'I wanted to meet the needs of the people’: Exploring volunteers' accounts of their participation

This thesis explores the personal accounts of volunteers within a range of volunteer organisations in Yorkshire. An attempt to understand the influences and behaviour of volunteers has been studied for decades by researchers from the fields of psychology, economics and sociology. The purpose for undertaking this research was based on the knowledge that whilst there is a significant amount of literature focusing on volunteers and volunteering, there appeared to be a gap of empirical qualitative research focussing on the personal accounts of volunteers. This research consisted of semi-structured interviews with fourteen formal volunteers. The sample for the study was chosen based on a purposive sampling technique, allowing for specific characteristics of individuals to be chosen. The findings from the interviews highlighted that religion is constructed play an important factor in why people volunteer. Religion played an important role in the lives of many of the participants in the research and they all linked their religion to their voluntary work. Whilst religion emerged from the findings as being an important influence to volunteers so did age and family and it was these factors that also distinguished between the choices of volunteer organisations

The Challenge of Effective Family/School Partnerships: The Middle School Parent Teacher Leadership Academy Pilot Program

Research supports the idea that positive family/school community partnerships during middle school can enhance student success. Thus schools are partnering with local universities to increase school and student outcomes. In order to support local middle schools, The University of Alabama created the Middle School Parent Teacher Leadership Academy, a training program that prepares middle school parent and teacher leaders with the skills to strengthen school and student outcomes. Using a mixed methods design, we analyzed pilot data from the first year of the Academy on parents’ and teachers’ leadership behaviors and self-efficacy. Pretest and posttest results showed that parent and teacher participants significantly increased their leadership behaviors. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed answers to the question: “What has the Academy meant to you?” as follows: 1) Facilitates parent-teacher collaboration, 2) Increases parent and teacher school leadership behaviors, 3) Enhances parent and teacher school leadership self-efficacy, 4) Increases opportunities for school change, and 5) Increases parental-school involvement. Implications and future directions are discussed

Techno-Invasion: Are Blackberries Blurring the Line Between Work and Home

This paper investigates the psychological costs of mandating information and communication technology (ICT), specifically Blackberries, in the workplace. Based on the literature on workfamily conflict and technostress, we explore whether Blackberries have caused workers to feel techno-invaded, thus interfering with the boundary between work and family. Using survey data from 76 workers at an eastern organization, we use regression analysis to test whether technoinvasion mediates the relationship between work-family conflict and work exhaustion. Results of the survey confirm that negative attitudes are arising from Blackberry usage. However, supplemental qualitative data counteracts this negative finding, suggesting that positive adjustments can advance the benefits of Blackberry usage while minimizing the costs. We end with implications for research and practice

Craft Beer Production

As the market demand for craft brewed beer continues to grow, small brewers are continuing to crop up to meet the demand. With the increasing number of small breweries also comes an increasing number of brewery closings—more than 80 since 2010. While the brewing process fundamentals can be mastered with little technical knowledge, the key to a prosperous brewery is optimizing the use of all resources in the process, especially considering rising energy costs. New brewing operations often have the choice between building their own facility from scratch, or contracting their brewing operations to an established facility. This project recommends a design for a craft brewery (BASH Brewing Co.) producing 13 varieties of beer with a 100,000 bbl/year total production capacity. The recommended design minimizes the use of external utilities by maximizing the heat integration of process streams. Rigorous economic analysis to determine the profitability of the process design was performed. The startup and operations costs for building an independent facility following this design were calculated, and from this a reasonable rate for contract brewing was determined. It was found that the construction of an independent facility would require a total permanent investment of $68MM and have a net present value (NPV) of$26MM with an internal rate of return (IRR) of 20.96% in the present year. To achieve the same returns, it was determined that contract brewing would only be a more economically viable option if the contracted production price is less than $8.72/gallon of beer

Beetle Diversity within Ecosystems; Insight of the Order Coleoptera in the Eastern Kentucky Region

Having a multitude of definitions, biodiversity can most commonly be seen as the variety and diversity of life within an ecosystem. Its relevance is crucial for species survival and resource availability; a lack of biodiversity sets an ecosystem up for failure, reducing its productivity, species richness, and increasing organismal vulnerability. Measuring biodiversity is crucial for the understanding of an ecosystem’s health, giving scientists knowledge of its stability, productivity, and persistence. This collected information can be implemented in various ways outside the scientific field as well, such as with policy decisions and legal regulations. Biodiversity is most commonly analyzed through quantitative assessment of mammal and bird species, but the relatively low numbers of species and few individuals in defined areas tend to cause flawed statistical results. Beetles, however, can be found in large numbers in just about all ecosystems. Having an immense diversity of species, they play significant roles in environments, filling ecological roles as herbivores, decomposers, predators, coprophages, fungivores, etc. As beetles are tremendously diverse and very abundant, quantitative assessments of their diversity are more statistically rigorous. We are sampling beetles from 3 sites located near Morehead, KY. Beetles were collected using pan traps and leaf litter sifting. Collected beetles were then pinned or pointed and sorted by family groups. The primary focus of the study was to determine the various beetle species and their quantitative presence within the multiple sampling sites.https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/celebration_posters_2022/1013/thumbnail.jp

Businesses in the classroom: how corporate social responsibilities are being undertaken in schools in South Wales

There is a common view amongst businesses and within government that business involvement in schools can be regarded as a positive component to a pupil’s school experience. In Wales, this view is reinforced by the introduction of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification and the impending implementation of a new school curriculum aimed at introducing new ways of learning into the classroom environment that will enhance young people’s employability. Despite the role of businesses in schools being a relatively under-researched topic, there are claims that the undertaking of corporate socially responsible activities by businesses in schools is a win-win concept. This thesis takes a qualitative interpretive epistemology approach to understanding the increasing engagement of businesses in schools due to the growing emphasis on corporate social responsibility and interrogates some of the above claims through attempting to understand the justification provided by both businesses and schools for engaging with each other. Looking at what businesses do, this research finds that activities and support provided by businesses to schools are extremely varied and rely largely on the capacity of the business. The findings from businesses suggest that, on the basis of this research, the most common form of engagement is performed by businesses in the form of ‘life-skills’ sessions and workshops. Businesses stated the development of their educational programmes was a method used to ensure the sustainability of the business and that by undertaking this new form of employer engagement they found that their current employees appeared to be more motivated and happier in their jobs. The research reveals that school experiences of, and attitudes towards, receiving engagement from businesses vary significantly, with those schools who benefit most from the engagement activities unsurprisingly providing a more positive view of their experience. Despite the promotion of careers and skills acquisition workshops by businesses, schools were more vocal about how the school gained through financial donations and the procurement of financial resources. The findings suggest that the increasing role of businesses in schools may increase the inequalities in the education system by creating disadvantage between those pupils who engage with businesses compared to those who do not. This project provides a new piece of empirical research to the under-researched area of employer engagement in education and provide a more thorough understanding of how businesses undertake their CSR activities in schools and its benefits, but more importantly, the issues that can be raised from this phenomenon

The Quilted Print

This demonstration utilizes relief printmaking in combination with found, repurposed fabrics and basic machine and hand sewing to create quilted collages. Utilizing old bed sheets and hand-me-down fabrics, hardware store plywood, basic black ink, and green cleanup with vegetable oil and dish soap, fabric printing is both a low-cost and sustainable alternative to paper. Piecing and collaging elements helps to overcome size limitations, opening up the possibilities for ambitious sculptures and immersive print-based installations

Re–Os age for the Lower–Middle Pennsylvanian Boundary and comparison with associated palynoflora

AbstractThe Betsie Shale Member is a relatively thick and continuous unit that serves as a marker bed across the central Appalachian basin, in part because it includes an organic-rich shale unit at its base that is observable in drill logs. Deposited during a marine transgression, the Betsie Shale Member has been correlated to units in both Wales and Germany and has been proposed to mark the boundary between the Lower and Middle Pennsylvanian Series within North America. This investigation assigns a new Re–Os date to the base of the Betsie and examines the palynoflora and maceral composition of the underlying Matewan coal bed in the context of that date. The Matewan coal bed contains abundant lycopsid tree spores along its base with assemblage diversity and inertinite content increasing upsection, as sulfur content and ash yield decrease. Taken together, these palynologic and organic petrographic results suggest a submerged paleomire that transitioned to an exposed peat surface. Notably, separating the lower and upper benches of the Matewan is a parting with very high sulfur content (28wt.%), perhaps representing an early marine pulse prior to the full on transgression responsible for depositing the Betsie. Results from Re–Os geochronology date the base of the Betsie at 323±7.8Ma, consistent with previously determined age constraints as well as the palynoflora assemblage presented herein. The Betsie Shale Member is also highly enriched in Re (ranging from 319.7 to 1213ng/g), with high 187Re/188Os values ranging from 3644 to 5737 likely resultant from varying redox conditions between the pore water and overlying water column during deposition and early condensing of the section

Crucial impacts on career choices: Research to understand the influences on young people’s choices in primary and secondary schools: Executive summary

This is the executive summary which sets out the findings of European research undertaken by five project partners (The Czech Republic, The United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Spain) and lead by a team from the International Centre for Guidance Studies at the University of Derby in the UK. The research was conducted between September 2018 and July 2020. This project has illuminated the similarities and differences in the way young people approach career decision making and the influences which prevail. Whilst there are some differences between the partner countries, largely due to the economic or social conditions which prevail, there are many similarities. The findings from this research will help those tasked with developing programmes of career development and support to identify and focus on specific aspects of their programmes suggested by the research.The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein