System for the measurement of ultra-low stray light levels

An apparatus is described for measuring the effectiveness of stray light suppression light shields and baffle arrangements used in optical space experiments and large space telescopes. The light shield and baffle arrangement and a telescope model are contained in a vacuum chamber. A source of short, high-powered light energy illuminates portions of the light shield and baffle arrangement and reflects a portion of same to a photomultiplier tube by virtue of multipath scattering. The resulting signal is transferred to time-channel electronics timed by the firing of the high energy light source allowing time discrimination of the signal thereby enabling the light scattered and suppressed by the model to be distinguished from the walls and holders around the apparatus

Helping the Me Generation Decenter: Service Learning with Refugees

Recent research has empirically demonstrated that young adults today are different from prior generations in their decreased empathy, increased narcissism, and decreased civic engagement. The formative years of young adulthood are a critical period for the development of civic values and civil ideologies, a time when college-age adults need to acquire the experiences and skills to decenter and develop into civic-minded stewards of their communities. Engagement in service learning with individuals unlike themselves, i.e., outgroup members, is the approach we have taken at the University of North Florida to encourage this decentering through service learning engagement with refugees embedded in an honors colloquium during students’ first term in college. We took a three-pronged approach to the assessment of the impact of this service learning engagement. In the first approach, evaluations of student responses to open-ended questions provided evidence of a reduction in their self-centeredness and increases in social empathy and multicultural competence. The second approach confirmed these changes in decentering by showing that honors students who were engaged in more interactive service projects with refugees scored higher on two measures of empathy—i.e., the Basic Empathy Scale Basic Empathy Scale ( Jolliffe & Farrington) and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (Spreng et al.)—than did students engaged in less interactive service projects with refugees. In the final approach, evaluations of artifacts from the course suggested that levels of decentering, empathy, and civic action differed for students who had intensive versus superficial interactions with refugees

Helping the Me Generation Decenter: Service Learning with Refugees

Recent research has empirically demonstrated that young adults today are different from prior generations in their decreased empathy, increased narcissism, and decreased civic engagement. The formative years of young adulthood are a critical period for the development of civic values and civil ideologies, a time when college-age adults need to acquire the experiences and skills to decenter and develop into civic-minded stewards of their communities. Engagement in service learning with individuals unlike themselves, i.e., outgroup members, is the approach we have taken at the University of North Florida to encourage this decentering through service learning engagement with refugees embedded in an honors colloquium during students’ first term in college. We took a three-pronged approach to the assessment of the impact of this service learning engagement. In the first approach, evaluations of student responses to open-ended questions provided evidence of a reduction in their self-centeredness and increases in social empathy and multicultural competence. The second approach confirmed these changes in decentering by showing that honors students who were engaged in more interactive service projects with refugees scored higher on two measures of empathy—i.e., the Basic Empathy Scale Basic Empathy Scale ( Jolliffe & Farrington) and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (Spreng et al.)—than did students engaged in less interactive service projects with refugees. In the final approach, evaluations of artifacts from the course suggested that levels of decentering, empathy, and civic action differed for students who had intensive versus superficial interactions with refugees

Broadcasting graphic war violence: the moral face of Channel 4

Drawing on empirical data from Channel 4 (C4) regarding the broadcasting of violent war imagery, and positioned within Goffman’s notion of the interaction ritual (1959, 1967), this article investigates how C4 negotiate potentially competing commercial, regulatory and moral requirements through processes of discretionary decision-making. Throughout, the article considers the extent to which these negotiations are presented through a series of ‘imaginings’ – of C4 and its audience – which serve to simultaneously guide and legitimate the decisions made. This manifestation of imaginings moves us beyond more blanket explanations of ‘branding’ and instead allows us to see the final programmes as the end product of a series of complex negotiations and interactions between C4 and those multiple external parties significant to the workings of their organization. The insights gleaned from this case study are important beyond the workings of C4 because they help elucidate how all institutions and organizations may view, organize and justify their practices (to both themselves and others) within the perceived constraints in which they operate