical design information such as location and direction of thrusters, maximum thruster forces, gravity vectors, and center of mass locations. The tool evaluates how far the center of gravity can move from its starting position while still maintaining control. This type of analysis is intended to support results produced by time domain simulations. The code created for this project was implemented in Python, and it was designed to be integrated into systems level optimization tools to yield first-cut results on optimal thruster placement

    The Color of Childhood: The Role of the Child/Human Binary in the Production of Anti-Black Racism

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    The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central feature of racialization. Where Black peoples are situated as objects of violence it is often precisely because Blackness has been identified with childhood and childhood is historically identified as the archetypal site of naturalized violence and servitude. I proceed by offering a historical account of how Black peoples came to inherit the subordination and dehumanization of European childhood and how White youth were subsequently spared through their partial categorization as adults

    Isolation and Characterisation of Genes Encoding Ice Recrystallisation Inhibition Proteins (IRIPs) in the Cryophilic Antarctic Hair-Grass (\u3ci\u3eDeschampsia Antarctica\u3c/i\u3e) and the Temperate Perennial Ryegrass (\u3ci\u3eLolium Perenne\u3c/i\u3e)

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    Antarctic hairgrass (D. antarctica Desv.), the only grass species indigenous to Antarctica, has a well developed tolerance of freezing, strongly induced by cold-acclimation. In response to low temperatures D. antarctica exhibits recrystallisation inhibition (RI) activity, localised to the apoplasm, that prevents further growth of ice crystals following freezing
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