Feasibility study of storage concepts for Scout and other NASA solid propellant launch vehicles

Feasibility study of long term storing of Scout and other solid propellant launch vehicles in assembled, flightworthy configuration and facility requirement

SHARKS AREN’T THE ONLY FISH TO BE AFRAID OF… A Survey of Serranidae Species of Genus Aethaloperca, Anyperodon, Cephalopholis, Epinephelus, and Plectropomus on Chumbe Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania

A census as well as behavioral analysis of six grouper (Serranidae) species was conducted on Chumbe Island off the coast of Unguja, Zanzibar, Tanzania during October and November 2014. The six species were counted, divided into size classes, and behavioral notes were taken on the individuals observed on both the western drop-off of Chumbe Island’s reef as well as the back, shallower reef. Results showed that larger individuals, as well as species that grow larger, inhabit the deeper waters of the drop-off, while smaller species and juveniles inhabit the shallower back reef. The Brown Marbled (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) and Blacksaddled (Plectropomus laevis) Groupers were determined to be two of the largest fish on the reef, and the numbers of large E. fuscoguttatus are higher than originally believed, a sign of a healthy, complex ecosystem. Biomass of all species was determined to be 9.240g/m², highly concentrated at the drop-off of the fringing reef. Juvenile percentage of each species was determined, overall suggesting a high probability of success for future generations of these species. Active hunters were determined to be Peacock (Cephalopholis argus) and Redmouth (Aethaloperca rogaa) Groupers, while E. fuscoguttatus and Slender (Anyperodon leucogrammicus) Groupers spent most of their time concealing themselves in coral. Most of the species were found to have very specific habitats on the reef, especially the large individuals

Sustaining motivation for Japanese kanji learning: Can digital games help?

Made available with permission from the publisher.Educational digital games are often presented at Technology in Language Education conferences. The games are entertaining and are backed by research detailing how games can improve the learning experience through active critical learning, learner interaction, competition, challenge, and high learner motivation. The authors, inspired by such presentations, were interested in creating digital games to mitigate problems of demotivation in a beginner Japanese kanji (non-alphabetic script) class at Auckland University of Technology but found there was no body of research on digi-tal games for learning non-alphabetic scripts. This paper contributes to filling this gap by describing the creation of three digital games for kanji learning. Difficulties were experienced during the development of the games and these are described with reference to the divide, discussed in gaming literature, between the type of digital games being showcased at conferences and the reality for teachers wishing to emulate the practice by developing their own digital games. Questionnaire responses and the game-related journal entries of three cohorts of learners were analysed, and teacher reflections on the action research project were used to answer the questions “Should we be leaving this field to the experts?” and “Other than high-end multi-level curriculum-centred digital games, are there different gaming scenarios worth exploring?

Stabilization and precise calibration of a continuous-wave difference frequency spectrometer by use of a simple transfer cavity

A novel, simple, and inexpensive calibration scheme for a continuous-wave difference frequency spectrometer is presented, based on the stabilization of an open transfer cavity by locking onto the output of a polarization stabilized HeNe laser. High frequency, acoustic fluctuations of the transfer cavity length are compensated with a piezoelectric transducer mounted mirror, while long term drift in cavity length is controlled by thermal feedback. A single mode Ar+ laser, used with a single mode ring dye laser in the difference frequency generation of 2–4 µm light, is then locked onto a suitable fringe of this stable cavity, achieving a very small long term drift and furthermore reducing the free running Ar+ linewidth to about 1 MHz. The dye laser scan provides tunability in the difference frequency mixing process, and is calibrated by marker fringes with the same stable cavity. Due to the absolute stability of the marker cavity, precise frequency determination of near infrared molecular transitions is achieved via interpolation between these marker fringes. It is shown theoretically that the residual error of this scheme due to the dispersion of air in the transfer cavity is quite small, and experimentally that a frequency precision on the order of 1 MHz per hour is routinely obtained with respect to molecular transitions. Review of Scientific Instruments is copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics

‘Who Cares’: Reflections on the International-level Advocacy Work of the Unpaid Care Work Programme (2012–2015)

At the end of September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be launched. Building on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were officially established in 2000, the SDGs will potentially have 17 goals – one of which was explicitly absent from the MDGs: the unpaid care work of women and girls. The inclusion of unpaid care work in the final outcome document of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, which was made possible through the collective efforts of researchers, women’s rights organisations, activists and supportive policymakers, reveals just one of the ways in which unpaid care work is increasingly, albeit slowly, being recognised in development discourse, programmes and policies (United Nations General Assembly 2014b). In this Evidence Report we outline the global-level advocacy work undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and our partner, ActionAid International, over the course of a four-year programme to make care visible.UK Department for International Developmen

Edge instability in incompressible planar active fluids

Interfacial instability is highly relevant to many important biological processes. A key example arises in wound healing experiments, which observe that an epithelial layer with an initially straight edge does not heal uniformly. We consider the phenomenon in the context of active fluids. Improving upon the approximation used by Zimmermann, Basan, and Levine [Eur. Phys. J.: Spec. Top. 223, 1259 (2014)], we perform a linear stability analysis on a two-dimensional incompressible hydrodynamic model of an active fluid with an open interface. We categorize the stability of the model and find that for experimentally relevant parameters, fingering instability is always absent in this minimal model. Our results point to the crucial role of density variation in the fingering instability in tissue regeneration

What makes you not a Sikh? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Sikh values contrasted with or were shared by non-Sikh adolescents. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Sikh values was fielded in a sample of 364 non-Sikh schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Values where attitudes were least positive concerned Sikh duties/code of conduct, festivals, rituals, prayer Gurdwara attendance, listening to scripture recitation, the amrit initiation. Sikh values empathized with by non-Sikhs concerned family pride, charity, easy access to ordination and Gurdwaras, maintaining the five Ks, seeing God in all things, abstaining from meat and alcohol and belief in the stories of Guru Nanak. Further significant differences of attitude toward Sikhism were found in comparisons by sex, age and religious affiliation. Findings are applied to teaching Sikhism to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends the extension of values mapping to specifically Sikh populations

Lost Dunkirk

Lost Dunkirk The Lost Dunkirk project came out of a class called Digital History. Our main goal for this project was to digitize the history of some buildings of Dunkirk, NY and create a public Internet exhibit on Lost Dunkirk. In order to digitize the history of Dunkirk we used a website builder known as Omeka. We selected buildings that we felt had the most significance in a local perspective and we gave a brief history of each building that we chose. With each building’s history the group included pictures of the building from various perspectives and times. Each building had its own demise whether through local urban renewal and tear down, while others met their end through fire. Some of these buildings still stand today as a test of time but see a new purpose. Research for this project was done at the Dunkirk Historical Society as well as online and at the on campus archive. We spent hours going through many old newspapers and photographs to get the information we used. Through our research we discovered that each building had a significant place in the hearts of those from Dunkirk as well as some historical significance. The site that we built can be edited and is changing with new information being found