Telecommunications forecast for ITU Region 2 to the year 1995

Telecommunications activity was studied. The primary objective was to forecast the need for fixed service satellites (FSS) by countries within ITU Region 2 excluding the United States and Greenland. Forecasts of telecommunications equipment needs were developed as a yardstick of the relative level of telecommunications activity among developing countries within the region. A likely scenario for the implementation of domestic and regional communications satellites is forecasted to provide services to and among countries in ITU Region 2. By 1995, it is forecast that 15 fixed service satellites will be implemented. A forecast of the countries requirements indicates that, with the possible exception of Canada, this constellation of satellites will meet these countries' needs to beyond the year 2000

A Policy Maker’s Guide to Designing Payments for Ecosystem Services

Over the past five years, there has been increasing interest around the globe in payment schemes for the provision of ecosystem services, such as water purification, carbon sequestration, flood control, etc. Written for an Asian Development Bank project in China, this report provides a user-friendly guide to designing payments for the provision of ecosystem services. Part I explains the different types of ecosystem services, different ways of assessing their value, and why they are traditionally under-protected by law and policy. This is followed by an analysis of when payments for services are a preferable approach to other policy instruments. Part II explains the design issues underlying payments for services. These include identification of the service as well as potential buyers and sellers, the level of service needed, payment timing, payment type, and risk allocation. Part II contains a detailed analysis of the different types of payment mechanisms, ranging from general subsidy and certification to mitigation and offset payments. Part III explores the challenges to designing a payment scheme. These include the ability to monitor service provision, secure property rights, perverse incentives, supporting institutions, and poverty alleviation

Developing an Instrument to Assess the Effects of Pre-College Engineering Participation on the Experiences of First-Year Engineering Students

In this Complete Research paper, we describe the development of a survey instrument to measure the ways that students experience the transition from pre-college engineering activities to first-year engineering programs. As the number of opportunities to study and do engineering prior to matriculation in an undergraduate engineering program increases, first-year engineering students draw from a diverse range of pre-college engineering experiences that affect their transition to studying engineering at a university. The instrument utilizes a theoretical framework developed via a phenomenographic interview process that identified five distinct ways students experience the transition from pre-college to university engineering. These range from foreclosure or a feeling of entrapment in engineering, to frustration, to tedium, to connection, to the ability to help others be successful in first-year engineering. Utilizing the interview data that informed the development of these categories, we identified statements associated with each of these ways of experiencing the transition from pre-college to university engineering and used these statements to develop an initial instrument consisting of 65 Likert-type questions on students’ experiences combined with detailed questions on both the types pre-college engineering experiences the students participated in and the content of these experiences. Validation of the initial instrument involved multiple rounds of feedback from experts in both pre-college and first-year engineering education, followed by an initial administration of the instrument to the first-year student population at two universities. Analysis of these results showed that overall the instrument had good reliability, however we identified 15 low functioning items for removal, reducing the total number of items to 50. Upon completion of the development process, we administered the final instrument again to another population of first-year engineering students. Analysis of these results using Exploratory Factor Analysis yields components that align well with most elements of the aforementioned theoretical framework. However, we identified several additional independent factors related to ways that students experience disconnects or frustration when transitioning from pre-college to first-year engineering programs. Pre-college engineering is growing, but students arrive in first-year engineering programs with varying levels of prior exposure to engineering. Understanding how pre-college experiences affect students’ transitions to engineering will provide valuable data for both the creators and instructors of pre-college and first-year engineering curricula, and facilitate better alignment between these interrelated spheres of engineering education

Regulating Business Innovation as Policy Disruption: From the Model T to Airbnb

Many scholars have invoked the term disruptive innovation when addressing the platform (sharing) economy, with sweeping claims about the dramatic changes this development promises for law, regulation, and the economy. The challenges raised by the platform economy are surely important, but we argue that recent scholarship focusing on the immediacy and novelty of the platform economy has been ahistorical, and has therefore missed the bigger picture about how to regulate it. History is full of technological and management advances that fundamentally disrupted business models for a brief period of time. When business innovation upends a preexisting business model in a regulated industry, the result can be a disjunction between the structure of the regulatory system governing incumbent firms and the firms disrupting the industry: a policy disruption. Policy disruption can result from conscious choices by entrepreneurs to exploit legal loopholes or to challenge regulatory protections for incumbents. But it can just as easily result from gaps in a regulatory regime or fundamentally new business models that solve problems legal regimes have been designed to address. This Article is the first to offer a comprehensive analytical framework of how business innovation can create policy disruption and how regulators should respond. We develop a three-step process that should guide regulators in responding to policy disruptions, suggesting that, as a default, regulators should strive to be neutral as between incumbents and innovators. We conclude by offering specific policy instruments that regulators can use to draft laws more neutrally to avoid or limit such policy disruptions in the future

Stimuli Responsive Shape Memory Microarchitectures

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) respond to heat by generating programmable movement in devices that require substantial deformation and operate at transient temperatures, including stents and embolization coils. To enable their use in small‐scale applications like retinal vasculature stenting, shape transformations must occur in SMPs with complex 3D geometries with nanoscale features. This work describes the synthesis and sculpting of a benzyl methacrylate‐based SMP into 3D structures with <800 nm characteristic critical dimensions via two photon lithography. Dynamic nanomechanical analysis of 8 µm‐diameter cylindrical pillars reveal the initiation of this SMP's glass transition at 60 °C. Shape memory programming of the characterized pillars as well as complex 3D architectures, including flowers with 500 nm thick petals and cubic lattices with 2.5 µm unit cells and overall dimensions of 4.5 µm × 4.5 µm × 10 µm, demonstrate an 86 +/− 4% characteristic shape recovery ratio. These results reveal a pathway toward SMP devices with nanoscale features and arbitrary 3D geometries changing shape in response to temperature

CLASSIFICATION OF THE MGR WASTE TREATMENT BUILDING SYSTEM

The purpose of this analysis is to document the Quality Assurance (QA) classification of the Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR) waste treatment building system structures, systems and components (SSCs) performed by the MGR Safety Assurance Department. This analysis also provides the basis for revision of YMP/90-55Q, Q-List (YMP 1998). The Q-List identifies those MGR SSCs subject to the requirements of DOE/RW-0333P, ''Quality Assurance Requirements and Description'' (QARD) (DOE 1998)