Digital Commons Network^™

Integration Of Fob System To Crew Transfer Bag, Michaela Brant, Michael Flynn

STAR Program Research Presentations

All human space missions, regardless of destination, require significant logistical mass and volume. The amount required is a function of the mission duration. Reducing this logistical mass and volume by reusing items that would otherwise become trash can reduce launch weight and mission costs. During the summer of 2012, the Forward Osmosis Bag (FOB) flown on STS-135 in July 2011 was redesigned to improve overall efficiency of the fresh water production from grey water sources and to implement as part of the International Space Station (ISS) Crew Transfer Bags (CTB). CTBs are fabric cargo containers, which conform to specific dimensional …

Evaluation And Calibration Of The Focusing, And Tilting And Chopping Mechanisms Of Sofia, Brian Eney, Joshua Thompson, Holger Jakob, Jeffrey Van Cleve, Zaheer A. Ali, Alan Hatakeyama, Matt Dillman

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.7 meter telescope on board a Boeing 747‐ SP. The telescope has been receiving upgrades to equipment and instruments, as a result the Telescope Assembly needs to be evaluated and calibrated to achieve optimal image quality. The challenge to collimating a 2.7 meter telescope without special equipment attached to the telescope is essential for optimal observation time. This calibration needs to done in flight with science instrument in place and take only minutes to perform for maximum observing time and data collecting.

Analyzing Wind Turbine Controller Effects On Structure Stress, Leo Groner, Susan Frost

STAR Program Research Presentations

Wind turbines generate electric power from clean renewable sources. They must be robust and reliable. Utility-scale turbines are designed to produce power within a set of wind speed parameters. When winds change, wind turbine blade pitch is used to protect the turbine from over speed damage.

Advanced control algorithms can increase power by extending the performance envelope or they can extend lifetime by reducing stress. A FAST simulation written in MATLAB / Simulink is used to simulate the dynamics of the integrated aerodynamic, mechanical and control subsystems of the turbine. Resonance modes may lead to large amplitude displacements and damage. …

Unmasking The Mysteries Of High-Mass X-Ray Binaries (Hmxbs): The Role Of Llnl’S Electron Beam Ion Trap (Ebit), Carey Baxter, Natalie Hell, Greg Brown

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Electron Beam Ion trap (EBIT) uses a very narrow electron beam (~60µm) to excite and trap ions. X-ray emissions of the excited ions are then diffracted and analyzed. I studied specific spectral emission lines of ionized silicon. This data can be used as a point of reference for similar spectra measured by the satellite Chandra so that the Doppler shift due to wind around the accretion disks of High Mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) can be calculated. HMXBs are pairs of stars that are luminous in X-rays. They are composed of a donor star that gives up mass to an …

The Effects Of Low Dose Gamma Radiation On The Production Of Bone Cell Communication Factors, Anna Deneui, Ruth Globus, L. Tran, A. Kumar

STAR Program Research Presentations

The health of skeletal tissue is dependent, in part, on a balanced coexistence between two main cell types: osteoblasts, which form the mineralized structure of bone, and osteoclasts, which digest and break down bone. Communication between these two cell types is facilitated by osteoblast production of receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa‐B (RANK) ligand and osteoprotegerin (OPG). The increased bone loss anticipated after long‐term spaceflight may be associated with the degenerative effects of ionizing radiation on this system. We hypothesize that ionizing radiation associated with spaceflight modulates RANK‐Ligand/OPG expression in osteoblasts, consequently altering the behavior of osteoclasts. To examine the …

Leds And Astronomy, Britny N. Delp, Stephen M. Pompea

STAR Program Research Presentations

Using a Czerny-Turner spectrometer, 45 different types of outdoor lights were categorized. These spectra were used to determine how useful the light is to human eyes and how dark skies friendly these lights are. Dark skies friendly lighting means that little to no light shines above a right angle to the light, and should emit as little as possible below 500nm (green) wavelengths. The short wavelengths present a problem to astronomers in the form of Rayleigh scattering. The following criterion were used in selecting the best source for urban and rural lighting: color rendition measured by color rendering index (CRI), …

Survival Of B. Horneckiae Spores Under Ground-Simulated, Sneha Tharayil, Parag Vaishampayan

STAR Program Research Presentations

Increasing efforts to find and study habitable conditions and the possibility of life on extraterrestrial cosmic bodies have also deepened the need for planetary protection advancements to prevent possibilities of forward and backward contamination. Despite stringent precautions to ensure spacecraft cleanliness, a number of spore-forming bacteria, including the biofilm forming strain, Bacillus horneckiae have been isolated from spacecraft associated surfaces. B. horneckiae spores have demonstrated unusually high resistance to rigorous sterilization procedures, and extreme conditions, including intense UV radiation. This exceptionally high tolerance of extreme conditions demonstrated by spore-forming bacteria highlighted the need to assess the viability of these microbes …

Evaluation Of Hydrogen Storage In Metal Organic Frameworks By Bridged Hydrogen Spillover, Claudia V. Turcios, Thomas Gennett, Katherine Hurst, Philip Parilla

STAR Program Research Presentations

Hydrogen has the potential to be the next energy carrier. The ability to use hydrogen in fuel cell technologies depends largely on the ability to store hydrogen efficiently. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) belong to an interesting set of materials that consists of porous channels and have been shown to carry potential for hydrogen storage when added to metal catalysts. MOFs alone show no potential to store hydrogen, but when added to metal catalyst they can exhibit a spillover effect to increase hydrogen storage capacity. The key critical issues with MOFs are to validate the promises that MOFs can provide with spillover, …

Size And Weight Changes Of Leatherback Hatchlings Among Emergence Groups, Shane Morales, Kelly Stewart

STAR Program Research Presentations

In ideal leatherback sea turtle nests, all the hatchlings move together as a single group through the sand to leave the nest. Often, though, hatchlings emerge in two separate groups hours or days apart while others remain stuck in the sand where they may die unless they are dug out (excavation). First emergence groups spend the shortest amount of time in the sand while excavated hatchlings spend the longest amount of time in the sand (typically three days longer than first emergence hatchlings). Individuals from each of the separate emergences were weighed and measured (carapace only) in order to compare …

Selective Laser Sintering; A Design Of Experiments, Philip David Hopkins, Victor Castillo Phd

STAR Program Research Presentations

Additive Manufacturing (AM), also commonly known as 3D Printing or Rapid Prototyping, is a method of manufacturing that provides for the ability to make intricate internal features and easily customizable parts. The concept is to break a Computer Aided Design (CAD) file into a series of thin layers that are sent to the machine and laid down one layer at a time. Just like any other form of processing, material properties can alter by undergoing this process. Manipulating various parameters of the AM process can allow for different properties to be achieved. For this reason, an in depth study will …

Playing "Hide And Seek" With Binary Stars, Elin Deeb, Raghvendra Sahai

STAR Program Research Presentations

Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars are in a later stage of life than stars like our Sun. these stars are beginning to shed their outer layer and will eventually form planetary nebulae (PNe). The evolution of a PN impacts the evolution of the surrounding galactic environment, but PNe often have asymmetric geometries which are not entirely understood. The influence of a binary companion is predicted to affect the evolution of a PN although it is difficult to detect companions around AGB stars due to their dusty envelopes, large luminosities and variability. material shed by AGB stars however would likely form …

Steroids And Ssris In Wastewater And Ee2 Uptake In Fhm, Elizabeth Ellen Wittenberg, Irvin R. Schultz

STAR Program Research Presentations

Pharmaceuticals have been found in waste water treatment plant (WWTP) effluents and there are scientific studies that indicate at least some of these chemicals have adverse effects on fish health. Two groups of pharmaceuticals that currently cause concerns are natural and synthetic steroids and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Fathead minnows (FHM) are a common species of fish used for research and ethynyl estradiol (EE2) is a synthetic estrogen known to cause decreased fertility in fish. FHMs were exposed to EE2 for time periods between 0.25 hours to 144 hours in order to study uptake and disposition in this species. …

Chloroform Extraction Of Iodine In Seawater Method Development, Hanna Seidler, Aaron Glimme, Scott Tumey, Tom Guilderson

STAR Program Research Presentations

The extraction of iodine from seawater is used as a means of analyzing the concentration and isotopic ratios of iodine at different locations in the ocean. This has practical applications in the testing of discharge from nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, tracing of ocean currents, and testing areas for potential environmental and health impacts. One of the current methods used is separation extraction involving chloroform (CHCl3). This method is lengthy (almost an hour per sample) and does not guarantee 100% recovery of the iodine in the water. This research seeks to optimize the existing protocol for efficiency while maintaining or improving …

Electrical Energy Storage: Synthesis Of Metal Oxide Nanostructures For Potential Use In Flow Cell Batteries, Robin Young, Cristina Javier, Alex Legrande, Bin Chen

STAR Program Research Presentations

One of the major concerns for the near future is our ability to generate and store energy. Though green technologies for energy generation such as solar and wind harvesting have been developed, their constant fluctuation in output requires a cost‐effective and efficient mode for storing the energy that is generated. The flow cell battery was developed by NASA in the 1970’s and has recently garnered attention in Japan, Australia, and California for large scale energy storage. Flow Cell batteries were originally produced using Iron and Chromium compound electrolytes; however the relative abundance, multiple valence states, and low toxicity of Vanadium …

To Mask Or Not To Mask: Using A Model‐Based Barameter To Detect Vegetation Changes From Polarimetric And Interferometric Radar Data, Kaitlyn Fiechtner, Marco Lavalle

STAR Program Research Presentations

This project focuses on implementing a software component that will help the NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) UAVSAR (Uninhabited Ariel Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) group ultimately estimate Earth’s biomass and vegetation properties. Estimating the worldwide biomass will contribute to our understanding of the changing climate. By utilizing Cloude’s model-based incoherent decomposition we are able to extract the maximum surface-to-volume scattering ratio from the polarimetric and interferometric SAR (Pol-InSAR) data. The surface-to-volume ratio contains information about the structure of the imaged vegetated area, and can be used to detect vegetation changes between data acquisitions. The software component will create an image …

Discounting Works In The Hotel Industry: A Structural Approach To Understanding Why, Robertico R. Croes, Kelly J. Semrad

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This case study provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between discounting hotel room rates and hotel financial performance. The dynamics of the lodging industry are accounted for through the adoption of an error correction model. Recent research suggests that the use of discounting room rates may not be an effective pricing strategy as it results in increased occupancy rates at decreased average daily rates, thereby reducing a common financial performance indicator – revenue per available room (revPAR). The recommendation made to hotel managers, then, is to avoid discounting and instead adopt an average rate. This study generates opposing findings …

News From The Crest (August 2012), Crest Associates

News from the Crest

Heidi Bernard, Director

Joanne Blacklidge, Editor

Policy Intervention In Debt Renegotiation: Evidence From The Home Affordable Modification Program, Sumit Agarwal, Gene Amromin, Itzhak Ben-David, Souphala Chomsisengphet

Kreisman Working Paper Series in Housing Law and Policy

The main rationale for policy intervention in debt renegotiation is to enhance such activity when foreclosures are perceived to be inefficiently high. We examine the ability of the government to influence debt renegotiation by empirically evaluating the effects of the 2009 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) that provided intermediaries (servicers) with sizeable financial incentives to renegotiate mortgages. A difference-in-difference strategy that exploits variation in program eligibility criteria reveals that the program generated an overall increase in the intensity of renegotiations while adversely affecting the effectiveness of renegotiations performed outside the program. Renegotiations induced by the program resulted in a modest …

Course Catalog 2012-2013, Wellesley College

The Wellesley College Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Be Fit To Ski; A Periodized Approach To Alpine Skiing Fitness, Susan Kramer

Graduate Theses

Alpine skiing is considered an explosive sport, requiring high-intensity repetitive muscular action. From the eighties through the early two thousands, studies have revealed the high demands placed on elite ski racers, although limited research has been conducted using recreational skiers. Expert recreational skiers and professional ski instructors are also exposed to high levels of muscular and cardiorespiratory stress, which is why it is beneficial to have a guideline for training and conditioning, much like other team and individual athletes. To date, there are few comprehensive training programs that treat the skier and professional ski instructor as an athlete who needs …

Application Of E-Navigation To Support Ship Operation In Emergency And Routine Situations, Michael Baldauf, Sebastian Klaes, Knud Benedict, Sandro Fischer, Michael Gluch, Matthias Kirchhoff, Michaele Schaub

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Effective Parole Supervisor Traits Observed By Texas Parole Officers, David H. Bolding Ii

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This research study uses a quantitative method to identify the traits that Texas parole officers observe make an effective leader. This study adds to what seems to be a void in research on parole supervisors. Prior literature has identified that numerous individual traits and observable traits play an active role in effective leaders. This study uses "Survey Monkey" to employ the use of surveys across Texas, and to ensure confidentiality. By utilizing the method in this study, effective traits can be identified and used as a tool to increase present supervisory capabilities and allow others to have a guide on …

Community Reentry Programs And Their Effect On Recidivism:: A Study Of Life Skills Clients At The Denver County Jail, Valerie M. Gantzler

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Recidivism, or repeat offending, is prevalent among misdemeanants. Their sentences are usually short and become even shorter with mandates to keep county jails from overcrowding. These misdemeanants are then released from jail and go back to the same environments they were in before. Many of these people go on to commit the same or similar crimes and end up back in jail. Jails across the U. S. have begun implementing transitional programs in the hopes that providing repeat offenders with case management, counseling, and other services might enable them to break the habit of repeat offending and make better choices …

Juvenile Risk Factors Affecting Probability Of Rearrest And Treatment Options, Susan D. Kindred

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Studies have been conducted gaining insight into the effectiveness of making arrests and what the effects are to juvenile offense rates especially for those living in lower socioeconomic statuses. Researchers have attempted to develop new theories in order to prevent re-offending, while also analyzing offender risk factors. While individuals continue to re-offend, questions arise if an individual's socioeconomic status, or individual risk factors effect whether or not an arrest will be made for the offense committed and how it will be treated to prevent future offending. This study analyzes case studies addressing the issues of juvenile offending as it relates …

Fear Of Crime' & Media Representation Of Crime In Denver, Ryan M. Martinez

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This research project looks at the 'fear of crime' as a concept that is valuable to law enforcement agencies, politicians, and the public. By examining past research, it can be concluded that 'fear of crime' is often studied through the use of victimization surveys despite methodology complications. 'Fear of crime' is studied quantitatively in this project in relation to media articles from The Denver Post from 2008-2010. By performing a longitudinal case study on these incidents, comparing past qualitative research on factors relating to 'fear of crime', and using content analysis of news articles, this study examined which factor if …

Leadership Traits: An Analysis Of Perceived Leadership Qualities In Law Enforcement And Work Production, Joshua T. Hotchkiss

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Leadership is immensely important to most organizations, and its development is a recognized key to organizational success. Leadership, as a construct, has been researched in boundless depth and has been a focal point to establishing increased productivity and success. Law enforcement has placed a special interest in developing leadership as it relates to performance, productivity and succession planning. Although leadership development is a seminal part of law enforcement objectives, it is difficult to implement clear strategies for doing so. This study examines the gap in research as it pertains to leadership traits and work production by analyzing officers' perceptions of …

Examining Sociobiological Fitness Traits In Conjunction With The General Strain Theory In Convicted Rapists, Lorinda R. Hetterle

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The purpose of this study is to determine if sociobiological theories are useful in studying deviant behavior. Due to sociobiology being a field that has only recently been developed, there is little research regarding the overlap between criminology and sociobiology. Using forcible rape as the conduit of research, this study examined if and how sociobiology stressors contributed to the General Strain Theory. Specifically, this research answered the question, "Were sociobiological fitness stressors present in convicted rapists prior to the offense(s)?" Using secondary source data, a content analysis was performed on five separate case studies to qualitatively assess what, if any, …

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design And Crime Rates In Apartment Settings, Robyn M. Radosevich

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This comparative study has employed qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the implications of the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) theory. Due to significant inconsistencies in prior research, the effectiveness of CPTED in reducing crime rates was examined. Research analysis has examined the elements of CPTED present at three sample apartment complexes located in a large western city and determined if the apartment settings with physical elements consistent with CPTED experienced lower crime rates. Observational qualitative data and quantitative crime rates were applied in a comparative analysis.

Diironcarbonyl-Coumarin Complex: Preparation Intramolecular Electron Transfer And Electro-Generation Of Hydrogen, Charles A. Mebi, Joshua J. Trujillo, Anwar A. Bhuiyan

Faculty Publications - Physical & Earth Sciences

A new organometallic complex coupling photoactive coumarin to a diironhexacarbonyl unit has been successfully prepared and its composition and electronic structure confirmed by elemental and spectroscopic analyses. Emission spectral analysis of the complex reveals photoinduced intramolecular electron transfer from coumarin to the iron-carbonyl moiety. The compound is electrochemically reduced at -1.24 V vs. Fc/Fc +. This reduction is irreversible, attesting to the instability of the complex. Electrochemical evolution of hydrogen in the presence of the complex has been studied and results are discussed. © Versita Sp. z o.o.

Science Today In Verse, Hope Leman

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.