The Non-thermal Radio Jet Toward the NGC 2264 Star Formation Region

We report sensitive VLA 3.6 cm radio observations toward the head of the Cone nebula in NGC 2264, made in 2006. The purpose of these observations was to study a non-thermal radio jet recently discovered, that appears to emanate from the head of the Cone nebula. The jet is highly polarized, with well-defined knots, and one-sided. The comparison of our images with 1995 archive data indicates no evidence of proper motions nor polarization changes. We find reliable flux density variations in only one knot, which we tentatively identify as the core of a quasar or radio galaxy. An extragalactic location seems to be the best explanation for this jet.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Advertising, Childhood Obesity and Violation of Human Rights to Adequate Food: An Analysis in the Light of Bioethics

The food industry, through advertising, has intensified the spread of obesogenic foods, a reality that may be a risk factor for the violation of children’s Human Right to Adequate Food (HRAF). In order to verify the influence of these advertisements in the violation of this right, from a bioethical perspective, Brazilian television channels were recorded, to subsequently analyze the nutritional composition of the food conveyed. Most of the foods found were of low nutritional quality, indicating interference in the guarantee of HRAF. Dialogue based on aspects such as human dignity, vulnerability, responsibility and the role of the State is necessary and should be used to promote the discussion of the theme and the development of policies that can guarantee the right to health

Contributions of wellness on student achievement and behavioral engagement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role that wellness plays in relation to previously identified variables that have been predictive of students who dropout. These variables include student engagement constructs such as academic achievement and behavioral tendencies in school. The study included 563 public school students in grade seven through nine

PERCEPTION INFLUENCED BY PHENOMENA: IDENTIFY CORE-SUBJECT TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION

The purpose of this study is to identify the perception influenced by phenomena impacting core-subject teacher perceptions of career technical education (CTE). Studies show that CTE is highly successful at preparing California’s students for college and career (Friedman, 2006). However, some educators see “CTE maintain less value in helping to encourage student success” (Shanklin, 2014, p. 3). The phenomenological study examined the perception influencing lived experiences with focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Core-subject teachers participated in these face-to-face interviews. Findings show that core-subject teachers are biased against CTE. Analysis of the survey results determined perception influenced by phenomena experienced by core-subject instructors included perfectionistic characteristics among parents, a society obsessed with outdoing the other person and very little evidence of educational reforms. The study asked questions to raise the teachers’ perceptions of the rigor and relevance in CTE, to identify support that teachers give students applying to CTE instead of college, and how do teachers support the integrated curriculum. Future results will see educational leaders and teachers improve the perception of CTE using new training. A policy change would allow English Language Learners exiting an English Language Development centered schedule on being eligible for CTE at any age. Essential to the future of CTE are (1) lengthening the school day to accommodate a more diversified schedule and (2) eliminating the requirement to stay in one industry sector for up to four years

NASA System Safety Handbook

System safety assessment is defined in NPR 8715.3C, NASA General Safety Program Requirements as a disciplined, systematic approach to the analysis of risks resulting from hazards that can affect humans, the environment, and mission assets. Achievement of the highest practicable degree of system safety is one of NASA's highest priorities. Traditionally, system safety assessment at NASA and elsewhere has focused on the application of a set of safety analysis tools to identify safety risks and formulate effective controls.1 Familiar tools used for this purpose include various forms of hazard analyses, failure modes and effects analyses, and probabilistic safety assessment (commonly also referred to as probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)). In the past, it has been assumed that to show that a system is safe, it is sufficient to provide assurance that the process for identifying the hazards has been as comprehensive as possible and that each identified hazard has one or more associated controls. The NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) has made several statements in its annual reports supporting a more holistic approach. In 2006, it recommended that "... a comprehensive risk assessment, communication and acceptance process be implemented to ensure that overall launch risk is considered in an integrated and consistent manner." In 2009, it advocated for "... a process for using a risk-informed design approach to produce a design that is optimally and sufficiently safe." As a rationale for the latter advocacy, it stated that "... the ASAP applauds switching to a performance-based approach because it emphasizes early risk identification to guide designs, thus enabling creative design approaches that might be more efficient, safer, or both." For purposes of this preface, it is worth mentioning three areas where the handbook emphasizes a more holistic type of thinking. First, the handbook takes the position that it is important to not just focus on risk on an individual basis but to consider measures of aggregate safety risk and to ensure wherever possible that there be quantitative measures for evaluating how effective the controls are in reducing these aggregate risks. The term aggregate risk, when used in this handbook, refers to the accumulation of risks from individual scenarios that lead to a shortfall in safety performance at a high level: e.g., an excessively high probability of loss of crew, loss of mission, planetary contamination, etc. Without aggregated quantitative measures such as these, it is not reasonable to expect that safety has been optimized with respect to other technical and programmatic objectives. At the same time, it is fully recognized that not all sources of risk are amenable to precise quantitative analysis and that the use of qualitative approaches and bounding estimates may be appropriate for those risk sources. Second, the handbook stresses the necessity of developing confidence that the controls derived for the purpose of achieving system safety not only handle risks that have been identified and properly characterized but also provide a general, more holistic means for protecting against unidentified or uncharacterized risks. For example, while it is not possible to be assured that all credible causes of risk have been identified, there are defenses that can provide protection against broad categories of risks and thereby increase the chances that individual causes are contained. Third, the handbook strives at all times to treat uncertainties as an integral aspect of risk and as a part of making decisions. The term "uncertainty" here does not refer to an actuarial type of data analysis, but rather to a characterization of our state of knowledge regarding results from logical and physical models that approximate reality. Uncertainty analysis finds how the output parameters of the models are related to plausible variations in the input parameters and in the modeling assumptions. The evaluation of unrtainties represents a method of probabilistic thinking wherein the analyst and decision makers recognize possible outcomes other than the outcome perceived to be "most likely." Without this type of analysis, it is not possible to determine the worth of an analysis product as a basis for making decisions related to safety and mission success. In line with these considerations the handbook does not take a hazard-analysis-centric approach to system safety. Hazard analysis remains a useful tool to facilitate brainstorming but does not substitute for a more holistic approach geared to a comprehensive identification and understanding of individual risk issues and their contributions to aggregate safety risks. The handbook strives to emphasize the importance of identifying the most critical scenarios that contribute to the risk of not meeting the agreed-upon safety objectives and requirements using all appropriate tools (including but not limited to hazard analysis). Thereafter, emphasis shifts to identifying the risk drivers that cause these scenarios to be critical and ensuring that there are controls directed toward preventing or mitigating the risk drivers. To address these and other areas, the handbook advocates a proactive, analytic-deliberative, risk-informed approach to system safety, enabling the integration of system safety activities with systems engineering and risk management processes. It emphasizes how one can systematically provide the necessary evidence to substantiate the claim that a system is safe to within an acceptable risk tolerance, and that safety has been achieved in a cost-effective manner. The methodology discussed in this handbook is part of a systems engineering process and is intended to be integral to the system safety practices being conducted by the NASA safety and mission assurance and systems engineering organizations. The handbook posits that to conclude that a system is adequately safe, it is necessary to consider a set of safety claims that derive from the safety objectives of the organization. The safety claims are developed from a hierarchy of safety objectives and are therefore hierarchical themselves. Assurance that all the claims are true within acceptable risk tolerance limits implies that all of the safety objectives have been satisfied, and therefore that the system is safe. The acceptable risk tolerance limits are provided by the authority who must make the decision whether or not to proceed to the next step in the life cycle. These tolerances are therefore referred to as the decision maker's risk tolerances. In general, the safety claims address two fundamental facets of safety: 1) whether required safety thresholds or goals have been achieved, and 2) whether the safety risk is as low as possible within reasonable impacts on cost, schedule, and performance. The latter facet includes consideration of controls that are collective in nature (i.e., apply generically to broad categories of risks) and thereby provide protection against unidentified or uncharacterized risks

Molecular Characterization of VIM Carbapenemases in the Arabian Peninsula

The emergence and global spread of carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae is alarming world-wide phenomenon that also affects the Middle East due to limited treatment options for such infections and their common association with high level of fatality. The most important mechanism of such resistance is caused by the production of various carbapenemase enzymes. In the Arabian Peninsula, so far, NDM and OXA48-like carbapenemases have been reported, while elsewhere other enzymes, e.g. VIM, IMP and KPC are also commonly found. Our aim was to systematically look for the VIM-type carbapenemases among local isolates and to characterize their genetic background. Initially, screening isolates from Abu Dhabi hospitals, we identified a single Enterobacter cloaceae strain carrying the VIM-4 allele. This was the first such isolate ever reported from the peninsula. Subsequently, investigating isolates from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE, we identified a further 11 isolates, one E. cloaceae from Saudi Arabia, two from Oman, one from Kuwait and also one Escherichia coli from this country. Besides these, the latter country also provided six Klebsiella pneumonia isolates. All strains produiced the VIM-4 variant of the enzyme as determined by the sequencing of their genes. In all cases, the gene was located on plasmids of varying sizes, either non-typable or belonging to the IncA/C group; most of them were conjugative and they commonly harbored other Β-lactamase genes, such as CTX-M or CMY-4. In all strains the VIM-4 gene was located within a class I integrin – with some variations between the gene casettes present – similar to strains previously identified in North Africa and Italy, suggesting the possibility of spread. Clonal typing revealed that the relatively high incidence of VIM-producer Enterobacteriaceae encountered in Kuwait was not due to the spread of a particular clone, but most probably was the result of the transfer of an IncA/C plasmid, co-harboring blaVIM-4 and blaCMY-4, into Klebsiella pneumonia and E. coli. Our data show that, beyond NDM and OXA-48-like, VIM type carbapenemases are the third most common isolates in the Arabian Peninsula. Further investigation is needed to monitor the spread of clones and genes in the region

Development of Multi-Scale, Multi-Physics, Analysis Capability and its Application to Novel Heat Exchanger Design and Optimizaiton

Heat exchanger development using enhanced heat transfer surface designs and optimization techniques is a continuing effort that is constrained by current state of the art technology. Assessment of novel geometries and concepts are currently limited to experimental and numerical investigations on discrete levels. This dissertation aims at the advancement of the heat exchanger technology through the development of multi-scale multi-physics simulation tools for conventional and novel heat exchanger designs. A unified heat exchanger design and optimization framework was developed. This framework integrates the multi-scale multi-physics simulation capabilities with previously developed approximation assisted optimization techniques. The optimized designs are then interpreted in order to provide design guidelines for next generation air-to-water heat exchangers. These capabilities required the development of: (a) generic ε − NTU solver capable of analyzing the performance under geometrical variability, (b) systematic integration approach for CFD simulation at the segment level with the ε − NTU solver at the heat exchanger level, (c) refrigerant distribution analysis tool. The developed simulation tools were verified numerically using systematic techniques adopted from literature and validated experimentally using measured data from a prototype heat exchanger. The structural integrity under conventional operating pressures of the novel heat exchanger design was analyzed using FEM for different tube materials and different wall thicknesses. Finally, existing single phase water flow in microtubes correlations were investigated numerically. The best matching correlation was selected for incorporation within the multi-scale simulation tool. The approach described in this dissertation for the design and optimization of novel and conventional heat exchanger designs resulted in significant improvements over the current state of the art. Example performance improvements achieved in this dissertation show potential for 84 percent material savings and 61 percent volume savings for the same airside and refrigerant side pressure drop. The experimental investigations were in good agreement with the simulation results and demonstrated the superior performance of the novel design