JPL's Real-Time Weather Processor project (RWP) metrics and observations at system completion

As an integral part of the overall upgraded National Airspace System (NAS), the objective of the Real-Time Weather Processor (RWP) project is to improve the quality of weather information and the timeliness of its dissemination to system users. To accomplish this, an RWP will be installed in each of the Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs), located in 21 of the 23 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs). The RWP System is a prototype system. It is planned that the software will be GFE and that production hardware will be acquired via industry competitive procurement. The ARTCC is a facility established to provide air traffic control service to aircraft operating on Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plans within controlled airspace, principally during the en route phase of the flight. Covered here are requirement metrics, Software Problem Failure Reports (SPFRs), and Ada portability metrics and observations

Normality and products of linearly ordered spaces

AbstractNecessary and sufficient conditions are given for the normality of a finite product of locally compact linearly ordered spaces, and for a space which is the uncountable product of a locally compact linearly ordered space with itself. In addition, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the normality of a product space all of whose factors are ordinal spaces

Observations of the structure of red tides in New Haven Harbor, Connecticut

Observations were made on nonoatastrophic red tides in New Haven Harbor, Connecticut, in the summers of 1952 and 1953. Hydrographic, chemical, and biological factors were measured and weather conditions were ta.ken into account. Oxygen production-consumption experiments and nutrient enrichment experiments were also carried out...

Investigating students seriousness during selected conceptual inventory surveys

Conceptual inventory surveys are routinely used in education research to identify student learning needs and assess instructional practices. Students might not fully engage with these instruments because of the low stakes attached to them. This paper explores tests that can be used to estimate the percentage of students in a population who might not have taken such surveys seriously. These three seriousness tests are the pattern recognition test, the easy questions test, and the uncommon answers test. These three tests are applied to sets of students who were assessed either by the Force Concept Inventory, the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism, or the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment. The results of our investigation are compared to computer simulated populations of random answers.Comment: 8 pages; submitted to Phys Rev PE

Use of decoy traps to protect blueberries from juvenile European starlings

Fruit consumption by large flocks of juvenile European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) is a serious problem for growers of strawberries, grapes, apples, cherries, blueberries, and other small fruit. This study examined if numbers of juvenile European starlings foraging in blueberry orchards could be reduced by catching them in decoy traps and relocating the birds elsewhere. From late July through August of 1989, 620 juvenile starlings were captured in 2 decoy traps at a blueberry orchard in Connecticut. A similar number were caught during the same period in 1990. During these 2 years, numbers of juvenile starlings foraging daily in the orchard dropped from \u3e500 before the traps were opened to \u3c100 afterwards. During 1987 and 1988, when no trapping was conducted, starling numbers at the orchard remained high throughout the summer. Trapped starlings were banded and released unharmed 50–100 km away, and none were seen again at the blueberry orchard. During the 2 years of operation, traps caught only 19 nontarget birds of 6 species; all were released unharmed. Decoy traps were specific for juvenile starlings; no adult starlings were captured. These results indicate that decoy traps can be used in a nonlethal manner to reduce berry losses to flocks of juvenile starlings