Thermal and structural assessments of a ceramic wafer seal in hypersonic engines

The thermal and structural performances of a ceramic wafer seal in a simulated hypersonic engine environment are numerically assessed. The effects of aerodynamic heating, surface contact conductance between the seal and its adjacent surfaces, flow of purge coolant gases, and leakage of hot engine flow path gases on the seal temperature were investigated from the engine inlet back to the entrance region of the combustion chamber. Finite element structural analyses, coupled with Weibull failure analyses, were performed to determine the structural reliability of the wafer seal

Contingent Valuation of Sports Stadiums and Arenas: Temporal Embedding and Order Effect

Using the Contingent Valuation Method, this paper estimates the value of public goods the National Football League’s Jaguars produce for Jacksonville, Florida, including the value of elevating Jacksonville to “major league” status and the value of improving racial relations. It also estimates the incremental value of public goods potentially produced by a National Basketball Association team in Jacksonville. The present value of public goods created by the Jaguars is $36.5 million or less, far below subsidies provided to attract the Jaguars. For a basketball team, the figure is less than$22.8 million. The results add to the growing body of CVM literature indicating that sports public goods probably cannot justify the large public expenditures on stadiums and arenas.

High temperature NASP engine seals: A technology review

Progress in developing advanced high temperature engine seal concepts and related sealing technologies for advanced hypersonic engines are reviewed. Design attributes and issues requiring further development for both the ceramic wafer seal and the braided ceramic rope seal are examined. Leakage data are presented for these seals for engine simulated pressure and temperature conditions and compared to a target leakage limit. Basic elements of leakage flow models to predict leakage rates for each of these seals over the wide range of pressure and temperature conditions anticipated in the engine are also presented

A manifesto for a socio-technical approach to NHS and social care IT-enabled business change - to deliver effective high quality health and social care for all

80% of IT projects are known to fail. Adopting a socio-technical approach will help them to succeed in the future. The socio-technical proposition is simply that any work system comprises both a social system (including the staff, their working practices, job roles, culture and goals) and a technical system (the tools and technologies that support and enable work processes). These elements together form a single system comprising interacting parts. The technical and the social elements need to be jointly designed (or redesigned) so that they are congruent and support one another in delivering a better service. Focusing on one aspect alone is likely to be sub-optimal and wastes money (Clegg, 2008). Thus projects that just focus on the IT will almost always fail to deliver the full benefits

The role of textbooks and other teaching and learning resources in higher education in Australia: change and continuity in supporting learning

This paper investigates the role of textbooks and online learn ng resources in university study. In a large scale Australian research project the course coordinators and lecturing staff of twelve university courses were interviewed to elicit data on the resources that are prescribed to support student learning, the role of textbooks in teaching and learning; resource shifts between online and paper based resources; and the links between assessment and learning resources. The paper also reports on the student perspective of similar issues from students involved in sample of twelve undergraduate university courses. The research presented here reveals that textbooks produced by commercial publishers were recommended in every university course. Furthermore the use of these textbooks reflects a typology of integration into the learning design of the course to support student learning. The research found that a resource shift to the sole recommendation of online resources was not occurring, and that the provision of these online and digital resources was complementary and designed to support traditional learning resources.Regarding student use of learning resources, the research concluded that students indicated that they are time-poor and as a consequence, their capacity to engage fully with all learning resources recommended by course coordinators and tutors is limited. Although students did listen to the messages about learning resources conveyed by their tutors, their motivation was driven by the demands of their course assessment and as a result, students prioritised their focus on specific resources. The resources at the top of the priority list related specifically to successful completion of assessment tasks

Being backed by extended party networks can mean a greater chance of electoral success for a Congressional challenger

Political parties play a central role in democracies, helping to mediate between citizens and governing elites by running candidates for office who promise to pursue policy programs. But what if “the party” is really more of a collection of interest groups than a traditional party organization? Using data from US congressional elections and campaign finance, Bruce Desmarais, Ray La Raja and Mike Kowal show that parties are networks of partisan groups that converge on select groups of challengers. They explain that parties in the U.S. have become so distinctive and polarized, because they represent unique coalitions of policy demanders that influence the ideological composition of Congress

Perfecting Patient Flow: America\u27s Safety Net Hospitals and Emergency Department Crowding

Emergency department crowding and delays have become major issues for America\u27s safety net hospitals and health systems. Many facilities are experiencing increasing wait times, a need to board admitted patients in emergency department (ED) hallways, and rising numbers of hours spent on diversion or bypass. These trends result from increased patient demand at a time when the number of emergency departments has declined and hospital inpatient capacity has lagged. Other factors also may contribute to the crisis. Patients without access to medical specialists may view the ED as the quickest route to specialized services. Overburdened physicians may be more likely to refer patients to an ED for care, especially if they view the ED as a comprehensive diagnostic center. Meanwhile, shortages of nurses and on-call specialists may slow the care of patients once they get to the ED. Given these complex factors, solutions we once thought would relieve ED demand, like expanded primary care capacity, may actually do little to alleviate this crisis. For patients as well as caregivers, these are more than issues of convenience. Many of the patients who, due to their frustration at the long wait, leave a hospital ED without being seen by a physician do indeed need immediate medical care. Overworked health professionals are more prone to error, and a crowded ED is more likely to experience high turnover and vacancy rates. Long delays and overextended staffing are recipes for low quality, medical error, and poor morale. Faced with the unique mandate of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA), as well as with historic missions to care for all, safety net hospitals may be especially strained by these conditions. These hospitals often run large emergency departments with trauma and other specialized services and treat many medically and socially complex patients in an environment of declining or no payment. Yet they are expected to care for all comers, and to do it well while being accountable to the public. The National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) commissioned this report, Perfecting Patient Flow: America\u27s Safety Net Hospitals and Emergency Department Crowding, to describe practical approaches to reducing ED crowding as implemented in three member hospitals. Each of these hospitals participated in the year-long Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded safety net collaborative, Urgent Matters. These three hospitals, The Regional Medical Center at Memphis, Boston Medical Center, and Grady Health System in Atlanta, were chosen through a highly selective process to participate in the project, which was headquartered at The George Washington University Medical Center School of Public Health and Health Services

Larson forest restoration project historic range of variation (HRV reference conditions) assessment report. Special report to the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.

The Larson Forest Restoration Project (Larson Project) is located on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest (A-S N.F.), Black Mesa Ranger District. The project covers a landscape area of approximately 30,000 acres, dominated primarily by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), with some dry mixed conifer on the north facing slopes and an increase in alligator juniper (Juniperus deppeana) component on the dryer sites in the north portion of the project. The A-S N.F. asked the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) to help collect site-specific historical ecological data for the Larson Project area to establish site-specific reference conditions (forest conditions that were in place 130-140 years ago when frequent fire was still a dominant component of the ecological system). These reference conditions would be used by the interdisciplinary team (IDT) as a point of reference for forest restoration for project planning