Rubber composition compatible with hydrazine

Formulation improves compatibility of butyl rubbers with hydrazine while reducing permeation to low levels necessary for prolonged storage in space. This is accomplished by replacing carbon-black filler with inert materials such as hydrated silica or clay. Pressure increases suggest that hydrazine is decomposed only slightly by new type of rubber

Flight and experimental expulsion bladders for Mariner 69 Final report

Synthetic rubber polymer compounds and fabrication of hydrazine expulsion bladders for Mariner 6

Rubber compositions for hydrazine service

Forty-three compounds were formulated and tested for physical properties and hydrazine compatibility. Variables introduced include silicon dioxide filler loading level and particle size. Both butyl and ethylene-propylene rubbers were employed as well as various vulcanization systems. The data showed that compounds containing butyl and butyl blended with ethylene propylene could not be distinguished from ethylene propylene alone as far as chemical properties were concerned. A trend noted was that a filler level with higher silicon dioxide loading exhibited better hydrazine compatibility. Particle size variation did not show any consistent trends. Any of the vulcanization systems employed appeared to be satisfactory. A refined technique for dissolving aluminum cores from EPT-10 bladders was also tested

Non-random inversion landscapes in prokaryotic genomes are shaped by heterogeneous selection pressures

Inversions are a major contributor to structural genome evolution in prokaryotes. Here, using a novel alignment-based method, we systematically compare 1,651 bacterial and 98 archaeal genomes to show that inversion landscapes are frequently biased toward (symmetric) inversions around the origin–terminus axis. However, symmetric inversion bias is not a universal feature of prokaryotic genome evolution but varies considerably across clades. At the extremes, inversion landscapes in Bacillus–Clostridium and Actinobacteria are dominated by symmetric inversions, while there is little or no systematic bias favoring symmetric rearrangements in archaea with a single origin of replication. Within clades, we find strong but clade-specific relationships between symmetric inversion bias and different features of adaptive genome architecture, including the distance of essential genes to the origin of replication and the preferential localization of genes on the leading strand. We suggest that heterogeneous selection pressures have converged to produce similar patterns of structural genome evolution across prokaryotes

Experimental evaluation of the Battelle accelerated test design for the solar array at Mead, Nebraska

A previously developed test design for accelerated aging of photovoltaic modules was experimentally evaluated. The studies included a review of relevant field experience, environmental chamber cycling of full size modules, and electrical and physical evaluation of the effects of accelerated aging during and after the tests. The test results indicated that thermally induced fatigue of the interconnects was the primary mode of module failure as measured by normalized power output. No chemical change in the silicone encapsulant was detectable after 360 test cycles

On the interplay of local versus global environmental and economic performance of Swiss alpine dairy farms

This cumulative dissertation consists of a general introduction (Chapter 1), three scientific papers (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) and a general conclusion (Chapter 5). The first peer-reviewed paper presented in Chapter 2 is of a conceptual nature. Based on a comprehensive and systematic review of the farm-level environmental performance indicators found in scientific literature, it shows that several of these indicators are inconsistently defined and inappropriate for the purpose of farm environmental performance assessment. This is due to the lack of conceptual considerations behind their definition. In the second step, starting from the environmental sustainability concept at macro level, the paper develops conceptual considerations on how to implement this concept at farm level into theoretically sound and consistent indicators of farm environmental performance. Based on the environmental sustainability concept viewed from an ecological perspective and on the associated ecosystems carrying capacity (constraint) concept, it distinguishes between the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem and that of the local ecosystem. Relying on this distinction, it proposes to differentiate between the global and local environmental performance of a farm. Whereas farm global environmental performance relates the cradle-to-farm gate (i.e. off- and on-farm) environmental impacts to the biophysical farm output, farm local environmental performance focuses on local on-farm environmental impact generation and relates it to the local on-farm area. The second peer-reviewed paper (Chapter 3) consists in an empirical application of the framework developed in Chapter 2. This application was carried out for a sample of 56 Swiss dairy farms, for which very detailed and comprehensive cradle-to-farm gate life cycle assessments (LCAs) were conducted. Farm global environmental performance was assessed as the farm digestible energy output for humans per unit of cradle-to-farm gate environmental impact. Farm local environmental performance was measured by the on-farm land area per unit of on-farm environmental impact. The paper investigates the relationships within the environmental performance dimension (i.e. between farm global and local environmental performance), and between the environmental and economic performance dimensions. The results showed the complexity of the relationships between farm global and local environmental performance. Trade-offs occurred more frequently than synergies, implying that an improvement in farm global environmental performance regarding one environmental issue will likely lead to a deterioration in farm local environmental performance regarding at least one other issue, and vice versa. These trade-offs highlight the challenging and complex nature of the improvement of the environmental sustainability of farming and provide clear evidence that farm environmental performance cannot and should not be reduced to a single one size fits all indicator. Our work furthermore showed the existence of synergies between farm global environmental and economic performance. The third peer-reviewed paper (Chapter 4) relies on the same dataset as used in Chapter 3. It investigates different structural, farm management, socio-demographic, technological and natural-environment-related determinants of the economic and environmental performance of dairying. It aims to identify the factors with the potential to simultaneously improve farm global environmental, local environmental and economic performance. The results revealed the existence of some factors presenting synergies and several factors showing trade-offs in the enhancement of these three dimensions of the sustainable performance of a farm. Organic farming, higher agricultural education level of the farm manager, the production of silage-free milk, and also, however to a weaker extent, full-time farming, larger farm size and a lower intensity of cattle concentrates use were identified as factors that allow global environmental, local environmental and economic performance to be improved simultaneously. More generally, the promotion of farm global environmental performance and farm economic performance was shown to be synergetic whereas the enhancement of farm global and local environmental performance turned out to be mostly antinomic. The core implications and related recommendations derived from the findings of this work are twofold. First, the conceptually correct measurement of farm environmental performance imperatively requires (i) the separate implementation of global and local environmental performance indicators as proposed in the framework and (ii) the consideration of both global and local dimensions to avoid environmental problem shifting from local to global scale and vice versa. This is especially necessary as the empirical application for Swiss alpine dairy farming found several trade-offs between farm global and local environmental performance. This empirical finding has far-reaching implications, especially if it is to be confirmed for other types of farms and other countries. The second core finding of this dissertation relates to the possibilities for improving the environmental and economic sustainability of Swiss alpine dairy farming. This work showed that there are some factors, namely organic farming, higher agricultural education level of the farm manager, the production of silage-free milk, and also, however to a weaker extent, lower intensity of concentrates use, larger farm size and full-time farming, which allow farm global environmental, local environmental and economic performance to be improved simultaneously.Diese kumulative Dissertation besteht aus einer allgemeinen Einführung (Kapitel 1), drei Veröffentlichungen in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften (Kapitel 2, 3 und 4) sowie einer allgemeinen Schlussfolgerung (Kapitel 5). Der in Kapitel 2 vorgestellte erste peer-revidierte Artikel ist konzeptioneller Art. Er bietet einen umfassenden und systematischen Überblick über die in der Literatur beschriebenen Indikatoren zur ökologischen Performance auf Ebene Landwirtschaftsbetrieb. Es wird gezeigt, dass einige dieser Indikatoren inkonsequent festgelegt und für die Bewertung der ökologischen Performance von Landwirtschaftsbetrieben ungeeignet sind. Ausgehend vom Konzept der ökologischen Nachhaltigkeit auf Makroebene werden im Artikel in einem zweiten Schritt konzeptionelle Überlegungen dazu angestellt, wie dieses Konzept auf der Ebene des Landwirtschaftsbetriebs in theoretisch fundierte und konsistente Indikatoren zur ökologischen Performance umgesetzt werden könnte. Basierend auf dem Konzept der ökologischen Nachhaltigkeit und auf dem dazugehörigen Tragfähigkeitskonzept des Ökosystems, wird zwischen der Tragfähigkeit des globalen Ökosystems und jener des lokalen Ökosystems unterschieden. Auf der Grundlage dieser Unterscheidung wird vorgeschlagen, auch zwischen der globalen und lokalen ökologischen Performance eines Landwirtschaftsbetriebs zu unterscheiden. Während die globale ökologische Performance die Umweltwirkungen des Produktionsteils von der Wiege bis zum Hoftor mit dem biophysikalischen Output des Betriebs in Beziehung setzt, konzentriert sich die lokale ökologische Performance auf die lokale Entstehung von Umweltwirkungen auf dem Betrieb und setzt diese in Beziehung zur lokalen Betriebsfläche. Der zweite peer-revidierte Artikel (Kapitel 3) besteht aus einer empirischen Anwendung des in Kapitel 2 entwickelten Rahmens. Diese Anwendung wurde auf eine Auswahl von 56 Milchviehbetrieben in der Schweiz übertragen, für die detaillierte und umfassende Ökobilanzen berechnet wurden. Im Artikel werden die Beziehungen zwischen den zwei Dimensionen der ökologischen Performance und zwischen den ökologischen und ökonomischen Performancedimensionen untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigten die Komplexität der Beziehungen zwischen der globalen und der lokalen ökologischen Performance eines Landwirtschaftsbetriebs. Zielkonflikte waren häufiger als Synergien, was den Schluss nahelegt, dass eine Verbesserung der globalen ökologischen Performance bezüglich eines Umweltproblems mit einer Verschlechterung der lokalen ökologischen Performance bei mindestens einem anderen Umweltproblem einhergeht und umgekehrt. Diese Zielkonflikte unterstreichen die herausfordernde und komplexe Natur der Verbesserung der ökologischen Nachhaltigkeit von Landwirtschaftsbetrieben. In unserer Arbeit wurden aber auch Synergien zwischen der globalen ökologischen Performance und der ökonomischen Performance eines Landwirtschaftsbetriebs nachgewiesen. Der dritte peer-revidierte Artikel (Kapitel 4) baut auf demselben Datensatz, wie in Kapitel 3 beschrieben, auf. Er untersucht verschiedene strukturelle, technologische und soziodemographische Faktoren sowie Determinanten im Zusammenhang mit Betriebsmanagement und natürlicher Umwelt, die Einfluss auf die ökologische und ökonomische Performance eines Milchviehbetriebes haben. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass es bei der Verbesserung dieser drei Dimensionen der Nachhaltigkeitsperformance eines Landwirtschaftsbetriebs einige Faktoren mit Synergien und einige Faktoren mit Zielkonflikten gibt. Der Biolandbau, ein höheres Ausbildungsniveau des Betriebsleiters und die Produktion von silofreier Milch wurden als jene Faktoren identifiziert, die eine gleichzeitige Verbesserung der lokalen ökologischen Performance, der globalen ökologischen Performance und der ökonomischen Performance ermöglichen. Aus dieser Arbeit lassen sich zwei zentrale Erkenntnisse und daraus resultierende Empfehlungen ableiten. Erstens erfordert die konzeptionell korrekte Beurteilung der ökologischen Performance eines Landwirtschaftsbetriebs zwingend (i) die getrennte Implementierung der globalen und lokalen ökologischen Performance, wie in dem Rahmenwerk vorgeschlagen und (ii) die Berücksichtigung sowohl der globalen als auch der lokalen Dimension, um zu vermeiden, dass eine Verlagerung der Umweltprobleme von der lokalen auf die globale Ebene oder umgekehrt stattfindet. Dies ist umso wichtiger, als die empirische Anwendung auf Milchviehbetrieben in den Schweizer Alpen mehrere Zielkonflikte zwischen der lokalen und der globalen ökologischen Performance feststellte. Diese empirisch gewonnene Erkenntnis hat weitreichende Konsequenzen, insbesondere wenn sie für andere Typen von Landwirtschaftsbetrieben und andere Länder bestätigt wird. Die zweite wichtige Erkenntnis dieser Dissertation bezieht sich auf die Möglichkeiten, die ökologische und ökonomische Nachhaltigkeit in der Milchviehhaltung der Schweizer Alpen zu verbessern. Diese Arbeit zeigte, dass einige Faktoren eine gleichzeitige Verbesserung der globalen ökologischen Performance, der lokalen ökologischen Performance und der ökonomischen Performance ermöglichen, nämlich Biolandbau, höheres Ausbildungsniveau des Betriebsleiters und die Produktion von silofreier Milch. Ferner haben sich niedrigere Kraftfutterintensität, grössere Betriebsgrösse und Vollerwerbslandwirtschaft auch als günstig für die untersuchten Performancedimensionen erwiesen

The development of CRM aplication based on platform in the cloud

With the rapid cloud computing growth, the way we use technologies is changing and at the same time it offers a great possibility to develop new modern services. The purpose of the diploma thesis is to research the possibility of developing applications in this area. The thesis describes the development of business applications on the Force.com platform. Integration between different platforms, which is the primary task of application, requires wide knowledge of modern technologies. We are going to evaluate the relation to the Force.com platform. The main part of the developed application is Java powered, hosting by Heroku platform. Later on we briefly describe cloudy concepts such as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Specifically we describe the CRM system, as it is the center of our application, which associates CRM with focused system for e-mail marketing. In addition to the technical solution, we describe the steps for publishing application to the AppExchange marketplace

Market-oriented Innovation of Plant-based Products: Consumer Motivations and Product Attribute Importance

The plant-based food and beverage market has experienced significant growth across all global consumer markets, and it is projected that sales of plant-based products (PBPs) will continue to increase in the coming years in response to consumer demand. The PBPs market is therefore an important area of research as it presents a significant opportunity for innovation for existing PBP producers and new market entrants. This study examined PBP consumption, motivations, and important product attributes, using an online consumer survey. Responses from PBP consumers (n=353) were statistically analysed (descriptive statistics and Principal Component Analysis), with results finding that the greatest proportion of consumers in the sample identified as omnivores, and that the majority of the sample consumed PBPs regularly. Findings further identified the most popular product categories of meat and dairy alternatives consumed, the key motivations for consumption of these products, and the product attributes most important to consumers when choosing a PBP. The authors conclude by proposing a future framework for research which summarises key conclusions from the study