1,073 research outputs found

    An Investigation into the Pitfalls, Consequences, and Best Practices During the Evaluation, Negotiation and Award Phases of a Source Selection in AFMC Product Centers

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    Source Selection is the process used by the Federal government to select contractors for large, complex and important requirements. Recent studies have indicated that the in experience of source selection personnel continues to be a significant problem in source selections. Air Force Federal Acquisition Regulation Appendix AA requires that lessons learned be compiled at the conclusion of every source selection. Unfortunately, there has been little success in organizing this information into a coherent training guide. This research attempts to fill this gap by using source selection experts to identify source selection pitfalls, their consequences, and the best practices to avoid them. Fifteen situations that could be detrimental to a source selection were identified through a literature review. Next, source selection experts were surveyed to see if they could agree on the nature and affect these situations had on source selections. The experts evaluated each situation in terms of its negative impact on an acquisition program and its frequency of occurrence. The experts were surveyed using the Delphi method, characterized by iterative survey rounds and feedback from previous rounds. The two factors of impact and frequency, as well as expert comments, were used to identify which situations were pitfalls. Twelve of the fifteen situations tested were found to be source selection pitfalls. The experts also provided the possible consequences of and best practices to avoid each pitfall

    The construction and evaluation of an inventory test in arithmetic for grade six

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    Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University Includes sample test in envelope

    Alien Registration- Savoie, Mary A (Bath, Sagadahoc County)

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    https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8803/thumbnail.jp

    Sur la place publique : construction historique de l’évĂ©nement Nuit de la poĂ©sie 1970

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    Toute historiographie se construit sous la forme d’un rĂ©cit, soutenue par une narration qui, autour d’une intrigue, sĂ©lectionne et organise les Ă©vĂ©nements en fonction de leur importance relative Ă  des critĂšres prĂ©dĂ©terminĂ©s. La pĂ©riode des annĂ©es 1960, qui est habituellement dĂ©crite comme celle de la naissance de la littĂ©rature quĂ©bĂ©coise, est on ne peut plus reprĂ©sentative de cette logique narrative qui sous-tend toute dĂ©marche historique. Un Ă©vĂ©nement retenu par cette histoire, la Nuit de la poĂ©sie du 27 mars 1970, s’est littĂ©ralement Ă©levĂ© au rang de mythe dans l’imaginaire littĂ©raire, mais aussi identitaire des QuĂ©bĂ©cois. Que ce soit Ă  travers les triomphes de Claude Gauvreau et de MichĂšle Lalonde ou la foule de plusieurs milliers de personnes devant le GesĂč qui espĂ©rait assister Ă  la soirĂ©e, cet Ă©vĂ©nement, mis sur pellicule par Jean-Claude Labrecque et Jean-Pierre Masse, a Ă©tĂ© conçu par plusieurs comme l’apothĂ©ose de « l’ñge de la parole ». Une observation minutieuse de ce happening soulĂšve cependant de nombreuses questions concernant la construction de ce rĂŽle dans l’histoire littĂ©raire quĂ©bĂ©coise. En effet, tant l’étude des conditions d’organisation de la soirĂ©e que l’analyse de son mode de transmission rĂ©vĂšlent des motivations archivistiques qui laissent transparaĂźtre l’objectif de la Nuit Ă  « faire Ă©vĂ©nement », Ă  produire des traces qui participeront Ă  l’inscription historique de la poĂ©sie quĂ©bĂ©coise. ConsidĂ©rant que l’Ɠuvre filmique de Labrecque et de Masse constitue le seul vĂ©ritable document tĂ©moignant de cet Ă©vĂ©nement et que celui-ci a fait l’objet d’un montage ne prĂ©sentant qu’une facette de la soirĂ©e, les enjeux de reprĂ©sentation et de mise en rĂ©cit inhĂ©rents au cinĂ©ma documentaire poussent Ă  questionner le portrait dĂ©sirĂ© de la poĂ©sie de l’époque que l’on voulait crĂ©er Ă  travers le long-mĂ©trage. VĂ©ritable plateau de tournage, le spectacle du 27 mars 1970 appelle Ă  ĂȘtre analysĂ© dans les termes d’une conscience historique qui pousse les acteurs du milieu littĂ©raire de l’époque Ă  Ă©riger les monuments qui seront Ă  la base du canon et de l’institution littĂ©raires quĂ©bĂ©cois. L’étude, mobilisant les ressources de l’analyse de texte, de la sociologie de la littĂ©rature, de la thĂ©orie historiographique et de la thĂ©orie du cinĂ©ma, portera principalement sur le documentaire La Nuit de la poĂ©sie 27 mars 1970, considĂ©rĂ© comme vĂ©ritable recueil de textes, mais aussi de façon tout Ă  fait originale sur les archives inĂ©dites rejetĂ©es du montage final des rĂ©alisateurs de l’ONF. Au terme de ce travail, j’approfondirai la rĂ©flexion sur le rĂŽle historique d’un Ă©vĂ©nement emblĂ©matique de la littĂ©rature quĂ©bĂ©coise en explicitant la construction historique autour de celui-ci. Il s’agira non seulement de relativiser l’évĂ©nement en tant que tel, mais aussi de rĂ©flĂ©chir sur le grand rĂ©cit espĂ©rĂ© par les artistes de l’époque.Any historiography is constructed on the model of a story, that is, the narration of an underlying plot which conveys the particular choosing and singling out of events based upon their importance according to predefined criteria. The 1960s, which are usually depicted as the period where Quebecois literature came into being, are representative of this narrative logic which underlies the stream of history. "La Nuit de la poĂ©sie", which took place on the 27th of March 1970, was one of those events singled out by history and mythologized in Quebec’s collective imagination. As such, the happening, filmed by Jean-Claude Labrecque and Jean-Pierre Masse, was conceived by many as the apex of this fruitful period called the "Ăąge de la parole". A study of this happening, however, raises many questions about the process of historical construction which took place around the event. The organization of the night, as well as the way it was passed to further generations, both highlight the strong aspiration to create an historical event and to mark Quebec’s literary culture. Given that Labrecque and Masse’s documentary is the only genuine document attesting to the event, and that the film itself has been subjected to a great deal of editing, issues of representation and of creation of narrative need to be addressed in the context of the cultural affirmation Quebec went through in the 1960s. The Night thus should be analyzed as an indication of an emergent historical consciousness, influencing the cultural actors of the 1960s and 1970s and creating a new group of canonical figures in Quebecois literature. This study, based on text analysis, the sociology of literature, historiography, and film theory, will bear on the documentary La Nuit de la poĂ©sie 27 mars 1970, and specifically on the singular work of editing which led to the rejection of many performances from the final documentary. At the end of this analysis, I will deepen the historical role of this iconic event by addressing the cultural and historical construction that surrounded it. The effect of my perspective will be to mitigate the impact of this event alone, but also to draw on the key features that underlined the historical vision characteristic of the literary Quebec of the 1960s

    Enhancing Cation Diffusion and Suppressing Anion Diffusion via Lewis-Acidic Polymer Electrolytes

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    Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) have the potential to increase both the energy density and stability of lithium-based batteries, but low Li^+ conductivity remains a barrier to technological viability. SPEs are designed to maximize Li^+ diffusivity relative to the anion while maintaining sufficient salt solubility. It is thus remarkable that poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), the most widely used SPE, exhibits Li^+ diffusivity that is an order of magnitude smaller than that of typical counterions at moderate salt concentrations. We show that Lewis-basic polymers like PEO favor slow cation and rapid anion diffusion, while this relationship can be reversed in Lewis-acidic polymers. Using molecular dynamics, polyboranes are identified that achieve up to 10-fold increases in Li^+ diffusivities and significant decreases in anion diffusivities, relative to PEO in the dilute-ion regime. These results illustrate a general principle for increasing Li^+ diffusivity and transference number with chemistries that exhibit weaker cation and stronger anion coordination

    Comparisons of trace constituents from ground stations and the DC-8 aircraft during PEM-West B

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    Chemical data from ground stations in Asia and the North Pacific are compared with data from the DC-8 aircraft collected during the Pacific Exploratory Measurements in the Western Pacific Ocean (PEM-West B) mission. Ground station sampling took place on Hong Kong, Taiwan, Okinawa, and Cheju; and at three Pacific islands, Shemya, Midway, and Oahu. Aircraft samples were collected during 19 flights, most over the western North Pacific. Aluminum was used as an indicator of mineral aerosol, and even though the aircraft did sample Asian dust, strong dust storms were not encountered. The frequency distribution for non-sea-salt sulfate (nss SO4=) in the aircraft samples was bimodal: the higher concentration mode (∌1 ÎŒg m−3) evidently originated from pollution or, less likely, from volcanic sources, while the lower mode, with a peak at 0.040 ÎŒg m−3, probably was a product of biogenic emissions. In addition, the concentrations of aerosol sulfate varied strongly in the vertical: arithmetic mean SO4=concentrations above 5000 m ( = 0.21±0.69 ÎŒg m−3) were substantially lower than those below ( = 1.07±0.87 ÎŒg m−3), suggesting the predominance of the surface sources. Several samples collected in the stratosphere exhibited elevated SO4=, however, probably as a result of emissions from Mount Pinatubo. During some boundary layer legs on the DC-8, the concentrations of CO and O3 were comparable to those of clean marine air, but during other legs, several chemically distinct air masses were sampled, including polluted air in which O3was photochemically produced. In general, the continental outflow sampled from the aircraft was substantially diluted with respect to what was observed at the ground stations. Higher concentrations of aerosol species, O3, and CO at the Hong Kong ground station relative to the aircraft suggest that much of the continental outflow from southeastern Asia occurs in the lower troposphere, and extensive long-range transport out of this part of Asia is not expected. In comparison, materials emitted farther to the north apparently are more susceptible to long-range transport

    Matter-wave laser Interferometric Gravitation Antenna (MIGA): New perspectives for fundamental physics and geosciences

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    The MIGA project aims at demonstrating precision measurements of gravity with cold atom sensors in a large scale instrument and at studying the associated applications in geosciences and fundamental physics. The first stage of the project (2013-2018) will consist in building a 300-meter long optical cavity to interrogate atom interferometers and will be based at the low noise underground laboratory LSBB in Rustrel, France. The second stage of the project (2018-2023) will be dedicated to science runs and data analyses in order to probe the spatio-temporal structure of the local gravity field of the LSBB region, a site of high hydrological interest. MIGA will also assess future potential applications of atom interferometry to gravitational wave detection in the frequency band ∌0.1−10\sim 0.1-10 Hz hardly covered by future long baseline optical interferometers. This paper presents the main objectives of the project, the status of the construction of the instrument and the motivation for the applications of MIGA in geosciences. Important results on new atom interferometry techniques developed at SYRTE in the context of MIGA and paving the way to precision gravity measurements are also reported.Comment: Proceedings of the 50th Rencontres de Moriond "100 years after GR", La Thuile (Italy), 21-28 March 2015 - 10 pages, 5 figures, 23 references version2: added references, corrected typo

    Chemically Specific Dynamic Bond Percolation Model for Ion Transport in Polymer Electrolytes

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    We introduce a coarse-grained approach for characterizing the long-timescale dynamics of ion diffusion in general polymer electrolytes using input from short molecular dynamics trajectories. The approach includes aspects of the dynamic bond percolation model [ J. Chem. Phys. 1983, 79, 3133−3142] by treating ion diffusion in terms of hopping transitions on a fluctuating lattice. We extend this well-known approach by using short (i.e., 10 ns) molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories to predict the distribution of ion solvation sites that comprise the lattice and to predict the rate of hopping among the lattice sites. This yields a chemically specific dynamic bond percolation (CS-DBP) model that enables the description of long-timescale ion diffusion in polymer electrolytes at a computational cost that makes feasible the screening of candidate materials. We employ the new model to characterize lithium-ion diffusion properties in six polyethers that differ by oxygen content and backbone stiffness: poly(trimethylene oxide), poly(ethylene oxide-alt-trimethylene oxide), poly(ethylene oxide), poly(propylene oxide), poly(ethylene oxide-alt-methylene oxide), and poly(methylene oxide). Good agreement is observed between the predictions of the CS-DBP model and long-timescale atomistic MD simulations, thus providing validation of the model. Among the most striking results from this analysis is the unexpectedly good lithium-ion diffusivity of poly(trimethylene oxide-alt-ethylene oxide) by comparison to poly(ethylene oxide), which is widely used. Additionally, the model straightforwardly reveals a range of polymer features that lead to low lithium-ion diffusivity, including the competing effects of the density of solvation sites and polymer stiffness. These results illustrate the potential of the CS-DBP model to screen polymer electrolytes on the basis of ion diffusivity and to identify important design criteria

    A Qualitative Evaluation of Double Up Food Bucks Farmers’ Market Incentive Program Access

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    Objective Explore factors affecting access to and use of Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB), a farmers’ market program that doubles Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for use toward the purchase of fruits and vegetables (FV). Design Focus groups. Setting Metro and nonmetro counties in Utah and western Upstate New York. Participants Nine groups composed of 62 low-income adults (3–9/group). Phenomena of Interest Satisfaction with, barriers to, and facilitators of program use; suggestions for improvement. Analysis Transcribed verbatim and coded thematically in NVivo 11 software according to template analysis. Results Program satisfaction was high and driven by FV affordability, perceived support of local farmers, positive market experiences, and high-quality FV. Primary barriers to using DUFB were lack of program information and inconvenient accessibility. Insufficient program communication was a consistent problem that elicited numerous suggestions regarding expansion of program marketing. Emergent topics included issues related to the token-based administration of DUFB and debate regarding stigma experienced during DUFB participation. Conclusions and Implications Results suggest that although DUFB elicits many points of satisfaction among users, program reach may be limited owing to insufficient program marketing. Even among satisfied users, discussion of barriers was extensive, indicating that program reach and impact may be bolstered by efforts to improve program accessibility
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