Spacecraft cost estimation

Spacecraft subsystem cost estimatio

Male Nurses’ Experience Of Gender Stereotyping Over The Past Five Decades: A Narrative Approach

Negative stereotyping of men in nursing has been a chronic problem that has a direct effect on males and detracts from efforts to recruit and retain them. At this time in American history (2018), traditionally male-dominated professions are making significant progress toward the goal of a gender-balanced workplace. However, the opposite is not true. Traditionally female-dominated professions are not attracting or appealing to men. In the nursing profession, the number of male nurses is relatively small and has remained relatively fixed over time. Estimates vary between 6-15 percent, with the current average being approximately 11 percent (American Nurses Association, 2014). The aim of this qualitative narrative study is to explore the perception of stereotyping by male nurses over time and to ascertain if there has been a change in the male’s perception of the phenomenon. To this end, the research question is as follows: What are the effects of stereotyping on the perceptions of male nurses from the years 1970 through 2017? The purpose of this qualitative exploratory narrative analysis is to examine the phenomena of male nurse stereotyping as experienced by men in nursing within the context of time. Using a narrative approach, a snowball sample of male nurses was applied. The nurses related their personal recollections and experiences of being a male in a female-dominated profession. Each interview used a narrative approach to elicit the stories from the participant’s career progression. Participants were specifically recruited from careers that spanned five decades. The men were asked to focus on what was occurring in society from their point of entry into the profession and to compare it to 2019. The selection of participants was divided into ten-year increments starting from 1970-1979 and ending in 2017 (seven-year increment for the last group). Three men were interviewed from 1970-79, 1980-89, and 2010-2017 cohorts; four men were from the 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 cohort. A total of seventeen nurses were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. A narrative analysis using Catherine Riessman’s (1993) method of thematic analysis was applied to identify patterns of the lived personal positive and negative experiences of male nurses. This study was conducted to determine if the perception of gender bias and stereotyping for males has changed over time. Although present in each of the decades, there was some variation. Regardless of the decade analyzed, the effect of stereotyping varied from male to male. As an example, in some of the participants from the older cohorts, bias was not perceived at all whereas, in some of the younger participants it was. There were two notable findings. First, as time went on, there were fewer vocalizations of stereotyping, and when it did occur, it was often in the form of “joking or teasing.” Most of the men agreed that gender bias and stereotyping has become less of an issue or not a factor at all. Secondly, some of the issues that the men spoke of have a historical connection to the literature on male nurse stereotyping. These issues were echoed in the interviews of the men in this study. Some of the issues revealed have more significance than others. Some of the more serious issues include males feeling inadequate or fearful in caring for females, particularly younger females. Male treatment by faculty or staff during their obstetrical rotations was an issue for the older cohorts more than the younger ones. Males being asked to lift and move patients more often than their female colleagues occurred across the continuum. Males were considered professionally misplaced, often asked, “Why are you not a doctor?” Some unanticipated findings were in regard to the male’s female colleagues. The men vocalize their observation of biases against female nurses, noting how providers often spoke differently (negatively) toward female nurses. Furthermore, men were often assumed to be in charge because of their gender and traditional societal gender roles, which could be advantageous

The Mystification of Gender Affirmation — Galathea, Gender, and Fantasy

John Lyly\u27s Galatea centers the role that gender expression plays in both communal interactions and interpersonal relationships. I argue that the way in which Galatea and Phillida present themselves within the play parallels the modern interpretation of transgender theory as outlined by Judith Butler. The actions that the two take are in service of manufacturing the kind of gender expression that breaks from conventional norms. While still rooted within fundamentalist dynamics, Lyly breaks free of bioessentialist understandings of gender in favor of a more liberating approach

Climate change and the selective signature of the Late Ordovician mass extinction

Selectivity patterns provide insights into the causes of ancient extinction events. The Late Ordovician mass extinction was related to Gondwanan glaciation; however, it is still unclear whether elevated extinction rates were attributable to record failure, habitat loss, or climatic cooling. We examined Middle Ordovician-Early Silurian North American fossil occurrences within a spatiotemporally explicit stratigraphic framework that allowed us to quantify rock record effects on a per-taxon basis and assay the interplay of macrostratigraphic and macroecological variables in determining extinction risk. Genera that had large proportions of their observed geographic ranges affected by stratigraphic truncation or environmental shifts at the end of the Katian stage were particularly hard hit. The duration of the subsequent sampling gaps had little effect on extinction risk, suggesting that this extinction pulse cannot be entirely attributed to rock record failure; rather, it was caused, in part, by habitat loss. Extinction risk at this time was also strongly influenced by the maximum paleolatitude at which a genus had previously been sampled, a macroecological trait linked to thermal tolerance. A model trained on the relationship between 16 explanatory variables and extinction patterns during the early Katian interval substantially underestimates the extinction of exclusively tropical taxa during the late Katian interval. These results indicate that glacioeustatic sea-level fall and tropical ocean cooling played important roles in the first pulse of the Late Ordovician mass extinction in Laurentia

Examining Ambiguities in the Automatic Packet Reporting System

The Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is an amateur radio packet network that has evolved over the last several decades in tandem with, and then arguably beyond, the lifetime of other VHF/UHF amateur packet networks, to the point where it is one of very few packet networks left on the amateur VHF/UHF bands. This is proving to be problematic due to the loss of institutional knowledge as older amateur radio operators who designed and built APRS and other AX.25-based packet networks abandon the hobby or pass away. The purpose of this document is to collect and curate a sufficient body of knowledge to ensure the continued usefulness of the APRS network, and re-examining the engineering decisions made during the network’s evolution to look for possible improvements and identify deficiencies in documentation of the existing network

Computer optimization of reactor-thermoelectric space power systems

A computer simulation and optimization code that has been developed for nuclear space power systems is described. The results of using this code to analyze two reactor-thermoelectric systems are presented

Federal Employee Invention Rights - Time to Legislate

It is the purpose of this article to review judicial standards applicable to the determination of rights in inventions made by employees of the federal government, to note statutory provisions affecting the problem, to examine the content and effect of the present Executive program for determining such rights, to review and evaluate two fundamental and conflicting theories in this field, and to propose legislation establishing appropriate standards and procedures. This topic is believed to have general interest because, in addition to the urgencies suggested above, the problem touches some of the basic legal philosophy underlying the United States patent system

Energetic Costs of Calcification Under Ocean Acidification

Anthropogenic ocean acidification threatens to negatively impact marine organisms that precipitate calcium carbonate skeletons. Past geological events, such as the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction, together with modern experiments generally support these concerns. However, the physiological costs of producing a calcium carbonate skeleton under different acidification scenarios remain poorly understood. Here we present an idealized mathematical model to quantify whole-skeleton costs, concluding that they rise only modestly (up to ∼10%) under acidification expected for 2100. The modest magnitude of this effect reflects in part the low energetic cost of inorganic, calcium carbonate relative to the proteinaceous organic matrix component of skeletons. Our analysis does, however, point to an important kinetic constraint that depends on seawater carbonate chemistry, and we hypothesize that the impact of acidification is more likely to cause extinctions within groups where the timescale of larval development is tightly constrained. The cheapness of carbonate skeletons compared to organic materials also helps explain the widespread evolutionary convergence upon calcification within the metazoa

IS for Government Climate Change Adaptation Activities: An Exploratory Case Study

This paper reports a case study of climate change adaptation activities of the New South Wales Government’s Climate Change Working Group where ten agencies have responsibility for thirty-five long-term activities. A concurrent Data-Centre Consolidation project has highlighted the mammoth amount of data held by different agencies that must be integrated into information to adequately support these adaptation activities. Our analysis of data collected from interviews and documents reveals the potential of a retrospective ontology capability, and a unique citizen record in enabling this integration. Adaptation activities require resolution of differences in the perspectives of government agencies and citizens and changes to current restrictive sustainability practices in order to meaningfully engage with a wide range of non-governmental stakeholders in a way that ensures visibility of action and confers the authority to act in the context of climate change adaptation activities

A Temperature-Dependent Positive Feedback on the Magnitude of Carbon Isotope Excursions

The decrease in the average magnitude of carbon isotope excursions in marine carbonates over Phanerozoic time is a longstanding unresolved problem. In addition, carbon isotope excursions commonly co-occur with oxygen isotope excursions of the same sign, implying the existence of a longstanding link between organic carbon burial fluxes and temperature. It was proposed that this connection was provided by the thermodynamic relationship between temperature and microbial respiration rates – changes in temperature drive changes in organic carbon remineralization rate and organic carbon burial efficiency. Such a mechanism provides the logic for a positive feedback affecting the magnitude of both climate changes and carbon isotope excursions. Here, we employ feedback analysis to quantify the strength of this mechanism with modifications to a simple carbon isotope mass balance framework. We demonstrate that the potential strength of this feedback is large (perhaps several permil) for plausible ranges of historical climate change. Furthermore, our results highlight the importance of the surface temperature boundary condition on the magnitude of the expected carbon isotope excursion. Comparisons of our model predictions with data from the terminal Eocene and Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) greenhouse–icehouse climate transitions suggest that these excursions might be substantially explained by such a thermodynamic microbial respiration feedback. Consequently, we hypothesize that the observed pattern of decreasing excursion magnitude toward the present might be explained at least, in part, by a decrease in the mean temperature of environments of organic carbon burial driven by long-term climate and paleogeographic trends. SOMMAIRELa diminution de l'amplitude moyenne des excursions des isotopes du carbone dans les carbonates marins au fil du Phanérozoïque est une énigme de longue date.  On note en outre que les excursions des isotopes du carbone coexistent couramment avec des excursions isotopiques de même signe de l'oxygène, ce qui implique l'existence d'un lien de longue date entre les flux d’enfouissement du carbone organique et la température.  On a suggéré que ce lien découlait de la relation thermodynamique entre la température et les taux de respiration microbienne - les changements de température déterminent le taux de reminéralisation du carbone organique et l’efficacité de l’enfouissement du carbone organique.  Un tel mécanisme peut expliquer la rétroaction positive affectant à la fois l'ampleur des changements climatiques et les excursions des isotopes du carbone.  Dans le cas présent, nous utilisons l'analyse de la rétroaction pour quantifier la robustesse de ce mécanisme avec des modifications d’un simple bilan de masse des isotopes du carbone.  Nous démontrons que la robustesse potentielle de cette rétroaction est forte (peut-être plusieurs pour mille) dans les gammes plausibles du changement climatique historique.  De plus, nos résultats mettent en évidence l'importance de la condition aux limites de la température de surface sur l'ampleur de l'excursion isotopique du carbone attendue.  Les comparaisons des prédictions de notre modèle avec les données de la fin de l'Éocène et de la fin de l’Ordovicien (Hirnantien) des transitions climatiques à effet de serre-effet/de glaciation permettent de penser que ces excursions pourraient être correctement expliquées par une telle rétroaction de la thermodynamique de la respiration microbienne.  Par conséquent, nous émettons l'hypothèse que la tendance observée de diminution de l'ampleur de l’amplitude des excursions du passé vers le présent peut s'expliquer, au moins en partie, par une diminution de la température moyenne du milieu d'enfouissement du carbone organique engendrée par des tendances climatiques et paléogéographiques à long terme