Exploring the Integration of Disability Awareness into Tertiary Teaching and Learning Activities

A desire to have every student attending our University be aware of, and reflect on, disability in their studies and future careers, initiated our project to explore how to enhance disability awareness within all our University’s papers. In this project we systematically reviewed pertinent literature and ran an action research workshop for staff. Strategies to enhance disability awareness identified in the literature and workshop were presented and verified at an interactive conference presentation. Embedding disability awareness into curricula is challenging; staff considered themselves powerless to bring about change in their departments, but thought that one way to do so would be by modelling inclusive behaviour and by introducing subtle inclusive practices into papers taught. The identified strategies may be of use to others contemplating similar curricular modifications

Novel applications of the “t-amino effect” in heterocyclic chemistry; synthesis of 1-alkylindoles

Thermal rearrangerment of 2-vinyl-1-(1-pyrrolidinyl)benzenes varies with the leaving group ability of substituents in the vinyl moiety; compound 3 having an OR group 9-(alkoxy-methyl)pyrrolo[1,2-a]indoles and compounds 6 (X = OAc, OTs or Cl) yield 1-alkylindoles

Thought for Food: Understanding Educational Disparities in Food Consumption

__Abstract__ Higher educated individuals are healthier and live longer than their lower educated peers. One reason is that lower educated individuals engage more in unhealthy behaviours including consumption of a poor diet, but it is not clear why they do so. In this paper we develop an economic theory of unhealthy food choice, and use a Discrete Choice Experiment to discriminate between the theoretical parameters. Differences in health knowledge appear to be responsible for the greatest part of the education disparity in diet. However, when faced with the most explicit health information regarding diet, lower educated individuals still state choices that imply a lower concern for negative health consequences. This is consistent with a theoretical prediction that part of the education differences across health behaviours is driven by the "marginal value of health" rising with education

Reducing Asymmetry in Countering Uncrewed Aircraft Systems

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Reducing Asymmetry in Countering Unmanned Aerial Systems

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Acquisition Research SymposiumCurrent Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) rely heavily on low-efficiency techniques such as broadband radio frequency (RF) jamming and high-intensity lasers. Not only do such techniques come at the cost of second and third order effects—such as collateral jamming risks to operational systems, a large RF footprint, and high energy use—but they also present an asymmetry between threat and response. Many commercial, off-the-shelf UAS devices are inexpensive compared to the C-UAS systems historically under focus in Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition. This work argues for leveling that asymmetry by exploring C-UAS autonomy-on-autonomy options by using cyberattack payload capabilities residing on a UAS. By reducing the attack surface to focus on a particular target, these cyber techniques provide scalpel-edged control to the operator, reducing risk to own systems, RF footprint, and collateral damage.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Manned Aircraft Versus Small Unmanned Aerial System—Forestry Remote Sensing Comparison Utilizing Lidar and Structure-From-Motion for Forest Carbon Modeling and Disturbance Detection

Sustainable forest management relies on the acquisition of timely (change detection) and accurate structural information of forest landscapes. Light detection and ranging (lidar) remote sensing platforms enable rapid, three-dimensional (3-D), structural data collection with a high spatial resolution. This study explores a functional carbon model applied to a dense, closed deciduous forest. Data are collected by manned airborne systems and unmanned aerial system, producing both lidar and structure-from-motion (SfM) 3-D mapping. A hybrid approach combining cost-effective SfM-generated data with lidar-derived digital elevation models also is explored, since the SfM fails to produce adequate terrain returns. Carbon modeling results are comparable to those achieved by the initial developers (r2 ¼ 0.64 versus r2 ¼ 0.72), despite the challenging uneven-aged forest environment. Vertical profiles, mapped utilizing a volumetric point density from the manned airborne lidar, are leveraged to train a binary classifier for disturbance detection. Producer’s accuracy, user’s accuracy, and Kappa statistic for disturbance detection are 94.1%, 92.2%, and 89.8%, respectively, showing a high likelihood of detecting disturbances (harvesting). The results bode well for the use of unmanned aerial system (UAS) systems, and either lidar or SfM, to assess forest stocking. Although disturbance detection is successful, further study is required to validate the use of UAS, and especially SfM, for this task

What do you foresee?

Public awareness of many climate change-related issues is rising globally, as well as in New Zealand. However, ocean acidification (OA) seems to be one of the least perceived and understood threats to the marine environment. The chemical changes in the water come at a cost for many marine organisms and may have severe impacts on key physiological processes such as growth, shell formation, reproductive capabilities, competitive fitness and photosynthesis. Furthermore, lowered pH may lead to shell dissolution in shell-building organisms. One organism that has been identified as most vulnerable to OA is a group of calcifying algae called coralline algae

Improving screening cut-off scores for DSM-5 Adolescent Anxiety Disorder Symptom Dimensions with the screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders.

Presently most adolescent anxiety disorder screening instruments make their determination of running a high risk for an anxiety disorder on the basis of a cut-off score measured by a single screening which can lead to false positives. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine whether a repeated administration of the SCARED screening instrument for DSM-5 anxiety disorder symptoms could help in the detection of true positives while also avoiding false positives. Participants were 923 early adolescents from the general community. The adolescents’ ages at the first annual screening ranged from 10 to 15 with an average of 12.5 years. In a prospective five-year longitudinal design, the adolescents completed the SCARED screening instrument for anxiety disorder symptoms on a yearly basis. To detect true positives and avoid false positives, the data were analyzed with Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) cut-off score analyses. ROC cut-off score analyses revealed that the sensitivity and specificity of high risk were greatly improved for repeated screenings above those of a single screening. The findings of this study demonstrate that a screening instrument (such as the SCARED) should be administered not just once but several times in order to better determine true positives and avoid false positives

A global attractor for a fluid--plate interaction model accounting only for longitudinal deformations of the plate

We study asymptotic dynamics of a coupled system consisting of linearized 3D Navier--Stokes equations in a bounded domain and the classical (nonlinear) elastic plate equation for in-plane motions on a flexible flat part of the boundary. The main peculiarity of the model is the assumption that the transversal displacements of the plate are negligible relative to in-plane displacements. This kind of models arises in the study of blood flows in large arteries. Our main result states the existence of a compact global attractor of finite dimension. We also show that the corresponding linearized system generates exponentially stable $C_0$-semigroup. We do not assume any kind of mechanical damping in the plate component. Thus our results means that dissipation of the energy in the fluid due to viscosity is sufficient to stabilize the system.Comment: 18 page

Stokes imaging polarimetry using image restoration at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope

Aims: We aim to achieve high spatial resolution as well as high polarimetric sensitivity, using an earth-based 1m-class solar telescope, for the study of magnetic fine structure on the Sun. Methods: We use a setup with 3 high-speed, low-noise cameras to construct datasets with interleaved polarimetric states, particularly suitable for Multi-Object Multi-Frame Blind Deconvolution image restorations. We discuss the polarimetric calibration routine as well as various potential sources of error in the results. Results: We obtained near diffraction limited images, with a noise level of approximately 10^(-3) I(cont). We confirm that dark-cores have a weaker magnetic field and at a lower inclination angle with respect to the solar surface than the edges of the penumbral filament. We show that the magnetic field strength in faculae-striations is significantly lower than in other nearby parts of the faculae.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 12 pages, 11 figure