United States foreign policy toward Brazil 1960-1968.

The Alliance for Progress, which was intended to intercept a social revolution that had been set in motion and enable the United States to channel the revolution toward peaceful change, promoted authoritarian and suppressive regimes instead. In Brazil, the end result of the United States promise to support socio-economic development and democratic processes was the establishment and support of a harsh military regime. The crucial question for this inquiry is what caused the marked variance between the idealistic goals of the Alliance for Progress and the decisions that were made toward Brazil in the 1960s?Following this analysis of the operative situation, an examination is made of the American political scene in 1960. The bureaucratic politics model is applied to the American foreign policy making amalgam. An analysis based on this model reveals that when John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States, sought to pursue the idealistic goals of socio-economic and political development through the Alliance for Progress in Brazil, a dichotomized cast emerged in a political struggle. The career men opposed Kennedy and his men and the goals which they pursued. Although the Kennedy men were supported in their policy options by the Kennedy personality and the prominent social forces in Brazil during the initial phase of the Alliance for Progress, the action-channels of the game and the parameters of the game enhanced the many variables that accrued to the side of the career men during the Lyndon B. Johnson phase of the Alliance for Progress. A set of hypotheses is postulated as a means of drawing these variables together in an analysis of how Lyndon B. Johnson and the career men triumphed in defeating the Kennedy initiative during the period after the Kennedy assassination.The initial task, aside from the incipient paradigm building and conceptualization, was to depict the objective environment at the inception of the Alliance for Progress. The characterization of the operative situation clarifies the motivations of the strategic actors, magnifies the misperceptions of the strategic actors, and indicates the premises which underlined their actions. The objective environment of Brazil is described in terms of economic, social, and political conditions. The Brazilian masses are depicted as having rising spokesmen in the form of a new nationalistic intelligentsia and an emerging reformist regime. These spokesmen are depicted as seeking far-reaching social change, socio-economic development, and a revision in Brazil's foreign policy. The revision which they sought implied a change from Brazil's close alignment with the United States. Key forces in this movement for change were nationalism, populism, and communism, forces which were not readily recognized as distinct from one another.Recent critiques of American foreign policy focus on its duplicity, a characteristic which has caused nations to be skeptical of United States foreign policy proclamations. The United States decisions and actions that were taken in Brazil during the 1960s reflect the high incidence of duplicity relative to the Alliance for Progress. Bureaucratic politics analyses of American policy are rare, and a bureaucratic political analysis of United States foreign policy toward Brazil during the 1960s appears to be nonexistent. This dissertation is offered as a contribution to fill that vacuum. This analysis of American foreign policy, however, is somewhat eclectic. Since an analysis of the operative situation is deemed necessary, the analysis combines the bureaucratic politics model with an extensive analysis of Brazilian society, economy, and the political system in 1960

Bomb-pulse radiocarbon dating of modern paintings on canvas

Radiocarbon (14C) dating has previously been applied to modern paintings on canvas from the 20th century to identify potential modern forgeries, and dates indicate a time lag of several years between the harvesting of plant fibers for making canvas, and completion of a painting. This study investigated both the length of this time lag and the potential of 14C dating to inform about an individual artist’s mode of working (for example long-term storage or reuse of canvases, or extended reworking on a single canvas) and/or to establish a chronology for a corpus of work. Two pre-bomb and 16 post-bomb artworks by 17 mid-20th-century Scandinavian artists were 14C dated. The majority of post-bomb samples indicated a time lag of 2–5 years between the harvesting of the plants and completion of a painting, but some samples recorded lags of up to 10 years, and others produced much earlier results, potentially indicating the use of much older canvases or challenges removing contamination prior to dating. The importance of thorough pre-screening of canvas samples for both synthetic fibers and contaminants prior to dating, and selection of the most suitable calibration curve, are highlighted

On-Orbit Teflon(trademark) FEP Degradation

During the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Second Servicing Mission (SM2), degradation of unsupported Teflon(trademark) FEP (fluorinated ethylene propylene), used as the outer layer of the multi-layer insulation (MLI) blankets, was evident as large cracks on the telescope light shield. A sample of the degraded outer layer was retrieved during the mission and returned to Earth for ground testing and evaluation. The results of the Teflon(trademark) FEP sample evaluation and additional testing of pristine Teflon FEP led the investigative team to theorize that the HST damage was caused by thermal cycling with deep-layer damage from electron and proton radiation which allowed the propagation of cracks along stress concentrations, and that the damage increased with the combined total dose of electrons, protons, UV and x-rays along with thermal cycling. This paper discusses the testing and evaluation of the Teflon(trademark) FEP

Improving the quality of reproductive health care: How much does it cost?

Quality care for clients should be the focus of a family planning and reproductive health program, but can programs afford it? There is no simple answer. The multiple dimensions of quality of care make it more difficult to identify and measure affordable improvements in service delivery. Calculating program costs is challenging, and different methods can lead to widely varying estimates. Determining how much quality costs is a challenge, but it is both possible and important for programs’ sustainability. This brief focuses on various aspects of costs and examines information about the cost of improving quality (as opposed to the cost of quality of care in general), then outlines ways to improve quality while containing costs. Ideally, decisions about quality should be the result of a dialogue among policymakers, providers, and clients. Each program has to decide what standard of quality is appropriate to apply considering its situation, its resources, and the needs of the population it is meant to serve. This policy brief uses the framework developed by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Maximizing Access and Quality initiative

Synchrotron Vacuum Ultraviolet Light and Soft X-Ray Radiation Effects on Aluminized Teflon FEP Investigated

Since the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was deployed in low Earth orbit in April 1990, two servicing missions have been conducted to upgrade its scientific capabilities. Minor cracking of second-surface metalized Teflon FEP (DuPont; fluorinated ethylene propylene) surfaces from multilayer insulation (MLI) was first observed upon close examination of samples with high solar exposure retrieved during the first servicing mission, which was conducted 3.6 years after deployment. During the second HST servicing mission, 6.8 years after deployment, astronaut observations and photographic documentation revealed significant cracks in the Teflon FEP layer of the MLI on both the solar- and anti-solar-facing surfaces of the telescope. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center directed the efforts of the Hubble Space Telescope MLI Failure Review Board, whose goals included identifying the low-Earth-orbit environmental constituent(s) responsible for the cracking and embrittling of Teflon FEP which was observed during the second servicing mission. The NASA Lewis Research Center provided significant support to this effort. Because soft x-ray radiation from solar flares had been considered as a possible cause for the degradation of the mechanical properties of Teflon FEP (ref. 1), the effects of soft xray radiation and vacuum ultraviolet light on Teflon FEP were investigated. In this Lewisled effort, samples of Teflon FEP with a 100-nm layer of vapor-deposited aluminum (VDA) on the backside were exposed to synchrotron radiation of various vacuum ultraviolet and soft x-ray wavelengths between 18 nm (69 eV) and 0.65 nm (1900 eV). Synchrotron radiation exposures were conducted using the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Samples of FEP/VDA were exposed with the FEP surface facing the synchrotron beam. Doses and fluences were compared with those estimated for the 20-yr Hubble Space Telescope mission

Synchrontron VUV and Soft X-Ray Radiation Effects on Aluminized Teflon FEP

Surfaces of the aluminized Teflon FEP multi-layer thermal insulation on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) were found to be cracked and curled in some areas at the time of the second servicing, mission in February 1997, 6.8 years after HST was deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO). As part of a test program to assess environmental conditions which would produce embrittlement sufficient to cause cracking of Teflon on HST, samples of Teflon FEP with a backside layer of vapor deposited aluminum were exposed to vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) and soft x-ray radiation of various energies using facilities at the National Synchrotron Light Source. Brookhaven National Laboratory. Samples were exposed to synchrotron radiation of narrow energy bands centered on energies between 69 eV and 1900 eV. Samples were analyzed for ultimate tensile strength and elongation. Results will be compared to those of aluminized Teflon FEP retrieved from HST after 3.6 years and 6.8 years on orbit and will he referenced to estimated HST mission doses of VUV and soft x-ray radiation

Effects of Vacuum Ultraviolet Radiation on Thin Polyimide Films Evaluated

NASA anticipates launching the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) mission-- whose purpose is to examine the origins of our universe by making measurements in the infrared portion of the spectrum--in 2009. So that the telescope can operate at very low temperatures (less than 100 K), a halo orbit about the second Lagrangian point (L2) is being considered because it is far from Earth and its reflected sunlight. The Sun-Earth L2 point is located 1.53 10(exp 6) km from the Earth in the direction away from the Sun. This mission presents new challenges in many areas of technology, including the development of a multilayer insulation sunshield for the telescope. This sunshield is required to be large (proposed dimensions of approximately 33 by 14 m), storable, deployable, and lightweight. In addition, its polymer film layers must be seamable, foldable, and resistant to tearing and creep, with low outgassing. The sunshield must maintain its structural integrity and its Sun-facing side must maintain a low solar absorptance to thermal emittance ratio (alpha/epsilon) over the planned 10-yr mission duration including over 80,000 hr facing constant sunlight

Variations in the predicted spatial distribution of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and their impact on carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems

Widespread mobilization of nitrogen into the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, and biomass burning and its subsequent deposition have the potential to alleviate nitrogen limitation of productivity in terrestrial ecosystems, and may contribute to enhanced terrestrial carbon uptake. To evaluate the importance of the spatial distribution of nitrogen deposition for carbon uptake and to better quantify its magnitude and uncertainty NOy-N deposition fields from five different three-dimensional chemical models, GCTM, GRANTOUR, IMAGES, MOGUNTIA, and ECHAM were used to drive NDEP, a perturbation model of terrestrial carbon uptake. Differences in atmospheric sources of NOx-N, transport, resolution, and representation of chemistry, contribute to the distinct spatial patterns of nitrogen deposition on the global land surface; these differences lead to distinct patterns of carbon uptake that vary between 0.7 and 1.3 Gt C yr−1 globally. Less than 10% of the nitrogen was deposited on forests which were most able to respond with increased carbon storage because of the wide C:N ratio of wood as well as its long lifetime. Addition of NHx-N to NOy-N deposition, increased global terrestrial carbon storage to between 1.5 and 2.0 Gt C yr−1, while the “missing terrestrial sink” is quite similar in magnitude. Thus global air pollution appears to be an important influence on the global carbon cycle. If N fertilization of the terrestrial biosphere accounts for the “missing” C sink or a substantial portion of it, we would expect significant reductions in its magnitude over the next century as terrestrial ecosystems become N saturated and O3 pollution expands

Radiation modeling in the Earth and Mars atmospheres using LRO/CRaTER with the EMMREM Module

Abstract We expand upon the efforts of Joyce et al. (2013), who computed the modulation potential at the Moon using measurements from the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft along with data products from the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module (EMMREM). Using the computed modulation potential, we calculate galactic cosmic ray (GCR) dose and dose equivalent rates in the Earth and Mars atmospheres for various altitudes over the course of the LRO mission. While we cannot validate these predictions by directly comparable measurement, we find that our results conform to expectations and are in good agreement with the nearest available measurements and therefore may be used as reasonable estimates for use in efforts in risk assessment in the planning of future space missions as well as in the study of GCRs. PREDICCS (Predictions of radiation from REleASE, EMMREM, and Data Incorporating the CRaTER, COSTEP, and other solar energetic particles measurements) is an online system designed to provide the scientific community with a comprehensive resource on the radiation environments of the inner heliosphere. The data products shown here will be incorporated into PREDICCS in order to further this effort and daily updates will be made available on the PREDICCS website (http://prediccs.sr.unh.edu). Key Points We model GCR dose and dose equivalent rates in Earth and Mars atmospheres Dose rates are in reasonable agreement with nearby measurements Data products will soon be made available on PREDICCS website

Self-Dual N=(1,0) Supergravity in Eight Dimensions with Reduced Holonomy Spin(7)

We construct chiral N=(1,0) self-dual supergravity in Euclidean eight-dimensions with reduced holonomy Spin(7), including all the higher-order interactions in a closed form. We first establish the non-chiral N=(1,1) superspace supergravity in eight-dimensions with SO(8) holonomy without self-duality, as the foundation of the formulation. In order to make the whole computation simple, and the generalized self-duality compatible with supersymmetry, we adopt a particular set of superspace constraints similar to the one originally developed in ten-dimensional superspace. The intrinsic properties of octonionic structure constants make local supersymmetry, generalized self-duality condition, and reduced holonomy Spin(7) all consistent with each other.Comment: 14 pages, no figures. Some missing references, typos and grammatical errors have been corrected with other relatively minor improvement