High temperature circuit breaker

Alternating current circuit breaker is suitable for reliable long-term service at 1000 deg F in the vacuum conditions of outer space. Construction materials are resistant to nuclear radiation and vacuum welding. Service test conditions and results are given

Using global interpolation to evaluate the Biot-Savart integral for deformable elliptical Gaussian vortex elements

This paper introduces a new method for approximating the Biot-Savart integral for elliptical Gaussian functions using high-order interpolation and compares it to an existing method based on small aspect ratio asymptotics. The new evaluation technique uses polynomials to approximate the kernel corresponding to the integral representation of the streamfunction. We determine the polynomial coefficients by interpolating precomputed values from look-up tables over a wide range of aspect ratios. When implemented in a full nonlinear vortex method, we find that the new technique is almost three times faster and unlike the asymptotic method, provides uniform accuracy over the full range of aspect ratios. As a proof-of-concept for large scale computations, we use the new technique to calculate inviscid axisymmetrization and filamentation of a two-dimensional elliptical fluid vortex. We compare our results with those from a pseudo-spectral computation and from electron vortex experiments, and find good agreement between the three approaches

Women in Global Production and Worker Rights Provisions in U.S. Trade Laws

Over the past decade, several U.S. trade laws have, for the first time in recent U.S. history, linked international trade benefits to respect for labor rights. Several of the worker rights provisions incorporated in these statutes mirror two of the three categories of fundamental worker rights delineated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). However, worker rights-linked trade laws are starkly silent with respect to the third category of fundamental rights specified by the ILO: equality of opportunity and treatment, including freedom from gender-based discrimination in the workplace. Thus U.S. trade laws contain no provisions explicitly aimed at promoting respect for the rights of working women. While acknowledging this critical omission, this paper argues that worker rights-linked trade laws could, albeit unintentionally and indirectly, uniquely benefit female workers laboring in the export sector of developing countries. The realization of these benefits, however, depends on a number of political and economic variables and on the institutionalization of these benefits at the foreign national level

Reconstructing Spectral Scenes using Statistical Estimation to Enhance Space Situational Awareness

A new sensor, the Advanced Electro-Optical System (AEOS) Spectral Imaging Sensor (ASIS) has been developed at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex (MSSC). ASIS is capable of collecting resolved imagery of space objects in 10\u27s-100\u27s of spectral bands while using an adaptive optics system. However, the stringent requirements of collecting ground-based images requires a sensor that induces spectral blurring. Post-processing algorithms to remove this blurring are required to fully exploit these spectral images. This research focuses on developing the reconstruction algorithms, based on proven estimation theories, required to spectrally deblur the images collected from ASIS. Additionally, the research will expand the algorithm to also estimate the linear polarizations of the scene. The Cramer-Rao lower bounds on two key performance parameters, the spectral resolution and accuracy, of the reconstruction algorithm will also be calculated. Through the examination of these lower bounds a performance metric can be determined. This metric can be used to compare the ability of the algorithm to work on different spectral sensors

Making the State Responsible: Intersex Embodiment, Medical Jurisdiction, and State Responsibility

Through consideration of new developments in the United Kingdom's intersex policy, this article traces the ways in which responsibility is produced, naturalized, and avoided by individuals, institutions, and the state. Jurisdiction is identified as a barrier to the attribution of responsibility that must be overcome to achieve progress in relation to the needs of intersex people. By bringing together jurisdictional analysis and vulnerability theory, this article demonstrates how the state has traditionally abrogated responsibility by compartmentalizing specific practices as governed by medical authority. It highlights that such accounts mask the role of the state in the creation of jurisdiction and the ways in which governance is conducted. Challenging these boundaries allows vulnerability theorists to move the state towards greater levels of responsibility. By combining these theoretical tools, the article enhances the practical utility of vulnerability theory and advances an important agenda for intersex people

Multivariate Normality of Cartesian-Framed Covariances: Evaluation and Operational Significance

Collision avoidance relies on representative Cartesian uncertainty volumes in order to calculate probabilities of collision. Among the potential shortcomings of a covariance matrix representation of state errors, the most worrisome is the coordinate mismatch between the Cartesian framework in which these matrices are distributed and the curvilinear path that satellite orbits actually follow. The present study compares curvilinear-based and Cartesian covariance representations for ~50,000 conjunctions to determine the frequency in which significant deviations from Gaussianity are observed, then compares the 2-D Pc result from the Cartesian covariance to a Monte Carlo Pc conducted in element space to assess operational significance

TRECVID 2008 - goals, tasks, data, evaluation mechanisms and metrics

The TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation (TRECVID) 2008 is a TREC-style video analysis and retrieval evaluation, the goal of which remains to promote progress in content-based exploitation of digital video via open, metrics-based evaluation. Over the last 7 years this effort has yielded a better understanding of how systems can effectively accomplish such processing and how one can reliably benchmark their performance. In 2008, 77 teams (see Table 1) from various research organizations --- 24 from Asia, 39 from Europe, 13 from North America, and 1 from Australia --- participated in one or more of five tasks: high-level feature extraction, search (fully automatic, manually assisted, or interactive), pre-production video (rushes) summarization, copy detection, or surveillance event detection. The copy detection and surveillance event detection tasks are being run for the first time in TRECVID. This paper presents an overview of TRECVid in 2008

Exports and Externalities: the other side of trade and ecological risk and Technology Diffusion in a Competitive World

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to measure welfare effects of taxes for correcting environmental externalities caused by domestic trade, focusing on exter- nalities that arise through exports. Externalities from exports come from a number of sources. Domestically owned ships, planes, and automobiles can become contaminated while visiting other regions and bring unwanted pests home, and species can be in- troduced by contaminated visitors that enter a region to consume goods and services. The paper combines insights from the public finance literature on corrective environ- mental taxes and trade literature on domestically provided services. We find that past methods for measuring welfare effects are inadequate for a wide range of externalities and show the most widely used corrective mechanism, taxes on the sector imposing the environmental externality, may often do more harm than good. The motivation for this paper is the expansion of invasive species' ranges within the United States. We apply our analytical model to the specifc example of quagga and zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha and Dreissena rostiformis bugenis) invasion into the U.S Pacific Northwest.environmental regulation, tax interactions, invasive species, environment and trade

Factors Affecting Hay Supply and Demand in Tennessee

Understanding the interactions between supply and demand for hay is important because of hay’s significance to the agricultural sector and economy, and because hay is an important crop on highly erodible soils. As an example, Tennessee has the most erodible cultivated cropland in the United States (Denton, 2000), nearly half of the state’s current CRP acreage contracts are set to expire in 2007 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2006), and hay is one of the most economically important crops produced in the state (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2004). Cross (1999) attributed the upward trend in Tennessee hay acreage since 1980 to an increasing number of farmers who were searching for alternative production activities, such as hay, pasture and livestock, to replace row crops on erodible soils (U.S. Congress, House of Representatives and Senate, 2002). Hay ranked tenth in value of receipts in Tennessee at $49.25 million in 2006 and cattle and calf production ranked first at$500 million. Hay ranked second in value of production at $262 million in 2003 and averaged$248 million over a five period from 2002 – 2006. Underscoring the importance of hay in Tennessee was the state’s national ranking of fourth in the production of other hay (excluding alfalfa) at 4.25 million tons in 2006 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2007). To quantify these supply and demand relationships, one must understand the characteristics of hay markets. Markets are usually localized because of the weight and bulky physical characteristics of hay. Although hay species are not identical, in many livestock production situations most are close substitutes, with the possible exception of alfalfa hay. In Tennessee, alfalfa is a differentiated hay product used mostly by dairy and equine producers. Nevertheless, alfalfa constituted only 2.5% of all hay produced in Tennessee in 2003 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2004) and its price tends to move proportionally with other hay prices; thus, for modeling purposes alfalfa and other hay can be aggregated as in Shumway’s (1983) study of Texas field crops and treated as a composite commodity (Nicholson, 2005) called hay. In 2002, 47,000 operations within the state produced forage, while on the demand side, 50,000 operations were involved in beef and dairy production with another 24,000 equine operations (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2004). Despite the lack of national and state central markets for hay (Cross, 1999), buyers and sellers seem to be aware of the current prices in their area. Word of mouth, a hay directory website (Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, 2005), and the Farm Facts bulletin (Tennessee Agricultural Statistics Service, 2004) are among the primary outlets for price discovery (Rawls, September 2004). Hay producers are typically assumed to be price takers (Shumway, 1983) because of the large numbers of sellers and buyers; nevertheless, search costs and price differentials can result from the lack of a central market. Even though hay and livestock producers have avenues for price determination in the short run, they have little information about what causes supply and demand for hay to change from year to year. The overall objective of this research was to illustrate how the understanding of hay markets can provide valuable information to hay and livestock producers and agricultural policymakers. Using the Tennessee hay market as an example, the specific objectives were to: 1) determine the factors that influence Tennessee hay supply and quantify their effects, 2) determine the factors that influence Tennessee hay demand and quantify their effects, and 3) briefly illustrate the importance of hay supply and demand information to policymakers. Estimating factors that influence hay supply and demand can help to provide hay and livestock producers with valuable information for making more informed business decisions and policymakers with insight into how proposed agricultural policies might affect hay and livestock producers. To accomplish the objectives, Tennessee hay supply and demand were modeled econometrically, and the coefficients of the models were used to quantify hay acreage, yield, and price responses to the factors that influence the Tennessee hay market. The results were then used to briefly illustrate the potential impacts on the 2008 Tennessee hay price from the retirement of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage in 2007. Hay acreage proved to be fairly unresponsive to output and input prices in both the short and long runs. The weak response of hay acreage to own and substitute crop prices may result from many hay producers also being cattle producers that harvest their own hay in an effort to guarantee a reliable supply of roughage to feed their herds throughout the winter months. They might be willing to give up potentially higher profits from a production alternative to avert the risk of feed shortages for their cattle. The hay price appeared to be responsive to real per capita income with a price flexibility of 1.55. This finding is reasonable because an increase in real per capita income results in more purchasing power for a typical household. As purchasing power increases, one would expect beef consumption to increase because beef is a normal good (Schroeder and Mark, 1999). Increased beef consumption would positively influence the derived demand for beef production inputs; hence, increased demand for hay. A weak response of hay price to the quantity of hay produced (HPRODt) could be explained by the hay market structure. First, some livestock farmers may produce large amounts of hay for their own livestock, much of which is not sold on the market. These farmers may be able to produce hay at a lower cost than market price, or they may be willing to forgo the potential cost savings from buying hay from an off-farm source to avert the risk of feed shortages for their cattle. Additionally, unlike the market for corn or cattle, the hay market is much less organized and structured. Farmers producing hay for the cash market have no nearby and convenient grain elevator or auction market at which to sell their product. Weak response to changes in hay quantity and price suggests that hay farmers may not be driven solely by the profit motive. Instead, other motives may also enter into their objective functions as utility maximizers.acreage response, derived demand, elasticities, hay, inverse demand function, price flexibilities, yield response, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, D,