Microgravity: A Teacher's Guide With Activities in Science, Mathematics, and Technology

The purpose of this curriculum supplement guide is to define and explain microgravity and show how microgravity can help us learn about the phenomena of our world. The front section of the guide is designed to provide teachers of science, mathematics, and technology at many levels with a foundation in microgravity science and applications. It begins with background information for the teacher on what microgravity is and how it is created. This is followed with information on the domains of microgravity science research; biotechnology, combustion science, fluid physics, fundamental physics, materials science, and microgravity research geared toward exploration. The background section concludes with a history of microgravity research and the expectations microgravity scientists have for research on the International Space Station. Finally, the guide concludes with a suggested reading list, NASA educational resources including electronic resources, and an evaluation questionnaire

Introductory Chemistry

Introductory Chemistry, this edition is designed for a one-semester, introductory or preparatory chemistry course. Students taking this course need to develop problem-solving skills-but they also must see why these skills are important to them and to their world. Introductory Chemistry extends chemistry from the laboratory to the student\u27s world. It motivates students to learn chemistry by demonstrating how it plays out in their daily lives. This book draws students into the course through engagement and building their foundational knowledge – while introducing new content and resources to help students build critical thinking and problem-solving skills. allowing students flexibility and ensuring a fully supported learning experience

The role of multisensory feedback in the objective and subjective evaluations of fidelity in virtual reality environments.

The use of virtual reality in academic and industrial research has been rapidly expanding in recent years therefore evaluations of the quality and effectiveness of virtual environments are required. The assessment process is usually done through user evaluation that is being measured whilst the user engages with the system. The limitations of this method in terms of its variability and user bias of pre and post-experience have been recognised in the research literature. Therefore, there is a need to design more objective measures of system effectiveness that could complement subjective measures and provide a conceptual framework for the fidelity assessment in VR. There are many technological and perceptual factors that can influence the overall experience in virtual environments. The focus of this thesis was to investigate how multisensory feedback, provided during VR exposure, can modulate a user’s qualitative and quantitative experience in the virtual environment. In a series of experimental studies, the role of visual, audio, haptic and motion cues on objective and subjective evaluations of fidelity in VR was investigated. In all studies, objective measures of performance were collected and compared to the subjective measures of user perception. The results showed that the explicit evaluation of environmental and perceptual factors available within VR environments modulated user experience. In particular, the results shown that a user’s postural responses can be used as a basis for the objective measure of fidelity. Additionally, the role of augmented sensory cues was investigated during a manual assembly task. By recording and analysing the objective and subjective measures it was shown that augmented multisensory feedback modulated the user’s acceptability of the virtual environment in a positive manner and increased overall task performance. Furthermore, the presence of augmented cues mitigated the negative effects of inaccurate motion tracking and simulation sickness. In the follow up study, the beneficial effects of virtual training with augmented sensory cues were observed in the transfer of learning when the same task was performed in a real environment. Similarly, when the effects of 6 degrees of freedom motion cuing on user experience were investigated in a high fidelity flight simulator, the consistent findings between objective and subjective data were recorded. By measuring the pilot’s accuracy to follow the desired path during a slalom manoeuvre while perceived task demand was increased, it was shown that motion cuing is related to effective task performance and modulates the levels of workload, sickness and presence. The overall findings revealed that multisensory feedback plays an important role in the overall perception and fidelity evaluations of VR systems and as such user experience needs to be included when investigating the effectiveness of sensory feedback signals. Throughout this thesis it was consistently shown that subjective measures of user perception in VR are directly comparable to the objective measures of performance and therefore both should be used in order to obtain a robust results when investigating the effectiveness of VR systems. This conceptual framework can provide an effective method to study human perception, which can in turn provide a deeper understanding of the environmental and cognitive factors that can influence the overall user experience, in terms of fidelity requirements, in virtual reality environments

Lawful life : itineraries of care and life in a landscape of assisted suicide

There is a difference between life and death that matters. A difference situated at the very core of state and medical rationale, and one that enshrines life as a value to be protected and death as something to be avoided. This rationale frames life as an anonymous value, something that has to be preserved and protected regardless of whose life it is, therefore establishing legal protections to it. This life, however, clashes with individual ones that refuse to collaborate in this project of staying alive, therefore requesting professional assistance to suicide. This is the very basis of the process of lawful life: the friction following the juxtaposition between an anonymous life, as seen by the state, and personal ones, constitute from a person’s own trajectory, moralities, affects, and perception of themselves. A friction between regulations over life that are implemented on the level of population and their impact over particular ones. Organized assisted suicide, therefore, is a manifestation of this process of lawful life, consequently being subjected to state and medical regulations. Regulations that, on the ground level, are circumvented through cooperation, judicial claims, and the transnational circulation of people, documents, and technologies. Therefore, this dissertation, which is based on a 3-year fieldwork starting at the Swiss organization LifeCircle, is an ethnography of transnational circulations in the context of organized assisted suicide, particularly between Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.Há uma diferença fundamental entre vida e morte. Uma diferença localizada no cerne da lógica do estado e da medicina, a qual consagra a vida como um valor a ser protegido e a morte como algo a ser evitado. Uma lógica, portanto, que configura a vida enquanto um valor anônimo sujeito ao estabelecimento de proteções legais, independentemente das especificidades de vidas individuais. Essa é a base do processo aqui chamado de “lawful life”: o atrito que se segue à justaposição de uma vida anônima, pensada a partir da perspectiva do estado e da medicina, com vidas particulares, que se constituem através de trajetórias específicas, moralidades, afetos, entre outros aspectos sociais e biográficos. Um atrito entre proteções legais e normativas que são implementadas no nível da população e seus impactos sobre vidas específicas, individuais. Na medida em que se situa em um ponto de convergência e atrito entre vida e vidas, o suicídio assistido organizado é uma manifestação desse processo de vida legal [lawful life], sendo portanto submetido a regulamentações médicas e estatais. Regulamentações que, no dia-a-dia, são contornadas através do estabelecimento de associações e cooperações heterogêneas entre agentes localizados em diferentes jurisdições, além de processos judiciais e da circulação transnacional de documentos, pessoas e tecnologias. Baseada em três anos de trabalho de campo realizado a partir da organização suíça LifeCircle, a presente tese é uma etnografia do processo de lawful life articulado através de circulações transnacionais no contexto de assistência organizada ao suicídio, particularmente entre Suíça, Alemanha e Reino Unido

Plethysmographic evaluation of airway obstruction

A number of aspects of body plethysmography were investigated in this study: measurement of airway resistance and thoracic gas volume, the relationship of these variables with other parameters of lung mechanics, with indices of alveolar ventilation and with arterial blood gases. Furthermore the influence of a bronchodilating drug (thiazinamium, Multergane) was assessed in patients with chronic obstructive lung disease. We will summarize the results of this study in the order in which they were presented in the previous chapters. Zie: Conclusion

Rediscovering the arcane science of ground handling large airships : an investigation into ways of reducing the risks inherent in the development of a new generation of very large airships and of establishing guidelines for their ground handling procedure

This research, which was begun as part of the now defunct CargoLifter project, concerns the ground handling and support systems of the large rigid airships (commonly known as "Zeppelins") that were built between 1900 and 1940. The intention was to assess the value of such historical information as has survived from the previous generation of very large airships in order to minimise the physical and financial risks inherent in the development of any future generations of such aircraft. The idea was to isolate and understand the fundamental issues that were actually encountered by the ground based personnel responsible for looking after the various British, German, American and Italian airships of the previous generation, and to gather as much information as possible about the techniques and operational procedures that were devised, tried and tested in the field. This information would then be used to establish guidelines for future projects that are based on real experience rather than on prediction, assumption or theory. Sadly, the CargoLifter project foundered in 2002; however the author had by then amassed sufficient research material for him to complete the study independently and to present it as a guide for the ground handling of hitherto unrealised concepts such as the proposed new "Transport category" or "CargoLifter" type large airships. Such practical skills as those required by airship ground crew personnel are normally passed on by firsthand instruction from one experienced practitioner to the trainee. This option is not available for the next generation of very large airships because there are no personnel alive today with any operational experience of the previous generation of really large airships. The problem therefore is to examine the historical records and to evaluate the written information in order to interpret it and pass on knowledge that will reduce the risk of future generations wasting their time in "re-inventing the wheel. " In the course of the study it was found that historical research (HR) enabled the results of the pre-war prototype projects to be usefully assessed despite the fact that very little of the material was written with that end in view. More specifically the analysis of historical airship activities (AHAA) revealed that it was possible to retrieve a considerable amount of lost or forgotten knowledge concerning the ground handling of very large airships, also to unearth ideas that were ahead of their time, which might be applicable today or in the future; and in addition to identify several areas worthy of further investigation (e. g. ideas that were rejected at the time but which may now be feasible due to technological progress). The research and analysis also uncovered some ideas and suggested solutions which are fundamentally flawed and that should be avoided by designers of large airships and their support systems. The work includes a detailed analysis of the tasks involved in the ground handling of very large airships and concludes with a suggested strategy for all those intent upon the design and planning of ground support infrastructures for any further large airship development projects either today or in the future