Continuous internal channels formed in aluminum fusion welds

Process produces continuous internal channel systems on a repeatable basis in 2014-T6 aluminum. Standard machining forms the initial channel, which is filled with tungsten carbide powder. TIG machine fusion welding completes formation of the channel. Chem-mill techniques enlarge it to the desired size

Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America

This study measures the nationwide participation rates of girls and boys in exercise and organized team sports. The central focus is on how the intersections among families, schools and communities are related to children's involvement and interest in athletics and physical activity. Some of the personal and social benefits associated with children's athletic participation are also identified and discussed. The athletic interests and involvements of girls and boys are examined from childhood through late adolescence, including entry into sport as well as drop-out patterns

The Art & Science of Creating Effective Youth Programs

"The Art & Science of Creating Effective Youth Programs" utilizes findings from a national collective impact study conducted by Algorhythm through their Youth Development Impact Learning System (YDiLS), which surveyed 27 organizations, 80 programs and more than 3,000 youth. The YDiLS is an online evaluation tool through which youth complete pre and post surveys that measure the growth in six, research-based "Social and Emotional Learning" (SEL) capacities proven to be foundational to long-term success in life:1. Academic Self-Efficacy 2. Contribution 3. Positive Identity 4. Self-Management 5. Social Capital 6. Social Skill

The fictive pass asymmetry: Condemnation of harm, but not purity, is mitigated by fictional contexts

Is there a double standard when it comes to the moral acceptability of fiction that encourages the imagination of acts that violate moral norms of harm and moral norms of purity? Observations of ethics, legal proceedings, and public reactions to different types of media seems to suggest so. Over six experiments this phenomenon, coined the fictive pass asymmetry, will be tested. The fictive pass asymmetry hypothesis proposes that fictional contexts including imagination, film, and virtual environments, will mitigate the condemnation of harm code violations more so than purity code violations. In other words, fictional representations of harm are given a “fictive pass” in moral condemnation, but the fictional representation of purity code violations that involve an abnormal use of one’s body are denied a pass, and thus evaluated more similarly across real and fictional contexts. Chapters 1 through 3 introduce the fictive pass asymmetry and review the literature that provide its theoretical framework. Chapter 4 presents three experiments that establish initial evidence in support of the fictive pass asymmetry effects. Experiment 1 presented participants (N = 431) with vignettes that described agents committing either sexual acts or violent acts that were described as occurring in real life, being performed in a video game, or watched in a film. Experiments 2 and 3 (N = 360 and N = 321, respectively) systematically improved methodology by expanding upon the fictive contexts and creating manipulations based more strictly on the moral psychology literature. Chapter 5 presents experiment 4 (N = 312) and experiment 5 (N = 352) which deepened the understanding of the fictive pass asymmetry effects by using mediation analyses to demonstrate how the perceived wrongness of fictional purity code violations can be explained by the extent to which they signal poor moral character. Lastly, chapter 6 contains a final experiment (N = 484) and a series of meta-analyses. The final experiment considers fictive pass asymmetry effects in relation to an opposing theoretical framework, validates a number of manipulations, and tests the presumption of desire as an alternate explanation of fictive pass asymmetry effects. Finally, the meta-analyses aggregate the data of these experiments to highlight the robustness of the fictive pass asymmetry effects. Chapter 7, the concluding chapter, reviews the experiments and discusses the results in regards to theories of anger and disgust, moral theories of act and character, as well as the fictive pass asymmetry’s implications in media use and regulation

Numerical implementation of some reweighted path integral methods

The reweighted random series techniques provide finite-dimensional approximations to the quantum density matrix of a physical system that have fast asymptotic convergence. We study two special reweighted techniques that are based upon the Levy-Ciesielski and Wiener-Fourier series, respectively. In agreement with the theoretical predictions, we demonstrate by numerical examples that the asymptotic convergence of the two reweighted methods is cubic for smooth enough potentials. For each reweighted technique, we propose some minimalist quadrature techniques for the computation of the path averages. These quadrature techniques are designed to preserve the asymptotic convergence of the original methods.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, submitted to JC

Research in Natural Laminar Flow and Laminar-Flow Control, part 2

Part 2 of the Symposium proceedings includes papers addressing various topics in basic wind tunnel research/techniques and computational transitional research. Specific topics include: advanced measurement techniques; laminar flow control; Tollmien-Schlichting wave characteristics; boundary layer transition; flow visualization; wind tunnel tests; flight tests; boundary layer equations; swept wings; and skin friction