Project Artemis

The goals of Project Artemis are designed to meet the challege of President Bush to return to the Moon, this time to stay. The first goal of the project is to establish a permanent manned base on the Moon for the purposes of scientific research and technological development. The knowledge gained from the establishment and operations of the lunar base will then be used to achieve the second goal of Project Artemis, the establishment of a manned base on the Martian surface. Throughout both phases of the program, crew safety will be the number one priority. There are four main issues that have governed the entire program: crew safety and mission success, commonality, growth potential, and costing and scheduling. These issues are discussed in more detail

Assessing Mondragon: Stability & Managed Change in the Face of Globalization

By drawing on new interview evidence gathered during several field trips and new financial and economic data from both external and internal sources, we document and assess the changing economic importance and performance of the Mondragon group of cooperatives as well as the two largest sectors within the group. Compared to conventional firms in the Basque Country and Spain, and producer co-ops (PCs) and employee owned firms elsewhere, in general we find evidence of growing group importance and strong performance and a similarly strong record for the industrial and retail divisions...employee ownership, producer cooperatives, labor managed firm, productive efficiency, Mondragon

Finite-time blowup for a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation

We prove that negative energy solutions of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation $e^{-i\theta} u_t = \Delta u+ |u|^{\alpha} u$ blow up in finite time, where \alpha >0 and \pi /2<\theta <\pi /2. For a fixed initial value $u(0)$, we obtain estimates of the blow-up time $T_{max}^\theta$ as $\theta \to \pm \pi /2$. It turns out that $T_{max}^\theta$ stays bounded (respectively, goes to infinity) as $\theta \to \pm \pi /2$ in the case where the solution of the limiting nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation blows up in finite time (respectively, is global).Comment: 22 page

Evidence for Strong Breit Interaction in Dielectronic Recombination of Highly Charged Heavy Ions

Resonant strengths have been measured for dielectronic recombination of Li-like iodine, holmium, and bismuth using an electron beam ion trap. By observing the atomic number dependence of the state-resolved resonant strength, clear experimental evidence has been obtained that the importance of the generalized Breit interaction (GBI) effect on dielectronic recombination increases as the atomic number increases. In particular, it has been shown that the GBI effect is exceptionally strong for the recombination through the resonant state [1s2s22p1/2]1

Examining Biases in Diurnally-Integrated Shortwave Irradiances due to Two- and Four-Stream Approximations in Cloudy Atmosphere

Shortwave irradiance biases due to two- and four-stream approximations have been studied for the last couple of decades, but biases in estimating Earths radiation budget have not been examined in earlier studies. In order to quantify biases in diurnally-averaged irradiances, we integrate the two- and four-stream biases using realistic diurnal variations of cloud properties from Clouds and the Earths Radiant Energy System (CERES) synoptic (SYN) hourly product. Three approximations are examined in this study, delta-two-stream-Eddington (D2strEdd), delta- two-stream-quadrature (D2strQuad), and delta-four-stream-quadrature (D4strQuad). Irradiances computed by the Discrete Ordinates Radiative Transfer (DISORT) and Monte Carlo (MC) methods are used as references. The MC noises are further examined by comparing with DISORT results. When the biases are integrated with a one-day of solar zenith angle variation, regional biases of D2strEdd and D2strQuad reach up to 8 W/sq.m, while biases of D4strQuad reach up to 2 W/sq.m. When the biases are further averaged monthly or annually, regional biases of D2strEdd and D2strQuad can reach 1.5 W/sq.m in SW top-of-atmosphere (TOA) upward irradiances and +3 W/sq.m in surface downward irradiances. In contrast, regional biases of D4strQuad are within +0.9 for TOA irradiances and 1.2 W/sq.m for surface irradiances. Except for polar regions, monthly and annual global mean biases are similar, suggesting that the biases are nearly independent to season. Biases in SW heating rate profiles are up to 0.008 K/d for D2strEdd and 0.016 K/d for D2strQuad, while the biases of the D4strQuad method are negligible

Assessing Mondragon: Stability & Managed Change in the Face of Globalization

By drawing on new interview evidence gathered during several field trips and new financial and economic data from both external and internal sources, we document and assess the changing economic importance and performance of the Mondragon group of cooperatives as well as the two largest sectors within the group. Compared to conventional firms in the Basque Country and Spain, and producer co-ops (PCs) and employee owned firms elsewhere, in general we find evidence of growing group importance and strong performance and a similarly strong record for the industrial and retail divisions...http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133017/1/wp1003.pd

Caregivers' perceived treatment failure in home-based management of fever among Ugandan children aged less than five years

BACKGROUND: Home-based management of fever (HBMF) could improve prompt access to antimalarial medicines for African children. However, the perception of treatment failure by caregivers has not been assessed. METHODS: Caregiver's perceived treatment outcome in HBMF and in alternative sources of fever treatment was assessed in a rural Ugandan setting using nine hundred and seventy eight (978) caregivers of children between two and 59 months of age, who had reported fever within two weeks prior to the study. RESULTS: Lower caregivers' perceived treatment failure (15% and 23%) was observed in the formal health facilities and in HBMF, compared to private clinics (38%), drug shops (55%) or among those who used herbs (56%). Under HBMF, starting treatment within 24 hours of symptoms onset and taking treatment for the recommended three days duration was associated with a lower perceived treatment failure. Conversely, vomiting, convulsions and any illness in the month prior to the fever episode was associated with a higher perceived treatment failure. CONCLUSION: In this medium malaria transmission setting, caregiver's perceived treatment outcome was better in HBMF compared to alternative informal sources of treatment

Cloud Effects on Meridional Atmospheric Energy Budget Estimated from Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Data

The zonal mean atmospheric cloud radiative effect, defined as the difference of the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) and surface cloud radiative effects, is estimated from three years of Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) data. The zonal mean shortwave effect is small, though it tends to be positive (warming). This indicates that clouds increase shortwave absorption in the atmosphere, especially in midlatitudes. The zonal mean atmospheric cloud radiative effect is, however, dominated by the longwave effect. The zonal mean longwave effect is positive in the tropics and decreases with latitude to negative values (cooling) in polar regions. The meridional gradient of cloud effect between midlatitude and polar regions exists even when uncertainties in the cloud effect on the surface enthalpy flux and in the modeled irradiances are taken into account. This indicates that clouds increase the rate of generation of mean zonal available potential energy. Because the atmospheric cooling effect in polar regions is predominately caused by low level clouds, which tend to be stationary, we postulate that the meridional and vertical gradients of cloud effect increase the rate of meridional energy transport by dynamics in the atmosphere from midlatitude to polar region, especially in fall and winter. Clouds then warm the surface in polar regions except in the Arctic in summer. Clouds, therefore, contribute in increasing the rate of meridional energy transport from midlatitude to polar regions through the atmosphere