Experimental studies of gas trapping in amorphous ice and thermal modelling of comets: Implications for Rosetta

The trapping of mixtures of CO, CH4, N2 and Ar in amorphous water ice was studied experimentally. It is shown that the ice particles could not have been formed at a higher temperature and, subsequently, cool down. Experiments where ice was deposited at elevated temperatures, then cooled down and gas was flowed into the ice, showed that the amount of trapped gas depends only on the highest temperature at which the ice was formed, or resided, prior to cooling and gas flow into it. Consequently, the cometary ice had to be formed at approx. 48 K and the ice is therefore amorphous. The thermal profile of a comet in Halley's orbit was calculated, including the build-up of an insulating dust layer. It was found that an insulating dust layer a few cm thick is enough to choke most of the water emission from the surface. A similar thermal model was calculated for comet P/Temple-1, a candidate for both CRAF and Rosetta (CNSR) missions. The temperature at a depth of 10 m is approx. 160 K for all models considered and, hence, the ice at this depth is crystalline. A crystalline ice layer 40 to 240 m thick was found to overly the gas-laden amorphous ice. Consequently, it should be difficult for the probes of the two comet missions to sample pristine amorphous ice, unless they are aimed at the bottom of an active crater

Homage to Nissan Rilov

Akiva Orr pays homage to a brave and honest man

Student Perceptions of Condensed Courses and Motivations for Enrolling: Are Some Students Scared To Enroll?

Condensed courses are now being offered at many colleges and universities. Most research indicates that condensed courses result in equal or better student learning outcomes when compared with the outcomes of full term courses. However, because all the previous studies only examined students who self-selected to enroll in condensed courses there may be a serious selection bias and their results may not be generalizable to all students. This study attempted to examine whether there are differences between students who have taken condensed courses and those who have not. A survey was given to 102 students of which 45 had never enrolled in a condensed course. The survey measured general perceptions of condensed courses and assessed the willingness of students to enroll in a condensed course in the future. Students who had never taken a condensed course were found to be less willing to enroll in a condensed course in the future, less interested in seeing more condensed classes offered, and less willing to take a condensed course while simultaneously enrolled in a full-term course. Students who had never taken a condensed course were also found to perceive condensed courses as more difficult than students who had taken condensed courses. These results indicate that there are differences between students who have taken condensed courses and students who have never enrolled in one. The findings of this study suggest that the findings of previous studies regarding differences in outcomes between condensed courses and full term courses may be impacted by differences in the population of each course

Beyond The Rhetoric: Asylum In The Obama And Trump Administrations

This paper contrasts the asylum policies in the Trump Administration to those of the Obama Administration. This research performs an intersectional analysis of rhetoric, political affiliation, direct and indirect policy initiatives, and enforcement across these administrations. This paper finds that although rhetoric can alter public opinion, it is often unrelated to the development of policy initiatives and enforcement. The same conclusion is drawn regarding the dissociation between political affiliation and detention practices. The human experience related to asylum is explored, specifically relating to policy implementation in both administrations, including family separation, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), and the “Muslim Ban.” Migrants’ firsthand experiences, as presented in scholarly journals and periodicals, are collated to conclude that harsh detention practices that are often associated with the Trump Administration through public opinion and the media, were developed during the Obama Presidency and continually perpetuated in President Trump’s term. This paper also searches for parallels and variances between executive orders in both administrations, concluding that President Trump signed more extreme executive actions against the asylum system. To support this analysis, both Presidents’ White House press releases and social media posts are examined to conclude that the rhetoric and real policies do not consistently coincide. This research deciphers various scholarly journal articles, news sources, publications from nonprofit organizations, and think tanks from across the political spectrum. As the tides of political control have recently changed, it is vital for constituents to understand the real impacts that these most recent administrations had on the development and implementation of asylum policy in the United States. Via an intensive comparison of both administration’ asylum initiatives, this research will provide a retrospective view that can help the American populous make conclusions about the past and informed decisions about the future.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2021/1005/thumbnail.jp

Enabling supply chain cooperation with information sharing

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division; in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-77).Virtual Business System (VBS) is a system with software and hardware components designed by Raytheon employees to improve operational performance by facilitating and reinforcing lean behavior. It has helped contribute to four years in a row of twenty-percent yearly reductions in costs by providing near real-time metrics information, visibility into the details underlying those metrics, and publishing results to provide accountability for continuous improvement efforts. Originally designed for use in a manufacturing cell, its use has since expanded to include project management, engineering, quality, and other functions. This thesis examines how VBS has contributed to internal alignment at Raytheon and explores whether it can fulfill Raytheon's external supply chain coordination needs as well. VBS was successfully upgraded to allow supplier access over Citrix; the next step is to conduct a pilot implementation to test the system in practice. As a "homegrown" system, VBS can be made to do nearly anything, and in time could fulfill Raytheon's supply chain integration needs. In the near term, additional work is likely to be necessary in the areas of data access control, user interface, and extension from stand-alone system to a peer-to-peer information sharing network. The VBS team will also need to continue gathering executive sponsorship and support in order to motivate the necessary change in business processes. A number of lessons applicable to supply chain integration systems in general can be learned from the success of VBS.(cont.) These include: the importance of ensuring client control and security of the data; the potential gains made possible by sharing functionality in addition to data; the need to include information about improvement processes when sharing information; and the critical need that the application remain flexible and responsive to change in user needs.by Akiva Holzer.S.M.M.B.A

Fingerprints and the Organization of the Ceramic Industry Over Time at Tell Leilan Gender and the State in Northern Mesopotamia during the Early and Middle Bronze Age

The goal of my research is to elucidate the organization of ceramic production at Tell Leilan with respect to gender roles during from 3400 to 1700 BCE through a study of fingerprint impressions on pottery. I have developed and tested a technique for determining the proportion of men and women who formed and finished vessels in a certain ceramic assemblage using the distribution of epidermal ridge densities. There is a discrete change in the sex of potters at Leilan with the rise of urbanism and state formation at the site, but there is no alteration in this pattern that correlates with changes in the various regimes that had hegemony over the site over time during the Early and Middle Bronze Age. This result informs us about the effect of state authority on the public and private organization of crafts as well as the division of society along gender lines. Surprisingly, the change that occurs with the rise of the state at Tell Leilan does not occur at village sites in the Leilan Regional Survey. This result indicates that the changes in social fabric that occurred at urban sites with the establishment of state institutions did not occur to the same extent in hinterland settlements even though the state did control some of the ceramic production at these sites, at least during the Akkadian period. This methodology and research should allow for further evaluation of the highly theoretical literature on the relationship of gender to craft production in the ancient world

Exploring the Relationship Between Executive Compensation and Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions

Corporate Governance is one of the most important aspects of corporate life. The role requires individuals to have a moderate, if not excellent command of not only the industry they are operating within, but the basic tenants of many disciplines including law and finance. It is therefore important to not only view how these disciplines contribute to their knowledge individually, but also how they might work together to provide a better insight into governing a company on a day-to-day basis. A predominant decision that often comes under scrutiny is the relationship between executive compensation and M&A Activity. This paper takes a multi-disciplinary approach to corporate governance by looking at the legal and financial motivations and obligations of directors and officers as they pertain to M&A activity, in order to gain insight into the legal and behavioural theories that drive their actions. The paper will summarize studies outlining the paradoxical interests of directors and officers as representatives of the corporation and shareholders, in the context of M&A activity. This study will combine those insights with the legal landscape, in order to make recommendations with respect to best practices of directors and officers and contribute to the foundational knowledge on Corporate Governance

Evolutionary and molecular foundations of multiple contemporary functions of the nitroreductase superfamily.

Insight regarding how diverse enzymatic functions and reactions have evolved from ancestral scaffolds is fundamental to understanding chemical and evolutionary biology, and for the exploitation of enzymes for biotechnology. We undertook an extensive computational analysis using a unique and comprehensive combination of tools that include large-scale phylogenetic reconstruction to determine the sequence, structural, and functional relationships of the functionally diverse flavin mononucleotide-dependent nitroreductase (NTR) superfamily (>24,000 sequences from all domains of life, 54 structures, and >10 enzymatic functions). Our results suggest an evolutionary model in which contemporary subgroups of the superfamily have diverged in a radial manner from a minimal flavin-binding scaffold. We identified the structural design principle for this divergence: Insertions at key positions in the minimal scaffold that, combined with the fixation of key residues, have led to functional specialization. These results will aid future efforts to delineate the emergence of functional diversity in enzyme superfamilies, provide clues for functional inference for superfamily members of unknown function, and facilitate rational redesign of the NTR scaffold