Fastener stretcher

A description is given of a fastener stretcher used to apply a substantial pure axial tensile force to a structural bolt or similar fastening element. The system is comprised of a pair of telescoping elements, one of which is temporarily secured to the bolt. By spreading the telescoping elements axially, the bolt is tensioned axially to permit a nut or the like to be threaded with a minimum of torque; when the elements are then removed from the bolt, the axial forces on the bolt are taken up by the nut to retain the bolt in its stressed state

The Influence Of Emotional Stimuli On Cognitive Performance In Relation To Delusion Intensity In Schizophrenia

Previous research has suggested that there are multiple psychological processes underlying delusional thought. While it appears that cognitive biases in certain reasoning and attention processes are related to delusion-proneness, the influence of emotion on these processes is not well understood. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional content on performance on tasks thought to measure attentional bias, preferential recall, and probabilistic reasoning in individuals with schizophrenia and demographically matched controls. In order to account for level of delusion-proneness, participants also completed a multidimensional measure of delusional thought. It was hypothesized that individuals with schizophrenia would perform more poorly on both the emotional and neutral versions of these tasks compared to controls. It was also hypothesized that within each group, there would be a statistically significant emotion effect, indicated by a difference in performance on the emotional (compared to neutral) condition of each task. This emotion effect was expected to be larger in the schizophrenia group. Finally, it was hypothesized that the emotion effect would increase as the severity of delusional proneness increased for all participants, regardless of group. As hypothesized, the schizophrenia group performed more poorly on the tasks overall, though expected emotion effects were generally absent. There were no differences in the size of emotion effects between the groups on any of the cognitive tasks administered, and the emotion effect did not appear to increase as severity of delusion-proneness increased. Factors that may have contributed to this pattern of results are discussed. Implications of these findings on theoretical models of delusions and future directions for research in this area are also discussed

The Comparison of Moral Reasoning within Similar Sport and Social Contexts

An important part of the University is to transmit the values of society. Recently, there has been advocacy for higher education to be more accountable in providing avenues for moral development of students. Sport has become one avenue that was put forth as a setting for such moral development. Literature though has been discouraging in the use of sport for moral reasoning. Most of the research, has been focused on varsity level sport. With the focus on higher profile sports, there are many levels of sport within the University that have been overlooked, including club sport. The purpose of this project is to explore if a club sport athlete’s moral reasoning in sport situations has a relationship to their moral reasoning in daily life situations. As in past literature, this research sought to compare moral reasoning in and out of the sport setting. The moral reasoning in sport instrument most commonly utilized, the HBVCI, contains everyday sport scenarios for a respondent to consider. In the interest of providing a comparable instrument that contained daily life everyday scenarios, a new instrument, the DLMD, was constructed to contain daily life situations similar to each of the HBVCI’s sport scenarios. With the use of the HBVCI and the newly constructed DLMD, the findings suggest that the longer an individual participates in club sport, the higher their moral reasoning. This is contradictory to the majority of the research within collegiate varsity sport. With this finding, this dissertation also introduced a framework for explaining that club sport may have a different effect on individual’s moral reasoning, potentially due to its democratic setting

Fast Matrix Multiplication via Group Actions

Recent work has shown that fast matrix multiplication algorithms can be constructed by embedding the two input matrices into a group algebra, applying a generalized discrete Fourier transform, and performing the multiplication in the Fourier basis. Developing an embedding that yields a matrix multiplication algorithm with running time faster than naive matrix multiplication leads to interesting combinatorial problems in group theory. The crux of such an embedding, after a group G has been chosen, lies in finding a triple of subsets of G that satisfy a certain algebraic relation. I show how the process of finding such subsets can in some cases be greatly simplified by considering the action of the group G on an appropriate set X. In particular, I focus on groups acting on regularly branching trees

Applying Science-Based Research To Teaching Adult English Language Learners

The purpose of this paper is to examine the research base on which rests the current best practices of teaching reading to adult English language learners. My focus is on reading because that is the skill most closely correlated to student academic success or socioeconomic improvement in the United States. The definition of science-based research is taken from Title VIII of the No Child Left Behind legislation (P.L. 107-110) of 2001 and is considered by the U.S. Department of Education to represent the “gold standard” in educational research. This definition identifies five critical qualities of acceptable research: application of rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures; reliance on empirical evidence; experimental design with testable hypotheses; ability of the study to be replicated; peer-reviewed or otherwise approved by independent experts. Five factors are found to be significant for affecting literacy development in English language learners across the lifespan: level of literacy proficiency in the first language; level of attained formal schooling in first language; second language proficiency; learner motivation; and professional development of instructors. This paper will include a discussion of best practices based on current knowledge, and conclude with implications for further research. Further research is needed to examine the role of first language proficiency and its transferability to learning literacy in English. We need to investigate the variability of time needed to attain proficiency in second language literacy. Finally, we need to examine the role that professional development plays in influencing teacher effectiveness

& scream & holler : feminism and the performance of anger in the American twentieth and twenty-first centuries

As defending anger and “angry feminists” have become central projects for feminist critique, highly visible, large-scale performances of anger – such as rallies, protests, and consciousness-raising seminars – have been assigned special significance and value within feminist studies of anger. Urging for a paradigmatic shift away from thinking of feminist anger primarily through large-scale, organized performances practices, & Scream & Holler generates a new model of feminist anger that recognizes how the feeling matters in private, quotidian acts. Returning to the category of feminist anger in the wake of the scholarly turn to trauma and morning over the course of the last decade, & Scream & Holler theorizes what I term “everyday anger” in women’s literary culture: displays of anger narrated in drama, memoir, and fiction that unfold in the home or in domestic spaces, lack an immediate audience, and seem more hesitant than defiant. Accounting for the anger of communities of Black women, queer women, and women with psychiatric disabilities – women who might live in precarious conditions and who could risk experiencing violence if they articulate brash, open hostility or stage collective action – necessitates searching for ephemeral traces of anger that are coded and mediated. The writers I draw together approach anger ambivalently, challenging assumptions that expressing anger enables women to overcome the historical imperative to be passive.Englis