Advanced electro-optical imaging techniques

The papers presented at the symposium are given which deal with the present state of sensors, as may be applicable to the Large Space Telescope (LST) program. Several aspects of sensors are covered including a discussion of the properties of photocathodes and the operational imaging camera tubes

Re-Engineering the Local State: Participation, Social Justice and Interlocking Institutions

The municipalization of basic social service delivery in Brazil provides significant incentives for local public officials to have a better understanding of their constituents’ needs and requirements both to govern and for political purposes. The broadening of participatory venues under the 1988 Constitution allowed for the establishment of a broad number of public venues that civil society leaders could use to represent their associations. Government officials and civil society leaders have constant contact with each other as each seek to promote polices that advance their narrow and broader concerns. This article focuses on the establishment of three governing principles of five successive governments in Belo Horizonte: Social justice, popular participation, and interlocking institutions. The government and its allies in civil society redesigned citizen access points into the state as means to clarifying the signals sent from citizens to government officials, to allow civil society organization (CSO) leaders to act as intermediaries between citizens and public officials and to allow government officials’ to tap into CSO leaders and citizens’ attitudes on a wide range of pressing political issues. These interlocking venues are a key moment of interest mediation, which partially accounts for how Belo Horizonte produces robust social policy change in a context of a highly fragmented party system. Participatory governance is now the key mechanism that allows for constant dialogue among citizens and government officials. This article is part of a larger research project seeking to understand how and why the local Brazilian state was restructured in the 1990s, how citizens are incorporated into state-sanctioned governance bodies, and importantly, how the new institutional environment has helped to transform state-society relations

Participatory Budgeting: Core Principles and Key Impacts

This essay is a reflection piece. I identify key principles at the core of how PB functions and to discuss the scope of change we might expect to see generated by these institutions. I move beyond the idea that there is a specific model or set of “best practices” that define PB. Rather, it is most fruitful to conceptualize PB as a set of principles that can generate social change. The weaker the adherence to these principles, the less social change generated. The second purpose of the essay is to reflect on the impacts generated by PB. How do these institutions matter? My assumption is that ordinary citizens are more likely to be supportive of new democratic processes if they are able to clearly identify positive changes created by their participation in the new democratic institutions. Ordinary citizens are unlikely to continue to participate in new political institutions unless they perceive that these institutions produce tangible, positive changes in their lives. In this short reflection piece, I analyze how PB may affect democratic legitimacy, social well-being, and civil society

A fast branch-and-prune algorithm for the position analysis of spherical mechanisms

The final publication is available at link.springer.comDifferent branch-and-prune schemes can be found in the literature for numerically solving the position analysis of spherical mechanisms. For the prune operation, they all rely on the propagation of motion intervals. They differ in the way the problem is algebraically formulated. This paper exploits the fact that spherical kinematic loop equations can be formulated as sets of 3 multi-affine polynomials. Multi-affinity has an important impact on how the propagation of motion intervals can be performed because a multi-affine polynomial is uniquely determined by its values at the vertices of a closed hyperbox defined in its domain.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Recent Advances in Gastorintestinal Cancer

Colorectal carcinoma accounts for the majority of all gastrointestinal cancers and is the second leading site of cancer, excluding skin cancers, in overall incidence in the United States. Cancer of the stomach, although decreasing in frequency is still an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, data from large numbers of patients such as can be found in Cancer Patient Survival Report No. 5 show only very modest increases in survival for patients with these diseases in recent years

Relationships in DB

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-43).As design build (DB) becomes more popular, different ways of writing contracts and forming relationships with the various parties are being considered. The main point of this paper is to look at the relationships between the various parties involved in the design build delivery method. Contracts are what legally tie the parties together, but there can be many different problems with these contracts. A poor contract can easily strain good working relations. Contracts will divide the responsibility among the contractor and the designer. There are many different ways to mitigate risk for the design build team in a contract. This paper considers several ways to improve the working relations in a design build team. The contractors and designers face a considerable problem when placing a bid for a DB project. Their team could potentially lose a great deal of money if they under bid the project and win. But they risk not winning a project if their bid is high even if it is reasonable. Communication between the owners, contractors, and designers needs to be effective. There are various problems that have been stated by owners that they believe limit design build. The use of a third party has been popular by public project owners to ensure quality and to check the design build team's work. This relationship with third parties needs to be changed so that the project will not be slowed down. There are a few different ways that are discussed to improve the relations between the contractors, designers, and owners and ways to improve many of mentioned problems.by Charles Wilson Wampler.M.Eng

Towards Efficient Full Pose Omnidirectionality with Overactuated MAVs

Omnidirectional MAVs are a growing field, with demonstrated advantages for aerial interaction and uninhibited observation. While systems with complete pose omnidirectionality and high hover efficiency have been developed independently, a robust system that combines the two has not been demonstrated to date. This paper presents VoliroX: a novel omnidirectional vehicle that can exert a wrench in any orientation while maintaining efficient flight configurations. The system design is presented, and a 6 DOF geometric control that is robust to singularities. Flight experiments further demonstrate and verify its capabilities.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, ISER 2018 conference submissio