Exploring the Constitutive and Social Processes of Ethics in Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Teams

This study seeks to examine the communicative constitution of ethics in team-based design projects in an engineering education context. Engineering and design work involve complex social processes and ethical decision-making activities and collaboration (Bucciarelli, 2010). The understanding and development of ethics in future engineers is a primary concern for engineering educators, students, and the governing bodies that oversee this field (ABET, 2013; NAE, 2012). Specifically, given the highly fluid and subjective nature of ethics and the complications of the team-based context, challenges arise about how to move beyond codes and standards that are intended to guide ethical conduct (ASEE, 2012; NSPE, 2011) and encourage ethical orientations in future engineers that may help them guide themselves

WHO’S FOLLOWING YOU? CYBER VIOLENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media use has become an integral part of daily life. Within these increasingly influential online communities, a proportion of users are subject to negative online contact in a phenomenon labelled cyberviolence. Cyberviolence is defined as harm delivered by electronic means to a person or people who perceive this contact as negative.A review of existing literature revealed that, despite reliance on distinct offline definitions, all behaviours explored could be classified according to three key themes: sexual, threatening and humiliating cyberviolence. To assess the prevalence of these forms of cyberviolence across social media, 370 participants completed an online survey that featured items relating to victimisation and perpetration, as well as a number of well-established personality measures. These measures explored key traits and models of personality including the Big Five model to assess the potential role of an individual’s personality in their engagement in cyberviolence. The results of this thesis suggest that differences exist between those involved in cyberviolence and those who do not engage in cyberviolence on certain key personality traits including psychopathy and narcissism. Models of cybervictimisation, perpetration and a hybrid of cybervictimisation/perpetration revealed that these traits explained approximately ten percent of the variance in cyberviolence indicating that other factors, besides individual personalities, may have more influence over engagement in and/or experience of these behaviours. Overall findings suggest that there is little to demarcate those involved in cyberviolence, as victims or perpetrators, leading to the conclusion that this is not a niche area of deviance, but may be a mainstream side effect of social media use. The implications of these findings are discussed

Perceptions of Young Women Who Engage in Anal Sex: A Sociological Inquiry

Despite data suggesting that anal sex is increasingly common among heterosexual individuals, women who engage in anal sex have had little attention in academic scholarship beyond medical fields. Research on anal sex is typically androcentric, with many key studies examining the dynamics of malemale sexual practices. Moreover, research reporting anal sex among young women is often accompanied with concerns around coercion and health risks. Taking a critical view, we argue that normative assumptions about anal sex may obscure or ignore other ways that women and others might engage in anal sex, and, given the emphasis on harm reduction, may obscure a range of reasons for involvement in anal sex. Through focus groups and individual interviews with a range of individuals (n=20) including sexual health practitioners and young people, aged 19-56 years, our qualitative pilot study generated detailed discussion on (1) how anal sex is perceived in general (‘what’ practices constitute anal sex, who might be involved, and why), and (2) specifically how it is perceived in relation to young women. This paper focuses on the second area and three resultant analytic themes: why women may engage in anal sex, women’s bodies and gendered agency, and sexual literacy. We conclude that meaningful sex and relationships education and sexual health services could usefully adopt a more nuanced appreciation of the range of practices that can comprise anal sex, and that some young women engage in anal sex for a variety of reasons (beyond coercion) including pleasure, bodily autonomy and relationship dynamics

A qualitative exploration of perceptions of anal sex: implications for sex education and sexual health services in England

Existing research into anal sex has centred on androcentric, medicalised parameters that focus on risk and health implications, leading to a lack of focus on women's experiences. Research that has focused on women’s experiences has centred on concern around young women’s anal sex practices, with little exploration of why people participate in anal sex and neglect of its relational and pleasure-based dimensions. The present study sought to explore these concerns via data gathered using focus groups and individual interviews with a range of individuals including sexual health practitioners and young people. Data were thematically coded, with results centred on three themes: anal sex as deviance, anal sex as phallocentric, and anal sex as agentic. Results suggest a pattern of perceptions and narratives that has potential to undermine honest education, advice-giving and safer sex if they are not addressed and questioned in safe spaces, prior to work with young people. The implications of these findings on sexual health education are discussed

Mitochondrial metabolism of sexual and asexual blood stages of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum

BACKGROUND: The carbon metabolism of the blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum, comprising rapidly dividing asexual stages and non-dividing gametocytes, is thought to be highly streamlined, with glycolysis providing most of the cellular ATP. However, these parasitic stages express all the enzymes needed for a canonical mitochondrial tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and it was recently proposed that they may catabolize glutamine via an atypical branched TCA cycle. Whether these stages catabolize glucose in the TCA cycle and what is the functional significance of mitochondrial metabolism remains unresolved. RESULTS: We reassessed the central carbon metabolism of P. falciparum asexual and sexual blood stages, by metabolically labeling each stage with (13)C-glucose and (13)C-glutamine, and analyzing isotopic enrichment in key pathways using mass spectrometry. In contrast to previous findings, we found that carbon skeletons derived from both glucose and glutamine are catabolized in a canonical oxidative TCA cycle in both the asexual and sexual blood stages. Flux of glucose carbon skeletons into the TCA cycle is low in the asexual blood stages, with glutamine providing most of the carbon skeletons, but increases dramatically in the gametocyte stages. Increased glucose catabolism in the gametocyte TCA cycle was associated with increased glucose uptake, suggesting that the energy requirements of this stage are high. Significantly, whereas chemical inhibition of the TCA cycle had little effect on the growth or viability of asexual stages, inhibition of the gametocyte TCA cycle led to arrested development and death. CONCLUSIONS: Our metabolomics approach has allowed us to revise current models of P. falciparum carbon metabolism. In particular, we found that both asexual and sexual blood stages utilize a conventional TCA cycle to catabolize glucose and glutamine. Gametocyte differentiation is associated with a programmed remodeling of central carbon metabolism that may be required for parasite survival either before or after uptake by the mosquito vector. The increased sensitivity of gametocyte stages to TCA-cycle inhibitors provides a potential target for transmission-blocking drugs

HOP Queue: Hyperspectral Onboard Processing Queue Demonstration

The HOP Queue (Hyperspectral Onboard Processing Queue) demonstration leverages emerging COTS AI accelerators and GPUs to perform on-board processing of hyperspectral imagery data, with the aim of providing near- real time conservation-oriented data and metrics from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). These include forest health, fire detection, and coastal water health. Phase 1 of this project is currently underway, including a completed lab demonstration of this technology and ongoing flight testing. The data from this mission will support Northrop Grumman’s enterprise “Technology for Conservation” campaign and will be provided to NASA’s Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) organization, as well as other conservation efforts

Characterization of Radiation Heat Transfer in High Temperature Structural Test Fixtures

The paper looks at the radiant heat exchange between some fairly primitive geometry components, and a few more complex, to understand the radiant energy distribution under a very common radiant lamp consisting of 6 quartz tube (tungsten element) heaters. This is looking at the basic physics of a common device used around the world for many decades. Other papers have looked at this same topic, but ours is looking at other topics we have not seen addressed in the literature (that explain why it is what it is, and other things affecting data interpretation)