A Study of the Relationship between Proenvironmental Product Use and Environmnetal Concern

To be sustainable, an organization must be balanced in the three principles of economy, environment, and society. Advances in pro-environmental technology have overcome roadblocks limiting the economic and environmental principles. The remaining hurdle to becoming sustainable is having society’s beliefs and behaviors align. Understanding the interaction between an individual’s environmental belief and environmental behaviors is essential to bringing them into alignment. To explore this relationship, a model was developed that included the new ecological paradigm (NEP) scale and a generalized version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The attitudes, intentions, and use of six pro-environmental products were measured in an electronic survey. It was found that the model was adequate in measuring the general attitudes, intentions, and behaviors of individuals. In addition, environmental concern was shown to correlate with the attitudes of an individual. It was also found that the survey questionnaire should be modified to strengthen the relationships found

Characterisation of local damage in pultruded GFRP road bridge decks with random fibre mat misalignments

The extent to which random, manufacturing-induced fibre mat misalignments compromise the structural integrity of pultruded GFRP road bridge decks is not fully understood. The problem is often critical at the web-flange junctions, which frequently contain the most severe misalignments and are subjected to high moment-shear (M−V) combinations due to local tyre load effects. To that end, in the presently reported experimental study, determinate M−V combinations were applied at the junctions of a pultruded GFRP bridge deck, without artificially restraining (e.g. by clamping, which spuriously strengthens) these junctions. For any given M−V ratio, significant scatter was observed in the damage patterns and loads up to ultimate, owing to random fibre mat misalignments which have been digitally documented in a previous paper. Damage occurred mostly within the junctions, and sometimes in the adjoining flanges. Relative to misalignment-free specimens, the first fracture moments dropped by 19% and 21% for junctions containing flip and wrinkle misalignments respectively. 19% of tests showed higher tangent stiffnesses after damage, probably due to beneficial changes in load-carrying mechanism. A three-pronged approach, based on the load-response, acoustic emission and video data, enables the definition of damage indices, thereby paving the way for integrity assessment of pultruded decks under local tyre load effects

Taxonomy of fibre mat misalignments in pultruded GFRP bridge decks

This paper presents a taxonomy of the fibre mat misalignments found in a multi-celled pultruded GFRP deck, based on high-resolution images of the polished cross sections. A dual approach to misalignment taxonomy is presented, one based on misalignment morphology, the other grounded in the manufacturing provenance of the misalignments. Each misalignment is characterised using, alternately, a Gaussian function, the angle to its steepest tangent, its length and its height. Some scatter in the type and severity of the misalignments was found within the web-flange junctions. The deck's top flange was found to be thicker in regions containing a double-backed or flipped mat layer, which was probably due to displacement of the internal mandrels during pultrusion. Analysis shows that as wrinkle amplitude increases, there is a switch from mat failure at constant load to interlaminar failure at rapidly decreasing load. Finally, recommendations are made for minimising fibre misalignments due to manufacturing

Can you hear what’s coming? Failure to replicate ERP evidence for phonological prediction

Prediction-based theories of language comprehension assume that listeners predict both the meaning and phonological form of likely upcoming words. In alleged event-related potential (ERP) demonstrations of phonological prediction, prediction-mismatching words elicit a phonological mismatch negativity (PMN), a frontocentral negativity that precedes the centroparietal N400 component. However, classification and replicability of the PMN has proven controversial, with ongoing debate on whether the PMN is a distinct component or merely an early part of the N400. In this electroencephalography (EEG) study, we therefore attempted to replicate the PMN effect and its separability from the N400, using a participant sample size (N = 48) that was more than double that of previous studies. Participants listened to sentences containing either a predictable word or an unpredictable word with/without phonological overlap with the predictable word. Preregistered analyses revealed a widely distributed negative-going ERP in response to unpredictable words in both the early (150–250 ms) and the N400 (300–500 ms) time windows. Bayes factor analysis yielded moderate evidence against a different scalp distribution of the effects in the two time windows. Although our findings do not speak against phonological prediction during sentence comprehension, they do speak against the PMN effect specifically as a marker of phonological prediction mismatch. Instead of an PMN effect, our results demonstrate the early onset of the auditory N400 effect associated with unpredictable words. Our failure to replicate further highlights the risk associated with commonly employed data-contingent analyses (e.g., analyses involving time windows or electrodes that were selected based on visual inspection) and small sample sizes in the cognitive neuroscience of language

FES rehabilitation platform with real-time control and performance feedback.

Osteoporosis after spinal cord injury is associated with low-trauma fractures, and consequently with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. The loss of bone mass density (BMD) due to paraplegia can be reduced through cyclical electrically-induced muscle contractions. Here we propose an FES control system based on posture switching, that induces transient loading of the lower limbs during a set of standing postures. This aims to produce an increased, evenly distributed BMD, whilst minimising FES-induced muscle fatigue. Here we describe the design and assessment of the FES exercising platform, comprising a controllable multi-channel electrical stimulator and an instrumented standing frame. The platform supports standing and postural shifting, provides real-time human-in-the-loop FES control with on-line feedback to the user. The platforms is used to investigate the effect of regular exercise on the distribution of BMD in people with paraplegia

Gift Tax Consequences of Interest-Free Loans between Family Members

The recently decided case of Crown v. Commissioner reinforced the tax court\u27s position that imputed interest on an interest-free loan is not a taxable gift. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues to take the contrary position that interest-free loans do constitute gifts of an amount equal to the interest charge that it usually made for the use of that amount of money. The IRS position on the taxation of interest-free loans is consistent with both economic reality and gift tax principles. An examination of the economic substance of interest-free loans highlights the court\u27s reliance on the form of the transaction. The right to the use of money and other property is a valuable property interest, and when no charge is made for the transfer of this property interest there is a transfer for less than adequate consideration. This constitutes a gift. Because courts are reluctant to interfere in intrafamily loans, the decisions emphasize the formal and procedural difficulties involved in the treatment of interest-free loans as gifts. The absence of a contractual obligation to pay interest is not always a bar to finding a gift under the tax laws, and even a demand note can be valued consistently with gift tax principles. Because some courts will not independently relinquish their form over substance reasoning, this Comment proposes that legislative direction is needed to assure that interest-free loans are consistently treated as gift taxable events