Optimizing Energy Usage in a Solar-Powered Vehicle

The University of Missouri - Rolla (UMR) will be entering SUNRAYCE \u2793 and the World Solar Challenge and expects to excel in these solar-powered car races. Some of the factors involved in winning a race include efficiency, reliability, and high power. All of these are important considerations, but will be ineffective unless appropriately harnessed by a power management scheme appropriate to a race strategy. The power management scheme will be used to efficiently and effectively distribute available power to the car\u27s systems throughout a race day. My goal was to produce a software framework into which the specifications and performance models of the UMR car, Sol Survivor, can be inserted as they evolve. Data is taken from a telemetry system and processed to produce fuel gauges for the driver. As of yet, a final vehicle is not available, so the specifications are estimates based upon worst- case scenarios. Detail is added to the software model as work proceeds

Bureaucracy and Contracts of Adhesion

Under the political theory of the liberal state, there is no adequate traditional justification for contracts of adhesion. Professor Macneil seeks to locate their legitimacy in the nature of modern bureaucracy. He demonstrates how this mode of legitimation sets limits for government intervention. In his conclusion, Professor Macneil emphasizes the significance of his analysis for a fuller understanding of the validity and the complex operation of contracts of adhesion

Coping With the Subterranean Environment: A Thematic Content Analysis of the Narratives of Cave Explorers

In addition to various physical obstacles, the cave environment presents numerous psychological stressors that challenge human explorers. Sources of psychological stress include logistic issues (e.g., limitations to access, communication, and the availability of equipment), a lack of normal sensory stimuli, isolation and confinement, high performance demands, and social conflict associated with team coordination and requirements for cooperation. Thus, the success and safety of caving expeditions depend on the ability of explorers to effectively cope with highly stressful conditions and task demands. This was the first study to investigate coping within the context of caving and cave exploration. Utilizing scoring criteria from Suedfeld, Brcic, and Legkaia (2009), the narratives of 30 cave explorers were content analyzed for mentions of coping strategies across different expedition phases (pre-, during-, and postexpedition). Nationality and leadership status were also examined as potential moderators of coping. Narratives on the exploration of terrestrial, underwater, and terraqueous (i.e. sump-containing) caves were treated as unique conditions given marked differences in these forms of cave exploration. Consistent with previous research on groups performing in extreme and unusual environments, references to problem-focused coping strategies were, overall, more common than those to emotion-focused strategies. However, temporal analyses of coping across expedition phases showed that a more balanced coping orientation emerged post-expedition, with a significant difference in the use of problem-focused versus emotion-focused strategies no longer detectable. Significant effects of cave exploration type and nationality on the reference percentage of particular coping strategies were also detected. The relevance and implications of these findings are discussed, as well as limitations and directions for future research

Radial evolution of sunward strahl electrons in the inner heliosphere

The heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) exhibits local inversions, in which the field apparently “bends back” upon itself. Candidate mechanisms to produce these inversions include various configurations of upstream interchange reconnection; either in the heliosphere, or in the corona where the solar wind is formed. Explaining the source of these inversions, and how they evolve in time and space, is thus an important step towards explaining the origins of the solar wind. Inverted heliospheric magnetic field lines can be identified by the anomalous sunward (i.e. inward) streaming of the typically anti-sunward propagating, field aligned (or anti-aligned), beam of electrons known as the “strahl”. We test if the pitch angle distribution (PAD) properties of sunward-propagating strahl are different from those of outward strahl.We perform a statistical study of strahl observed by the Helios spacecraft, over heliocentric distances spanning ≈ 0.3 – 1 AU. We find that sunward strahl PADs are broader and less intense than their outward directed counterparts; particularly at distances 0.3 – 0.75 AU. This is consistent with sunward strahl being subject to additional, path-length dependent, scattering in comparison to outward strahl.We conclude that the longer and more variable path from the Sun to the spacecraft, along inverted magnetic field, leads to this additional scattering. The results also suggest that the relative importance of scattering along this additional path length drops off with heliocentric distance. These results can be explained by a relatively simple, constant-rate, scattering process

IPM Implementation Project - Continuing Using NEWA Internet Resources To Increase Use of Onion IPM

Growers on 5 onion farms received a review on how to access information from NEWA and they were assisted in incorporating NEWA disease and weather forecasts, as well as field scouting, into their crop protection decision-making process. The wet season and significant disease pressure were motivating factors in their use of the onion disease and weather forecasts. The Modified Blight Alert and the Michigan Botrytis Forecast numbers were impressive and the growers took the disease pressure seriously. One of the 5 growers never participated in an onion IPM program before