Symbolic Civic Awareness: A Study of Political Socialization in the City of Grand Forks

Numerous studies in political socialization have suggested that the child\u27s political world begins about the age of three and is basically- completed by age thirteen. Using this finding as a guideline, the author proposed in this study to determine at what age elementary school children develop a symbolic awareness of their government. Based on a format similar to that used by Greenstein, Hess, and Easton, a study was made in the City of Grand Forks involving 951 children in grades one through six. To achieve representativeness and control, six elementary schools were selected based on socio-economic, philosophic, and religious variable. Applying both the^normative and behavioral approaches , a series of twenty slides, containing four symbols each, was projected in mass to each classroom. Following the showing of each slide, the children were asked to respond by completing a standard answer form. The first set of slides tested cognitive development by asking the children to identify personal and political party symbols. The second set involved the association of verbal and pictorial symbols with the symbol of the political community. The third set tested affective development in relation to abstract impersonal symbols. And the last set sought to solicit affective responses to the authoritative political symbols. Results indicated that children were aware of many of the normative political symbols as early as grade one. Children in all grades could identify the President, but it was not until grade five that they could consistently identify the Vice President, Governor, and political party symbols. In regard to symbols of the political community, younger children identified more with personal symbols, while the older children identified with the impersonal symbols. In all cases children were able to discriminate American symbols from those of other nations. In reference to the abstract impersonal symbols, it was found that nearly all children affectively identified with condensation symbols , more so than the civil rights symbols. Authoritative symbols were associated with specific authority figures in all grades. Finally, only minor differences were found between religious, philosophic, and socio-economic variables

Hirschhorn's identities

We prove a general identity between power series and use this identity to give proofs of a number of identities proposed by M.D. Hirschhorn. We also use the identity to give proofs of a well-known result of Jacobi, the quintuple-product identity and Winquist's identit

Mapping Mangrove Extent and Change: A Globally Applicable Approach

This study demonstrates a globally applicable method for monitoring mangrove forest extent at high spatial resolution. A 2010 mangrove baseline was classified for 16 study areas using a combination of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat composite imagery within a random forests classifier. A novel map-to-image change method was used to detect annual and decadal changes in extent using ALOS PALSAR/JERS-1 imagery. The map-to-image method presented makes fewer assumptions of the data than existing methods, is less sensitive to variation between scenes due to environmental factors (e.g., tide or soil moisture) and is able to automatically identify a change threshold. Change maps were derived from the 2010 baseline to 1996 using JERS-1 SAR and to 2007, 2008 and 2009 using ALOS PALSAR. This study demonstrated results for 16 known hotspots of mangrove change distributed globally, with a total mangrove area of 2,529,760 ha. The method was demonstrated to have accuracies consistently in excess of 90% (overall accuracy: 92.293.3%, kappa: 0.86) for mapping baseline extent. The accuracies of the change maps were more variable and were dependent upon the time period between images and number of change features. Total change from 1996 to 2010 was 204,850 ha (127,990 ha gain, 76,860 ha loss), with the highest gains observed in French Guiana (15,570 ha) and the highest losses observed in East Kalimantan, Indonesia (23,003 ha). Changes in mangrove extent were the consequence of both natural and anthropogenic drivers, yielding net increases or decreases in extent dependent upon the study site. These updated maps are of importance to the mangrove research community, particularly as the continual updating of the baseline with currently available and anticipated spaceborne sensors. It is recommended that mangrove baselines are updated on at least a 5-year interval to suit the requirements of policy makers

Simulation evaluation of a low-altitude helicopter flight guidance system adapted for a helmet-mounted display

A computer aiding concept for low-altitude helicopter flight was developed and evaluated in a real-time piloted simulation. The concept included an optimal control trajectory-generation algorithm based upon dynamic programming and a helmet-mounted display (HMD) presentation of a pathway-in-the-sky, a phantom aircraft, and flight-path vector/predictor guidance symbology. The trajectory-generation algorithm uses knowledge of the global mission requirements, a digital terrain map, aircraft performance capabilities, and advanced navigation information to determine a trajectory between mission way points that seeks valleys to minimize threat exposure. The pilot evaluation was conducted at NASA ARC moving base Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) by pilots representing NASA, the U.S. Army, the Air Force, and the helicopter industry. The pilots manually tracked the trajectory generated by the algorithm utilizing the HMD symbology. The pilots were able to satisfactorily perform the tracking tasks while maintaining a high degree of awareness of the outside world

Slush Hydrogen (SLH2) technology development for application to the National Aerospace Plane (NASP)

The National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program is giving us the opportunity to reach new unique answers in a number of engineering categories. The answers are considered enhancing technology or enabling technology. Airframe materials and densified propellants are examples of enabling technology. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center has the task of providing the technology data which will be used as the basis to decide if slush hydrogen (SLH2) will be the fuel of choice for the NASP. The objectives of this NASA Lewis program are: (1) to provide, where possible, verified numerical models of fluid production, storage, transfer, and feed systems, and (2) to provide verified design criteria for other engineered aspects of SLH2 systems germane to a NASP. This program is a multiyear multimillion dollar effort. The present pursuit of the above listed objectives is multidimensional, covers a range of problem areas, works these to different levels of depth, and takes advantage of the resources available in private industry, academia, and the U.S. Government. The NASA Lewis overall program plan is summarized. The initial implementation of the plan will be unfolded and the present level of efforts in each of the resource areas will be discussed. Results already in hand will be pointed out. A description of additionally planned near-term experimental and analytical work is described

Re-Examination of Litigation Trends in the United States: Galanter Reconsidered, A

The general commentary on recent litigation patterns in the United States depicts a worrisome, and occasionally panicked, scenario often called the litigation explosion. \u27 The commentaries characteristically direct attention to a supposed epidemic of hair-trigger suing burying the courts under an avalanche of civil actions. 2 Moreover, judicial scholars proffer a myriad of purported explanations for the alleged prodigious growth in the number of civil lawsuits. The common theme throughout these explanations is that changes or disruptions in our social, economic, political-legal environments have caused Americans to become a contentious and overly-litigious people