Understanding the Emergence of Disruptive Innovation in the Air Force Science and Technology Organizations

Although innovation is widely discussed in both military and industry venues, many organizations continue to struggle with what it means to be creative as well as maintain a competitive advantage. The United States Air Force has specifically struggled with the balance between improving existing technologies and employing revolutionary technologies. The purpose of this thesis was to study the motivation, focus, barriers, and culture needed to foster disruptive innovation in Air Force Science and Technology (S&T) and to investigate how industry innovation strategies could improve breakthrough Air Force technology emergence. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the primary organization responsible for planning and executing all aspects of the Air Force science and technology program, is the ideal study subject to represent the Air Force S&T community at large. Two previous industry research studies, now replicated in an AFRL organizational environment, provided quantitative and qualitative comparisons between the industry and Air Force S&T communities. The study results showed that Air Force S&T is capable of regaining its prominence as a leader in disruptive technological innovation by applying a basic improvement model, capturing the relevant best practices of industry, and exploiting the positive attributes of the military domain

Jordan Lake Zooplankton: Potential for Controlling Phytoplankton

Recently, some of the variance in primary productivity observed in lakes has been associated with the variability in piscivorous fish populations. This is because various levels of zooplankton consumption by planktivorous fishes result in varying grazing pressures on phytoplankton assemblages. This study proceeds from the idea that in Jordan Lake, zooplanktivory may have strong effects on the composition and chlorophyll concentration of the phytoplankton. The investigation examines the ability of the zooplankton community in a turbid, highly eutrophic southeastern reservoir to control phytoplankton inside enclosures that excluded all fish. The reservoir has a large standing crop of gizzard and threadfin shad, black crappie, bluegill and several other centrarchid and cyprinid planktivores. Six experiments conducted using one meter diameter enclosures between August and September 1986 and May to June 1987 suggested that zooplankton were capable of reducing phytoplankton biomass to very low levels independent of nutrient concentrations when Daphnia spp. was in the lake. The other dominant zooplankton, although increasing in biomass in the absence of fish, did not reduce phytoplankton biomass.Master of Science in Public Healt

Degradation and Improvement of Urban River Water Quality

The need to understand urban water quality has become a very important area of research and management in the aquatic sciences. Decades of urban development generating high rates of impervious surface, complex networks of stormwater control mechanisms and declining river water quality has created a demand for greater study. In this chapter, issues such as stream bank erosion, flooding, sediment pollution, bacteria and channelization are presented as drivers of the urban water environment. Methodologies and study designs to document these impacts are discussed. Ideas to improve the urban condition such as retrofitting previous development, infiltration of surface runoff, stream restoration, dredging and rehabilitation of lakes and compartmentalization of future development are explained and detailed as ways of integrating the natural landscape features into improvement of our urban centers. Finally, the incorporation of citizen science into adaptive policy is suggested as a solution to regulatory and esthetic/recreational need for improvement

A survey of steam railway car lighting by electricity

Thesis: B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering, 1926by Joseph Robert Klimowicz, Shahady Shaheen.B.S.B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineerin

Influence of a low-head dam on water quality of an urban river system

Dam removal in the United States is becoming a common practice for stream restoration as these structures age, climate driven precipitation patterns change, and ecological uplift becomes desirable. Yet in highly urbanized watersheds, these dams may operate as retention basins removing pollutants and mitigating hydrological change. While elimination may be ecologically and economically advantageous, sediment and pollutant removal processes may be better protective of water quality and damaging flooding. In Central Virginia, we compared a watershed split between an urbanized subwatershed (\u3e20% impervious surface encompassing 37.8% of the total watershed land surface) flowing through a 18 Ha reservoir with a rural subwatershed (\u3c5% impervious encompassing 63.2% of the total watershed land surface) located in the James River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds. This reservoir is scheduled for removal in the near future. Comparisons of data suggest that while portions of the urbanized watershed are degraded, this condition is not reflected at the confluence where water quality more closely resembles the rural and minimally impervious subwatershed. This conclusion was further strengthened from data collected following an unexpected dam overtopping in August 2018 where the reservoir was temporarily drained because of safety concerns. After the draining, water quality reversed with the confluence resembling the urbanized rather than the rural subwatershed. Most significantly, water quality flowing into the James River quickly and significantly shifted from a good to a degraded condition. This case study suggests reservoirs in highly urbanized watersheds may serve as critical water quality improvement structures and removal as part of a stream restoration strategy must be carefully considered