Philosophy with children : helping designers cooperate with children

Engaging children in design through in-depth interviews is coming to prominence in the IDC community, which increasingly engages with issues about understanding the children's world. To date, research in this area has primarily focused on engaging children using techniques somehow similar to adult-techniques (moodboards, brainstorming, laddering,...). However, questioning or interviewing children is fraught with difficulties. The proposed workshop seeks to explore where and how a philosophy with children methodology can be adapted for design, exploring themes such as Socratic Attitudes, wondering, and question types. This workshop aims to build an interdisciplinary community of researchers, designers, and practitioners to share and discuss their work and experiences

The safety case and the lessons learned for the reliability and maintainability case

This paper examine the safety case and the lessons learned for the reliability and maintainability case

Modelling tertiary creep in geomaterials using a continuum damage mechanics approach.

Tertiary creep is often observed in soft rocks and it represents a problem in a mining environment. Tertiary creep behaviour appears due to progressive micro cracking of the material and would result in a loss of strength and stiffness, which may eventually lead to failure and a complete loss of load carrying capability of the material. In this paper, the authors combined the continuum damage mechanics within the framework of hyperplasticity, thus encompassing viscoplasticity and damage within a single theory. The authors present a family of models which obeys the laws of thermodynamics. The entire constitutive behaviour is derived from two scalar potentials; a free energy potential which provides the elasticity law, and a dissipation potential which provides the yield function, the direction of plastic flow and the evolution of a damage variable. No additional assumptions are required. These new models require only few parameters which have physical meanings and are capable of capturing tertiary creep observed in soft rocks

Visitors’ Climate Change Beliefs & Perceptions of Climate-Sensitive Resources at Great Sand Dunes National Park

Abstract Ecological consequences associated with climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable in nature-based recreation areas. Research is therefore needed to better understand nature-based recreationists’ perceptions of, attitudes towards, and behavioral responses to climate change and resource impacts in parks. This study explored strategies for assessing and responding to visitor perceptions of climate change at Great Sand Dunes National Park (GRSA), Colorado. In the summer of 2011, researchers intercepted visitors at GRSD and invited them to complete an online questionnaire. Visitors reported strong beliefs that global climate change was currently happening, but less certainty regarding the belief that human activities are influencing climate. Studies such as this may provide information for interpreters and park staff regarding climate change, and increase visitors’ understanding of climate change. Future research could expand upon this exploratory study in an effort to inform resource management decisions and develop targeted climate change visitor education programs

Doing a Good Job at a Bad Thing: Prevalence and Perpetuation of Stereotypes Among Members of Historically Black Sororities

This study examined how stereotypes among alumnae members of historically Black sororities affected their experiences as both undergraduate and graduate members. This research contributes to the literature on skin color bias and to the stereotypes of Black women. For the majority of women we surveyed for this research, the myths and stereotypes surrounding skin color bias, intra-racial group relations, beauty, and femininity of different historically Black sororities influenced the initial perceptions of members in each group. The findings include some commonality among stereotypes about the oldest sororities (Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta), yet stereotypes about the other organizations (Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho) varied due to age, college life experience, and the geographic location of the interviewees. Implications and considerations for future research are included

A molecular communication channel consisting of a single reversible chain of hydrogen bonds in a conformationally flexible oligomer

Communication of information through the global switching of conformation in synthetic molecules has hitherto entailed the inversion of chirality. Here, we report a class of oligomer through which information may be communicated through a global reversal of polarity. Ethylene-bridged oligoureas are constitutionally symmetrical, conformationally flexible molecules organized by a single chain of hydrogen bonds running the full length of the oligomer. NMR reveals that this hydrogen-bonded chain may undergo a coherent reversal of directionality. The directional uniformity of the hydrogen-bond chain allows it to act as a channel for the spatial communication of information on a molecular scale. A binding site at the terminus of an oligomer detects local information about changes in pH or anion concentration and transmits that information—in the form of a directionality switch in the hydrogen-bond chain—to a remote polarity-sensitive fluorophore. This propagation of polarity-encoded information provides a new mechanism for molecular communication

Periodic Travelling Waves in Dimer Granular Chains

We study bifurcations of periodic travelling waves in granular dimer chains from the anti-continuum limit, when the mass ratio between the light and heavy beads is zero. We show that every limiting periodic wave is uniquely continued with respect to the mass ratio parameter and the periodic waves with the wavelength larger than a certain critical value are spectrally stable. Numerical computations are developed to study how this solution family is continued to the limit of equal mass ratio between the beads, where periodic travelling waves of granular monomer chains exist

Phase Behavior of Bent-Core Molecules

Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases) characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte Carlo simulations of a minimal hard spherocylinder dimer model to investigate the role of excluded volume interations in determining the phase behavior of bent-core materials and to probe the molecular origins of polar and chiral symmetry breaking. We present the phase diagram as a function of pressure or density and dimer opening angle $\psi$. With decreasing $\psi$, a transition from a nonpolar to a polar smectic phase is observed near $\psi = 167^{\circ}$, and the nematic phase becomes thermodynamically unstable for $\psi < 135^{\circ}$. No chiral smectic or biaxial nematic phases were found.Comment: 4 pages Revtex, 3 eps figures (included

Fiat lux : light and pedagogy for the 21st century

BACKGROUND : The relationship between the quality of the learning environment and student outcomes is receiving more serious attention from educational psychologists, neurologists, ophthalmologists, orthopedists, surgeons, oncologists, architects, ergonomists, nutritionists, and Michelin star chefs. There is a role for ergonomic office and school design to positively impact worker and student productivity, and one design attribute drawing attention is the indoor lit environment. In this review, we expand upon the role that light plays in education, as it has enabled millions of pupils to read at late hours, which were previously too dark. However, still unappreciated is the biological effects of artificial light on circadian rhythm and its subsequent impacts on health and learning outcomes. SUMMARY : This review describes the current state of light in the educational environment, its impact, and the effect of certain inexpensive and easy-to-implement adaptations to better support student growth, learning and development. We find that the current lighting environment for pupils is sub-optima based on biological mechanism and may be improved through cost effective interventions. These interventions can achieve greater biological harmonization and improve learner outcomes. KEY MESSASGE : This review describes the current state of light in the educational environment, its impact, and the effect of certain inexpensive and easy-to-implement adaptations to better support student growth, learning and development. We find that the current lighting environment for pupils is sub-optima based on biological mechanism and may be improved through cost effective interventions. These interventions can achieve greater biological harmonization and improve learner outcomes.US NIH grants and the National Research Foundation of South Africa.https://journals.sagepub.com/home/aonNeurolog