Extracting Product Performance by Embedding Sensors in SFF Prototypes

SFF has been instrumental in improving the design process by providing designers with prototypes that assist them in the communication of design information and design visualization prior to creating fully functional prototypes. Embedding sensors at key locations within an SFF part to extract further data and monitor parameters at critical locations not accessible to ordinary sensors can help immensely in building functional SFF parts. However, this approach requires data acquisition of information such as temperature and strain values from interiors of products. In this work, the authors propose new techniques for embedding thermal sensors and strain gauges into fully dense DuraForm™ during Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process. The embedded sensors have been used to measure temperatures and strains. They provide higher sensitivity, good accuracy, and high temperature capacity.Mechanical Engineerin

Weight management and its role in breast cancer rehabilitation

Overweight and obesity are risk factors for post-menopausal breast cancer, and many women diagnosed with breast cancer, irrespective of menopausal status, gain weight after diagnosis. Weight management plays an important role in rehabilitation and recovery since obesity and/or weight gain may lead to poorer breast cancer prognosis, as well as prevalent co-morbid conditions (e.g. cardiovascular disease and diabetes), poorer surgical outcomes (e.g., increased operating and recovery times, higher infection rates, and poorer healing), lymphedema, fatigue, functional decline, and poorer health and overall quality of life. Health care professionals should encourage weight management at all phases of the cancer care continuum as a means to potentially avoid adverse sequelae and late effects, as well as to improve overall health and possibly survival. Comprehensive approaches that involve dietary and behavior modification, and increased aerobic and strength training exercise have shown promise in either preventing weight gain or promoting weight loss, reducing biomarkers associated with inflammation and co-morbidity, and improving lifestyle behaviors, functional status, and quality of life in this high-risk patient population

Regathering

This collection of poems attempts to make connections between familiar images and larger truths. These poems are accessible because they present moments from a speaker’s life, yet they seek to transcend the everyday to a higher consciousness. Also, these poems gathered together like wildflowers seek to explore the varying phyla of love and the ways they are interdependent

Panel Discussion on Open Access: What’s in it for me?

Background The 2016 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications is a landmark for the open access movement in Canada. It stipulates that peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Tri-Agency funded research must be made freely accessible within 12 months of publication. This and other open access policies emphasize the societal advantage of openly accessible research, but how does the researcher benefit? Summary Panelists will highlight the benefits of open access as well as other open research practices, with a focus on the perspective of graduate students and early career researchers. One benefit is the increased impact of open access publications compared to subscription-based publications, as shown in citation-based studies as well as altmetrics such as download reports available through Western’s institutional repository, Scholarship@Western. Another benefit is enhanced collaboration, encompassing not only open access publishing but also open data practices, both of which enable researchers to more readily learn from and build off of each other’s work. Finally, authors benefit from retaining rights to their work, which includes various open access publishing options as well as negotiating greater control over their research post-publication. Interdisciplinary Reflection Open access is particularly valuable for interdisciplinary researchers insofar as it makes research easily discoverable. This allows for cross-fertilization across disciplines, since researchers are more easily able to access, read, and build on work in other areas. Librarians often select journal subscriptions that support active research in a particular discipline, but open access journals are available to all, regardless of an institution’s research focus

Struggling to set the campaign agenda: candidates, the media, and interest groups in elections

Democracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in the electoral arena. My dissertation examines the struggle between candidates and their respective messages in this arena. Focusing on fourteen Senate races from 1998 and 2000, I examine, in depth, how the struggle over competing ideals takes place (or in some cases, does not take place) and whether some candidates are more successful than others at navigating their message through the political environment to voters. This study examines the impact of candidate skills and resources as well as state characteristics on the strategies candidates employ when emphasizing campaign issues. In addition, my dissertation focuses on the impact interest group advertising has on the candidates campaign dialogue and analyzes media coverage in Senate races by comparing each candidates core message to the campaign information transmitted by the media to voters. The analysis presented here reveals that candidates employ both multi-dimensional and unidimensional strategies. State party competition appears to offer the most plausible explanation for the variation in strategy across the states. Competition, rather than encouraging a multi-dimensional campaign strategy, appears to promote convergence towards the median voter and a unidimensional strategy. Furthermore, this study suggests that candidates face a number of obstacles in trying to transmit their campaign message to voters. In addition to struggling against their opponent, candidates have to struggle against both interest groups and the media to get their message to the electorate. Just under one-half of the advertisements interest groups ran were successful at interjecting issues into the campaign debate. Furthermore, in over seventy percent of the Senate races included in this study, the media emphasized issues other than what the candidates were focusing on. While this may have the positive benefit of infusing more issues into the debate, it may also blur the lines of accountabilityparticularly if candidates have no intention of acting on issues emphasized exclusively by the media

First Record of Mink Frog, Rana septentrionalis, from Insular Newfoundland

Two populations of the Mink Frog (Rana septentrionalis) were identified near Corner Brook Newfoundland during wider surveys for anurans on the west coast of the island. This brings to six the number of anuran species which are known to have been introduced to insular Newfoundland, with four known to be currently extant

Incorporating Far-Infrared Data into Carbonate Mineral Analyses

Polycrystalline carbonate minerals (including calcite, Mg-calcite, and aragonite) can show distinctive variations in their far-infrared (FIR) spectra. We describe how to identify mixed-phase samples by correlating FIR spectral changes with mid-infrared spectra, X-ray diffraction data, and simple peak overlap simulations. Furthermore, we show how to distinguish portlandite-containing (Ca(OH)2) mixtures that are common in heated calcium carbonate samples. Ultimately, these results could be used for tracking how minerals are formed and how they change during environmental exposure or processing after extraction

The Impact of #365Papers: A Daily Scientific Twitter Campaign to Disseminate Exercise Oncology Literature

Purpose: Many health researchers and practitioners use Twitter to stimulate scientific dialogue and collaboration among peers, as well as the general public. In 2018, the Clinical Exercise Physiology Lab (CEPL) undertook a year-long scientific Twitter campaign (#365Papers) where one peer-reviewed publication related to cancer and exercise/physical activity was tweeted per day. Features of this campaign included Throwback Thursdays (selected article published before 2018) and guest tweeters (article chosen by other exercise oncology researchers). We report on the impact of the #365Papers campaign based on Twitter Analytics data (i.e., engagement rate). We also explore how engagement rate differed depending on publication features (e.g., type of research, journal impact factor, Altmetric Attention Score) and campaign features (i.e., Throwback Thursdays, guest tweeters). Methods: Campaign data were obtained from Twitter Analytics (Twitter, 2020: San Francisco, USA). Publication information (i.e., type of research, journal) was extracted by screening titles and abstracts, while each publication’s Altmetric Attention Score was obtained using the Altmetric Bookmarklet (Digital Science, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, 2020: Stuttgart, Germany). Twitter Analytics data were summarized using descriptive statistics. Differences in engagement rate were analyzed based on research type (e.g., randomized controlled trial), journal impact factor, Altmetric Attention Score, and if the publication was posted as part of a Throwback Thursday or by a guest tweeter. Results: The #365Papers Twitter campaign received a total of 688,117 impressions and 22,124 engagements, with a median engagement rate of 3.2% and the majority of engagement from URL clicks (n=8279; 37%). The mean monthly increase in CEPL Twitter account followers was 48 (±18). Engagement rate did not differ based on type of research (p=0.53), journal impact factor (r=-0.06; p=0.27), Altmetric Attention Score (r=0.01; p=0.80), nor if the tweet was part of a Throwback Thursday (p=0.97). However, guest tweets had significantly higher engagement rates versus non-guest tweets (median: 3.6% vs. 3.1%; p=0.01). Conclusion: Our findings suggest the potential of a daily scientific Twitter campaign to stimulate peer and public engagement and dialogue around new scientific publications, especially when prominent figures in the research field are incorporated into the campaign process