The suitability of various spacecraft for future space applications missions

The Space Applications Advisory Committee (SAAC) of NASA's Advisory Council was asked by the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications to consider the most suitable future means for accomplishing space application missions. To comply with this request, SAAC formed a Task Force whose report is contained in this document. In their considerations, the Task Force looked into the suitability of likely future spacecraft options for supporting various types of application mission payloads. These options encompass a permanent manned space station, the Space Shuttle operating in a sortie mode, unmanned platforms that integrate a wide variety of instruments or other devices, and smaller free fliers that accommodate at most a few functions. The Task Force also recognized that the various elements could be combined to form a larger space infrastructure. This report summarizes the results obtained by the Task Force. It describes the approach utilized, the findings and their analysis, and the conclusions

Effect of nutrition education and dairy group membership on nutrition knowledge, practices and diet quality for rural Kenyan farm women

The typical high-starch, low diversity diet in developing countries is associated withundernutrition, morbidity and mortality. Previous research with households inMukurwe-ini Division (Central Kenya) found that members of a community-baseddairy development group were more food secure and had higher intake of certainmicronutrients compared with non-members; however, the prevalence of inadequateintake of multiple micronutrients was high among all women. A nutrition educationintervention was developed to enhance women’s nutrition knowledge and food skills toultimately improve diet quality and micronutrient intakes for women and their families.In addition, it was proposed that the intervention effects would be greater for dairygroup members. The Mukurwe-ini study group consisted of 88 women in four dairymembership-duration categories (n=4 x 22) and non-member women (n=23). The studygroup was previously selected using chain referral sampling. For the intervention,women from each duration-group and non-member women were randomly allocated tointervention (n=55) and control (n=56) groups. Nutrition knowledge and dietary intake(24-hour recall) data were collected from all women over three weeks immediatelyprior to the intervention (baseline) and again, six months post-intervention, inindividual face-to-face interviews. The intervention encouraged food-based strategiesto improve intake of vitamin A, iron and zinc and was developed and delivered incollaboration with a Kenyan dietitian. WFood2 was used to compute food and nutrientintakes, dietary diversity and the phytate:zinc molar ratio. Descriptive statistics andlinear and logistic regressions analyses were performed using Stata10. Independent ofdairy-group membership, a larger proportion of intervention group women, comparedto control group women, had the targeted nutrition knowledge and practiced thestrategies to improve intake of vitamin A (76% vs 67%, respectively) and zinc and iron(soaked beans and maize 80% vs 13%; avoided tea with meals 67 % vs 5%,respectively). A positive effect of the intervention on dietary diversity was dependenton dairy-group membership status. Positive intervention effects on intake of vitamin Aand C were found for non-member women. This study provided evidence that certainintervention effects were dependent on poverty reduction and that all women were ableto make positive dietary changes when informed. There is a need to examine longertermimpacts of nutrition education interventions and to explore effective methods todisseminate nutrition information and food-based strategies.Key words: nutrition intervention, micronutrients, food-based strategy, rural, women,dairy, smallholder farme

Music Tagging Type Definitions: Systems for Music Representation and Retrieval.

The paper discusses the general issues surrounding structured music information representation and music information retrieval, and present the result of the UK-JISC funded “proof-of-concept” project: MuTaTeD! (C. Hall and C. Boehm, 2000) (Music Tagging Type Definition) and discuss further development within the UK Library Information Commission funded MuTaTeD'II project (C. Boehm and D. MacLellan, 2000). Work within the two projects MuTaTeD! and MuTaTeD'II, striving towards the design and implementation of an expandable, flexible music information retrieval system with delivery/access services for encoded music, has resulted in involvement in standards development such as MPEG7, to support the needs of developers within music information retrieval research

Tissue-specific regulatory elements in mammalian promoters

Transcription factor-binding sites and the cis-regulatory modules they compose are central determinants of gene expression. We previously showed that binding site motifs and modules in proximal promoters can be used to predict a significant portion of mammalian tissue-specific transcription. Here, we report on a systematic analysis of promoters controlling tissue-specific expression in heart, kidney, liver, pancreas, skeletal muscle, testis and CD4 T cells, for both human and mouse. We integrated multiple sources of expression data to compile sets of transcripts with strong evidence for tissue-specific regulation. The analysis of the promoters corresponding to these sets produced a catalog of predicted tissue-specific motifs and modules, and cis-regulatory elements. Predicted regulatory interactions are supported by statistical evidence, and provide a foundation for targeted experiments that will improve our understanding of tissue-specific regulatory networks. In a broader context, methods used to construct the catalog provide a model for the analysis of genomic regions that regulate differentially expressed genes

Helping education undergraduates to use appropriate criteria for evaluating accounts of motivation

The aim of the study was to compare students in a control group with those in a treatment group with respect to evaluative comments on psychological accounts of motivation. The treatment group systematically scrutinized the nature and interpretation of evidence that supported different accounts, and the assumptions, logic, coherence and clarity of accounts. Content analysis of 74 scripts (using three categories) showed that the control group students made more assertions than either evidential or evaluative points, whereas the treatment group used evaluative statements as often as they used assertion. The findings provide support for privileging activities that develop understanding of how knowledge might be contested, and suggest a need for further research on pedagogies to serve this end. The idea is considered that such understanding has a pivotal role in the development of critical thinking

Experienced tutors' deployment of thinking skills and what might be entailed in enhancing such skills

In the context of research that reports weaknesses in adults' critical thinking skills, the primary aim was to examine adults' use of critical thinking skills that are described in taxonomies and to identify areas for development. Position papers written by an opportunity sample of 32 experienced adult educators formed the data for a descriptive sample survey design intended to reveal participants' use of critical thinking skills. Each 6000-word paper was written during a development programme that supported such skills. A content analysis of the papers revealed that when participants drew on personal and published ideas about learning to derive their proposals for change, they accepted the ideas uncritically, thereby implying that they might find it difficult to help learners to examine ideas critically. The evidence supports research that implies that critical thinking skills are unlikely to develop unless overall course design privileges the development of epistemological understanding (King and Kitchener 1994, Kuhn 1999). A fundamental assumption underlying the study is that this understanding influences effective citizenship and personal development, as well as employability. A proposition that merits attention in future research is that the development of epistemological understanding is largely neglected in current curricula in formal post-16 education

Performance testing of radiobioassay laboratories: In vitro measurements (urinalysis): Final report

This report provides results of the two-round nationwide in vitro bioassay intercomparison study. Conclusions were based on analyses by 35 bioassay laboratories of nearly 1400 artificial urine samples containing known quantities of radionuclides. The test radionuclides were H, /sup 89/Sr, /sup 238/Pu, /sup 241/Am, /sup 137/Cs, /sup 60/Co, and natural uranium. The data reported included background count rates, total samples counts, counting times, counting efficiencies, sample yields, and estimated errrors of the determinations. The measurement data were evaluated according to statistical methods presented in the November 1985 version of the draft ANSI Standard N13.30. If a laboratory failed a performance test for any one of the three criteria, the laboratory was considered to have failed the test for that category. 22 refs., 18 figs., 14 tab