Women Representation on CNN and Fox News

Research question: What difference does a political bias matter when analyzing how CNN and Fox News portray women’s issues, the number of women guests on their shows, and how much airtime women receive. Hypothesis: My hypothesis is that both networks will have relatively low coverage on women’s issues and guests on the show will be predominately male, but I do hypothesize that CNN will have a higher yield of women as guests on the show

Project SPACE: Solar Panel Automated Cleaning Environment

The goal of Project SPACE is to create an automated solar panel cleaner that will address the adverse impact of soiling on commercial photovoltaic cells. Specifically, we hoped to create a device that increases the maximum power output of a soiled panel by 10% (recovering the amount of power lost) while still costing under $500 and operating for up to 7.0 years. A successful design should operate without the use of water. This will help solar panel arrays achieve a production output closer to their maximum potential and save companies on costs associated energy generation. The current apparatus utilizes a brush cleaning system that cleans on set cleaning cycles. The device uses the combination of a gear train (with 48 pitch Delrin gears) and a 12V DC motor to spin both a 5.00 foot long, 0.25 inch diameter vacuum brush shaft and drive two sets of two wheels. The power source for the drive train is a 12V deep cycle lead-acid battery. Our light weight design eliminates water usage during cleaning and reduces the potential dangers stemming from manual labor. Our design’s retail price was estimated to be around$700 with a payback period of less than 3.5 years. To date, we have created a device that improves the efficiency of soiled solar panels by 3.5% after two runs over the solar panel. We hope that our final design will continue to expand the growth of solar energy globally

The difference between molecules and materials: Reassessing the role of exact conditions in density functional theory

Exact conditions have long been used to guide the construction of density functional approximations. But hundreds of empirical-based approximations tailored for chemistry are in use, many of which neglect these conditions in their design. We analyze well-known conditions and revive several obscure ones. Two crucial distinctions are drawn: that between necessary and sufficient conditions, and between all electronic densities and the subset of realistic Coulombic ground states. Simple search algorithms find that many empirical approximations satisfy many exact conditions for realistic densities and non-empirical approximations satisfy even more conditions than those enforced in their construction. The role of exact conditions in developing approximations is revisited

Information Management and BIM Standards and Supports Inventory

The Digital Standards pillar consists of industry experts who champion the benefits of common rules, guidelines, and workflows that facilitate the improvement of information flow and information management across asset life cycles. Digital standards provide a common language that can be translated to technical specifications enabling clients, designers, contractors, and facilities managers, irrespective of their preferred tools, to communicate efficiently and reduce cost, rework, and disputes. Working closely with the Digital Procurement and Digital Education and Training pillars, this pillar is developing and delivering Irish Information Management/BIM (Digital Construction) guidelines for the sector. This report summarises existing digital construction standards, guidance documents, and templates. The objectives of this report are: To identify digital construction standards and supporting resources available to the industry. To create a grading system for the reviewed digital construction standards and documents based on their relevance to the Irish sector. The methodology of this report and tool consisted of desk research into digital construction standards and supporting documents found both online and in the standards database. A spreadsheet was developed as a tool for identifying relevant standards and, in particular, their relevance to Build Digital. Each document found in this research was recorded, reviewed, and graded based on the scoring system created for this report and tool. Standards and documentation deemed most important were graded with ‘recommended’. This tool is intended to be flexible should new standards be published, or a change is required to an existing standard

Toward a Unified Military Response: Hurricane Sandy and the Dual Status Commander

The 2013-14 Army War College Key Strategic Issues List stated: “If Hurricane Sandy is seen as an archetype of a complex catastrophe, then a careful analysis of the effectiveness of the DoD response within the context of dual status commanders [DSCs], lead federal agencies, and state response capabilities needs to be conducted.” This monograph does exactly that as it carefully and comprehensively analyzes the DSC-led military response to Hurricane Sandy in New York. Through this lens, it illustrates and discusses the perspectives of the DSC construct and offers recommendations for leveraging existing capabilities and improving those deemed insufficient. Using a case study approach, this analysis addresses notable issues of constitutionality, legality, policy, financial considerations, and even politics, all uniquely situated between individual states’ interests and those of the federal government. To provide military and defense officials with a greater understanding of the benefits and limitations of the DSC arrangement during a no-notice/limited-notice incident, this monograph offers objective and systematic documentation of the Sandy response. It concludes by offering a series of actionable recommendations aimed at improving operational decisionmaking, policy, and legislation specifically related to DSCs during no-notice/limited-notice incidents.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1462/thumbnail.jp

Toward a Unified Military Response: Hurricane Sandy and the Dual Status Commander

The 2013-14 Army War College Key Strategic Issues List stated: “If Hurricane Sandy is seen as an archetype of a complex catastrophe, then a careful analysis of the effectiveness of the DoD response within the context of dual status commanders [DSCs], lead federal agencies, and state response capabilities needs to be conducted.” This monograph does exactly that as it carefully and comprehensively analyzes the DSC-led military response to Hurricane Sandy in New York. Through this lens, it illustrates and discusses the perspectives of the DSC construct and offers recommendations for leveraging existing capabilities and improving those deemed insufficient. Using a case study approach, this analysis addresses notable issues of constitutionality, legality, policy, financial considerations, and even politics, all uniquely situated between individual states’ interests and those of the federal government. To provide military and defense officials with a greater understanding of the benefits and limitations of the DSC arrangement during a no-notice/limited-notice incident, this monograph offers objective and systematic documentation of the Sandy response. It concludes by offering a series of actionable recommendations aimed at improving operational decisionmaking, policy, and legislation specifically related to DSCs during no-notice/limited-notice incidents.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1462/thumbnail.jp

Maturing Defense Support of Civil Authorities and the Dual Status Commander Arrangement through the Lens of Process Improvement

The authors advocate the integration of process improvement methods into future Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) operations. They briefly discuss alternative process improvement strategies and their current state of employment in a variety of DoD programs. Methods discussed include Lean Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, and Capability Maturity Models, the utility of such methods is demonstrated, and the value in applying process improvement methods to DSCA operations is articulated. Three recommendations are given to demonstrate how a usable process maturity model can be built and employed for future operations. The monograph concludes by reaffirming the inherent utility of, and advocating for, process improvement techniques as a way to mature future DSCA operations using the dual status commander arrangement.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1459/thumbnail.jp

Maturing Defense Support of Civil Authorities and the Dual Status Commander Arrangement through the Lens of Process Improvement

The authors advocate the integration of process improvement methods into future Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) operations. They briefly discuss alternative process improvement strategies and their current state of employment in a variety of DoD programs. Methods discussed include Lean Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, and Capability Maturity Models, the utility of such methods is demonstrated, and the value in applying process improvement methods to DSCA operations is articulated. Three recommendations are given to demonstrate how a usable process maturity model can be built and employed for future operations. The monograph concludes by reaffirming the inherent utility of, and advocating for, process improvement techniques as a way to mature future DSCA operations using the dual status commander arrangement.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1459/thumbnail.jp