Transgender and Art in the School Curriculum

The intention of this paper is two fold. First, it makes explicit a little known and poorly understood area of human experience: transgender. Second, it explores curriculum possibilities opened up by recent legitimating of transgender people through the Gender Recognition Act (2004). The Act foregrounds the necessity for a forum in schools to debate, reflect and understand the full implications of changes to legislation. This paper proposes that, rather than approaching transgender issues through biological science or through the levelling gaze of citizenship, issues of gender identity can be understood without censure through the visual arts. Moreover, the visual arts offer a ‘safe place’ to discuss issues around the body because they allow distance and, in offering visual representations rather than text based work, make visually concrete what science ethically cannot

THE LIVING THEATRE OF HORROR: EXAMINING HOW CENTURIES OF WESTERN THEATRICAL PRACTICE AND THEORY INFORM THE MODERN-DAY HAUNTED HOUSE

This work will discuss the growing modern phenomenon of theme park and regional haunt events in the United States. In it, we will explore the history of how horror has been presented on stage, the themes within horror that creators grapple with, and how by using traditional theatrical elements creators of modern haunt events are able to make the audience a part of the story, transforming them from passive observers of the scenarios presented to complicit participants. How does the history of horror theatre inform the production of modern haunt events (and how has a global pandemic affected them), what are the fears that they exploit and/or attempt to explore, and how/do they succeed in reaching their audience

Virtual Teams: Towards Improving Work Effectiveness through Collaboration Process Structure Training

Organizations are increasingly using virtual teams to execute business processes by leveraging a distributed workforce and advanced communication and collaboration technologies. Given the growing use of virtual teams in work-place settings, there is a need to impart students with collaboration skills in virtual environments to enable them to perform efficiently in a globalized economy. Due to the complex nature of collaboration in distributed and virtual environments, past research indicates that formalized structured processes are key to successful collaboration and group performance. In this paper, we propose a training program to teach students how to collaborate in virtual settings by focusing on the process aspect. The structuring of the collaboration processes is suggested through the application of successful collaboration patterns deemed thinkLets. These structured templates may be instantiated using common collaboration tools to generate desired collaboration patterns and group processes

Identification and Quantification of Nonlinear Behavior in a Disbonded Aluminum Honeycomb Panel using Single Degree-of-Freedom Models

There is not a complete understanding of how damage mechanisms in composite materials react to nondestructive testing inputs. A deeper understanding of composite damage mechanisms and their responses to external vibratory excitation is sought using nonlinear modeling of damping and stiffness characteristics related to the damage. Different types of damping and stiffness single degree-of-freedom models are presented with analysis of their behavior at specific harmonics of the primary resonance of the system. After an understanding of the approximate behaviors of the models is obtained, experimental tests on a damaged specimen are conducted. An aluminum honeycomb sandwich panel is damaged by applying a heat source to the top face sheet. The expansion of the heated area on the face sheet creates a disbond of the face sheet and the honeycomb core. This damaged panel is tested by exciting the damaged area with a shaker at known frequencies and amplitudes. The resulting responses of the panel are measured and compared with the nonlinear predictive models through a direct comparison of response amplitudes to the analytical solutions and by examination of restoring force curves. The disbonded aluminum honeycomb sandwich panel exhibited behavior similar to a pure quadratic stiffness as well as a smaller influence from a cubic stiffness. The quadratic stiffness is the result of the facesheet experiencing two distinct stiffness regimes, the first as the facesheet moves away from the core, and second as the facesheet presses into the core. The smaller cubic nonlinearity is thought to come from the additional stiffness imparted into the single degree-of-freedom system by the epoxy fillets that hold the facesheet to the core. As the face sheet vibrates, the epoxy fillets contribute a small additional stiffening as the displacement grows larger. It is also confirmed that the displacement of the damaged area is able to be modeled using single degree-of-freedom models. This enabled the use of single degree-of-freedom equations of motion, which simplified the nonlinear analysis. Two further observations are made with regard to potential damage detection applications. First, that lower frequency excitation of panels may be able to excite the damaged areas more easily for nonlinear measurements than higher frequency excitation. This is supported by the nonlinear analysis showing that additional response peaks are more readily obtained through superharmonic excitation than subharmonic excitation. Second, that smaller damage sizes have higher quadratic and cubic stiffness coefficients, which produced relatively larger responses at the primary resonance when excited at the superharmonic frequencies than the larger damage sizes. These relatively larger responses may be a key in decreasing the size of damage detectable using vibratory excitation

Project Managers: Born Or Made?

As the world of project management expands, good project managers are becoming a valuable asset to have in an organization. These project managers must not only have an outstanding grasp of the basic project management principles, but the overall leadership skills to be successful. This paper will discuss the skills a project manager must have to be proficient and whether these skills are innate or can be imbibed over time. This paper will also examine personality traits of the exceptional project manager and whether personality assessments are able to predict the possibility of a career in project management. With this information, organizations can understand the value what good project managers can bring to their organization and why it is essential to find project managers that have the capabilities of leading projects successfully