Raked circular-cone aerobraking orbital transfer vehicle

An aerobraking orbital transfer vehicle (AOTV) (80) has aerobrake (82) with a blunted raked-off circular-cone configuration. The other components of the AOTV, including command/control module (95), fuel tanks (86, 88, 89 and 91), rocket engines (94) and afterbody (84), are positioned substantially along resultant force axis (104) of the AOTV (80). The axis (104) coincides with the resultant (sum of lift and drag) force vector. Afterbody (84) is mounted behind the aerobrake (82) with its length extending rearwardly from the aerobrake. The base flow clearance angle .phi. of the aerobrake (80) is 25.degree., thus allowing the afterbody (84) to extend rearwardly from the aerobrake (82) to a much greater extent than possible with a raked-off elliptic-cone aerobraking shield configuration. Afterbody size limitation and other problems associated with the raked-off elliptic-cone aerobraking shield configuration are alleviated by the combination of the aerobrake shape and positioning of the fuel tanks (86, 88, 89 and 91), rocket engines (94) and afterbody (84)

The Impact of Culture on the Demand for Non-Life Insurance

Regression techniques are applied to an unbalanced panel data that includes 68 countries observed over a ten-year period, to explore the factors that affect non-life insurance demand across nations. While previous literature has discovered several significant economic, demographic, and institutional variables, little attention has been devoted to cultural dimensions. We find that non-life insurance consumption is adversely impacted in countries where a large fraction of the population has Islamic beliefs. Also highly significant are three of the cultural scores developed by Hofstede in a celebrated study: Power Distance, Individualism, and Uncertainty Avoidance. An important finding is that culture impacts non-life insurance more in affluent countries, with an adjusted R-square coefficient increasing by 11.7%, than in developing countries where the R-square coefficient increase due to cultural impacts is only 1.2%. These results have implications for multinational insurers seeking to enter a new market. Ceteris Paribus, these insurers should target countries, and population segments within these countries, that exhibit low Power Distance, and high Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance scores

Mothers as “Others”: Identity of Mothers of Children with Disabilities and Adult Education Discourse

This literature review will explore experiences and identity development of mothers of children with disabilities. Intersections between adult education and critical disability theory, as well as practice implications, are identified

The Opaqueness of Structured Bonds: Evidence from the U.S. Insurance Industry

It has been argued that the opaqueness of structured bonds, such as mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities and collateral debt obligations, was one of the major causes of the recent financial crisis that started in late 2007. We analyse the evolving nature of information asymmetry inherent in various types of structured bonds by examining the U.S. insurers’ assets. We show that, prior to 2004, structured bonds were not associated with greater information asymmetry; however, holding more multi-class structured bonds, especially privately placed bonds, increased the information asymmetry when evaluating insurers’ assets post-2004. The effect of information asymmetry was more significant with life insurers than with non-life insurers. In addition, by investigating the rating grades of such structured bonds, we find that the market views higher-grade, privately placed, multi-class structured bonds as having the highest information asymmetry among all types of structured bonds post 2004, an effect which is, again, more significant with life insurers. This result shows that structuring complexities and unreliable ratings make structured bonds more opaque than just securitisation itself

Creating Connection by Design: Supporting Adult Learners by Building Inclusive Online Academic Communities

Students are struggling to build online connections in classrooms. This instructional model provides strategies for working with learners with social skill, mental health, and communication challenges to improve community

Third shift labor of advanced career learners: Growing the adult education field

This paper explores the literature on advanced-career adult learners pursuing graduate education on the “third shift”, which begins after daily work and family obligations are completed (Kramarae, 2001, p. 3). The purpose is to explain the unique characteristics of these learners and the ways in which educators can offer support so they are successful and able to return to practice as adult educators themselves to grow the field of adult education

Implementing Co-Regulated Feeding with Mothers of Preterm Infants

The purpose of this study is to describe implementation of the Co-Regulated Feeding Intervention (CoReg), when provided by mothers and guided by intervention nurses trained in methods of guided participation (GP). CoReg aims to prevent stress during feeding and ease the challenge very preterm (VP) infants experience coordinating breathing and swallowing during the early months. Guided participation is a participatory learning method to guide the complex learning required of mothers

A Model for Becoming an Inclusive Adult Educator: Designing for Disability

This evidence-based model of inclusive teaching offers knowledge and practical applications for adult educators. It provides strategies for equitably addressing all student needs, particularly those with disabilities

Natural Language Instructions for Intuitive Human Interaction with Robotic Assistants in Field Construction Work

The introduction of robots is widely considered to have significant potential of alleviating the issues of worker shortage and stagnant productivity that afflict the construction industry. However, it is challenging to use fully automated robots in complex and unstructured construction sites. Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) has shown promise of combining human workers' flexibility and robot assistants' physical abilities to jointly address the uncertainties inherent in construction work. When introducing HRC in construction, it is critical to recognize the importance of teamwork and supervision in field construction and establish a natural and intuitive communication system for the human workers and robotic assistants. Natural language-based interaction can enable intuitive and familiar communication with robots for human workers who are non-experts in robot programming. However, limited research has been conducted on this topic in construction. This paper proposes a framework to allow human workers to interact with construction robots based on natural language instructions. The proposed method consists of three stages: Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Information Mapping (IM), and Robot Control (RC). Natural language instructions are input to a language model to predict a tag for each word in the NLU module. The IM module uses the result of the NLU module and building component information to generate the final instructional output essential for a robot to acknowledge and perform the construction task. A case study for drywall installation is conducted to evaluate the proposed approach. The obtained results highlight the potential of using natural language-based interaction to replicate the communication that occurs between human workers within the context of human-robot teams