Aboriginal Parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education

Aboriginal parent and community participation in the education process has been identified as a priority for educators of Aboriginal children in Western Australia. The priority is one strategy aimed at addressing the inequity of student outcomes for Aboriginal children. This study set out to investigate the opinions of school staff and Aboriginal parents regarding the opportunity for, and value of Aboriginal parental involvement in the education process. Also, similarities and differences of opinion between school staff and parents were identified and discussed. The study employed qualitative methodology and included triangulation for internal validity. Semi-structured interview schedules were used to collect the data from participants who comprised school staff and parents of Aboriginal children from five metropolitan schools. It was found that participants agree that schools are making an effort to encourage Aboriginal parental involvement in the education process but that parental involvement at school is still limited. However, many school staff believed that Aboriginal families do not value or support the education process at home, while Aboriginal parents expressed their value of education and reported involvement to varying degrees, in their children\u27s learning at home. Additionally, it was found that both school staff and parents value parental involvement at school. However, school staff value parental involvement that engages parents as agents of the school, while parents value involvement that allows them to monitor the safety and performance of their children at school. The findings of this study support the view that Aboriginal parents, not only wish to be involved, but are already involved in the education of their children. However, frequently involvement occurs in ways that are not recognised by school staff. Furthermore, Aboriginal parents can be empowered towards greater involvement when school staff acknowledge and accommodate the perspectives of Aboriginal parents. Recommendations are offered to assist schools in this endeavour

The Polariscope balloon-borne servo system

Polariscope balloon-borne servo syste

Topology synthesis of multi-input-multi-output compliant mechanisms.

A generalized formulation to design Multi-Input-Multi-Output (MIMO) compliant mechanisms is presented in this work. This formulation also covers the simplified cases of the design of Multi-Input and Multi-Output compliant mechanisms, more commonly used in the literature. A Sequential Element Rejection and Admission (SERA) method is used to obtain the optimum design that converts one or more input works into one or more output displacements in predefined directions. The SERA procedure allows material to flow between two different material models: 'real' and 'virtual'. The method works with two separate criteria for the rejection and admission of elements to efficiently achieve the optimum design. Examples of Multi-Input, Multi-Output and MIMO compliant mechanisms are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed procedure to design complex complaint mechanisms

Multicolor Polarimetry of Selected Be Stars: 1995-98

A new polarimeter called AnyPol has been used at Limber Observatory for four years to annually monitor the broadband linear polarization of a sample of bright northern Be stars. This is the fourth report on a program started in 1985 at McDonald Observatory and the first one to come entirely from the new installation. Although no variability was detected at the 3-sigma level during the current reporting period, analysis of the full 13-year data set is beginning to reveal hints of long-term variability that may provide clues for understanding the Be phenomenon.Comment: 25 pages including 17 tables; 17 figures; aaspp4 style; accepted by PAS

Flight Testing of Novel Compliant Spines for Passive Wing Morphing on Ornithopters

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are proliferating in both the civil and military markets. Flapping wing UAVs, or ornithopters, have the potential to combine the agility and maneuverability of rotary wing aircraft with excellent performance in low Reynolds number flight regimes. The purpose of this paper is to present new free flight experimental results for an ornithopter equipped with one degree of freedom (1DOF) compliant spines that were designed and optimized in terms of mass, maximum von-Mises stress, and desired wing bending deflections. The spines were inserted in an experimental ornithopter wing spar in order to achieve a set of desired kinematics during the up and down strokes of a flapping cycle. The ornithopter was flown at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the Air Force Research Laboratory Small Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) indoor flight facility. Vicon motion tracking cameras were used to track the motion of the vehicle for five different wing configurations. The effect of the presence of the compliant spine on wing kinematics and leading edge spar deflection during flight is presented. Results show that the ornithopter with the compliant spine inserted in its wing reduced the body acceleration during the upstroke which translates into overall lift gains

Topology optimization of compliant mechanisms using the homogenization method

A procedure to obtain a topology of an optimal structure considering flexibility is presented. The methodology is based on a mutual energy concept for formulation of flexibility and the homogenization method. A multi-objective optimization problem is formulated as an application of compliant mechanism design. Some examples of the design of compliant mechanisms for plane structures are presented. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34532/1/372_ftp.pd