X-29A aircraft structural loads flight testing

The X-29A research and technology demonstrator aircraft has completed a highly successful multiphase flight test program. The primary research objective was to safely explore, evaluate, and validate a number of aerodynamic, structural, and flight control technologies, all highly integrated into the vehicle design. Most of these advanced technologies, particularly the forward-swept-wing platform, had a major impact on the structural design. Throughout the flight test program, structural loads clearance was an ongoing activity to provide a safe maneuvering envelope sufficient to accomplish the research objectives. An overview is presented of the technologies, flight test approach, key results, and lessons learned from the structural flight loads perspective. The overall design methodology was considered validated, but a number of structural load characteristics were either not adequately predicted or totally unanticipated prior to flight test. While conventional flight testing techniques were adequate to insure flight safety, advanced analysis tools played a key role in understanding some of the structural load characteristics, and in maximizing flight test productivity

Student Ensemble: Delta Omicron Jazz Musicale

Kemp Recital HallMarch 26, 2013Tuesday Evening7:30 p.m

Nivel de eficiencia del control interno de inventarios en la empresa repuestos Kevin Car – Trujillo, 2017

RESUMEN Las empresas en la actualidad buscan ser eficiente en sus operaciones para que de esta manera cumplan con los objetivos institucionales al menor costo y maximicen su rentabilidad. Los inventarios suelen representar la partida más importante del activo, además son sensibles ante la manipulación, desfalco y robo; es por ello la importancia de que las empresas cuenten con un sistema de control interno. El control interno en el área de almacén debe tener un alto nivel de eficiencia, así los objetivos de esta área estarán direccionados con los objetivos generales de la empresa, además con un control interno que se desarrolla dentro de parámetros normales y cumple con los estándares de calidad dictados por expertos en el área, brinda la suficiente información para la toma de decisiones estratégicas. La presente investigación según su diseño es no experimental de tipo descriptiva, y fue realizada en el área de almacén de la empresa Repuestos Kevin Car, se aplicó técnicas de investigación como la observación y la encuesta, utilizado el cuestionario como instrumento de recolección de datos. Es de mucha importancia que las empresas conozcan el nivel de eficiencia que tiene el control interno de inventarios con el que trabajan, de esta manera se podrá conocer cuál de los componentes de control está fallando y que medidas correctivas se pueden realizar para encaminar su buen funcionamiento. PALABRAS CLAVE: eficiencia, inventarios, control interno, riesgo, supervisión

Incidencia de la gestión de inventarios en la situación económico - financiera de la empresa Repuestos Kevin Car, Trujillo - 2017

RESUMEN Los inventarios aparte de ser el activo más importante para una empresa, es el activo más difícil de controlar; sin embargo desarrollando una gestión de inventarios con un adecuado nivel de eficiencia puede traducirse como la mejor estrategia para incrementar la rentabilidad sosteniendo una adecuada estructura financiera. En la presente investigación se determina algunas de las incidencias de la gestión de inventarios en la situación económica financiera de la empresa Repuestos Kevin Car. El estudio implica el conocer los procedimientos y políticas ligadas a los inventarios de la empresa y realizar un análisis del estado de situación financiera y el estado de resultados de los periodos 2015, 2016 y 2017; además de la aplicación de ratios financieros. La investigación realizada será no experimental de tipo descriptivo. Del estudio realizado se detectaron las siguientes incidencias relacionadas a la gestión de inventarios y que afecta a la situación económico financiera de la empresa: gastos en fletes incurridos por errores en el pedido de mercaderías, gastos de almacenamiento de inventarios inmovilizados, faltantes de mercadería, costos de oportunidad por destinar inversión en productos de baja o nula rotación y los costos de desabastecimiento. Como principal conclusión, destaca el estrecho vínculo entre una adecuada gestión de inventarios y la situación económica financiera de la empresa; también se cuantifica los gastos en los que se incurre, así como los ingresos que se deja de percibir por no prestar la atención debida a los inventarios. De esta manera se busca que la gerencia de la empresa Repuestos Kevin Car cuente con información relevante para la toma de decisiones y contribuya al incremento de la rentabilidad.ABSTRACT Inventories aside from being the most important asset for a company, it is the most difficult asset to control; however, developing an inventory management with an adequate level of efficiency can be translated as the best strategy to increase profitability by maintaining an adequate financial structure. In the present investigation are determined some of the incidents of the inventory management in the financial and economic situation of the company Repuestos Kevin Car. The study involves knowing the procedures and policies related to the inventories of the company and performing an analysis of the state of financial situation and the income statement for the periods 2015, 2016 and 2017; besides the application of financial ratios. The research carried out will be non-experimental of a descriptive nature. From the study carried out, the following incidents related to the management of inventories were detected and affected the economic and financial situation of the company: freight expenses incurred due to errors in the order of merchandise, storage expenses of immobilized inventories, missing merchandise, costs of opportunity to allocate investment in products with low or zero turnover and the cost of shortages. As a main conclusion, it highlights the close link between an adequate management of inventories and the economic and financial situation of the company; It also quantifies the expenses incurred, as well as the income that is not received for not paying due attention to the inventories. In this way, the management of the Repuestos Kevin Car Company is expected to have relevant information for decision-making and contribute to the increase in profitability

Multiple transcriptome mining coupled with tissue specific molecular cloning and mass spectrometry provide insights into agatoxin-like peptide conservation in decapod crustaceans

Over the past decade, in silico genome and transcriptome mining has led to the identification of many new crustacean peptide families, including the agatoxin-like peptides (ALPs), a group named for their structural similarity to agatoxin, a spider venom component. Here, analysis of publicly accessible transcriptomes was used to expand our understanding of crustacean ALPs. Specifically, transcriptome mining was used to investigate the phylogenetic/structural conservation, tissue localization, and putative functions of ALPs in decapod species. Transcripts encoding putative ALP precursors were identified from one or more members of the Penaeoidea (penaeid shrimp), Sergestoidea (sergestid shrimps), Caridea (caridean shrimp), Astacidea (clawed lobsters and freshwater crayfish), Achelata (spiny/slipper lobsters), and Brachyura (true crabs), suggesting a broad, and perhaps ubiquitous, conservation of ALPs in decapods. Comparison of the predicted mature structures of decapod ALPs revealed high levels of amino acid conservation, including eight identically conserved cysteine residues that presumably allow for the formation of four identically positioned disulfide bridges. All decapod ALPs are predicted to have amidated carboxyl-terminals. Two isoforms of ALP appear to be present in most decapod species, one 44 amino acids long and the other 42 amino acids in length, both likely generated by alternative splicing of a single gene. In carideans, a gene or terminal exon duplication appears to have occurred, with alternative splicing producing four ALPs, two 44 and two 42 amino acid isoforms. The identification of ALP precursor-encoding transcripts in nervous system-specific transcriptomes (e.g., Homarus americanus brain, eyestalk ganglia, and cardiac ganglion assemblies, finding confirmed using RT-PCR) suggests that members of this peptide family may serve as locally-released and/or hormonally-delivered neuromodulators in decapods. Their detection in testis- and hepatopancreas-specific transcriptomes suggests that members of the ALP family may also play roles in male reproduction and innate immunity/detoxification

Who were the Nataruk people? Mandibular morphology among late Pleistocene and early Holocene fisher-forager populations of West Turkana (Kenya).

Africa is the birthplace of the species Homo sapiens, and Africans today are genetically more diverse than other populations of the world. However, the processes that underpinned the evolution of African populations remain largely obscure. Only a handful of late Pleistocene African fossils (∼50-12 Ka) are known, while the more numerous sites with human fossils of early Holocene age are patchily distributed. In particular, late Pleistocene and early Holocene human diversity in Eastern Africa remains little studied, precluding any analysis of the potential factors that shaped human diversity in the region, and more broadly throughout the continent. These periods include the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), a moment of extreme aridity in Africa that caused the fragmentation of population ranges and localised extinctions, as well as the 'African Humid Period', a moment of abrupt climate change and enhanced connectivity throughout Africa. East Africa, with its range of environments, may have acted as a refugium during the LGM, and may have played a critical biogeographic role during the heterogene`ous environmental recovery that followed. This environmental context raises a number of questions about the relationships among early Holocene African populations, and about the role played by East Africa in shaping late hunter-gatherer biological diversity. Here, we describe eight mandibles from Nataruk, an early Holocene site (∼10 Ka) in West Turkana, offering the opportunity of exploring population diversity in Africa at the height of the 'African Humid Period'. We use 3D geometric morphometric techniques to analyze the phenotypic variation of a large mandibular sample. Our results show that (i) the Nataruk mandibles are most similar to other African hunter-fisher-gatherer populations, especially to the fossils from Lothagam, another West Turkana locality, and to other early Holocene fossils from the Central Rift Valley (Kenya); and (ii) a phylogenetic connection may have existed between these Eastern African populations and some Nile Valley and Maghrebian groups, who lived at a time when a Green Sahara may have allowed substantial contact, and potential gene flow, across a vast expanse of Northern and Eastern Africa

Investing wisely to end hunger and strengthen agriculture, with no region left behind: Latin America

Latin America and the Caribbean economies began to slow down and stagnate during the 2008 economic crisis. This situation has been aggravated by the current health crisis, which is expected to set back regional development by almost ten years. Projected gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to shrink by 9.1% by the end of 2020, falling to values similar to those observed in 2010. In addition, poverty has increased like never before in only one year, reaching an estimated total of 231 million people, about 38% of all the population, with almost two out of every five poor people living in extreme poverty, and who are more exposed to food insecurity. However, the extent of the current economic crisis is quite heterogeneous among countries. For some, it is coupled with pre-pandemic conditions of political instability, social unrest, high poverty rates, and extreme food insecurity. Countries from the Dry Corridor (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala) were already facing a continuing exodus of people trying to escape from their precarious economic situations aggravated by environmental disasters such as the recent hurricanes. Countries facing political instability and social unrest are likely to suffer more from the uncertainty in their economic systems and their populations are prone to leave, while areas with erratic climate conditions have had to deal with high-risk agriculture and face similar consequences. If no immediate actions are taken, this problem could be exacerbated, creating an even greater flow of outward migration, risking the region’s stability and its potential to become a major food producer for the world. Agriculture is one of the most relevant sectors for its potential to continue contributing to food security, poverty reduction, and resilience to counteract external shocks such as climate uncertainty or the current health crisis

Adecuación administrativa de EsSalud como institución administradora de fondo para el aseguramiento de salud pública

El presente trabajo describe y analiza los factores que impiden a EsSalud culminar su adecuación administrativa para ejercer sus funciones y procesos como Iafas pública. Para ello, se ha revisado la normatividad del aseguramiento en salud así como documentos normativos, estudios e investigaciones realizadas por el Ministerio de Salud (Minsa), Superintendencia Nacional de Salud (Susalud), EsSalud y organizaciones nacionales e internacionales especializadas en investigación en el tema. Dicha información se ha complementado con entrevistas a los funcionarios de EsSalud, de otras Iafas públicas, Susalud y expertos involucrados en los procesos de aseguramiento universal en salud en nuestro país. A partir de ello, el presente trabajo propone reorganizar EsSalud a efectos de (i) crear la Institución Administradora de Fondos de Aseguramiento (IAFA EsSalud) como agente asegurador de los trabajadores y sus derechohabientes, que brinde cobertura financiera a las prestaciones de salud, económicas y sociales gestionadas por (ii) la Unidad de Gestión de Prestaciones (Ugipres EsSalud) y ofrecidas por (iii) los agentes de EsSalud que dan las prestaciones de salud, económicas y sociales. Se propone, a su vez, que la IAFA EsSalud se exceptúe de los sistemas administrativos de (i) presupuesto, tesorería y contabilidad, a fin de garantizar la intangibilidad y el valor del dinero en el tiempo de los fondos a su cargo; y de (ii) contrataciones estatales, dada la naturaleza de los servicios a contratar

AMGSEFLamide, a member of a broadly conserved peptide family, modulates multiple neural networks in Homarus americanus

Recent genomic/transcriptomic studies have identified a novel peptide family whose members share the carboxyl terminal sequence –GSEFLamide. However, the presence/identity of the predicted isoforms of this peptide group have yet to be confirmed biochemically, and no physiological function has yet been ascribed to any member of this peptide family. To determine the extent to which GSEFLamides are conserved within the Arthropoda, we searched publicly accessible databases for genomic/transcriptomic evidence of their presence. GSEFLamides appear to be highly conserved within the Arthropoda, with the possible exception of the Insecta, in which sequence evidence was limited to the more basal orders. One crustacean in which GSEFLamides have been predicted using transcriptomics is the lobster, Homarus americanus. Expression of the previously published transcriptome-derived sequences was confirmed by reverse transcription (RT)-PCR of brain and eyestalk ganglia cDNAs; mass spectral analyses confirmed the presence of all six of the predicted GSEFLamide isoforms – IGSEFLamide, MGSEFLamide, AMGSEFLamide, VMGSEFLamide, ALGSEFLamide and AVGSEFLamide – in H. americanus brain extracts. AMGSEFLamide, of which there are multiple copies in the cloned transcripts, was the most abundant isoform detected in the brain. Because the GSEFLamides are present in the lobster nervous system, we hypothesized that they might function as neuromodulators, as is common for neuropeptides. We thus asked whether AMGSEFLamide modulates the rhythmic outputs of the cardiac ganglion and the stomatogastric ganglion. Physiological recordings showed that AMGSEFLamide potently modulates the motor patterns produced by both ganglia, suggesting that the GSEFLamides may serve as important and conserved modulators of rhythmic motor activity in arthropods

An Overview of Aeropropulsion Wind Tunnel Productivity Improvements at the NASA Lewis Research Center

Enhancing wind tunnel test productivity in terms of increased efficiency, reduced cost, and expanded flexibility is a high-priofity goal of the NASA Lewis Research Center's Aeropropulsion Facilities and Experiments Division. Over the past several years, several significant productivity improvements were implemented: test times were shortened by using facility and test article automation; additional flexibility was provided to the research customer by using the remote-access control room and by expanding facility operating envelopes; facility throughput was greatly increased and electric power cost for facility operation reduced by using the three-shift operation. One method being used to reduce electric power costs and expand the facility operating envelop in the 8- by 6-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel is operating the drive system with only one of the three drive motors. Metrics are being used to document several categories of facility utilization, which in turn allows tracking of test productivity. This paper provides an overview of the productivity improvements already in place in the large wind tunnels at NASA Lewis and presents plans for future improvements