Serving People with Disabilities through the Workforce Investment Act's One-Stop Career Centers

This paper examines the extent to which people with disabilities are served through WIA's One-Stop system and discusses its capacity to serve people with disabilities who desire employment assistance, both in terms of common barriers to access as well as promising strategies to improve service delivery to people with disabilities

Benchmarking and optimisation of Simulink code using Real-Time Workshop and Embedded Coder for inverter and microgrid control applications

When creating software for a new power systems control or protection device, the use of auto-generated C code via MATLAB Simulink Real-Time Workshop and Embedded Coder toolboxes can be a sensible alternative to hand written C code. This approach offers the benefits of a simulation environment, platform independence and robust code. This paper briefly summarises recent experiences with this coding process including the pros and cons of such an approach. Extensive benchmarking activities are presented, together with descriptions of simple (but non-obvious) optimisations made as a result of the benchmarking. Examples include replacement of certain Simulink blocks with seemingly more complex blocks which execute faster. "S functions" are also designed for certain key algorithms. These must be fully "in-lined" to obtain the best speed performance. Together, these optimisations can lead to an increase in execution speed of more than 1.4x in a large piece of auto-generated C code. An example is presented, which carries out Fourier analysis of 3 signals at a common (variable) frequency. The overall speed improvement relative to the baseline is 2.3x, of which more than 1.4x is due to non-obvious improvements resulting from benchmarking activities. Such execution speed improvements allow higher frame rates or larger algorithms within inverters, drives, protection and control applications

Increasing security of supply by the use of a local power controller during large system disturbances

This paper describes intelligent ways in which distributed generation and local loads can be controlled during large system disturbances, using Local Power Controllers. When distributed generation is available, and a system disturbance is detected early enough, the generation can be dispatched, and its output power can be matched as closely as possible to local microgrid demand levels. Priority-based load shedding can be implemented to aid this process. In this state, the local microgrid supports the wider network by relieving the wider network of the micro-grid load. Should grid performance degrade further, the local microgrid can separate itself from the network and maintain power to the most important local loads, re-synchronising to the grid only after more normal performance is regained. Such an intelligent system would be a suitable for hospitals, data centres, or any other industrial facility where there are critical loads. The paper demonstrates the actions of such Local Power Controllers using laboratory experiments at the 10kVA scale

Modelling electron distributions within ESA's Gaia satellite CCD pixels to mitigate radiation damage

The Gaia satellite is a high-precision astrometry, photometry and spectroscopic ESA cornerstone mission, currently scheduled for launch in 2012. Its primary science drivers are the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Gaia will achieve its unprecedented positional accuracy requirements with detailed calibration and correction for radiation damage. At L2, protons cause displacement damage in the silicon of CCDs. The resulting traps capture and emit electrons from passing charge packets in the CCD pixel, distorting the image PSF and biasing its centroid. Microscopic models of Gaia's CCDs are being developed to simulate this effect. The key to calculating the probability of an electron being captured by a trap is the 3D electron density within each CCD pixel. However, this has not been physically modelled for the Gaia CCD pixels. In Seabroke, Holland & Cropper (2008), the first paper of this series, we motivated the need for such specialised 3D device modelling and outlined how its future results will fit into Gaia's overall radiation calibration strategy. In this paper, the second of the series, we present our first results using Silvaco's physics-based, engineering software: the ATLAS device simulation framework. Inputting a doping profile, pixel geometry and materials into ATLAS and comparing the results to other simulations reveals that ATLAS has a free parameter, fixed oxide charge, that needs to be calibrated. ATLAS is successfully benchmarked against other simulations and measurements of a test device, identifying how to use it to model Gaia pixels and highlighting the effect of different doping approximations.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, appearing in Proc. of SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference (Focal Plane Arrays for Space telescopes IV), 2-6 August 2009, San Diego, US

Solid metabolic waste transport and stowage investigation

The basic Waste Collection System (WCS) design under consideration utilized air flow to separate the stool from the WCS user and to transport the fecal material to a slinger device for subsequent deposition on a storage bowel. The major parameters governing stool separation and transport were found to be the area of the air inlet orifices, the configuration of the air inlet orifice and the transport air flow. Separation force and transport velocity of the stool were studied. The developed inlet orifice configuration was found to be an effective design for providing fecal separation and transport. Simulated urine tests and female user tests in zero gravity established air flow rates between 0.08 and 0.25 cu sm/min (3 and 9 scfm) as satisfactory for entrapment, containment and transport of urine using an urinal. The investigation of air drying of fecal material as a substitute for vacuum drying in a WCS breadboard system showed that using baseline conditions anticipated for the shuttle cabin ambient atmosphere, flow rates of 0.14 cu sm/min (5 cfm) were adequate for drying and maintaining biological stability of the fecal material

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: The Role of Workforce Programs

This book examines the nature of the workforce development and UI policy decisions made nationwide in response to the recession, state and local administrators’ perspectives on the policy developments and economic challenges, and implementation of key Recovery Act provisions, with a particular focus on workforce development initiatives in the Recovery Act.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1241/thumbnail.jp