High-Flying Success for Chemistry Students: NASA\u27s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program

NASA\u27s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP) conducted at Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, provides science and engineering undergraduates the opportunity to design and conduct experiments in a microgravity environment. The student program began roughly five years ago, although NASA developed a reduced gravity program in 1959. In the past five years, more than 1 00 different schools from around the country have participated. The KC-135 jet, which is similar to the Boeing 707, is used to produce a microgravity environment for training astronauts and testing equipment to use in space. To create the rnicrogravity environment, the KC-135 is flown in a parabolic flight pattern. The flight pattern consists of 32 parabolas flown over the Gulf of Mexico. The parabolic arc consists of a climb and a dive at 45-degree angles with an altitude ranging from 26,000 to 34,000 feet. As the jet levels off after the climb, microgravity is simulated at the peak and lasts for approximately 20 seconds. The climbs and dives of the parabola simulate 1.8-g, which is almost twice the gravitational pull of Earth. Our experiment sought to test the effects of a reduced gravity environment on plasma movement in an inert gas discharge tube (IGDT). We hypothesized that the movement of the streamers were caused by buoyancy-driven convection, which would not occur under reduced gravity conditions

Improving Global Knowledge Exchange for Mental Health Systems Improvement

Policymakers globally are paying increasing attention to the challenges of providing more accessible and integrated mental health care. For transformative change to take place, thought needs to be given to the structure and form of evidence-informed change strategies at all levels: individual, organizational, community and complex, large systems. Yet few frameworks specifically consider the transfer of evidence-based programs across jurisdictions at regional and national levels; most are focused on local service implementation. This paper examines how a specific analytical model developed to assess and develop Knowledge Exchange (KE) can be applied to regional and national KE initiatives.  It specifically examines the efforts of the International Knowledge Exchange Network for Mental Health (IKEN-MH), and the associated community of interest on change and improvement, to support mental health systems change at these levels. Using a theoretical model, the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework (Kitson, Harvey, & McCormack, 1998, Rycroft-Malone, et al., 2002), we explore systems change efforts according to the constructs of evidence, context and facilitation. By matching some exemplars in the use of KE for mental health best practice against this model, the potential strategies of the IKEN-MH to assist transformational change emerge

Improving Global Knowledge Exchange for Mental Health Systems Improvement

Policymakers globally are paying increasing attention to the challenges of providing more accessible and integrated mental health care. For transformative change to take place, thought needs to be given to the structure and form of evidence-informed change strategies at all levels: individual, organizational, community and complex, large systems. Yet few frameworks specifically consider the transfer of evidence-based programs across jurisdictions at regional and national levels; most are focused on local service implementation. This paper examines how a specific analytical model developed to assess and develop Knowledge Exchange (KE) can be applied to regional and national KE initiatives.  It specifically examines the efforts of the International Knowledge Exchange Network for Mental Health (IKEN-MH), and the associated community of interest on change and improvement, to support mental health systems change at these levels. Using a theoretical model, the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework (Kitson, Harvey, & McCormack, 1998, Rycroft-Malone, et al., 2002), we explore systems change efforts according to the constructs of evidence, context and facilitation. By matching some exemplars in the use of KE for mental health best practice against this model, the potential strategies of the IKEN-MH to assist transformational change emerge

Knowledge translation training opportunities : global scoping study insights

This brief provides an overview of knowledge translation (KT) and / or research communication training opportunities in post-secondary education curricula worldwide. The study focused on certificate, diploma and post-graduate level KT courses and programs and generated an inventory of those offered in various countries and contexts. In addition, the study considered key advantages and challenges associated with developing KT curricula in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and provided suggestions for enhancement of the global KT curriculum inventory

The Magnetic Field in Taurus Probed by Infrared Polarization

We present maps of the plane-of-sky magnetic field within two regions of the Taurus molecular cloud: one in the dense core L1495/B213 filament, the other in a diffuse region to the west. The field is measured from the polarization of background starlight seen through the cloud. In total, we measured 287 high-quality near-infrared polarization vectors in these regions. In L1495/B213, the percent polarization increases with column density up to Av ~ 9 mag, the limits of our data. The Radiative Torques model for grain alignment can explain this behavior, but models that invoke turbulence are inconsistent with the data. We also combine our data with published optical and near-infrared polarization measurements in Taurus. Using this large sample, we estimate the strength of the plane-of-sky component of the magnetic field in nine subregions. This estimation is done with two different techniques that use the observed dispersion in polarization angles. Our values range from 5-82 microgauss and tend to be higher in denser regions. In all subregions, the critical index of the mass-to-magnetic flux ratio is sub-unity, implying that Taurus is magnetically supported on large scales (~2 pc). Within the region observed, the B213 filament makes a sharp turn to the north and the direction of the magnetic field also takes a sharp turn, switching from being perpendicular to the filament to becoming parallel. This behavior can be understood if we are observing the rim of a bubble. We argue that it has resulted from a supernova remnant associated with a recently discovered nearby gamma-ray pulsar.Comment: Accepted into the Astrophysical Journal. 20 pages in emulateapj format including 10 figures and 4 table