Participant perspectives of program success in a community college-based short-term skill training program

Evaluating the success or failure of work force training programs is most often accomplished through the reporting of "objective" data. Rarely are the students' views of their own success in such a training program formally solicited or applied in any useful way. But participant perceptions can be a critical barometer of quality and ought to be taken into account in any program which aims for continuous improvement. This research was undertaken to allow people to present their experiences and meanings in ways which can contribute to just such program improvement. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. How do student participants define success? 2. How did their Skill Center training program meet their definition of success? It was expected that information gathered from the study would provide information that could: (a) provide and clarify student participant perspectives in work force training and employment programs, and (b) help program operators who run this and similar programs make informed decisions based on participants' definitions of success and their perceptions of what successes they experienced from the Skill Center program. The data were collected through in-depth interviews with fifteen graduates self-identified as successful. Grounded theory methodology was followed to develop the findings. Among all informants, the most often cited theme was that of "connecting" with instructors and fellow students. A second component of this central theme was a "cohort" feeling; a perception of warmth, support, and a sense of family that was common to all of the students interviewed. Many students were balancing feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety, and despair, and it was the human connections with the other members of the skill training center that enabled many, if not most, students to persist in training. For all of the interviewees, the affective value of their training was more intrinsic (e.g., helped them build their confidence and self-esteem) than extrinsic (e.g., helped them obtain and retain a job). This contributes to an inherent tension between individuals and agencies, since agency perspectives on success are based almost solely on extrinsic measures

3-Acetyl­benzoic acid

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C9H8O3, essentially planar mol­ecules [the carboxyl group makes a dihedral angle of 4.53 (7)° with the plane of the ring, while the acid group forms a dihedral angle of 3.45 (8)° to the ring] aggregate by centrosymmetric hydrogen-bond pairing of ordered carboxyl groups. This yields dimers which have two orientations in a unit cell, creating a herringbone pattern. In addition, two close C—H⋯O inter­molecular contacts exist: one is between a methyl H atom and the ketone of a symmetry-related mol­ecule and the other involves a benzene H atom and the carboxyl group O atom of another mol­ecule. The crystal studied was a non-merohedral twin with twin law [100, 00, 0] and a domain ratio of 0.8104(14): 0.1896(14)

Effects of Multiple, Predator‐Induced Behaviors on Short‐term Producer‐Grazer Dynamics in Open Systems

We investigated the population consequences of multiple behavioral responses of grazers to a foraging return-predation risk trade-off in an open system consisting of primary producers, grazers, and predators. Using a dynamical model where grazers adjust their foraging activity and emigration rate to the densities of predators and producers, we explored how changes in control variables (predator density, grazer immigration, and producer immigration and carrying capacity) affect the dynamics of producers and grazers at temporal scales shorter than consumer and predator reproduction. The model predicts that producer biomass increases and that both the density of foraging grazers and the feeding rate of predators decrease with predator density. These predictions hold although total (foraging + nonforaging) grazer density may actually increase with predator density. The latter will occur whenever the benefit of higher resource density outweighs the increased risk of predation. In this case, per capita grazer emigration decreases with predator density, which might be misinterpreted as a direct 'freezing' response to predators. Increased grazer immigration is predicted to result in decreased producer density and increased densities of both foraging and total grazers, as well as increased grazer emigration and predator feeding rates. Increased producer immigration or carrying capacity should increase producer and grazer densities and predator feeding rate but decrease per capita grazer emigration. Manipulation of predator (trout) densities in a set of nine large (50 m2) stream channels produced results in broad agreement with model predictions. Most notably, a positive effect of trout on benthic algal biomass was mainly mediated through grazer behavior (changes in the use of epibenthic surfaces and in emigration rate) rather than through consumptive reductions of grazer numbers by trout

What makes you not a Sikh? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Sikh values contrasted with or were shared by non-Sikh adolescents. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Sikh values was fielded in a sample of 364 non-Sikh schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Values where attitudes were least positive concerned Sikh duties/code of conduct, festivals, rituals, prayer Gurdwara attendance, listening to scripture recitation, the amrit initiation. Sikh values empathized with by non-Sikhs concerned family pride, charity, easy access to ordination and Gurdwaras, maintaining the five Ks, seeing God in all things, abstaining from meat and alcohol and belief in the stories of Guru Nanak. Further significant differences of attitude toward Sikhism were found in comparisons by sex, age and religious affiliation. Findings are applied to teaching Sikhism to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends the extension of values mapping to specifically Sikh populations

MAPS, SECTIONS, AND STRUCTURE-CONTOUR DIAGRAMS SHOWING THE GEOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE MOUAT NICKEL-COFFER PROSPECT, STILLWATER COMPLEX, STILLWATER COUNTY, MONTANA

ABSTRACT Deposits of magmatic nickel-copper (Ni-Cu) sulfides are concentrated near the base of the Stillwater Complex, a Late Archean mafic to ultramafic layered intrusion exposed on the north edge of the Beartooth Mountains, Montana. Extensive drilling and limited underground development work by the Anaconda Minerals Company has delineated the sub-surface extent of one of these deposits, the Mouat Ni-Cu prospect or deposit. Structural interpretation shows that rocks of the Mountain View area of the Stillwater Complex are folded into a broad syncline which is inclined and cut by several generations of faults. The oldest faults strike northeast and have near vertical dips. These faults are cut by northweststriking, near vertical faults showing left-lateral separation. Apparent separation on these faults are less than 500 ft. Two high-angle reverse faults, the Lake fault and the Bluebird thrust, truncate the Mouat deposit on the northeast and the southwest, respectively. Sulfide minerals that constitute this deposit are concentrated at the lower contact of the Stillwater Complex within the Basal series and within and adjacent to very discontinuous, irregularly shaped Stillwater-associated sills and dikes that intrude the metasedimentary rocks underlying the complex. The base of the Stillwater Complex shows considerable relief over short distances; as a result, the thickness of the Basal series ranges from 0 to 450 ft. However, there is no clear evidence that sulfides at the base of the complex pooled in depressions on the floor of the complex. Intensity of faulting and the discontinuous nature of the matrix-to-massive sulfide mineralization do not allow probabilistic tonnage and grade estimates to be made despite the density of drilling

Magnetic Raman Scattering in Two-Dimensional Spin-1/2 Heisenberg Antiferromagnets: Spectral Shape Anomaly and Magnetostrictive Effects

We calculate the Raman spectrum of the two-dimensional (2D) spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet by exact diagonalization and quantum Monte Carlo techniques on clusters of up to 144 sites and, on a 16-site cluster, by considering the phonon-magnon interaction which leads to random fluctuations of the exchange integral. Results are in good agreement with experiments on various high-T_c precursors, such as La_2CuO_4 and YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.2}. In particular, our calculations reproduce the broad lineshape of the two-magnon peak, the asymmetry about its maximum, the existence of spectral weight at high energies, and the observation of nominally forbidden A_{1g} scattering.Comment: 12 pages, REVTEX, 1 postscript figur

Cluster M Mycobacteriophages Bongo, PegLeg, and Rey with Unusually Large Repertoires of tRNA Isotopes

Genomic analysis of a large set of phages infecting the common hostMycobacterium smegmatis mc2155 shows that they span considerable genetic diversity. There are more than 20 distinct types that lack nucleotide similarity with each other, and there is considerable diversity within most of the groups. Three newly isolated temperate mycobacteriophages, Bongo, PegLeg, and Rey, constitute a new group (cluster M), with the closely related phages Bongo and PegLeg forming subcluster M1 and the more distantly related Rey forming subcluster M2. The cluster M mycobacteriophages have siphoviral morphologies with unusually long tails, are homoimmune, and have larger than average genomes (80.2 to 83.7 kbp). They exhibit a variety of features not previously described in other mycobacteriophages, including noncanonical genome architectures and several unusual sets of conserved repeated sequences suggesting novel regulatory systems for both transcription and translation. In addition to containing transfer-messenger RNA and RtcB-like RNA ligase genes, their genomes encode 21 to 24 tRNA genes encompassing complete or nearly complete sets of isotypes. We predict that these tRNAs are used in late lytic growth, likely compensating for the degradation or inadequacy of host tRNAs. They may represent a complete set of tRNAs necessary for late lytic growth, especially when taken together with the apparent lack of codons in the same late genes that correspond to tRNAs that the genomes of the phages do not obviously encode

Oxford SWIFT IFS and multi-wavelength observations of the Eagle galaxy at z=0.77

The `Eagle' galaxy at a redshift of 0.77 is studied with the Oxford Short Wavelength Integral Field Spectrograph (SWIFT) and multi-wavelength data from the All-wavelength Extended Groth strip International Survey (AEGIS). It was chosen from AEGIS because of the bright and extended emission in its slit spectrum. Three dimensional kinematic maps of the Eagle reveal a gradient in velocity dispersion which spans 35-75 +/- 10 km/s and a rotation velocity of 25 +/- 5 km/s uncorrected for inclination. Hubble Space Telescope images suggest it is close to face-on. In comparison with galaxies from AEGIS at similar redshifts, the Eagle is extremely bright and blue in the rest-frame optical, highly star-forming, dominated by unobscured star-formation, and has a low metallicity for its size. This is consistent with its selection. The Eagle is likely undergoing a major merger and is caught in the early stage of a star-burst when it has not yet experienced metal enrichment or formed the mass of dust typically found in star-forming galaxies.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

The Restyled Federal Rules of Evidence

A lightly edited transcript of the Symposium held at the William & Mary School of Law on October 28, 2011