The Agent Orange Veteran Payment Program

This thesis discusses how to enhance the public discussion of moral and political questions. Enhancing public ‘deliberation’ is desirable since it provides citizens with influence, it enables coming to an understanding, and it ensures legitimacy. The concept of ethico-political judgment, with its two conditions, is elaborated on as an ideal that suggests how we should deliberate. In order to understand how we actually deliberate, an empirical inquiry into the public discourse on prenatal diagnosis and screening in the Netherlands and Sweden is conducted. On the basis of Kant’s ethics and his theory of the faculty of judgment, the two conditions for public deliberation are developed. These conditions are the giving of and asking for normative reasons as well as aiming at impartiality of judgment. Normative reasons are prescriptive, universal, and internal and these are related to Kant’s ethics. Impartiality is related to Kant’s ‘enlarged thought’, to think from the standpoint of others, as well as Kant’s practical philosophy. We need to think from the standpoints of others in order to consider whether or not the principle of our action applies to all. Four thematic foci in the public discourse on prenatal diagnosis are investigated – the unborn life, attitudes toward the disabled, implications of new choices, and the limits of medicine. The conclusion is that – if we wish to enhance public deliberation on the basis of the two conditions of ethico-political judgment – we should deal with both interpretive differences over universal principles (such as respect for autonomy and human dignity) and varying representations of ‘the other’ (such as the fetus, disabled persons, mothers-to-be, and future parents).I denna avhandling diskuteras hur offentlig diskussion kring moraliska och politiska frågor kan intensifieras. Att intensifiera offentlig diskussion är önskvärt för att ge medborgare inflytande, för att främja förståelse och för att skapa legitimitet. Begreppet etisk-politisk bedömning utvecklas som ett ideal för hur vi bör diskutera. För att undersöka hur vi faktiskt diskuterar görs en empirisk undersökning av det offentliga samtalet om fosterdiagnostik i Nederländerna och Sverige. Med utgångspunkt i Kants etik och hans teori om omdömesförmågan utvecklas två villkor för offentlig diskussion. Dessa villkor är att ge och efterfråga normativa skäl och att sträva efter opartiskhet av omdömesförmågan. Normativa skäl är preskriptiva, universella och interna. Begreppet utvecklas utifrån Kants etik. Opartiskhet baseras på Kants ’utvidgade tänkande’: att tänka utifrån andras perspektiv. Denna idé relateras till Kants praktiska filosofi. Det ’utvidgade tänkandet’ innebär att vi tar ställning till om principen som vi väljer för en handling gäller alla. Fyra teman i det offentliga samtalet om fosterdiagnostik analyseras – det ofödda livet, attityder gentemot handikappade, implikationer av nya val och den medicinska praktikens gränser. Slutsatsen är att om vi önskar intensifiera offentlig diskussion med utgångspunkt i de två villkor som utvecklas, bör vi ta itu med tolkningsskillnader när det gäller universella principer (som respekt för autonomi och människovärde) samt olika representationer av ’den andra’ (som fostret, handikappade, gravida kvinnor och blivande föräldrar)

High Spatial Resolution KAO Far-Infrared Observations of the Central Regions of Infrared-Bright Galaxies

We present new high spatial resolution Kuiper Airborne Observatory 50 micron and/or 100 micron data for 11 infrared-bright galaxies. We also tabulate previously published KAO data for 11 other galaxies, along with the IRAS data for the bulges of M 31 and M 81. We find that L(FIR)/L(B) and L(FIR)/L(H) correlate with CO (1 - 0) intensity and tau(100). Galaxies with optical or near-infrared signatures of OB stars in their central regions have higher values of I(CO) and tau(100), as well as higher far-infrared surface brightnesses and L(FIR)/L(B) and L(FIR)/L(H) ratios. L(FIR)/L(H(alpha)) does not correlate strongly with CO and tau(100). These results support a scenario in which OB stars dominate dust heating in the more active galaxies and older stars are important in quiescent bulges.Comment: 45 pages, to appear in Ap.J. vol. 468 (Sept. 1996). 17 postscript figures and 10 postscript tables available at ftp://ipac.caltech.edu/science/bsmith/ka

Infrared observations of OB star formation in NGC 6334

Infrared photometry and maps from 2 to 100 microns are presented for three of the principal far infrared sources in NGC 6334. Each region is powered by two or more very young stars. The distribution of dust and ionized gas is probably strongly affected by the presence of the embedded stars; one of the sources is a blister H II region, another has a bipolar structure, and the third exhibits asymmetric temperature structure. The presence of protostellar objects throughout the region suggests that star formation has occurred nearly simultaneously in the whole molecular cloud rather than having been triggered sequentially from within

Channel and active component abstractions for WSN programming - a language model with operating system support

To support the programming of Wireless Sensor Networks, a number of unconventional programming models have evolved, in particular the event-based model. These models are non-intuitive to programmers due to the introduction of unnecessary, non-intrinsic complexity. Component-based languages like Insense can eliminate much of this unnecessary complexity via the use of active components and synchronous channels. However, simply layering an Insense implementation over an existing event-based system, like TinyOS, while proving efficacy, is insufficiently space and time efficient for production use. The design and implementation of a new language-specific OS, InceOS, enables both space and time efficient programming of sensor networks using component-based languages like Insense

Planning for Space Station Freedom laboratory payload integration

Space Station Freedom is being developed to support extensive missions involving microgravity research and applications. Requirements for on-orbit payload integration and the simultaneous payload integration of multiple mission increments will provide the stimulus to develop new streamlined integration procedures in order to take advantage of the increased capabilities offered by Freedom. The United States Laboratory and its user accommodations are described. The process of integrating users' experiments and equipment into the United States Laboratory and the Pressurized Logistics Modules is described. This process includes the strategic and tactical phases of Space Station utilization planning. The support that the Work Package 01 Utilization office will provide to the users and hardware developers, in the form of Experiment Integration Engineers, early accommodation assessments, and physical integration of experiment equipment, is described. Plans for integrated payload analytical integration are also described

High spatial resolution studies of galaxies in the far IR: Observations with the KAO, and the promise of SOFIA

NASA, in collaboration with the West German Science Ministry (BMFT), plans a larger airborne telescope as a successor to the Kuipper Airborne Observatory (KAO) that will achieve these goals. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is entering the final stages of Phase B review with targeted new start early in the next decade. SOFIA is a 2.7 m diameter telescope that is carried in a Boeing 747SP. In addition to having 3 times the spatial resolution of the KAO, and 10 times the light gathering power, it will incorporate improvements over the KAO in lower optical emissivity and better telescope tracking stability. The thin primary mirror will equilibrate quickly to ambient temperature at an altitude which, accompanied by airflow improvements across the telescope cavity, will result in better image quality. The sensitivity of SOFIA will allow us to see a large number of typical bright galactic HII regions in local group galaxies. The spatial resolution of 8 seconds (full width half maximum Airy disk) at 100 microns will allow these regions to be measured independently, if they are distributed similarly to those in our own galaxy. At this spatial resolution, the disks of normal galaxies will be easily resolved out to distances of several hundred Mpc. This portion of space includes many of the superluminous galaxies discovered by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), and this spatial scale is relevant for studies of the morphology of regions of interaction among the majority of these galaxies that are members of colliding pairs