Evaluation of the Trajectory Operations Applications Software Task (TOAST). Volume 2: Interview transcripts

The Trajectory Operations Applications Software Task (TOAST) is a software development project whose purpose is to provide trajectory operation pre-mission and real-time support for the Space Shuttle. The purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate TOAST as an Application Manager - to assess current and planned capabilities, compare capabilities to commercially-available off the shelf (COTS) software, and analyze requirements of MCC and Flight Analysis Design System (FADS) for TOAST implementation. As a major part of the data gathering for the evaluation, interviews were conducted with NASA and contractor personnel. Real-time and flight design users, orbit navigation users, the TOAST developers, and management were interviewed. Code reviews and demonstrations were also held. Each of these interviews was videotaped and transcribed as appropriate. Transcripts were edited and are presented chronologically

TOWARDS A COMPASSIONATE AND COST-EFFECTIVE DRUG POLICY: A FORUM ON THE IMPACT OF DRUG POLICY ON THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

This is a transcript from the the first of three panels on drug policy and the impact of drug policy on the justice system and human rights. Don Johnson of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and Tom Haines the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Partnership for Responsible Drug Information introduced the moderator Kathy Rocklen. Judge Sweet of the Southern District of New York is joined by experts on drug policy from the medical and academic worlds, private foundations and other interested organizations, who will give their views on the impact of drug policy on the justice system and on human rights. Judge Sweet believes the current policy of criminalizing the use and the commerce of particular mind-altering substances has failed of its purposes, has weakened the justice system, and impinged upon human rights. Judge Sweet believes that criminal sanctions should be removed and our society should be educated about the use of drugs, all drugs, and that to the extent that drugs create a problem for the society, that problem be considered an issue of public health. Judge Sweet’s remarks are followed by a question and answer period in which panelists and the audience will participate, as well. The panelists are Ernest Drucker, Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York; Julie Stewart, who is the founder and president of Families Against Mandatory Minimum; Richard Stratton, the editor-in-chief of “Prison Life” magazine; and Carol J. Weiss, addiction psychiatrist and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health at Cornell Medical Center

The Advocate

Headlines include: COMMISSIONER BRATTON ADDRESSES FORDHAM LAW: NYC HAS ROGUE COPS ; FLS\u27 Habitat For Humanity: Breaking New Groundhttps://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/student_the_advocate/1109/thumbnail.jp

Women In The Web of Secondary Copyright Liability and Internet Filtering

This Essay suggests possible explanations for why there is not very much legal scholarship devoted to gender issues on the Internet; and it asserts that there is a powerful need for Internet legal theorists and activists to pay substantially more attention to the gender-based differences in communicative style and substance that have been imported from real space to cyberspace. Information portals, such as libraries and web logs, are gendered in ways that may not be facially apparent. Women are creating and experiencing social solidarity online in ways that male scholars and commentators do not seem to either recognize or deem important. Internet specific content restrictions for the purposes of protecting copyrights and protecting children jeopardize online freedoms for women in diverse ways, and sometimes for different reasons than they do for men. Disparities in the ways women and men use, experience and communicate over the Internet need to be recognized, studied, and accommodated by those who would theorize cyberspace law and advocate directions for its evolution

What\u27s in a Name? The Matrix as an Introduction to Mathematics

In my classes on the nature of scientific thought, I have often used the movie The Matrix (1999) to illustrate how evidence shapes the reality we perceive (or think we perceive). As a mathematician and self-confessed science fiction fan, I usually field questions related to the movie whenever the subject of linear algebra arises, since this field is the study of matrices and their properties. So it is natural to ask, why does the movie title reference a mathematical object? Of course, there are many possible explanations for this, each of which probably contributed a little to the naming decision. First off, it sounds cool and mysterious. That much is clear, and it may be that this reason is the most heavily weighted of them all. However, a quick look at the definitions of the word reveals deeper possibilities for the meaning of the movie’s title. Consider the following definitions related to different fields of study taken from Wikipedia on January 4, 2010: • Matrix (mathematics), a mathematical object generally represented as an array of numbers. • Matrix (biology), with numerous meanings, often referring to a biological material where specialized structures are formed or embedded. • Matrix (archeology), the soil or sediment surrounding a dig site. • Matrix (geology), the fine grains between larger grains in igneous or sedimentary rocks. • Matrix (chemistry), a continuous solid phase in which particles (atoms, molecules, ions, etc.) are embedded. All of these point to an essential commonality: a matrix is an underlying structure in which other objects are embedded. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that the word is derived from the Latin word referring to the womb — something in which all of us are embedded at the beginning of our existence. And so mathematicians, being the Latin scholars we are, have adapted the term: a mathematical matrix has quantities (usually numbers, but they could be almost anything) embedded in it. A biological matrix has cell components embedded in it. A geological matrix has grains of rock embedded in it. And so on. So a second reason for the cool name is that we are talking, in the movie, about a computer system generating a virtual reality in which human beings are embedded (literally, since they are lying down in pods). Thus, the computer program forms a literal matrix, one that bears an intentional likeness to a womb. However, there are other ways to connect the idea of a matrix to the film’s premise. These explanations operate on a higher level and are explicitly relevant to the mathematical definition of a matrix as well as to the events in the trilogy of Matrix movies. They are related to computer graphics, Markov chains, and network theory. This essay will explore each of these in turn, and discuss their application to either the events in the film’s story-line or to the making of the movie itself

Cronin-Sheehan Interviews 2001-2002

These interviews with Jeremy Cronin MP, which took place in 2001 at University of Cape Town and in 2002 in the South African Parliament were much discussed in the mass media and at political meetings and cited in academic texts. They were originally published on my DCU website, which has since been re-organised. I am depositing them here, because it is important that they be accessible for the historical record