In the wake of our womanist foremothers : resistance as signif(y)er among self-identified womanist scholars in higher education

The objective of this purposeful sampling qualitative case study was to describe how selfidentified womanist scholars who are faculty members in higher education institutions signify resistance in their curriculum and pedagogy. The primary research question was "How do these scholars signify resistance in the development of curriculum and their teaching style?" Subquestions included: "How does each womanist scholar perceive what it means to be a womanist as realized in their course materials? What common themes of resistance emerge among these womanist scholars in higher education?” The population for this study consisted of four (4) Black women faculty who are professors at four (4) different four-year post-secondary institutions of higher education in the United States of America. Snowball sampling was used to identify participants who met specific criteria. Data collection consisted of semi-formal interviews, classroom observations, field notes, and content and artifact analysis. The study employed a social constructionist semi-formal interviewing approach that prioritized dialogue and co-constructed and mutually agreed upon meaning-making. Non-Participant observations were conducted to observe phenomena in the classroom. Analysis of course materials included interview transcripts, syllabus, other course documents, and course emails. The research found that womanist teaching and resistance for these participants began in the body, a radical place of lived-subjectivity. For these Black women, to Be was to resist. Their approaches to curriculum and pedagogy bore witness to a radical Black female subjectivity grounded in spirituality that signified to ontologies, symbols, and political dimensions of Black women resistance in higher education and beyond.Thesis (Ph. D.)Department of Educational Studie

Strategies Small Business Owners Use for Long-Term Existence

More than 90 of every 100 new businesses fail within 5 years. The need to explore ongoing strategies that provide low-cost alternatives can prove invaluable to cash-strapped new business owners. Exploration of relationships among a group of stakeholders essential to business success provided data in this case study. Those stakeholders include the owner, the customer service personnel and the consumer. Without the consumer, all other business activities would cease to be necessary. Five business owners and five employees from Redding, California participated in 2 separate focus group interviews. The conceptual framework for this case study was to explore the specific business problem, the lack of low-cost strategic resources, and initiatives to facilitate continued existence of new small businesses. The focus group interviews were conducted in 2 separate settings using notes and Audacity voice recordings. Through personal notes and the use of NVivo 11 data was disseminated and provided rich information on at least four themes. Major themes were customer retention, creating teamwork, building relationships, and communication to create business sustainability. Having communities in which businesses thrive allows for greater job opportunities and increased community revenue. The impact of empty storefronts in cities throughout America and the loss of community identity necessitate the need for the strategist to continue to attempt to provide resources and strategies to business owners everywhere. The social change impact occurs when SBOs who recognize their business provides structure to the community seek out ways to increase sustainability

Validation of the Chemistry Module for the Euler Solver in Unified Flow Solver

In the world of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), three main types of flow regimes exist: continuum, rarified, and free molecular. Of these regimes, the rarified regime is the most difficult to model because the continuum equations don\u27t apply and using the Boltzmann equation is too computationally expensive to use. The Unified Flow Solver (UFS) is currently being developed to solve this problem by using the kinetic continuum Euler equations where valid, and only using the Boltzmann equation where necessary, thus reducing the computational cost. The use of the kinetic Euler equations helps to aid in the coupling of the Euler equations with the Boltzmann equation. This work compares UFS with a common nonequilibrium solver, LeMANS, to attempt to validate the thermo-chemical Euler solver available in UFS. Three types of simulations were run to validate the Euler solver: perfect gas, thermal nonequilibrium, and thermo-chemical nonequilibrium. The perfect gas simulation was run using both a monatomic and two species diatomic gas. The thermal nonequilibrium simulation was run using a 2 species gas, while the thermo-chemical nonequilibrium simulation was run using a 2 and 11 species gas. The results of the simulations show that UFS matches closely for both the monatomic and 2 species perfect gas simulations as well as the thermal nonequilibrium simulation. The thermo-chemical nonequilibrium simulations do not show the correct vibrational temperature, which causes the species concentrations to be incorrect. All of the simulations show that UFS is much slower than LeMANS in number of cpu hours. This means that UFS not a practical choice for a CFD solver and cannot be fully validated in its current state

Exploring the Impact of Brands Roasting on Social Media

Brands regularly post content on social media and look for consumer engagement through these posts. However, this research uncovers a novel domain that shows increased consumer engagement but decreased persuasion: when brands resort to roasting on Twitter. We find that the perceived inappropriateness of the roasting posts lead to lower brand preference when brands choose to roast on social media and tease apart the difference between B2B and B2C roasting. This research establishes that not everything that goes viral leads to a favorable offline behavior. Social media managers of brands can use the findings of this research by understanding why conventional methods of highlighting the superiority of the product would be perceived more favorably than trends that seemingly garner more consumer engagement

Link Coupling for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

In an attempt to use proton magnetic resonance for regulation of magnetic fields of 10 kilogauss or more, it has been found that the conventional probe sample holder used by other investigators (1) gave inadequate, if any, resonance lines above 40 mc/sec. In such arrangements, the oscillator tank coil is at the end of a coaxial probe. The weaker lines at higher frequencies are attributed to the fact that the distributed inductance of the coaxial line becomes important as frequency is increased. To overcome this difficulty, we have employed a link-type coupling arrangement

COVID-19: a closer look at the pathology in two autopsied cases. Is the pericyte at the center of the pathological process in COVID-19?

We performed autopsies on two cases of COVID-19. The microcirculations of all organs were the site of the pathological findings. Thrombotic microangiopathy was found in the brain and also the kidneys. Vasculitis was also a feature of the autopsy findings, together with portal triaditis of the liver. The major pathological findings in both cases were fibrin deposits. Within the lung, the fibrin deposits were observed in the alveolar microcirculation in sub-endothelial locations of capillaries, arterioles, post capillary venules, and the adventitia of larger vessels. These fibrin deposits in the lungs occurred at the sites where pericytes are located in these vessels. The pericyte with its high concentration of ACE-2 receptors and its procoagulant state may represent one of the primary sites of action of SARS-CoV-2. A review of pericytes in health and disease is undertaken. COVID-19 is a disease of the microcirculation