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SA Journal of Industrial Psychology
On-line version ISSN 2071-0763
Print version ISSN 0258-5200
SA j. ind. Psychol. vol.38 n.1 Johannesburg Jan. 2012
Positive acculturation conditions and well-being in a mine in the North-West Province
Leon T.B. JacksonI; Fons J.R. van de VijverI, II; Shanaz AlI
IWorkWell Research Unit for Economics and Management Sciences, Potchefstroom Business School, Economics and Management Sciences Faculty, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa
IIDepartment of Psychology, Tilburg University, Netherlands
ORIENTATION: Multiculturalism seemed to have become the dominant strategy for dealing with pluralism in the South African public sphere.
RESEARCH PURPOSE: The authors addressed the relationship between conditions that are considered to be conducive to multiculturalism and the practices perceived to accomplish this, vis-a-vis multiculturalism and well-being, as measured by ill-health and subjective work success.
MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY: Although multiculturalism has been recommended as an effective way of dealing with diversity at societal and local levels, little is known about its effects in the workplace.
RESEARCH DESIGN, APPROACH AND METHOD: Following a quantitative approach, the authors utilised a cross-sectional design with a convenience sample of 241 Black employees and White employees from a mine in North-West Province for the research. Exploratory factor analyses and Cronbach alpha coefficients were used to test scale validity and reliability. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and effect sizes were used to determine the effect of race on the experiences of miners, and multigroup path analysis (AMOS) was used to investigate whether or not identical relations between multiculturalism, work success, and ill-health could be found for Black employees and White employees.
MAIN FINDINGS: Multiculturalism and mainstream tolerance coupled with ethnic integration demands at home and at work were associated with success at work but not with ill-health. Black employees experienced the workplace slightly more positively.
PRACTICAL/MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS: Multiculturalism and integration are related to subjective experiences of work success and, as such, should be supported in the workplace.
CONTRIBUTION/VALUE-ADD: Our findings suggest that multiculturalism is relatively well supported by both groups in the workplace. This positive finding should not be regarded as obvious because empirical research has suggested that the majority of members of the host culture do not always favour multiculturalism.
The 1994 democratic elections have brought a new order to South Africa which encapsulates the protection of human rights. The fundamental goal of the African National Congress (ANC) remains to construct a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic society in South Africa. Increasingly, South African organisations are implementing employment equity and affirmative action programmes as organisations commit themselves to a process of redressing previous imbalances, because of discriminatory legislation, which has resulted in a very diverse workforce composition. These trends pave the way for multiculturalism as the dominant strategy for dealing with pluralism in South African society.
Multiculturalism is expected to have positive effects on ethnic groups and on intergroup relations. Although multiculturalism has been recommended as an effective intervention at societal and local levels, little is known about its effects in organisations (Richeson & Nussbaum, 2004; Wolsko, Park, Judd & Wittenbrink, 2000). It has been suggested that the impact of multiculturalism may differ between ethnic minority and majority groups. Bekker and Leildé (2004), in attempting to answer the question'Is multiculturalism a working policy in South Africa?' concluded that it appears that multiculturalism, both as a policy and as an outcome, has had a measure of success in the new South Africa. However, multiculturalism has been criticised on several grounds. Some have suggested that multiculturalism can lead to group distinctions, conflict and separatism (Brewer, 1997) whilst others have argued that multiculturalism endangers social unity and cohesion, and it also contradicts individualism and the ideal of meritocracy (Barry, 2001; Bissoondath, 1994; Schlesinger, 1992). Given the divergent views about the benefits of multiculturalism it seems relevant and important to investigate its relationship with well-being in a diverse workforce. Relating to this, acculturation studies focus on issues arising when groups or individuals from different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with one another, with subsequent changes taking place in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups.
Our theoretical framework draws on a mediation model of acculturation (Arends-Tóth & Van de Vijver, 2006). Predictors in the model, called multicultural conditions, refer to contextual conditions with a presumed influence on multicultural orientations, such as descriptive norms about the need to adopt and appreciate multiculturalism in a culturally diverse group. Mediating variables, called integration (orientations), refer to the way that individuals perceive their environment as either preferring to embrace multiculturalism (aimed at an integration of ethnic groups) or segregation (aimed at independent co-existence of ethnic groups); thus, our argument is that perceived practices and norms, vis-a-vis multiculturalism, will create perceived demands (to integrate or segregate) on the individual. These norms and practices (as antecedents to the research) and perceived demands (as mediating variables) will influence the outcomes of the process, such as well-being and work performance. The present study examines the multicultural model in a mine in the North-West Province and addresses differences in support for multiculturalism amongst Black employees and White employees.
The current study differs from conventional acculturation studies that include mainstream majority and immigrant minority groups. However, Jansen (2011) cautioned against the use of the term 'minority' because South Africans are building a common identity as citizens of a new country, where they no longer refer to each other by skin colour or demographic count, but by allegiance to higher values and commitments. He also warned that the term 'majority', in the new South Africa, should not be mistakenly interpreted as Black or African people, which is in line with our conceptualisation of the acculturation of ethnic groups in relation to the evolving new national identity. Heeding these warnings, we defined the context of adjustment as the new, multicultural South Africa. No ethnic group has a background that corresponds to this multicultural reality. So, we can safely assume that all groups are involved in an acculturation process, of dealing with this new reality, by either choosing to integrate with or segregate from other groups, most notably in the workplace. So, even though our study does not have the usually clear demarcation of mainstream and minority groups, we argue that acculturation theory provides a useful framework for studying the multicultural South African workplace.
Antecedents: Mainstream multiculturalism conditions
The impact of acculturation orientation of the host culture, dealing with the issue of how the dominant group prefers the immigrants to deal with the ethnic and mainstream culture, has been taken into account and is increasingly emphasised in studies relating to acculturation (Arends-Tóth & Van de Vijver, 2000; Bourhis, Moise, Perreault & Senecal, 1997). The Interactive Acculturation Model (Bourhis et al., 1997) takes the acculturation strategies (from the bidimensional model) of both the mainstream and minority culture into account. This model has been developed as a means to describe intergroup relations in a multicultural society, but can be readily extended to multiculturalism in the workplace. The conjunction of multicultural preferences, held by the various ethnicities in the work force, gives rise to various kinds of intergroup relations ranging from conflicting (e.g. all groups favour segregation and do not endorse integration) to consensual relations (e.g. groups favour multiculturalism). The nature of this relationship can be expected to have a similar impact on multiculturalism, as it has had on acculturation outcomes (Zagefka & Brown, 2002). We examine multicultural practices and norms and mainstream tolerance as antecedent conditions:
multicultural norms refer to descriptive rules about how diversity is dealt with in the organisation
practices refer to behaviours, prevalent in the organisation, conducive to intercultural contact
tolerance puts emphasis on non-discrimination during intercultural contact.
Multiculturalism and mainstream tolerance
Multiculturalism in the workplace refers to the co-existence and integration of the diverse cultures represented in the workforce. Multiculturalism is an ideology designed for dealing with cultural diversity, entailing the quality and positive evaluation of different groups within a society. Certain conditions must be met in order to establish and maintain a multicultural society (Berry & Kalin, 1995). These conditions involve certain criteria:
There should be contact between the ethnic groups.
The society should be tolerant toward immigrant (minority) groups.
All cultural groups should have positive attitudes toward each other and consider themselves attached to the larger society, without losing their own cultural background.
Empirical research, however, has suggested that the majority of host culture members do not always favour multiculturalism (Breugelmans & Van de Vijver, 2004). Hofmeyr (2006) tried to establish the extent to which people, from different population groups, are being exposed to one another in their daily routines, and whether or not they want to increase contact with people from other groups. He found that more than half of their South African sample indicated that they never communicate informally with people from other ethnic groups on an average day, and that just less than a third of respondents indicated that they would like to increase their frequency of conversations with groups other than their own. Unlike the private domain where people have a choice about whom they communicate with, communicating with other group members in the workplace remains a reality, and given the rarity of such contacts in the personal sphere, one can only speculate about the impact forced contact exerts on well-being at work. Recent studies have indicated that multicultural practices and norms and mainstream tolerance in the workplace have been associated with lower levels of physical and psychological ill-health as well as increased subjective experiences of work success (Ait Ouarasse & Van de Vijver, 2004; Molokoane, 2007; Swart, 2009). However, the following questions arise:
Are these associations the same for both Black people and White people?
Do these groups experience these acculturation conditions in the same fashion?
Mediating variables: Perceived integration demands
In this article, ethnic integration demands refer to pressure, from co-ethnics at home and at work, to recognise diversity and to adopt the multicultural (Rainbow) identity. Few studies have addressed the consequences of multicultural attitudes. However, various studies have addressed the closely related concept of acculturation orientations that deal with the question of how immigrants want to deal with their culture of origin and with the culture of the country of settlement. Berry, Phinney, Sam and Vedder (2006), in a large international study of immigrant youth in 13 countries, examined how these immigrant youth live and perform within and between two cultures. They concluded from their findings that the integration profile was the most common method of dealing with two cultures. Respondents with this profile reported relatively high scores on involvement in both their ethnic and national cultures, and on both ethnic and national identities. They also had peer contacts with both their own group and the national group and appeared to be comfortable in both their ethnic and national contexts. Immigrant youth, in the integration profile, obtained psychological and socio-cultural adaptation scores that were above the grand mean. These results supported their expectation that an ethnic orientation would contribute positively to psychological adaptation, and a national orientation would positively influence sociocultural adaptation. Positive relations between integration demands, and subjective experiences of success at work as well as lower levels of ill-health, were also confirmed in recent studies (Ait Ouarasse, 2004; Molokoane, 2007; Swart, 2008). There is overwhelming evidence for the positive effects of integration compared to the other ethnic acculturation strategies on adjustment and adaptation, yet, Neto, Barros and Schmitz (2005), when comparing the effects of integration and separation on 118 Portuguese immigrants in Germany, found no differences in acculturative stress, self-esteem, or satisfaction with life. The authors argued that these findings can probably be explained by the fact that the majority of Portuguese immigrants have been living in Germany for a long time and that their (objective) acculturation stress is low because these migrants have already developed efficient acculturation strategies. Research has often shown that integration is the strategy most favoured by minority members (e.g. Pham & Harris, 2001; Zagefka & Brown, 2002).
However, they may shift to separation if the mainstream culture reacts negatively to their integration (Ward, 2001). A host society that does not permit cultural diversity is not likely to favour integration but tends to favour minority assimilation rather than integration (Ait Ouarasse, 2004).
Similarly, Jasinskaja-Lahti, Liebkind, Horenczyk and Schmitz (2003) found that immigrants who preferred the separation option reported fewer stress symptoms than those who preferred the assimilation or integration options. Born (1970) and Berry (1970, 1980) presumed that the modes of acculturation are responsive options for coping with acculturative stress, such that that the following is likely:
high levels of stress cause people to choose acculturative withdrawal (separation or marginalisation with resulting lower or fewer stress symptoms after a period of time)
low levels of stress cause people to choose acculturative engagement (assimilation or integration).
Sam (2000) found that immigrant adolescents in Norway who preferred integration suffered increased acculturative stress. People who preferred to separate themselves were less exposed to unwelcome, hostile attitudes and behaviour from the 'others'. It could be speculated that separation strategies will only be successful in contexts where this option is viable and the immigrant can withdraw into an ethnic pocket without having to frequently interact with the mainstream culture. We can only speculate about the association between pressure from co-ethnic members to integrate with multiculturalism and mainstream tolerance on the one hand, and psychological and sociocultural adaptation on the other hand in a diverse work context in South Africa.
Outcomes: Well-being and work success
We draw (again) on the acculturation literature to distinguish between two types of outcomes (Ward, Bochner& Furnham, 2001). Psychological outcomes are mainly studied in the stress and coping tradition and concern mental health and general satisfaction with work: Does the employee feel well in the workplace? Sociocultural outcomes, on the other hand, are studied in the culture learning tradition, and refer to successful participation in the work force: Does the employee do well in the workplace? Psychological and sociocultural adaptation are positively related (Berry, 2003; Ward et al., 2001; Ward & Kennedy, 1999) and the strength
of the association is related to the cultural distance and the degree of integration of cross-cultural travellers in the social milieu. Thus, the larger the cultural distance, the weaker the association between psychological and sociocultural adaptation; the more the orientation toward the host society (assimilation or integration), the stronger the relation (Ward & Rama-Deuba, 1999). Psychological and sociocultural outcomes may have different antecedents (Ward et al., 2001).
The present study
It seems reasonable to expect multiculturalism to be present in the mining industry, following the post-apartheid constitution of 1997 and the ensuing introduction of affirmative action and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) in the labour sector. The reality according to the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) Annual Report 2009/2010 (Department of Labour, 2010), however, indicates the slow pace of transformation in the industry. The gender and racial distribution of the workforce in the sector is hardly reflective of the workforce diversification that the department had envisaged. The CEE report observes that after 10 years of affirmative action having been adopted as policy, progress on diversification of management, core-skilled management, and core-skilled workers remains minimal (Khuzwayo, 2010). Given this state of affairs, the following questions arise:
Do mine workers, in a mine in the North-West Province, actually experience multiculturalism and mainstream tolerance and well-being?
Do members of the Black and White ethnic group in South Africa, employed at this gold mine, promote the idea of integration and active participation in the workplace?
Does the same multicultural mediation model (of antecedent, mediating, and outcome variables) apply to Black groups and the White group?
Research design
Research approach
This research began with a quantitative approach, followed by a cross-sectional survey design whereby a sample was drawn from a population at one point in time, and this sample was used to obtain the research objectives. Cross-sectional designs are appropriate where groups of participants, at various stages of development, are studied simultaneously, whereas the survey technique of data collection gathers information from the target population by means of questionnaires (Burns & Grove, 1993). This design is used to assess interrelationships amongst variables within the population.
Research method
Sampling and research participants
The participants of this study were a convenience sample of gold miners in the North-West Province. A total of 500 miners were approached. A response rate of 59% was achieved, of which 288 responses (98%) could be utilised. However, some of the Indian respondents were deleted from the final multigroup analysis because of their small sample size. Black and Coloured miners were combined as a single Black group to create a Black group and a White group for further analysis. The sample (N = 241: 83.7% of the initial usable sample) consisted of 208 males (86.3%) and 33 females (13.7%), 170 Black miners (70.5%) and 71 White miners (29.5%) with an average age of 31.65 years and 8.77 years of experience. Coloured miners comprised only 2.4% of the sample. Despite their cultural differences, given the history of the country as well as the low representation of Coloured miners, we decided to combine Black miners and Coloured miners for multigroup analyses. As an aside, it may be noted that our definition is in line with the Employment Equity Act in which all previously disadvantaged groups are called Black: 'Black people' is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians in the South African Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. Within the context of the present study, both groups share a history as the victims of institutionalised racism and oppression, and they share the same position in the commonly perceived divide of 'black' and 'white' in South Africa (Makhalemele, 2005):
The original separation strategy of the National Party after the 1948 election only distinguished between black or 'non-white' and white. Apartheid created race as a mechanism for violence. Race, in and of itself, was the social and psychological reality through which repression and violence functioned. Racism was institutionalised, legalised and internalised." South Africans saw the world in 'black' and 'white' terms and violence was commonly used to maintain the status quo. (n.p.)
Measuring instruments
Some instruments, with well-established psychometric properties used in other cultural contexts, were adapted (Ait Ouarasse & Van de Vijver, 2004). Adaptations involved replacing the original words 'Dutch' and 'Moroccan' with 'South African' and 'own ethnic group', respectively. All acculturation scales follow a 5-point Likert format ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree) and, where needed, item scores were reversed before the analyses. Adaptation of mainstream domain instruments:
multicultural norms
tolerance by the mainstream
multicultural practices.
Multicultural norms (developed for the study by the researchers involved): This is a 6-item measure of the participants' attitudes to multiculturalism and the prevalence of multicultural values within an organisation. The scale contains items like 'I think that most of my co-workers think that the idea of a 'Rainbow Nation' with a core set of values, such as equality for all South Africans, does not work in our organisation' (reverse scored). An exploratory factor analysis suggested the unifactorial nature of the scale, and the same was found for all other scales in the study (α = 0.65).
Tolerance by the mainstream (adaptation of Ait Ouarasse and Van de Vijver, 2004): This is an 8-item measure of the extent to which participants think that mainstream members take an open stance toward the ethnic minority in the South African workplace. Tolerance is the desire on the part of the mainstream to see the minority members actively involved in public life without necessarily dropping their original culture. The scale contains items like 'I think that most of my co-workers from other cultures are most welcoming people' (α = 0.76).
Multicultural practices: This new instrument is a 7-item measure of the participants' actual multicultural behaviour and the prevalence of multicultural practices within an organisation. The scale contains items like 'My co-workers generally show respect for people from other cultures in our organisation' (α = 0.77).
Adaptation of ethnocultural domain instruments:
Perceived ethnic integrationist demands (General)
Perceived ethnic integrationist demands (Workplace)
Perceived Ethnic Integrationist Demands - General (adaptation of Ait Ouarasse & Van de Vijver, 2004): This is a 6-item measure of the extent to which participants think that members of their ethnicity allow them to establish contact with the South Africans and participate in public life. The scale contains items like 'Most members of my cultural group want me to deal with people from different cultural groups' (α = 0.75).
Perceived Ethnic Integrationist Demands - Workplace (adaptation of Ait Ouarasse and Van de Vijver, 2004): This is a 6-item measure of the extent to which participants think members of their own group allow them to establish contact with members of other ethnic groups members at work. The scale contains items like 'My group members are positive about diverse work teams' (α = 0.71).
Psychological and socio-cultural acculturation outcomes:
work success.
Well-being: This is an adapted version of the 18 physical health symptoms of the PSI of Spector and Jex (1998), complemented with a list of 9 common psychological complaints based on a slightly modified version of the World Health Organization Cross-National Survey of Psychological and Somatic Symptoms (1988). This scale employs a frequency format that ranges from 1 (never) to 5 (every day). The self-report measure asks respondents to indicate whether or not, in the past three months, they had suffered any of the mentioned symptoms. Some examples of symptoms included in the scale are headaches, backache, fatigue, eyestrain and trouble sleeping, concentrating and constant anxiety or panic attacks (a = 0.94 and 0.89 for physical and psychological ill-health, respectively).
Work success (Ait Ouarasse & Van de Vijver, 2004): This is a 14-item measure of participants' success at work. All of the items are positively phrased. It contains items pertaining to task completion, punctuality, status, and recognition at work, relationships with supervisors, and relationships with fellow workers. The scale contains items like 'I am always on time for my work', 'I do my work exactly as instructed by my supervisor' and 'I have a good reputation among my co-workers' (a = 0.85).
A Biographical questionnaire is included in order to enable description of the population. It includes basic biographical questions like age, sex, race, and experience.
Research procedure
The research project was initiated after discussions with the Human Resource Department of a major gold mine in the North-West Province of South Africa, and permission was obtained from the mine's management. Various information sessions were held on site and pamphlets were distributed to inform employees about the aim of the project and to encourage them to attend sessions on site where participants would complete questionnaires. Managers were also encouraged to allow employees to attend the sessions for completion of the questionnaires whilst the anonymous and voluntary nature of the project was constantly emphasised during the information sessions. Five sessions were scheduled for questionnaire completion with two facilitators being present to clarify issues raised by the participants.
Statistical analysis
The statistical analysis was carried out using the SPSS-programme (SPSS Inc, 2010) and the AMOS 18 programme (Arbuckle, 2010). Descriptive statistics were used to explore the data whilst Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was carried out with race (two levels: Black and White) as independent variable and the mean scores of the scales as dependent variables. A MANOVA tests whether or not mean differences amongst groups of people, on a combination of dependent variables, are likely to have occurred by chance when, as was the case in our data as documented below, the dependent variables are correlated (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Effect sizes (Cohen, 1988) were included, in addition to statistical significance, to determine the significance of relationships. Effect sizes indicate whether or not obtained results are practically important (whereas statistical significance may often show results which are of little practical relevance).
Exploratory factor analyses and Cronbach alpha coefficients were used to determine the unidimensionality, homogeneity, and internal consistency of the measuring instruments (Clark & Watson, 1995). Cronbach's alpha coefficient contains important information regarding the proportion of variance of the items of a scale, in terms of the total variance explained by that particular scale. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients are used to specify the relationship between the variables. Effect sizes (Steyn, 1999) are used to decide on the practical significance of the findings. A cut-off point of 0.30 (medium effect; Cohen, 1988) was set for the practical significance of correlation coefficients. In terms of statistical significance, the value was set at a 95% confidence interval level (p ≤ 0.05).
The mediating role of the demands of ethnic integration was investigated in the relations between positive antecedent mainstream conditions and well-being. To investigate these, structural equation modelling (multigroup analysis) was performed using AMOS 18 (Arbuckle, 2010).
The results consist of three parts, namely:
factor analysis and relationships between positive antecedents and intervening variables and well-being for Black miners and White miners
testing of the mediating role of integration demands in the relations between antecedents of multiculturalism and well-being
similarities and differences amongst Black miners and White miners in antecedents and intervening variables and well-being.
Exploratory factor analyses and associations between antecedent conditions, intervening variables and well-being for Black miners and White miners
The results obtained from exploratory analyses and inspections of the scree plots indicated that all scales used were unifactorial, explaining 32.6% of the variance in multicultural norms, 46.6% in mainstream tolerance, 43.6% in multicultural practices, 44.8% in ethnic integration demands at home, 41.3% in ethnic integration demands at work, 47.8% in physical ill-health and 52.6% in psychological ill-health and 35.5% in perceived work success. The correlation matrix depicting construct associations for the Black (upper section of the matrix) and White (lower section of the matrix) group are presented in Table 1.
A model of the mediating role of ethnic integration demands in the relations between positive acculturation antecedent mainstream conditions and well-being
To investigate the mediating role of ethnic integration demands in the relations between positive antecedent mainstream conditions and well-being, structural equation modelling (multigroup analysis) was performed using AMOS 18 (Arbuckle 2010). There are three positive acculturation mainstream antecedent conditions in this model, namely multicultural norms, mainstream tolerance and multicultural practices. There is a single latent variable (well-being at work) that is measured using three indicators, namely physical and psychological ill-health (psychological adjustment) and work success (sociocultural adjustment). Finally, there is an ethnic latent variable (ethnic integration) that is measured using two indicators, namely ethnic integration demands at home and at work. The tested model postulates that acculturation mainstream conditions influence well-being at work through ethnic integration. The similarities and differences between the Black and White race groups were explored by testing the fit of a hierarchy of models with increasing constraints on the number of invariant parameters (see Table 2).
Inspection of Table 2 revealed that the structural residuals model (see Figure 1) was the most restrictive model with an acceptable fit: χ2(48, N = 241) = 71.61, p ≥ 0.05; x2 df= 1.49 (recommended, ≤ 3.00). Other indices confirmed the good fit of the model: The adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI) was 0.90 (recommended, ≥ 0.90), the Tucker Lewis index (TLI) was 0.95 (recommended, ≥ 0.90), the comparative fit index (CFI) was 0.95 (recommended, ≥ 0.90), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0.05 (recommended, ≤ .05). The results of the structural residuals model is presented in Figure 1. In this model the regression coefficients of the antecedent mainstream acculturation conditions and factor loadings on well-being at work, through ethnic integration and the latent variable as a mediating variable, were assumed to be invariant across both Black and White race groups. As can be seen in Figure 1, an increase in positive mainstream multicultural norms, mainstream tolerance and multicultural practices are associated with increased ethnic integration demands at home and at work.
Stronger associations were observed between mainstream tolerance and integration compared to the associations between integration and multicultural practices and norms. Figure 1 also indicates an insignificant path from integration to well-being, whereas a significant path was observed from integration to (only) work success. This finding suggests that the perceived multicultural climate, practices and demands are unrelated to well-being in this sample, but are related to work success. Employees who are more supportive of multiculturalism showed more (self-reported) work success.
Mediating effects of integration demands
The hypothesised model is a mediation model in which positive antecedent conditions influence ethnic integration demands, which in turn impact on well-being of mine workers. We made a closer examination of their direct and indirect effects to evaluate their relative quantities and to establish whether or not indirect effects were significant. There is quite some literature on the testing of mediation effects that describes alternatives to the commonly employed Baron and Kenny (1996) procedure (Holmbeck, 1997; Hoyle & Kenny, 1999; Judd & Kenny, 1981; Kline, 1998; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). It has been found that the method proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986) can have a low statistical power, and that joint significance tests involving the product of coefficients showed greater statistical power than other procedures, including the Baron and Kenny approach (MacKinnon, Lockwood, Hoffman, West& Sheets, 2002). Therefore, we kept within the structural equation framework to compute the significance of indirect effects by using the bootstrap procedure, as implemented in the AMOS program. The results of the analysis can be found in Table 3.
Closer inspection of Table 3 indicated that, in agreement with observations from Figure 1, total and indirect effects where observed of subjective experience on work success but not on physical and psychological ill-health. In addition, the insignificance of all direct affects suggests that the link with subjective work success is fully mediated by integration demands. Positive antecedent variables have, therefore, an indirect and significant influence on subjective experience of work success. It can be concluded that integration demands fully mediate the path from mainstream positive conditions to sociocultural adjustment and that multiculturalism (integration) matters for the experience of subjective work success.
Comparisons of Black groups and White groups
Black and White group differences were examined, in the experience of mainstream antecedent conditions, ethnic integration demands at home and at work and also well-being. In order to examine these, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was carried out with race (two levels: Black and White) as an independent variable and the mean scores of the scales as dependent variables. As can be confirmed in Table 1, various dependent variables showed significant correlations, therefore, we decided to conduct a MANOVA. The mean scores of the scales per race group are presented in Table 4.
The multivariate effect of race was not significant (Wilks's lambda = 0.957, F(8, 232) = 1.297,p = 0.25). The only significant univariate effect was found for multicultural norms. Black miners experienced higher multicultural norms at work compared to White miners. The last column presents Cohen's d values, which gauge the size of the race differences. Only negligible differences to small effect sizes were observed. Thus, even though Black miners tend to show somewhat higher scores on the antecedent and mediating variables, the effect sizes are small. Moreover, given that all score means are well above the scale midpoints, our data suggest that the work force of our study is well aware of the multicultural aspects of the workplace, and seems to acknowledge that their environment wants them to adapt to this diversity. Although the impact of social desirability cannot be ruled out, our data suggest that multiculturalism is relatively well supported by both groups, and that the attitudes amongst employees are conducive for establishing and maintaining good intergroup relations in the workplace. All dimension scores are high, and well above the midpoint of the scale, which suggest that the multicultural conditions experienced by these mine employees are favourable. Black miners seem to experience a slightly more favourable multicultural environment, although the differences are very small and are only significant for multicultural norms.
Although scale scores were above the scale midpoint, analysis of group differences, on item-level, suggested an average item mean for the two groups on multicultural norms that ranged between 2.90 and 3.70. Furthermore, these differences, with a small effect size, only exist in the experience of item 'I think that most of my co-workers do not recognise that we are a workforce that consists of groups from different cultural backgrounds' (reversed scored) (d = 0.46), with Black miners scoring higher than White miners, and that the smallest difference (d = 0.03), between Black miners and White miners, was reported for the item 'I think that most of my co-workers believe that a workgroup with members from a variety of cultural groups can better tackle new problems of our organisation'. The average item mean for the two groups on multicultural practices ranged between 3.43 and 3.85, with the smallest difference on item-level experienced for the item 'I think that most of my co-workers accept the fact that we have different cultural practices' (d = 0.02) and the largest differences, yet still with a small effect size, was experienced for the item 'My co-workers generally show respect for other cultures in our organisation', with White miners experiencing the items more positively than Black miners. Furthermore, we also observed that the average item mean for the two groups on mainstream tolerance ranged between 3.24 and 3.57. The largest difference (with a small effect size) between the two groups were seen in the scores of the item 'I think that most of my co-workers from other cultures do their best to understand and help people from other cultures' (d = 0.32) and the smallest difference was for the item 'I think that most of my co-workers believe that cultural minorities should be helped to preserve their cultural heritage' (d = -0.08), with Black miners scoring higher than White miners.
Results also indicated that the average item mean for ethnic integration demands in general ranged between 3.36 and 3.81, that the largest difference, with a medium effect size, was observed in the item 'Most members of my cultural group want me to be a good member of my own cultural group and of the larger South African society' (d = 0.50), with Black miners scoring higher than White miners. The smallest difference (d = 0.03) was for the item 'Most members of my cultural group like to see its members playing a positive role in society'. Lastly, our results from the item-level analyses also indicated that the average item means for ethnic integration demands at work ranged between 3.36 and 3.78 with the largest difference being found between the groups for the item 'Most members of my cultural group want me to show my cultural values and respect those of others' (d = 0.25, small effect size), with Black miners scoring higher than White miners, and the smallest difference was for the item 'My cultural group members are positive about diverse work teams' (d = 0.03). It can be concluded that race differences were fairly small on average and that, if present, Black miners tended to have higher scores than White miners. Furthermore, there is no simple patterning of which items show large (or small) differences. Furthermore, it is a striking finding that almost all items showed mean scores well above the scale midpoint. This observation could not be simply dismissed as acquiescence, as we also included some reverse scored items. We cannot exclude the role of social desirability; yet, the multicultural practices scale correctly, which are mostly related to associated behaviours and may, therefore, be least susceptible to the influence of social norms. This also has item means well above the scale midpoint. Furthermore, we know, from cross-cultural studies, that countries and the ethnic groups within them often differ considerably in social desirability (van Hemert, Van de Vijver, Poortinga & Georgas, 2002). Thus, if anything, social desirability would have increased the size of the cross-cultural differences.
The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between mainstream antecedent conditions, ethnic intervening variables, and well-being at work for both Black miners and White miners. Antecedent mainstream conditions were positively related to ethnic integration demands and work success and unrelated to ill-health. This implies that a work environment characterised by increased multicultural norms and practices and tolerant mainstreams, is more likely to contribute to members of a particular ethnicity encouraging each other to participate in mainstream multiculturalism, as well as experience higher levels of subjective work success (Molokoane, 2007; Swart, 2008).
In this study we assumed that the association between acculturation mainstream antecedent conditions and well-being through a latent mediating variable, namely integration, would be invariant for Black and White group members in a mine in the North-West Province. Our hypothesis was confirmed, as we found an acceptable fit between the empirical data and the conceptual model. The fit between the data and the conceptual model indicates that the relations between antecedent conditions and well-being at work, through integration, were the same for Black miners and White miners. Thus, more multicultural norms, mainstream tolerance coupled with ethnic integration demands at home and at work resulted in a more subjective experience of success at work. This result confirmed the positive relations found in previous studies (Berry et al., 2006; Biela, 2008; Molokoane, 2007; Nchabeleng, 2008) between multicultural norms and practices, mainstream tolerance, integration demands and work success. It also confirmed the importance of taking both the mainstream and ethnic conditions into consideration in acculturation studies, as recommended by the proponents of the Integrated Acculturation Model (Bourhis et al., 1997). It, therefore, seems likely that a workplace culture that promotes the ethnic cultural maintenance of people, from diverse backgrounds, coupled with encouragement to participate in the mixed culture of South Africa, both at home and at work, would contribute to the experience of higher levels of subjective work success.
We were also interested in the mediating effect of this integration, in the path from positive antecedent variables to well-being, as measured by ill-health symptoms and subjective experience of work success. Our findings suggest an indirect and significant influence of positive conditions on subjective experience of work success. It could, therefore, be concluded that integration mediates the path from mainstream acculturation conditions to work success (sociocultural outcomes), but that it is unrelated to ill-health (psychological outcomes). It is remarkable that positive acculturation conditions and orientations were unrelated to ill-health. It could be speculated that positive conditions in the workplace, with regard to diversity, are probably more related to positive health outcomes (for instance, job satisfaction or life satisfaction) than to negative outcomes (such as ill-health). Positive and negative symptoms seem to have nomological networks that only show partial overlap. Our findings also seem to confirm Ward's et al. (2001) reasoning that psychological and sociocultural acculturation outcomes may have their own antecedents, because multiculturalism and mainstream tolerance coupled with co-ethnic integration demands were very strongly related to the subjective experiences of work success, whilst they were not related to physical and psychological ill-health symptoms. It can be concluded that integration demands fully mediate the path from mainstream positive conditions to sociocultural adjustment, and that multiculturalism matters for the experience of subjective work success.
Another aim of the study was to determine whether or not Black miners and White miners experience the mainstream antecedent conditions, intervening variables, and well-being at work differently. The results indicated that only multicultural norms were experienced differently by Black miners and White miners. Black miners experience higher levels of multicultural norms at work compared to White miners. This means that Black miners adhere more to multicultural norms in their environment than White miners. This result is in line with previous national surveys (HSRC, 2004, 2006) which indicated that Black miners are, in general, more optimistic than White miners about the new South Africa. Yet, we would like to emphasise that the effects are relatively small and, given that the means observed were well above scale midpoint, our findings suggest that multiculturalism is relatively well supported in both groups in the workplace. Analyses of group differences on item-level, for the various scales, also seem to suggest that most items were strongly endorsed, with little difference in the endorsement of the items in the two groups. The only exception, where medium effect sizes were observed between the two groups, was for the item on expectations from 'members of your cultural group want you to be a good member of your cultural group' as well as for South African society at large, where White miners scored lower than Black miners. However, it should be noted that support for multiculturalism should not be regarded as a given. Our results seem to differ from those obtained in previous European studies, as far as support for multiculturalism is concerned. More specifically, research in the Netherlands suggests that the level of support for multiculturalism varies significantly between the public and private domains, that cultural pluralism is not perceived as an important asset of society, and that mainstream society is not inclined to put much effort into minority integration. Verkuyten and Thijs (2002) found that the majority of members of Dutch society often emphasise the desirability of assimilation of ethnic minorities to the dominant culture. However, minorities will accentuate their own identity and the necessity of cultural maintenance, and they will expect more tolerance and participation from the mainstream culture (Arends-Tóth & Van de Vijver, 2000). The Dutch mainstream are less supportive of multiculturalism than Dutch immigrants, presumably because mainstreamers will gain less from support of a plural society than immigrants. However, our findings suggest a different pattern of support in South Africa. Members of both ethnic groups have the same perception of reality, they evaluate the cost and benefits of multiculturalism in the same fashion, and the attitudes amongst the employees are conducive for establishing and maintaining good intergroup relations in the workplace. The means, of the Black miners and White miners, were quite similar on almost all instruments. Future studies should examine whether or not the support for diversification in the workplace, which is found in this study, is also found in other sectors.
The findings of the study contribute to the growing literature on acculturation in South Africa, in relation to how South Africans cope with the new evolving national identity, namely the Rainbow Nation. However, this study extends national surveys, that look at race perceptions of changes in the new South Africa, as it combines the influence of both mainstream and ethnic perceptions in predictions of well-being in the workplace of the New South Africa. Contrary to public perception and discourse, the results indicated that mainstream conditions impact in the same way on well-
being at work for both Black miners and White miners. The results also indicate that both of these groups do not differ much in their experiences of these acculturation conditions and outcomes in this sample. The biggest limitation of study relates to the sample size, sample specificity, the choice of negatively phrased items as well as the design used. Future studies could consider other industries with larger sample sizes as well as longitudinal design to firmly establish cause and effect, as well as the impact of the issues covered in this study. In the light of recent xenophobic attacks on foreigners, future research could consider the experience of Indians and also various immigrant groups.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this paper.
Authors' contributions
L.T.B.J. (North-West University) was responsible for the literature review, the statistical analysis, and review and submission of the manuscript. F.J.R.V.D.V. (Tilburg University & North-West University) attended to the review of the manuscript, advice on matters relating to the literature, statistical analyses, and final manuscript. S.A. (North-West University) was responsible for the data collection, initial literature review and manuscript preparation.
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Correspondence to:
Leon Jackson
Private Bag X6001, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa
Received: 16 June 2011
Accepted: 29 Mar. 2012
Published: 30 May 2012
© 2012. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.


text:
The L.C. Bates Museum is one of 2700 institutions that have received Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) awards during the past 20 years. This article describes the history and accomplishments of the program.
Recipient: L.C. Bates Museum, Good Will Home Association
Grant: 1993 CAP and 2008 ReCAP
Contact: Deborah Staber
Web Site: www.gwh.org/lcbates
|Project Resources
|CAP website and other CAP success stories at www.heritagepreservation.org/
The L.C. Bates Museum is typical of many small museums and historical societies when it comes to collections care. Located in Hinckley, Maine, a town of 7,400 people, the museum collects and preserves items of local natural history, art, Americana, archaeology, and ethnology. The Bates Museum thrived from 1923 until the 1950s, but by 1980, the museum had fallen into disrepair. The museum needed a lot of work to turn it around, including window and roof replacement and eradication of a serious pest infestation.
Director Deborah Staber's first step was to obtain a general collections assessment through the Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) administered by Heritage Preservation through a cooperative agreement with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The assessment, the quickest and most cost-effective way to identify a museum's preventive conservation priorities, involved a conservator's two-day examination of the museum's collections policies, procedures, storage and exhibition environments, emergency plans, staff, and building. Because the museum's building was more than fifty years old, an historic structures assessor was also assigned to determine which historic preservation efforts were needed to ensure the building's long-term care. After the site visit, the assessor wrote a report outlining immediate, mid-term, and long-term recommendations to improve collections care, taking into account the time it would take for the museum to acquire sufficient resources to implement changes.
For the Bates Museum, the assessment was indispensible. Within six years, the roof and windows were completely repaired, a handicapped-accessible entrance was installed, and an integrated pest management system was in place. Staber also referenced the CAP report in raising more than $200,000 for museum building and collections improvements.
"During their visits to the museum, the assessors provided much individual information about specific projects and suggested much-needed treatments. The assessors' meetings with staff, board members, and volunteers gave everyone an opportunity to feel that they were part of the CAP process," said Staber.
The Bates Museum story has a happy ending but many small museums aren't as fortunate. Few people realize that the majority (75 percent) of all museums in the United States are small museums, mostly staffed by professionals with little training in collections care. While small museums sometimes hire conservators on a contract basis, few have experience in finding a cost-conscious and professional conservator. In fact, more than half of small history museums and historical societies rely on volunteers to perform collections care tasks and 71 percent have a collections care budget of less than $3,000 per year, according to the Heritage Health Index (HHI), a collections survey published in 2005 by Heritage Preservation and IMLS. Only 12 percent of small museums have a current, long-range plan for the care of their collections.
Through CAP, many small and mid-sized museums have taken the first steps towards improving conditions for the preservation of collections. More than 2,700 institutions have received assessments from CAP assessors over the past twenty years. CAP assessors, an army of more than 400 collections conservators and historic structures assessors, have provided general collections and museum building assessments across the United States. They objectively review CAP participants' entire collections and buildings, and provide organized, prioritized recommendations on such topics as the control of temperature and relative humidity in storage and exhibitions; control of light levels; and safety, security, and emergency preparedness plans and procedures at the institution.
Many conservators, such as M.J. Davis, a Vermont-based conservator who has served as a CAP assessor for a decade, are eager to work with small museums. She acknowledges that, for many museums, obtaining a conservator's general collections assessment may be intimidating. It may be their first time working with conservators or it may be the first time anyone from outside the institution has inspected their collections and building. Museum staff may also fear that they cannot afford to retain a professional conservator to assess their collections.
"It's important for small institutions to understand that conservators can work within a budget. We don't have to do full treatments on artifacts all the time. For example, we can simply stabilize damage, make recommendations for future use or storage, set up protocols for re-housing a collection, or help with housekeeping methods," said Davis. In general, Davis and many other conservators encourage small museums to conserve artifacts preventively, meaning that collections policies and procedures must be put in place to minimize the amount of harm that can come to collections through improper environmental controls, storage environments, and exhibition practices.
"The CAP process is an opportunity for the conservator to work one-on-one with the staff and volunteers in these small museums. Providing them with realistic recommendations in their CAP reports, based on their available resources, helps them move forward with small doable projects. And having specific problems and challenges highlighted in the CAP report gives the museum the needed documentation to legitimize their situation and add weight to their grant requests," said Davis.
Accounts of collections care improvements gathered from former CAP participants by Heritage Preservation illustrate the far-reaching benefits of the program. Within two years of completing their assessments, 40 percent of CAP participants created a line-item in their budgets for conservation supplies and treatments, 54 percent of museums created or updated their long-range preservation plans, and 68 percent of museums created or significantly updated their emergency plans, according to data gathered by Heritage Preservation.
CAP assessments also helped the participants' governing bodies to understand the importance of professional training in conservation, as evidenced by the fact that 57 percent of museums increased the amount of collections management training that their staff received. More than 75 percent of participants increased the amount of their collections that were inventoried, and 66 percent increased the number of items cataloged. More than 500 federal grants for collections activities have been awarded to former CAP participants in the past twenty years, including IMLS Conservation Project Support and Museums for America grants, National Endowment for Humanities Preservation Assistance and Save America's Treasures grants.
As part of CAP's 20th anniversary, Heritage Preservation has posted CAP success stories on its Web site, demonstrating the benefits that both U.S. museums and the public at large can reap from the collaboration of museum and conservation professionals. Important collections are protected from deterioration, museum professionals are hired and volunteers are recruited, and irreplaceable artifacts and history are preserved for future generations. Museum conservation best practices are learned, honed, and disseminated.
Applications for the 2011 Conservation Assessment Program will be made available on Heritage Preservation's website www.heritagepreservation.org/CAP/index.html in September, 2010 and are due December 1, 2010. For additional information, please contact the CAP office at 202-233-0800 or at email@example.com.
Guest profile by Sara Gonzales, Heritage Preservation CAP Coordinator.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Developer 'breaks the chains' of traditional games
Joe Pietruch began working with students and faculty to develop a revolutionary new video game that allows up to as many as eight people to play simultaneously on one screen.
A. Sue Weisler
Many popular video games such as Mario Kart or Call of Duty only allow up to four local people to play at once. So, unfortunately, your other houseguests have to patiently wait to play.
To solve that problem, Joe Pietruch, a game design and development lecturer at RIT, began working with students and faculty to develop Chain Gang Chase, a revolutionary new video game that allows up to as many as eight people to play simultaneously on one screen. The cooperative play video game for the Ouya and desktop computer challenges players to work together by having two players share a single controller.
"By 'cutting' the controller in half so one player uses the left joystick while the other uses the right joystick, you can increase the number of players and the amount of fun," said Pietruch, '08, '10. "There are only a few other games on the market that actually require players to modify their normal hand placement and share a controller."
In the game—which was partly inspired by the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?—each player is a member of an escaped chain gang searching for a train to cut off their shackles. The adventure ensues as gamers work together to follow maps, solve puzzles and avoid trees, detection and capture. Once they reach their destination, it's a race to break the chains over the tracks while dodging the train.
"I knew that I wanted to create a game in the 'couch co-op' genre where people can play as teammates in the same room," Pietruch said. "It's always more fun when you can elbow, laugh and yell at your friends while trying to beat a hard level.
"The biggest difference between developing Chain Gang Chase and most other games is that it's harder to test because you only have two hands to test eight players," he said. "I would find myself controlling joysticks with my toes if my fiancé wasn't around to help out."
Pietruch began creating Chain Gang Chase during a 25-day sprint in June, working to build a game prototype and the backend for a map editor website that allows people to draw in trees, fences, and gates to create their own maps.
During a Kickstarter campaign in November, people began to test the early versions of the game, finding that the simple stick motions were easy to navigate.
The challenge was getting around corners, through narrow passageways and coordinating how to rush the tracks to cut the chains, while being connected with seven other people.
The game surpassed its campaign fundraising goal, earning $11,662 and allowing Pietruch to hire a game developer and Web developer, both co-op students through RIT's Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC). The team plans to debut a playable version of the game at the Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival on May 3 and unveil a published version in the Ouya marketplace in late May. The game will be free to play with 15 to 20 maps and will offer a one-time payment of $20 to unlock more maps.
"Development is not going to end in May though," said Pietruch. "We already have plans to add an avatar maker, new terrain types, computer players and a mobile version in the future."


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□ Video is one of the best mediums for studying the complex nature of tornadic winds. Due to the availability of inexpensive cameras and the proliferation of smart phones, an increasing number of tornadoes are being documented first-hand each year. From a research perspective, such footage is important for two reasons. Firstly, the various videos provide further evidence that suction vortices and small-scale wind features are responsible for the erratic and extreme nature of tornado damage. Additionally, video documentation indicates that the Enhanced Fujita Scale underestimates the intensity of winds in violent tornadoes.
10. Tupelo, Mississippi – April 28, 2014
□ On April 28th, 2014, tornadic activity associated with a deadly two-day outbreak took aim on northern Mississippi. At 2:42pm, a multi-vortex tornado touched down near the Lee County border. The tornado slowly intensified and grew in size as it raced to the northeast at 50mph. Just before 2:50pm, the tornado entered the northern fringes of Tupelo. Damage was of EF1 and EF2 intensity until the tornado reached Clayton Avenue, at which point the storm rapidly intensified and destroyed three adjacent homes, one of which was swept completely away (NWS, 2014). The tornado then tore through a wealthy neighborhood just south of Legion Lake, unroofing and partially destroying several mansions. Winds were near peak intensity as the tornado ripped through a commercial district at the intersection of Gloster Street and Green Street. More than a dozen large businesses were within the tornado's path, including a four-story Sleep Inn that lost its top floor. Across the street from the motel, a large bingo hall was nearly leveled. The tornado continued to the northeast for an additional 20 miles before dissipating. Overall, the tornado caused 40 injuries and one fatality (NWS, 2014).
A surveillance camera near McCullough Boulevard captured the tornado as it passed over a church playground. The church complex is located on the north side of Clayton Avenue, across the street from the initial streak of EF3 damage. As the tornado approached the area, the sky darkened considerably and the camera switched to a low light mode. Vehicles are visible driving on Country Club Road even as northeasterly inflow winds surpass 100mph and trees begin to snap in unison. Due to the tornado's multi-vortex nature, winds within the core of the storm were highly variable. The most intense winds occurred on the backside of the tornado and were from a southerly direction. The church building acted as a barrier to the strongest winds, resulting in only modest damage to the playground equipment. Damage to the church was consistent with an EF1 rating, in sharp contrast to the destruction only a short distance away.
9. Grande Isle, Louisiana – May 8, 2012
□ More than a thousand waterspouts are spawned each year along the Gulf Coast. Unlike terrestrial tornadoes, most waterspouts are formed from garden variety thunderstorms and pack winds under 100mph. Since they are generally weak and fueled by warm water, waterspouts usually dissipate rapidly once they make landfall. On some occasions, however, they retain their strength over land and pose a threat to life and property. In May of 2012, a series of waterspouts formed over Caminada Bay in Louisiana. The largest waterspout travelled in a southeasterly direction towards a residential area on Grande Isle. The narrow funnel came ashore over a marshy area and continued inland without weakening. As surprised residents took cover, the tornado swept over homes on Raspberry Lane, destroying one residence and damaging seven nearby homes (Examiner, 2012). The tornado traversed the quarter mile width of the island and entered the Gulf of Mexico, where it quickly became diffuse and dissipated.
A Grande Isle resident captured the waterspout from a home on Raspberry Lane. The videographer initially documented two waterspouts as they swirled over the bay and slowly edged towards northern coast of the island. As the larger waterspout approaches shore, a man exclaims "that's the biggest I ever seen." The filmmaker took cover beneath a balcony as the tornado continued its slow approach towards a cluster of homes. When the tornado strikes, winds of approximately 90mph are visible swirling around the tiny core updraft, which was only 40ft wide at the surface. As the core passes over a house on stilts, it rips away the roof and a poorly attached section of the off-ground structure. The damage was later awarded an EF1 rating.
8. Milan, Italy – July 30, 2013
□ More than 400 tornadoes touchdown in Europe each year, the majority of which are of F0 or F1 intensity. Northern Italy is perhaps the most severe weather prone region on the continent and one of the few places outside the US where violent tornadoes form on a regular basis. One of the most photographed tornadoes in Italian history touched down in the northeastern suburbs of Milan on July 29, 2013. The large funnel, the third to strike the city in a three month period, was spawned from a powerful supercell thunderstorm with large hail and hurricane force winds. The tornado strengthened to F2 intensity as it swept through industrial parks in Grezzago and Trezzo, filling the air with a blizzard of debris. Most of the damage occurred in Grezzago, where the storm ripped roofs off warehouses and rolled vehicles into piles. In total, the tornado displaced 12 families and caused several injuries, including one pedestrian who was crushed by a rolled vehicle (Autunno, 2013).
An office worker captured the storm with a cellphone as it tore through the industrial section of Grezzago. The footage begins soon after the tornado passed over the A4 Freeway and damaged a Geodis transport center. A thick cloud of roofing materials from nearby warehouses filled the air as the tornado slowly swirled towards the filmmaker. The primary funnel was less than 100 yards wide but imposing in appearance due to the vast quantity of light weight debris ingested from a DHN trucking depot a block away. The footage ends abruptly as the winds change direction and threaten to break windows near the videographer.
7. Silves, Portugal – November 16, 2012
□ In the fall of 2012, a supercell thunderstorm developed off the coast of southern Portugal. The powerful storm-cell spawned a large waterspout several miles south of Lagos, a densely populated resort community in Portugal's Algarves region. The tornadic waterspout came ashore in the town of Carvoeiro, damaging beachfront condominiums. The tornado continued northward into a mountainous region, eventually reaching the town of Silves seven miles inland. The tornado passed over a soccer stadium and swept through the center of town, ripping tiled roofs off multi-story apartment buildings and flipping dozens of vehicles. Most of the 13 injuries occurred in overturned cars, some of which were rolled more than 50ft (SkyNews, 2012). One woman died of her injuries a month after the tornado. Portugal's Met Office deemed the tornado to be "moderately devastating," and available imagery indicates the tornado left damage of EF2 intensity (Bratley, 2013).
Photographer Gui Teixeira captured the tornado as it passed directly over the Dr. Francisco Vieira Soccer Stadium in Silves. Teixeira first captured the tornado as it descended a hill and crossed the Arade River at the southern edge of town. The footage shows inflow winds ripping the canopy off the stadium's bleachers moments before the 300-yard wide funnel engulfs the field. As the core of the storm passed over the videographer, perimeter fencing was swept away and roofing debris tumbled through the air. Rough analysis of the footage and subsequent damage indicates that the tornado was likely at marginal F2 intensity in the vicinity of the stadium.
6. Diamond, Illinois – November 17, 2013
□ In the midst of a devastating tornado outbreak on November 17, 2013, a fast-moving tornado touched down 40 miles southeast of Chicago. Unlike other tornadoes that day, the storm never developed a "wedge" appearance but instead appeared as a hanging funnel above a transparent debris cloud. The tornado skirted between two large towns and swept through a neighborhood in Diamond, a tiny community along Interstate 55. More than 75 buildings suffered "major damage" and at least one home was completely destroyed ("Diamond continues…", 2013). Surveyors later determined that the storm left damage of EF2 intensity.
A north-facing surveillance camera at a Diamond gas station captured the fast-moving tornado as it passed just east of town. The footage depicts an area of extreme winds obliterating a two-story home on Johnson Road – across the street from a largely undisturbed gas station awning. When the footage is analyzed in detail, the complete destruction of the home appears to have occurred just after the storm's core passed a short distance behind the property, as evidenced by the west-to-east debris flow. The footage indicates the home was dislodged completely from its foundation prior to being destroyed, an indication of poor anchoring. From a human perspective, the footage reveals how deadly even modest tornadoes can be in unreinforced, wood-framed buildings.
5. Downtown West Liberty, Kentucky – March 2, 2012
□ On March 2, 2012, a series of violent and fast-moving tornadoes swept through the Ohio River Valley, causing 41 fatalities. One of the most notable tornadoes during the outbreak left an 86-mile swath of destruction through eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The tornado touched down in the hills of central Menifee County and roared eastward with a forward speed in excess of 60mph (NWS, 2012). Two people were killed before the tornado entered Morgan County, where the damage swath was consistently one mile in width. After traveling 20 miles in 19 minutes, the tornado ripped through downtown West Liberty, causing six additional fatalities (NWS, 2012). More than a dozen multi-story brick buildings were destroyed in the town's center, and over 100 homes were unroofed or partially leveled. The tornado had the longest path-length of any single storm during the outbreak and caused 10 fatalities during its 80 minute lifecycle.
A surveillance camera at Clinic Pharmacy in West Liberty captured fascinating footage of the tornado seconds before it entered the town's central business district. The footage sheds light on the tornado's highly complex wind-field, which was in excess of a mile wide but highly erratic due to transient suction vortices. Unlike most violent tornadoes, the storm lacked a solid condensation funnel. In the first half of the footage, the winds have a strong vertical element – lifting a portion of the medical building's roof straight upward. The lack of horizontal momentum may be due to the tornado's rapid forward motion, which both amplified and cancelled rotational velocities in varying parts of the storm. As the core of the tornado moves to the east, an extreme blast of westerly winds causes the majority of the damage in the area. Surveyors later determined that the tornado caused EF3 damage near the medical complex and immediately to the east in downtown West Liberty.
4. Henryville, Indiana – March 2, 2012
□ On the same day as the West Liberty tornado, an even deadlier storm sliced through the town of Henryville, Indiana. Similar to other violent tornadoes during the outbreak, the Henryville tornado travelled almost due east at speeds in excess of 60mph. The tornado first touched down in Washington County and quickly reached EF4 intensity near the town of New Pekin, where a large, well-built factory was reduced to a bare concrete slab (NWS, 2011). Nearby, thick sections of pavement were scoured from State Road 135 and three-story homes were completely leveled. Just east of the US 60, a young couple and their three children were killed in a mobile home that was obliterated. The tornado's forward speed accelerated to 70mph in Clark County, where the most intense damage occurred (NWS, 2011). Just before 3:20pm, the tornado ripped through the northern section of Henryville, sweeping away homes and devastating the local public school. One man was killed in a frame-home in Henryville, where the primary damage swath was approximately 200 yards wide. Overall, the long-lived tornado killed 11 people along a 49-mile path that traversed two states.
Surveillance cameras at Henryville Public School captured the tornado from multiple vantage points. One camera recorded the storm from an east-facing wall at the middle school, where the most severe damage occurred. The footage shows children exiting a school bus and seeking shelter in the school less than three minutes before the tornado strikes. Due to the tornado's rapid forward speed, ground level winds increased rapidly and shifted direction in only a few seconds. Just before being destroyed, the camera captured a school bus and two other vehicles being pushed sideways by the southerly flow. Another camera approximately 80 yards to the north captured what appears to be the calm "eye" of the tornado, an indication the storm's center passed directly over the school. While the majority of the school complex was severely damaged but left intact, the middle school was nearly leveled. The variations in damage are likely due to storm's 65mph forward speed, which amplified the winds in the southern portion of the tornado's inner core.
3. Lebanon, Kansas – May 27, 2011
□ On May 27, 2013, a large tornado touched down near the town of Lebanon in northern Kansas. The slow-moving tornado expanded to over a half-mile in width as it meandered to the east-southeast through sparsely populated farmland. A homestead three miles north of Lebanon was impacted by the tornado, leading to one injury. The home's second floor was sheared off and trees across the property were uprooted or snapped in half (NWS, 2013). Several other homes experienced mild to moderate damage before the tornado dissipated.
The Tornado Intercept Vehicle II (TIV2), driven by meteorologist Brandon Ivey, directly encountered the tornado on a rural county road. The 6.5 tonne vehicle parked just east of the rain-wrapped storm and deployed anchoring spikes a few minutes before the tornado struck. Video footage reveals that damaging inflow winds in excess of 100mph buffeted the vehicle before visibility dropped to only a few feet within the core of the storm. Due to the tornado's slow movement, peak winds lasted for nearly two minutes. At one point, southerly winds sent a blizzard of hay over the vehicle. The chasers later reported that debris from a home several hundred yards away impacted the vehicle at extreme speeds and breeched the passenger compartment in two places. An anemometer atop the vehicle, which failed near the beginning of the tornado, recorded winds between 150mph and 175mph. Had the anemometer withstood the duration of the storm, it is likely winds in excess of 200mph would have been recorded. The winds captured by the TIV2 were likely congruent with the winds in other large tornadoes in the absence of suction vortices, which are usually responsible for damage above the EF3 threshold. According to past survey reports, long duration winds of EF4 intensity (166 – 200mph) are capable of causing EF5 damage, yet the vegetation around the TIV2 was largely unaffected by the bombardment of winds in excess of 175mph. Taking this into account, it is likely that ground scouring in violent tornadoes occurs due to winds significantly stronger than those encountered by the TIV2 crew.
2. Parkersburg, Iowa – May 22, 2008
□ On May 25, 2008, one of the most violent tornadoes in modern history touched down five miles west of the small town of Parkersburg, Iowa. The historic storm rapidly intensified as it thundered eastward at 40mph, leveling corn crop and destroying more than a dozen out-lying farm buildings. As the massive funnel approached the edge of Parkersburg, it reached EF5 intensity – only the second storm to do so in the preceding nine years. At 5pm, the nearly half-mile wide tornado swept through the southern half of town, completely obliterating 200 homes and businesses. According to the town's mayor, most of the seven fatalities in Parkersburg occurred in basements. The tornado maintained EF5 intensity for more than 15 minutes, causing two additional fatalities in homes that were swept completely away near New Hartford. A survey team later concluded that the exceptionally powerful tornado swept away more than a dozen well-anchored homes (NWS Survey, 2008).
At 4:58pm, an ATM surveillance camera at First State Bank was recording a cloudy sky with light winds. Just after 4:59pm, the air momentarily fell still. Seconds later, powerful inflow winds began buffeting trees around a frame-home on Russell Circle. The rapidly accelerating winds surpassed hurricane-force in less than six seconds, filling the air with lethal projectiles. Ignited by exploding transmission towers, the sturdy camera captured the failure sequence of the home as the dark debris cloud engulfed the area. Remarkably, a man and his young son survived inside the home, which was reduced to its baseboards. The winds captured near the end of the video are likely in excess of 200mph – the strongest ever clearly captured on film. The home incurred EF3 damage before being obscured, an indication significantly stronger winds were responsible for the streaks of EF4 and EF5 damage.
1. Tushka, Oklahoma – April 16, 2011
□ In mid-April of 2011, one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in recent history left a wide trail of destruction from Oklahoma to the Atlantic Ocean. The outbreak was later superseded by two catastrophic events that left more than 500 people dead, but it remains the 6th deadliest tornado outbreak of the 21st century. On the first day of the outbreak, a large tornado touched down five miles southwest of the tiny town of Tushka, Oklahoma (NWS, 2011). Storm chasers captured the multi-vortex tornado as it expanded to over a half-mile in width and roared to the northeast at 35mph. Approximately eight minutes after forming, the tornado engulfed all of Tushka, causing two fatalities (NWS, 2011). The tornado left a highly variable damage swath – small streaks of destruction were surrounded on all sides by fairly mild damage.
As the edge of the tornado reached town, the four members of the Miller family were frantically driving to a storm shelter at Tushka Public School, where half the town's population had sought shelter (FEMA, 2011). Hurricane-force winds buffeted the center of town as the family parked their vehicle in the school's parking lot. Mrs. Miller, with her 5-year old son, and Mr. Miller, holding the couple's infant daughter, ran to the school entrance, only to find the doors locked. Mrs. Miller later told a reporter, "the winds were so high we were getting blown backwards – so my husband walked one way and I walked another" (Shanahan, 2011). A sub vortex within the tornado reached the family at 5:12 in the video clip, causing bursts of violent winds from varying directions. Moments later, winds in the storm weakened, allowing the couple a brief opportunity to come together and kneel against a metal fence. At 5:42, a more powerful wind feature engulfed the center of Tushka. The Miller's red SUV was pushed to within inches of the terrified family but also served as a barrier against deadly projectiles. In the background, the municipal hall and adjacent businesses were destroyed within a five second period. Less than 30 seconds later, the winds died down as the tornado exited town and continued to the northeast. The Miller family survived the storm with only minor injuries. The surveillance footage and aerial damage imagery indicate that the tornado's complex multiple vortex structure spared the public school but directly impacted buildings on the other side of Pecan Street.


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Jewish World Review June 24, 2013/ 16 Tammuz, 5773
Your life in the age of Big Data
By David Shribman
JewishWorldReview.com | This is an era when every question seems to have an answer -- and when that answer is as close as your phone, your laptop or your tablet. But these implements, which answer so many of the questions that we did not know we had, also have raised difficult new questions that we now know we cannot avoid.
Many of these critical questions have become part of the national debate in recent days in the wake of disclosures about how the new technology has opened up new avenues of government surveillance. Here are three of the most important questions suddenly dominating American civic life:
What is the balance between freedom and security?
This may seem like one of the eternal questions pondered by the ancients -- you're thinking of freedom and order, an entirely different matter -- but in fact it is a recent issue, raised by terrorism and the spectre of weapons of mass destruction.
Until Sept. 12, 2001, North Americans gave little thought to the clash of freedom and security, because the pressure against freedom came mostly from barriers involving race (American blacks were denied the freedoms whites enjoyed), gender (traditional roles and some laws imposed barriers to women in the classroom, workplace and elsewhere) and religion (dating to the exclusionary impulses of colonial settlements which did not recognize the hypocrisy of religious discrimination by people who traveled to the New World for religious freedom). Security was a targeted issue, not that much of a broad issue, except of course during the Red scares after both world wars.
The modern pressures on freedom come less against social mobility and personal expression than they do on the heretofore widely accepted freedoms of personal mobility and personal communication. In the contemporary world, unfettered access to public venues (the latest victim: sports stadiums) and the ability to communicate without government surveillance (cellphones and computers) are now genuinely at risk.
The combination of the modern means of communication and the nature of modern terrorism raises the question of whether restrictions on the one might help battle the proliferation of the other.
That is the central precept the administration is employing in arguing that its use of cell-phone and computer records is a minimal but justifiable intrusion on what, only weeks ago, was regarded as commonplace commerce and communication. Indeed, the head of the National Security Agency said that these techniques have interrupted "dozens" of terrorist plots.
But even among those who are reliably counted as national-security absolutists -- many on the right and some on the left -- there are grave questions about whether the intrusions are worth the cost.
The price of freedom has been an enduring American question, dating to the 18th century. It was posed for white men of the patrician class in the battle for taxation with representation in 1776, for blacks in the Civil War between 1861 and 1865 and for all mankind in the world war of 1939-1945, when the Axis powers enslaved, and in some cases exterminated, millions.
But now this large question is being applied to small, unremarkable aspects of modern life that have grown out of the wide distribution of the computer and the cell phone. Suddenly a theoretical debate is a practical one, as close to the heart as the smart phone in your breast pocket. Seldom has a debate that seemed to be suited to the philosophes been thrust quite so swiftly into the public square.
What is the cost of big data?
Until the beginning of this month, big data -- the accumulation of vast amounts of information in the search for patterns of behavior and prospects for corporate revenue -- was a relatively benign thing, even a possible economic panacea. What is the salvation of the advertising-starved news business? Sell big data. What is the best way to shape products and marketing appeals? Examine big data.
But does big data infringe on our freedoms? Is there a threat to personal freedom by the use of individuals' information as part of a mass examination of consumer or personal or political behavior? Are the tools that make our life easier -- that allow us to plot in a moment's time the best route between Pittsburgh and Toledo, or that tell us what's on the menu at the new bistro across town, or that let us find the date of the Peace of Westphalia with a few keyboard strokes -- actually making our lives easier to predict and thus easier to manipulate?
In other words, we again ask the price of progress. It never is free. Consider what Henry Drummond, a character in "Inherit the Wind," said on the subject, remembering that the play was written in 1955 and as a result the language and imagery will seem antiquarian to our ears:
"Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, 'All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."
Who is a whistleblower and who is a threat to national security?
This question brings us back to the threat these measures are designed to combat, and it is an analog to the distinction between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. One woman's whistleblower is another woman's threat to national security.
This question has skewed many of the usual patterns and alliances. Many of those who celebrate the leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg in 1973, for example, are deploring the leaks by Edward Snowden in 2013. Many of the loudest advocates of government openness believe the Snowden disclosures are of a nature and magnitude quite different from the customary leak. The Tea Party is split between those emphasizing civil liberties and those stressing national security.
This brings us full circle, back to the vital balance between freedom and security, rendered all the more difficult in a nation that only recently asked why authorities did not know more about the brothers accused of bombing the finish line at the Boston Marathon.
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David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. © 2011, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Universal Uclick, as agent for UFS.
Comment by clicking here.
David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
© 2011, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Universal Uclick, as agent for UFS.