Intelligent fault management for the Space Station active thermal control system

The Thermal Advanced Automation Project (TAAP) approach and architecture is described for automating the Space Station Freedom (SSF) Active Thermal Control System (ATCS). The baseline functionally and advanced automation techniques for Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery (FDIR) will be compared and contrasted. Advanced automation techniques such as rule-based systems and model-based reasoning should be utilized to efficiently control, monitor, and diagnose this extremely complex physical system. TAAP is developing advanced FDIR software for use on the SSF thermal control system. The goal of TAAP is to join Knowledge-Based System (KBS) technology, using a combination of rules and model-based reasoning, with conventional monitoring and control software in order to maximize autonomy of the ATCS. TAAP's predecessor was NASA's Thermal Expert System (TEXSYS) project which was the first large real-time expert system to use both extensive rules and model-based reasoning to control and perform FDIR on a large, complex physical system. TEXSYS showed that a method is needed for safely and inexpensively testing all possible faults of the ATCS, particularly those potentially damaging to the hardware, in order to develop a fully capable FDIR system. TAAP therefore includes the development of a high-fidelity simulation of the thermal control system. The simulation provides realistic, dynamic ATCS behavior and fault insertion capability for software testing without hardware related risks or expense. In addition, thermal engineers will gain greater confidence in the KBS FDIR software than was possible prior to this kind of simulation testing. The TAAP KBS will initially be a ground-based extension of the baseline ATCS monitoring and control software and could be migrated on-board as additional computation resources are made available

School Food Environments and Policies in U.S. Public Schools

Examines food environments in elementary, middle, and high schools based on seventeen factors, including foods and beverages offered, the availability of vending machines, and how they vary by grade level, location, and other school characteristics

Issues of scale and scope in bio-physical modelling for natural resource management decision making in New South Wales

Natural resource management decision making by Catchment Management Authorities in NSW is being aided by a project involving bio-physical modelling and the development of an alternative decision-making framework. The objective of the bio-physical modelling process is to generate predictions of environmental or natural resource outcomes rather than project outputs. These outcomes can then be used in an investment framework to help priority setting and project decision making. Questions that arise in bio-physical modelling include those relating to scale and scope. Scale issues include how to address the landscape impacts of particular (or a series of local) on-ground works proposals. Scope issues include assessment of multiple-attribute responses to particular changes. In a multi-disciplinary context the challenge is then to translate this information into units that can be adapted to a decision-support framework. Existing Catchment Management Authorities decisions are often based on scoring and weighting of environmental improvements using an environmental benefits index, however other economic frameworks are possible. We discuss the important context for these questions in the decision making framework.environmental benefits, bio-physical models, scale, scope, investment decisions, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Leadership capacity in a complex connected age

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 26, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Barbara N. Martin.Vita.Ed.D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which Social Network Analysis (SNA) could inform leadership capacity by making explicit often hidden social networks that exist within organizations. SNA is a relatively new analytical tool and, to date, little used in the educational domain. Although it provides a quantitative means to examine social networks, its true benefits lie in the conversations it sparks when those networks are visualized and presented to those who inhabit them. The study was undertaken in three phases within a small, Midwestern school district. In the first phase, a face-to-face interview was conducted with the superintendent. The same set of questions posed to the superintendent was then asked of the districts senior leaders, comprised of the deputy and assistant superintendents, and building administrators (principals). The second phase comprised of two surveys: a SNA survey and Lambert's (2003) Leadership Capacity School Survey, administered to the senior leaders as well as their administrative assistants (N=15). The final phase was a group interview with the senior leaders (superintendent, deputy and assistant superintendent, and principals) in which the results of the two surveys were presented in visual form and used to guide discussion and discovery. The data from these various sources were tabulated and analyzed, yielding a series of network visualizations and six themes. The first two themes emerged from the network visualizations produced by the Organizational Risk Analyzer (ORA) software application employed to conduct the SNA. They included the fact that individuals tended to form cliques with their own kind, based largely on role or function; and that individuals and sub-groups tended to be fragmented or isolated. The other four themes emerged in oppositional terms and included: vision versus managed programs; collaboration versus isolation and fragmentation; trust versus suspicion and avoidance; transparency versus opaqueness and guardedness. From these themes were identified four findings. The first was that hierarchical or formal structures continue to hold sway. The second was that "birds of a feather" do indeed flock together. The third was that collaboration, trust, and transparency are inter-dependent and undergird capacity. The fourth was that social networks are the organization, making SNA an essential diagnostic and decision-making tool. The findings led to a number of implications for practice, which were framed by Information Age imperatives arising from the literature. Also discussed were implications for future research, which are immense.Includes bibliographical reference

Environmental economics and valuation: towards a practical investment framework for Catchment Management Authorities in New South Wales

The Catchment Management Authorities in New South Wales have programs that are collectively investing $436 million over four years to achieve catchment-wide natural resource/environmental improvements. In this paper, we consider the question of how to best allocate these resources so as to increase the well-being of the public within catchments and the state. We consider the current approaches used by CMAs and make a case for Benefit-Cost Analysis as an alternative means of assessing ex ante questions of priority setting at the catchment level and for project appraisal. A major issue for BCA is the estimation of potential benefits from project investments, particularly the estimation of values that catchment communities and those living outside the catchments place on the non-use benefits associated with environmental improvements. We discuss alternative means of eliciting such values and propose the stated-preference method of Choice Modelling as a means of overcoming this Benefit-Cost Analysis shortcoming, because it incorporates advances in non-market valuation.environmental, economics, choice modelling, non-use values, investment framework, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Referencing Sources of Molecular Spectroscopic Data in the Era of Data Science: Application to the HITRAN and AMBDAS Databases

The application described has been designed to create bibliographic entries in large databases with diverse sources automatically, which reduces both the frequency of mistakes and the workload for the administrators. This new system uniquely identifies each reference from its digital object identifier (DOI) and retrieves the corresponding bibliographic information from any of several online services, including the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data Systems (ADS) and CrossRef APIs. Once parsed into a relational database, the software is able to produce bibliographies in any of several formats, including HTML and BibTeX, for use on websites or printed articles. The application is provided free-of-charge for general use by any scientific database. The power of this application is demonstrated when used to populate reference data for the HITRAN and AMBDAS databases as test cases. HITRAN contains data that is provided by researchers and collaborators throughout the spectroscopic community. These contributors are accredited for their contributions through the bibliography produced alongside the data returned by an online search in HITRAN. Prior to the work presented here, HITRAN and AMBDAS created these bibliographies manually, which is a tedious, time-consuming and error-prone process. The complete code for the new referencing system can be found at \url{https://github.com/hitranonline/refs}.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, already published online at https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms802001