Spousal Support and Sabotage: The Experiences of Female College Learners

Human beings are social creatures and we rely on support from other people in times of struggle, challenge, and accomplishment. The aspect of family support is crucial in the negotiating higher education demands. This roundtable presents the preliminary findings of a study which examined the support and sabotage experiences of adult female students enrolled in a research extensive university in the Southeastern U.S. city. Two research questions that guide this study are: to what extent did the women experience social support during their studies and to what extent did they experience sabotage

Mainbocher - A Couturier's Contribution to Material Culture

Among the various organizations for the pro-duction of wearing apparel within a techno-logically developed nation, the house of couture, in the Parisian sense, is unique. Mainbocher, the only American who owned a Parisian couture house, is the subject of a study of clothing and its relationships to the society in which the designer produced. A couturier or dressmaker/ tailor is an individual whose most recent designs are presented in several collections per year and then produced mostly on an individual basis for specific clients. Mainbocher's design philosophy and procedures of production obviously met a particular need for his clients. This paper investigates this phenomenon from a material culture perspective by studying not only the artifact and its characteristics, but also the symbolic nature of that artifact and what it communicates to society- through its produc-tion and use by the upper-upper class clients of Mainbocher (though Mainbocher had clients from the theatre for personal and stage cos-tume). Actual garments from two university costume collections were utilized for the study. Résumé La maison de couture, au sens parisien du terme, est unique en son genre parmi les organisations productrices de vêtements des pays développés. Mainbocher, le seul Américain à avoir possédé une maison de couture à Paris, fait l'objet d'une étude sur le vêtement et ses rapports avec la société pour laquelle il a été créé. Le couturier est la personne qui présente chaque année plusieurs collections de ses plus récentes créations et dont la production est surtout destinée à des clients particuliers. De toute évidence, Mainbocher avait une conception de la mode et des procédés de fabrication qui répondaient aux besoins spécifiques de sa clientèle. Dans le présent document, les auteurs étudient ce phénomène du point de vue de la culture matérielle en examinant non seulement l'arte-fact dans toutes ses caractéristiques, mais aussi ce qu'il symbolise et le message qu'il transmet à la société, à travers les étapes de sa production et l'utilisation qu'en faisait la clientèle de la haute société (bien que Mainbocher ait eu aussi des clients dans le monde du théâtre, qui faisaient appel à ses services pour leurs besoins personnels et pour la confection de costumes). Aux fins de l'étude, les auteurs se sont servis de vêtements provenant des collections de costumes de deux universités

Enhancing Doctoral Completion in Women: Evidence From a Qualitative Study of a Unique Federally Funded Program

In an era where campus environments were often unwelcoming to women, and there were few women role models, an innovative program funded by the National Institute of Education produced 100% completion by female and minority doctoral students. At a 25-year reunion, the graduates reflected on their program experiences and careers. Reflections were audiotaped and subjected to thematic narrative analysis. Five themes were identified through the assistance of a large interdisciplinary interpretive group: Freedom to Widen Horizons, We Were Kindred Souls, Women Who Wanted Us to Succeed, It Was a Gift, and Paying it Forward. Findings of the study are highly relevant today, given the persistence of sexism in academia, the underrepresentation of women among holders of doctoral degrees, and the need to better prepare women for faculty and leadership roles

Perceptions of Physical Activity in those with Visual Impairment

Background: Physical inactivity is a significant health issue facing the American population. This is even more prevalent in those with disabilities, such as a visual impairment. There is limited research into how persons with visual impairments perceive their own physical activity. We attempt to gain insight into this in order to better structure exercise programs for those with visual impairments. Objective: To gain better insight into the perceptions regarding exercise and physical activity in persons with visual impairments in order to better inform healthcare and exercise professionals. Design: This will be a 20 question survey study that will use convenience sampling to obtain participants. Participants: Participants will be visually impaired persons receiving services from Northeast Sight Services in Northeastern Pennsylvania. At least 20 participants will be recruited. Survey: Survey will be administered either digitally via SurveyMonkey or physically via a paper copy. There will be 20 questions utilizing a Likert scale. Questions will focus on current activity levels, comfort with exercise, confidence in performing physical activities other than exercise, and perceptions around increasing activity level. Measurements: Descriptive statistics will be utilized to analyze results. Limitations: Limitations could include limited geographical area, limited sample size, and limited accessibility to the survey. Conclusions: The results could provide valuable information about how persons with visual impairments perceive exercise and physical activity. This would allow healthcare and exercise professionals to make exercise more salient to those with visual impairments.https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/research_posters2021/1032/thumbnail.jp

Sex difference and intra-operative tidal volume: Insights from the LAS VEGAS study

BACKGROUND: One key element of lung-protective ventilation is the use of a low tidal volume (VT). A sex difference in use of low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) has been described in critically ill ICU patients.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a sex difference in use of LTVV also exists in operating room patients, and if present what factors drive this difference.DESIGN, PATIENTS AND SETTING: This is a posthoc analysis of LAS VEGAS, a 1-week worldwide observational study in adults requiring intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals in 29 countries.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Women and men were compared with respect to use of LTVV, defined as VT of 8 ml kg-1 or less predicted bodyweight (PBW). A VT was deemed 'default' if the set VT was a round number. A mediation analysis assessed which factors may explain the sex difference in use of LTVV during intra-operative ventilation.RESULTS: This analysis includes 9864 patients, of whom 5425 (55%) were women. A default VT was often set, both in women and men; mode VT was 500 ml. Median [IQR] VT was higher in women than in men (8.6 [7.7 to 9.6] vs. 7.6 [6.8 to 8.4] ml kg-1 PBW, P < 0.001). Compared with men, women were twice as likely not to receive LTVV [68.8 vs. 36.0%; relative risk ratio 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.1), P < 0.001]. In the mediation analysis, patients' height and actual body weight (ABW) explained 81 and 18% of the sex difference in use of LTVV, respectively; it was not explained by the use of a default VT.CONCLUSION: In this worldwide cohort of patients receiving intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery, women received a higher VT than men during intra-operative ventilation. The risk for a female not to receive LTVV during surgery was double that of males. Height and ABW were the two mediators of the sex difference in use of LTVV.TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01601223

SENSORS—MULTI-AGENT APPROACH

This thesis addresses two issues in robotic application: an issue concerned with the verification of how well the existing heuristic methods compensate for uncertainty caused by sensing the unstructured environment, and an issue focusing on the design and implementation of a control system that is easily expandable and portable to another robotic platform aiming to future research and application. Using a robot equipped with a minimal set of sensors such as a camera and infrared sensors, our multi-agent based control system is built to tackle various problems encountered during corridor navigation. The control system consists of four agents: an agent responsible for handling sensors, an agent which identifies a corridor using machine vision techniques, an agent which avoids collisions applying fuzzy logic to proximity data, and an agent responsible for locomotion. In the experiments, the robot’s performance demonstrates the feasibility of a multi-agent approach

SEMANTIC CONFLICT DETECTION IN META-DATA – A RULE BASED APPROACH Electronic Version Approved:

The Web has become a source of reference for information on many subjects. Also the ability to extract semantic meta-data from Web resources has increased tremendously in recent years. Effective use of this meta-data by the users can be affected by conflicts among the meta-data. In this context, we propose a new semi-automatic process using rules to detect conflicts. This meta-data can be represented in either of RDF(S), DAML or OWL and the rules are represented in RuleML. Furthermore, our technique can identify conflicts among the data at different granularities using a Relationship Ontology to simplify complex meta-data. We also describe a prototype implementation and an evaluation of this approach on a real-world dataset extracted from various Web resources

LIDS: A Learning Intrusion Detection System Electronic Version Approved:

(Under the direction of Dr. Walter D. Potter) The detection of attacks against computer networks is becoming a harder problem to solve in the field of network security. The dexterity of the attackers, the developing technologies and the enormous growth of internet traffic have made it difficult for any existing intrusion detection system to offer a reliable service. However, a close examination of the problem shows that there usually exists a behavioral pattern in the attacks that can be learned and can be used to detect intrusions more effectively. Thus, there is a requirement for a system with learning and adapting capabilities for optimal performance. This thesis discusses a Learning Intrusion Detection System called LIDS that includes a blackboard-based architecture with autonomous agents. It has the capability for online learning, which may result in better performance than present systems. This feature enables the system to adapt to changes in the network environment as it assimilates more network data