Getting It Right: Strategies for After-School Success

This report synthesizes the last 10 years of findings from P/PV's and other researchers' work to address one of the most demanding challenges facing today's after-school programs -- how to create and manage programs that stand the best chance of producing specific, policy-relevant outcomes. It examines recruitment strategies that attract young people to activities, the qualities that make activities engaging and motivate participants to attend regularly, and the infrastructure -- staffing, management and monitoring -- needed to support such activities. The report's final chapter explores the fiscal realities of after-school programming, considering how administrators might stretch existing dollars to enhance services

Challenges and Opportunities in After-School Programs: Lessons for Policymakers and Funders

School-based after-school programs are increasingly becoming the solution policymakers suggest for many youth problems: unsupervised time, poor academic achievement, gang participation, violence and drug use. As federal spending increases, policymakers, funders and the public must balance their optimism about the programs' potential with the realities of what they might ultimately achieve. As this report describes, locating these programs in schools brings many benefits, but as the experience of at least one broad-based initiative is demonstrating, it also brings challenges that should be taken into consideration as programs are planned and funded

The twist-bend phases : structure–property relationships, chirality and hydrogen-bonding

Acknowledgements I would like to firstly thank Professor Corrie Imrie for ongoing mentorship, encouragement and many invaluable discussions on the twist-bend phases. I thank Professor Ewa Gorecka and Dr Damian Pociecha for welcoming me into their laboratory in Warsaw for many fruitful research visits, and for lengthy discussions on my materials. I also thank current and former colleagues who have been involved in this work: Professor John Storey, Dr Peter Henderson, Dr Alfonso Martinez-Felipe, Daniel Paterson, Jordan Abberley and Ewan Forsyth; former project students Gaynor Lawrence, Catriona Crawford and Ross Killah; and collaborators at the Universities of Warsaw, Maribor, Kent State and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their contributions to these projects. Lastly, I would like to thank the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for awards of Vacation (2014) and PhD Scholarships (2015-2018) during which the bulk of this work was completed, and the Royal Society of Chemistry for the award of a Mobility Grant to visit the University of Warsaw.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Eight is not enough: a historical, cultural, and philosophical analysis of the flash mob

In 2003, writer and cultural critic Bill Wasik stunned the world with his newest experiment, the MOB Project, which flooded the streets of New York City with strange performances quickly labeled “flash mobs” by participants and local media. With the goal of understanding the communicative purpose and function of these new performance events, this project analyzes the flash mob through the lenses of performance studies, rhetorical studies, cultural studies, and continental philosophy. Drawing from genealogical research, rhetorical analyses, and critical philosophy, I argue the flash mob is a new form of performance serving as a locus of community, creativity, and politics in an age overrun by spectacle and surveillance. Moreover, whether created as complex communal in-jokes or a modern form of cultural critique, flash mobs act as elaborate pranks played out within the quasi-public realm of the capitalist city, exposing its heretofore unrealized methods of operation. Through a critical application of the theories of philosophers Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I analyze the ability of Bill Wasik’s flash mobs to highlight the dominant strategies of surveillance, standardization, and structure operating within the capitalist system. In so doing, I explore the tactical nature of the flash mob as a performance event

Understanding Structure/Process-Property Relationships to Optimize Development Lifecycle in Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Aerogels for Thermal Management

Aerogels are mesoporous materials with unique properties, including high specific surface area, high porosity, low thermal conductivity, and low density, increasing these materials’ effectiveness in applications such as catalyst supports, sorption media, and electrodes in solid oxide fuel cells. Zirconia (ZrO2) aerogels have special interest for high-temperature applications due to the high melting point of ZrO2 (2715°C) and stability between 600°C and 1000°C, where other aerogel systems often begin to sinter and densify. These properties and unique pore structure make zirconia aerogels advantageous as thermal management systems, especially in aeronautics and aerospace applications. However, to be effective in high-temperature applications, the aerogel formulation must be optimized so that pore collapse and subsequent surface area decrease are mitigated following high-temperature exposure. By utilizing surfactant templates, it is anticipated that the mesoporous structure and high surface area of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) aerogels will be retained following exposure to high temperatures, increasing the thermal stability and efficiency of YSZ aerogels as thermal management systems. To experimentally consider the impact of synthetic variables on aerogels, surfactants are used as templating agents to influence the pore structure and surface area of YSZ aerogels. Additionally, due to the large number of parameters associated with aerogel synthesis and processing, a developed aerogel graph database and a machine learning predictive model are applied to examine the complex relationships between aerogel synthesis, processing, and final properties, specifically BET surface area. Sub-graphs of the developed aerogel graph database are used to visually determine the impact of specific variables on the aerogel surface area, while the predictive model maps from aerogel synthetic and processing conditions to predict the final property, BET surface area, with precision. These digital design tools could reduce experimental dimensionality, time, and resources, enabling the successful synthesis of high surface area aerogels

A language of her own : Willful displacement and nomadic subjectivity in Jhumpa Lahiri

PostprintPeer reviewe

Social Construction of Retail Digitalization: Managerial Perspectives

Digitalization is a pervasive movement, shifting society rapidly into the next industrial revolution and causing disruption to traditional ways of working. This movement has had major ramifications on brick and mortar retailers, redefining the traditional business model and offering opportunities to enhance the customer experience. The purpose of this study was to gain a holistic understanding of the digital transformation of retail from a retail manager’s perspective, thus, this study explores the ways in which retail managers are socially constructing retail digitalization. To address the lack of an established conceptualization of digitalization from a retail managers’ perspective, I applied an exploratory, framing analysis approach to this research gap. This procedure involved integrating field-based insights from 26 managers within the retail sector across Finland and the UK with supplementary literature on the topic of retail digitalization. Through conducting this research, three framing categories were identified, including: 1) investing in digital strategy and management, 2) changing organizational competences and mindset, and 3) shifting power to the retail customer, which were formulated based on nine managerial framings that were developed in the analysis. The findings indicate that though managers are aware of the various threats caused by digitalization, overall, they consider it a positive movement that stimulates innovation, offers new solutions, improves business processes, and enables a better service offering for customers. This study suggests that undergoing the digital transformation is not only a technological change in processes and systems, but a human change in terms of ways of thinking and working. The findings further indicate that retail managers must develop with the organization and have a thorough understanding of their business and the retail market. This study makes theoretical contributions by supporting ideas that are explored in existing literature such as the challenges related to creating the omni-channel business model, while adding the managerial perspective on various issues surrounding this organizational change. This study also contests some points made in the current literature on the death of high street by highlighting the hedonic value that brick and mortar retailers offer their customers which cannot be replaced by other channels. New perspectives were also contributed through this study by exploring how managers view data and analytics as important tools in organizational decision making and understanding the business. Finally, this study highlights an unexplored area in the literature, more specifically, the significance that retail managers place on the human side of the organization through the digital transformation

Fish Oil Nanoemulsions: Optimization of Physical and Chemical Stability for Food System Applications

Emulsion-based delivery systems offer many potential benefits for incorporating omega-3 oils into foods and beverages. Nanoemulsions are emulsion-based delivery systems that are gaining popularity because of their ease of preparation, small particle size, relatively high stability, high bioavailability, and production of optically transparent emulsions. Fish oil (FO) nanoemulsions are potentially more susceptible to lipid oxidation because of their high degree of lipid unsaturation, high surface area of exposed lipids, and greater light penetration. In the first study, spontaneous emulsification, a low-energy method, was used to fabricate FO nanoemulsions. The influence of surfactant-to-oil-ratio (SOR) on particle size, turbidity, and physical stability was evaluated. Furthermore, the oxidative stability of these nanoemulsions was compared to emulsions produced by microfluidizer, a high-energy method. The effect of particle size and SOR on oxidation was monitored by measuring lipid hydroperoxides and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS). Optically transparent nanoemulsions were formed and maintained physical stability after being held at 37 °C for 14 days. FO nanoemulsions produced by high- and low-energy methods had similar oxidative stabilities at 55 °C for 14 days. These results demonstrate that spontaneous emulsification can produce fish oil nanoemulsion that are physically stable and oxidize at similar rates as traditionally prepared nanoemulsions, and are therefore potentially suitable for fortification of clear food systems. Additionally, carrier oils can also impact the physical and oxidative stability of FO nanoemulsions. Medium chain triglycerides, lemon oil, and thyme oil were chosen as carrier oils and added to the oil phase at different ratios of FO to carrier oil for emulsions produced by the microfluidizer. Medium chain triglycerides and lemon oil produced stable FO nanoemulsions but the thyme oil only produced stable FO nanoemulsions at lower concentrations of carrier oil. On the other hand, at FO to carrier oil ratios of 75/25, lemon oil and thyme oil nanoemulsions had high oxidative stability because of natural of their antioxidants. These findings suggest that lemon oil and thyme oil can produce FO nanoemulsions that are physically and chemically stable and can be used for food system fortification