Speculative Fashion: A Spacesuit for Life Outside Earth

When Earth is no longer able to house living creatures, humans will need a new environment to inhabit. Space tourism companies are already looking toward building civilizations in outer space. In accordance, humans will need space wear that is able to support their bodies for long periods of time, therefore supporting life outside of Earth. NASA’s white spacesuits protect astronauts but are hard to move in and costly to manufacture. As designers, it is vital to envision different solutions for spacesuits because it will soon become our normal clothing. The importance of designing for future space travel for everyone may seem ridiculous and out of reach, but we can learn a lot through imagined scenarios and products that will be useful for the future of mankind. This project and thesis explores the needs and desires of a space suit for life outside of the Earth’s atmosphere

FE analysis on tube hydroforming of small diametr ZM21 magnesium alloy tube

Tube hydroforming (THF) is one of the plasticity processing methods. Tubular parts, for instance automotive components are expanded by forces such as internal pressure and axial compression in order to deform an objective shape. THF has less restriction on shape and size of workpieces owing to adopting the liquid tool. The demand of a small diameter magnesium alloy tubular parts have been increased for applying small medical and electronic devices. In this study, it was investigated that influence of process conditions such as processing temperature, internal pressure and axial feeding amount on formability of small diameter ZM21 magnesium alloy tube with outer diameter of 2.0mm and thickness of 0.20mm. Furthermore, the processing conditions for improving the formability of material in THF were examined. For prior evaluation of deformation characteristics in the warm THF of small diameter ZM21 magnesium alloy tube, a finite element (FE) simulation was conducted. The FE method (FEM) code was used LS-DYNA 3D for analysis of the FE model of the tube and the dies. The material characteristics were obtained by tensile test and fracture test. From FE analysis results, it was elucidated that effect of the processing temperature, the variable internal pressure and the axial feeding amount on deformation behavior. The formability of ZM21 magnesium alloy tube was improved by processing at 250 C. The difference of deformation characteristic between FE results and experimental results was compared. As the results, the processing condition which could improve the formability of ZM21 tube was clarified using this FE model. The effect of adding the straightening stage in the loading path after the preform on formability was investigated. The thinning of the wall thickness of the tube was inhibited by calibration after the axial feeding

Strength Development in Overmolded Structures

Overmolding of thermoplastic composites is a technology in which a thermoplastic composite is thermoformed and subsequently injection overmolded. Although the feasibility of the process is increasingly demonstrated, it is acknowledged that there is a lack of proper design tools that can be used for a right-the-first-time design strategy. Here, a modelling strategy is proposed for the prediction of the bond strength between a composite insert and an injected polymer. The development of the interface strength is affected by the process history as well, where the temperature and polymer chain mobility play an important role. In the model, the melting behavior of the polymer interface is described using the temperature evolution on the interface combined with experimentally determined polymer melting kinetics via flash differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Dedicated test geometries were developed and manufactured to evaluate the bond strength under different loading conditions. Short beam strength experiments were used to study the flow length dependency of the interface strength and were correlated with the predicted melting evolution on the interface. The outcome was critically reviewed leading to preliminary guidelines for design, materials and processing as well as routes to further mature this technology

Clinical Teaching Behavior Factors

Aims：Challenges of novice nursing educators are initiated when they begin to engage in clinical teaching, often due to lack of support from experienced colleagues. This study was aimed to identify the factors associated with clinical teaching behaviors of novice nurse educators of Diploma Nursing schools in western Japan. Method：Of ２３１ Diploma Nursing schools in Western Japan,９２ institutions（３９．８３％）agreed to participate. The study participants were １４４ novice nursing educators with less than five years of teaching experience. Anonymized self-administered questionnaires including the Scale of Other Educators’ Support（SOES）and organizational education, associated with the Scale of Clinical Teaching Behaviors（SCTB）were mailed to participants. The SOES factors of work and reflection supports, organizational education factors of information-sharing opportunity and mini-workshops were used to determine association with SCTB. The multiple regression analysis with stepwise method was used for SCTB. Results：Conducting to multivariate analysis, age（p =０．０１）, information-sharing among nursing educators（p =０．０４）, participation in mini-workshops on clinical practice（p =０．０４）, and work support（p =０．０３）were significantly associated with the improvement of SCTB. Then, reflection support was significantly associated with the deterioration of SCTB（p =０．０２）. Discussion：The work support meaning direct advice and guidance from other nursing educators can enhance the effectiveness for SCTB. The reflection support encouraged the novice nurses to reflect on their teaching behaviors, but only made them aware of problems to be solved, which lowered the SCTB. The information-sharing opportunity and mini-workshops might be effective opportunities to learn about teaching behaviors to increase the SCTB. Conclusion：The SOES and organizational education factors enhance teaching behaviors measured by SCTB among novice nursing educators. Therefore, in developing novice nursing educators, it is necessary to create opportunities indicating these factors for novice nursing educators to learn about practical training and to collaborate with other nursing educators

Accelerating Rate Calorimetry Tests of Lithium-Ion Cells Before and After Storage Degradation at High Temperature

Understanding the behavior of Li-ion cells during thermal runaway is critical to evaluate the safety of these energy storage devices under outstanding conditions. Li-ion cells possess a high energy density and are used to store and supply energy to many aerospace applications. Incidents related to the overheating or thermal runaway of these cells can cause catastrophic damages that could end up costly space missions; therefore, thermal studies of Li-ion cells are very important for ensuring safety and reliability of space missions. This work evaluates the thermal behavior of Li-ion cells before and after storage degradation at high temperature using accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) equipment to analyze the thermal behavior of Li-ion cells under adiabatic conditions. Onset temperature points of self-heating and thermal runaway reactions are obtained. The onset points are used to identify non-self-heating, self-heating and thermal runaway regions as a function of state of charge. The results obtained can be useful to develop accurate thermo-electrochemical models of Li-ion cells

PiggyBac Transposon-Mediated Mutagenesis in Rats Reveals a Crucial Role of Bbx in Growth and Male Fertility

Bobby sox homolog (Bbx) is an evolutionally conserved gene, but its biological function remains elusive. Here, we characterized defects of Bbx mutant rats that were created by PiggyBac-mediated insertional mutagenesis. Smaller body size and male infertility were the two major phenotypes of homozygous Bbx mutants. Bbx expression profile analysis showed that Bbx was more highly expressed in the testis and pituitary gland than in other organs. Histology and hormonal gene expression analysis of control and Bbx-null pituitary glands showed that loss of Bbx appeared to be dispensable for pituitary histogenesis and the expression of major hormones. BBX was localized in the nuclei of postmeiotic spermatids and Sertoli cells in wild-type testes, but absent in mutant testes. An increased presence of aberrant multinuclear giant cells and apoptotic cells was observed in mutant seminiferous tubules. TUNEL-positive cells costained with CREM (round spermatid marker), but not PLZF (spermatogonia marker), gammaH2Ax (meiotic spermatocyte marker), or GATA4 (Sertoli cell marker). Finally, there were drastically reduced numbers and motility of epididymal sperm from Bbx-null rats. These results suggest that loss of BBX induces apoptosis of postmeiotic spermatids and results in spermiogenesis defects and infertility

Brief Questioning by Nursing Staffs before Endoscopic Examination May Not Always Pick Up Clinical Symptoms of Endoscopic Reflux Esophagitis

The clinical features of patients reflux esophagitis without any symptoms have not been clearly demonstrated. This study evaluated the clinical features of patients with endoscopy-positive reflux esophagitis, who did not complain of symptoms, as detected by brief questioning by nursing staffs. Eight thousand and thirty-one patients not taking medication for gastrointestinal disease, were briefly asked about the presence of heartburn, dysphagia, odynophagia and acid regurgitation by nursing staffs before endoscopy for assessment of esophagitis utilizing the Los Angeles Classification. Endoscopically, 1199 (14.9%) patients were classified as positive for reflux esophagitis. The endoscope positive subjects who complain heartburn were 539/1199 (45.0%).The endoscope positive subjects who do not complain symptoms were 465 in 1199 positive reflux esophagitis (38.8%). We compared endoscopic positive subjects without any complain by brief question by nursing staffs to endoscopic positive subjects with heartburn. Male gender, no obesity, absence of hiatus hernia, and low-grade esophagitis were associated with endoscopy-positive patients who do not complain of symptoms. The results of this study indicated correct detection of clinical symptoms of reflux esophagitis might be not easy with brief questioning by nursing staffs before endoscopic examination

Automorphisms of Finite Order on Rational Surfaces

We classify minimal pairs (X, G) for smooth rational projective surface X and finite group G of automorphisms on X. We also determine the fixed locus X^G and the quotient surface Y = X/G as well as the fundamental group of the smooth part of Y. The realization of each pair is included. Mori's extremal ray theory and recent results of Alexeev and also Ambro on the existence of good anti-canonical divisors are used.Comment: with an Appendix by I. Dolgachev; to appear in Journal of Algebr

Del Pezzo surfaces with 1/3(1,1) points

We classify del Pezzo surfaces with 1/3(1,1) points in 29 qG-deformation families grouped into six unprojection cascades (this overlaps with work of Fujita and Yasutake), we tabulate their biregular invariants, we give good model constructions for surfaces in all families as degeneracy loci in rep quotient varieties and we prove that precisely 26 families admit qG-degenerations to toric surfaces. This work is part of a program to study mirror symmetry for orbifold del Pezzo surfaces.Comment: 42 pages. v2: model construction added of last remaining surface, minor corrections, minor changes to presentation, references adde