Safety management of a complex R&D ground operating system

Report discusses safety program implementation for large R&D operating system. Analytical techniques are defined and suggested as tools for identifying potential hazards and determining means to effectively control or eliminate hazards

The Mysteries of your Blood

Did you know that your blood type can be useful for determining disease susceptibility and even creating a diet that works best for your personal metabolism? The Mysteries of your Blood is an article that delves into the science behind the ABO blood types and explains why your body can handle certain foods, stress, and illness differently than someone with a different blood type. It proposes a new, perplexing way to determine how to avoid certain health problems while at the same time offering suggestions of what to eat or, rather, what to avoid eating

Musical Writing

This essay explores three approaches to “musical writing” from a course called “Writing About Popular Music.” I designed the course with the help of Dr. Robert Ray while finishing my Ph.D. at the University of Florida and continued to develop it with the help of Li Wei of the music program at the University of Central Florida. Though this course offers standard approaches to music history, theory, and analysis, it also aims to produce new forms of writing about music that are themselves musical. To this end, the course explores how information is stored, organized, and processed in music, and it borrows and transforms these musical practices into writing practices.The course is framed around the following research questions:1. If music communicates information, what are the modes by which it does so? What are the processes by which we assign meaning to music?2. Are storage technologies (sheet music, the phonograph) necessary for music? 3. How do compositional strategies associated with music relate to writing in other disciplines? What is the relationship between the history of music and other histories? To address these questions, we take up theories about composition, performance, syncretism, propaganda, mass media, appropriation, and information technology to look at important music genres and their representative figures, such as jazz (Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller), big band (Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington), popular vocal (Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald), and rock (Elvis Presley, Little Richard). These musical genres/styles/individuals not only coincided at transitional moments in music technology (recording studios, radio, long-playing phonographs, television, digital and sampler), but also represent stylistic and conceptual contrasts manifested in the dichotomies of composition/improvisation, vocal/instrumental, rhythm/melody, original/copy, black/white, understate/virtuosity, and art/entertainment

Pulse - A Consultation

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. We may never know or understand what was in Mateen’s mind, but we can situate his attack within the history of eliminationism in America. Islamist terrorism is just part of a larger phenomenon: right wing eliminationism. But despite centuries of right wing eliminationist words and deeds in the U.S., there is little or no mainstream recognition of the phenomenon. Instead, we are treated to more denial, more distraction, more obfuscation. Until we look this problem squarely in the face, it will continue to metastasize. Unless we deal with right wing eliminationism, we will not transform the losses caused by Mateen’s attack on Pulse into lasting positive change. This exhibit is intended for an audience of people sympathetic to the victims who were killed and injured during the Pulse shooting. I do not intend to convince those who feel otherwise; they are probably beyond reach. My hope is that this work will find sympathetic people who have as yet been unable to properly diagnose the sick conditions that created Omar Mateen. If this work has any value, it is in its ability to give such sympathetic people the tools to diagnose the ideological and material conditions that created our current crisis as well as the tools to enact the personal, social, and political treatment necessary to ensure no such attacks happen again

Speaking Freely in a Time of War

Anti-speech advocates have made several arguments aimed at critics of the Iraq War. Many of these anti-speech arguments are enthymemes. If the purpose of these rhetors is to deceive others into accepting a weak claim, then enthymemes are ideal forms because they hide the weakest parts of the argument. By exposing their hidden premises, the parts that are implicit but left unstated, I demonstrate that the anti-speech arguments used against critics of the war are not sound. This essay examines the logos, ethos, and pathos in these anti-speech arguments

Rigorous Infidelity: Whole Text Sampling in the Curatorial Work of Henri Langlois, Dewey Phillips, and Jean-François Lyotard

John Rajchman asks, “In what ways have exhibitions, more than simple displays and confi gurations of objects, helped change ideas about art, intersecting at particular junctions with technical innovations, discursive shift s and larger kinds of philosophical investigations, thus forming part of these larger histories?” This essay attempts to answer his question by discussing curating as whole text sampling

Ariel - Volume 1 Number 3

Copyright 1969 Arie

Modeling the decline of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, 1989-1998: the importance of survival vs. recruitment

The Porcupine caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) herd increased from approximately 100 000 animals during the 1970s to 178 000 in 1989, then declined to 129 000 by 1998. Our objective was to model the dynamics of this herd and investigate the potential that lower calf recruitment, as was observed during 1991-1993, produced the observed population changes. A deterministic model was prepared using estimates of birth and survival rates that reproduced the pattern of population growth from 1971-1989. Then, parameters were changed to simulate effects of lower calf recruitment and adult survival. Reducing recruitment for 3 years caused an immediate reduction in population size, but the population began to recover in 5-6 years. Even a dramatic temporary reduction in recruitment did not explain the continuing decline after 1995. In contrast, a slight but persistent reduction in adult survival caused a decline that closely followed the observed pattern. This suggests that survival of adults, and perhaps calves, has declined since the late 1980s

Chemical Stability and Reaction Kinetics of Two Thiamine Salts (Thiamine Mononitrate and Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride) in Solution

Two types of thiamine (vitamin B1) salts, thiamine mononitrate (TMN) and thiamine chloride hydrochloride (TClHCl), are used to enrich and fortify food products. Both of these thiamine salt forms are sensitive to heat, alkali, oxygen, and radiation, but differences in stability between them have been noted. It was hypothesized that stability differences between the two thiamine salts could be explained by differences in solubility, solution pH, and activation energies for degradation. This study directly compared the stabilities of TMN and TClHCl in solution over time by documenting the impact of concentration and storage temperature on thiamine degradation and calculating reaction kinetics. Solutions were prepared containing five concentrations of each thiamine salt (1, 5, 10, 20, and 27 mg/mL), and three additional concentrations of TClHCl: 100, 300, and 500 mg/mL. Samples were stored at 25, 40, 60, 70, and 80 °C for up to 6 months. Degradation was quantified over time by high-performance liquid chromatography, and percent thiamine remaining was used to calculate reaction kinetics. First-order reaction kinetics were found for both TMN and TClHCl. TMN degraded significantly faster than TClHCl at all concentrations and temperatures. For example, in 27 mg/mL solutions after 5 days at 80 °C, only 32% of TMN remained compared to 94% of TClHCl. Activation energies and solution pHs were 21–25 kcal/mol and pH 5.36–6.96 for TMN and 21–32 kcal/mol and pH 1.12–3.59 for TClHCl. TClHCl degradation products had much greater sensory contributions than TMN degradation products, including intense color change and potent aromas, even with considerably less measured vitamin loss. Different peak patterns were present in HPLC chromatograms between TMN and TClHCl, indicating different degradation pathways and products. The stability of essential vitamins in foods is important, even more so when degradation contributes to sensory changes, and this study provides a direct comparison of the stability of the two thiamine salts used to fortify foods in environments relevant to the processing and shelf-life of many foods