Nickel-hydrogen batteries from Intelsat 5 to space station

The heritage of the Ni-H2 technology that makes the space station application feasible is discussed. It also describes a design for a potential space station Ni-H2 battery system. Specific design values presented here were developed by Ford Aerospace as part of the Rocketdyne team effort on the Phase B Definition and Preliminary Design of the Space Station Power System in support of NASA Lewis Research Center

Examining the Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Work and Life Balance of Foster Care Workers

Foster care workers are an important part of the social service system, as they are the first line of support for children without families or who have been subjected to tragic events leading to their need for foster care. Foster care workers often experience work-life boundary issues due to the emotional nature of their work. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between (a) emotional intelligence and absenteeism and (b) emotional intelligence and work-life balance with foster care workers. Data was collected from foster care workers in the state of South Carolina employed with the Department of Social Services (n=200). Participants completed the Emotional Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) and the Work Related Quality of Life Scale (WRQoL) via pen and paper and email receipts. Ordinary least squares regression was used, including methods for mediation testing; multivariate analysis of covariance was also carried out for robustness testing purposes. No significant relationship was found between emotional intelligence and absenteeism. There was a significant relationship between various elements of emotional intelligence and various elements of work-life balance, but the effect sizes were small (\u3e 0.04). There were no significance effects based on the results for absenteeism. Overall, the results illuminate the role of emotional intelligence on the work and life balance of foster care workers. One recommendation for future research would be to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary absenteeism. The results of the study can be used by organizations that employ foster care workers to improve the work and life balance and the effects of absenteeism in this line of work

Institutionalized Individuality: Death Practices and Afterlife Beliefs in Unity Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Spiritualism in Santa Barbara

Both scholars and the larger public are becoming more interested in death rituals and afterlife beliefs as demonstrated by emerging scholarly panels and conferences on the topic and popular books that are topping the best-seller lists. This interest coincides with polls that show increasing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States. Where do people who fall into this “nonreligious” category—including those that are “spiritual but not religious,” unaffiliated, atheist, agnostic, and others—turn when considering ontological questions about death and afterlife? One possibility is toward American liberal religious institutions such as Unity Church, Unitarian Universalism, and Spiritualism. Through ethnographic research at these three institutions in Santa Barbara, I examine the way in which the individual and the group interact to understand afterlife beliefs and death rituals. Unity Church of Santa Barbara, the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, and the Spiritualist Church of the Comforter each has flexible guidelines and leadership training that invites the integration of personal afterlife beliefs and death rituals within an institutionally agreed-upon framework. These are sites of meaning-making for those that are religious or “spiritual but not religious.” Here, beliefs about the afterlife and expectations surrounding death rituals are actively explored through interactions with other members, ritual attendance, and personal experiences of loss

Barriers to Prevention and Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Qualitative Analysis of Women in East Sikkim, India

Diabetes Mellitus is a metabolic disorder that affects more people in India than anywhere else in the world (Ramachandran et. al., 2010). A recent national study concluded that Sikkim, a small northeastern state in the Himalayas, has the highest prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus compared to any other state in India. In order to determine why this is so, this study looks at the barriers women face when attempting to prevent and treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in East Sikkim. Fieldwork for this study was facilitated by The Volunteer Health Association of Sikkim, and took place in Gangtok and a small village near Sikkim’s border. Qualitative data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with state health officials, private practicing doctors, and both rural and urban women living with T2DM. It was found that housewives faced barriers not experienced by men, however no other gender-specific barriers were identified. Lack of knowledge surrounding the prevalence of T2DM, lack of knowledge about the causes of the disease, limited doctor-patient interactions, limited access to health services for rural populations, and the inability to seek treatment as a result of socioeconomic standing were all identified as non gender-specific barriers

Property survey of Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃-SiO₂-MₓO\u3csub\u3ey\u3c/sub\u3e glasses

The purpose of this work was to investigate the properties of Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃-SiO₂-MxOy glasses. Many MxOy components were tested, but TiO₂ and B₂O₃ proved the most interesting. Glasses containing 5 to 25 wt % TiO₂ were melted and found to have improved chemical durability and a higher refractive index and density than the eutectic Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ starting glass. These glasses could be crystallized to form an opaque glass ceramic. Glasses containing B₂O₃ were formed by exchanging SiO₂ with B₂O₃ while holding the Y₂O₃ and Al₂O₃ content constant. The density, hardness, refractive index, transformation temperature, softening temperature and chemical durability decreased with increasing B₂O₃ content, while the thermal expansion coefficient increased --Abstract, page 1

Farm 2.0 Using Wordpress to Manage Geocontent and Promote Regional Food Products

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Recent innovations in geospatial technology have dramatically increased the utility and ubiquity of cartographic interfaces and spatially-referenced content on the web. Capitalizing on these developments, the Farm2.0 system demonstrates an approach to manage user-generated geocontent pertaining to European protected designation of origin (PDO) food products.Wordpress, a popular open-source publishing platform, supplies the framework for a geographic content management system, or GeoCMS, to promote PDO products in the Spanish province of Valencia. The Wordpress platform is modified through a suite of plug-ins and customizations to create an extensible application that could be easily deployed in other regions and administrated cooperatively by distributed regulatory councils. Content, either regional recipes or map locations for vendors and farms, is available for syndication as a GeoRSS feed and aggregated with outside feeds in a dynamic web map

The World of Shadow Banking: An Examination of Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries and Their Contribution to the 2008 Financial Crisis

Since its rise in the second half of the twentieth century, shadow banking has grown to overtake commercial banking in the financial sector. The health of the economy now relies heavily on the sustainability of shadow banks, as seen with the financial crisis of 2008. This thesis will examine exactly how shadow banking became such a vital component to the economy. It will look at the history of the financial system that was conducive to the growth of shadow banking, with an emphasis on the Banking Act of 1933. Further, it will discuss key financial instruments that are the backbone of shadow banking operations, specifically those that contributed to the banking panic of 2007. It will show that the banking panic of 2007 was the result of a series of runs on systemic financial institutions, which had a similar effect as the bank runs of the Great Depression

Step by Step: A Survey of the Hierarchy Found in Charleston Staircases with an Emphasis on Secondary Stairs

A secondary staircase is a stair built for the use of domestic workers to reach both utilitarian and non-utilitarian spaces of a structure. These service stairs may be found not only in the United States, but in many areas of the world. These staircases are also examples of dual circulation, meaning there are multiple ways to travel through the same space. The presence of these staircases is a sign of extreme wealth, as people who found the need for a secondary stair were wealthy enough to afford servants, or in the case of the American south prior to the Civil War, enslaved African Americans. It is the purpose of this thesis to study the placement, function and character of service stairs located in Charleston and how they changed through time. This thesis analyzes the floor plans of sixteen structures in order to study the differences of the service stairs through time and also the differences in their relationship with primary staircases. This thesis concludes that secondary staircases in Charleston did change with time. In the four early Georgian structures represented in this thesis, the secondary staircases were located in the center of the structure, usually placed between a fireplace chimney stack and a wall. In the remaining twelve structures, the secondary staircase was placed in the rear of the structure, close to dining rooms, butler’s pantries, and side work yard exits. The reason for this shift in placement from a central and vertical part of the house to a rear placement could be a combination of several factors. These factors are the advancement of architecture, growing racial tensions, a lesser need for the enslaved to be located within the house, a change in urban density, and less intrusion upon the privacy of the enslavers. While not groundbreaking, the change in character of these staircases have the potential to tell us about the changing of the attitudes of Charlestonians through time, both socially and architecturally