Ethanol Plant Location Determinants and County Comparative Advantage

The location of ethanol plants is determined by infrastructure, product and input markets, fiscal attributes of local communities, and state and federal incentives. This empirical analysis uses probit regression along with spatial clustering methods to analyze investment activity of ethanol plants at the county level for the lower U.S. 48 states from 2000 to 2007. The availability of feedstock dominates the site selection decision. Other factors, such as access to navigable rivers or railroads, product markets, producer credit and excise tax exemptions, and methyl tertiary-butyl ether bans provided some counties with a comparative advantage in attracting ethanol plants.cluster analysis, comparative advantage, ethanol production, location model, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Political Economy, R1, R3,

An Experimental Investigation of Helicopter Rotor Hub Fairing Drag Characteristics

A study was done in the NASA 14- by 22-Foot Wind Tunnel at Langley Research Center on the parasite drag of different helicopter rotor hub fairings and pylons. Parametric studies of hub-fairing camber and diameter were conducted. The effect of hub fairing/pylon clearance on hub fairing/pylon mutual interference drag was examined in detail. Force and moment data are presented in tabular and graphical forms. The results indicate that hub fairings with a circular-arc upper surface and a flat lower surface yield maximum hub drag reduction; and clearance between the hub fairing and pylon induces high mutual-interference drag and diminishes the drag-reduction benefit obtained using a hub fairing with a flat lower surface. Test data show that symmetrical hub fairings with circular-arc surfaces generate 74 percent more interference drag than do cambered hub fairings with flat lower surfaces, at moderate negative angle of attack

The Influence of Enterprise Systems on Business and Information Technology

Business strategy is important to all organizations. Nearly all Fortune 500 firms are implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to improve the execution of their business strategy and to improve integration with its information technology (IT) strategy. Successful implementation of these multi-million dollar software systems are requiring new emphasis on change management and on Business and IT strategic alignment. This paper examines business and IT strategic alignment and seeks to explore whether an ERP implementation can drive business process reengineering and business and IT strategic alignment. An overview of business strategy and strategic alignment are followed by an analysis of ERP. The “As-Is/To-Be” process model is then presented and explained as a simple, but vital tool for improving business strategy, strategic alignment, and ERP implementation success

Towards a unified theory of intensional logic programming

AbstractIntensional Logic Programming is a new form of logic programming based on intensional logic and possible worlds semantics. Intensional logic allows us to use logic programming to specify nonterminating computations and to capture the dynamic aspects of certain problems in a natural and problem-oriented style. The meanings of formulas of an intensional first-order language are given according to intensional interpretations and to elements of a set of possible worlds. Neighborhood semantics is employed as an abstract formulation of the denotations of intensional operators. Then we investigate general properties of intensional operators such as universality, monotonicity, finitariness and conjunctivity. These properties are used as constraints on intensional logic programming systems. The model-theoretic and fixpoint semantics of intensional logic programs are developed in terms of least (minimum) intensional Herbrand models. We show in particular that our results apply to a number of intensional logic programming languages such as Chronolog proposed by Wadge and Templog by Abadi and Manna. We consider some elementary extensions to the theory and show that intensional logic program clauses can be used to define new intensional operators. Intensional logic programs with intensional operator definitions are regarded as metatheories

Turbulent transport mechanisms in oscillating bubble plumes

The detailed investigation of an unstable meandering bubble plume created in a 2-m-diameter vessel with a water depth of 1.5 m is reported for void fractions up to 4% and bubble size of the order of 2.5 mm. Simultaneous particle image velocity (PIV) measurements of bubble and liquid velocities and video recordings of the projection of the plume on two vertical perpendicular planes were produced in order to characterize the state of the plume by the location of its centreline and its equivalent diameter. The data were conditionally ensemble averaged using only PIV sets corresponding to plume states in a range as narrow as possible, separating the small-scale fluctuations of the flow from the large-scale motions, namely plume meandering and instantaneous cross-sectional area fluctuations. Meandering produces an apparent spreading of the average plume velocity and void fraction profiles that were shown to remain self-similar in the instantaneous plume cross-section. Differences between the true local time-average relative velocities and the difference of the averaged phase velocities were measured; the complex variation of the relative velocity was explained by the effects of passing vortices and by the fact that the bubbles do not reach an equilibrium velocity as they migrate radially, producing momentum exchanges between high- and low-velocity regions. Local entrainment effects decrease with larger plume diameters, contradicting the classical dependence of entrainment on the time-averaged plume diameter. Small plume diameters tend to trigger ‘entrainment eddies' that promote the inward-flow motion. The global turbulent kinetic energy was found to be dominated by the vertical stresses. Conditional averages according to the plume diameter showed that the large-scale motions did not affect the instantaneous turbulent kinetic energy distribution in the plume, suggesting that large scales and small scales are not correlated. With conditional averaging, meandering was a minor effect on the global kinetic energy and the Reynolds stresses. In contrast, plume diameter fluctuations produce a substantial effect on these quantitie

Health Care User Perspectives on Constructing, Contextualizing, and Co-Producing "Quality of Care"

Most of the research on health care user “quality of care” perspectives seeks discrete and measurable indicators to advance quality improvement (QI) goals. This lacks sufficiently grounded query about the meaning of “quality of care” for health users, and how context influences their ideas and experiences. We studied this between 2010 and 2011, repeatedly interviewing and shadowing 45 individuals in three of New York’s hospital-based outpatient HIV care settings during routine visits. We found participants using common terminology, but across the cohort meaning varied and employed personal narratives. Participants conveyed the impact of historic and current experiences of stigma and discrimination on limiting access to care, and showed its destabilizing effects on quality constructs. Participants also felt they contributed to their health care settings’ delivery of quality care. From our findings, we discuss the applicability and implications of “co-production” to conceptualize health care as jointly delivered by typical “givers” and “receivers” of care

Compaction and Chemical Grouting for Drain Tunnels in Phoenix

Ground runs during ml.m.ng of the Papago Freeway Drain Tunnels posed significant potential risk to utilities, street pavement, and buildings located above and adjacent to one of the three tunnel alignments. Ground response to the larger ground runs resulted in open chimneys and settlement of the ground surface of up to several feet. Modifications to the tunneling machine included addition of poling plates and breasting boards. Further modification to the tunneling method included use of compaction grouting in conjunction with mining for the entire length of one tunnel alignment, and use of chemical grouting to prestabilize the ground surrounding the tunnel opening in areas of high risk utilities and in areas where subsurface conditions suggested that running ground would be encountered during mining. This paper presents a summary of the ground behavior with and without the compaction and chemical grouting and describes the grouting methods

Energy distribution and cooling of a single atom in an optical tweezer

We investigate experimentally the energy distribution of a single rubidium atom trapped in a strongly focused dipole trap under various cooling regimes. Using two different methods to measure the mean energy of the atom, we show that the energy distribution of the radiatively cooled atom is close to thermal. We then demonstrate how to reduce the energy of the single atom, first by adiabatic cooling, and then by truncating the Boltzmann distribution of the single atom. This provides a non-deterministic way to prepare atoms at low microKelvin temperatures, close to the ground state of the trapping potential.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, published in PR

Life History of Paracoccus marginatus (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) on Four Host Plant Species Under Laboratory Conditions

Life history of the mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus Williams and Granara de Willink, on three ornamental plants [Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L., Acalypha wilkesiana (Muell.-Arg.), and Plumeria rubra L.] and one weed species (Parthenium hysterophorus L.) was studied under laboratory conditions. Mealybugs were able to develop, survive, and reproduce on all four hosts; however, there were differences in the life history parameters. Adult females that developed on acalypha and parthenium emerged ≈1 d earlier than those that developed on hibiscus and plumeria. Adult males had a longer developmental time on plumeria than on the other hosts. Survival of first- and second-instar nymphs and cumulative adult survival were lowest on plumeria. Longevity was not affected by hosts for males and females and averaged 2.3 ± 0.1 and 21.2 ± 0.1 d, respectively. On plumeria, 58.9 ± 1.7% of the adults were females, which was a higher female percentage than on the other hosts. No egg production occurred in virgin females. Prereproductive and reproductive periods of the females were not affected by hosts and averaged 6.3 ± 0.1 and 11.2 ± 0.1 d, respectively. Mean fecundity of 186.3 ± 1.8 eggs on plumeria was lower than on the other three plant species. Life history parameters of P. marginatus on hibiscus, acalypha, plumeria, and parthenium show its ability to develop, survive, and reproduce on a wide variety of plant species