22,568 research outputs found
The Meaning of Animals
This research examines the social construction of animals by a rural Allegheny culture using a linguistic approach based on estimating the set of attributes associated with the words they used to describe animals. We asked 268 respondents to free-associate with the nouns, chicken and deer when seen in a context of other words related to nature. Their responses were coded and the frequencies of of words and word groupings were tabulated for sub-samples of differing age, gender and occupation. Response words were categorized into seven typologies including two affective types. The results indicate that except for possibly the very young, the social meanings of chicken and deer did not vary with gender, age or occupation. The respondents interpretation of living chicken was indistinguishable from that of unprepared food. Their interpretation of deer was broader and primarily one of interaction with a lesser adversary
Attacking Nicely: Car Saleswomen Adapt to an Incompatible Role
This is an account of the way car sales women see their world, forge a place for themselves in the masculine environment, and change from novices into successful salespersons. It explores situational approaches evolved by women to deal with ethical issues in the workplace. Although women's values about fair exchange are altered, at the same time they change the way the work is done, making the workplace less hostile. Using categories such as "Innocents,”"Ladies,”“Tough Guys," and "Reformers," this study shows how women adapt to an incompatible status and raises important questions for the future of men, women, work and society
CAD and creativity: does the computer really help?
We are frequently told by its exponents that computeraided design (CAD) liberates designers and gives them new ways of envisioning their work, but is this really true? CAD in architecture is examined to see to what extent it has enhanced creativity in design. This is partly
done by applying a test of creativity advanced by contemporary architect Herman Hertzberger. In this analysis, CAD is found somewhat wanting,
and some suggestions are made as to why this might be so
Tarski monoids: Matui's spatial realization theorem
We introduce a class of inverse monoids, called Tarski monoids, that can be
regarded as non-commutative generalizations of the unique countable, atomless
Boolean algebra. These inverse monoids are related to a class of etale
topological groupoids under a non-commutative generalization of classical Stone
duality and, significantly, they arise naturally in the theory of dynamical
systems as developed by Matui. We are thereby able to reinterpret a theorem of
Matui on a class of \'etale groupoids as an equivalent theorem about a class of
Tarski monoids: two simple Tarski monoids are isomorphic if and only if their
groups of units are isomorphic. The inverse monoids in question may also be
viewed as countably infinite generalizations of finite symmetric inverse
monoids. Their groups of units therefore generalize the finite symmetric groups
and include amongst their number the classical Thompson groups.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.147
Counselors\u27 Social Class and Socioeconomic Status Understanding and Awareness
Nine licensed professional counselors participated in semi-structured interviews designed to reveal their awareness and understanding about social class and socioeconomic status (SES). Findings suggest that participants\u27 descriptions of social class and SES often are in-congruent with how they use the terms, and their awareness and understanding may be limited because of developmental factors, indicating potential clinical liabilities. The authors suggest that counselors should develop stronger social class consciousness to provide affirming counseling services and that further research on such strategies is needed
Development of an automated aircraft subsystem architecture generation and analysis tool
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new computational framework to address future
preliminary design needs for aircraft subsystems. The ability to investigate multiple candidate
technologies forming subsystem architectures is enabled with the provision of automated architecture
generation, analysis and optimization. Main focus lies with a demonstration of the frameworks
workings, as well as the optimizers performance with a typical form of application problem.
Design/methodology/approach – The core aspects involve a functional decomposition, coupled
with a synergistic mission performance analysis on the aircraft, architecture and component levels.
This may be followed by a complete enumeration of architectures, combined with a user defined
technology filtering and concept ranking procedure. In addition, a hybrid heuristic optimizer, based on
ant systems optimization and a genetic algorithm, is employed to produce optimal architectures in both
component composition and design parameters. The optimizer is tested on a generic architecture
design problem combined with modified Griewank and parabolic functions for the continuous space.
Findings – Insights from the generalized application problem show consistent rediscovery of the
optimal architectures with the optimizer, as compared to a full problem enumeration. In addition
multi-objective optimization reveals a Pareto front with differences in component composition as well
as continuous parameters.
Research limitations/implications – This paper demonstrates the frameworks application on a
generalized test problem only. Further publication will consider real engineering design problems.
Originality/value – The paper addresses the need for future conceptual design methods of complex
systems to consider a mixed concept space of both discrete and continuous nature via automated methods
The role of gesture delay in coda /r/ weakening: an articulatory, auditory and acoustic study
The cross-linguistic tendency of coda consonants to weaken, vocalize, or be deleted is shown to
have a phonetic basis, resulting from gesture reduction, or variation in gesture timing. This study
investigates the effects of the timing of the anterior tongue gesture for coda /r/ on acoustics and
perceived strength of rhoticity, making use of two sociolects of Central Scotland (working- and
middle-class) where coda /r/ is weakening and strengthening, respectively. Previous articulatory
analysis revealed a strong tendency for these sociolects to use different coda /r/ tongue configurations—working-
and middle-class speakers tend to use tip/front raised and bunched variants,
respectively; however, this finding does not explain working-class /r/ weakening. A correlational
analysis in the current study showed a robust relationship between anterior lingual gesture timing,
F3, and percept of rhoticity. A linear mixed effects regression analysis showed that both speaker
social class and linguistic factors (word structure and the checked/unchecked status of the prerhotic
vowel) had significant effects on tongue gesture timing and formant values. This study provides further
evidence that gesture delay can be a phonetic mechanism for coda rhotic weakening and apparent
loss, but social class emerges as the dominant factor driving lingual gesture timing variation
Higher-order triplet interaction in energy-level modeling of excited-state absorption for an expanded porphyrin cadmium complex
Recent measurements of transmission versus fluence for a methanol-solvated asymmetric pentaazadentate porphyrin-like (APPC) cadmium complex, [(C6H4-APPC)Cd]Cl, showed the limitations of current energy-level models in predicting the transmission behavior of organic reverse saturable absorbers at fluences greater than 1 J/cm². A new model has been developed that incorporates higher-order triplet processes and accurately fits both nanosecond and picosecond transmission-versus-fluence data. This model has provided the first known determination of a higher triplet excited-state absorption cross section and lifetime for an APPC complex and also described a previously unreported feature in the transmission-versus-fluence data. The intersystem crossing rate and the previously neglected higher triplet excited-state absorption cross section are shown to govern the excited-state population dynamics of methanol-solvated [(C6H4-APPC)Cd]Cl most strongly at more-practical device energies
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