TRANSPORT COSTS IMPACTS ON THE FRESH MARKET FOR PEACHES - WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE NORTHEAST

An interregional transportation model was constructed using ordinary least squares and reactive programming to evaluate the short-run economic impact of changing transportation rate on the U.S. interregional equilibrium and, in particular, the Northeast's competitive position for fresh peaches. Using fixed regional supplies, uniquely determined regional per capita consumption and existing transportation rates the reactive programming algorithm obtains solutions to the spatial equilibrium problem including: overall regional quantities supplied and demanded, prices, consumers' outlays, producers' revenues and opportunity, transfer and shipping costs. Transportation rates were varied 20 percent above and below the current rates to examine the short-run economic impact on the prevailing equilibrium. The East Coast was a relatively isolated market and therefore was not significantly affected by changes in transportation rates. The most significant changes in producers' revenues and trade flow patterns occurred in the remaining regions that traded mostly amongst themselves.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

The Next Generation Advanced Video Guidance Sensor: Flight Heritage and Current Development

The Next Generation Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (NGAVGS) is the latest in a line of sensors that have flown four times in the last 10 years. The NGAVGS has been under development for the last two years as a long-range proximity operations and docking sensor for use in an Automated Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) system. The first autonomous rendezvous and docking in the history of the U.S. Space Program was successfully accomplished by Orbital Express, using the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS) as the primary docking sensor. That flight proved that the United States now has a mature and flight proven sensor technology for supporting Crew Exploration Vehicles (CEV) and Commercial Orbital Transport Systems (COTS) Automated Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D). NASA video sensors have worked well in the past: the AVGS used on the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) mission operated successfully in "spot mode" out to 2 km, and the first generation rendezvous and docking sensor, the Video Guidance Sensor (VGS), was developed and successfully flown on Space Shuttle flights in 1997 and 1998. This paper presents the flight heritage and results of the sensor technology, some hardware trades for the current sensor, and discusses the needs of future vehicles that may rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and other Constellation vehicles. It also discusses approaches for upgrading AVGS to address parts obsolescence, and concepts for minimizing the sensor footprint, weight, and power requirements. In addition, the testing of the various NGAVGS development units will be discussed along with the use of the NGAVGS as a proximity operations and docking sensor

DART AVGS Performance

The Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS) was designed to be the proximity operations sensor for the Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technologies (DART). The DART mission flew in April of2005 and was a partial success. The AVGS did not get the opportunity to operate in every mode in orbit, but those modes in which it did operate were completely successful. This paper will detail the development, testing, and on-orbit performance of the AVGS

Design and fabrication of an autonomous rendezvous and docking sensor using off-the-shelf hardware

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has developed and tested an engineering model of an automated rendezvous and docking sensor system composed of a video camera ringed with laser diodes at two wavelengths and a standard remote manipulator system target that has been modified with retro-reflective tape and 830 and 780 mm optical filters. TRW has provided additional engineering analysis, design, and manufacturing support, resulting in a robust, low cost, automated rendezvous and docking sensor design. We have addressed the issue of space qualification using off-the-shelf hardware components. We have also addressed the performance problems of increased signal to noise ratio, increased range, increased frame rate, graceful degradation through component redundancy, and improved range calibration. Next year, we will build a breadboard of this sensor. The phenomenology of the background scene of a target vehicle as viewed against earth and space backgrounds under various lighting conditions will be simulated using the TRW Dynamic Scene Generator Facility (DSGF). Solar illumination angles of the target vehicle and candidate docking target ranging from eclipse to full sun will be explored. The sensor will be transportable for testing at the MSFC Flight Robotics Laboratory (EB24) using the Dynamic Overhead Telerobotic Simulator (DOTS)

Autoguidance video sensor for docking

The Automated Rendezvous and Docking system (ARAD) is composed of two parts. The first part is the sensor which consists of a video camera ringed with two wavelengths of laser diode. The second part is a standard Remote Manipulator System (RMS) target used on the Orbiter that has been modified with three circular pieces of retro-reflective tape covered by optical filters which correspond to one of the wavelengths of laser diode. The sensor is on the chase vehicle and the target is on the target vehicle. The ARAD system works by pulsing one wavelength laser diodes and taking a picture. Then the second wavelength laser diodes are pulsed and a second picture is taken. One picture is subtracted from the other and the resultant picture is thresholded. All adjacent pixels above threshold are blobbed together (X and Y centroids calculated). All blob centroids are checked to recognize the target out of noise. Then the three target spots are windowed and tracked. The three target spot centroids are used to evaluate the roll, yaw, pitch, range, azimuth, and elevation. From that a guidance routine can guide the chase vehicle to dock with the target vehicle with the correct orientation

Environmental Baseline Monitoring in the Area of General Crude Oil- Department of Energy Pleasant Bayou Number 2 A Geopressured Geothermal Test well

A program to monitor baseline air and water quality, subsidence, microseismic activity, and noise in the vicinity of the Brazoria County geopressured geothermal test wells, Pleasant Bayou III and II, has been underway since March 1978 (fig. 1). The findings of certain parts of the work, including the results of an initial first-order leveling survey completed by Teledyne Geotronics, a preliminary noise survey completed by Radian Corporation, a preliminary microseismicity survey completed by Teledyne Geotech, and an archeological survey of the site completed by Texas A&M University, have been reported earlier and will not be repeated here. The initial report on environmental baseline monitoring at the test well contained descriptions of baseline air and water quality, a noise survey, an inventory of microseismic activity, and a discussion of the installation of a liquid tilt meter (Gustavson, 1979). The following report continues the description of baseline air and water quality of the test well site, includes an inventory of microseismic activity during 1979 with interpretations of the origin of the events, and discusses the installation and monitoring of a liquid tilt meter at the test well site. In addition, a brief description of flooding at the test site is presented.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Finding middle ground between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility: Development and assessment of the limitations-owning intellectual humility scale

Recent scholarship in intellectual humility (IH) has attempted to provide deeper understanding of the virtue as personality trait and its impact on an individual's thoughts, beliefs, and actions. A limitations-owning perspective of IH focuses on a proper recognition of the impact of intellectual limitations and a motivation to overcome them, placing it as the mean between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility. We developed the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale to assess this conception of IH with related personality constructs. In Studies 1 (n= 386) and 2 (n = 296), principal factor and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model – owning one's intellectual limitations, appropriate discomfort with intellectual limitations, and love of learning. Study 3 (n = 322) demonstrated strong test-retest reliability of the measure over 5 months, while Study 4 (n = 612) revealed limitations-owning IH correlated negatively with dogmatism, closed-mindedness, and hubristic pride and positively with openness, assertiveness, authentic pride. It also predicted openness and closed-mindedness over and above education, social desirability, and other measures of IH. The limitations-owning understanding of IH and scale allow for a more nuanced, spectrum interpretation and measurement of the virtue, which directs future study inside and outside of psychology

Method and apparatus for multiple-projection, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry scanning

Methods and apparatuses for advanced, multiple-projection, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scanning systems include combinations of a conical collimator; a high-resolution two-dimensional detector; a portable, power-capped, variable-exposure-time power supply; an exposure-time control element; calibration monitoring; a three-dimensional anti-scatter-grid; and a gantry-gantry base assembly that permits up to seven projection angles for overlapping beams. Such systems are capable of high precision bone structure measurements that can support three dimensional bone modeling and derivations of bone strength, risk of injury, and efficacy of countermeasures among other properties