NASA'S information technology activities for the 90's

The Office of Aeronautics, Exploration and Technology (OAET) is completing an extensive assessment of its nearly five hundred million dollars of proposed space technology development work. The budget is divided into four segments which are as follows: (1) the base research and technology program; (2) the Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI); (3) the Exploration Technology Program (ETP); and (4) the High Performance Computing Initiative (HPCI). The programs are briefly discussed in the context of Astrotech 21

2007 Disability Status Reports: United States

The Annual Disability Status Reports provide policy makers, disability advocates, reporters, and the public with a summary of the most recent demographic and economic statistics on the working-age (ages 21-64) population with disabilities. They contain information on the population size, prevalence, employment, earnings, poverty, household income, home ownership, and activity limitations of working-age people with disabilities, as well as the composition of this population by age, race, gender, and educational attainment

2008 Disability Status Reports: United States

The Annual Disability Status Reports provide policy makers, disability advocates, reporters, and the public with a summary of the most recent demographic and economic statistics on the working-age (ages 21-64) population with disabilities. They contain information on the population size, prevalence, employment, earnings, poverty, household income, home ownership, and activity limitations of working-age people with disabilities, as well as the composition of this population by age, race, gender, and educational attainment. This year, for the first time, the report also includes information about health insurance coverage and veteran’s service-connected disability rating

Predicting Student Performance Using Online One-Minute Papers

One-minute papers are often used to encourage students to think and write briefly about their own learning, because teachers believe that metacognition and writing help students to learn.  The proportion of online one-minute papers that students submit, however, has not previously been used to explain student achievement in economics.  This paper shows that the completion rate is a very significant predictor of student performance after controlling for other variables already noted in the literature. Removing small observation categories does not affect the significance or stability of key regression coefficients.  Students who complete online one-minute papers more regularly also perform better in Principles of Microeconomics.&nbsp

Social media, social capital, and seniors: The impact of Facebook on bonding and bridging social capital of individuals over 65.

Online social networks may be important avenues for building and maintaining social capital as adult’s age. However, fewstudies have explicitly examined the role online communities play in the lives of seniors. In this exploratory study, U.S.seniors were interviewed to assess the impact of Facebook on social capital. Interpretive thematic analysis reveals Facebookfacilitates connections to loved ones and may indirectly facilitate bonding social capital. Awareness generated via Facebookoften lead to the sharing and receipt of emotional support via other channels. As such, Facebook acted as a catalyst forincreasing social capital. The implication of “awareness” as a new dimension of social capital theory is discussed.Additionally, Facebook was found to have potential negative impacts on seniors’ current relationships due to open access topersonal information. Finally, common concerns related to privacy, comfort with technology, and inappropriate content wererevealed

An Investigation To Determine The Prevalence Of Starvation Dieting Among High School Students As Affected By Gender, Race and Socioeconomic Status

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of anorexia nervosa, or extreme starvation dieting, among high school students as affected by gender, race and socioeconomic status. Three hundred Dade County high school students (one hundred from each of three high schools) were used in this study. School sites were chosen by their socioeconomic status as determined by the percentage of free or reduced lunches as listed in Statistical Highlights, 1989-1990, published by the Dade County Planning Department. All 300 students were administered the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), a self report questionnaire designed to assess the cognitive and behavioral dimensions characteristic of anorexia nervosa. Hypotheses were formulated and tested by a discriminant analysis of variance with .05 as the acceptable probability level. The F-test determined the prevalence of food preoccupation (the dependent variable) among students and the propensity toward starvation dieting as affected by (the independent variables) gender, race and socioeconomic status. As a result of these data, a workshop was designed for high school students, focus on issues of concern with regard to weight preoccupation and eating disorder behaviors. An advisory panel comprised of physicians and psychologists in four clinical settings that treat eating disorders was consulted to discuss pertinent topics to be incorporated in the workshop. Panel members reviewed the completed workshop designed for validation. From the 300 students administered the EDI, thirty were selected at random (ten from each of the three high schools) to partake in the four week workshop. It is purported throughout the literature that there is a strong correlation between one\u27s self-esteem and feelings of well-being. Therefore, the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale was administered pre- and post- treatment to determine whether the workshop affected students\u27 feelings of self-worth. A dependent t-test for testing the difference between sample means was performed at the .05 level of confidence. Data on the variables were collected, measured, statistically analyzed, and presented in the study. The conclusions from this study, as measured by the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), were that there was a difference in the prevalence of anorexia nervosa between high school female students and high school male students, with female students scoring significantly higher than male students, indicating a greater propensity toward anorexia nervosa, or starvation dieting. There was a difference in the prevalence of anorexia nervosa between white high school students and non-white high school students. White high school students\u27 scores were significantly higher than the scores of non-white students, thus revealing a greater tendency toward extreme dieting, and/or weight preoccupation. This finding further substantiated that cultural expectations influence attitudes about eating, as was brought out in the literature. There was a difference in the prevalence of anorexia nervosa between white female high school students and non-white female high school students, with white female students\u27 scores more closely paralleling scores of anorexic students and college female students as determined in previous studies and recorded on the Eating Disorder Inventory Form. However, scores of non-white high school females more closely resembled scores of anorexic patients than did white male students, again confirming that gender played a more significant role as pertains to eating disorders than does ethnicity. There was a difference in the prevalence of anorexia nervosa between white male high school and non-white male high school students. White male high school students\u27 scores compared to non-white male high school students were greater, indicating a possibility for weight preoccupation. The scores of white male high school students were lower, however, than white and non-white females, an indication of the importance placed on dieting by females compared to males. Socioeconomic status did affect the existence of eating disorders in high school students with students with high scores obtained from students residing in the upper socioeconomic status. As previous research attests, scores of students from higher income families were greater than the scores from middle and lower socioeconomic levels and more closely approximated the scores of subjects previously diagnosed with disordered eating patterns. This substantiated the literature which attributes eating disorders to families who demand perfection and encourage challenge and competition among its members, often found in opulent settings. There was a difference in self-esteem among weight preoccupied students who participated in a one month eating disorder workshop with an increase in self-esteem upon completion of the workshop, as measured by the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale. This fact further verifies the positive influence supportive counseling has on students with an eating disorder related problem. It is recommended, as a result of the above conclusions, that an eating disorder workshop be incorporated in the Dade County School district to facilitate a reduction in the now rising increase of starvation dieting among students in Miami and surrounding suburbs. It is further recommended that similar workshops be implemented in school settings nationwide to reduce the spread of starvation dieting in college ana high school settings across the country

Multiplicative Number - Theoretic Functions

Quite frequently in the study of number theory we become acquainted with special functions which are defined on the set of positive integers. These functions are known as Number-theoretic functions or Arithmetical functions. This report will give some of the general ideas of the multipli­cative number-theoretic functions. The first part of this report will be devoted to the general develop­ment of such functions by means of definitions and theorems. The second part will consist of generalizations of a particular function, the -r-function. Throughout this paper, lower case Greek letters will represent real numbers and lower case English letters will represent integers. Also the basic ideas of summation and product will be assumed as already familiar to the reader

ILR Impact Brief - Community College Websites and Barriers to Access

[Excerpt] Community colleges, on average, serve 335 students with disabilities, although that number climbs to 5,000 at the largest college surveyed for this project. Nearly all community colleges that participated in the survey rely on the web for a variety of student services, but only half have instituted requirements regarding web accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Actual evaluations of accessibility and ease of use revealed that none of the websites analyzed complied with all federal standards on accessibility, and many web pages encompassed usability obstacles (e.g., unfamiliar terminology, unintuitive navigation schemes, and hard-to-read design elements) that affected disabled and non-disabled individuals alike

Web-Based Student Processes at Community Colleges: Removing Barriers to Access

Colleges and universities are making extensive use of the Internet for collecting admission and financial aid applications. Benefits from online application services are enjoyed by both the educational institution and the prospec¬tive student who applies online. It is vital that web sites offering these services be made accessible so that students with disabilities are afforded the same benefits of online applications as their non-disabled peers. Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute was funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) to conduct a project with the following three objectives: 1) survey student services professionals at community colleges to examine the extent of use of the internet for providing services and the awareness of internet accessibility issues, 2) evaluate a sample of community college websites for accessibility and usability by students with and without disabilities, and 3) develop a toolkit for improving access to internet-based services at community colleges

Wilson loops in SYM theory: from weak to strong coupling

We review Wilson loops in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with emphasis on the exact results. The implications are discussed in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure