Gaseous Monitoring for the Integrated Life Support System at Langley Research Center

The Integrated Life Support System was conceived to study the problems of integrating regenerative equipment designed to operate in a negligible gravitational field. It is the first to fully integrate the three major contributors to atmospheric contamination: man, machine, and materials

Human Factors in Management

Nothing is more certain in today T s uncertain world than change — rapid, constant, ever increasing change. Indeed, change is perhaps the most fundamental characteristics of modern life, and this moment in time might rightly be called The Age of Change. (After all, anxiety, the characteristic most often associated with modern times, is largely a result of man\u27s inability to adjust to change.) The political, cultural, and socio-economic changes that characterize this Age of Change are in turn producing major changes in the industrial work force. Today\u27s worker is a man or woman who refuses to be squeezed into the neat little compartments of yesterday\u27s practical manager. Consequently, the job of management is becoming significantly more difficult; and the new breed of managers, even now, requires more sophisticated skills, especially in interpersonal competence. In this paper, I will briefly examine the nature of the changes that are tossing us hither and yon, the effects of these changes on the industrial work force, and the changes required of today\u27s managers in order to lead these varied workers

Patent Institutions: Shifting Interactions Between Legal Actors

This contribution to the Research Handbook on Economics of Intellectual Property Rights (Vol. 1 Theory) addresses interactions between the principal legal institutions of the U.S. patent system. It considers legal, strategic, and normative perspectives on these interactions as they have evolved over the last 35 years. Early centralization of power by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, newly created in 1982, established a regime dominated by the appellate court\u27s bright-line rules. More recently, aggressive Supreme Court and Congressional intervention have respectively reinvigorated patent law standards and led to significant devolution of power to inferior tribunals, including newly created tribunals like the USPTO\u27s Patent Trial and Appeals Board. This new era in institutional interaction creates a host of fresh empirical and normative research questions for scholars. The contribution concludes by outlining a research agenda

The Variable Polarity Plasma Arc Welding Process: Its Application to the Space Shuttle External Tank

This report describes progress in the implementation of the Variable Polarity Plasma Arc Welding (VPPAW) process at the External Tank (ET) assembly facility. Design allowable data has been developed for thicknesses up to 1.00 in. More than 24,000 in. of welding on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen cylinders has been made without an internal defect

Expression of connexins in human preimplantation embryos in vitro

Intercellular communication via gap junctions is required to coordinate developmental processes in the mammalian embryo. We have investigated if the connexin (Cx) isoforms known to form gap junctions in rodent preimplantation embryos are also expressed in human embryos, with the aim of identifying species differences in communication patterns in early development. Using a combination of polyA PCR and immunocytochemistry we have assessed the expression of Cx26, Cx31, Cx32, Cx40, Cx43 and Cx45 which are thought to be important in early rodent embryos. The results demonstrate that Cx31 and Cx43 are the main connexin isoforms expressed in human preimplantation embryos and that these isoforms are co-expressed in the blastocyst. Cx45 protein is expressed in the blastocyst but the protein may be translated from a generally low level of transcripts: which could only be detected in the PN to 4-cell embryos. Interestingly, Cx40, which is expressed by the extravillous trophoblast in the early human placenta, was not found to be expressed in the blastocyst trophectoderm from which this tissue develops. All of the connexin isoforms in human preimplantation embryos are also found in rodents pointing to a common regulation of these connexins in development of rodent and human early embryos and perhaps other species

Turkeying off Sorghums and Proso: A Progress Report

Turkeys have long been used to range stubble fields of wheat, oats, and barley in South Dakota. In so doing, they salvage much grain that would otherwise be wasted. This is one reason why turkey production fits in well with the grain farming in the state. In these experiments, it was thought advisable to go one step further and not only salvage waste grains, but to let the birds harvest the grains themselves. Sooner milo, feterita, amber cane, and proso millet were the grains selected for the trials. The three sorghums were selected as being representative of this crop, which has increased enormously in the number of acres planted. Sorghums are estimated to occupy about 10 percent of the state’s entire cultivated area. Their drouth-resistance and other desirable features are well recognized by South Dakota farmers. Proso millet, while not a sorghum, was included in these experiments because it is an emergency crop. Proso has a short growing period and a low water requirement. The hogging-off of corn and other grains is an established practice. “Turkeying-off” is the term used to describe a similar practice with turkeys. As this is written, there is a scarcity of farm labor. The “turkeying-off” of grain is a labor-saving practice. Its value has been studied at the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station for the past three years. The study is not complete; the results are those obtained to date. Further research may change the picture. The turkeying-off of grains requires planning. For example, the turkeys allowed in a field of ripe standing grain should be able to harvest it all without undue waste, and also plantings should be planned so as to have a succession of grains available for the birds to harvest

BD+36 3317: An algol type eclipsing binary in Delta Lyrae cluster

In this paper, we present standard Johnson UBV photometry of the eclipsing binary BD+36 3317 which is known as a member of Delta Lyrae (Stephenson 1) cluster. We determined colors and brightness of the system, calculated E(B - V) color excess. We discovered that the system shows total eclipse in secondary minimum. Using this advantage, we found that the primary component of the system has B9 - A0 spectral type. Although there is no published orbital solution, we tried to estimate the physical properties of the system from simultaneous analysis of UBV light curves with 2003 version of Wilson-Devinney code. Then we considered photometric solution results together with evolutionary models and estimated the masses of the components as M1 = 2.5 Msun and M2 = 1.6 Msun. Those estimations gave the distance of the system as 353 pc. Considering the uncertainties in distance estimation, resulting distance is in agreement with the distance of Delta Lyrae cluster.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 5 table

Variational Principle in the Algebra of Asymptotic Fields

This paper proposes a variational principle for the solutions of quantum field theories in which the ``trial functions'' are chosen from the algebra of asymptotic fields, and illustrates this variational principle in simple cases.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, no figure