Access flight hardware design and development

Several items were found to be of immense value in the design and development of the Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures (ACCESS) hardware. The early availability of mock-up and engineering test hardware helped to develop the concept and prove the feasibility of the experiment. The extensive neutral buoyancy testing was invaluable in developing the procedures and timelines, proving that the hardware functioned as intended, and effectively trained the astronauts. The early involvement of the crew systems/astronaut personnel was extremely beneficial in shaping the design to meet the EVA compatibility requirements. Also, the early definition of coupled loads and on-orbit dynamic responses can not be overemphasized due to the relative uncertainty in the magnitude of these loads and their impact on the design

Cocrystal formation by Ionic liquid-assisted grinding: Case study with cocrystals of caffeine

iquid assisted grinding using imidazolium-based ionic liquids (IL-AG) was found to be effective in isolation of cocrystals and cocrystal polymorphs. Isolation of specific polymorphs of caffeine–citric acid (CAF–CA) and caffeine–glutaric acid (CAF–GLU) cocrystals highlights the tunability of ILs in polymorphic control

Sharing bubbles: reflections on offline multi-surface scenarios

The iPad is typically perceived as a personal device, evoking the image of its owner tapping away - silently submerged in their private digital bubble. Here we portray iPads in a different light: Face-to-face play in groups, using connected and shared surfaces. Applying the bubble metaphor to multi-user cases, we ask the following questions: (a) How many people can be in one bubble together before it bursts? (b) Can multiple bubbles be connected, nested, etc. and what configurations are beneficial? (c) What design qualities are helpful in keeping beneficial bubble configurations intact and together, rather than bursting or floating away? By contrasting user observations from two multi-iPad scenarios, we illustrate the usefulness of 'bubble dynamics' as a lens for evaluating large offline social applications. We hope to inspire discussion of future use cases, evaluation methods and design recommendations

Designing a large multi-player simulation game to encourage critical debate

There is great potential to design digital simulation games as part of professional training settings. However, there is little research on how a large group in a classroom or seminar can all play at the same time. In this paper we describe the design and first in-the-wild deployment of the 4Decades game, which involves up to 30 players simultaneously in a simulation of global climate economics. Using a network of shared devices and ambient displays, a fast-paced collaborative game enabled players to reflect on prior learning, strategy making and their critical understanding of the simulation

From participatory to contributory simulations: changing the game in the classroom

There is much potential for supporting collaborative learning with interactive computer simulations in formal education and professional training. A number of simulations have been developed for single user and remote interaction. In contrast, our research is concerned with how such learning activities can be designed to fit into co-located large group settings, such as whole classrooms. This paper reports on the iterative design process and two in-the-wild evaluations of the 4Decades game, which was developed for a whole classroom of students to engage with a climate simulation. The system allows students to play and change the rules of the simulation, thereby enabling them to be actively engaged at different levels. The notion of Contributory Simulations is proposed as an instructional model that empowers groups to make informed, critical changes to the underlying scientific model. We discuss how large-group collaboration was supported through constraining an ecology of shared devices and public displays

The Organization and Use of the Maryland Militia in The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

This thesis is directed at the use of the Maryland militia during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 in western Pennsylvania. The call for militia, made by President Washington, was not well received in the state. The quota was not tilled, and attempts to fill it touched off riots in western Maryland. These riots made another call necessary, this time made by Maryland Governor Thomas Sim Less. Only Maryland troops were requested, and the quota was filled completely and quickly. The difference in the militia's response is an important part of this thesis because it affords an examination of the condition of federal state relations in the first few years after the ratification of the Constitution. Evidence discussed in this thesis provides material from which several conclusions may be drawn. The examination of the federal and state militia law shows that the federal government was uncertain of its position in attempting to dictate legislation to the states. The state government was uncertain too, about how much it should be dictated to. The result of these uncertainties was a set of weak militia laws that left the responsibility of the obedience to them up the individual militia men. Indeed, the two governments were not only unsure of their positions with each other, but also unsure of their position with the citizens. They were not certain that the citizens would support militia laws, or militia calls. The difference in the militia's response to the two calls also shows that the militia was not certain of its responsibility to answer a requisition. Troops from Maryland were much more concerned with protecting their own state, and possibly homes and families, than they were with protecting the federal government's whiskey excise. Aside from the natural desire for self preservation, the difference indicates that the militia and its leaders were willing to inconvenience themselves for the state, but not for the Union

A New Class of Solvents for TRU Dissolution and Separation: Ionic Liquids

Through the current EMSP funding, solvent extraction technologies based on liquid-liquid partitioning of TRU to an Ionic Liquid phase containing conventional complexants has been shown to be viable. The growing understanding of the role that the different components of an ionic liquid can have on the partitioning mechanism, and on the nature of the subsequent dissolved species indicates strongly that ionic liquids are not necessarily direct replacements for volatile or otherwise hazardous organic solvents. Separations and partitioning can be exceptionally complex with competing solvent extraction, cation, anion and sacrificial ion exchange mechanisms are all important, depending on the selection of components for formation of the ionic liquid phase, and that control of these competing mechanisms can be utilized to provide new, alternative separations schemes

A New Class of Solvents for TRU Dissolution and Separation: Ionic Liquids

Progress on the study of a New Class of Solvents for TRU Dissolution and Separation: Ionic Liquids is summarized under the headings of the major proposal objectives

Agarose processing in protic and mixed protic–aprotic ionic liquids : dissolution, regeneration and high conductivity, high strength ionogels

We have shown that low viscosity alkyl or hydroxyalkyl ammonium formate (ILs) can dissolve agarose, and higher dissolution can be achieved in the mixed, alkyl or hydroxyalkyl ammonium + imidazolium or pyridinium ILs. The polarity parameters α, β, π*, ET(30) and ETN of these IL systems were measured to explain their dissolution ability for agarose. Dissolved agarose was either regenerated using methanol as a precipitating solvent or ionogels were formed by cooling the agarose–IL solutions to ambient temperature. Exceptionally high strength ionogels were obtained from the agarose solutions in N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-ammonium formate or its mixture with 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride. Regenerated material and ionogels are characterized for their possible degradation/conformational changes and gel properties (thermal hysteresis, strength, viscoelasticity and conductivity) respectively. A high strength, high conducting ionogel was demonstrated to be able to build an electrochromic window. Such ionogels can also be utilized for other soft matter electronic devices and biomedical applications

Near-Miss Evaluation Bias as an Obstacle to Organizational Learning: Lessons from NASA

After the Shuttle Columbia catastrophe, the investigation board (CAIB) stated that NASA needs to develop a "learning culture", meaning a capability to learn from past failures by understanding the technical and organizational causes of these mistakes (CAIB report, 2003). While many organizations learn from obvious failures, we argue that it is harder for organizations to learn from near-miss events (i.e., situations where a failure does not occur but nearly did), because these near-misses are processed as successes. For the shuttle program, prior debris problems could have caused a similar failure as on the Columbia mission except that the large pieces missed the highly sensitive portions of the orbiter. This acceptance of foam debris was adopted as a normal occurrence by the shuttle program managers similar to the problems at the time of the Challenger Disaster (detailed in Vaughan, 1996). We extend that work to show that an outcome bias influences people's evaluation of project managers, such that managers of failed missions were perceived more poorly than managers who made the same decisions but whose mission ended in either success or a near-miss. The similarity of ratings between the near-miss and success condition imply that even when a problem occurs that is clearly linked to prior managerial decisions, if the project is not harmed because of good luck, that manager is not held accountable for faculty decision making and neither the individual manager nor the organization learn from the experience potentially increasing the likelihood of a failure in the future