67 research outputs found
Education For Empowerment and Social Action in Rural America
The purpose of this paper is to describe both the underlying assumptions and results of the educationaI efforts of one grassroots, community-based organization, Prairiefire Rural Action, Inc
Highly reactive energetic films by pre-stressing nano-aluminum particles
Energetic films were synthesized using stress altered nano-aluminum particles (nAl). The nAl powder was pre-stressed to examine how modified mechanical properties of the fuel particles influenced film reactivity. Pre-stressing conditions varied by quenching rate. Slow and rapid quenching rates induced elevated dilatational strain within the nAl particles that was measured using synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD). An analytical model for stress and strain in a nAl coreâAl2O3 shell particle that includes creep in the shell and delamination at the coreâshell boundary, was developed and used for interpretation of strain measurements. Results show rapid quenching induced 81% delamination at the particle coreâshell interface also observed with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Slower quenching elevated dilatational strain without delamination. All films were prepared at approximately a 75:25 Al:poly(vinylidene fluoride) PVDF weight ratio and were 1 mm thick. A drop weight impact test was performed to assess ignition sensitivity and combustion. Stress altered nAl exhibited greater energy release rates and more complete combustion than untreated nAl, but reaction dynamics and kinetics proceeded in two different ways depending on the nAl quenching rate during pre-stressing
brainlife.io: A decentralized and open source cloud platform to support neuroscience research
Neuroscience research has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years by
advancing standardization and tool development to support rigor and
transparency. Consequently, the complexity of the data pipeline has also
increased, hindering access to FAIR data analysis to portions of the worldwide
research community. brainlife.io was developed to reduce these burdens and
democratize modern neuroscience research across institutions and career levels.
Using community software and hardware infrastructure, the platform provides
open-source data standardization, management, visualization, and processing and
simplifies the data pipeline. brainlife.io automatically tracks the provenance
history of thousands of data objects, supporting simplicity, efficiency, and
transparency in neuroscience research. Here brainlife.io's technology and data
services are described and evaluated for validity, reliability,
reproducibility, replicability, and scientific utility. Using data from 4
modalities and 3,200 participants, we demonstrate that brainlife.io's services
produce outputs that adhere to best practices in modern neuroscience research
Nanomaterials by severe plastic deformation: review of historical developments and recent advances
International audienceSevere plastic deformation (SPD) is effective in producing bulk ultrafine-grained and nanostructured materials with large densities of lattice defects. This field, also known as NanoSPD, experienced a significant progress within the past two decades. Beside classic SPD methods such as high-pressure torsion, equal-channel angular pressing, accumulative roll-bonding, twist extrusion, and multi-directional forging, various continuous techniques were introduced to produce upscaled samples. Moreover, numerous alloys, glasses, semiconductors, ceramics, polymers, and their composites were processed. The SPD methods were used to synthesize new materials or to stabilize metastable phases with advanced mechanical and functional properties. High strength combined with high ductility, low/room-temperature superplasticity, creep resistance, hydrogen storage, photocatalytic hydrogen production, photocatalytic CO2 conversion, superconductivity, thermoelectric performance, radiation resistance, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility are some highlighted properties of SPD-processed materials. This article reviews recent advances in the NanoSPD field and provides a brief history regarding its progress from the ancient times to modernity
Male Oxidative Stress Infertility (MOSI): Proposed Terminology and Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Idiopathic Male Infertility
Despite advances in the field of male reproductive health, idiopathic male infertility, in which a man has altered semen
characteristics without an identifiable cause and there is no female factor infertility, remains a challenging condition to diagnose
and manage. Increasing evidence suggests that oxidative stress (OS) plays an independent role in the etiology of male
infertility, with 30% to 80% of infertile men having elevated seminal reactive oxygen species levels. OS can negatively affect
fertility via a number of pathways, including interference with capacitation and possible damage to sperm membrane and
DNA, which may impair the spermâs potential to fertilize an egg and develop into a healthy embryo. Adequate evaluation of
male reproductive potential should therefore include an assessment of sperm OS. We propose the term Male Oxidative Stress
Infertility, or MOSI, as a novel descriptor for infertile men with abnormal semen characteristics and OS, including many
patients who were previously classified as having idiopathic male infertility. Oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) can be a
useful clinical biomarker for the classification of MOSI, as it takes into account the levels of both oxidants and reductants
(antioxidants). Current treatment protocols for OS, including the use of antioxidants, are not evidence-based and have the
potential for complications and increased healthcare-related expenditures. Utilizing an easy, reproducible, and cost-effective
test to measure ORP may provide a more targeted, reliable approach for administering antioxidant therapy while minimizing
the risk of antioxidant overdose. With the increasing awareness and understanding of MOSI as a distinct male infertility diagnosis,
future research endeavors can facilitate the development of evidence-based treatments that target its underlying cause
Advancing an energy justice perspective of fuel poverty: Household vulnerability and domestic retrofit policy in the United Kingdom
The concept of energy justice has brought philosophies of ethics and principles of social justice to bear on a range of contemporary energy issues. More inter-disciplinary and applied endeavours are now needed to take this field forward. One such application is to the issue of fuel poverty and the challenge of retrofitting inefficient housing stock. An energy justice perspective sees fuel poverty as a fundamentally socio-political injustice, not just one of uneven distribution. Starting from this premise, we highlight the multiple injustices faced by two groups who are regarded by policymakers as being particularly vulnerable to fuel poverty: disabled people and low-income families. In the UK, these groups are nominally prioritised within fuel poverty policy, but their complex situations are not always fully appreciated. Building on the theoretical foundations of energy justice, we present an inter-disciplinary dialogue that connects this approach with wider vulnerability research and domestic energy efficiency policy. Specifically, we discuss âwithin groupâ heterogeneity (recognition justice), stakeholder engagement in policy and governance (procedural justice) and the overlap of multiple structural inequalities (distributional justice). In each section we illustrate the added value of combining justice and vulnerability conceptualisations by linking them to domestic energy efficiency schemes
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Constructing a Distant Future: Imaginaries in Geoengineering
We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty, a distant future is represented in stylized terms and concerned with imagining possibilities under conditions of ambiguity. Management research on future-oriented action has developed around problems of the near future. To explore distant futures, we analyze the case of geoengineering, a set of planetary-scale technologies that have been proposed as solutions to the threat of climate change. Geoengineering has increasingly been treated as if it were a reality, despite continued controversy and in the absence of any implementation. We find that societal-level imaginaries that were built on deeply-held moral bases and cosmologies underpinned the conception of geoengineering, and that a dialectic process of discursive attempts to reconcile oppositional imaginaries increased the concreteness and credibility of geoengineering so that it increasingly has been treated as an âas-ifâ reality. We suggest that distant futures orient collective efforts in distinctive ways, not as concrete guides for action but by expressing critiques and alternatives, that can become treated as âas-ifâ realities
A Practice of Concrete Utopia? Informal Youth Support and the Possibility of 'Redemptive Remembering' in a UK Coal-Mining Area
At a moment when individualised and de-historicised notions of 'aspiration', 'resilience' and 'wellbeing' are proliferating in policy discourse shaping informal youth support practice, this article argues, instead, for a critically historical focus. In reviewing material from an intergenerational ethnographic study of young people in contact with youth support teams in a former coal-mining community in Derbyshire, UK, the case is made for understanding how young working-class people's experience of education is situated within historical geographies of collectively transmitted affect. In the particular coal-mining locality considered, these classed spatialities of feeling have been shaped through traditions of political, trade union and community resistance and mutual aid established over a 200-year period and culminating in the locally bitterly divided national miners' strike of 1984-85. Beginning from an ethnographic field note, the article outlines how such insubordinate community histories - particularly those imagining a radical reconstitution of society - can be silenced when a collective psycho-social space once redolent with hope becomes a space of ruin as a result of politically orchestrated de-industrialisation. Noticing how this compounds young people's experience of marginalisation and leaves them at once adrift from the 'illegitimate' histories that are their legitimate 'heritage', and at the same time subject to the traumatic affective legacy of those same histories, a critical counter-practice in informal youth support is proposed. Drawing on Blochian readings of Freire, the article calls for a form of intergenerational 'redemptive remembering' - a practice of 'concrete utopia' - capable of recovering 'unspeakable' community histories for a collective remaking of resilience and aspiration beyond the received confines of the neoliberal imaginary
brainlife.io: a decentralized and open-source cloud platform to support neuroscience research
Neuroscience is advancing standardization and tool development to support rigor and transparency. Consequently, data pipeline complexity has increased, hindering FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) access. brainlife.io was developed to democratize neuroimaging research. The platform provides data standardization, management, visualization and processing and automatically tracks the provenance history of thousands of data objects. Here, brainlife.io is described and evaluated for validity, reliability, reproducibility, replicability and scientific utility using four data modalities and 3,200 participants
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