Like Father, like Son: Modelling Masculinity for the Ethical Leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt is frequently portrayed as a rugged, hypermasculine cowboy. But this depiction ignores the powerful modelling for masculine leadership provided by his father, Theodore Roosevelt senior. A closer examination of the private and public spheres that framed the latter’s life offers another route into understanding the ethical and rational motivations that characterised his progressive Presidency, not least in the area of natural resource management, where his policy innovations were both unprecedented and sustained over time. What emerges is a more complex portrait than the above stereotype, a leader who used his heart, head and experience to think and act in and on the world in wholes, rather than in self-contained parts. As the systems thinking becomes increasingly recognised by governments as an essential tool for effective leadership, including in environmental problems, the mentoring of Roosevelt junior by Roosevelt senior offers a case study of first principles for learning and leading ethically

Comparison of word-, sentence, and phoneme-based training strategies in improving the perception of spectrally-distorted speech

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of three self-administered strategies for auditory training that might improve speech perception by adult users of cochlear implants. The strategies are based, respectively, on discriminating isolated words, words in sentences, and phonemes in nonsense syllables. Method: Participants were 18 normally-hearing adults who listened to speech processed by a noise-excited vocoder to simulate the information provided by a cochlear implant. They were assigned randomly to word-, sentence-, or phoneme-based training and underwent nine 20-minute training sessions on separate days over a 2-3-week period. The effectiveness of training was assessed as the improvement in accuracy of discriminating vowels and consonants, and identifying words in sentences, relative to participants’ best performance in repeated tests prior to training. Results: Word- and sentence-based training led to significant improvements in the ability to identify words in sentences that were significantly larger than the improvements produced by phoneme-based training. There were no significant differences between the effectiveness of word- and sentence-based training. No significant improvements in consonant or vowel discrimination were found for the sentence- or phoneme-based training groups, but some improvements were found for the word-based training group. Conclusions: The word- and sentence-based training strategies were more effective than the phoneme-based strategy at improving the perception of spectrally-distorted speech

Auditory training strategies for adult users of cochlear implants

There has been growing interest recently in whether computer-based training can improve speech perception among users of cochlear implants (Fu et al., 2005; Oba et al., 2011; Ingvalson et al., 2013). This paper reports a series of experiments which first evaluated the effectiveness of different training strategies with normal-hearing participants who listened to noise-vocoded speech, before conducting a small-scale study with users of cochlear implants. Our vocoder studies revealed (1) that ‘High-Variability’ training led to greater generalisation to new talkers than training with a single talker, and (2) that word-and sentence-based training materials led to greater improvements than an approach based on phonemes in nonsense syllables. Informed by these findings, we evaluated the effectiveness of a computer-based training package that included word-and sentence-based tasks, with materials recorded by 20 talkers. We found good compliance with the training protocol, with 8 out of the 11 participants completing 15 hours of training as instructed. Following training, there was a significant improvement on a consonant test, but in general the improvements were small, highly variable, and not statistically significant. A large-scale randomised controlled trial is needed before we can be confident that computer-based auditory training is worthwhile for users of cochlear implants

A study of commuter airline economics

Variables are defined and cost relationships developed that describe the direct and indirect operating costs of commuter airlines. The study focused on costs for new aircraft and new aircraft technology when applied to the commuter airline industry. With proper judgement and selection of input variables, the operating costs model was shown to be capable of providing economic insight into other commuter airline system evaluations

A study on the intensive use of air conditioning in large retail stores

In addition to an increase in greenhouse effect emissions the intensive use of air conditioning in the retail sector can eventually carry implications on the health of some of those directly exposed to sudden cooling particularly in hot summer days. This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted in the summer of 2005 in the United Kingdom investigating air conditioning frequency of use and the indoor air temperatures of air conditioned premises. It was found that in some large retail stores indoor air temperatures could be set higher improving thermal comfort and contributing towards the environment

Investigation of the starting transients of high performance solid-propellant motors

The starting transients of solid propellant engines were investigated to develop design principles for predicting transients in high performance igniter and engine configurations. Research and diagnosis were conducted on the processes affecting ignition transients, such as heat flux, igniter, flame spreading over the surface, and nonsteady combustion gas dynamics. Abstracts of published reports related to this research are presented. Topics discussed include: development of an analytical model, analytical prediction of the entire ignition transient, transient behavior of pressure and regression rate during reignition after shut-down, and problems associated with restarting hybrid rocket engines

Wind tunnel model and method

The design and development of a wind tunnel model equipped with pressure measuring devices are discussed. The pressure measuring orifices are integrally constructed in the wind tunnel model and do not contribute to distortions of the aerodynamic surface. The construction of a typical model is described and a drawing of the device is included

Optimal utility and probability functions for agents with finite computational precision

When making economic choices, such as those between goods or gambles, humans act as if their internal representation of the value and probability of a prospect is distorted away from its true value. These distortions give rise to decisions which apparently fail to maximize reward, and preferences that reverse without reason. Why would humans have evolved to encode value and probability in a distorted fashion, in the face of selective pressure for reward-maximizing choices? Here, we show that under the simple assumption that humans make decisions with finite computational precision––in other words, that decisions are irreducibly corrupted by noise––the distortions of value and probability displayed by humans are approximately optimal in that they maximize reward and minimize uncertainty. In two empirical studies, we manipulate factors that change the reward-maximizing form of distortion, and find that in each case, humans adapt optimally to the manipulation. This work suggests an answer to the longstanding question of why humans make “irrational” economic choices

Effectiveness of computer-based auditory training in improving the perception of noise-vocoded speech

Five experiments were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of “high-variability” lexical training in improving the ability of normal-hearing subjects to perceive noise-vocoded speech that had been spectrally shifted to simulate tonotopic misalignment. Two approaches to training were implemented. One training approach required subjects to recognize isolated words, while the other training approach required subjects to recognize words in sentences. Both approaches to training improved the ability to identify words in sentences. Improvements following a single session (lasting 1–2 h) of auditory training ranged between 7 and 12 %pts and were significantly larger than improvements following a visual control task that was matched with the auditory training task in terms of the response demands. An additional three sessions of word- and sentence-based training led to further improvements, with the average overall improvement ranging from 13 to 18 %pts. When a tonotopic misalignment of 3 mm rather than 6 mm was simulated, training with several talkers led to greater generalization to new talkers than training with a single talker. The results confirm that computer-based lexical training can help overcome the effects of spectral distortions in speech, and they suggest that training materials are most effective when several talkers are included

Are Individual Characteristics all that Matters in Earnings Determination? Evidence from the US and Germany

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