Marking parts to aid robot vision

The premarking of parts for subsequent identification by a robot vision system appears to be beneficial as an aid in the automation of certain tasks such as construction in space. A simple, color coded marking system is presented which allows a computer vision system to locate an object, calculate its orientation, and determine its identity. Such a system has the potential to operate accurately, and because the computer shape analysis problem has been simplified, it has the ability to operate in real time

Exposure of Tradescantia Microspores to Periodic Vibrations of 40-100 Hertz

Spherical chromosomal fragments determined in exposure of Tradescantia microspores to periodic vibration

Fabrication and evaluation of advanced titanium and composite structural panels

Advanced manufacturing methods for titanium and composite material structures are being developed and evaluated. The focus for the manufacturing effort is the fabrication of full-scale structural panels which replace an existing shear panel on the upper wing surface of the NASA YF-12 aircraft. The program involves design, fabrication, ground testing, and Mach 3 flight service of full-scale structural panels and laboratory testing of representative structural element specimens

Curved cap corrugated sheet

The report describes a structure for a strong, lightweight corrugated sheet. The sheet is planar or curved and includes a plurality of corrugation segments, each segment being comprised of a generally U-shaped corrugation with a part-cylindrical crown and cap strip, and straight side walls and with secondary corrugations oriented at right angles to said side walls. The cap strip is bonded to the crown and the longitudinal edge of said cap strip extends beyond edge at the intersection between said crown and said side walls. The high strength relative to weight of the structure makes it desirable for use in aircraft or spacecraft

NAVIGATING the Storm: High School Mathematics Teachers, the Common Core, College Readiness, and Quality Management Tools

AbstractClassroom teachers sit at the confluence of national and nationally-initiated state education policies that tie the standards of expected student success at each grade level to teacher effectiveness. However, many district-developed learning targets are loosly aligned with state standards. For high school mathematics teachers, this misalignment is further skewed by a mismatch with post-secondary mathematics placement exams. This research demonstrates how quality management tools and curriculum articulation strategies can help high school mathematics teachers prioritize these policy demands.Three major findings point to tools and policy changes to smooth a PK-16 curriculum sequence for students matriculating across disparate systems of learning

Federal Question Jurisdiction and the Federal Arbitration Act

The Federal Arbitration Act ( FAA ) gives signatories to an arbitration agreement the right to have that agreement specifically enforced. The FAA does not, however, confer federal subject matter jurisdiction. Absent federal jurisdiction, a party seeking enforcement under the FAA must sue in state court. State courts, however, are far more likely than federal courts to use state contract law doctrines to avoid enforcing arbitration agreements. This has led parties seeking enforcement to look for other ways into federal court. Some federal courts have found jurisdiction over enforcement actions when the underlying dispute involves a federal question, such as when an employer is seeking to enforce an arbitration agreement against an employee who has sued for employment discrimination under Title VII. These courts reason that the text and history of the FAA require courts to look through the dispute about enforceability to the underlying dispute. Other courts, however, have concluded that such a look through is inconsistent with the text and history of the FAA and with the well-pleaded complaint rule. Imre Szalai published an excellent article entitled The Federal Arbitration Act and the Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts on this issue in 2007, in which he argued that the courts should adopt the look through approach. We agree. Our Article nonetheless makes a unique contribution to the scholarly literature in three ways. First, our Article explains that the difficulty of choosing one approach over the other is exacerbated because the same interpretive tools can be marshaled in favor of each approach, and because the arguments made using each interpretive tool are not mutually exclusive. Second, our Article argues that the look-through approach is most consistent with the strong policy favoring arbitration that has been espoused by the Supreme Court for the last two decades. Third, because a very large number of federal circuits are evenly divided on this issue, it is important for courts to know that there is a scholarly consensus

Effects of soil nitrogen on diploid advantage in fireweed, Chamerion angustifolium (Onagraceae)

In many ecosystems, plant growth and reproduction are nitrogen limited. Current and predicted increases of global reactive nitrogen could alter the ecological and evolutionary trajectories of plant populations. Nitrogen is a major component of nucleic acids and cell structures, and it has been predicted that organisms with larger genomes should require more nitrogen for growth and reproduction and be more negatively affected by nitrogen scarcities than organisms with smaller genomes. In a greenhouse experiment, we tested this hypothesis by examining whether the amount of soil nitrogen supplied differentially influenced the performance (fitness, growth, and resource allocation strategies) of diploid and autotetraploid fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium). We found that soil nitrogen levels differentially impacted cytotype performance, and in general, diploids were favored under low nitrogen conditions, but this diploid advantage disappeared under nitrogen enrichment. Specifically, when nitrogen was scarce, diploids produced more seeds and allocated more biomass toward seed production relative to investment in plant biomass or total plant nitrogen than did tetraploids. As nitrogen supplied increased, such discrepancies between cytotypes disappeared. We also found that cytotype resource allocation strategies were differentially dependent on soil nitrogen, and that whereas diploids adopted resource allocation strategies that favored current season reproduction when nitrogen was limiting and future reproduction when nitrogen was more plentiful, tetraploids adopted resource allocation strategies that favored current season reproduction under nitrogen enrichment. Together these results suggest nitrogen enrichment could differentially affect cytotype performance, which could have implications for cytotypes’ ecological and evolutionary dynamics under a globally changing climate