Moving On From Supportive Housing (MOSH): Development and evaluation of a transitional skill-building curriculum for providers helping residents exit homeless services

This article describes the development and evaluation of MOSH (Moving On From Supportive Housing), a transitional skill-building curriculum for providers helping residents exit homeless services to mainstream housing without embedded supports. In this evaluation, we assess the feasibility, acceptability, fit, and potential efficacy of the MOSH curriculum to improve proximal provider-level outcomes, including self-efficacy to provide MOSH-related independent living skills and supports. Homeless-services providers (N = 49) from a range of programs and settings participated in the training. Findings from focus groups and pre- and posttest surveys indicate high levels of overall satisfaction with the training. The majority of trainees perceived the training to be useful to their work and potentially useful for service recipients, felt the training would fit well within their existing day-to-day work, and said they were very likely to use MOSH skills in such work. Statistically significant improvements in self-efficacy regarding all skills but one were also found. MOSH holds promise as an intervention that can enhance provider practice and promotion of independent living skills in homeless services. Although these initial findings on MOSH are encouraging, further research will be needed to evaluate provider knowledge gains and effective use of these skills in practice.     

The role of titles in enhancing data visualization

Many in the data visualization and evaluation communities recommend conveying the message or takeaway of the visualization in the visualization's title. This study tested that recommendation by examining how informative or generic titles impact a visualization’s visual efficiency, aesthetics, credibility, and the perceived effectiveness of the hypothetical program examined. Furthermore, this study tested how simple or complex graphs, and positive, negative, or mixed results (i.e., valence of the results) affected outcomes. Participants were randomly assigned to one of 12 conditions, representing a 2 (graph: simple or complex) x 2 (title: generic or informative) x 3 (valence: positive, negative, mixed) between-subjects study. The results indicated that informative titles required less mental effort and were viewed as more aesthetically pleasing, but otherwise did not lead to greater accuracy, credibility, or perceived effectiveness. Furthermore, titles did not interact with graph type or the valence of the findings. While the results suggest it is worthwhile to consider adding an informative title to data visualizations as they can reduce mental effort for the viewer, the intended goal of the visualization should be taken into consideration. Considering the goal of the visualization can be a deciding factor of the type of graph and title that will best serve its intended purposes. Overall, this suggests that data visualization recommendations that impact evaluation reporting practices should be scrutinized more closely through research.     

A case study on the suitability of STARS for green campus in China

With the continuous development of China's green campus, its future construction should learn from foreign advanced development experience and achievements. On the one hand, STARS, a global advanced green campus evaluation system, should be introduced to China's green campus construction and on the other hand, the suitability for China's actual needs should also be considered. Therefore, this study mainly studies the suitability of STARS indicators for green campus in China. Taking a representative university of green campus in China as a specific case, starting from the demand side, this paper uses the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to evaluate the users’ satisfaction of green campus construction. Comparing the result of satisfaction assessment with the result of STARS’s sustainable evaluation, the STARS’s indexes are divided into four regional grades by two-dimensional suitability evaluation coordinate system. The results show that STARS is generally suitable for green campus evaluation in China, but two of the evaluation categories need to modify the evaluation scores and weights; the other two categories are not suitable and need to be removed or changed. The purpose is to provide suggestions for the optimization of the evaluation of green campus in China.     

烟熏炉螺旋管换热器换热仿真模型研究

换热器是肉食品热加工的烟熏炉的重要组成部分,一般有螺旋板式与U型2种不同形式。目前根据热加工要求 设计换热器时,结构参数的选择存在一定的盲目性,即换热器的尺寸是否满足要求完全凭经验及依赖事后验证。文中针 对某一类型烟熏炉螺旋管式换热器进行流动传热分析,建立换热器的一圈为基本单元的数值分析模型。借助CFD技 术,分析了不同圈数对出口温度分布的影响。结果显示不同圈数对换热器的温度分布影响较大,且基本单元截面的温度 值与基本单元数量呈二次函数关系。拟合不同圈数下各截面的温度值,得到各基本单元的出口温度与基本单元个数（圈 数）的函数关系。该函数关系能够有效地反映换热器温度降趋势,从而指导具体的换热器设计。     

弯管弯曲仿真中的芯棒结构建模

针对芯棒结构的特殊性与多样性而引起的芯棒结构在弯管弯曲过程仿真时建模不唯一性的现象,探讨了芯棒结 构的作用机理,提出了刚体球铰接、刚体销铰接、超弹体连接3种建模方法;根据同一芯棒不同分析模型的仿真效果,提 出了芯头的仿真模型应根据具体的研究对象而采用不同的芯棒模型的仿真建模策略;结果表明该策略有助于提高仿真 效率,避免仿真建模时的盲目性,有利于对不同要求的研究对象进行有针对性的研究。