Thermal cycle testing of Space Station Freedom solar array blanket coupons

Lewis Research Center is presently conducting thermal cycle testing of solar array blanket coupons that represent the baseline design for Space Station Freedom. Four coupons were fabricated as part of the Photovoltaic Array Environment Protection (PAEP) Program, NAS 3-25079, at Lockheed Missile and Space Company. The objective of the testing is to demonstrate the durability or operational lifetime of the solar array welded interconnect design within the durability or operational lifetime of the solar array welded interconnect design within a low earth orbit (LEO) thermal cycling environment. Secondary objectives include the observation and identification of potential failure modes and effects that may occur within the solar array blanket coupons as a result of thermal cycling. The objectives, test articles, test chamber, performance evaluation, test requirements, and test results are presented for the successful completion of 60,000 thermal cycles

Psychosocial and sociostructural determinants of mastery: The context of age and disability

The active and potent self has held a special interest to philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists since the inception of those disciplines. The present research uses sociological perspectives on social comparison and reference group theory to provide a framework for understanding the various dimensions of self-process in the context of age and disability. Specifically, this research examines associations between age, disability, and social status indicators as they impress upon personal agency or mastery. This study uses secondary data that includes respondents aged 18 and over who resided in any of ten counties in Southwestern Ontario and were part of a two-wave panel study from 1981/82 to 1985/86. Only data from the second wave are included in analyses. Respondents were coded as disabled if they answered yes to the following question: Do any adults in the household have any physical health condition or physical handicap that has resulted in a change in their daily routine or that limits the kind or amount of activity they can carry out? (For instance: work, housework, school, play recreation, shopping or participation in social activities or community activities.) Of the total, 730 respondents reported some kind of impairment; a comparison group of 850 matched on age and sex did not have impairment. The age range of the sample was from 18 to 91 years, with a mean of 56 years. Sixty-six percent were female. Sixty-five percent were married, ten percent were single, sixteen were widowed, and nine percent were divorced or separated. Essentially all of the respondents were white. Multivariate regression analyses reveal complex patterns in tests of several alternative hypotheses. Among the central findings, age and disability are negatively associated with mastery. The interaction of age and disability is significant such that disability is more negatively associated with mastery with increasing age--but this pattern is only observed among men up to age 60. Adjustment for socioeconomic variables significantly reduces the negative age-mastery and disability-mastery associations. In addition, the benefits of education for mastery are significantly greater for disabled women. Other findings indicate that the benefits of social support for mastery are undermined by disability--but a significant pattern is only observed among women. The results are examined in the broader context of age and disability research and highlight the relevance of gender in these processes. Implications of the findings for stress process research, health practitioners, and social policy makers are discussed

Working mothers see penalties when they adjust work schedules after having children

President Obama’s State of the Union address last month recognized that working women—and men—should not face hardship for taking care of their family responsibilities. Recent research by sociologists, Julie A. Kmec, Lindsey Trimble O’Connor and Scott Schieman suggests that workplaces have a long way to go before realizing the President’s message. In new research, they find that working mothers perceive penalties—like feeling ignored and that they are given the worst tasks—when they adjust their work schedules after having children. They suggest that policies and practices that challenge societal assumptions about ideal work are a good starting place in attempts to realize President Obama’s call to give working parents a “break.

Reading from the Margins: A study of emergent bilingual students’ written responses to text

There are myriad strategies for teaching literacy to emergent bilingual students that often reduce the amount of English that must be spoken, written, or read by the student so as to facilitate completion of assignments. Such strategies can bar students from meaningful literacy experiences for most if not all of their formal English education. In this study, I explore the use of margin writing in a sheltered middle school English Language Arts classroom for students identified as SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Education). The participants are six Karen students who received their early literacy education in refugee camps in Thailand. Over the course of their eighth grade year, they wrote their responses to the class’s assigned texts in the text margins for the purpose of facilitating in-class discussion about the texts. I use text analysis to investigate the students’ interactions with the books they read, and to gain a greater understanding of their reading processes. I also conducted a focus group interview with the students a year after their middle school experience asking them about their personal histories with literacy learning, from the refugee camp to high school. Applying literary response theory and curriculum theory to the interpretation of the data gleaned in this research, I analyze the ways that margin writing freed emergent bilingual students from the constraints of formal English education and opened up their literacy learning. I propose that English language pedagogy that values and encourages open and affective response to text will open doors for emergent bilingual students to access and navigate the literacy curriculum.Doctor of Philosoph

Onderzoek naar het ‘zelf’

De vraagstelling van mijn scriptie is: ‘Hoe wordt er invulling gegeven aan het begrip ‘zelf’ binnen de huidige wetenschappelijke staf van de Universiteit voor Humanistiek?’ In de vorm van een literatuurstudie onderzoek ik publicaties op dit thema van vijf leden van de wetenschappelijke staf van de Universiteit voor Humanistiek: Jorna, Dohmen, Maso, Duyndam en Alma. Het onderzoek heeft mij er van overtuigd dat het ‘het zelf’ binnen de UvH ertoe doet. Opvallend is echter dat het niet een centraal en gezamenlijk focusgebied lijkt te zijn. Het ‘zelf’ lijkt meer als een vooronderstelling aan de orde te komen. Het onderzoek laat evenwel zien dat het ‘zelf’, voor de bestudeerde wetenschappers, wel degelijk een uitgangspunt vormt. Hetzij omdat het als een overschat fenomeen de wacht aangezegd moet krijgen, hetzij omdat het als de essentie van de ‘zijnde persoon’ omschreven wordt. Hoe je het ook wendt of keert, de wijze waarop over het ‘zelf’ gedacht wordt blijkt van directe invloed op het denken over zingeving. En de wijze waarop aan het begrip ‘zelf’ invulling gegeven wordt, is direct gerelateerd aan de opvatting over mens en wereld. Het wordt in het onderzoek zichtbaar dat de opvattingen over het ‘zelf’ divers zijn. Daar waar het ‘zelf’ als geconstrueerd fenomeen wordt gezien, bestaat nog essentieel verschil van mening over hoe je dit ‘zelf’ zou moeten benaderen. En daar waar het ‘zelf’ een Zelf is, worden ook niet direct de implicaties hiervan zichtbaar. Het werd voor mij duidelijk dat, of het nu gaat om uniciteit die je ervaart door de relatie met de ander, of een wezenlijk ‘Ik’ dat zich wil ontwikkelen, of een zelf dat authentiek en waarachtig is en een leven als kunstwerk maakt, het nodig is je werkelijk in de taal en uitgangspunten van de ander te verdiepen, om diens ‘zelf’-opvatting te kunnen gaan begrijpen. Er wordt dus over het ‘zelf’ gesproken. Maar spreken ze ook elkaars taal? Gegeven de keuze van een selectie van deze vijf leden van de wetenschappelijke staf, kan de scriptie geen volledig antwoord geven op de onderzoeksvraag met betrekking tot de wetenschappelijke staf van de UvH. Maar als je deze vijf wetenschappers als representatief mag beschouwen en er is geen reden om dat niet te doen, in tegendeel, dan leeft het begrip ‘zelf’ in de literatuur op een behoorlijk intensief niveau. Het eerste deel van de vraagstelling, namelijk: ‘hoe wordt er invulling gegeven aan het begrip ‘zelf’?’, krijgt een divers en genuanceerd antwoord. Globaal tekenen zich contouren af van een Zelf, waarachtig en diep; een ‘zelf’ zingevend en vormgevend en een ‘zelf’ als transcendent gegeven. Deze visies hebben als gemeenschappelijk kenmerk, dat ze in een relationeel en verbonden perspectief staan

Comparing geospatial approaches to delineating children’s interactions with their physical environments: A case study of children in rural Northwestern Ontario

Researchers from a variety of disciplines have produced a large body of evidence indicating that the environment a child lives in can profoundly impact their overall health in a multitude of ways. Among this growing body of literature, there is a wide diversity of methodologies and general inconsistency in how the physical environment is conceptualized and delineated. The primary purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how the physical (natural and built) environment is conceptualized in children’s health studies and to quantify how children engage with their environment. Using a multi-tool protocol, 128 children in grades 4 through 8 from four elementary schools in rural Northwestern Ontario participated in two 7-day data collection periods. GPS data within GIS were used to determine various delineations of their physical environment and quantify the extent to which children interact with different land uses and levels of greenness. The results suggest that how we conceptualize a child’s physical environment has a significant impact on estimates of environmental accessibility, exposures, and engagements, which in turn can influence the researcher’s interpretation of the relationship between environment and health. This research helps to fill gaps in knowledge on what environments can influence rural children’s overall health. The findings from this study can help knowledge users to develop effective policies, programs, and services which are appropriate for children living in rural environments

Getting the Hours You Want in the Preretirement Years: Work Hour Preferences and Mismatch Among Older Canadian Workers

Expectations regarding the work hours of older workers have changed over time. This article examines Canadian workers in their pre-retirement years to identify patterns in work hour preferences by gender—and whether work hour mismatch predicts late-stage workforce transitions. Findings from a national sample of Canadian workers show that slightly over half of all respondents were content with the number of hours they worked, but that 36% of the sample expressed a preference to work fewer hours and more than 8% expressed a preference to work more hours. Among men and women there were remarkable similarities in the factors that predicted a mismatch between respondents’ preferred and actual hours worked. While highlighting heterogeneity in the work hour preferences of Canadian workers in the years leading up to traditional retirement age, findings illustrate how mismatches between workers’ preferred and actual work hours predict later career workforce transitions. Findings also emphasize the importance of good relations with coworkers and supervisor support as factors that can enhance preferences to continue working at later career stages. Our findings also support claims that employers ought to be encouraged to focus on later career transitions and to find opportunities to enhance the fit between the number of hours required to meet work demands with individuals’ capabilities and interests

Life at school in Australia and Japan: the impact of stress and support on bullying and adaptation to school

In this international, comparative study, path analysis was used to examine eight different aspects of Japanese and Australian students' experiences of school life in relation to their effect on adaptation to school. Adaptation was constructed to include information on enjoyment of school, feelings of belonging to school, and relationships with other students. Two separate path models were tested to compare questionnaire data from over 3000 Australian and 6000 Japanese students across Years 5-10. The questionnaire was developed collaboratively by the authors to examine issues of common concern in both countries. Issues that related to the impact on adaptation to school of stress and support: family teachers, peers and school work, as well as bullying were of particular interest. Lack of support and the influential effect of stress were found to exert direct negative effects on adaptation to school, especially for high school students in Japan and Australia. The path results also confirmed the stressful effects of bullying in both countries. The finding of a strong relationship between bullying others and being victimised is discussed in the paper. Finally, the differences and similarities between Japanese and Australian students' perceptions of school life are extrapolated