Workplace Mental Health: Toolkit Usability Study of Midwestern Business Leaders

The purpose of this research study was to gather Midwest business leader’s feedback on usability of a Workplace Mental Health Toolkit. In the Workplace Mental Health Toolkit Usability Study, the researcher used a mixed methods approach to gather data using a digital survey. Business leaders were asked to rate the likelihood they would use the following tools in the workplace: Psychologically Safe Workplace Checklist, Mental Health Policy Template , Well-being Checklist, Mental Health First Aid at Work Training Program

Defining the Genre of Environmental Literature

Environmentalists try to make the world a better place, each in their own way. This is particularly true of the arts, in which sculptors and painters and film enthusiasts try to capture modern struggles within their respective mediums. This is less obvious in written works of fiction, where anthropomorphic narratives are dominant; in fact, it’s difficult to imagine a novel that could be wholly dedicated to the natural world’s story. But writers still want to contribute to environmentalist causes in their medium. How can this be done? To find out, I decided to read four works of fiction which I believed could be representative of environmentalist perspectives: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Each book represents a separate genre of fiction, for the purposes of discerning what common threads make them “environmental.” I found that each story placed its emphasis on the setting, as it shaped the characters, plots, and themes between all four. I believe, therefore, that environmental literature is most clearly defined by such emphasis, and ought to be critiqued and analyzed with this in mind

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe New Immigration Federalism. Pratheepan Gulasekaram & S. Karthick Pamakrishnan. Reviewed by Elizabeth Kiehne.

Pratheepan Gulasekaram & S. Karthick Pamakrishnan, The New Immigration Federalism. Cambridge University Press (2015), 276 pages, $34.99 (paperback)

Co-Simulation and Dynamic Assessment of Thermal Management Strategies Aboard Naval Surface Ships

The US Navy has committed to technology development for an all-electric ship (AES) that incorporates significant advances in power management, advanced sensors and weaponry, re-configurability, and survivability. Quantifying the close relationship between ship-board thermal, mechanical, and electrical sub-systems is of fundamental importance to understanding the nature of a large integrated system like the AES.United States Office of Naval ResearchCenter for Electromechanic

Friends or Foes: The Impact of Political Ideology and Immigrant Friends on Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

In recent years, an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment has been witnessed in the United States, particularly from politically conservative groups. According to intergroup contact theory, increased contact between in-group and out-group members, especially cross-group friendships, has been found to reduce intergroup prejudice. This study analyzed nationally representative U.S.-based data (n = 1,000) from the Transatlantic Trends Survey, 2013 to examine if having immigrant friends interacted with political ideology, such that having immigrant friends weakened the association between conservative ideology and anti-immigrant sentiment. Findings revealed that immigrant friends and political ideology each had a significant but opposite main effect on anti-immigrant sentiment, but that having immigrant friends did not moderate or buffer the effects of political ideology on anti-immigrant sentiment. Thus, aligning with a conservative political ideology is associated with anti-immigrant sentiment irrespective of having immigrant friends. Strategies to increase intergroup contact and promote cross-group friendships are made and directions for future research are offered

Development of Collembolans after coversion towards organic farming

In Northern Germany, a diverse and complex experimental farm of the Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL) was set-up in 2001 covering all main aspects of organic farming. Previously, the 600 ha farm had been managed conventionally. Adjacent conventional farms were used as reference. The aim of this project was to study collembolans, microbial biomass and soil organic carbon in six organically farmed fields managed as a crop rotation of six different crops compared with an adjacent conventionally managed field. We hypothesised that the specific management in organic farming promotes soil biota. Soil samples were taken during the growing season in 2004. Collembolan abundances and microbial biomass were lower under organic management, but, generally, collembolan diversity was higher in organically farmed fields combined with a shifting in the dominance structure of the species. This result reveals that, even after three years, the soil biota is still changing with management conversion

Automatic Pizza Cutter

The purpose of this project is to design an automatic pizza cutter that can cut any normal sized pizza into different amounts of slices. The pizza cutter will ideally cut the pizza in under 60 seconds and into even slices. The goal of this pizza cutter is to provide a simple tool to use in households as well as restaurants. Our design will feature a blade that cuts across the pizza. After each cut, the pizza will rotate a specified amount, based on the desired number of slices, cut again, and repeat this process until it has completely cut the whole pizza

Distribution of parallel vortices studied by spin-polarized neutron reflectivity and magnetization

We present the studies of non-uniformly distributed vortices in Nb/Al multilayers at applied field near parallel to film surface by using spin-polarized neutron reflectivity (SPNR) and DC magnetization measurements. We have observed peaks above the lower critical field, Hc1, in the M-H curves from the multilayers. Previous works with a model calculation of minimizing Gibbs free energy have suggested that the peaks could be ascribed to vortex line transitions for spatial commensuration in a thin film superconductor. In order to directly determine the distribution of vortices, we performed SPNR measurements on the multilayer and found that the distribution and density of vortices are different at ascending and descending fields. At ascending 2000 Oe which is just below the first peak in the M-H curve, SPNR shows that vortices are mostly localized near a middle line of the film meanwhile the vortices are distributed in broader region at the descending 2000 Oe. That is related to the observation of more vortices trapped at the descending field. As the applied field is sightly tilted (< 3.5degree), we observe another peak at a smaller field. The peak position is consistent with the parallel lower critical field (Hc1||). We discuss that the vortices run along the applied field below Hc1|| and rotate parallel to the surface at Hc1||.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure