LH2 fuel tank design for SSTO

This report will discuss the design of a liquid hydrogen fuel tank constructed from composite materials. The focus of this report is to recommend a design for a fuel tank which will be able to withstand all static and dynamic forces during manned flight. Areas of study for the design include material selection, material structural analysis, heat transfer, thermal expansion, and liquid hydrogen diffusion. A structural analysis FORTRAN program was developed for analyzing the buckling and yield characteristics of the tank. A thermal analysis Excel spreadsheet was created to determine a specific material thickness which will minimize heat transfer through the wall of the tank. The total mass of the tank was determined by the combination of both structural and thermal analyses. The report concludes with the recommendation of a layered material tank construction. The designed system will include exterior insulation, combination of metal and organize composite matrices and honeycomb

A Case Study of the Implementation of an Engineering Program into a High School Technology Education Classroom

Using a case study format, our objective was to collect data related to the following research questions: - What criteria do teachers and districts use when selecting engineering design experiences for infusion into high school classes and which of these criteria are most effective? - What issues, opportunities, and constraints do teachers confront as they infuse engineering concepts into technology education

Effect of organic crop rotations on long-term development of the weed seedbank

Changes in the weed seedbank were monitored between 1991 and 1998 in two experiments that were established to compare organic crop rotations at two sites in NE Scotland. Two rotations, replicated twice at each site, were compared and all courses of both rotations were present every year. There were relatively minor changes in weed species diversity over time, but major changes in seedbank abundance. Weed seed numbers were relatively low in rotations with a high proportion of grass/clover ley. Differences in level of seedbank across the rotation were relatively predictable at Tulloch but much less so at Woodside where factors such as the effect of the grass/clover ley seemed to play a lesser role. Other factors, such as weather and its influence on the effectiveness of weed control operations, and higher populations of ground-living arthropods, may be affecting the Woodside seedbanks

Project LOCOST: Laser or Chemical Hybrid Orbital Space Transport

A potential mission in the late 1990s is the servicing of spacecraft assets located in GEO. The Geosynchronous Operations Support Center (GeoShack) will be supported by a space transfer vehicle based at the Space Station (SS). The vehicle will transport cargo between the SS and the GeoShack. A proposed unmanned, laser or chemical hybrid orbital space transfer vehicle (LOCOST) can be used to efficiently transfer cargo between the two orbits. A preliminary design shows that an unmanned, laser/chemical hybrid vehicle results in the fuel savings needed while still providing fast trip times. The LOCOST vehicle receives a 12 MW laser beam from one Earth orbiting, solar pumped, iodide Laser Power Station (LPS). Two Energy Relay Units (ERU) provide laser beam support during periods of line-of-sight blockage by the Earth. The baseline mission specifies a 13 day round trip transfer time. The ship's configuration consist of an optical train, one hydrogen laser engine, two chemical engines, a 18 m by 29 m box truss, a mission-flexible payload module, and propellant tanks. Overall vehicle dry mass is 8,000 kg. Outbound cargo mass is 20,000 kg, and inbound cargo mass is 6,000 kg. The baseline mission needs 93,000 kg of propellants to complete the scenario. Fully fueled, outbound mission mass is 121,000 kg. A regeneratively cooled, single plasma, laser engine design producing a maximum of 768 N of thrust is utilized along with two traditional chemical engines. The payload module is designed to hold 40,000 kg of cargo, though the baseline mission specifies less. A proposed design of a laser/chemical hybrid vehicle provides a trip time and propellant efficient means to transport cargo from the SS to a GeoShack. Its unique, hybrid propulsion system provides safety through redundancy, allows baseline missions to be efficiently executed, while still allowing for the possibility of larger cargo transfers

COVID-19 in New Zealand: The Moderating Effect of Involvement on the Roles of Attitudes and Subjective Norms

Popular theories that explain or predict behavioural intentions are based on people’s
 attitudes and subjective norms. Their application is based on the (often implicit) assumption that
 people regard a subject (e.g., preventing the spread of COVID-19) as sufficiently important for them
 to formulate stable attitudes and subjective norms about it. As this assumption rarely holds for
 all people, the influence of attitudes and subjective norms in determining behavioural intentions
 changes depending on the importance of the subject. In other words, importance has a moderating
 effect on the relationship between intentions, attitudes, and subjective norms. We hypothesise that, as
 importance declines, the influence on intentions of attitudes decreases and the influence of subjective
 norms increases. This has important implications for efforts to encourage the adoption of preventative
 behaviours in relation to COVID-19 because promotional strategies designed to modify attitudes
 differ markedly from those designed to modify subjective norms. We test this hypothesis by analysing
 three different large-scale surveys about people’s intentions, involvement, attitudes, and subjective
 norms regarding the spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand. The results support our hypothesis and
 highlight the importance of distinguishing between when the formation of behavioural intentions
 depends mainly on attitudes and when it depends mainly on subjective norms

Attitudes, Involvement and Public Support for Pest Control Methods

Public support is crucial to the widespread application of pest control methods both in the form of political support and, where people have direct agency in control methods, compliance with the demands of the methods. It is commonplace for personal behaviours reflecting political support for public policies to be presumed to depend on relevant attitudes, beliefs and values of the person. The finite amount of attention and cognitive effort each person possesses implies that attention and effort are rationed, indicating that changing behaviour requires that the targeted individual is attentive and willing to invest the required cognitive effort; that is, they are motivated to consider new information and, subsequently, to reviewing their attitudes and behaviour. We examine whether attitudes and involvement (a measure of motivation) together provide better predictions of public support for pest control methods than attitudes alone, using the distribution of baits containing sodium fluoroacetate (1080) in New Zealand to control invasive, non-native rats and possums as a case study. We found the novel combination of involvement and attitudes did provide significantly better predictions of an individual's support for using 1080 for the purpose of environmental conservation, and their pest control behaviour, than did attitudes alone

Self-defining memories predict engagement in structured activity in First Episode Psychosis, independent of neurocognition and metacognition

Background: Self-defining memories (SDM) are vivid personal memories, related to narrative identity. Individuals with schizophrenia report less specific, more negative, and extract less meaning from these memories compared to control groups. Self-defining memories have been shown to be predicted by neurocognition, associated with metacognition, and linked to goal outcomes in healthy controls. As neurocognition and metacognition are known predictors of poor functioning in psychosis, self-defining memories may also be a predictor. No study has assessed the relationship to functioning or pattern of SDMs in First Episode Psychosis. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 71 individuals with First Episode Psychosis (FEP) and 57 healthy controls who completed a self-defining memories questionnaire. FEP participants completed measures of neurocognition, metacognition (Metacognitive Assessment Interview), functional capacity (The UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment) and functional outcome (Time-Use Survey). Results: Self-defining memories reported by individuals with FEP were less integrated compared to healthy controls. Within the FEP sample, holding less specific memories was associated with engagement in significantly fewer hours of structured activity per week and specificity of SDMs mediated the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome, independent of metacognition. Conclusion: This is the first study to assess SDMs in FEP and to explore the important role of SDMs on clinical outcomes, compared to healthy controls. This study suggests that elaborating on specific self-defining memories is a valid therapeutic target and may be considered a tool to improve daily functioning in FEP

Relative advantage and complexity: Predicting the rate of adoption of agricultural innovations

The adoption of new technologies and practices is fundamental to having the capacity to adapt to climate change and ameliorate resource degradation. Consequently, having the ability to predict the scale and rate of adoption by farmers of agricultural innovations is central to gauging their adaptive capacity. It is also crucial to assessing the likely compliance of farmers with change-seeking incentives and regulations. In this paper we describe a novel approach to predicting rates of adoption with respect to agricultural technologies and practices drawing on a dual-process model of consumer decision-making and a method for describing the complexity of innovations in farm systems. We tested the approach using data collected through a survey of dairy farmers in the Waikato and Waipa regions of New Zealand. In the survey we asked 200 farmers, chosen at random, about their perceptions of the complexity and relative advantage of various agricultural and resource management practices, and collected information as to how long it took them to try, and then adopt, the practices. Our results confirm that the process of forming an intention to try or adopt a technology or practice may take several months for relatively simple technologies and practices, and several years for more complex ones. Importantly, we found that novelty in terms of the originality in the components and architecture of a technology or practice does not necessarily correlate with its complexity in terms of integrating it into farm systems. This means that apparently simple technologies and practices that are promoted to reduce resource degradation can be quite difficult to integrate into farm systems and, as a consequence, the costs of integration may act as a strong deterrent to adopting them. A logical implication of our findings is that a deep understanding of the nature of the integration task is essential to anticipating how long it might take for adoption (or compliance) to occur in agriculture and, therefore, to appreciate limits on the adaptive capacity of farmers. Such an understanding requires an intimate knowledge of the, sometimes diverse, farm systems and sub-systems in which the technology or practice is to be integrated

Testing the circularity of PSR B0818-41's carousel

The phenomenon of sub-pulse drifting is an important single-pulse phenomenon that can potentially provide important insights into the elusive radio emission mechanism in pulsars. We analyze the frequency behaviour of the single pulses of B0818-41, observed from 300 to 500 MHz (Band 3 of the uGMRT), and compare it to the evolution of the average profile to place constraints on the geometry of the pulsar's emission beam. We show that a circular carousel of discrete beamlets, where each beamlet has radial symmetry, is not consistent with the observed behaviour, and describe an alternative, consistent range of possible elliptical carousel geometries. We also combine the uGMRT data with some archival MWA observations and several other published profiles to characterize the profile evolution across a frequency range spanning ~170 MHz to ~1.4 GHz

Predicting willingness to be vaccinated for Covid-19: Evidence from New Zealand

Governments around the world are seeking to slow the spread of Covid-19 and reduce hospitalisations by encouraging mass vaccinations for Covid-19. The success of this policy depends on most of the population accepting the vaccine and then being vaccinated. Under standing and predicting the motivation of individuals to be vaccinated is, therefore, critical in assessing the likely effectiveness of a mass vaccination programme in slowing the spread of the virus. In this paper we draw on the I3 Response Framework to understand and predict the willingness of New Zealanders to be vaccinated for Covid-19. The Framework differs from most studies predicting willingness to be vaccinated because it is based on the idea
 that the willingness to adopt a behaviour depends on both involvement (a measure of motivational strength) with the behaviour and attitudes towards the behaviour. We show that predictions of individuals' willingness to be vaccinated are improved using involvement and attitudes together, compared to attitudes alone. This result has important implications for the implementation of mass vaccination programmes for Covid-19