Aquifer thermal energy storage program

The purpose of the Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage Demonstration Program is to stimulate the interest of industry by demonstrating the feasibility of using a geological formation for seasonal thermal energy storage, thereby, reducing crude oil consumption, minimizing thermal pollution, and significantly reducing utility capital investments required to account for peak power requirements. This purpose will be served if several diverse projects can be operated which will demonstrate the technical, economic, environmental, and institutional feasibility of aquifer thermal energy storage systems

Multiple relaxations in temporal planning

CRIKEY is a planner that separates out the scheduling from the classical parts of temporal planning. This can be seen as a relaxation of the temporal information during the classical planning phase. Relaxations in planning are used to guide the search. However, the quality of the relaxation greatly affects the performance of the planner, and in some cases can lead the search into a dead end. This can happen whilst separating out the planning and scheduling problems, leading to the production of an unschedulable plan. CRIKEY can detect these cases and change the relaxation accordingly

National Water Resources Policy Issues

Syftet med mitt arbete är att undersöka vad elever i klass 7 och klass 8 som läser spanska som andra språk ser som motiverande för sina spanskstudier. Jag ville även titta närmare vad som kan skapa motivation hos eleverna. I min undersökning ville jag också undersöka vilka strategier lärare har för att öka elevernas motivation för att läsa spanska. Som metod valde jag att göra en enkätundersökning bland i elever som går i Åk 7 och Åk 8 på två kommunala skolor och två friskolor. Dessutom har jag intervjuat två undervisade spansklärare. Studien visade att lärarna har mycket stor betydelse för elevernas motivation och de beskriver att de blir mest motiverade av ha en rolig, trevlig och kompetent lärare. Men även arbetsmiljön är viktig, för att kunna koncentrerar sig på undervisningen under lektionerna. Lärarna beskriver också vilka aktiviteter och metoder de använder för att höja motivation hos eleverna. Lärarna pekar bland annat på att de försöker välja intressant material för att kunna göra effektiva och givande lektioner. Lärarna ser också att elevernas motivation höjs om de får vara med och välja material som de ska arbeta med

Building an Aging Advocacy Network: Findings from the New Hampshire Senior Leadership Series

Public policy related to senior issues has not kept pace with the changes called for by an aging population. Advocacy is an important part of the policy landscape as it promotes a united effort to create change and encourage legislative action. Effective advocacy helps inform and educate policy makers, allows individuals to have their voices heard, builds stronger communities, and allows people to live more fulfilling lives. However, policy makers are inundated with causes to support, and it is easy for certain populations or causes to be lost in this process. This has been especially true for advocacy efforts around the needs of an aging population. At the legislative level, the older adult advocacy network is disjointed, underrepresented, and drowned out by groups that have stronger, moreformidable advocacy networks. The lack of a strong grassroots advocacy network for older adults is of growing concern as our population ages. This is a particularly important issue in New Hampshire as we are one of the oldest states in the nation (US Census, 2014). This paper examines the lack of advocacy for senior issues in the Granite State and explores strategies that can be employed to grow grass-roots leadership among older adults. The New Hampshire Senior Leadership Series, a program that provides support and training in advocacy and leadership skills, is highlighted as a promising practice to address this need. The series educates seniors in leadership skills necessary to advocate for legislative and policy changes that promote healthy aging, livable communities, and options to allow seniors to live and age in the communities of their choice. In order to ensure that New Hampshire residents have access to services and supports as they age, advocacy and leadership is a critical need. To determine the value of the Senior Leadership Series, a survey was developed and distributed to all Senior Leadership Series graduates. The survey aimed to determine how effective the series was at preparing participants to be community leaders and advocates

Gas-phase formation of silicon carbides, oxides, and sulphides from atomic silicon ions

A systematic experimental study of the kinetics and mechanisms of the chemical reactions in the gas phase between ground-state Si(+)2p and a variety of astrophysical molecules. The aim of this study is to identify the reactions which trigger the formation of chemical bonds between silicon and carbon, oxygen and sulphur, and the chemical pathways which lead to further molecular growth. Such knowledge is valuable in the identification of new extraterrestrial silicon-bearing molecules and for an assessment of the gas-phase transition from atomic silicon to silicon carbide and silicate grain particles in carbon-rich and oxygen-rich astrophysical environments

Vibrational-Rotational Spectroscopy For Planetary Atmospheres, volume 1

Comprehensive information on the composition and dynamics of the varied planetary atmospheres is summarized. New observations resulted in new demands for supporting laboratory studies. Spectra observed from spacecraft used to interpret planetary atmospheric structure measurements, to aid in greenhouse and cloud physics calculations, and to plan future experiments are discussed. Current findings and new ideas of physicists, chemists, and planetry astronomers relating to the knowledge of the structure of things large and small, of planets and of molecules are summarized

SCOPe: Structural Classification of Proteins--extended, integrating SCOP and ASTRAL data and classification of new structures.

Structural Classification of Proteins-extended (SCOPe, http://scop.berkeley.edu) is a database of protein structural relationships that extends the SCOP database. SCOP is a manually curated ordering of domains from the majority of proteins of known structure in a hierarchy according to structural and evolutionary relationships. Development of the SCOP 1.x series concluded with SCOP 1.75. The ASTRAL compendium provides several databases and tools to aid in the analysis of the protein structures classified in SCOP, particularly through the use of their sequences. SCOPe extends version 1.75 of the SCOP database, using automated curation methods to classify many structures released since SCOP 1.75. We have rigorously benchmarked our automated methods to ensure that they are as accurate as manual curation, though there are many proteins to which our methods cannot be applied. SCOPe is also partially manually curated to correct some errors in SCOP. SCOPe aims to be backward compatible with SCOP, providing the same parseable files and a history of changes between all stable SCOP and SCOPe releases. SCOPe also incorporates and updates the ASTRAL database. The latest release of SCOPe, 2.03, contains 59 514 Protein Data Bank (PDB) entries, increasing the number of structures classified in SCOP by 55% and including more than 65% of the protein structures in the PDB