A study to define an in-flight dynamics measurement and data applications program for space shuttle payloads

Data measurement and interpretation techniques were defined for application to the first few space shuttle flights, so that the dynamic environment could be sufficiently well established to be used to reduce the cost of future payloads through more efficient design and environmental test techniques. It was concluded that: (1) initial payloads must be given comprehensive instrumentation coverage to obtain detailed definition of acoustics, vibration, and interface loads, (2) analytical models of selected initial payloads must be developed and verified by modal surveys and flight measurements, (3) acoustic tests should be performed on initial payloads to establish realistic test criteria for components and experiments in order to minimize unrealistic failures and retest requirements, (4) permanent data banks should be set up to establish statistical confidence in the data to be used, (5) a more unified design/test specification philosophy is needed, (6) additional work is needed to establish a practical testing technique for simulation of vehicle transients

Viking dynamics experience with application to future payload design

Analytical and test techniques are discussed. Areas in which hindsight indicated erroneous, redundant, or unnecessarily severe design and test specifications are identified. Recommendations are made for improvements in the dynamic design and criteria philosophy, aimed at reducing costs for payloads

Analytical trade study of the STS payload environment

The current predicted acoustic environment for the shuttle orbiter payload bay will produce random vibration environments for payload components and subsystems which potentially will result in design, weight and cost penalties if means of protecting the payloads are not developed. Results are presented of a study to develop, through design and cost effectiveness trade studies, conceptual noise suppression device designs for space shuttle payloads. The impact of noise suppression on environmental levels and associated test costs, and on test philosophy for the various payload classes is considered with the ultimate goal of reducing payload test costs. Conclusions and recommendations are presented

Continuous sedation until death: The everyday moral reasoning of physicians, nurses and family caregivers in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium

Copyright © 2014 Raus et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Background - Continuous sedation is increasingly used as a way to relieve symptoms at the end of life. Current research indicates that some physicians, nurses, and relatives involved in this practice experience emotional and/or moral distress. This study aims to provide insight into what may influence how professional and/or family carers cope with such distress. Methods - This study is an international qualitative interview study involving interviews with physicians, nurses, and relatives of deceased patients in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium (the UNBIASED study) about a case of continuous sedation at the end of life they were recently involved in. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed by staying close to the data using open coding. Next, codes were combined into larger themes and categories of codes resulting in a four point scheme that captured all of the data. Finally, our findings were compared with others and explored in relation to theories in ethics and sociology. Results - The participants’ responses can be captured as different dimensions of ‘closeness’, i.e. the degree to which one feels connected or ‘close’ to a certain decision or event. We distinguished four types of ‘closeness’, namely emotional, physical, decisional, and causal. Using these four dimensions of ‘closeness’ it became possible to describe how physicians, nurses, and relatives experience their involvement in cases of continuous sedation until death. More specifically, it shined a light on the everyday moral reasoning employed by care providers and relatives in the context of continuous sedation, and how this affected the emotional impact of being involved in sedation, as well as the perception of their own moral responsibility. Conclusion - Findings from this study demonstrate that various factors are reported to influence the degree of closeness to continuous sedation (and thus the extent to which carers feel morally responsible), and that some of these factors help care providers and relatives to distinguish continuous sedation from euthanasia.The Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the Research Foundation Flanders (BE), the Flemish Cancer Association (BE), the Research Council of Ghent University (BE), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NL) and the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (NL)

General implementation of all possible positive-operator-value measurements of single photon polarization states

Positive Operator Value Measures (POVMs) are the most general class of quantum measurements. We propose a setup in which all possible POVMs of a single photon polarization state (corresponding to all possible sets of two-dimensional Kraus operators) can be implemented easily using linear optics elements. This method makes it possible to experimentally realize any projective orthogonal, projective non-orthogonal or non-projective sets of any number of POVM operators. Furthermore our implementation only requires vacuum ancillas, and is deterministic rather than probabilistic. Thus it realizes every POVM with the correct set of output states. We give the settings required to implement two different well-known non-orthogonal projective POVMs.Comment: 5 pages, newer version with minor addition

Investigation of the Concussion Goggle™ Education Program with Secondary School Athletic Teams: A Pilot Study

Background: Researchers have investigated different types of concussion education programs within various populations with mixed results. To date, no research has been published using the Concussion Goggles™ educational program Objective: To compare secondary school student-athletes’ knowledge about concussions before and after attending a concussion education program using the Concussion Goggles™. Design: Pre- posttest. Setting: Public secondary school. Patients or Other Participants: 41 secondary school students (14 girls soccer players, 14 boys basketball players, and 13 girls basketball players) with a mean age of 15.37 ± 1.22 years. Intervention(s): Participants completed the Concussion Goggles™ concussion educational program consisting of PowerPoint slides with 3 activities and short video segments within the presentation. Participants completed a test developed by the manufacturers of the Concussion Goggles™ educational program prior to and following the intervention to measure change in concussion knowledge. Main Outcome Measure(s): A 3-way mixed factorial analysis of variance (sport x grade level x gender) for repeated measures was utilized to determine statistical significance. Results: A statistically significant difference between the overall pretest (9.37 ± 1.20) and posttest (9.63 ± 1.04) scores was not found (p = 0.28). Repeated measures analysis did not indicate significant interaction effects for test score x grade (p = 0.18), test score x sport (p = 0.63), nor test score x grade x sport (p = 0.96). Conclusion: The Concussion Goggle™ education program did not affect participant knowledge of concussions in the posttest. In its current form, the Concussion Goggle™ program may not be an effective concussion education program. Word Count: 251 Key Words: concussion knowledge, concussion education, secondary school athlete

From respect to reburial: negotiating pagan interest in prehistoric human remains in Britain, through the Avebury consultation

The recent Avebury Consultation on reburial has drawn considerable public and professional attention to the issue of pagan calls for respect towards the care of human remains. Our work has pointed to the importance of archaeologists and others engaging seriously and respectfully with pagans as significant stakeholders in our heritage. The Avebury Reburial Consultation suggests this dialogue is increasing in strength, but we identify problems in the process. We focus here on approaches to the prehistoric dead and worldviews enabling communication from which calls or ‘claims’ for the reburial of prehistoric pagan human remains, versus their retention for scientific study, are articulated; frameworks for assessing and adjudicating such ‘claims’; and implications for the interest groups concerned. We argue that room must be made for philosophical debate and the emotional and spiritual views of pagans, in order to improve dialogue, develop common ground, and enable participatory decision-making and situational pragmatism

Microscopic mechanism for mechanical polishing of diamond (110) surfaces

Mechanically induced degradation of diamond, as occurs during polishing, is studied using total--energy pseudopotential calculations. The strong asymmetry in the rate of polishing between different directions on the diamond (110) surface is explained in terms of an atomistic mechanism for nano--groove formation. The post--polishing surface morphology and the nature of the polishing residue predicted by this mechanism are consistent with experimental evidence.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Finite Projective Spaces, Geometric Spreads of Lines and Multi-Qubits

Given a (2N - 1)-dimensional projective space over GF(2), PG(2N - 1, 2), and its geometric spread of lines, there exists a remarkable mapping of this space onto PG(N - 1, 4) where the lines of the spread correspond to the points and subspaces spanned by pairs of lines to the lines of PG(N - 1, 4). Under such mapping, a non-degenerate quadric surface of the former space has for its image a non-singular Hermitian variety in the latter space, this quadric being {\it hyperbolic} or {\it elliptic} in dependence on N being {\it even} or {\it odd}, respectively. We employ this property to show that generalized Pauli groups of N-qubits also form two distinct families according to the parity of N and to put the role of symmetric operators into a new perspective. The N=4 case is taken to illustrate the issue.Comment: 3 pages, no figures/tables; V2 - short introductory paragraph added; V3 - to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.