Technology Teacher: Navigating by Good Gyrations

This activity describes some simple, yet impressive gyroscopic demonstrations using only a bike wheel with a quick-release hub. Then, itIt explains both the angular momentum principle that tends to keep the wheel in a rigid plane and the effects of the external forces that create precession. And all without a single equation!No equations are used during the activity. Understanding the forces at work on a gyroscope will raise your students' consciousness of all kinds of devices and phenomena, from how and why a football, a rifle, and a Frisbee disk work to how an aircraft or a spacecraft can keep itself on course. Educational levels: Middle school, High school

Technology Teacher: Listening for Rings from Space

This activity introduces gravitational waves and the NASA technology being developed to detect them in space. It involves building a metaphorical interferometer that demonstrates how the mission (and all interferometry) works. Educational levels: Middle school, High school

Results of measurements of PM10 at a kerbside location in Breda, the Netherlands

De gemeente Breda heeft geconstateerd dat de meetwaarden van fijn stof (PM10) bij de Tilburgseweg te Breda hoog zijn in vergelijking met de andere meetpunten van het Landelijk Meetnet Luchtkwaliteit (LML) van het RIVM. Dit is zichtbaar in de lijst met geconstateerde overschrijdingsdagen zoals die continu wordt bijgehouden op de website van het LML. Op verzoek van de gemeente Breda heeft de provincie Noord-Brabant de fijnstofconcentraties in de periode van augustus tot en met oktober 2006 gemeten. In de periode augustus tot en met oktober 2006 heeft het RIVM eveneens fijnstofreferentiemetingen verricht. Uit de referentiemetingen volgt dat de metingen van het RIVM en de provincie Noord-Brabant met elkaar in overeenstemming zijn. De meetresultaten van de automatische metingen zijn in overeenstemming met de in Europa geldende kwaliteitscriteria. Uit het equivalentieonderzoek dat in 2006 door het LML heeft plaatsgevonden, volgt dat het aantal gerapporteerde overschrijdingsdagen van het meetstation aan de Tilburgseweg te Breda is aangepast.The Breda local authority has ascertained a higher concentration of particulate matter on the kerbside of the Tilburgseweg (a road running through Breda) than concentrations measured at other locations across the country. These measurements were performed by the Dutch National Air Monitoring Network of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), which observed the highest concentrations at a kerbside location in the city itself. On the request of the Breda local authorities, the provincial authorities measured the particulate matter concentrations (PM10) from September till October 2006. In the same period, RIVM's Laboratory for Environmental Monitoring performed measurements on particulate matter (PM10) using reference techniques from the European guideline. According to the reference measurements, the measurements done by RIVM (with uncertainties taken into consideration) and the province of Noord-Brabant turned out to be in agreement. The routine measurements performed were shown to satisfy the European quality criteria for PM10 measurement. Finally, judging from the 2006 validation and equivalence study, it was obvious that the reported number of days in which concentrations were exceeded at the kerbside location of the Tilburgseweg in Breda had been adjusted.Gemeente Bred

An easterly tip jet off Cape Farewell, Greenland. I: Aircraft observations

An easterly tip jet event off Cape Farewell, Greenland, is described and analysed in considerable detail. In Part I of this study (this paper) comprehensive aircraft-based observations are described, while in Part II of this study numerical simulations and a dynamical analysis are presented. The easterly tip jet of 21 February 2007 took place during the Greenland Flow Distortion experiment. It resulted through the interaction of a barotropic synoptic-scale low pressure system in the central North Atlantic and the high topography of southern Greenland. In situ observations reveal a jet core at the coast with peak winds of almost 50 m s-1, about 600–800 m above the sea surface, and of 30 m s-1 at 10 m. The depth of the jet increased with wind speed from ~1500 m to ~2500 m as the peak winds increased from 30 to 50 m s-1. The jet accelerated and curved anticyclonically as it reached Cape Farewell and the end of the barrier. The easterly tip jet was associated with a tongue of cold and dry air along the coast of southeast Greenland, general cloud cover to the east, and cloud streets to the south of Cape Farewell. Precipitation was observed during the low-level components of the flight. The very high wind speeds generated a highly turbulent atmospheric boundary layer and resulted in some of the highest surface wind stresses ever observed over the ocean

A family smoking cessation intervention for parents of children 0-18 months: a randomized controlled trial

Oral Session 23: 24-Health Promotion in the Community &19- Global Warning,Sustainable Earth and Health (English Session)Conference Theme: Empowerment for Healthy Settings - Healthy City and Community, Healthy School and University, Healthy Hospital and Healthy Workplace.Aim: This is a single-blinded, multi-site randomized controlled trial aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of a proactive multi-step theory-based family smoking cessation intervention delivered by smoking cessation nurses to non-smoking mothers and smoking fathers, to protect their infants from exposure to household second-hand smoke and to help the fathers quit smoking. Methods: A total of 24,315 families were screened at 22 Maternal Child Health Centres in 2008- 2010. 1,158 families with smoking father, non-smoking mother and an infant under 18-month were randomized into intervention and control groups. The intervention group received face-to-face and telephone counselling (mothers) on executing a complete household-no smoking policy and supporting their husbands to quit smoking; 3 telephone smoking cessation counselling sessions (fathers); an additional face-to-face family intervention session with NRT (if necessary); and a smoke-free kit with health education materials. The control group received a pamphlet about smokefree home (mothers) and a self-help smoking cessation pamphlet (fathers). All families were followed up at 6- and 12-month to assess the fathers’ smoking status, implementation of household smoking policy (mothers), role of mothers’ general self-efficacy to assist fathers quit smoking, change in marital relationship (both spouses), and the utilization of health services (infants) .....published_or_final_versio