Analytical Guidance Research Articles

A Definition Framework for the Terms Nanomaterial and Nanoparticle

Scientific writings and policy documents define the terms nanomaterial and nanoparticle in various ways. This variation is considered problematic because the absence of a shared definition is understood as potentially hindering nanomaterial knowledge production and regulation. Another view is that the existence of a shared definition may itself cause problems, as rigid definitions arguably exclude important aspects of the studied phenomena. The aim of this paper is to inform this state of disagreement by providing analytical concepts for a systematic understanding of how, and even whether, nanomaterial and nanoparticle could and should be defined. To do this, we review definitions of nanomaterial and nanoparticle presented in research articles and policy documents. Definitions were identified by first conducting a Scopus search and then tracing cited definitions back to their sources. In total, 36 definitions were identified. Theories of definition from philosophy and linguistics provide analytical guidance for structuring and categorizing the identified definitions, and the main analytical dimensions of the definitions are then identified and discussed. Finally, we propose a framework for understanding the process of defining nanomaterial and nanoparticle. This framework considers both the generality needed for a shared understanding (by suggesting proto-definitions of nanomaterial and nanoparticle) and the level of precision required for different purposes (by allowing for various explications of the proto-definitions).

Taxing Pensions of an Internationally Mobile Labor Force: Portability Issues and Taxation Options

There is a rising share of individuals spending at least some part of their working life abroad and acquiring pension rights. While the portability of pensions and other social benefits has received some analytical attention over the recent decade there is currently limited analytical guidance on the taxation of retirement provisions within a country, and there is virtually none for the taxation of internationally portable pensions. For both national and international taxation of pensions, the actual taxation approaches are characterized by a high level of diversity, complexity and inconsistency within and across countries that risk harming labor mobility and creating fiscal unfairness. The proposed taxation approach for internationally portable pensions mixes notional front-loaded taxation (as the tax due on contributions/savings is deferred) with actual back-loaded taxation as the taxes are due when the benefits are disbursed (in source or residency country) or when accumulated savings effectively leave the country. This approach promises to establish broadly neutrality for international labor mobility decisions, fiscal fairness of tax revenue around retirement provisions between source and residency country, and bureaucratic efficiency, including a consistency with EU regulations and most double-taxation treaties.

A Pathway to Linking Risk and Sustainability Assessments

The US National Research Council recently released a report promoting sustainability assessment as the future of environmental regulation. Thirty years earlier, this organization (under the same senior author) had issued a similar report promoting risk assessment as a new method for improving the science behind regulatory decisions. Tools for risk assessment were subsequently developed and adopted in state and federal agencies throughout the US. Since then, limitations of the traditional forms of risk assessment have prompted some dramatic modifications toward cumulative assessments that combine multiple chemical and non-chemical stressors in community settings. At present, however, there is little momentum within the risk assessment community for abandoning this evolved system in favor of a new sustainability-based one. The key question is, how best to proceed? Should sustainability principles be incorporated into current risk assessment procedures, or vice versa? Widespread recognition of the importance of sustainability offers no clear guidance for the risk assessment community, especially in light of institutional commitments to sustainability tools and definitions that appear to have little in common with cumulative risk notions. The purpose of this paper is to reframe the sustainability challenge for risk assessors by offering analytical guidance to chart a way out. We adopt a decision analysis framework to overcome some conceptual barriers separating these two forms of assessment, and thereby, both escape the either/or choice and accept the inevitability of sustainability as a central regulatory concern in the U.S.

Engineering metal-nanoantennae/dye complexes for maximum fluorescence enhancement.

We theoretically investigate the fluorescence enhancement of a molecule placed in a variable (4 - 20 nm) gap of a plasmonic dimer, with different dye molecules as well as different nanoparticle geometries, using a fully vectorial three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D FDTD) method. This work extends previous studies on molecular fluorescence in the vicinity of metal interfaces and single nanoparticles and shows how the radiative emission of a molecule can be further enhanced by engineering the geometry of a plasmonic structure. Through the use of rigorous 3D FDTD calculations, in conjunction with analytic guidance based on temporal coupled-mode (TCM) theory, we develop a design procedure for antennae assemblies that is useful both for general understanding of molecule-metal structure interaction and experimental efforts in plasmon-enhanced molecular spectroscopy.

Analytical guidance for spacecraft relative motion under constant thrust using relative orbit elements

Proximity control of modern nano-spacecraft often relies on low and discrete thrust engines that are characterized by low consumption, and generate on-off force profiles. New guidance solutions must take into account the nature of this type of orbital engines. This paper introduces novel analytical guidance solutions for spacecraft relative motion considering continuous, on-off thrust, and using relative orbit elements as a geometrical representation of the dynamics. The solutions provide the relative state vector at any given time, accommodating any thrust magnitude along the three directions of the relative frame, as well as generic activation times and durations. Relative orbit elements geometrically interpret key aspects of the relative motion, including for example, the relative ellipse size, and the evolution of its center in time. The new solutions provide the guidance designer with a direct visualization of the thrust effects on the relative motion geometry, offering new possibilities for analytical guidance in the presence of continuous thrust engines, such as low thrust engines on nano-spacecraft. The paper presents the analytical solutions, and tests their effectiveness using a sample thrust profile based on input-shaping, previously developed by one of the authors using classical Cartesian coordinates. The use of relative orbit elements shows substantial benefits and added simplicity with respect to Cartesian-based approaches, holding the promise for straightforward onboard spacecraft implementation. The software developed for this research will be available open source11〈http://www.riccardobevilacqua.com/links.html〉., to be used by spacecraft guidance designers as trajectory design tool.

What Can Strategic Culture Contribute to Our Understanding of Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific Region?

This article reflects on application of the concept of strategic culture to supply analytical and policy-relevant guidance to those who ponder the future of security relations in the Asia-Pacific. Argued here is that, notwithstanding some obvious problems with the concept, there is utility in the application of strategic culture to the analysis of regional security challenges. To claim that strategic culture may not be equally applicable to all states in the Asia-Pacific region is not the same as saying it has no applicability at all, especially if the states to which it is applicable are important regional actors. This article suggests that both an old approach derivative of national character, and a new one associated with path dependence, might together prove fruitful for policy analysts and policy-makers alike, as they wrestle with what many assume to be the fundamental question of the coming half-century in the Asia-Pacific, namely whether a great power war in the region can be averted. Although there is much variation in the manner with which authors apply the master concept of strategic culture to their specific Asia-Pacific cases, each takes seriously the utility of a cultural approach to national strategic choice. So while the quest for reliable causality and predictive capability on a region-wide basis may remain that of the will-o’-the-wisp, there can be no gainsaying that, on a case-by-case basis, the authors show that the approach can demonstrate valuable insights into the policy dilemmas of cultural provenance and content confronting the Asia-Pacific.

Spirituality in bedlam: exploring professional conversations on acute psychiatric units.

The inclusion of spiritual conversations in occupational therapy is congruent with the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement, which identifies spirituality as the core of every human being. Research indicates that spirituality can be a resource for mental health recovery. This manuscript reports on Part 2 of a research study that explored the experience of spiritual conversations for patients (Part I) and mental health professionals (Part 2) on acute psychiatric units. Eight acute-based mental health professionals (MHPs)/participants, representing a variety of disciplines, participated in a focus group or individual interview. Community-based participatory research, appreciative inquiry, and interpretive description provided methodological and analytic guidance. MHP/participants described challenges in setting boundaries related to spirituality conversations and discerning spiritual experience from psychosis. MHPs/participants emphasized the importance in providing an empathetic presence while also engaging in spiritual networking. Therapists can incorporate spiritual conversations with patients in acute psychiatric settings by taking specific actions to enhance their openness and engaging in spiritual networking.

A New Method for Initial Parameters Optimization of Guided Projectiles

A new algorithm was developed for the initial parameters optimization of guided projectiles with multiple constraints. Due to the relationship between the analytical guidance logic and state variables of guided projectiles, the Radau pseudospectral method was used to discretize the differential equations expressed by control variables and state variables with multiple constraints into series algebraic equations, only expressed by state variables. The initial parameter optimization problem was transformed to a nonlinear programming problem, and the sequential quadratic programming algorithm was used to obtain the optimal combinations of initial height and range to target, and make the final velocity of guided projectiles maximum with constraints. Comparing with the appropriate initial conditions solved by Monte Carlo method and the flight characteristics solved by integrating the original differential equations in the optimal initial parameters computed by the new algorithm, the feasibility of new algorithm was validated.

Analytical mathematical feedback guidance scheme for low-thrust orbital plane change maneuvers

This paper which is based on neighboring optimal control investigates the application of an analytical feedback guidance scheme for the problems of low-thrust orbital transfer. Neighboring optimal control is one of the methods that has been proposed for the closed-loop optimal guidance. This method focuses on expanding the cost function to second order and examining the robustness of the system by the feedback law gains. At first, the open-loop analytical guidance policy is considered as the optimal thrust steering program that will transfer the vehicle from the inclined low earth orbits to the high earth orbits. Secondly, proper feedback optimal guidance laws are analytically obtained to maintain the trajectories around their optimum with assessed disturbances. The proposed guidance scheme is distinguished for two desired performance indices as minimum-time and minimum-effort. Finally performance indices are compared and the best policy is obtained regarding the robustness of the two performance indices against disturbances.

Bringing ideology in: the conservative white male effect on worry about environmental problems in the USA

Extending existing scholarship on the white male effect in risk perception, we examine whether conservative white males (CWMs) are less worried about the risks of environmental problems than are other adults in the US general public. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from nine Gallup surveys between 2001 and 2010, focusing on both a single-item indicator and a composite measure of worry about environmental problems. We find that CWMs indeed have significantly lower worry about environmental problems than do other Americans. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate regression models reveal that this CWMs effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender and the effects of nine social, demographic, and temporal control variables – as well as the effect of individuals generalized (nonenvironmental) risk perceptions. We conclude that the white male effect is due largely to CWMs, and that the latters low level of concern with environmental risks is likely driven by their social commitment to prevent new environmental regulations and repeal existing ones.

A New Method for Initial Parameters Optimization of Guided Projectiles

A new algorithm was developed for the initial parameters optimization of guided projectiles with multiple constraints. Due to the relationship between the analytic guidance logic and state variables of guided projectiles, the Radau pseudospectral method was used to discretize the differential equations including control variables and state variables with multiple constraints into series algebraic equations that were expressed only by state variables. The initial parameter optimization problem was transformed to a nonlinear programming problem, and the sequential quadratic programming algorithm was used to obtain the optimal combinations of initial height and range to target for the final velocity of guided projectiles maximum with constraints. Comparing with the appropriate initial conditions solved by Monte Carlo method and the flight characteristics solved by integrating the original differential equations in the optimal initial parameters computed by the new algorithm, the feasibility of new algorithm was validated.

Improved Analytic Guidance Algorithm for Mars Entry

With the development of Mars exploration, NASA has been preparing plans for a crewed mission to Mars in the next few decades. One challenge associated with crewed missions to the Mars is the high ballistic-coefficient and human-class payloads. Because of the high ballistic-coefficient, the maximum limit value of the reference flight path angle is always the reference flight path angle meeting the downrange and altitude for the constant flight path angle algorithm. So this paper presents an improved algorithm which the terminal velocity is controlled by dynamic pressure controller, and the controller is used to modulate the velocity and altitude to meet final constraints. Simulations results of a Mars entry scenario illustrate that the improved algorithm achieves the final constraints within allowable tolerances.

Earthly probes of the smallest dark matter halos

Dark matter kinetic decoupling involves elastic scattering of dark matter off of leptons and quarks in the early universe, the same process relevant for direct detection and for the capture rate of dark matter in celestial bodies; the resulting size of the smallest dark matter collapsed structures should thus correlate with quantities connected with direct detection rates and with the flux of high-energy neutrinos from dark matter annihilation in the Sun or in the Earth. In this paper we address this general question in the context of two widely studied and paradigmatic weakly-interacting particle dark matter models: the lightest neutralino of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, and the lightest Kaluza-Klein particle of Universal Extra Dimensions (UED). We argue and show that while the scalar neutralino-nucleon cross section correlates poorly with the kinetic decoupling temperature, the spin-dependent cross section exhibits a strong correlation in a wide range of models. In UED models the correlation is present for both cross sections, and is extraordinarily tight for the spin-dependent case. A strong correlation is also found, for both models, for the flux of neutrinos from the Sun, especially for fluxes large enough to be at potentially detectable levels. We provide analytic guidance and formulae that illustrate our findings.

Religious and/or Spiritual Practices: Extending Spiritual Freedom to People with Schizophrenia

It continues to be a challenge to define and utilize spirituality in client-centred occupational therapy practice. Dialogue about spirituality is especially problematic for occupational therapists working with people with schizophrenia. To explore the meaning of religion and/or spirituality for people living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Nine community-based individuals with schizophrenia engaged in interviews about the meaning of religion and/or spirituality and demonstrated self-defined spiritual practices. Phenomenology, hermeneutic theory, and a symbolic interactionism framework provided methodological and analytic guidance. Participants employed religious and/or spiritual practices to cope with schizophrenia symptoms and make meaning of their lives. Individuals used multiple systems of meaning to explain their experiences. Religious and/or spiritual agency, an individual's sense of freedom to choose among the spiritual options, renewed their sense of empowerment. Therapists can engage in spiritual negotiation with clients by using well-worded empowering questions toward a common goal of life enhancement.

To imagine and pursue racial justice

At the conclusion of many courses on race and racism, students, having learned, some for the first time, about the existence, origins, and complex dimensions of racial domination in America, are left pondering their next steps. ‘What is to be done?’ many ask. ‘And what, exactly, is it that we want?’ Important as they are, these questions too often are given insufficient attention, usually addressed at the end of the semester, sometimes only on the final day of class. And students inquiring about the most effective ways to strive toward racial justice are at a loss to find a single comprehensive source that provides them with basic analytical guidance about the goals one should work toward (the ends) or the strategies one should employ to achieve those goals (the means). We believe that students would benefit greatly from such a source, and we attempt to offer one here. To effectively address racial domination, we argue, one must have not only an idea of the means with which to struggle on behalf of a reconstructed racial order, but also an idea of the ends for which one is struggling. Accordingly, in the first major section of this article, we specify three ends: (1) a society where racial domination is addressed intelligently; (2) a society that embraces racial justice in all its arenas; and (3) a society that values and practices multiculturalism – offering a glimpse of what a society without racial domination might look like. In the following section, we specify the means – emphasizing four levels or sites of change having to do with: (1) ourselves; (2) our inner circle; (3) our institutions; and (4) our nation – offering some guidance as to how we each can do our part to bring forth a more racially just society. Although we believe this article will provide guidance for advanced scholars and instructors, we have composed it primarily with a broader audience in mind.

Business Case Analysis and the Confounds of Innovation Driven by Performance-Based Postproduction Support Strategies

AbstractThe postproduction support cost of complex systems such as rail, power, and defense often exceed the cost of research, design and production. As such systems age and degrade the traditional maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) approach does little to reduce their cost or improve performance. The failure of traditional MRO has given rise to a number of multi-year, performance-based, postproduction support strategies. These strategies drive investment to reduce cost, infuse innovation, and increase system performance. The dynamism and innovation associated with these strategies makes it difficult to conduct a business case analysis (BCA) that compares the return on sales model of traditional MRO to the return on investment model of performance based strategies. To address this gap in practice and theory we provide a framework for rationalizing performance-based and traditional strategies within the same BCA. We develop questions to guide the creation of BCAs that include performance- based options. Finally, we offer analytical guidance to support direct economic comparison between these two fundamentally different postproduction support strategies.

Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States

We examine whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from ten Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010, focusing specifically on five indicators of climate change denial. We find that conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate logistic regression models reveal that the conservative white male effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender as well as the effects of nine control variables. We thus conclude that the unique views of conservative white males contribute significantly to the high level of climate change denial in the United States.

Incorporating Equity in Regulatory and Benefit‐Cost Analysis Using Risk‐Based Preferences

The analysis of federal regulations focuses on the analysis of economic efficiency through standard benefit-cost analysis in which reductions in risk tend to represent benefits and variability may be investigated through sensitivity or simulation methods. Such analyses typically ignore distributional consequences that can affect decisions. Although analytical guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) mentions distributional consequences, there is little specificity regarding how it might be analyzed. Specificity might be improved by OMB: (1) communicating and enforcing distributional impacts as more central to the process, (2) identifying default types of descriptive distributional statistics, (3) identifying whether legislation has created a constraint to not harm a subgroup, and (4) requesting a distributional sensitivity test of the net benefits along with a standard benefit-cost analysis. Although such actions have a data collection and analysis cost, they may make the results of regulatory analysis more relevant by investigating both efficiency and equity measures.

Suppose the USA had REACH: ramifications for formaldehyde

The Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) legislation for regulating chemicals came into force in the EU in June 2007. This framework is stricter and more precautionary than its counterpart in the USA – the Toxic Substances Control Act – in that it requires data submissions for not only new but existing chemicals as well. This study evaluates the REACH process by assuming that the program exists in the USA and by taking formaldehyde, which is widely used yet toxic at certain doses, through the steps of REACH. We find that the attractive features of REACH are that it shifts more of the technical burdens of regulation to industry and that it may stimulate competitive pressures for safer, ‘greener’ products. Downsides include technical ambiguities in the analytical guidance, a potential for creating large amounts of paperwork, and perhaps a small risk reduction relative to the costs of the legislation. We recommend additional case studies with other existing chemicals to obtain a fuller picture of the potential ramifications of REACH‐like legislation in the USA.

Guidance, Navigation, and Control System Performance Trades for Mars Pinpoint Landing

Landing site selection is a compromise between safety concerns associated with the site’s terrain and scientific interest. Therefore, technologies enabling pinpoint landing performance (sub-100-m accuracies) on the surface of Mars are of interest to increase the number of accessible sites for in situ research, as well as allow placement of vehicles nearby prepositioned assets. A survey of the performance of guidance, navigation, and control technologies that could allow pinpoint landing to occur at Mars was performed. This assessment has shown that negligible propellant mass fraction benefits are seen for reducing the three-sigma position dispersion at the end of the hypersonic guidance phase (parachute deployment) below approximately 3 km. Four different propulsive terminal descent guidancealgorithms were examined. Of these four, a near propellant-optimal analytic guidance law showed promisefortheconceptualdesignofpinpointlandingvehicles.Theexistenceofapropellantoptimumwithregardto theinitiationtimeofthepropulsiveterminaldescentwasshowntoexistforvarious flightconditions.Subsonicguided parachutes were shown to provide marginal performance benefits, due to the timeline associated with descent through the thin Mars atmosphere. This investigation also demonstrates that navigation is a limiting technology for Mars pinpoint landing, with landed performance being largely driven by navigation sensor and map tie accuracy.