Space propulsion technology overview

Chemical and electric propulsion technologies for operations beyond the shuttle's orbit with focus on future mission needs and economic effectiveness is discussed. The adequacy of the existing propulsion state-of-the-art, barriers to its utilization, benefit of technology advances, and the prognosis for advancement are the themes of the discussion. Low-thrust propulsion for large space systems is cited as a new technology with particularly high benefit. It is concluded that the shuttle's presence for at least two decades is a legitimate basis for new propulsion technology, but that this technology must be predicted on an awareness of mission requirements, economic factors, influences of other technologies, and real constraints on its utilization

Making Neural QA as Simple as Possible but not Simpler

Recent development of large-scale question answering (QA) datasets triggered a substantial amount of research into end-to-end neural architectures for QA. Increasingly complex systems have been conceived without comparison to simpler neural baseline systems that would justify their complexity. In this work, we propose a simple heuristic that guides the development of neural baseline systems for the extractive QA task. We find that there are two ingredients necessary for building a high-performing neural QA system: first, the awareness of question words while processing the context and second, a composition function that goes beyond simple bag-of-words modeling, such as recurrent neural networks. Our results show that FastQA, a system that meets these two requirements, can achieve very competitive performance compared with existing models. We argue that this surprising finding puts results of previous systems and the complexity of recent QA datasets into perspective

"They have a right to participate as a stakeholder":Article 5.3 implementation and government interactions with the tobacco industry in Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: This paper explores implementation of Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Ethiopia. The analysis highlights how operationalising key requirements of Article 5.3, such as minimising policy engagement with the tobacco industry, has been mediated by path-dependent processes of stakeholder consultation and collaboration that have persisted following privatisation of Ethiopia’s state-owned tobacco monopoly. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with key officials (n=21) working in tobacco control policy, with high levels of access secured across ministries and agencies beyond health. RESULTS: We found contrasting levels of awareness of Article 5.3 across government sectors, with extremely limited awareness in departments beyond health. The data also highlight competing ideas about conflict of interest, in which recognition of a fundamental conflict of interest with the tobacco industry is largely confined to health actors. Beyond limited cross-sectoral awareness and understanding of Article 5.3, gaps in implementation are exacerbated by assumptions and practices around stakeholder consultation, in which attempts to minimise policy interactions with the tobacco industry are mediated by institutionally embedded processes that presume active engagement. The results also highlight a continuation of the close relationship between the Ethiopian government and tobacco monopoly following its privatisation. CONCLUSION: The Ethiopian government’s recent achievements in tobacco control legislation require that policymakers are actively supported in reconciling perceived tensions and requirements for stakeholder consultation. Effective tobacco control governance would be further enhanced by enabling government agencies to more clearly identify which interactions with the tobacco industry are strictly necessary under Article 5.3 guideline recommendations

Between patronage and good governance: organizational arrangements in (local) public appointment processes

This article investigates whether certain organizational arrangements in (local) public appointment processes could encourage the use of appointments as a tool of good governance rather than as a tool of patronage. Specifically, we studied the role of six organizational arrangements in 10 case studies of intra- and inter-organizational public appointment processes held in Italian local government. We found that good governance (in terms of perception of overall integrity and fairness) was found in processes of public appointments where there was independent scrutiny, and when the process involved local councillors and/or external stakeholders – that is, actors beyond those with the formal power to appoint. In these cases, making appointments was seen as a tool of good governance rather than of patronage. These organizational arrangements were more relevant than other ones such as the transparency of public advertisements, job descriptions and educational/professional requirements, and media and public awareness. The article describes the relevant literature and the research study, and discusses implications for research, policy and management

Ethics Renewal: Moral Principles, Boundaries, Value Studies, and More!

This presentation is intended to go beyond mandatory ethics to raise participants’ self-awareness to practice clinical mental health counseling. It fulfills 1 hour of ethics CEU requirements toward licensure renewal in a fun and interactive way. Participants will engage in active discussions and activities regarding personal beliefs and values, boundary dilemmas, moral principles, and ethical decision-making processes to promote client welfare. HIPAA, FERPA, and other key legislation will be discussed with emphasis on confidentiality

Enriching Students’ Academic Life with Creative Education

As research and practical exploration in education intensify, the awareness that school education should aim at outcomes more than just student academic achievements has been heightening in the educational community. Social advancement raises more demanding requirements for education, posing increased responsibilities on schools and instructors. There is a growing consensus that schools should provide students with a more colorful academic life, which goes beyond curricula content and allows students rich academic experiences, in order to foster all-round development in them

GaNEsHA: Opportunities for Sustainable Transportation in Smart Cities

In developed nations, cities experience a growing pressure to establish sustainable transportation solutions. However, currently cities have still only little knowledge about the transportation routines, needs and troubles of its citizens. A greater awareness of daily transportation activities could support cities to build up customized transportation infrastructures that meet sustainable requirements. To address this gap, we build the GaNEsHA mobile application. A mobile crowed-sensing tool to track mobility activities. We used the tool as a probe in an interview study with 14 citizens. Our findings indicated a need for ICT design to move beyond normative tools that simply aim to \u27encourage\u27 people to adopt sustainable practices. Instead, we identified different transitions how municipal mobility services can support sustainable mobility practices. These include: (1) creating awareness of environmental footprints, (2) supporting alternative transportation options, (3) optimizing towards individual needs, (4)facilitating local communities and participative approaches

People, trade and training: the needs of Morocco agricultural enterprises facing EU markets

The Mediterranean area is the core of an increasing exchange of goods and people. A distinctive feature of present trends in international relationship is the importance of factors that are beyond the mere exchange of goods. In particular, foreign investment, the creation international enterprises and training and personal growth of actors that are involved in the production process are key elements of the present scenario. The objective of this paper is to discuss the need of education and training in Morocco agricultural and agri-food enterprises in view of the increasing connection with the EU economy. In particular, attention is focused on the need brought about by the increased product quality requirements and by the installment of EU and US enterprises in Morocco. The study is carried out as a preliminary activity of the TEMPUS project STRIDE 4, through a survey of about thirty Morocco enterprises. The preliminary results show a strong need for training and information. The questionnaire shows a high degree of awareness about gaps and problems in meeting EU consumer expectations. At the same time, most respondents already show a clear positive strategy toward meeting such needs and many enterprises in fact are already adequate to many quality requirements. The main focus of the training required is on the interface between technical and marketing activities. Continuous education and life long learning are also perceived as major needs. In the background, the research shows the need of a more consistent understanding of each others institutions and cultural settings, as well as of a long term process of learning through collaborative training, production and research.Agribusiness,

NASA's Human Rating Requirements - A Historical Interpretive Perspective

Section 3.0 of NASA's Human Rating Requirements for Space Systems, NPR 8705.2, represents technical engineering requirements that the Agenc y requires of Human Space Systems. In many cases the requirements are not unlike requirements for any space system, crewed or uncrewed, th ey deal with successfully accomplishing the mission objectives. Howev er, they go one step further and have requirements that go beyond suc cessful completion of the mission and dictate functions or actions ne cessary to assure the survival of the crew. In that regard they are u nique from other space system requirements. Even with their uniquenes s the technical requirements of the NPR 8705.2 have been relatively u nchanged in overall intent over the revisions. They all have provided for system redundancy, crew habitable environment, crew situational awareness, crew operation, system control, emergency egress and abort systems. In a few cases the intent of the requirement was changed in tentionally, either to restrict certain types of systems or their fun ctions, or to encompass lessons learned from previous programs. For t he most part the requirements are non controversial and represent the current best practices for human space systems, however, a few requi rements are always debated and have evolved over revisions of the NPR due to studies conducted with various programs like the Orbital Spac e Plane and the Constellation Programs. Those requirements will be di scussed using results of trade studies conducted during past programs highlighting how these particular requirements have evolved through the revisions of the NPR. Comments will also be provided for requirem ents that although not debated, have provided challenges in interpret ation