Outcomes-based Funding and Responsibility Center Management: Combining the Best of State and Institutional Budget Models to Achieve Shared Goals

State governments serve as a key funding source for public higher education. An alternative to historically based state subsidies or enrollment-based formulas, outcomes-based funding allows states to convey goals for higher education by allocating state tax dollars based on measures of outcomes. Within higher education institutions, the Responsibility Center Management model engages deans and other mid-level managers in the responsibility and accountability for revenue generation as well as expense management. Policymakers will benefit from understanding this approach and how it could be used in concert with outcomes-based funding to support the development and delivery of new academic paradigms, expand access to underrepresented students, and, ultimately, increase educational attainment for a greater number of people. This article describes the potential alignment between incentives created by the Responsibility Center Management model and goals of outcomesbased funding. With an integration of the two models, there is a greater assurance of achieving the goals of both—fiscal sustainability and student success. By using Responsibility Center Management, college and university administrators are better able to marshal resources to help students complete their degrees and other credentials while also reaping the benefits of an outcomes-based funding system that directs public funding toward institutions that are doing just that

Laboratory experiments testing the effectiveness of the commercially available product PoCo in mitigating cyanobacterial blooms and decomposing organic matter

The Dutch company WiseUse International BV has proposed using a so-called bio stimulator “PoCo” (Pollution Control) in ecological restoration of Lake Ypacarai (Paraguay). In this study results of laboratory assays are reported testing the performance of PoCo regarding the alleged enhanced mineralization of organic matter in the water phase and sediment, the inhibition of cyanobacterial growth (as a clear measure counter acting the symptoms of eutrophication) and effects on survival of the waterflea Daphnia

Limiting acceptance angle to maximize efficiency in solar cells

Within a detailed balance formalism, the open circuit voltage of a solar cell can be found by taking the band gap energy and accounting for the losses associated with various sources of entropy increase. Often, the largest of these energy losses is due to the entropy associated with spontaneous emission. This entropy increase occurs because non-concentrating solar cells generally emit into 2π steradian, while the solid angle subtended by the sun is only 6.85×10^(-5) steradian. Thus, for direct normal irradiance, non-concentrating solar cells with emission and acceptance angle limited to a narrow range around the sun could see significant enhancements in open circuit voltage and efficiency. With the high degree of light trapping we expect given the narrow acceptance angle and the ray optics brightness theorem, the optimal cell thickness will result in a discrete modal structure for most materials. Thus, limiting the acceptance and emission angle can be thought of as coupling to only a subset of radiating modes, or, alternatively, as altering the modal structure such that some radiating modes become bound modes. We have shown the correspondence between the ray optics picture and the modal picture, by deriving the ray optics results for light trapping under angular restrictions using a modal formulation. Using this modal formulation we can predict the light trapping and efficiencies for various thin structures under angular restriction. We will discuss these predicted efficiencies and various options for implementing broadband and angle-specific couplers

Ray optical light trapping in silicon microwires: exceeding the 2n^2 intensity limit

We develop a ray optics model of a silicon wire array geometry in an attempt to understand the very strong absorption previously observed experimentally in these arrays. Our model successfully reproduces the n^2 ergodic limit for wire arrays in free space. Applying this model to a wire array on a Lambertian back reflector, we find an asymptotic increase in light trapping for low filling fractions. In this case, the Lambertian back reflector is acting as a wide acceptance angle concentrator, allowing the array to exceed the ergodic limit in the ray optics regime. While this leads to increased power per volume of silicon, it gives reduced power per unit area of wire array, owing to reduced silicon volume at low filling fractions. Upon comparison with silicon microwire experimental data, our ray optics model gives reasonable agreement with large wire arrays (4 μm radius), but poor agreement with small wire arrays (1 μm radius). This suggests that the very strong absorption observed in small wire arrays, which is not observed in large wire arrays, may be significantly due to wave optical effects

Aquatic ecosystems in hot water : effects of climate on the functioning of shallow lakes

cum laude graduation (with distinction) There is concern that a warmer climate may boost carbon emissions from lakes and promote the chance that they lose their vegetation and become dominated by phytoplankton or cyanobacteria. However, these hypotheses have been difficult to evaluate due to the scarcity of relevant field data. To explore potential climate effects we sampled 83 lakes along a latitudinal gradient of more than 6000 km ranging from Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil to the South of Argentina (5-55 oS). The lakes were selected so as to be as similar as possible in morphology and altitude while varying as much as possible in trophic state within regions. All lakes were sampled once during summer (subtropical, temperate and tundra lakes) or during the dry season (tropical lakes) between November 2004 and March 2006 by the same team. In the first chapters I address the question how climate might affect the chances for shallow lakes to be dominated by submerged plants. It has been shown that temperate lakes tend to have two contrasting states over a range of conditions: a clear state dominated by aquatic vegetation or a turbid state. The turbid state is typically dominated by phytoplankton and often characterized by poorer water quality than the clear state. The backbone of the theory explaining this pattern is a supposed positive feedback of submerged vegetation on water clarity: vegetation enhances water clarity and clearer water, in turn, promotes vegetation growth. The theory furthermore asserts that submerged vegetation coverage diminishes when nutrient concentrations increase until a critical point at which the entire vegetation disappears due to light limitation. Both aspects of the alternative state theory have been well studied in temperate shallow lakes, but the validity of the theory for warmer lakes has been questioned. In chapter 2 a graphical model is used to show how climate effects on different mechanisms assumed in the theory may affect the general predictions. An analysis of our data presented in chapter 4 reveals that submerged vegetation has similar overall effects on water clarity across our climatic gradient. Nonetheless, the results hint at differences in the underlying mechanisms between climate zones. For example, the data suggest that the positive effect of vegetation on top-down control of phytoplankton by zooplankton is lost at high densities of fish that are often found in warmer regions. The main factor explaining differences in the water clearing effect of vegetation among lakes in our data set was the concentration of humic substances. In lakes with a high concentration of humic substances vegetation did not enhance the water clarity

Home Health Care Workers: Immigrants Can Help Care for an Aging U.S. Population

As the U.S. population ages, home health care workers are projected to be the third fastest-growing occupation. Immigrants accounted for 25% of personal care aides and 38% of home health aides. They have proven to be essential but often overlooked health care workers.The focus of this paper is to provide background on the crisis, highlight the home health care industry, and offer some recommendations on how to mitigate against labor shortages and secure the needed home health care services for the aging U.S. population

Combined space environment on spacecraft engineering materials

Spacecraft structures and surface materials exposed to the space environment for extended periods, up to thirty years, have increased potential for damage from long term exposure to the combined space environment including solar ultraviolet radiation, electrons, and protons and orbiting space debris. The space environment in which the Space Station Freedom and other space platforms will orbit is truly a hostile environment. For example, the currently estimated integral fluence for electrons above 1 Mev at 2000 nautical miles is above 2 x 10(exp 10) electrons/cm(sup 2)/day and the proton integral fluence is above 1 x 10(exp 9) protons/cm(sup 2)/day. At the 200 - 400 nautical miles, which is more representative of the altitude which will provide the environment for the Space Station, each of these fluences will be proportionately less; however, the data indicates that the radiation environment will obviously have an effect on structural materials exposed to the environment for long durations. The effects of ultraviolet radiation, particularly in the vacuum ultraviolet (less than 200 nm wavelength) is more difficult to characterize at this time. Very little data is available in the literature which can be used for determining the life cycle of a material placed in space for extended durations of time. In order to obtain critical data for planning and designing of spacecraft systems, use of a small vacuum system at the Environmental Effects Facility at MSFC, which can be used for these purposes was used. A special effort was made to build up this capability during the course of this research effort and perform a variety of experiments on materials proposed for the Space Station. A description of the apparatus and the procedure devised to process potential spacecraft materials is included

Test equipment data package for the KC-135 fiber pulling apparatus

The Fiber Pulling Apparatus (FPA) is a device designed to produce continuous glass fibers from simulated lunar soil, and to determine the effects of reduced gravity, specifically 1/6 g on fiber formation and resultant properties. Briefly, pre-melt simulated lunar soil will be placed in a pint crucible and heated to 1200 C or higher, up to a maximum temperature of 1400 C. At a given temperature, a quartz fiber will be immersed into the melt and then pulled through a chill block and wound onto a cylindrical bobbin using a servo motor control. A high resolution video camera will record the fiber as it is being pulled. This assembly wil be enclosed in Plexiglas. Before fiber pulling commences, the apparatus will be backfilled with dry nitrogen. A separate data acquisition system will support this apparatus. This system will contain a personal computer, video recorder, and monitor. Temperature, acceleration, winding speed, and video images will be controlled and recorded using the data acquisition system. Thus, the FPA will consist of two hardware packages, the fiber production assembly and the data acquisition rack. The primary objective of this test is to determine the effects of 1/6 g on the formation of continuous glass fiber made from simulated lunar soil. Baseline studies using the FPA on the ground will provide a reference for the 1/6 g studies. Of particular interest will be the effect of 1/6 g on the free fluid zone where the fiber exits the crucible. In the fiber spinning parlance this zone is known as the upper jet region, where the boundary slope is greater than one tenth. The properties of the resulting glass fiber will depend on the jet shape as well as distributions of velocity, temperature and tension within the jet. It is unknown at this time how 1/6 g will effect these parameters

Modifications to the rapid melt/rapid quench and transparent polymer video furnaces for the KC-135

Given here is a summary of tasks performed on two furnace systems, the Transparent Polymer (TPF) and the Rapid Melt/Rapid Quench (RMRQ) furnaces, to be used aboard NASA's KC-135. It was determined that major changes were needed for both furnaces to operate according to the scientific investigators' experiment parameters. Discussed here are what the problems were, what was required to solve the problems, and possible future enhancements. It was determined that the enhancements would be required for the furnaces to perform at their optimal levels. Services provided include hardware and software modifications, Safety DataPackage documentation, ground based testing, transportation to and from Ellington Air Field, operation of hardware during KC-135 flights, and post-flight data processing

FNAS modify matric and transparent experiments

Monotectic alloy materials are created by rapid melt/rapid solidification processing on the NASA KC-135. Separation of the uniform liquid into two liquids may occur by either of two processes; spinodal decomposition or nucleation followed by growth. In the first case, the liquid is unstable to composition waves, which form and grow, giving liquids of two different compositions. In the latter process discrete particles of the second liquid phase form via thermal fluctuations and then grow by diffusion. The two processes are very different, with the determining process being dictated by temperature, composition, and thermodynamic characteristics of the alloy. The first two quantities are process variables, while the third is determined by electronic interactions between the atoms in the alloy. In either case the initial alloy decomposition is followed by coarsening, resulting in growth of the particle size at nearly constant volume fraction. In particular, reduced gravity experiments on monotectic solutions have shown a number of interesting results in the KC-135. Monotectic solutions exhibit a miscibility gap in the liquid state, and consequently, gravity driven forces can dominate the solidification parameters at 1 g. In reduced gravity however, the distribution of the phases is different, resulting in new and interesting microstructures. The Rapid Melt/Rapid Quench Furnace allows one to melt a sample and resolidify it in one parabola of the KC-135's flight path, thus eliminating any accumulative influence of multiple parabolas to affect the microstructure of the material