Electricity from photovoltaic solar cells: Flat-Plate Solar Array Project final report. Volume VI: Engineering sciences and reliability

The Flat-Plate Solar Array (FSA) Project, funded by the U.S. Government and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was formed in 1975 to develop the module/array technology needed to attain widespread terrestrial use of photovoltaics by 1985. To accomplish this, the FSA Project established and managed an Industry, University, and Federal Government Team to perform the needed research and development. This volume of the series of final reports documenting the FSA Project deals with the Project's activities directed at developing the engineering technology base required to achieve modules that meet the functional, safety and reliability requirements of large-scale terrestrial photovoltaic systems applications. These activities included: (1) development of functional, safety, and reliability requirements for such applications; (2) development of the engineering analytical approaches, test techniques, and design solutions required to meet the requirements; (3) synthesis and procurement of candidate designs for test and evaluation; and (4) performance of extensive testing, evaluation, and failure analysis to define design shortfalls and, thus, areas requiring additional research and development. During the life of the FSA Project, these activities were known by and included a variety of evolving organizational titles: Design and Test, Large-Scale Procurements, Engineering, Engineering Sciences, Operations, Module Performance and Failure Analysis, and at the end of the Project, Reliability and Engineering Sciences. This volume provides both a summary of the approach and technical outcome of these activities and provides a complete Bibliography (Appendix A) of the published documentation covering the detailed accomplishments and technologies developed

California Methanol Assessment; Volume II, Technical Report

A joint effort by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has brought together sponsors from both the public and private sectors for an analysis of the prospects for methanol use as a fuel in California, primarily for the transportation and stationary application sectors. Increasing optimism in 1982 for a slower rise in oil prices and a more realistic understanding of the costs of methanol production have had a negative effect on methanol viability in the near term (before the year 2000). Methanol was determined to have some promise in the transportation sector, but is not forecasted for large-scale use until beyond the year 2000. Similarly, while alternative use of methanol can have a positive effect on air quality (reducing NOx, SOx, and other emissions), a best case estimate is for less than 4% reduction in peak ozone by 2000 at realistic neat methanol vehicle adoption rates. Methanol is not likely to be a viable fuel in the stationary application sector because it cannot compete economically with conventional fuels except in very limited cases. On the production end, it was determined that methanol produced from natural gas will continue to dominate supply options through the year 2000, and the present and planned industry capacity is somewhat in excess of all projected needs. Nonsubsidized coal-based methanol cannot compete with conventional feedstocks using current technology, but coal-based methanol has promise in the long term (after the year 2000), providing that industry is willing to take the technical and market risks and that government agencies will help facilitate the environment for methanol. Given that the prospects for viable major markets (stationary applications and neat fuel in passenger cars) are unlikely in the 1980s and early 1990s, the next steps for methanol are in further experimentation and research of production and utilization technologies, expanded use as an octane enhancer, and selected fleet implementation. In the view of the study, it is not advantageous at this time to establish policies within California that attempt to expand methanol use rapidly as a neat fuel for passenger cars or to induce electric utility use of methanol on a widespread basis

The Evolution of Shopping Center Research: A Review and Analysis

Retail research has evolved over the past sixty years. Christaller\u27s early work on central place theory, with its simplistic combination of range and threshold has been advanced to include complex consumer shopping patterns and retailer behavior in agglomerated retail centers. Hotelling\u27s seminal research on competition in a spatial duopoly has been realized in the form of comparison shopping in regional shopping centers. The research that has followed Christaller and Hoteling has been as wide as it has been deep, including literature in geography, economics, finance, marketing, and real estate. In combination, the many extensions of central place theory and retail agglomeration economics have clearly enhanced the understanding of both retailer and consumer behavior. In addition to these two broad areas of shopping center research, two more narrowly focused areas of research have emerged. The most recent focus in the literature has been on the positive effects large anchor tenants have on smaller non-anchor tenant sales. These positive effects are referred to as retail demand externalities. Exploring the theoretical basis for the valuation of shopping centers has been another area of interest to researchers. The primary focus of this literature is based in the valuation of current and expected lease contracts

Engineering Feasibility Study of Fire Island as a Location for a Future Correctional Facility: Final Report

The "Legal Factors" section appearing on page 38–50 of this report was prepared by Stephen Conn of the UAA Justice Center, School of Justice. / This report is part of the Fire Island Prison Feasibility Study, a project conducted jointly by the School of Justice and School of Engineering at University of Alaska, Anchorage under contract to the Alaska Department of Corrections. The project undertook to assess the feasibility of locating a correctional facility on a 4,240 acre tract of land on Fire Island, which lies in Upper Cook Inlet about three miles off Point Campbell within the Municipality of Anchorage. The project was divided into three major phases: (1) an assessment of future bed space needs of the Alaska Department of Corrections; (2) an evaluation of the physical site and cost estimates for prison construction and operation; and (3) a public opinion survey and open discussion.This report provides the final results of an engineering assessment and evaluation of a 4,240 acre tract of land on Fire Island for a proposed correctional facility. Fire Island is an island in Upper Cook Inlet about three miles off Point Campbell within the Municipality of Anchorage. The report describes climatic and geophysical factors on the island including temperature, precipitation, wind, topography, geology and soils, seismicity, slide potential, and coastal erosion; facility site evaluation including suitability of soils for building foundations, transportation and site access, utility availability (water, wastewater and solid waste disposal, electricity, and communications), and legal factors (constitutional issues, prison security, and access to prisons); and estimated construction costs. Comparisons with alternative prison sites at Palmer and Goose Bay, both located within the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, are provided. A bibliography of land and facility studies of Fire Island is included.Alaska Department of Corrections1. Executive Summary / 2. Introduction / 3 . Location of the Fire Island Site / 4. Engineering Feasibility of Fire Island as a Potential Prison Site / 5. Estimated Construction Costs for Correctional Facilities / 6. Benefits and Liabilities of Alternative Sites / 7. Summary and Conclusions / References / Bibliography of Fire Island Land and Facilities Studie

THE USEFULNESS OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS, FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENTIATION AND MANAGERIAL EFFECTIVENESS

~tis study examines the role of broad scope information, made available by management accouming system* (MAS), in enchanging mamgerial performance. It is proposed that differentiation of activities into area such us marketing and production in an organizational response to manage uncertainty. The paper argues that such different of activities moderates the association between the extent to which managers use broad scope MAS information and peffornmnce. A study off 75 managers indicated that the association between the extent of use of broad scope MAS inf0rmmion and performance was strottger for managers of marketing than production activities

Turbulent liquid–liquid dispersion in SMV static mixer at high dispersed phase concentration

The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of physico-chemical parameters on liquid–liquid dispersion at high dispersed phase concentration in Sulzer SMV™ mixer. Four different oil-in-water systems involving two different surfactants are used in order to evaluate the effect of interfacial tension, densities and viscosities ratio on mean droplets size diameters. Moreover the influence of the dispersed phase concentration on the pressure drop as well as on the droplet size distribution is investigated. Two different droplets size distribution analysis techniques are used in order to compare the resulting Sauter mean diameters. The comparison between residence time in the mixer and surfactants adsorption kinetics leads to take into account the evolution of the interfacial tension between both phases at short times. Finally experimental results are correlated as a function of dimensionless Reynolds and Weber numbers

Deceit: A flexible distributed file system

Deceit, a distributed file system (DFS) being developed at Cornell, focuses on flexible file semantics in relation to efficiency, scalability, and reliability. Deceit servers are interchangeable and collectively provide the illusion of a single, large server machine to any clients of the Deceit service. Non-volatile replicas of each file are stored on a subset of the file servers. The user is able to set parameters on a file to achieve different levels of availability, performance, and one-copy serializability. Deceit also supports a file version control mechanism. In contrast with many recent DFS efforts, Deceit can behave like a plain Sun Network File System (NFS) server and can be used by any NFS client without modifying any client software. The current Deceit prototype uses the ISIS Distributed Programming Environment for all communication and process group management, an approach that reduces system complexity and increases system robustness

Taxonomic classification of planning decisions in health care: a review of the state of the art in OR/MS

We provide a structured overview of the typical decisions to be made in resource capacity planning and control in health care, and a review of relevant OR/MS articles for each planning decision. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, to position the planning decisions, a taxonomy is presented. This taxonomy provides health care managers and OR/MS researchers with a method to identify, break down and classify planning and control decisions. Second, following the taxonomy, for six health care services, we provide an exhaustive specification of planning and control decisions in resource capacity planning and control. For each planning and control decision, we structurally review the key OR/MS articles and the OR/MS methods and techniques that are applied in the literature to support decision making