Electric Aircraft and the Environment: A Literature Review

Historically, the integration of social need, environmental impact, and technological advancement has been a challenging balancing act for growing cities and metropoles. If the balance between social need and environmental sustainability is reached, the increasing advancements and improvements made to electric aircrafts have the potential to steer society towards a new mode of sustainable air. One reason why electric aircraft technology has not grown as fast as other technologies is because there lacked a need for fast advancements. With that said, electric aircraft technologies are improving today due to the demand in heavily populated cities to relieve traffic [5]. Some issues growing cities face are inadequate housing, inefficient infrastructure, and high traffic congestion. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), traffic congestion within the Bay Area has increased 9% in the past two years [5]. The gridlock in the Bay Area increased as approximately 13,000 cars cross the Bay Bridge daily. A report produced by Arup Corporation reports that the Bay Area is second only to Los Angeles in the intensity of traffic congestion [1]. A study by UCLA determined that the economic boom in the Bay Area in the previous decade had driven the influx of inhabitants to the area [5]. These are two examples of metropolitan cities that are impacted by traffic congestion. To mitigate the negative consequences associated with high traffic congestion, it is beneficial to explore redesigning the infrastructure of metropolitan cities in tandem with residual effects of the economic boom. [5]. This literature review analyzes electric aircraft as a viable solution to high congestion and explores the possible effects of it on the environment

What Kind of Asian Are You?

You don’t know anything about me. You’ve never been to my country; you don’t know my native language; you may not even be able to locate Vietnam on a map. And that’s ok. What matters isn’t that you already know about my country and my culture. What matters is your attitude toward learning about it. [excerpt

The impact of non-technological innovation on technical innovation: do services differ from manufacturing? An empirical analysis of Luxembourg firms

Generally speaking, the support of technological innovation has been viewed in terms of input such as R&D and instruments such as legal protection. The literature on innovation highlights the interactive nature of the innovation process in which non-technological activities are essential. However, few works have taken into account the role of other innovative strategies such as marketing and organisational innovation, a role which may differ according to whether the firm is involved in manufacturing or in services. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to fill this gap by highlighting the effects of non-technological innovation strategies on technological innovation. For the empirical work, we used firm-level data drawn from the Community Innovation Survey 2006 for Luxembourg. Our results show that the effects of non-technological innovations differ depending on the phase of the innovation process. Marketing and organisational innovations significantly increase the likelihood of innovation, but not the commercial success of innovation. The study also shows the differentiated effects of the two types of non-technological innovation in manufacturing and service, and confirms the key role of organisational innovation for services.CIS; Innovation; Marketing; Organisation; Technological Innovation

Adsorption of aminefluorides onto glass and the determination of surface free energy, zeta potential and adsorbed layer thickness

Aminefluorides are known to affect bacterial adhesion to enamel. In order to obtain information on the structure of adsorbed aminefluoride coatings, dihydroaminefluoride (AmF 297) and oleylaminefluoride (AmF 335) were adsorbed onto glass from solutions with concentrations up to 10 mM. Surface tensions of the solutions were measured at 25°C. After coating the glass surfaces, surface free energies, zeta potentials and adsorbed layer thicknesses were determined from contact angles, electrophoresis and ellipsometry, respectively. Surface free energies decreased after coating with both types of aminefluoride from 109 to _ 45 mJ m-*. Coating with only high concentrations (> 5 mA4) of AmF 297 again resulted in surface free energies above 100 mJ m-‘. Zeta potentials, originally - 45 mV, became positive after coating with both types of aminefluoride (approximately + 5 mV). Coating with only AmF 297 at concentrations above 5 mM gave zeta potentials of + 20 mV. Adsorbed layer thicknesses were in the monolayer range, though AmF 297 on its own clearly formed thicker layers at higher concentrations. Both surfactants showed a tendency to form micelles in solution at concentrations higher than 1 n&f. The results indicate that both aminefluorides adsorb with the positively charged, polar group towards the glass, but only AmF 297 can form double layers at higher concentrations. The second layer, however, adsorbs with the positively charged polar groups towards the solution and is bound to the first layer by relatively weak forces between the hydrocarbon chains. Gentle rinsing with distilled water is sufficient to remove the double layers. This paper shows how a combination of surface techniques can yield a detailed picture of the structure and orientation of adsorbed layers on solid substrata

Thermodynamics for Trajectories of a Mass Point

On the basis of information theory, a new formalism of classical non-relativistic mechanics of a mass point is proposed. The particle trajectories of a general dynamical system defined on an (1+n)-dimensional smooth manifold are treated geometrically as dynamical variables. Statistical mechanics of particle trajectories are constructed in a classical manner. Thermodynamic variables are introduced through a partition function based on a canonical ensemble of trajectories. Within this theoretical framework, classical mechanics can be interpreted as an equilibrium state of statistical mechanics. The relationships between classical and quantum mechanics are discussed from this statistical mechanical viewpoint. The maximum entropy principle is shown to provide a unified view of both classical and quantum mechanics.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figur