Copyright for Couture

Fashion design in America has never been covered by the extensive intellectual property (IP) protections afforded to other categories of creative works or to the art in other countries. As a result, America has become a safe haven for design pirates. Piracy disproportionately harms young designers who do not have established trademarks for their brands and must rely purely on creativity to propel their designs into the market. H.R. 2511 is a bill that aims to extend copyright protection to fashion designs, albeit narrowly. Compared with previous proposals to extend effective IP protection to fashion design, H.R. 2511 is more of a sui generis protection aimed at the particularities of the fashion industry. It was the result of intensive negotiations between parties of conflicting interests, and has been tailored to address specific yet ubiquitous problems in the fashion industry

Kansei Engineering and cultural differences in mobile phone design

Kansei Engineering, a Japanese design method used to translate feelings into product parameters, was used to look at the mobile phone design features of the Motorola Charm, Samsung t249, and HTC HD7 in the United States. Preferences of four design features (shape, material, LCD screen size, and navigation tools) were explored in a sample population of twenty-five university students in a private Northeastern university. Six kanseis/feelings elicited by phones were determined to be important to this group: (1) Attractive, (2) Cool, (3) Durable, (4) Ergonomic, (5) Modern, and (6) User-friendly. A (generic) phone with a rectangular shape, comprised mostly of metal-like and glass material, with a large LCD screen and navigation via a touchpad was determined to be the most ideal and strongly perceived to elicit many of these kanseis. After exploring the cultural sub-groups of this sample, it was determined that there are significant cultural group differences between Chinese participants and both American and Indian participants, mainly when considering the durability (p=.008) and coolness (p=.034) of the phone feature set

Experimental and theoretical study on the creep behavior of GFRP pultruded beams

Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites are widely used in the aerospace, naval, and automotive industries. More recently, such materials have also found several applications in civil engineering, e.g. for bridges, small houses, and gridshells. FRPs have considerable advantages mainly related to their high strength and low weight, but also some weaknesses, which limit their application. One weakness is their remarkable creep behavior, mainly due to the viscosity of the polymer matrix and the defects of the reinforcing fibers, which gradually break with time. A significant amount of experimental researches have been focused on the characterization of the creep behavior of composite materials. Nevertheless, most of the creep models found in the building codes are based on the extrapolation of data from short-term experiments. There are still many uncertainties on how to model the phenomenon as the time scale is of the order of some decades. The prediction of the long-term behavior of viscous materials can be based on short-term experiments by using the Time-Temperature-Stress Superposition Principle (TTSSP). This is an extension of the Time-Temperature Superposition Principle (TTSP). The TTSSP is based on the hypothesis that every creep curve, adapted to Findley’s law, has the same shape at different temperature and stress states. However its validity for Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) is not evident. The major objective of the present work is to explore the validity of the TTSSP for Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) pultruded beams having an epoxy matrix. To this end, 4-point bending tests have been performed in the short term at different temperature and stress levels. Then, according to Findley's law, the TTSSP has been assumed to predict the long-term behavior in secondary (steady-state) creep. Lastly, a micromechanical model has been developed to explore the possibility of tertiary creep and hence the applicability of the TTSSP

VIDEO MODELING AND PRINTED VISUAL SUPPORT: WHICH INTERVENTION WORKS BEST FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES TO LEARN EMPLOYMENT SKILLS?

Students with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disabled need extra interventions as they graduate high school and become completely integrated employed. Targeted programs do exist but are they teaching the important skills to help promote student success. With the authorization of WIOA, schools are now expected to take a hands-on approach with preparing students with disabilities for a productive and meaningful life after high school. The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of video modeling and printed visual supports applied to a work/employment study for students with disabilities. Study participants included five high school students enrolled in a transition program who receive one-to-one support in the workplace. Students volunteered to be part of this specific transition program as opposed to attending their home schools. Students ranged from 16 to 18 years of age. All students identified as male, were enrolled in their junior or senior years of high school, and were diagnosed with either ID or ASD. The effectiveness of this study was evaluated using an alternating treatment design. Results indicated that both interventions were able to increase the percentage of task correct, lessen prompting, and helped students’ complete tasks in a time frame identified by the employer

A Replication and Extension of a Prediction Tool Identifying Need for Treatment Among Opioid Exposed Infants

The incidences of maternal opioid use and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS) have increased by nearly 400% over the past decade. Isemann and colleagues (2017) developed prediction tools (TiTE/TiTE2) to differentiate, within the first two days of life, between infants who will require pharmacotherapy for NOWS from those infants who will not require pharmacotherapy for NOWS. The goal of the current experiment was to replicate and extend their prediction model. The present experiments successfully replicated Isemann et al., (2017) results and also established alternative cutoff values for requiring treatment that provide better balance between all four metrics. Moreover, new prediction models (TEN/TEN2) were proposed based on a factor analysis of modified Finnegan scores across the first 48 hours of life. Area Under the Curve-Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analyses indicated that the TEN2 was the best prediction model compared to the TiTE2 and the TEN

Efficacy of Social Stories™ for Typically Developing Preschool Children

Social Stories™ are short stories that utilize visual and auditory components to demonstrate how to appropriately respond in problematic social situations. Studies have provided evidence of the effectiveness of Social Stories™ in reducing negative behaviors for children with autism; however, limited research exists on the effectiveness of Social Stories™ for other populations of children. The purpose of the present study was to determine the efficacy of Social Stories™ on decreasing undesirable behaviors in typically developing preschool children. The study included 11 children, ages 3 to 5, who were enrolled in a typical preschool classroom at a daycare facility. Initially, teachers completed a survey to identify undesirable behaviors of each participant that interfered with their classroom performance. The researchers and teacher chose one target behavior for each participant based on ratings of frequency of occurrence, severity level, and impact on classroom performance. The behaviors targeted for intervention were common disruptive behaviors considered severely aggressive or extremely harmful. The participants were separated into two groups, a treatment group who received social story intervention and a control group. A Social Story™ was generated for each participant in the treatment group to address the targeted behavior. The five children in the treatment group were read a customized social story twice per school day for six weeks. The six children in the control group did not receive social story intervention. During the six-week experimental period, three behavior observations were completed for all participants. Pre-intervention, mid-point (three-weeks), and post-intervention observations utilized a behavior checklist to record frequency and duration of the target behaviors. In addition, following the six-week intervention period, teachers completed the initial survey again to determine perceptions of frequency of occurrence, severity level, and functional impact of the target behavior for each participant (in both treatment and control groups). Analysis of the behavioral observations demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in frequency of disruptive behaviors for the experimental group. While a decrease in the duration of behaviors was noted, it was not statistically significant. No change in behavior was documented in teachers\u27 subjective ratings. Maintenance of the decreased target behaviors was not demonstrated eight weeks post intervention