Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole: The Application of Traditional Rules of Law to Modern Technological Advancements in the Workplace

In the ever-changing technological environment, the transmission of information has become as simple and as quick as the click of a mouse or the touch of a button. However, the emergence and widespread use of computers, electronic mail, and the Internet in the workplace also has created challenges for employers, their attorneys, and the courts. Specifically, the courts are forced to apply traditional rules of law to modern technological advancements. The lack of symmetry between these two notions has created uncertainty for today’s employer. This Article discusses the impact of new technology on employment law, particularly in the areas of the discovery process, employer liability for employees’ electronic communications, and the attorney-client privilege

Measuring Diesel Fuel Consumption in a Laboratory Setting

Several improvements in diesel engines attribute from additional hardware and calibrations. To continue the improvement of diesel engines, it is necessary to study these increasingly complex systems with accuracy. Specifically, measuring engine fuel consumption requires a system that can account for any fluctuations in fuel properties (e.g., temperature and pressure) to yield accurate results. Current fuel consumption measurement systems on the market are accurate, however they are expensive. This research develops a more affordable design that is capable of measuring fuel consumption at equal accuracy. In this study, an older, retail fuel measurement system was used as a comparison with the newly designed fuel measurement system. A bill of materials was recorded during the building process. For precautionary measures, a controlled amount of water was run through the new measurement system to test safety and functionality. The new measurement system was then attached to a diesel engine, and fuel consumption was measured using the gravimetric method at controlled speeds/torques to test repeatability. Finally, fuel consumption was compared with previously acquired data from the old measurement system to test for accuracy. Results show the new measurement system is about 10 times cheaper than the old measurement system. The new measurement system has a repeatability error of 0.66%, while the old fuel measuring system has a repeatability error of 0.77%. By providing a more cost-effective product for engine testing, a larger range of researchers can conduct engine testing in a laboratory setting. This creates potential for further improvements to be made in diesel engines

Grain Boundary Loops in Graphene

Topological defects can affect the physical properties of graphene in unexpected ways. Harnessing their influence may lead to enhanced control of both material strength and electrical properties. Here we present a new class of topological defects in graphene composed of a rotating sequence of dislocations that close on themselves, forming grain boundary loops that either conserve the number of atoms in the hexagonal lattice or accommodate vacancy/interstitial reconstruction, while leaving no unsatisfied bonds. One grain boundary loop is observed as a "flower" pattern in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies of epitaxial graphene grown on SiC(0001). We show that the flower defect has the lowest energy per dislocation core of any known topological defect in graphene, providing a natural explanation for its growth via the coalescence of mobile dislocations.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Revised title; expanded; updated reference

Direct Laser Fabrication of a Gas Turbine Engine Component - Microstructure and Properties - Part I

This paper presents the development of a new technique for the production of abrasive turbine blade tips by direct laser processing. This superalloy cermet component is an integral part of the low pressure turbine sealing system in a demonstrator engine. Direct laser fabrication of this component fiom a bed a loose powder results in significant cost savings and improved performance over the currently employed production technique. The technology has been demonstrated by fabricating a prototype lot of 100 blade tips, which will be subjected to an engine test. This is the first instance of a direct fabrication method applied to the production of functional engine hardware. This research was funded by the United States Air Force contract F33615-94- C-2424 titled "Affordable Turbine Blade Tips".Mechanical Engineerin

A new search for interstellar C3

A new, very sensitive search for interstellar triatomic carbon has resulted in upper limits for a few diffuse clouds of order 1010 cm – 2, or about 10 – 11 with respect to hydrogen. These limits are consistent with recent cold diffuse cloud chemistry models, but may be in conflict with shocked cloud models such as those invoked to explain CH + abundances. Our results may also be argue against linear carbon-chain molecules as carriers of the diffuse interstellar bands

Predicting peculiar interstellar extinction from gaseous abundances

Molecular and atomic abundances are examined for 19 lines of sight through dense clouds, each with a peculiar selective extinction curve. The interstellar clouds in the present study appear to fall into two distinct categories: CN-rich, with relatively small amounts of neutral iron, or CN-poor, with large amounts of neutral iron. Lines of sight, having a CN/(Fe i) abundance ratio about two (~ 0.3 dex) or greater, are found to have a shallow (2.57 ± 0.55 mag) 2175 Å feature relative to the underlying extinction, while the strength of the bump is 3.60 ± 0.36 for the other dense clouds in the present study. The difference in the strength of the extinction bump between these two ensembles is 1.03 ± 0.23. Several atomic abundances are examined as potential indicators of peculiar extinction. Mn i abundances in particular are sought at 10 times greater sensitivity than previous studies because of a possible empirical connection between a small (Mn ii)/(Fe ii) abundance ratio and a weak 2175 Å bump reported in the literature. Unfortunately, the abundances of the neutral atoms do not appear to scale with the abundance of CN, reducing the effectiveness of Mn i as a diagnostic tool. Nevertheless, the Mn i upper limits in the present study support Mn being preferentially depleted. Fe i is underabundant relative to K i by 0.7 (dex) in the large (CN)/(Fe i) compared to the small (CN)/(Fe i) lines of sight. In addition, the data suggest that potassium is substantially depleted in both types of dense cloud

Predicting peculiar interstellar extinction from gaseous abundances

Molecular and atomic abundances are examined for 19 lines of sight through dense clouds, each with a peculiar selective extinction curve. The interstellar clouds in the present study appear to fall into two distinct categories: CN-rich, with relatively small amounts of neutral iron, or CN-poor, with large amounts of neutral iron. Lines of sight, having a CN/(Fe i) abundance ratio about two (~ 0.3 dex) or greater, are found to have a shallow (2.57 ± 0.55 mag) 2175 Å feature relative to the underlying extinction, while the strength of the bump is 3.60 ± 0.36 for the other dense clouds in the present study. The difference in the strength of the extinction bump between these two ensembles is 1.03 ± 0.23. Several atomic abundances are examined as potential indicators of peculiar extinction. Mn i abundances in particular are sought at 10 times greater sensitivity than previous studies because of a possible empirical connection between a small (Mn ii)/(Fe ii) abundance ratio and a weak 2175 Å bump reported in the literature. Unfortunately, the abundances of the neutral atoms do not appear to scale with the abundance of CN, reducing the effectiveness of Mn i as a diagnostic tool. Nevertheless, the Mn i upper limits in the present study support Mn being preferentially depleted. Fe i is underabundant relative to K i by 0.7 (dex) in the large (CN)/(Fe i) compared to the small (CN)/(Fe i) lines of sight. In addition, the data suggest that potassium is substantially depleted in both types of dense cloud