Medusa Magazine

Medusa Magazine is a student-run campus publication, co-founded by the author of this project and Samantha Lifson, a 2011 graduate of Syracuse University. The idea for the magazine came together over the summer and fall of 2009, with Medusa gaining official status as a Recognized Student Organization in the spring of 2010. The first issue was printed in April of 2010, and we have published two issues per semester since. The process of Medusa’s creation involved the drafting of our constitution as a student organization, numerous meetings with Bethany Piraino, our consultant within the Office of Student Activities, to ensure we met all the criteria to become a student organization, and application to the Student Association for the funding necessary to print. To create the format, which we have perpetuated in each subsequent issue, Samantha and this author worked very closely with Chloe O’Connor, our first design editor. We established coherent sections to the book, and set examples for things like the sex column, writing style for the features section, profile writing format, and photo/art spreads. We held numerous general interest meetings, and constantly recruited writers. We set an editorial process, which the staff follows consistently twice a semester to ensure the issues are printed on time and distributed to the student body efficiently. We also developed a style guide of general style rules for the publication, as well as a feminist style sheet, dictating the kind of politically correct language that should be used to discuss feminist issues in the publication. Medusa was founded to promote a feminist discussion on campus, and to bring into the public eye the outstanding achievements of women in their chosen career field. We feature art, poetry and opinions by female writers, and we allow column space to anyone with arguments to express. The publication was also founded to act as a critique of cultural norms, and to view and analyze current events and trends through a feminist lens

Efficient SmallSat Operation Using SciBox

Planning and commanding a space operation is inherently a very complex task requiring highly skilled operators from various disciplines coordinating in a timely manner to ensure both smooth and successful operation. This process can be performed manually, however, resolving conflicts quickly becomes an intensive iterative process that underuses a space system’s resources and renders it less responsive to sudden schedule changes. Increasingly complex space missions combined with the desire to maximize efficiency require a different approach. Responding to these challenges is SciBox, an autonomous planning and commanding system and a technology enabler for space operations, developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Since its development in 2001, SciBox has automated the processes of translating user requests into a series of satellite operations, searching for observation and data collection opportunities, scheduling required resources and contact with ground stations, generating command sequences to drive payloads and spacecraft, and validating the generated command sequences against operational health and safety constraints. Continual improvements to SciBox and to the SciBox development process through its application on a number of APL small sat missions will be discussed in this paper. The initial use of SciBox for small sat operations was on the ORS Tech 1 and ORS Tech 2 Multi-mission Bus Demonstration (MBD) program. This program required an easy-to-use, operational management system for use by a non-APL operations team. This instantiation of the SciBox was named S2Ops. With a user-friendly, graphics interface built, this version of SciBox was an ideal solution for the government operations team. For the CubeSat Signal Preprocessor Assessment and Test (CAT) mission, APL operates two 3U satellites, each hosting an industry-provided RF instrument, in low Earth orbit (LEO). APL operates the satellites using SciBox, which provides key features to autonomously manage satellite constellations. Given the limited operational resources and the desire to maximize the number of experiments performed, SciBox is an ideal solution for the CAT mission. SciBox reduces the lead time for operations planning by shortening the time-consuming coordination process, reduces cost by automating the labor-intensive processes of human-in-the-loop adjudication of operational priorities, reduces operations risk by systematically checking mission constraints, and maximizes data return by fully evaluating the trade space of experimental opportunities versus spacecraft recorder, downlink, scheduling, and orbital-geometry constraints. SciBox is also used on CAT to generate a command schedule that executes the following operations: South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) constraints, experiment configuration schedule, ground station contacts, delta-differential drag maneuvers, and flight safety constraints. Finally, the latest application of SciBox is to the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission, which studies the electric currents that play a crucial role in the interactions between Earth and the surrounding magnetosphere. EZIE consists of three 6U CubeSats flying in a pearls-on-a-string orbit configuration, each carrying a Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram (MEM) instrument. This mission will utilize the SciBox capabilities demonstrated on CAT, but also include enhanced features such as early spacecraft recovery by using the observed carrier frequency (or Doppler shift), and support the systems integration phase prior to launch

The Cubesat Assessment and Test (CAT) Program - Missions Operations Evolution

On January 31, 2019, the CubeSat Assessment and Test (CAT) mission deployed from the International Space Station (ISS). The primary objective of the CAT mission is to use two COTS 3U spacecraft to support a communications experiment. CAT completed its primary mission success objectives in two months and continues to collect mission data two years post-launch. After meeting the mission objectives, the focus shifted to increasing data return from the payloads on the two spacecraft with the CAT team working to evolve the mission to continue to maximize its payload data return. During its initial conception and design, the team at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), along with the spacecraft provider, Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) have performed a wide range of tasks to increase operational availability and provide more operational data. Early activities included APL management and oversight of the development of the two 3U spacecraft. During this period, APL selected the Innoflight SCR-100 radio to be used on the standard BCT XB1 bus to provide increased robustness, uplink and downlink hardware encryption, and an increased (2Mbps) downlink data rate. Early engineering choices included the decision to transition from the COSMOS-based BCT ground control system to the APL L3 InControl ground system. This provided the mission with a wealth of automated tools used by all APL-led operations, including an APL-developed automated planning and commanding technology called SciBox, as well as heritage ground scripts for “lights-out” operations via the APL Satellite Communications Facility (SCF). Post-deployment from the ISS, autonomous operations using both on-board functionality as well as autonomous ground operations, allowed the CAT operations team to continue to optimize data return by maximizing spacecraft and ground system “down time”. Most recently, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was used to augment the number of ground entry points to provide addition operational data and a new end to end capability with the usage of the AWS Cloud Data Platform. This paper discusses JHU/APL’s experience building, integrating, and operating this small sat mission as well as the operational approaches planned pre-launch and those developed post-launch for the CAT mission

Factors Associated with Resilience among MSW Students in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 continues to affect the general population, and its impact on MSW students is unknown. Therefore, this study aims to examine resilience, attachment, and other mental health constructs among MSW students during COVID-19. U.S. MSW program directors were emailed the electronic surveys to distribute to their MSW students. Authors evaluated the bivariate relationship between the variables and conducted a multiple hierarchical regression predicting resilience. The findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of resilience have lower levels of depression and PTSD. Finally, attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and self-efficacy were statistically significant predictors of resilience in the hierarchical regression. This study adds to the literature on how MSW students have been impacted by COVID-19 stressors and the role resilience, self-efficacy, and attachment styles have in terms of mental health outcomes during the pandemic. These results are important when considering interventions to assist MSW students during and after the pandemic, especially regarding stress reduction and student success

Wider-Opening Dewar Flasks for Cryogenic Storage

Dewar flasks have been proposed as containers for relatively long-term (25 days) storage of perishable scientific samples or other perishable objects at a temperature of 175 C. The refrigeration would be maintained through slow boiling of liquid nitrogen (LN2). For the purposes of the application for which these containers were proposed, (1) the neck openings of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Dewar flasks are too small for most NASA samples; (2) the round shapes of the COTS containers give rise to unacceptably low efficiency of packing in rectangular cargo compartments; and (3) the COTS containers include metal structures that are too thermally conductive, such that they cannot, without exceeding size and weight limits, hold enough LN2 for the required long-term-storage. In comparison with COTS Dewar flasks, the proposed containers would be rectangular, yet would satisfy the long-term storage requirement without exceeding size and weight limits; would have larger neck openings; and would have greater sample volumes, leading to a packing efficiency of about double the sample volume as a fraction of total volume. The proposed containers would be made partly of aerospace- type composite materials and would include vacuum walls, multilayer insulation, and aerogel insulation

Understanding the Mechanical Properties of Microalgae Using Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract From consumer productions to energy production, algae is used in many industrial processes. Understanding the mechanical behavior of algae is important to optimize these processes. To obtain a better understanding of algae cell response, we mechanically characterized single, dried Scenedesmus dimorphus cells. To accomplish this, we used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to image S. dimorphus cells, which enabled us to map the AFM measurements to a location on the individual cells. We were then able to perform force measurements on the AFM to determine the Young's modulus of S. dimorphus. These findings enable a more detailed understanding of the mechanical properties of a single S. dimorphus cell, which may be useful in many applications

Primary cutaneous peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified with mammalian target of rapamycin mutation: A novel finding for targeted treatment

Primary cutaneous peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (pcPTCL-NOS) is a rare, progressive, and often fatal disease with no specific treatment regimen that presents as rapidly enlarging plaques or nodules. Here, we present a case of progressive pcPTCL-NOS with mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) mutation and variable T-cell antigen expression. mTOR mutation in pcPTCL-NOS may represent a new therapeutic target