Social media experience of young people

Section A: Introduces literature on the widespread impacts of social media. It then presents a systematic review and critical appraisal of measures of the impacts of social media use amongst young people. Ten measures were identified and their psychometric properties are presented and explored. Information relating to the reliability, validity and interpretability of measures is examined. Clinical implications are discussed along with recommendations for future research. Section B: Presents an empirical study of the development and validation of a new measure of the social media experiences of young people; the Social Media Experiences Scale (SMES). Extant literature informs the initial item development stage, which is followed by a consultation stage of a focus group with a sample of young people. The 95-item SMES is then tested in a sample of 256 UK young people (16-24 years). Factor analysis is performed and a final 20-item measure is retained. Psychometric properties are obtained and discussed in terms of their clinical and research implications. Limitations of the research are then considered

I Am Not My Hair...Or Am I?: Exploring the Minority Swimming Gap

A review of literature has revealed a dearth of research on leisure swimming patterns of Black females. Black youth, both male and female, have a higher rate of drowning than any other racial/ethnic group in the United States (“Water‐related injuries: Fact sheet”, 2005). Two known studies produced by (Irwin et al., 2009; 2010) examining hair as a constraint to swimming for African American youth produced conflicting results. In order to comprehensively examine hair as a constraint to African American female participation in swimming, the current study adopted a qualitative approach which allowed exploration of the cultural background and experiences of the participants enrolled in a required swimming class at Yates University (this is a pseudonym used throughout this research). The following research questions guided the study (a) How does hair influence swimming participation choices of Black females and (b) What is the self-reported degree of difficulty in the constraints negotiation process for Black females who do swim? The major finding is that hair acts as a constraint to swimming for participants of this study, but participants offered ways of negotiating this constraint to still be active participants in swimming

Psychological Uncertainty, Stress, Frustration and their Relationship with Counterproductive Workplace Behavior

The overall problem this research addresses is the costly impact of counterproductive work behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine whether uncertainty, stress, or frustration are related to variability, or in predicting counterproductive work behaviors. Wavering economic conditions have steadily altered work environments, and with continuous work changes are growing feelings of uncertainty, concerns of employee and organizational safety, performance, and overall wellbeing. The social exchange theory and the workplace social exchange network were used in this study to better understand employee relationships and response behaviors. Research questions compared the relationships among perceived uncertainty, stress, frustration, and levels of counterproductive work behaviors. For this study, a sample of 180 volunteers completed the Psychological Uncertainty Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale-10, the Frustration Scale, and the Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist-10. Volunteers were recruited via invitation by Findparticipants.com. and SurveyMonkey-® hosted the data collection. This non-experimental, quantitative study employed a survey design, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Regression analyses indicated a significant relationship between frustration and counterproductive work behaviors (t = 4.269, p \u3c .001); however, the relationship of uncertainty and stress with counterproductive behaviors was not statistically significant. Predicting employee negative behaviors and gaining a better understanding of factors with negative influences on work behavior allows leadership the opportunity to develop more sustainable strategies designed to influence and encourage positive social change

Conflicted: An Autoethnography on Researching the Minority Swimming Gap

In this research note, I use an autoethnographic method to undertake the task of uncomfortable reflexivity to address the intra-conflict of being a Black woman researching the minority swimming gap, who, like my research participants, struggles with hair maintenance to engage in swimming activities. My uncomfortable reflexivity moves from stages of confession, self-discovery, catharsis and a plan to incorporate deeper reflexivity in future research and other academic practices. Reflexivity in qualitative research is used as a methodological practice to give validation and legitimacy to a research study. Oftentimes, a qualitative researcher will do a bracketed interview to become aware of existing biases, fix problems with an interview schedule, or to temporarily feel what their subjects may experience during an interview. Sometimes reflexivity is merely done as a step in the research process, never progressing to the point of real interrogation of self, the body, and, ultimately, application. I have been guilty of going through the motions of comfortable reflexivity

Introduction of Natural Oils into Rubber Compounds

In the rubber industry, plasticizers for rubber compounds mainly consist of petroleum derivatives. Consequently, the rubber industry is in constant competition with many petroleum consumers. This competition places an economic strain on rubber companies such as HEXPOL RUBBER COMPOUNDING L.L.C. In order to alleviate this strain, natural oil alternatives to petroleum plasticizers are of novel research interest and are investigated in this thesis project

What African Americans Can Do to Bridge the Swimming Gap: A Call to Action

Over the last ten years, the gap in swimming participation between Whites and other minority groups has been well documented. Moreover, the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints to swimming participation by African Americans have been clearly delineated. With the challenges surrounding the minority swimming gap acknowledged, the impetus should now be on creating strategies to rectify the problem. This paper argues for a collective effort on the part of the African American community to ameliorate the swimming gap, thus lessening the senseless deaths associated with it. In this paper strategic actions are outlined including advocacy and the creation of viable partnerships to bridge the swimming gap. Most notably, the authors applaud the efforts of African American swimming luminaries such a Cullen Jones and many others who continue to articulate the importance and urgency of African Americans learning to swim but surmise that they cannot do the “heavy lifting” by themselves to encourage and inspire African Americans to learn to swim. Organizations such as the National Urban League (NUL), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Congressional Black Caucus and media moguls such as Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and Mo’Nique are encouraged to join forces with the NUL and NAACP in developing a broad-based initiative to promote learning to swim. In summary, the authors argue that the African American community must play a significant role in developing solutions to curb drownings and close the swimming gap

System remotely inspects, measures, and records internal irregularities in piping

Video electromechanical probe visually inspects and measures internal offset and peaking of welds in relatively large piping. Irregularity dimensions are recorded on peripheral equipment consisting of video tape and X-Y plotter. The probe is used for inspection of vacuum-jacketed liquid lines that cannot be inspected externally

Atomic oxygen effects on LDEF experiment AO171

The Solar Array Materials Passive Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) Experiment (SAMPLE), AO171, contained in total approximately 100 materials and materials processes with a 300 specimen complement. With the exception of experiment solar cell and solar cell modules, all test specimens were weighed before flight, thus allowing an accurate determination of mass loss as a result of space exposure. Since almost all of the test specimens were thermal vacuum baked before flight, the mass loss sustained can be attributed principally to atomic oxygen attack. The atomic oxygen effects observed and measured in five classes of materials is documented. The atomic oxygen reactivity values generated for these materials are compared to those values derived for the same materials from exposures on short term shuttle flights. An assessment of the utility of predicting long term atomic oxygen effects from short term exposures is given. This experiment was located on Row 8 position A which allowed all experiment materials to be exposed to an atomic oxygen fluence of 6.93 x 10(exp 21) atoms/cm(sup 2) as a result of being positioned 38 degrees off the RAM direction