Portable electron beam weld chamber

Development and characteristics of portable vacuum chamber for skate type electron beam welding are discussed. Construction and operational details of equipment are presented. Illustrations of equipment are provided

Inexpensive, removable coating for plaster tooling

Procedure for thinning and spaying a vinyl material provides strippable film for plaster surfaces. Coating is low-cost, effective seal against moisture and other sources of damage. Coating consists of a mixture of hot-spray vinyl material and 30 to 50 percent by volume of methyl ethyl ketone

FO2(<,+1,~) on data trees, data tree automata and branching vector addition systems

A data tree is an unranked ordered tree where each node carries a label from a finite alphabet and a datum from some infinite domain. We consider the two variable first order logic FO2(<,+1,~) over data trees. Here +1 refers to the child and the next sibling relations while < refers to the descendant and following sibling relations. Moreover, ~ is a binary predicate testing data equality. We exhibit an automata model, denoted DAD# that is more expressive than FO2(<,+1,~) but such that emptiness of DAD# and satisfiability of FO2(<,+1,~) are inter-reducible. This is proved via a model of counter tree automata, denoted EBVASS, that extends Branching Vector Addition Systems with States (BVASS) with extra features for merging counters. We show that, as decision problems, reachability for EBVASS, satisfiability of FO2(<,+1,~) and emptiness of DAD# are equivalent

Best Practices for Successful In School Suspension Programs

The study analyzed the disciplinary strategy known as In School Suspension and the types of supports students receive in four suburban schools located in upstate New York. I interviewed five administrators at the middle school level. Through the interviews and tape-recording the data, I found that there are several differences among the methods implemented in the four middle schools. Some of these differences consisted of the referral process, resources provided, and the exit procedure from the In School Suspension room. This study illustrates that although there are an array of differences between In School Suspension programs, each participating school had some successful disciplinary procedures. Therefore, this study has implications for school administrators in creating In School Suspension programs that meet the needs of the students. Introductio

Deterministic and Random Perturbations of the Kepler Problem

We investigate perturbations in the Kepler problem. We offer an overview of the dynamical system using Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics to build a foundation for analyzing perturbations. We consider the effects of a deterministic perturbation in the form of a first order relativistic correction which change bounded orbits from standard to precessing ellipses. We also consider the effects of stochastic perturbations with certain potentials and evaluate the analytical results of mean exit times using Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: Honors thesis submitted to Department of Mathematics of the College of Staten Island City University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with Honors. Signatures not included due to privacy concerns. Updated to correct certain figures and fixed citation

Survey on the control methods of Bactrocera oleae (Gmelin) in organic olive groves producing oil and table olives in Sicily

In Sicily there are several organic farms producing olive oil and the number of farms has grown in the last years. The control methods of Bactrocera oleae (Gmelin) used by Sicilian organic farms were surveyed in 2004 and 2005. After a bibliographic search on internet and by personal contacts, a sample of 30 organic farms in Sicily was chosen; 23 farms produce bottled extra-virgin oil and 7 produce table olives. Then farms were contacted by phone, some of them visited and olive growers were interviewed. For each farm were put together data about: interventions vs. the olive fruit fly, altitude, surface of the olive grove, olive cultivar, irrigation method, harvesting period, milling procedure, product destination and production results in 2005 and in the previous years. From collected data we can say that obtaining oils of excellent quality and table olives of good quality in organic farming is surely possible; the early harvesting and a quick milling (for the oil) let to obtain good results. The most used interventions are: mass trapping with ammonium carbonate, pheromone and pyrethroids, bottled-traps baited with sardines, yellow sticky traps, sprays with kaolin, Bordeaux mixture or pyrethrum, but there is more than one third of sampled oil producers not using any control method except early harvesting and a quick milling. Unfortunately the organic farms producing table olives in Sicily are very few, perhaps because, differently from olive oil producers, table olive plantings are almost all young and the experience of growers in such organic cultivation is not strong. Also these growers prefer to use mass trapping to control olive fruit fly, but best results were achieved by farmers spraying kaolin, rotenone or copper hydroxide