Charity and Philanthropy in Russia, China, India, and Brazil

This report, authored by Joan Spero and published in collaboration with WINGS builds greater awareness and understanding of the diversity and challenges of civil society in the so-called BRIC countries. In the absence of comprehensive data on philanthropy in these emerging market economies, the report identifies the cultural, economic, social, and political forces shaping giving in the BRIC countries and describes the growth and nature of their philanthropic activities. This report is an important first step in a broader conversation about the development of better systems for documenting and sharing the story of philanthropy in all its forms around the world

The performance of arm locking in LISA

For the laser interferometer space antenna (LISA) to reach it's design sensitivity, the coupling of the free running laser frequency noise to the signal readout must be reduced by more than 14 orders of magnitude. One technique employed to reduce the laser frequency noise will be arm locking, where the laser frequency is locked to the LISA arm length. This paper details an implementation of arm locking, studies orbital effects, the impact of errors in the Doppler knowledge, and noise limits. The noise performance of arm locking is calculated with the inclusion of the dominant expected noise sources: ultra stable oscillator (clock) noise, spacecraft motion, and shot noise. Studying these issues reveals that although dual arm locking [A. Sutton & D. A Shaddock, Phys. Rev. D 78, 082001 (2008).] has advantages over single (or common) arm locking in terms of allowing high gain, it has disadvantages in both laser frequency pulling and noise performance. We address this by proposing a hybrid sensor, retaining the benefits of common and dual arm locking sensors. We present a detailed design of an arm locking controller and perform an analysis of the expected performance when used with and without laser pre-stabilization. We observe that the sensor phase changes beneficially near unity-gain frequencies of the arm-locking controller, allowing a factor of 10 more gain than previously believed, without degrading stability. We show that the LISA frequency noise goal can be realized with arm locking and Time-Delay Interferometry only, without any form of pre-stabilization.Comment: 28 pages, 36 figure

Differential Maya Economies: A Comparative Zooarchaeological Study of Political Economies at the Postclassic Site of Mayapán

Previous research on the archaeological site of Mayapán , the las t political capital of the Maya, located in the N orthwest of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula , has focused mainly on urban life and the monumental architecture of the city center. In the 1950s the Carnegie Institution of Washington initially mapped and investigated Mayapán but the more recent contributions of both the Mexican government’s National Institute of Anthrop ology and History (INAH) and the Economic Foundations of Mayapán Project (PEMY) have greatly expanded current knowledge regarding the social, political, and economic organization of the population that once inhabited the metropolis . T he Carnegie Institutio n originally estimated the population of Mayapán to be between 10,000 and 12,000 residents, but Bradley Russell’s recent Mayapán Periphery Project (MPP) found the site to be much more densely populated than previously imagined. By extending the range of st udy of the site to include those inhabitants living up to one kilometer beyond the city wall, the population of Mayapán was revealed to more likely be arou nd 17,000 people at the height of its occupation (Russell 2008). Thus, the region beyond the wall merits just as mu ch investigation as that within; t his preliminary study offers a glimpse at ancient life at Mayapán by investigating the lives of the people who lived outside t he city’s circumferential wall and complements prior research on the city cente r

Alien Registration- Vlacheas, Spero (Auburn, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30017/thumbnail.jp

Functional Nano/Microcapsules: Synthesis And Characterization

Microencapsulation is a technique by which solid, liquid or gaseous active ingredients are enclosed within a shell material for the purpose of shielding the active ingredient from surrounding environment. The product therefrom is valuable as an active ingredient carrier and controlled release vehicle. In this research, polymer micro/nanocapsules with enclosed aqueous solution were synthesized through O/W emulsion-solvent evaporation technique. Specifically a commercial textile dye was encapsulated in poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) micro/nanocapsules for an innovation of textile dyeing. A variety of synthesis parameters were studied including concentration of polymer, amount of dye, amount of surfactant, volume of surfactant aqueous solution, solvent evaporation temperature, and stirring speed. The obtained PMMA/dye capsules had average diameters from hundreds of nanometers to tens of micrometers with encapsulation efficiency ranging from 58% to 76%. FTIR and DSC results further confirmed the capsule structure of PMMA/dye. This work demonstrated a promising approach to enclose solution of active reagent in polymer micro/nanocapsules with good encapsulation efficiency

A Functional Escape

Over the past two decades, the tree house has outgrown its more recent traditional role as a child’s place to play and has served many new functions. I intend to conduct research that questions how the tree house has evolved over the last twenty years based upon changes in program, technology, and relation to the tree itself. As a result of this research, I will deliver a clear understanding of tree house design best practices in the form of a manual

Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction

Digging Deeper into Emancipation Jim Downs’ Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction offers new insight into experiences of the recently emancipated during Reconstruction. Rather than treat emancipation as a watershed moment...