Plasma tests of sprayed coatings for rocket thrust chambers

Several plasma-sprayed coating systems were evaluated for structural stability in hydrogen plasma and in oxygen plasma mixed with hydrogen plasma. The principal test heat flux was 15 Btu per inch squared seconds. The system consisted of a number of thin 0.002 to 0.020 in. layers of metal oxides and/or metals. The principal materials included are molybdenum nichrome, alumina, and zirconia. The study identifies important factors in coating system fabrication and describes the durability of the coating systems in the test environments. Values of effective thermal conductivity for some of the systems are indicated

Youth and the future: effective youth services for the year 2015

This report provides an understanding of the services required by young people in the year 2015, based on a thorough analysis of recent trends and expert projections of those trends. The report analyses key social and economic changes for young people in Australia over the past 10 to 20 years including movements in population, education, employment/unemployment and the labour market, incomes, family and household structure, health, and crime and justice

Developments in the treatment for substance misuse offending

The drug treatment of offenders is a contentious issue steeped in political debate and clouded in media commentary about the rights of those who are estimated to commit up to half of the United Kingdom’s acquisitive crimes (HMG, 2008). The aim of this Chapter is to provide the reader with an overview of developments in the treatment for drug misuse offending. Initially, however, a general review of drugs and crime will be conducted. This will be followed by a background review of the development of treatment services in the United Kingdom and the second half of the chapter considers recent progress in treatments for drug misuse offenders

We are not the same: the experiences of Black women multicultural directors at predominantly white institutions

2021 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Although Black Women make up the largest group of racially minoritized administrators in the field of higher education (West, 2020), and are overwhelmingly employed in diversity related mid-level positions (i.e., Multicultural Directors), we know very little about their personal experiences in these roles. Unlike other colleagues who may be able to separate their work lives from their personal lives, Black Women Multicultural Directors exist in the inescapable position of having an everyday experience of the professional being personal. This qualitative study used Black Feminist Thought and Sista Circle Methodology (SCM) to explore and illuminate the lived experiences of Black Women Multicultural Directors at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs). Research themes were surmised under three theoretical constructs: (1) The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Role, (2) To Be a Black Woman Multicultural Director, and (3), The Secrets Behind Black Girl Magic that underscored four major implications:(1) Black Women Multicultural Directors experience a nuanced form of isolation in their roles, (2) Black Women Multicultural Directors who work at PWIs are doing work above and beyond their job descriptions in climates that continue to be oppressive, (3) Black Women did not feel comfortable bringing their "authentic selves" to the workplace, and (4) Black Women were not afraid to leave their institutions when departure was necessitated. The implications of this study highlight the need for PWIs to set Black Women Multicultural Directors up for success at PWIs by: providing them adequate resources and institutional support, being clear in their definition and expectation of Multicultural Directors, and working to change the campus climate to one that acknowledges DEI as the work of the campus, not just the Multicultural Office. To quote one of my sista colleagues who participated in the study, "I hope that by sharing our stories some aspiring Black Woman Multicultural Director can feel comfortable in their own truth and powerful in the role from the very beginning"

Benthic invertebrates that form habitat on deep banks off southern California, with special reference to deep sea coral

There is increasing interest in the potential impacts that fishing activities have on megafaunal benthic invertebrates occurring in continental shelf and slope ecosystems. We examined how the structure, size, and high-density aggregations of invertebrates provided structural relief for fishes in continental shelf and slope ecosystems off southern California. We made 112 dives in a submersible at 32−320 m water depth, surveying a variety of habitats from high-relief rock to flat sand and mud. Using quantitative video transect methods, we made 12,360 observations of 15 structure-form-ing invertebrate taxa and 521,898 individuals. We estimated size and incidence of epizoic animals on 9105 sponges, black corals, and gorgonians. Size variation among structure-form-ing invertebrates was significant and 90% of the individuals were <0.5 m high. Less than 1% of the observations of organisms actually sheltering in or located on invertebrates involved fishes. From the analysis of spatial associations between fishes and large invertebrates, six of 108 fish species were found more often adjacent to invertebrate colonies than the number of fish predicted by the fish-density data from transects. This finding indicates that there may be spatial associations that do not necessarily include physical contact with the sponges and corals. However, the median distances between these six fish species and the invertebrates were not particularly small (1.0−5.5 m). Thus, it is likely that these fishes and invertebrates are present together in the same habitats but that there is not necessarily a functional relationship between these groups of organisms. Regardless of their associations with fishes, these invertebrates provide structure and diversity for continental shelf ecosystems off southern California and certainly deserve the attention of scientists undertaking future conservation efforts

Absolute Efficiency Measurements of NE-213 ORGANIC Phosphors for Detecting 14.4 and 2.6 Mev Neutrons

Efficiency measurements of organic phosphor scintillator for detecting 14.4 and 2.6 MeV neutron

In silico karyotyping of chromosomally polymorphic malaria mosquitoes in the Anopheles gambiae complex

Chromosomal inversion polymorphisms play an important role in adaptation to environmental heterogeneities. For mosquito species in the Anopheles gambiae complex that are significant vectors of human malaria, paracentric inversion polymorphisms are abundant and are associated with ecologically and epidemiologically important phenotypes. Improved understanding of these traits relies on determining mosquito karyotype, which currently depends upon laborious cytogenetic methods whose application is limited both by the requirement for specialized expertise and for properly preserved adult females at specific gonotrophic stages. To overcome this limitation, we developed sets of tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) inside inversions whose biallelic genotype is strongly correlated with inversion genotype. We leveraged 1,347 fully sequenced An. gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii genomes in the Ag1000G database of natural variation. Beginning with principal components analysis (PCA) of population samples, applied to windows of the genome containing individual chromosomal rearrangements, we classified samples into three inversion genotypes, distinguishing homozygous inverted and homozygous uninverted groups by inclusion of the small subset of specimens in Ag1000G that are associated with cytogenetic metadata. We then assessed the correlation between candidate tag SNP genotypes and PCA-based inversion genotypes in our training sets, selecting those candidates with &gt;80% agreement. Our initial tests both in held-back validation samples from Ag1000G and in data independent of Ag1000G suggest that when used for in silico inversion genotyping of sequenced mosquitoes, these tags perform better than traditional cytogenetics, even for specimens where only a small subset of the tag SNPs can be successfully ascertained

A neural network account of memory replay and knowledge consolidation

Replay can consolidate memories through offline neural reactivation related to past experiences. Category knowledge is learned across multiple experiences, and its subsequent generalization is promoted by consolidation and replay during rest and sleep. However, aspects of replay are difficult to determine from neuroimaging studies. We provided insights into category knowledge replay by simulating these processes in a neural network which approximated the roles of the human ventral visual stream and hippocampus. Generative replay, akin to imagining new category instances, facilitated generalization to new experiences. Consolidation-related replay may therefore help to prepare us for the future as much as remember the past. Generative replay was more effective in later network layers functionally similar to the lateral occipital cortex than layers corresponding to early visual cortex, drawing a distinction between neural replay and its relevance to consolidation. Category replay was most beneficial for newly acquired knowledge, suggesting replay helps us adapt to changes in our environment. Finally, we present a novel mechanism for the observation that the brain selectively consolidates weaker information, namely a reinforcement learning process in which categories were replayed according to their contribution to network performance. This reinforces the idea of consolidation-related replay as an active rather than passive process