Construction and Software Design for a Microcomputer Controlled pH/Ion Titrator

The construction of an automated titration device is described. The major components include an Apple II+ Microcomputer and 8-bit parallel interface. Fisher Accumet, Model 520 Digital pH/lon Meter, Gilmont Micrometer Buret of 2.5 mL capacity, Sigma stepper motor, power supply and driver to operate the buret, and a constant temperature bath of ± 0.005 °C stability. The limitations of the system are 0.001 pH/0.1 mv for the pH/ion sensing system, and 0.125 μL per step for the buret. The system as described is designed to determine equilibrium constants for metal ion-amino acid complexes. By changing the software a variety of different pH and redox titration experiments may be performed. A computer program used to operate the stepper motor driven syringe buret and record the pH from a digital pH meter is described. The program uses both Apple BASIC and assembly language. This is a closed loop operation in which the data from the pH meter is used to control the amount of reagent delivered by the buret. The results are displayed graphically as the titration proceeds. The variance of the pH readings are calculated using an assembly language subroutine and the calculations are done with zero round-off error

Buffet test in the National Transonic Facility

A buffet test of a commercial transport model was accomplished in the National Transonic Facility at the NASA Langley Research Center. This aeroelastic test was unprecedented for this wind tunnel and posed a high risk for the facility. Presented here are the test results from a structural dynamics and aeroelastic response point of view. The activities required for the safety analysis and risk assessment are described. The test was conducted in the same manner as a flutter test and employed on-board dynamic instrumentation, real time dynamic data monitoring, and automatic and manual tunnel interlock systems for protecting the model

Navigating the Winds of Change: Licensing, Registration, and Regulatory Overlay for Wind Farms and Associated Transmission in Texas

The State of Texas leads the United States in wind energy generation capacity—it has more than twice the wind generation capacity of the next-closest state, California. If Texas was an independent nation, it would rank sixth in the world in total installed wind capacity. Texas has a rich history of legislation and regulatory effort to thank for these statistics, which reflects the knowledge that energy and infrastructure drive the economy. Starting in 1999, Texas became one of the first states to enact a Renewable Portfolio Standard (“RPS”). The RPS set a state-wide goal for new renewable energy installation with deadlines for when that goal was to be met. In addition to passing an RPS, Texas also created Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (“CREZs”). CREZs are areas of Texas that have been designated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (“PUCT”) to receive special benefits for wind transmission and development due to their strong wind resources and large financial commitments in the region by wind developers. These programs, and several others, have helped the wind industry in Texas grow exponentially to continually reach the goals set out by the RPS long before deadlines arrive. In fact, on a recent day towards the end of March, wind generation accounted for 29% of the electricity used by most Texans

Effects of remote annual forcing in the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean

An ocean model is used to study the effects of remote annual forcing in the eastern tropical Atlantic. The model is linear, viscid and continuously stratified. The ocean basin is an idealized version of that of the tropical Atlantic, and the wind stress forcing the model is an idealized representation of the annual variation of the equatorial trades in the western Atlantic. Solutions are represented as expansions of the baroclinic modes of the system. The response of each mode is found numerically, not by integrating the equations of motion forward in time, but at a fixed frequency (2π year–1) using techniques that are typically used in models of the tides. Prominent features of the solution are the following. When the remote trades strengthen, sea level drops and the pycnocline rises markedly throughout the Gulf of Guinea. At 4W the annual response is tightly trapped to the equator and to the coast of Africa near 5N. In contrast, the response propagates offshore along the southern coast of Africa near 10E. Events propagate upward everywhere in the Gulf of Guinea and poleward (nearly) everywhere along the coast of Africa. These features compare favorably with observations. A single baroclinic mode does not dominate the response. Instead, waves associated with several modes superpose to form beams that propagate energy vertically as well as horizontally (McCreary, 1984). Along the equator the response is predominantly a combination of a beam of equatorial Kelvin waves and a lowest order (l – 1) Rossby beam. Along the coast of Africa at 5N it is primarily a beam of coastal Kelvin waves

Creating a Culture for Leading and Performing in the Extreme

By early 2008 in the Iraq War, the positive effects of the U.S. surge had started to become visible in the streets of Baghdad, as shops began to reopen and people again filled the streets.1 Despite these outwardly positive appearances, a sinister undercurrent flowed through the population. Rumors ran rampant in Iraqi military and government circles that the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr\u27s Mahdi Army was about to launch an offensive against the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, because of Sadr\u27s unhappiness with his waning political influence. In the neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, in Baghdad\u27s southeastern quadrant, Sadrist fighters started to make trouble. The unit responsible for Zafaraniyah had been trained by its commander to act with a great deal of restraint in order to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths. This was in keeping with guidance issued by General David Petraeus, commanding general of the Multi-National Forces-Iraq. The success or failure of Petraeus\u27 strategy of limiting civilian deaths depended solely on the support of the Iraqi people and their perceptions of American and Iraqi forces. What Petraeus was attempting to do on a large scale was to change the organizational culture of both forces. The events of February and March 2008 would put Petraeus\u27 vision and strategy to the test and offer evidence of what happens when old ways of doing business compete with the new. On the second night of what would come to be called the uprising, a fight erupted between a dozen young Sadrist fighters and a platoon of American and Iraqi soldiers in the most troubled neighborhood in Zafaraniyah. The engaged platoon was well trained, had the situation well in hand, and acted with restraint. What unfolded was a textbook example of the tendency of higher headquarters to use available technological innovations regardless of the logic (or illogic) of doing so and in contravention of a subordinate commander\u27s wishes. The battalion watch officer, or battle captain, ran from the tactical operations center (TOC) to the battalion commander\u27s office to notify him of the firefight. The battle captain explained that the brigade headquarters wanted to drop a SOD-pound bomb from an F/A-18 Super Hornet onto the house where it was believed that twelve or so fighters had gone to make a last stand. The brigade TOC was watching the house from several miles away via a live camera feed from an aerial drone. Rushing to the TOC the battalion commander attempted to call off the strike. For God\u27s sake-our job here is to protect the Iraqi people! It\u27s the first sentence in our f--g mission statement! And you want to drop a damned bomb on someone\u27s house?! Every soldier in the TOC broke eye contact. They knew they were wrong. Their error: they got caught up in viewing the action as nothing more than a video game. They failed to assess whether dropping a bomb on an Iraqi house was consistent with the commander\u27s intent to exercise restraint and minimize civilian casualties. Within minutes, the battalion commander was on his way to the scene of the fighting to assess the situation. Almost immediately, he heard the boom of a Hellfire missile striking its target to the east of the commander\u27s location, followed by the staccato report of a string of 30mm shells from the helicopter\u27s main gun. Several minutes later, the commander found the platoon. The two small units and the Iraqi soldiers began fighting their way deep into the neighborhood to find the target house. It appeared that the missile strike had taken the spirit out of the enemy fighters, and friendly forces surrounded the house. They found surprisingly little damage. Fortunately, the Apache helicopter had fired a newly developed missile, specifically designed to limit destruction in urban terrain. Nonetheless, there was still collateral damage to other houses and pools of blood on the ground, along with bloody Iraqi National Police uniforms

Creating a Culture for Leading and Performing in the Extreme

By early 2008 in the Iraq War, the positive effects of the U.S. surge had started to become visible in the streets of Baghdad, as shops began to reopen and people again filled the streets.1 Despite these outwardly positive appearances, a sinister undercurrent flowed through the population. Rumors ran rampant in Iraqi military and government circles that the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr\u27s Mahdi Army was about to launch an offensive against the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, because of Sadr\u27s unhappiness with his waning political influence. In the neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, in Baghdad\u27s southeastern quadrant, Sadrist fighters started to make trouble. The unit responsible for Zafaraniyah had been trained by its commander to act with a great deal of restraint in order to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths. This was in keeping with guidance issued by General David Petraeus, commanding general of the Multi-National Forces-Iraq. The success or failure of Petraeus\u27 strategy of limiting civilian deaths depended solely on the support of the Iraqi people and their perceptions of American and Iraqi forces. What Petraeus was attempting to do on a large scale was to change the organizational culture of both forces. The events of February and March 2008 would put Petraeus\u27 vision and strategy to the test and offer evidence of what happens when old ways of doing business compete with the new. On the second night of what would come to be called the uprising, a fight erupted between a dozen young Sadrist fighters and a platoon of American and Iraqi soldiers in the most troubled neighborhood in Zafaraniyah. The engaged platoon was well trained, had the situation well in hand, and acted with restraint. What unfolded was a textbook example of the tendency of higher headquarters to use available technological innovations regardless of the logic (or illogic) of doing so and in contravention of a subordinate commander\u27s wishes. The battalion watch officer, or battle captain, ran from the tactical operations center (TOC) to the battalion commander\u27s office to notify him of the firefight. The battle captain explained that the brigade headquarters wanted to drop a SOD-pound bomb from an F/A-18 Super Hornet onto the house where it was believed that twelve or so fighters had gone to make a last stand. The brigade TOC was watching the house from several miles away via a live camera feed from an aerial drone. Rushing to the TOC the battalion commander attempted to call off the strike. For God\u27s sake-our job here is to protect the Iraqi people! It\u27s the first sentence in our f--g mission statement! And you want to drop a damned bomb on someone\u27s house?! Every soldier in the TOC broke eye contact. They knew they were wrong. Their error: they got caught up in viewing the action as nothing more than a video game. They failed to assess whether dropping a bomb on an Iraqi house was consistent with the commander\u27s intent to exercise restraint and minimize civilian casualties. Within minutes, the battalion commander was on his way to the scene of the fighting to assess the situation. Almost immediately, he heard the boom of a Hellfire missile striking its target to the east of the commander\u27s location, followed by the staccato report of a string of 30mm shells from the helicopter\u27s main gun. Several minutes later, the commander found the platoon. The two small units and the Iraqi soldiers began fighting their way deep into the neighborhood to find the target house. It appeared that the missile strike had taken the spirit out of the enemy fighters, and friendly forces surrounded the house. They found surprisingly little damage. Fortunately, the Apache helicopter had fired a newly developed missile, specifically designed to limit destruction in urban terrain. Nonetheless, there was still collateral damage to other houses and pools of blood on the ground, along with bloody Iraqi National Police uniforms

Koinonia

The Purpose of Higher Education President\u27s Corner The Editor\u27s Disk CoCCA: Volunteer Service...Required? & Hot Ideas New Professionals Retreat, ACSD Archives Announcement Book Preview: What on Earth Are We Doing? ACSD Northwest Regional Activity Career Development: Much More Than Placementhttps://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_koinonia/1025/thumbnail.jp