Poking the Russian Bear: The European Missile Defense Shield

Russian/U.S. relations have declined during the past two years, to the point that some scholars, such as Ariel Cohen, have labeled the current situation a “cool war.”1 Both leaders predictably point the finger at the other for this “cooling.” In truth, both leaders are to blame. The Bush Administration’s dogged insistence on the European Missile Shield, a costly program of marginal operational ability and marginal necessity, provokes Russia, and is reminiscent of the Cold War mindset

Injury Prevention in the Workplace

Ergonomic assessments and proper body mechanics are the common practice for educating post injury employees. However, injury prevention protocols are often not a routine practice although they are believed to be essential in decreasing the number of injuries on the job, and lowering related costs to the employer. Research literature consistently identifies the negative fiscal, psychological, emotional and physical impact of occupational injuries on both society and the individual worker. Occupational injuries account for billions of dollars every year in medical and workers compensation costs not taking into account the billions in indirect costs. The issue is that despite the growing research on occupational injuries and the prevention methods, many industries still do not develop and implement prevention and intervention programs to eliminate or minimize the negative impact of these injuries. A literature review was conducted to identify the current ‘costs’ to the worker and industries as well as the best practice methods for prevention and intervention of these costs. Key concepts were identified and defined throughout the literature review in the scholarly project. The purpose of this scholarly project was to develop a protocol that is based on the primary types of workplace injuries with corresponding prevention and intervention steps identified. One aim was to demonstrate the correlation that injury prevention can have on productivity. If the frequency and number of injuries decreases, productivity is expected to increase. Occupational Therapy holds the essential skills necessary for developing, and implementing an injury prevention program. With a strong background that combines both the biomechanical and behavioral components of human occupation with performance, Occupational Therapists are essential in designing, implementing and evaluating interventions to address the human and environmental factors that contribute to occupational injury

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EFFICIENCY AND OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTOMOTIVE POWERTRAIN ARCHITECTURES THROUGH CHASSIS DYNAMOMETER TESTING

The thesis COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EFFICIENCY AND OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTOMOTIVE POWERTRAIN ARCHITECTURES THROUGH CHASSIS DYNAMOMETER TESTING was completed through a collaborative partnership between Michigan Technological University and Argonne National Laboratory under a contractual agreement titled Advanced Vehicle Characterization at Argonne National Laboratory . The goal of this project was to investigate, understand and document the performance and operational strategy of several modern passenger vehicles of various architectures. The vehicles were chosen to represent several popular engine and transmission architectures and were instrumented to allow for data collection to facilitate comparative analysis. In order to ensure repeatability and reliability during testing, each vehicle was tested over a series of identical drive cycles in a controlled environment utilizing a vehicle chassis dynamometer. Where possible, instrumentation was preserved between vehicles to ensure robust data collection. The efficiency and fuel economy performance of the vehicles was studied. In addition, the powertrain utilization strategies, significant energy loss sources, tailpipe emissions, combustion characteristics, and cold start behavior were also explored in detail. It was concluded that each vehicle realizes different strengths and suffers from different limitations in the course of their attempts to maximize efficiency and fuel economy. In addition, it was observed that each vehicle regardless of architecture exhibits significant energy losses and difficulties in cold start operation that can be further improved with advancing technology. It is clear that advanced engine technologies and driveline technologies are complimentary aspects of vehicle design that must be utilized together for best efficiency improvements. Finally, it was concluded that advanced technology vehicles do not come without associated cost; the complexity of the powertrains and lifecycle costs must be considered to understand the full impact of advanced vehicle technology

Proliferated LEO Constellation Modeling & Simulation with Information Assurance

Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) constellations allow for network, on-orbit processing, and battlefield management resiliency through disaggregation of the traditionally small number of high-value space assets. pLEO constellations present unique challenges. Developing a complex mesh network able to dynamically recover from active counterspace, cyber-security, and environmental threats, while providing uninterrupted data-center-like processing, requires advanced modeling capability throughout its buildout. Management of resource utilization, task migration, data fusion, software and firmware updates, and distribution of intelligence across the constellation requires complex integration and autonomy. Mission execution requires secure communication between the pLEO constellation and all consumers. The path to developing solutions to these challenges has been three-fold. 1. Creation of a constellation level modeling & simulation (M&S) testbed. 2. Connecting digital to physical through hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) and software-in-the-loop (SWIL) integration. 3. Ingraining security within enabling technologies

Pairing OER with Adaptive Learning to Support Non-traditional Learners: Promises, Unicorns, and Barriers

High access institutions face a double challenge in needing to control prices while maintaining high quality learning opportunities. Pairing OER with an adaptive learning system serve both outcomes, but presents its own challenges. This session will describe the efforts at The American Women’s College to leverage the benefits of each technology at scale by eliminating barriers to adoption. This session will introduce the mission, vision, and student demographics of The American Women’s College (TAWC) in order to provide context for a description of the college’s adoption of OER and adaptive technology. Benefits – lower prices for students, personalized learning experiences at scale, improved learning outcomes – will be weighed against challenges – lack of technical standards, need for new business models to evaluate the current return on investment. These challenges compound the baseline barriers to adoption for each technology on its own. The presentation will then turn to describing a variety of methods for overcoming these challenges – strategic partnerships, investigation of OER technical structure, etc. – that have facilitated the successful integration of OER and adaptive learning at TAWC. Future directions will also be shared with the hopes of eliciting cross-institutional collaboration. Attendees will be engaged in a variety of ways. The session will begin with live polls to learn about the attendees and their prior knowledge/experience with OER and adaptive. A back-channel Twitter feed will be used to collect open-ended questions throughout. Time will be devoted at the midpoint and end of the presentation to address these questions. Attendees with an intermediate or advanced knowledge of OER and adaptive will benefit most from this session

Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Fishing Industry: Preliminary Finding of the Key Issues

In 2008 there were approximately 3,500 registered commercial fishing vessels in New Zealand and 2,500 full­time employees working in the industry, a fraction of New Zealand’s two million plus labour force. However, in the Maritime New Zealand’s Annual Report 2000­2001 it was reported that New Zealand’s commercial fishing sector represented a disproportionately high number of maritime fatalities. With the exception of the 2007 fatality figures, the rate of Maritime New Zealand reported fatalities and accidents within the commercial fishing sector have remained fairly static. As a result, there have been a variety of initiatives implemented in this hazardous industry, for example, FishSAFE, and a number of reviews undertaken. However, unlike other sectors, implementing OHS interventions in the fishing industry has to account for a number of unique features such as the employment strata, geographical isolation of job, precariousness of employment, increasingly a diverse workforce and social issues such as substance abuse, and. This paper reports on preliminary findings based on interview data of employers and employees in the New Zealand fishing industry. In particular, it exposes a number of barriers to implementing and maintaining OHS measures, for example, increasingly tight profit margins, time pressures, and confusion around regulatory requirements. The initial findings also indicate that the command and control structure of managing staff in the fishing industry can influence individual and group perception and acceptance of risk. Finally, the paper highlights areas requiring further investigation

Library Consultation Assessment: Examining Time and Difficulty Across Patron Type, Format, and Location

Patron consultations, ranging from simple directions to complex research inquiries, are a notable component of librarians’ work. Research has examined different facets of these consultations, such as topic, skill development, and location, however, fewer studies have examined the duration and difficulty of those library consultations. We examine both the time and difficulty of library consultations across patron type (e.g. community member, undergraduate student), format (e.g. email, in person), as well as campus location (e.g. Atlanta, Decatur, Clarkston). Data used for this analysis is from the Patron Transaction log for Georgia State University Library which contains over 150,000 consultations

Power Loss Models in Punched Non-Oriented Electrical Steel Rings

The stresses and strains generated during punching of electrical steel laminations degenerate the magnetic properties in the region near the cut edge. The existing work has tended to focus on strips, with estimates of the damaged width ranging from less than 1 up to 10 mm. In this paper, ring samples, which are more representative of motor laminations, are considered. Increasing the diameter of the samples and, therefore, increasing the proportion damaged by the punching allowed the creation of mathematical models to describe and analyze the power loss and estimate the extent of the damaged region. Five samples each measuring five laminates high with a constant outer diameter of 200 mm and various inner diameters (150, 160, 170, 180, and 190 mm) were stamped from coils of M250-35A and M330-35A of a non-oriented electrical steel. A simple model was initially proposed, where power loss is proportional to the ratio of the undamaged to the total width and the square of the flux density passing through that region. An average width for the damaged region was calculated at 0.31 mm for the two materials

Divergent adaptation promotes reproductive isolation among experimental populations of the filamentous fungus Neurospora

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An open, focal issue in evolutionary biology is how reproductive isolation and speciation are initiated; elucidation of mechanisms with empirical evidence has lagged behind theory. Under ecological speciation, reproductive isolation between populations is predicted to evolve incidentally as a by-product of adaptation to divergent environments. The increased genetic diversity associated with interspecific hybridization has also been theorized to promote the development of reproductive isolation among independent populations. Using the fungal model <it>Neurospora</it>, we founded experimental lineages from both intra- and interspecific crosses, and evolved them in one of two sub-optimal, selective environments. We then measured the influence that initial genetic diversity and the direction of selection (parallel versus divergent) had on the evolution of reproductive isolation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>When assayed in the selective environment in which they were evolved, lineages typically had greater asexual fitness than the progenitors and the lineages that were evolved in the alternate, selective environment. Assays for reproductive isolation showed that matings between lineages that were adapted to the same environment had greater sexual reproductive success than matings between lineages that were adapted to different environments. Evidence of this differential reproductive success was observed at two stages of the sexual cycle. For one of the two observed incompatibility phenotypes, results from genetic analyses were consistent with a two-locus, two-allele model with asymmetric (gender-specific), antagonistic epistasis. The effects of divergent adaptation on reproductive isolation were more pronounced for populations with greater initial genetic variation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Divergent selection resulted in divergent adaptation and environmental specialization, consistent with fixation of different alleles in different environments. When brought together by mating, these alleles interacted negatively and had detrimental effects on sexual reproductive success, in agreement with the Dobzhansky-Muller model of genetic incompatibilities. As predicted by ecological speciation, greater reproductive isolation was observed among divergent-adapted lineages than among parallel-adapted lineages. These results support that, given adequate standing genetic variation, divergent adaptation can indirectly cause the evolution of reproductive isolation, and eventually lead to speciation.</p