The New American Temporality Studies: Narrative and National Times in the Nineteenth Century

Arranging Grief: Sacred Time and the Body in Nineteenth-Century America by Dana Luciano. (New York: New York University Press, 2007. pp. 368. $75.00 cloth;$25.00 paper.

BODY TEMPERATURE AND REPRODUCTIVE EFFORT IN A LONG-LIVED TROPICAL SONGBIRD

Heat production relative to dissipation rates have constrained reproductive effort and reduced fitness in short-lived, temperate birds. To determine whether heat constrains reproductive effort in long-lived taxa with low reproductive effort, we experimentally clipped plumage from tropical Gray-throated babblers (Stachyris nigriceps) to increase heat dissipation rates. Contrary to findings in short-lived species, we found no strong evidence of heat dissipation constraints on reproductive effort in our mid-elevation study. Clipped adults did not increase feeding rates compared to controls, but clipped females did spend more time incubating and brooding eggs and young. Increased time in the nest may reduce increased heat loss and energy expenditure following clipping of the belly plumage at our cool, mid-elevation study site. Furthermore, control parents in our study had lower body temperatures than songbirds that previously have been shown to be heat-limited. We suggest that heat production from the low reproductive effort of long-lived tropical songbirds may not generally be sufficient to create major thermal constraints. Ultimately, the degree to which heat limits reproductive effort may strongly depend on the environment and interspecific differences in evolved levels of reproductive effort and parental heat production during breeding

The Write Time to Collaborate: Strengthening the Ties between the Library and Writing Center

Poster highlights the successful relationship between the Wright State University Libraries and the WSU Writing Center

Revealing the Human Resource Development Discourse: A Mixed Methods Study of Similarities and Differences in Academic and Practitioner Language, or Labels-in-Use

Woven within the pages of HRD’s historical literature, a variety of scholarly voices can be found drawing attention to the increasing inconsistency in the language of the field. Within the literature, we also find evidence of a long-standing discord and debate regarding the field’s definition and identified boundaries. This is the first study that attempts to elevate the conversation of HRD’s definition to that of an exploration of what is shared, and what makes the discipline’s members unique. Utilizing Li’s (2009) lens of disciplinary identity and elements of Gee’s (1999) theory of Discourse, this study presents a concept of what HRD’s disciplinary identity may look like at the macro level. This study also investigates the construct from both the academic and practitioner lens, in an attempt to include perspectives and influences at the micro level regarding the discipline’s enacted identity in both scholarship and practice, which may aid the relationship between theory and practice. Embedded within the larger aim of this study was the goal of revealing current similarities and differences in academic and practitioner labels-in-use within the field of Human Resource Development. To that end, this study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design that began with a quantitative collection and analysis of text from the Association for Talent Development’s (ATD) website and the Academy of Human Resource Development’s (AHRD) website. A second, qualitative phase was then conducted consisting of interviews of a diverse group of academics and practitioners from institutional/organizational contexts that were believed to provide greater insight into the potential contextual nuances behind the quantitative results. Mixed analyses of the quantitative and qualitative findings found a variance in the language-in-use, as well as indications that the discipline’s espoused identity may not reflect what is actually lived. These findings also suggest insights into the discipline’s social actions and interactions at the micro level, providing support for a proposed cultural model of HRD at the macro level. Although this study is a first step in trying to better understand HRD’s language-in-use and overall disciplinary identity, it also provides evidence that viewing HRD’s language-in-use in this way warrants further investigation

Energy Transformation and Conservation Investigation

Students will use a thermoelectric generator module to analyze the relationship between thermal and electrical energies. Using data collection sensors and analysis software, students will investigate the relationship between the temperature gradient across a thermoelectric generator module and the resulting electrical potential. Students will then use their data and analysis to solve problems relating to waste thermal energy in electrical systems and communicate their work to their peers and teacher

Properties of Matter

Students will investigate the relationship(s) between thermal and electrical properties of matter. First, students will use a multimeter and temperature probe to investigate the relationship between electrical resistance and temperature of an electrical resistor composed of metals. They will then graph collected data to analyze the relationship and draw a conclusion as to their relationship. They will then perform the same investigation on a thermal resistor made of a semiconducting substance and analyze that collected data. Finally, using ClaimEvidence-Reasoning (CER) structure, students will use their experimental evidence to state the similarities and differences between the electro-thermal properties of metals and semiconductors

What Difference Does a Catalyst Make?

Students will use different catalysts for the decomposition of Hydrogen Peroxide, to determine if different catalysts affect the energy that is generated during the reaction

Rare Disease Trials:Beyond the Randomised Controlled Trial

The development of new treatments to aid patients who suffer from rare diseases is a challenging area of medicine, particularly since the patient populations are limited. Therefore, traditional clinical trial designs and their sample size calculations often require a large proportion of the total patient population to be recruited into the clinical trial. Due to this, many novel designs of clinical trials seek to increase the benefit to the patients recruited into the trials. This is a motivation for response adaptive randomisation designs and their extension, covariate adjusted response adaptive (CARA) randomisation designs. These designs use previous patients' outcomes (and the CARA design also uses the previous patients' covariates) from within the trial to predict which treatment will be superior for future patients, and prioritise the allocation of said predicted superior treatment. In this thesis, two methods to maximise the benefit to patients are explored. The first method focuses on increasing the benefit to patients within the trial. A CARA trial design, which can be used for several different types of covariates and patient outcomes, is explored using two simulation studies; one includes a continuous covariate and outcome, the other includes two binary covariates and a survival outcome. The design is then extended to incorporate historical trial data. This extension is evaluated using two simulations studies that incorporate a continuous covariate and outcome. Different versions of both trial designs are evaluated in simulations across a wide range of scenarios. The second method is an alternative sample size calculation for a randomised controlled trial, which optimises the trial sample size such that the benefit to the whole patient population is maximised. Two different versions of the approach are investigated and compared using a continuous patient outcome trial, for a range of scenarios