The Evaluation of Composite Energy Absorbers for Use in UAM EVTOL Vehicle Impact Attenuation

The demand for new personal air-taxi services is leading to the development of lightweight Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles with electric propulsion for the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) industry. Manufacturers (OEMs) are considering many different designs to develop a vehicle that is able to take-off, cruise, and land autonomously with seating arrangements ranging between 2 and 15 passengers. It is unclear at present how the eventual market will mature; however, one of the common design characteristics noted by many of the OEMs is the use of advanced materials such as composites. A test and analysis program was initiated at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) in 2018 to evaluate the impact attenuation capabilities of various composite material systems with the goal of eventual implementation into an eVTOL vehicle. A series of 3-inch diameter by 6-inch length tubular specimens were fabricated from different material systems which included both traditional carbon and hybrid woven layers of fibers. Additionally, a subset of specimens were filled with closed-cell polyisocyanurate foam to help both with stabilization and crush response. The ultimate goal of the test program was to design a specimen capable of limiting the sustained crush acceleration to 20 g through a stable crush progression. After a series of material tests, these specimens were evaluated under both static and dynamic conditions for impact energy attenuation characteristics and crush stability. Additionally, a series of simulation models were developed in parallel to the test efforts. It is anticipated that the models developed using the component level test efforts can be used to help guide the development of a design for use in full-scale eVTOL vehicle applications

“We Need a Little More of This” Margaret Chase and Her Career at Cal Poly

In 1908, a woman by the name of Margaret Chase set foot on the Cal Poly campus. She was the epitome of a strong leader in her school and community. The respectability cast upon her by her peers has shown the influence she has given to the faculty and students. Chase represents a role model, whose story has not been told; however, it should be. The school motto of Cal Poly is “Learn By Doing” and Margaret Chase lived her life on those accords. The school expects every student to live and study by that motto, but Miss Chase shows that the faculty must as well

Knowledge of the World and the Act of Judging

In this lecture the author notes that in order for judges to be seen to dispense justice they must possess a developed understanding of the world. This has important implications for how judges are to be chosen as well as whether, and if so how they are to be trained. Judges appointed from the bar will likely have a greater knowledge of the world, while a more inclusive, open and diverse selection procedure will enhance the prospect that justice will be perceived to be done. Judicial training, in turn, may increase judge’s knowledge of the world, or at least the perception that justice is being done. Ultimately, knowledge of the world is a personal pursuit whose end lies in the ability to identify with the other – an instrumentally useful ability for a judge, and an inherently worthwhile activity for any person

Is Intellectual Property the Grit in the Wheels of Industry?

In this lecture the author argues that the system of granting a time-limited monopoly is a prudent means of obtaining disclosure of an invention. Yet the modern ramification of disclosure is the presence of a surfeit of information exacerbated by the globalization of commerce. The result is a marked increase in transaction costs. Transaction costs can be lessened to the extent that the scope of the right in question can be sharply delineated and the time-limit is not excessively generous. Unfortunately, the system of intellectual property rights currently in force ensures that there is a substantial amount of grit in the wheels of industry

Knowledge of the World and the Act of Judging

In this lecture the author notes that in order for judges to be seen to dispense justice they must possess a developed understanding of the world. This has important implications for how judges are to be chosen as well as whether, and if so how they are to be trained. Judges appointed from the bar will likely have a greater knowledge of the world, while a more inclusive, open and diverse selection procedure will enhance the prospect that justice will be perceived to be done. Judicial training, in turn, may increase judge’s knowledge of the world, or at least the perception that justice is being done. Ultimately, knowledge of the world is a personal pursuit whose end lies in the ability to identify with the other – an instrumentally useful ability for a judge, and an inherently worthwhile activity for any person

Future of Innovation in Medicine: Incentives for New Medical Treatments and Global Health

The Future of Innovation in Medicine Conference (“Conference”) proceedings contained in this Symposium Issue are about the problem of incentivizing research into new uses for established medicines. Putting the problem into the wider context of financing pharma research generally gives an important perspective

Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report

This report, written by Abt Associates and MDRC and published by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, finds that Reading First increased the amount of time that teachers spent on the five essential components of reading instruction, as defined by the National Reading Panel. While Reading First did not improve students' reading comprehension on average, there are some indications that some sites had impacts on both instruction and reading comprehension. An overview puts these interim findings in context

Using instructional logs to identify quality in educational settings

When attempting to identify educational settings that are most effective in improving student achievement, classroom process (that is, the way in which a teacher interacts with his or her students) is a key feature of interest. Unfortunately, high-quality assessment of the student-teacher interaction occurs all too infrequently, despite the critical role that understanding and measuring such processes can play in school improvement. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of two common approaches to studying these processes—direct classroom observation and annual surveys of teachers—and then describes the ways in which instructional logs can be used to overcome some of the limitations of these two approaches when gathering data on curriculum content and coverage. Classroom observations are expensive, require extensive training of raters to ensure consistency in the observations, and because of their expense generally cannot be conducted frequently enough to enable the researcher to generalize observational findings to the entire school year or illuminate the patterns of instructional change that occur across the school year. Annual surveys are less expensive but often suffer from self-report bias and the bias that occurs when teachers are asked to retrospectively report on their activities over the course of a single year. Instructional logs offer a valid, reliable, and relatively cost-effective alternative for collecting detailed information about classroom practice and can overcome some of the limitations of both observations and annual surveys.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62153/1/294_ftp.pd