Learning as Leisure Among Older Adults: Triggers, Motivations and Constraints of OLLI Members

Individuals age 65 and older make up an increasingly large proportion of the population in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Due to retirement, this cohort experiences an increase in discretionary time to participate in old and new leisure activities (Nimrod, 2008). This study used concepts from Leisure Innovation Theory to investigate what happens when one participates in a new leisure activity. While participating in leisure activities, older adults experience a variety of motivations (e.g. Chen & Pang, 2012; Lamb & Brady, 2005) and constraints (e.g. Kleiber, McGuire, Aybar-Damali & Norman, 2008). The concepts of triggers, motivation, and constraints were studied to understand how older adults participate in leisure; particularly learning as leisure. Learning as leisure can be found in lifelong learning institutes (LLIs) (MacNeil, 1998; Lamb & Brady, 2005; Brady, Cardale & Neidy, 2013, etc.). Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) is a specific type of LLI that was the setting for this study. With an email list of current and former OLLI members, an online survey was distributed looking at the previously stated concepts, demographics, and participation in OLLI. This study provided an opportunity to bridge the gap between research and practice by applying it to a real world setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate the triggers, motivations, and constraints of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute members

Concurrent Sessions A: Passage Effectiveness Monitoring in Small Streams III - Fish Passage Analysis Through Circular Culverts in Northeast Ohio: Identifying the Design Parameters Linked With Passage Success

Following a previous study (Baral et al., 2012), a detailed investigation incorporating field observations and more fish species has been carried out in Northeast Ohio to determine the percentage of culverts that act as barriers for fish passage and to identify the design parameters that can be associated with passage success. After a desk study and field visits, 55 culverts were chosen from an inventory of 5,837 culverts provided by the Ohio Department of Transportation for further analysis of passage success in FishXing and HEC-RAS. The results from FishXing analysis suggest that out of the 54 culverts analyzed, 11% are partial barriers and 89% are complete barriers. The analysis in HEC-RAS shows that out of the 40 culverts analyzed, 55% are partial barriers and 45% are complete barriers. The additional morphological data used by HEC-RAS models resulted in discrepancies in the computed velocities and depths between the programs which in turn resulted in the different predictions of complete barriers and partial barriers. Student’s t-tests (p \u3c 0.05) showed that the difference in the average perched height between partial barriers and complete barriers was significant for the output of both FishXing and HEC-RAS. An additional analysis was carried out in FishXing for two species by changing culvert design parameters independently so as to examine the effect of changing those parameters on passage success. The alteration of culvert parameters included increasing diameter, decreasing length, decreasing slope, increasing Manning’s roughness, and embedding the culverts with gravel substrate (n = 0.04). For greenside darter, embedding the culverts resulted in an additional 36% of culverts being partial barriers and had a greater impact on increasing passage success compared to varying other design parameters. Similar analysis for largemouth bass exhibited a less noticeable difference. Further analysis and discussion will be presented

Weak and strong disjunction in possibilistic asp

Abstract. Possibilistic answer set programming (PASP) unites answer set programming (ASP) and possibilistic logic (PL) by associating certainty values with rules. The resulting framework allows to combine both non-monotonic reasoning and reasoning under uncertainty in a single framework. While PASP has been well-studied for possibilistic definite and possibilistic normal programs, we argue that the current semantics of possibilistic disjunctive programs are not entirely satisfactory. The problem is twofold. First, the treatment of negation-as-failure in existing approaches follows an all-or-nothing scheme that is hard to match with the graded notion of proof underlying PASP. Second, we advocate that the notion of disjunction can be interpreted in several ways. In particular, in addition to the view of ordinary ASP where disjunctions are used to induce a non-deterministic choice, the possibilistic setting naturally leads to a more epistemic view of disjunction. In this paper, we propose a semantics for possibilistic disjunctive programs, discussing both views on disjunction. Extending our earlier work, we interpret such programs as sets of constraints on possibility distributions, whose least specific solutions correspond to answer sets.

Are We Accepting the Right Students to Graduate Engineering Programs: Measuring the Success of Accepted Students via Data Envelopment Analysis

© ASEE 2008In this paper, we present two consecutive DEA models to measure the relative efficiency of applicants to graduate programs in engineering and to compare these efficiencies with the success of these students in the program. The proposed performance criteria are determined depending on the current evaluation criteria in the School of Engineering at the University of Bridgeport. The steps and implementation of the proposed methodology are explained with the help of a numerical example for the Fall 2004 semester

Improved polymer solar cell performance by engineering of cathode interface

By engineering the interface between the intermediate photoactive layer and the cathode aluminum (Al) electrode, through the introduction of ultra-thin layers of various materials, in a standard\ud bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cell (PSC) fabricated of regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene)(rr-P3HT) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), the power conversion efficiency (PCE) has\ud been effectively improved. The devices fabricated using individual single interlayer of bathocuproine (BCP), lithium fluoride (LiF) and Buckminster fullerene C60 have shown optimal efficiencies of ∼2.40%, ∼3.21% and ∼1.92% respectively. Further improvement of the photovoltaic efficiency was achieved by introducing a composite bilayer made of LiF in combination with BCP as well as with C60 at the BHJ/cathode interface. The best results were obtained by interposing a 9 nm of C60 interlayer in combination with a 0.9 nm\ud thick LiF layer, with the PCE of the PV cells being effectively increased up to 3.94% which represents an improvement of 23% as compared to the standard device with LiF interlayer alone. The photocurrent density (Jsc) versus voltage (V ) characteristic curves shows that the increase of the efficiency is essentially\ud due to an increase in Jsc. Moreover, all the sets of devices fabricated using various interlayers over a certain range of thickness exhibit an optimum PCE that is inversely proportional to the series resistance of the PV cells. We presume that interposing a C60/LiF layer at the interface could repair the poor contact at\ud the electron acceptor/cathode interface and improve the charge career extraction from the BHJ

A systematic review of evidence to inform HIV prevention interventions among men who have sex with men in Europe.

An estimated 42% of all newly diagnosed HIV cases in Europe in 2013 were transmitted during sex between men. This review was performed to identify and describe studies evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions among men who have sex with men (MSM), in relation to implementation data from European settings. A systematic search was performed individually for 24 interventions.Data were extracted from studies including efficacy or implementation data from European settings,appraised for efficacy, implementation and plausibility, and assigned a grade (1-4) according to the Highest Attainable Standard of Evidence (HASTE)framework. Four interventions (condom use, peer outreach,peer-led groups, and using universal coverage of antiretroviral treatment and treatment as prevention)were assigned the highest HASTE grade, 1. Another four interventions were assigned 2a for probable recommendation, including voluntary counseling and testing for HIV, using condom-compatible lubricant,using post-exposure prophylaxis, and individual counselling for MSM living with HIV. In addition, seven interventions were assigned a grade of 2b, for possible recommendation. Encouragingly, 15 interventions were graded to be strongly, probably or possibly recommended.In the relatively resource-rich European setting, there is an opportunity to provide global leadership with regard to the regional scale-up of comprehensive HIV prevention interventions for MSM