A study of the development of General Motors Company

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

A closer look at private lives 2: addressing the mental health and wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Australians

Based on a national survey of almost 4000 people, the report reveals strong links between psychological distress and drug use among LGBT Australians. Executive Summary A Closer Look at Private Lives 2 is a companion to the second Private Lives report released in 2012. The research and writing of both reports were funded by beyondblue and the Movember Foundation. The project was jointly managed by GLHV and ARCSHS, La Trobe University. Background The first Private Lives was released in 2006 and at the time was one of the largest reports on LGBT health and wellbeing anywhere in the world. Both the first and second reports provided a snapshot of LGBT Australian’s everyday lives. They included demographic data on diversity within LGBT communities and data on LGBT Australian’s physical and mental health, health service use, relationships, experiences of discrimination and community connections. This companion report, in contrast, focuses on the mental health and wellbeing of LGBT Australians. It relies on the mental health data from Private Lives 2 and looks, in detail, at variations in psychological distress and resilience between LGBT and mainstream communities and variations within LGBT communities according to gender identity, sexual identity, age and socio-economic status. It also looks at the relationships between LGBT Australians mental wellbeing and their experiences of heterosexist discrimination, drug use, LGBT and mainstream community engagement, and health service use. The report concludes with an evidence-based LGBT mental health policy and program framework to guide the development of policies, programs and services aimed at promoting LGBT Australians’ positive mental health and their access to quality care. Methodology Private Lives 2 reported on the findings of a national, online survey of the lives of 3,835 LGBT Australians. Respondents came from all states and territories and from rural, regional and remote areas. The companion report used two of the validated scales from Private Lives 2 as measures of mental health outcomes: the K10 Psychological Distress Scale; and the Brief Resilience Scale. The development of the LGBT mental health policy and program framework involved a review of recent Australian population and health promotion strategies and a separate review of the research and grey literature on LGBT-inclusive service provision in Australia and overseas. Related identifer: ISBN 978192191569

The Apocalypse According to Johnny Cash: Examining the ‘Effect’ of the Book of Revelation on a Contemporary Apocalyptic Writer

Non

Statistical Scaling of Turbulent Surface Pressure in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Turbulence in the atmosphere produces fluctuations in static pressure through a variety of mechanisms. These fluctuations are of interest both to atmospheric scientists, as a fluid dynamic property, and to acousticians, as a source of wind noise. At the ground surface, previous work has found the dominant source of pressure fluctuations to be an interaction of the turbulent vertical velocity with the shear rate in the mean wind. In this work, the existing theoretical framework was extended to investigate the effects of atmospheric stability, shear anisotropy, and different turbulence models. A rapid-distortion model was introduced and compared with the existing mirror-flow model. Solutions for the surface pressure spectra from each model were derived, and a method for estimating the model parameters from average elevation-dependent flow properties was developed. In order to validate and compare these spectral models, an experiment was conducted in Laramie, Wyoming to obtain measurements of low-frequency surface pressure simultaneous with the boundary-layer meteorology over a wide range of atmospheric conditions. The velocity data were then used to fit the turbulence model parameters, and predictions of the surface pressure spectra were made. These predictions were compared with the spectra of the surface pressure measurements over half-hour intervals, converted to wavenumber space by introducing a convection velocity. In stable conditions, a low-wavenumber amplification of the spectrum was observed, in accordance with predictions. In convection conditions, the rapid-distortion model performed best, and the shear anisotropy contained in this model was found to be relevant to fitting nearly-neutral cases. The modification of the spectral structure by the shear-anisotropic model suggests a possible unifying mechanism for discrepancies between engineering and atmospheric boundary-layer pressure statistics

Description of Coherent Structures in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer By Model Reduction of the Surface Pressure

The flow of coherent turbulent structures into a wind turbine is associated with vibrational blade excitation. Successful forecasting of such turbulent events for control system input would increase the lifetime of turbine components. The coherence of these features suggests description by model reduction. To this end, an array of pressure transducers was deployed on the ground at Reese Technology Center in Lubbock, Texas, and the pressure fluctuations were recorded over nearly two diurnal cycles. A program for computation of the dynamic mode decomposition was developed with special consideration for the case of a non-stationary, nonlinear system. A simulated surface-pressure perturbation was first decomposed, to inform the interpretation of experimental data. Several sets of surface-pressure data were decomposed for various meteorological conditions. The resulting dynamic modes and eigenvalues describe the spatial and temporal coherence of local features in the atmospheric boundary layer. In each case, modes were identified that can be associated with wave-like pressure fluctuations that propagate either at convective or acoustic speeds

Rural children are more likely to live in cohabiting-couple households

As cohabiting increases nationwide, new data show that the growing rate of children in these households is most pronounced in rural areas. This brief analyzes recent U.S. Census Bureau data to explore these trends and patterns