The design and testing of a memory metal actuated boom release mechanism

A boom latch and release mechanism was designed, manufactured and tested, based on a specification for the ISEE-B satellite mechanism. From experimental results obtained, it is possible to calculate the energy available and the operating torques which can be achieved from a torsional shape memory element in terms of the reversible strain induced by prior working. Some guidelines to be followed when designing mechanisms actuated by shape memory elements are included

Learning objects and learning designs: an integrated system for reusable, adaptive and shareable learning content

This paper proposes a system, the Smart Learning Design Framework, designed to support the development of pedagogically sound learning material within an integrated, platform-independent data structure. The system supports sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning material via a metadata-driven philosophy that enables the technicalities of the system to be imperceptible to the author and consumer. The system proposes the use of pedagogically focused metadata to support and guide the author and to adapt and deliver the content to the targeted consumer. A prototype of the proposed system, which provides proof of concept for the novel processes involved, has been developed. The paper describes the Smart Learning Design Framework and places it within the context of alternative learning object models and frameworks to highlight similarities, differences and advantages of the proposed system

Participant Self-Assessment of Development Center Performance

In order to navigate the political and cultural realities of modern organizations, individuals must possess an accurate self-perception (Ostroff, Atwater, & Feinberg, 2004). One way to gauge the accuracy of a person\u27s self-perception is to compare that individual\u27s self-assessment against other people\u27s assessments of him or her. This technique is known as self-other rating agreement (SORA). Heneman (1980) posited that development centers are an ideal setting in which to study self-assessment and SORA. The present study examined self-assessment and SORA in development centers. Particular attention was paid to exercises, competencies, and gender differences in self-ratings and SORA. Correlations and t-tests were conducted to investigate gender effects, self-rating tendencies, and SORA of participants\u27 self-assessments of performance. Results revealed that men self-rated higher than observers on 4 of 6 exercises and 4 of 7 competencies, women self-rated accurately on 4 of 6 exercises and 6 of 7 competencies, and men self-rated higher than women on all competencies and all but one exercises. This study\u27s sample size was undesirably small, which unfortunately precluded the investigation of two proposed hypotheses. While these findings do little to advance the theory behind SORA, they still contribute to existing literature about gender, self-assessment, and development center exercises and competencies. Provided a much larger sample size could be obtained, future research should further investigate gender effects, self-rating tendencies, and SORA of participants\u27 self-assessments of development center performance, in the hopes of helping participants improve their self-perception

Memory-craft: The Role Of Domestic Technology In Women\u27s Journals

The term memory-craft refers to arts and crafts media where personal memorabilia and journaling are combined and assembled into book form. Examples of memory-crafts include scrapbooks, art journals, and altered books. Traditionally, women have been the primary assemblers of memory-crafts, using this form as a method of autobiography and genealogical archiving. Memory-crafting is often associated with the amateur home-crafter, and while historians have long understood its cultural significance, academia has not properly considered memory-craft as a type of alternative discourse. The purpose of this study is to examine the use of memory-crafting as a non-traditional method of writing, especially among women who use it to record personal and familial narratives. Just as women are usually the primary care-takers of the family, through memory-craft they also become responsible for collecting and preserving memories, which would otherwise become lost. These memories of the everyday--birthday parties, family vacations, and wedding anniversaries--grow to be culturally significant over time. Through the use of domestic technology, which today includes both paper scraps and home computer systems, memory-crafts assist in the interpretation of the present and provide insight into the past. To help explore the connection between domestic technology and memory-crafts, I have organized this study into four themes: history and memory-craft; women and domestic technology; feminist literary autobiography and memoir; and feminism and hypermedia. My approach is a mixture of fictionalized personal narrative and analysis loosely modeled after Writing Machines by N. Katherine Halyes and Alias Olympia by Eunice Lipton. Just as I discuss experimental methods of writing in the form of memory-crafting, I also use an experimental writing technique which gathers from personal memories in the form of a persona named Tess and from the life of my Great Aunt Mamie Veach Dudley. Mamie\u27s journals and letter to her sister document the memories of the Dudleys including a tragic double suicide, which still haunts the Dudleys almost 100 years later. As narrator and storyteller, my stories connect to those documented by Mamie and link the past to the present. Along with Mamie\u27s family records, I consider other memory-related works by women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including Jane Austen, Anne Bronte, and Emily Dickinson, and I also examine contemporary memory-crafters such as those constructed by altered book artists Tom Phillips and Judith Margolis. Digital memory-craft is another source of support for my argument, and I look at web groups and bloggers. For example, I discuss the Wish Jar Journal, a weblog written by illustrator Keri Smith, where she journals her life and creative process and often mixes textual and visual elements in her blog posts. Writer and blogger Heather Armstrong from Dooce.com is another case study included in this project as her blog is an example of documenting familial events and memoir. Because of their fragmented formats and narrative elements, hardcopy and digitally-based memory-crafts become artifacts which combine text and visual elements to tell a story and pass on knowledge of the everyday through the mixture of text and domestic technology. Memory-craft construction does not follow conventional writing models. Therefore, this provides opportunity for experimentation by those writers who have traditionally been removed from established rhetorical writing methods

Life Histories of Refugees from Burma in Akron, Ohio

This paper examines the life histories of members of the Karen refugee community in Akron, Ohio. This research was done to better understand the difficulties the community faces as the Karen adjust to life in the United States. The larger historical context of ethnic conflict in Burma, the country they fled, is explored before a discussion of the anthropological work that was undertaken by the author. Life histories, collected through interviews, were analyzed thematically. Finally, suggestions are made for ways to aid in the transition of the Karen with a focus on the process to gain U.S. citizenship

Contingent Valuation of Organic Cotton: An Empirical Investigation into the WTA-WTP Disparity

Contingent valuation is a non-market valuation technique which elicits preference data from participants by asking them to value a change in the provision of a specific good or service, contingent on the specifications outlined in a hypothetical market scenario. A commonly observed feature of CV results is a significant and pervasive disparity that develops between willingness to accept and willingness to pay measures of value. While these two measures should theoretically produce the same value estimate for a particular good, with the exception of a small difference due to the income effect, this is not the case in a majority of the experimental CV literature. This WTA-WTP disparity is the focus of this thesis’ investigation, which aims to offer a more accurate understanding of the phenomenon. This thesis provides a detailed review of past research experiments investigating the WTA-WTP gap, identifying two main alternate explanations for the disparity: one which explains the discrepancy as resulting from flaws in the methodological design of the CV experiments (weak experimental design) and one which suggests the gap is caused the fact that people place a higher value on a good they own than an identical good they do not own (endowment effect theory). To assess the legitimacy of each of these two explanations, this thesis presents an experimental investigation into the WTA-WTP gap, where a basic CV survey is design and then used to elicit preference data from participants for organic cotton. The experimental design includes six CV surveys, all of which are fundamentally identical except for small specific alterations, which will allow valuation results to be compared across survey groups in an attempt to isolate the effect that the specified survey design features have on valuation estimates. Two of the surveys collect WTP and WTA data from participants under a binding condition where the average valuation stated by the group would determine a binding monetary outcome for all of the participants. Two further surveys collect WTP and WTA data from participants where no binding monetary outcome is specified (i.e. purely hypothetical), and the final two treatment groups are asked to estimate the WTP and WTA of the binding groups, rather than provide their own personal value estimates. The core comparisons possible between these survey designs include: assessing whether a WTA-WTP gap is observed even when controlling for features of weak experimental design, assessing how the hypothetical nature of a CV experiment impacts on the valuation results, and whether participants are able to provide an unbiased estimate of others’ preferences. Data was collected from 178 participants with between 27 and 31 respondents involved in each of the six survey groups. The data was then analysed using SPSS to test whether there were significant differences between the valuation estimates collected from the different participant groups. The results of the experiment found that the WTA-WTP gap is caused by the endowment effect rather than weak experimental design, that hypothetical and binding treatments do not differ significantly in terms of valuation estimates, and that participants are able to provide unbiased estimates of others’ preferences, so long as they are not first asked to state their own preferences

Synthetic and structural studies of (hetero)carboranes with contrasting exopolyhedral substituents

Chapter one of this thesis provides a broad introduction to (hetero)borane chemistry, with some more focussed discussion on topics pertaining to the work which comprises this document. It also includes the scope of thesis for this work. Chapter two describes the preparation and characterisation of a substantial number of nitrosocarboranes along with hydroxylamine and Diels-Alder cycloadduct derivatives based on these nitroso-species. This chapter contains improved characterisation of some previously reported compounds, along with novel compounds. Some of these species are characterised crystallographically, including two examples involving crystal growth for diffraction studies by cooling a liquid sample. Chapter three describes the Enhanced Structural Carborane Effect and provides evidence for this phenomenon via comparison of molecular geometry of a series of closely related compounds determined by X-Ray diffraction studies. It also includes investigation into ligand substitution of a ruthenacarborane carbonyl compound, and discussion of the ligand orientation and bond distances of the family of compounds prepared and studied. Chapter four contains experimental details for all of the novel compounds involved in chapters two and three, along with some alternative or improved syntheses for some known compounds

Exploring a Second Level of Parity: Suggestions for Developing an Analytical Framework for Forum Selection in Employment Discrimination Litigation

In April 1990 in Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Donnelly, the United States Supreme Court resolved a split among the circuit courts and held that state and federal courts have concurrent jurisdiction over Title VII claims. This decision strengthens a presumption that state courts, as a whole, can be equal to their federal counterparts in adjudicating federal employment discrimination claims. It also further complicates the process of forum selection for employment discrimination litigants. Because plaintiffs now may present Title VII claims in state court, the doctrine of res judicata will bar any subsequent presentation of Title VII claims in federal court that the plaintiff could have raised in a prior state court action. Plaintiffs who wish to pursue related state claims in state court without risking removal may have to abandon their Title VII claims to protect their choice of forum.\u27 Consequently, the informed use of the forum selection process in making that choice is increasingly important. Now more than ever, litigants need an analytical framework to guide them in the forum selection process. Scholars and commentators consistently have debated the proper role of the state and federal courts in the adjudication of federal claims. One can trace the origins of this debate to the Framers of the Constitution In recent years this debate often has focused on the issue of parity: whether or not the state courts, as a whole, provide adequate and trustworthy forums for litigants seeking protection of federal rights.\u27 The parity debate raises issues significant to the determination of the proper roles of the federal and state courts in enforcing federal rights. Although no consensus has emerged, the continuing debate is likely to influence the allocation of judicial resources by judges and legislators alike. The Yellow Freight decision forces employment discrimination litigants and their attorneys engaging in the process of forum selection to confront many of the same issues raised by the parity debate. These issues, however, have a different significance for individual litigants confronted with a choice between state and federal forums. For litigants, the important inquiry is not whether state courts as a whole are as capable as their federal counterparts in protecting federal rights, but whether, in a given case, a particular state court or a particular federal court is more amenable to the claims or defenses litigants may raise. Thus, to be of value to individuals in developing a framework for forum selection, the parity debate must move to another level. Although the central question remains whether one forum is better than another, a pragmatic approach to forum selection requires an individualization of the parity debate