Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the Abbe Museum’s Collections Environment

The Abbe Museum requests a one-year, $305,200 grant award in support of its Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the Abbe Museum’s Collections Environment project. The goal of the project is to implement three recommendations presented in the NEH-funded Environmental Improvements Report submitted by Watson & Henry Associates and Tuckerbrook Conservation in January 2012. Specifically, a grant award would fund replacement/improvement of the Abbe Museum’s exhibit lighting system, dehumidification system, and chiller in order to meet environmental preservation targets as well as implement economically and environmentally sustainable approaches to the building environment

Planning for a Sustainable Preservation Environment for Collections

As a collecting institution, the Abbe Museum focuses on Maine's four Native American tribes: the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac, and Maliseet, collectively known as the Wabanaki. Operating from two public facilities, the Abbe Museum's mission is to inspire new learning about the Wabanaki Nations with every visit. The Museum's collections, exhibitions, and programs focus on Native American traditions in Maine and explore the broader Native American experience, past and present. The Abbe Museum requests a one-year grant award in support of its "Planning for the Sustainability of the Abbe Museum's Collections Environment" project. The goals of the project are to review the current climate control systems, review and re-identify appropriate standards for exhibition and storage environments, and determine if the system can be re-engineered or altered to meet the new environmental preservation standards, as well as implement "green" approaches to the building environment

Searching for Binary Systems to Investigate the Formation of Subdwarf B Stars

Subdwarf B (sdB) stars are extreme horizontal branch stars with high temperature and gravity. The explanation for the formation of sdBs is widely unknown. A common theory is that they are the result of interactions in a binary system. About 30% of the sdB stars experience pulsations, and the brightness of the star varies in a cycle. Observing the timing of the pulsation’s frequency will determine if the sdB star is a single star or a part of a binary system. This method is called the pulsation timing method. The NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) telescope can observe the same star continuously for an extended period of time, so the data is perfect for this method, which requires many observations. Using the data from TESS, the objectives of this work are to (1) verify that the pulsation timing method is effective in finding binary star systems, and (2) determine if sdB stars have binary companions, or discover if they are on their own

Classroom facilities : a body of creative work exploring representations of knowledge through schematic means

Bibliography: leaves 78-83.I had just turned thirteen and it was the summer before high school started. My mother and I went over to the Roberts' house. Ruby had just matriculated from the same school and was handing down her faded old checked uniforms. To my amazement, there in the lounge bathed in afternoon January sunlight, was her father Billy, kneeling, deeply absorbed in a large strange chart that had been laid out on the floor. It was a school timetable and it was his task, as vice principle, to organise the day-to-day workings of the year ahead. The timetable was scattered with various coloured shapes that he shuffled back and forth across the gridded surface, trying to make a coherent system. This anecdote is important to my body of work for three reasons. The first is that Mr. Roberts' challenging activity that day is not unlike the process of sorting and reordering that is central to my work. The appearance of the chart is mimicked in the schemata-like quality of many of my pieces, as is its conceptual framework - an urge to order a set of already existing pieces into a new, meaningful and functional relationship. Ruby's uniforms are also important. I cherished these second-hand dresses precisely because of the qualities they acquired through having been worn already. These dresses were softer to touch, had a better fit and more beauty in colour --soft pink checks as opposed to harsh maroon-- than other girls' crisp new sacks

Positive Parenting, Conduct Problems, and Callous-Unemotional Traits

The current study tested the association of both positive and negative aspects of parenting with callous-unemotional (CU) traits and conduct problems. Caregivers of 92 kindergarteners were recruited to complete a series of survey measures. Overall, parent-report of negative parenting practices was not associated with teacher report of conduct problems. However, parent report of positive parenting practices (i.e., warmth, positive reinforcement, positive communication and cooperation) was negatively associated with conduct problems and CU traits. Interactions between positive parenting variables and CU traits in their association with conduct problems indicated that positive reinforcement related more strongly to lower levels of conduct problem behavior for youth with high levels of CU traits. However, positive communication and cooperation related more strongly to conduct problems for youth with lower levels of CU traits. These associations suggest that parenting may play a role in the development of CU traits and conduct problems

Empathic Responsivity and Callous-Unemotional Traits Across Development

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with deficits in empathy and emotional responses to others. Specifically, CU traits are consistently correlated with under-reactivity to others’ distress cues. However, it is unknown whether CU traits are also associated with more general deficits in emotional reactivity (e.g., to situations involving threat to the self). Further, the relationship between CU traits and the ability to accurately identify others’ emotions is not well established, and prior work often has not considered possible developmental changes in this relationship. To address these questions, the current study recruited a school-based community sample of children from kindergarten, third, and sixth grades and their parents and teachers. Children completed two cognitive, computer-based tasks to assess reactivity to various types of stimuli and accuracy in facial expression recognition, while their teachers completed ratings of level of CU traits and conduct problems. Overall, the results did not support a direct association between CU traits and emotional reactivity to others’ distress or threat situations. However, the association between CU traits and reactivity was moderated by level of conduct problems, such that at low levels of conduct problems, CU traits were negatively associated with reactivity but there was no significant relationship between CU traits and reactivity at high levels of conduct problems. Additionally, CU traits were negatively associated with emotion recognition accuracy and this relationship was not moderated by child age. However, the relationship between CU traits and emotion recognition was moderated by level of conduct problems and the child’s gender, such that at high levels of conduct problems, CU traits were associated with impairments in emotion recognition and CU traits were associated with deficits in emotion recognition specifically for girls. The implications of these findings for future research and clinical work are discussed

Development and piloting of a food-based intervention to increase vitamin E intake in pregnant women in a randomised controlled trial

Acknowledgement This study was funded by the University of Aberdeen and an unrestricted grant from Baxters Food Group Ltd. LC acknowledges funding from the RESAS programme of the Scottish Government.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Climate Variability and Human Migration in the Netherlands, 1865-1937

Human migration is frequently cited as a potential social outcome of climate change and variability, and these effects are often assumed to be stronger in the past when economies were less developed and markets more localized. Yet, few studies have used historical data to test the relationship between climate and migration directly. In addition, the results of recent studies that link demographic and climate data are not consistent with conventional narratives of displacement responses. Using longitudinal individual-level demographic data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) and climate data that cover the same period, we examine the effects of climate variability on migration using event history models. Only internal moves in the later period and for certain social groups are associated with negative climate conditions, and the strength and direction of the observed effects change over time. International moves decrease with extreme rainfall, suggesting that the complex relationships between climate and migration that have been observed for contemporary populations extend into the nineteenth century

Exploring Self-Efficacy as a Predictor of Disease Management

Self-efficacy is posited in social cognitive theory as fundamental to behavior change. Few health behavior studies have examined self-efficacy prospectively, viewed it as part of a reciprocal behavioral process, or compared self-efficacy beliefs in the same population across different behaviors. This article first discusses self efficacy in its theoretical context and reviews the available prospective studies. Second, it explores self-efficacy as a predictor of disease management behaviors in 570 older women with heart disease. Although the R2 statistics in each case were modest, the construct is shown to be a statistically significant (p < .05) predictor at both 4 and 12 months postbaseline of several disease management behaviors: using medicine as prescribed, getting adequate exercise, managing stress, and following a recommended diet. Building self-efficacy is likely a reasonable starting point for interventions aiming to enhance heart disease management behaviors of mature female patients.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66639/2/10.1177_109019819902600107.pd