Development of a New Data Tool for Computing Launch and Landing Availability with Respect to Surface Weather

The Marshall Space Flight Center Natural Environments Branch has a long history of expertise in the modeling and computation of statistical launch availabilities with respect to weather conditions. Their existing data analysis product, the Atmospheric Parametric Risk Assessment (APRA) tool, computes launch availability given an input set of vehicle hardware and/or operational weather constraints by calculating the climatological probability of exceeding the specified constraint limits, APRA has been used extensively to provide the Space Shuttle program the ability to estimate impacts that various proposed design modifications would have to overall launch availability. The model accounts for both seasonal and diurnal variability at a single geographic location and provides output probabilities for a single arbitrary launch attempt. Recently, the Shuttle program has shown interest in having additional capabilities added to the APRA model, including analysis of humidity parameters, inclusion of landing site weather to produce landing availability, and concurrent analysis of multiple sites, to assist in operational landing site selection. In addition, the Constellation program has also expressed interest in the APRA tool, and has requested several additional capabilities to address some Constellation-specific issues, both in the specification and verification of design requirements and in the development of operations concepts. The combined scope of the requested capability enhancements suggests an evolution of the model beyond a simple revision process. Development has begun for a new data analysis tool that will satisfy the requests of both programs. This new tool, Probabilities of Atmospheric Conditions and Environmental Risk (PACER), will provide greater flexibility and significantly enhanced functionality compared to the currently existing tool

Robust topology optimization of three-dimensional photonic-crystal band-gap structures

We perform full 3D topology optimization (in which "every voxel" of the unit cell is a degree of freedom) of photonic-crystal structures in order to find optimal omnidirectional band gaps for various symmetry groups, including fcc (including diamond), bcc, and simple-cubic lattices. Even without imposing the constraints of any fabrication process, the resulting optimal gaps are only slightly larger than previous hand designs, suggesting that current photonic crystals are nearly optimal in this respect. However, optimization can discover new structures, e.g. a new fcc structure with the same symmetry but slightly larger gap than the well known inverse opal, which may offer new degrees of freedom to future fabrication technologies. Furthermore, our band-gap optimization is an illustration of a computational approach to 3D dispersion engineering which is applicable to many other problems in optics, based on a novel semidefinite-program formulation for nonconvex eigenvalue optimization combined with other techniques such as a simple approach to impose symmetry constraints. We also demonstrate a technique for \emph{robust} topology optimization, in which some uncertainty is included in each voxel and we optimize the worst-case gap, and we show that the resulting band gaps have increased robustness to systematic fabrication errors.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Optics Expres

One Size Does Not Fit All: Meeting the Health Care Needs of Diverse Populations

Proposes a framework for meeting patients' cultural and linguistic needs: policies and procedures that support cultural competence, data collection, population-tailored services, and internal and external collaborations. Includes a self-assessment tool

Rice cultivar \u27Banks\u27

A rice cultivar designated ‘Banks’ is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice cultivar ‘Banks’, to the plants of rice ‘Banks’ and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Banks’ with itself or another rice variety. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Banks’ with another rice cultivar

Rice cultivar \u27Francis\u27

A novel rice cultivar, designated ‘Francis’, is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice cultivar ‘Francis’, to the plants of rice ‘Francis’ and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Francis’ with itself or another rice variety. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Francis’ with another rice cultivar

Rice cultivar ‘Ahrent’

A novel rice cultivar, designated ‘Ahrent’, is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice cultivar ‘Ahrent’, to the plants of rice ‘Ahrent’ and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Ahrent’ with itself or another rice variety. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Ahrent’ with another rice cultivar

Rice cultivar \u27Spring\u27

A rice cultivar designated ‘Spring’ is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice cultivar ‘Spring’, to the plants of rice ‘Spring’ and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Spring’ with itself or another rice variety. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Spring’ with another rice cultivar

An Evaluation Of Workplace Wellness Programs: A Perspective From Rural Organizations

This paper describes a study to determine the prevalence and characteristics of employee wellness programming amongst rural organizations and/or employers. A sample of convenience (n = 200) from a local human resource management association was surveyed via e-mail with an internet based questionnaire containing 20 items regarding employee wellness programming, activities, effectiveness, and measurement. The results indicated that the primary responsibility for employee wellness programming rests with the human resource department (63.6%). Most rural organizations’ employee wellness program are implemented to improve employee health, improve employee productivity, and to reduce absenteeism. The findings indicate human resource professionals in rural organizations are struggling to determine effective measures for employee wellness programs despite significant investments of money. Rural, unlike urban or metropolitan, based organizations are not offering substantial incentives to employees in order to increase participation, and are continuing to offer traditional employee wellness activities such as smoking cessation, and vaccinations. These employers are not measuring effectiveness (53%) and not realizing substantial cost savings (63.2%) for the return on investment

Rice cultivar \u27Ahrent\u27

A novel rice cultivar, designated ‘Ahrent’, is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice cultivar ‘Ahrent’, to the plants of rice ‘Ahrent’ and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Ahrent’ with itself or another rice variety. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the cultivar ‘Ahrent’ with another rice cultivar