Assessing Impact

We take this opportunity to communicate Heron's approach to assessing impact, with a particular audience in mind: our customers -- grantees, investees and applicants.We thought that it might be useful to outline how and why we support practitioners and their networks in results-based, management-oriented systems for assessing impact. Following this letter, we highlight four organizations that demonstrate impact at the local, regional and national levels

Origins of the Human Genome Project

Dr. Cook-Deegan recounts some of the scientific and political history leading to controversy about the proper mix of private and public roles in pursuing genome research and bringing its fruits to bear, e.g., in preventing and curing disease

Magnetic fields in the sun

The observed properties of solar magnetic fields are reviewed, with particular reference to the complexities imposed on the field by motions of the highly conducting gas. Turbulent interactions between gas and field lead to heating or cooling of the gas according to whether the field energy density is less or greater than the maximum kinetic energy density in the convection zone. The field strength above which cooling sets in is 700 gauss. A weak solar dipole field may be primeval, but dynamo action is also important in generating new flux. The dynamo is probably not confined to the convection zone, but extends throughout most of the volume of the sun. Planetary tides appear to play a role in driving the dynamo

Ultraviolet observations of astronomical phenomena

The purpose was to study various aspects of mass loss in stars of different types. The observational part of the research was directed at three Cepheid variables; the archival part of the research was directed at hot stars (for information on corotating interaction regions) and at cool giants (for study of variability in the mass losing part of the atmosphere)

Mass loss from warm giants: Magnetic effects

Among warm giant stars, rapid mass loss sets in along a well defined velocity dividing line (VDL). Hot corona also disappear close to the VDL and thermal pressure cannot drive the observed rapid mass loss in these stars. The VDL may be associated with magnetic fields changing from closed to open. Such a change is consistent with the lack of X-rays from late-type giants. A magnetic transition locus based on Pneuman's work on helmet streamer stability agrees well with the empirical VDL. The change from closed to open fields not only makes rapid mass loss possible, but also contributes to energizing the mass loss in the form of discrete bubbles

Corona: Coordinated research on non-thermal processes in astrophysics

Several problems in astrophysics are examined where departures from purely thermal behavior are expected to produce effects which are detectable by a variety of NASA satellites. The problems identified as worthy of study include coronal heating in stars, deposition of non-thermal particle energy in stars from external sources, and turbulence in atmospheres and winds of stars. The progress in solving these problems is summarized