Application of NASA Technology to a Rapid Transit System

NASA has established a new program in technology utilization. It involves full time, on-site contact with the user and is presently being applied in the development of the Metropolitan Dade County (Florida) Rapid Transit System. The NASA Representative identifies technical problems while participating in daily activities and then draws on the agency\u27s expertise to assist in solutions. This paper presents a report on the results to date and expectations for the future

Safety and tolerability of bosentan in the management of pulmonary arterial hypertension

Endothelin receptor antagonism has emerged as an important therapeutic approach in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Bench to bedside scientific research has clearly shown that endothelin-1 (ET-1) is over-expressed in several forms of pulmonary vascular disease and plays an important pathogenetic role in the development and progression of PAH. Oral endothelin receptor antagonists (ERAs) have been shown to improve exercise capacity, functional status, pulmonary hemodynamics, and delay the time to clinical worsening in several randomized placebo-controlled trials. Bosentan, the first oral ERA, was approved in 2001 and since that time it has established a strong record of safety and efficacy in PAH. More recently, two additional ERAs, ambrisentan and sitaxsentan, have been approved for use. The objective of this review is to evaluate the available evidence supporting the efficacy, pharmacology, safety and tolerability, and patient-focused perspectives for bosentan, the first approved ERA for PAH. Ongoing and forthcoming randomized trials are also highlighted including the application of bosentan in combination with other PAH therapies

Successful Leadership in Rural Schools: Cultivating Collaboration

This article is a literature review of the professional competencies and personal qualities commonly associated with successful leadership in rural schools. Multiple definitions of the term rural are provided. A delimitation of this research is that findings reflect literature published from 2005–2015, positioning this document as a current analysis of rural leadership. A limitation of the article is that the research predominantly emanates from rural American, Canadian, and Australian settings, restricting a global application of results. The findings are represented via two overarching themes. Successful rural principals promote people focused relationships with staff, students, parents, and community members. Second, rural principals have the opportunity to be agents of change through balancing local and district policies and through enacting instructional leadership. At the root, both of these themes reveal the importance of rich collaboration with members of the school community. This research is pertinent to researchers, government leaders, policymakers, school leaders, teachers, parents, and community members interested in understanding and responding to the demands of rural schools

Consumption inequality and income uncertainty

This paper places the debate over using consumption or income in studies of inequality growth in a formal intertemporal setting. It highlights the importance of permanent and transitory income uncertainty in the evaluation of growth in consumption inequality. We derive conditions under which the growth of variances and covariances of income and consumption can be used to separately identify the growth in the variance of permanent and transitory income shocks. Household data from Britain for the period 1968-1992 are used to show a strong growth in transitory inequality toward the end of this period, while younger cohorts are shown to face significantly higher levels of permanent inequality

Searching for low mass objects around nearby dMe radio stars

Nearby M-dwarfs are best suited for searches of low mass companions. VLBI phase-referencing observations with sensitive telescopes are able to detect radio star flux-densities of tenths of mJy as well as to position the star on the sky with submilliarcsecond precision. We have initiated a long-term observational program, using EVN telescopes in combination with NASA DSN dishes, to revisit the kinematics of nearby, single M dwarfs. The precision of the astrometry allows us to search for possible companions with masses down to 1 Jupiter mass. In this contribution we report preliminary results of the first observation epochs, in which we could detect some of the radio stars included in our program.Comment: Proceedings of the 6th European VLBI Network Symposium, Ros E., Porcas R.W., Lobanov A.P., & Zensus J.A. (eds.), MPIfR, Bonn, Germany, p. 255-258 (2002). 4 pages, 3 figures, needs evn2002.cl

The Stac Fada “impact ejecta” layer: not what it seems

The Stac Fada Member (SFM) forms part of the Stoer Group of the Torridonian of NW Scotland. The SFM is unique in the Torridonian, being characterized by the presence of greenish altered glass clasts. Its origin has been debated for decades with several hypotheses being proposed but all invoking some connection with volcanic activity in the region. More recently, Amor et al. suggested that the SFM represents “a chord section through the continuous ejecta blanket surrounding an impact crater”. Here, we confirm the presence of shocked material within the SFM and then discuss its origin

The Venus Balloon Project

On June 11 and 15, 1985, two instrumental balloons were released from the Soviet VEGA 1 and VEGA 2 spacecraft and deployed in the atmosphere of Venus. The VEGA probes flew by the planet on their way to a rendezvous with comet Halley in March 1986. Drifting with the wind at altitudes of 54 km, the balloons traveled one-third of the way around the planet during their 46-hour lifetimes. Sensors on-board the gondolas made periodic measurements of pressure, temperature, vertical wind velocity, cloud particle density, ambient light level, and frequency of lightning. The data were transmitted to Earth and received at the Deep Space Network (DSN) 64-m stations and at several large antennas in the USSR. Approximately 95 percent of the telemetry data were successfully decoded at the DSN complexes and in the Soviet Union, and were provided to the international science team for analysis. Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data were acquired by 20 radio observatories around the world for the purpose of monitoring the Venus winds. The DSN 64-m subnet was part of a 15-station VLBI network organized by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France. In addition, five antennas of the Soviet network participated. VLBI data from the CNES network are currently being processed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

On the correlation functions of the domain wall six vertex model

We propose an (essentially combinatorial) approach to the correlation functions of the domain wall six vertex model. We reproduce the boundary 1-point function determinant expression of Bogoliubov, Pronko and Zvonarev, then use that as a building block to obtain analogous expressions for boundary 2-point functions. The latter can be used, at least in principle, to express more general boundary (and bulk) correlation functions as sums over (products of) determinants.Comment: LaTeX2e, requires eepic, 25 pages, including 29 figure