The teaching of French and German in our American schools.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Edna Manley\u27s The Diaries : Cultural Politics and the Discourse of Self

A critic of imperialism, race and class privilege, sculptor Edna Manley contributed to the ascendancy of a West Indian cultural aesthetic. Her productivity in the creative arts and her promotion of indigenous cultural organizations were vital to the growth of a post-colonial identity expressing Jamaican national unity and cultural plurality. The wife of Premier Norman W. Manley and the mother of Michael Manley, Jamaica\u27s former Prime Minister, she drew strength from her cross-cultural heritage as a British-trained artist seeking to express the collective unconsciousness of her people. Her creative work finds its symbols in the subaltern currents of Caribbean life in the ongoing processes of community-making that forge a national identity out of peoples displaced from many lands. Her art is integrative: Afro-Caribbean and European themes merge in a symbolic universe suggesting wholeness. Her self-reflections, in diary form, also illustrate her determination to link opposing metaphors of the self into a central, organizing image

Autoignition test cell Patent

Test chamber for determining decomposition and autoignition of materials used in spacecraft under controlled environmental condition

THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF CHEMOTHERAPEUTICS ON CALF VENOUS COMPLIANCE

BACKGROUND: Many pathophysiological conditions have been associated with irregular venous compliance. There is evidence that arterial compliance can be lower in an individual who has undergone chemotherapy, but to date it has not been investigated as to whether the same is true for venous compliance. PURPOSE: Investigate differences in the venous compliance in cancer survivors and healthy individuals. METHODS: Twenty participants, 10 of whom were cancer survivors (CS=63.2 ± 6.7yrs), while the remaining 10 were healthy individuals (C=60.2 ± 6.7yrs) underwent submaximal graded exercise tests and assessment of calf venous compliance. Utilizing venous occlusion plethysmography, calf venous compliance was determined in both groups as the first derivative of the pressure-volume relation during cuff pressure reduction. Capacitance and capillary filtration volumes were determined from the increase in limb volume following cuff pressure inflation. RESULTS: Body mass (CS=73.5 14.8 kg, C=82.3 15.5 kg); height (CS=165.1 7.9 cm, C=170.4 14.8 cm); VO2 peak (CS=34.7 9.6 , C=40.9 9.8 ); and resting blood pressures were not significantly different between the groups. Resting heart rate was (CS=76 8.2 bpm, C=67.9 8.9 bpm; was significantly greater in cancer survivors. There were no differences in calf [∆LV = vs. ∆LV = ] venous compliance, capacitance or capillary filtration volumes between the sexes. CONCLUSION: Results from this study indicate venous compliance is not different among cancer survivors who have received neuro-toxic or cardio-toxic chemotherapeutics and healthy individuals

Simulation-based intelligent robotic agent for Space Station Freedom

A robot control package is described which utilizes on-line structural simulation of robot manipulators and objects in their workspace. The model-based controller is interfaced with a high level agent-independent planner, which is responsible for the task-level planning of the robot's actions. Commands received from the agent-independent planner are refined and executed in the simulated workspace, and upon successful completion, they are transferred to the real manipulators

Metro Plan: Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (2004)

164 pp. Maps, tables. Glossary.The Metro Plan is the official long-range comprehensive plan of metropolitan Lane County and the cities of Eugene and Springfield. The Metro Plan sets forth general planning policies and land use allocations and serves as the basis for the coordinated development of programs concerning the use and conservation of physical resources, furtherance of assets, and development or redevelopment of the metropolitan area. The Metro Plan is intended to designate a sufficient amount of urbanizable land to accommodate the need for further urban expansion, taking into account the growth policy of the area to accommodate a population of 286,000 within the UGB by the year 2015.1 The Metro Plan also identifies the major public facilities required to meet the land use needs designated within the UGB

ROBOSIM: An intelligent simulator for robotic systems

The purpose of this paper is to present an update of an intelligent robotics simulator package, ROBOSIM, first introduced at Technology 2000 in 1990. ROBOSIM is used for three-dimensional geometrical modeling of robot manipulators and various objects in their workspace, and for the simulation of action sequences performed by the manipulators. Geometric modeling of robot manipulators has an expanding area of interest because it can aid the design and usage of robots in a number of ways, including: design and testing of manipulators, robot action planning, on-line control of robot manipulators, telerobotic user interface, and training and education. NASA developed ROBOSIM between 1985-88 to facilitate the development of robotics, and used the package to develop robotics for welding, coating, and space operations. ROBOSIM has been further developed for academic use by its co-developer Vanderbilt University, and has been in both classroom and laboratory environments for teaching complex robotic concepts. Plans are being formulated to make ROBOSIM available to all U.S. engineering/engineering technology schools (over three hundred total with an estimated 10,000+ users per year)

Robot graphic simulation testbed

The objective of this research was twofold. First, the basic capabilities of ROBOSIM (graphical simulation system) were improved and extended by taking advantage of advanced graphic workstation technology and artificial intelligence programming techniques. Second, the scope of the graphic simulation testbed was extended to include general problems of Space Station automation. Hardware support for 3-D graphics and high processing performance make high resolution solid modeling, collision detection, and simulation of structural dynamics computationally feasible. The Space Station is a complex system with many interacting subsystems. Design and testing of automation concepts demand modeling of the affected processes, their interactions, and that of the proposed control systems. The automation testbed was designed to facilitate studies in Space Station automation concepts

Graphic simualtion test bed for robotics applications in a workstation environment

Graphical simulation is a cost-effective solution for developing and testing robots and their control systems. The availability of various high-performance workstations makes these systems feasible. Simulation offers preliminary testing of systems before their actual realizations, and it provides a framework for developing new control and planning algorithms. On the other hand, these simulation systems have to have the capability of incorporating various knowledge-based system components, e.g., task planners, representation formalisms, etc. They also should have an appropriate user interface, which makes possible the creation and control of simulation models. ROBOSIM was developed jointly by MSFC and Vanderbilt University, first in a VAX environment. Recently, the system has been ported to an HP-9000 workstation equipped with an SRX graphics accelerator. The user interface of the system now contains a menu- and icon-based facility, as well as the original ROBOSIM language. The system is also coupled to a symbolic computing system based on Common Lisp, where knowledge-based functionalities are implemented. The knowledge-based layer uses various representation and reasoning facilities for programming and testing the control systems of robots