Medical Implications of Space Radiation Exposure Due to Low Altitude Polar Orbits

Space radiation research has progressed rapidly in recent years, but there remain large uncertainties in predicting and extrapolating biological responses to humans. Exposure to cosmic radiation and Solar Particle Events may pose a critical health risk to future spaceflight crews and can have a serious impact to all biomedical aspects of space exploration. The relatively minimal shielding of the cancelled 1960's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program's space vehicle and the high inclination polar orbits would have left the crew susceptible to high exposures of cosmic radiation and high dose-rate SPEs that are mostly unpredictable in frequency and intensity. In this study, we have modeled the nominal and off-nominal radiation environment that a MOL-like spacecraft vehicle would be exposed to during a 30-day mission using high performance, multi-core computers. Projected doses from a historically large SPE (e.g. the August 1972 solar event) have been analyzed in the context of the MOL orbit profile, providing an opportunity to study its impact to crew health and subsequent contingencies.It is reasonable to presume that future commercial, government, and military spaceflight missions in low-Earth orbit will have vehicles with similar shielding and orbital profiles. Studying the impact of cosmic radiation to the mission's operational integrity and the health of MOL crewmembers provides an excellent surrogate and case-study for future commercial and military spaceflight missions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Profiling Rural Festival Visitors by Previous Visits, Purpose of Travel, and Activities: A Multi-Segmentation Approach

Festivals in rural areas are increasingly being used as instruments for promoting tourism and boosting the regional economy (Felsenstein & Fleischer, 2003). However, most market segmentation studies have been conducted using a single segmentation basis. The present study used three variables to identify segments of visitors from ten rural community festivals to avoid this limitation. A total of 366 visitors provided usable data. The results show significant differences in information sources, length of stay, travel expenditures, and satisfaction levels among three clusters. Visitors did not come to the area for the events were actually the ones who stayed longer and spent more to the event. Event managers should consider different needs and preference of these two segments and create value proposition for non-event seekers

Examining Youth Bicycle Programming Through the Empowerment- Based Youth Development Model

This study evaluates Momentum Bicycle Clubs (MBC) through the empowerment-based positive youth development framework (EMPYD). Data were collected through eight cross-sectional focus groups of MBC youth participants (ages 10-17). Sessions included three topics: the MBC program, the mentors, and the bicycle, all of which elucidated elements of an EMPYD program for analysis. The data were analyzed utilizing an interpretative phenomenological approach. The results of the focus groups revealed how MBC empowers its youth participants. MBC displayed characteristics of the EMPYD model by providing youth with opportunities to develop mastery and moral identity in addition to the 5Cs of positive youth development. Interactions with a diverse set of mentors and peers allowed program participants to gain mastery of physical, social, and emotional skills. These connections also provided avenues for the development of empathy, caring, and character. MBC empowered its participants by fostering a sense of community that was dependable and consistent. However, the data did not reveal how or if MBC empowers youth to participate in active and engaged citizenship. MBC represents a programmatic model that utilizes many aspects of the EMPYD framework. MBC provide youth with the opportunity to develop mastery over the bicycle and to develop their moral reasoning through relationships with a group of adult mentors. With some adjustment, the program can further empower youth by providing intentional programming that focuses on culturally specific community building and by providing program participants with the opportunity to engage in culturally specific citizenship

Practical designs for permutation-symmetric problem Hamiltonians on hypercubes

We present a method to experimentally realize large-scale permutation-symmetric Hamiltonians for continuous-time quantum protocols such as quantum walks and adiabatic quantum computation. In particular, the method can be used to perform an encoded continuous-time quantum search on a hypercube graph with 2n vertices encoded into 2n qubits. We provide details for a realistically achievable implementation in Rydberg atomic systems. Although the method is perturbative, the realization is always achieved at second order in perturbation theory, regardless of the size of the mapped system. This highly efficient mapping provides a natural set of problems which are tractable both numerically and analytically, thereby providing a powerful tool for benchmarking quantum hardware and experimentally investigating the physics of continuous-time quantum protocols

Examining barriers, motivations, and perceptions of women working in the tourism industry: Case study of Ayampe, Ecuador

The notion of examining gender is gaining momentum across disciplines as an important phenomenon to understand (Kincheloe & Mclaren, 2008). The tourism field is one such area that has made sizeable contributions to the literature; however there is a lack of research focusing on women and tourism in developing countries. This is an exploratory case study of a rural community in Ecuador. Using community-based research methodology and a gender and development framework, this study explores the motivations, barriers and perceptions towards women seeking employment in the tourism industry and identified disparities between the perceptions of men and women in regard to the potential for women securing employment in the industry. The themes that emerged from the data may be grouped as those indicating barriers: gender role expectations, machismo, and poor education; and as motivators: economic benefits, opportunity to learn new things, purpose in life, and education for their children

Groundnut rosette disease management

Groundnuts are a key crop in eastern Uganda, grown for both food and income. The major factor limiting production is groundnut rosette disease, a virus disease transmitted by aphids. This project built on previous CPP epidemiological research in Malawi which identified new sources of resistance to aphids and to rosette disease. Screening methodologies were developed to enhance the efficiency of groundnut improvement programmes. Working closely with researchers, agricultural extension agents, NGOs and farmers, the project’s ultimate aim was to to develop sustainable management strategies for groundnut rosette disease, based primarily on the use of improved groundnut varieties with durable resistance to pests and diseases. The availability of new, short-duration, disease-resistant groundnut varieties will assist a substantial number of smallholder farmers to increase their incom