Failure environment analysis tool applications

Understanding risks and avoiding failure are daily concerns for the women and men of NASA. Although NASA's mission propels us to push the limits of technology, and though the risks are considerable, the NASA community has instilled within, the determination to preserve the integrity of the systems upon which our mission and, our employees lives and well-being depend. One of the ways this is being done is by expanding and improving the tools used to perform risk assessment. The Failure Environment Analysis Tool (FEAT) was developed to help engineers and analysts more thoroughly and reliably conduct risk assessment and failure analysis. FEAT accomplishes this by providing answers to questions regarding what might have caused a particular failure; or, conversely, what effect the occurrence of a failure might have on an entire system. Additionally, FEAT can determine what common causes could have resulted in other combinations of failures. FEAT will even help determine the vulnerability of a system to failures, in light of reduced capability. FEAT also is useful in training personnel who must develop an understanding of particular systems. FEAT facilitates training on system behavior, by providing an automated environment in which to conduct 'what-if' evaluation. These types of analyses make FEAT a valuable tool for engineers and operations personnel in the design, analysis, and operation of NASA space systems

The Effectiveness of Block Schedule in Middle School

Block scheduling in one form or another seems to be highly effective when properly used. It invites depth in learning, inquiry based and student based learning, which corresponds with Georgia Performance Standards (GPS). The faculty and staff of Veterans Memorial Middle School are planning to meet the needs of the students by changing their teaching methods to support the GPS and alternating 4X4 block schedule. The author would recommend any middle school use a block schedule of some type in order to meet the needs of their school. Once the teachers buy into the concept, there is no limit to how successful a school will be

What Is an Interruption? A Concept Analysis of Interruption During Nursing Medication Administration

Interruptions are ubiquitous in health care settings, particularly during the medication administration process. Interruptions are associated with negative effects, one of great concern being medication errors. A consistent definition of interruption has not been found in the health care literature which has created challenges in interpreting research findings and conducting further research with generalizable results. A concept analysis using Walker and Avant\u27s (2005) eight-step method was used to distinguish the concept of interruption from related terms, clearly define the concept. and develop a model of interruption during medication administration. The developed operational definition and model give clarity to the term interruption and can be adapted to apply to various settings and disciplines

Women in History - Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen was born in Bermersheim, Germany near Alzey in 1098 to the nobleman Hildebert von Bermersheim and his wife Mechthild, as their tenth and last child. Hildegard was brought by her parents to God as a tithe and determined for life in the Order. However, rather than choosing to enter their daughter formally as a child in a convent where she would be brought up to become a nun (a practice known as \u27oblation\u27), Hildegard\u27s parents had taken the more radical step of enclosing their daughter, apparently for life, in the cell of an anchoress, Jutta, attached to the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg (Flanagan, 1989, p. 3). Gossman\u27s analysis of Eibingen Benedictines Marianna Schrader and Adelgundis Fiihrkotter\u27s research, concluded that Hildegard saw light phenomena as early as the age of three, even before she could express herself about it, and all during childhood she had visionary impressions (p. 27). In early conversations with Jutta, Hildegard intimated that she knew she was different from those around her. At first, this was more unsettling than strengthening to her, as she was not yet able to justify her visionary gift with her calling, as she would as an adult (Waithe, 1989, p. 28)

Genocide and Genocide Prevention: Outlines Illustrated with the Tragedy in Rwanda 1994

The purpose of this study was to contribute to comparative research towards a theory of modern genocide and ways to prevent mass murder. Definitions, typologies, key elements, patterns, a comparison of the Holocaust with the Rwandan genocide, and preventative measures are included in the study

Combining Information to Answer Questions about Names and Categories

Children\u27s language and world knowledge grows explosively in the preschool years. One critical contributor to this growth is their developing ability to infer relations beyond those that have been directly taught or modeled. Categorization is one type of skill commonly taught in preschool in which inference is an important aspect. This study explored the development of specific types of inferences within a categorization relation: those among naming items and categories, selecting items based on their names and categories, and answering questions that relate names and categories. Children learned names and categories for a set of unfamiliar cartoon characters through one of two training protocols: (a) Listener training involved selecting a picture upon hearing an item name or category; (b) Expressive training involved saying an item name or category upon seeing a picture. Following training, we tested whether children derived several kinds of untrained responses. Those children who received Expressive training (saying names) completed tests of listener responses (selecting pictures); similarly, those children who received Listener training (selecting pictures) completed tests of expressive responses (saying names). Next, children answered oral questions in the absence of pictures. Results show that children receiving Expressive and Listener training produce naming and question answering responses at levels above chance. However, many children failed to answer all questions correctly. The Expressive group produced naming and question answering responses at significantly higher levels than the Listener group. This suggests that Listener training is a weaker form of instruction when the goal of instruction is the production of untrained responses. However, these results are tentative because unequal proportions of children completed each type of training. Finally, we examined the relationship between naming and question answering. Few children answered questions at a higher level than they produced names. This study shows that children learn to infer responses from both Listener and Expressive trainings. This study also suggests that naming and question answering responses are related responses. The current study highlights the need for later research on teaching inference skills such as naming and question answering to those who do not develop them in the absence of specific instruction

Upper Paleolithic Art: a Creative Teaching tool

Nerburn (1999) writes how the European-American attitude for dominance is now confronting its results by people being out of balance with the Earth. He states that the future of our planet depends on restoring that balance. This project addresses the social and environmental issues of concern that affect humanity and the Earth and offers possible solutions through education. This project will present prehistoric culture and its art for students\u27 enlightenment with the aim of impacting their consciousness so they may regain a social and environmental relationship with their community and with the Earth. A review of literature provides information about the Upper Paleolithic period and its art for reference. The goals for this project are to bring awareness to students, offer possible solutions for change, and help promote that change by creating a teaching tool of interest. This teaching tool will be in a PowerPoint presentation utilizing Upper Paleolithic art and narration to the images to share with students. The art expresses the ideas of fundamental values, the natural unity, the cosmic unity, and the emphasis on life Upper Paleolithic people seemed to experience. A discussion evaluating the presentation\u27s effectiveness concludes the project

Consensus Decision Making of Quality Improvement Teams: A Descriptive Study

This thesis reports on consensus decision making of quality improvement teams in the organizational setting. Specifically the study sought to determine whether a previously developed consensus instrument was a reliable and utilitarian measure of consensus. Analysis showed that the instrument was reliable, alpha = .9729, but its usefulness remains in question. Additionally, other research questions addressed the relationship between external expert stakeholders\u27 assessments of effectiveness and team members\u27 assessments as measured by the instrument. Analyses showed only minimal relationship. As an unanticipated result in three tests, a negative relationship was found between one rater\u27s rankings and a groups\u27 consensus levels as compared to other groups\u27 consensus levels. In tests of difference for sociodemographic variables, gender differences were found in the study, in that females consistently reported higher levels of consensus than their male peers. However, tests for the variables of age and title classification yielded no significant results

An investigation of solar panel thermal images collected from an unmanned aerial vehicle

As the population of the world continues to increase, so does energy consumption. At the same time, available fossil fuels continue to be depleted. Knowing these two facts, there is a need to find additional sources of energy. Photovoltaic panels (solar panels) are front and center of the renewable energy available options. Exploring the practical use of infrared thermal imaging for data collection and maintenance of photovoltaic panels is the main objective of this study. In this research, three unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights were completed to obtain thermal imaging of the Cedar Falls Utilities Solar Field with various dates and weather. The images obtained by the UAV show varying temperatures of solar panels. The comparison between the power output of the solar garden and the temperature of the panels themselves, did not show any significant correlation. The research opened up more questions and shows the need for more research on the topic of how to utilize drone and thermography technology to assist utility companies