Existing cometary data and future needs

To assist scientists studying comets and their interaction with the interplanetary medium, compilations of existing cometary observations and data plans for additional publication are reported. The works cited include updates and/or supplements to: (1) the Catalogue of Cometary Orbits, (2) Physical Characteristics of Comets, (3) the Atlas of Representative Cometary Spectra, (4) the Atlas Cometas-Viento Solar, (5) the Isophotometrischer Atlas der Kometen, and (6) the Atlas of Cometary Forms. An Atlas of Cometary Spectra and an Atlas of Comet Halley 1910 (II) photographs and spectra are in preparation

An Engineer Cantonment Bestiary: The Art of Titian Ramsay Peale [Part 6]

Beginning in the mid-1950s many of Long Expedition artist Titian Ramsay Peale’s images have come into institutional holdings, particularly the American Philosophical Society, American Museum of Natural History, and Library of Congress, where they have been made freely available to researchers and for exhibitions. This has allowed a rediscovery and reevaluation of Peale’s works by art historians, historians of science, and scientists. Art historian Barbara Novak listed Peale among the artist-scientists that reached “‘heroic’ status” because of the risks and hardships that he and others undertook in the exploration of the American continent. Haltman credited Peale and his fellow artist on the Long Expedition, Samuel Seymour, with innovating “such hybrid pictorial forms as wilderness landscape. . , natural history illustration featuring specimens in representative environments . . , ethnographic portraiture . . , and genre painting . . . .” In fact, from a scientific viewpoint, Peale’s images present information on the identifying characteristics of the organism, its geographic distribution, and its ecology

Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet

This dissertation project operates on the belief that the democratic, everyday pursuits of science were at least as significant scientifically, and perhaps even more important culturally, as the elite, highly speculative work done by the gentlemen scientists of the Romantic Age (1790-1830). It focuses upon the literary works, careers, and discourse of Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet, tracing the role that gender played in assigning recognition and authority in the scientific community. Operating in a public sphere that favored the scientific discoveries of male gentlemen scientists, boundary crossing had to occur decisively, but quietly through a method of subversion and containment. Women had to enter the scientific conversation through traditionally unscientific genres and anonymous or apologetic prefaces, which usually conveyed intent to share science with other women. I explore the problem they all faced, in trying to recount science to a broader audience; I document how and why they responded to each other and toward the changing public sphere’s positioning of science. For these reasons, the Romantic Age’s collaboratives of gentlemen scientists significantly influenced how their popularizing contemporaries, specifically women, responded to science and how, as a result, elitism further diversified the pursuit of science.Each author’s presentation of expertise demonstrates the role of popular writings on the sciences in redefining scientific authority. These authors are representative of the two-sided struggle to make science more elite and more popular; and regardless of their allegiance in this struggle, each attempted to make science more accessible. This dissertation explores the tenuous relationship between the professions of authorship and science, highlighting the communication of both scientific discoveries and applications through writing as another facet of scientific practice. Elite gentlemen scientists’ perceptions of others as authors reflect their own self-fashioning of the professional identity of scientific writer, and popularizers of science synthesized scientific information as they learned it themselves, thereby forging a new worldview

Reconsidering “Eternal Brotherhood”: the Transfer of Nuclear Technology from the Former Soviet Union to the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s

It has been insisted in an authorized historical record compiled in People’s Republic of China that due to incompleteness and insufficiency of the scientific and technological supports from the Soviet Union, the Chinese initial nuclear weapon development had to be conducted by Chinese scientists and engineers through their “single-handed efforts.” Such a view was widely accepted today not only in China but also in Japan or other countries. However, as seen in the two letters with the joint signature of Igor’ Kurchatov, the top scientist in the Soviet nuclear development, and the top managers of the Soviet nuclear industry to the Soviet political leadership which were included in Volume No.6 of Igor’ Kurchatov’s Selected Works published in the autumn of 2013, those influential key-persons recommended more active exportation of nuclear technology to China. This paper is a trial to reexamine and reevaluate the Soviet aids toward People’s China in this field on the basis of those letters, the memoirs of the involved Soviet specialists, such as Evgenii Vorov’yov and the Chinese historiography.The research was supported by the grant-in-aid of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) [Basic research – type C. No. 25350381: Representative – Ichikawa, Hiroshi] and the grant-in-aid of JSPS [Basic research– type B. No. 18H0070101: Representative – Kido, Ei-ichi (Osaka University)]

Studying Planarian Regeneration Aboard The International Space Station Within The Student Space Flight Experimental Program

The growing possibilities of space travel are quickly moving from science fiction to reality. However, to realize the dream of long-term space travel, we must understand how these conditions affect biological and physiological processes. Planarians are master regenerators, famous for their ability to regenerate from very small parts of the original animal. Understanding how this self-repair works may inspire regenerative therapies in humans. Two studies conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) showed that planarian regeneration is possible in microgravity. One study reported no regenerative defects, whereas the other study reported behavioral and microbiome alterations post-space travel and found that 1 of 15 planarians regenerated a Janus head, suggesting that microgravity exposure may not be without consequences. Given the limited number of studies and specimens, further microgravity experiments are necessary to evaluate the effects of microgravity on planarian regeneration. Such studies, however, are generally difficult and expensive to conduct. We were fortunate to be sponsored by the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) to investigate how microgravity affects regeneration of the planarian species Dugesia japonica on the ISS. While we were unable to successfully study planarian regeneration within the experimental constraints of our SSEP Mission, we systematically analyzed the cause for the failed experiment, leading us to propose a modified protocol. This work thus opens the door for future experiments on the effects of microgravity on planarian regeneration on SSEP Missions as well as for more advanced experiments by professional researchers

Contract Management, Inter Functional Coordination, Trust and Contract Performance of Works Contracts in Ugandan Public Procuring and Disposing Entities

Purpose – The paper aims to improve upon the highly unconcretised works contract performance research, by examining the relationships between contract management, inter-functional coordination, trust and works contract performance and whether these variables have an effect on the contract performance. Design/methodology/approach – This study is cross-sectional and correlational. It also takes the descriptive and analytical design.  Data were collected from a representative sample of 108 completed and fully documented works contracts in the central government procuring and disposing entities in Uganda, in the financial year 2013/2014. Out of these, responses from 64 were used for analysis, using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). Findings – The results suggest that delivery management is relatively more important than relation management and contract management and that in a rules based system, the importance of inter-functional coordination to contract performance is minimal, further expounding on the critical difference between private and public procurement systems. Originality/value – This study, unlike other studies in developing countries, considers individual issues of contract performance rather than holistic performance of a procuring and disposing entity. Works contracts considered in this study, have unique inherent challenges that deserve being isolated and studied. The study also makes an original contribution that whereas inter-functional coordination has been in general terms recognized by literature as important determinant for contract performance, in a rules based system, inter-functional coordination is not as important as in a best practices system in enhancing performance of a works contract. Insights from our findings provide a platform for subsequent academic research. Practical implications – From the results, practitioners appreciate the need to pay for certified completed works in reasonable time, and to effectively manage the relationship between the functions in a procuring and disposing entity and contractors. Insights for the study demonstrate the need for policy makers to adjust laws governing public procurement to allow reasonable interaction between the procuring and disposing entities contract management teams and contractors. Type of paper – Research paper Keywords – contract management, Inter-functional coordination, Trust, Contract performance

The Ethics of International Bureaucracies: Abortion and the Human Reproduction Programme: An interview with Australian Senator Brian Harradine Canberra, Australia, April, 1990

The World Health Organization (WHO) is involved in many laudable activities, supported by thousands of loyal and active workers, both in the field and in educational, scientific, health, and medical establishments. To many of these dedicated workers, it will be a source of much disappointment and shame, therefore, to learn that WHO has become involved in activities in which its motto healthfor all is being interpreted in such a way as to discriminate against the health and well-being of particular unborn children. In this interview, Senator Harradine seeks to answer matters of serious concern which have arisen concerning the direction of the Human Reproduction Programme (HRP) of which WHO is co-sponsor and executing agency