Decade Of Operation Research Articles

Recolamation of contaminated ground waters by a multiple membrane process

This paper describes the application of a multiple step membrane train for the processing of ground and surface waters contaminated with ammonium sulfate. The key to the process is the unique ability of nanofiltration to separate mono and divalent ions such that the concentrated stream can be forwarded to an evaporator. The paper outlines the problems to be solved, the initial separation concept, the plant design, unique design features and the experience gained over a decade of operation. The process utilises microfiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis.

Strategic alliances and competitive strategies in the European aerospace industry: the case of BMW Rolls‐Royce GmbH

Strategic alliances are an important feature of the aerospace industry and many studies have sought to evaluate their performance. Most have taken a policy perspective exploring the economic and political benefits claimed for collaboration of this type. The perspective is a reflection of the political origins of many aerospace alliances. This study seeks to evaluate, from a managerial perspective, one of the newer alliances established on a strictly commercial basis. It focuses on BMW Rolls‐Royce GmbH, one of a small number of truly European alliances. The study concludes that, although Rolls‐Royce bought out its German partner after a decade of operation, the alliance was a success. The two engines developed by the alliance over this period were a technical success, overall sales were well on target and the alliance was about to break even. In addition, the study concludes that the alliance formed a key element in Rolls‐Royce’s successful strategy to extend its product portfolio, a strategy that elevated the company to second place in the global aero engine market.

Integrated services for mothers with dual diagnoses and their children. Arkansas Center for Addictions Research, Education, and Services ( Arkansas CARES).

Integrated services for mothers with dual diagnoses and their children. Arkansas Center for Addictions Research, Education, and Services ( Arkansas CARES).

Infrapopliteal-Lower Extremity Revascularization with Prosthetic Conduit: A 20-Year Experience

The use of prosthetic conduits for lower extremity revascularization in the infrapopliteal location remains controversial. The objective of this report is to describe the immediate and long-term results in a series collected over two decades. Of the approximately 1,500 lower extremity revascularizations performed between 1978 and 1998, 81 infrapopliteal bypass cases using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as conduit in 77 patients were identified. Autogenous conduit was unavailable (86%) due to prior surgery: coronary artery bypass graft (25%), femoro-popliteal bypass (60%), or femoro-distal bypass (23%). All cases were done for critical ischemia using PTFE (6 mm, 95%; ring reinforced, 54%) under general (75%) or regional (25%) anesthesia. The distal anastomosis was to the anterior tibial artery (43%), posterior tibial artery (28%), tibioperoneal trunk (16%), or peroneal artery (12%), and vein patch was used in 25% of cases. Postoperative features included acute graft thrombosis in 11 cases (14%), all done under general anesthesia, perioperative death in 3 (4%), and a mean in-hospital stay of 17 days. Long-term follow-up has ranged from 1 to 144 months (mean, 22 months). At 36 months, primary patency was 20%, secondary patency 42%, and limb salvage 55% calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate analyses revealed regional anesthesia was associated with prolonged primary patency (35% vs 15%, p=0.026) while the use of ring-reinforced PTFE conduit was associated with prolonged limb salvage (65% vs 40%, p=0.042). All other variables including gender, smoking, diabetes mellitus, renal failure, decade of operation, use of vein patch or postoperative warfarin were not significantly associated with either prolonged patency or limb salvage. Despite poor primary patency, distal prosthetic bypass can lead to long-term limb salvage. These data suggest distal anastomotic vein patches and postoperative anticoagulation may not be beneficial adjuncts. However, the use of regional anesthesia may decrease the incidence of perioperative thrombosis and the use of ring reinforced conduit may prolong limb salvage.

The jury is still in: Florida's Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan after a decade.

Florida's Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan (NICA) is the most significant experiment with compensation for medical injury yet undertaken in the United States. As NICA enters its second decade of operation, maintaining the scheme's jurisdictional integrity has emerged as a key challenge for policy makers in Florida. We explore the relationship that has emerged between NICA and the tort system as competing avenues for families to obtain compensation for severe birth-related neurological injury. By linking NICA claims data with data on malpractice claims filed in Florida, we found a lively persistence of "bad baby" litigation despite NICA's implementation. Many families pursued claims in both fora. An explanation for these results can be traced to key features of the plan's design--primarily, the way in which "exclusive" jurisdiction over injuries is determined and the restrictive nature of the compensation criteria used. Our findings may help efforts to consolidate NICA's role in injury compensation and inform future design of alternative compensation systems.

Regenerative homoepitaxy of diamond

InterScience, Inc. is a company founded in 1980 to pursue development of technology related to controlled fusion research for near term applications. During the first decade of the company`s existence, the strategic focus was the transfer of technology and know-how from the fusion program supported by DOE to other federal programs. The company is now in its second decade of operation and is shifting its focus toward further transfer of its technologies to commercial applications. Among the technologies with origin from the fusion research being developed with significant potential for large scale commercial applications is a process for the growth of single crystal diamond as substrate for electronic devices. Diamond is an attractive electronic material because of the wide bandgap, high electron mobility, high thermal conductivity and high temperature tolerance. Although it has been shown that diamond can be synthesized from the gas phase by plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD), the resulting films are polycrystalline due to lack of control on the nucleation process, and such thin films of randomly oriented diamond crystals are used mostly as coatings for their thermal, mechanical and chemical properties but are not suitable for electronic device applications. The regenerative homoepitaxy process the authorsmore » have developed for synthesis of single crystal diamond films was derived from the knowledge and capabilities in fusion research in three ways. First, the PACVD reactor was built from knowledge of using microwaves to generate plasmas. Second, the experience to synthesize diamond by the PACVD process was gained from work supported by the fusion program in an attempt to develop a polycrystalline diamond window for high power microwave tubes. Finally, the inspiration for using the PACVD process to obtain single crystal diamond films came from insight gained in studying material damage associated with the first wall of a fusion reactor.« less

Ten years of calibration for the ISIS-II red line photometer

The York University Red Line Photometer was launched on the ISIS-II spacecraft on April 1, 1971. Its operations for more than a decade were ended not by any physical fault, but by a policy decision to terminate support for ISIS operations. Since ISIS-II was the last of a series of four satellites this effectively concluded Canada's scientific satellite programme. The satellite was then "given" to the Japanese, who continued to operate it to obtain topside sounder data. They did not have the resources needed to operate the other instruments, so no Red Line Photometer data were obtained after that time. It is nevertheless of considerable interest to track the behavior of the optical elements, which had a decade of operation in space. In this paper we present 10 years of calibration of the Red Line Photometer; no degradation of any optical elements can be identified.

A model for a regional transportation system within the geostationary space complex

The geostationary orbit about the Earth is presently used by a great number of communication and observation satellites. These nearly one hundred satellites have a limited lifetime and are expected to be replaced in due time by unmanned platforms of increasing size. Maintenance, repair and removal of these platforms by unmanned and manned space vehicles is one of the options discussed with increasing frequency. Another space system envisioned for the geostationary orbit are space solar power plants (SSPS). They have been investigated during the last two decades to find out whether there are any technical or financial problems which have to be overcome before a SSPS can materialize sometime in the next century. So far, none have been discovered, but proof is lacking that a SSPS is technically feasible and competitive if compared with other options to solve the energy problem on this planet in the next century. A partial problem for the acquisition and operation of a system of space power satellites is their assembly, maintenance and repair. Most of it must be done automatically but a sizable crew would probably have to be in GEO for quick action. Such a crew requires not only habitats, storages and a local energy supply, but also a regional space transportation system to transport spares, tools and people between the individual power plants and the other elements of the geostationary infrastructure. Such a regional transportation system for local transportation in the geostationary orbit (GRET) was recently studied at the Aerospace Institute of the Technical University of Berlin. It envisions a fleet of small space vehicles for interorbital transfer requiring modest velocity changes and flight times. The fleet comprises taxis for passenger transport, tugs for cargo transport and several unmanned and manned services vehicles of different sizes. These vehicles are housed in a special GEO space facility connected directly to the GEO spaceport. A SSPS driven market model assumes the initial operational capability for the year 2004. The GEO crew might have two hundred people by 2010 and several thousand tons of construction materials and spares would have to be transported by that time. The regional transportation system including GEO facilities and space vehicles will require approximately 1000 tons within the first decade of operation, not counting the propellants. The results of a preliminary cost model indicate acquisition cost in the order of 28 × 10 9 dollars. If the acquisition and operating costs of a commercial entity of this kind are to be covered by the services rendered to the company operating the SSPS, then transportation prices of 15,000 $/trip and 50,000 $/metric ton moved between the GEO facilities would have to be charged. This system model might not be the best way for solving the local transportation problem in GEO, but this kind of overhead cost must be included in any future system analysis of the SSPS.

Fish-protecting functions of water treatment machines in water supply systems of thermal and nuclear power plants

1. More than a decade of operation of water-cleaning machines with a conical net has demonstrated their good technical and economic characteristics as regards failure-free operation and water-cleaning performance. 2. After a simple modification, the existing water-cleaning machines with a vertical axis of cone rotation can perform a fish-protecting function. 3. For larger water consumers (such as water supply systems of thermal and nuclear power plants) machines with a horizontal cone rotation axis are recommended (so-called directflow water-cleaning machines). With some modernization of the flowthrough component, water offtake facilities can ensure bypass and survival of over 90% of young fish without building any expensive fish guard structures. 4. Instead of fish guard facilities planned to be built at operating thermal and nuclear power plants, one should consider the possibility of removing the existing water-cleaning machines with flat nets and installing machines with conical nets.

Investing in Universities: Genesis of the National Science Foundation's Institutional Programs, 1958–1963

Alan T. Waterman, the first director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), often said that a sound federal policy for basic scientific research should have three elements: a research-projects system, fellowship and other education programs, and support for the development of research institutions. Reflecting on the independent federal agency's first decade of operations, Waterman thought it had done well in providing the first two elements but not the third: “.… the inadequacy of the resources available to our educational institutions is a national problem,” he wrote, “and one which the federal government must help to meet.”

Downstream of the Novosibirsk hydroelectric station on the Ob River

1. The fluvial processes in the Ob River downstream of the hydro development, which markedly changed after damming the river and creation of the reservoir during the first decade of operation of the hydrostation, were expressed in the natural process of deep erosion of the channel, which had a diminishing character. 2. Starting with the second half of the 1960s, quarrying in the Ob channel on the 30-km stretch of the lower pool adjacent to the hydrostation began to have a substantial effect on the natural process of transformation of the channel due to streamflow regulation and retention of sediments by the reservoir. 3. During the period between 1966 and 1984 more than 40 million m3 of sand-gravel mixture was removed from the river channel and floodplain in the indicated stretch, as a result of which the decrease of levels relative to the normal, natural values at the site of the Novosibirsk gauging station was 0.9–1.0 m. 4. A decrease of the levels downstream led to a deficit of water resources of the reservoir in dry years and, as a consequence, to worsening of the operating conditions of the majority of participants of the Novosibirsk water-management complex. 5. After some stabilization of the position of the levels in the river in 1984–1986, the decrease, “slump,” of the levels in the stretch passing through the city subsequently resumed beginning in 1987–1988. The rating curve for the Novosibirsk gauging station in 1988 shifted downward from the analogous 1986 curve along the height axis by 15–20 cm. 6. The priority task facing water users and consumers of Novosibirsk is the fastest possible realization of the recommendations of MGU, VNIIG, and ZapSibRNIGMI on partial restoration of the water levels in the stretch between the hydrostation and Novosibirsk city by constructing embankments damming nonnavigable branches and converting the Ob channel here at low-water discharges (less than 2000 cm3/sec) into a single-branch channel. 7. For a radical solution of the problem of reliable provision of water consumers of Novosibirsk, it is necessary to reconstruct all intakes located downstream of the hydro development.

INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS TO OLDER LEARNERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A CRITIQUE OF FEE‐WAIVER PROGRAMS

Fee‐waiver programs for older persons wishing to take college courses are widely established throughout the United States. In place since the 1970s, after almost a decade of operation it has become apparent that these programs are not meeting the needs of either older persons or universities. This paper reviews some of the assumptions and characteristic policies of fee‐waiver programs and contrasts them with characteristics of the aging population and older learners in setting forth some tentative recommendations for changes in the posture of higher education toward the older population.

Young adult chronic patients: three hypothesized subgroups.

Shortly after the 1963 passage of the Community Mental Health Centers Act, New York State launched the construction of four new psychiatric centers, including the Richard H. Hutchings Psychiatric Center in Syracuse. The Hutchings acute care crisis stabilization model was intended to significantly diminish the phenomenon of chronic psychiatric disability. After a decade of operation, however, the Hutchings Center must deal with a caseload of young and chronically disabled individuals who are contributing to the build-up both in the hospital and in the community of the new long-stay patient. The idiosyncratic needs of this chronic group must be defined so that prescriptive programs can be built to meet their needs. The Hutchings Center's original goal of returning patients to and serving them in the community remains the same, but the process of treatment, rehabilitation, and long-term community support must change.

Coming to Britain

THE British Tourist Authority, which entered its second decade of operations in 1980, traces its origins to the Come To Britain Movement inaugurated in 1926 by Sir Francis Towle, the managing director of a chain of hotels. Like countless other private initiatives, before and since, this soon attracted government interest and, after a public meeting at the Mansion House in December 1928, when it was agreed that an organisation designated as the Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland should be formed, the President of the Board of Trade announced that the government intended to ask Parliament for the sum of £5000 during the forthcoming financial year to support the association's activities. The official purposes of the new body, formally registered in April 1929, were to increase the number of visitors from overseas and to stimulate the demand for British goods and services.

Project Head Start: A Legacy of the War on Poverty,

In recent years, it has seemed that we Americans are so given to self-flagellation that we cannot stand up and applaud anything. There were some victories scored in Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, but none greater than Project Head Start. As the book jacket states: When Project Head Start was organized in 1965, its goals mirrored the hopes of millions of impoverished Americans. Initially funded as a short-term effort, Head Start has become, after more than a decade of operation and a cost of approximately $2 billion, the most ambitious educational, social and health program for young children and their families in United States history. This book, edited by Edward Zigler and Jeanette Valentine, examines the experience through the eyes of 35 authors from many disciplines. Most of them had a hand in Head Start. As with most multiauthored volumes, there is much repetition. Tight editing is not in evidence.

Distribution research at ECRC

The electricity-supply industry supports four research laboratories situated at Leatherhead, Berkeley, Marchwood and Capenhurst. This last location is that of The Electricity Council Research Centre. It is devoted to the problems of the area electricity boards, and is now approaching the end of its first decade of operations. Most of the resources at ECRC are directed towards the wise use of electricity, i.e. utilisation research. However, about one-quarter of the resources are applied to problems in the distribution of electricity and it is with this one-quarter that the following article is concerned. The research centre is not an isolated. ‘ivory tower’ institution, but is one, particularly on the distribution side, with strong Interactive links with the area electricity boards, so that many of the results of successful research are applied directly by the co-operating board without a great deal of external publicity

A decade of operation of the Novovoronezh nuclear power station

A decade of operation of the Novovoronezh nuclear power station

A decade of alcoholism research; a review of the research activities of the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, 1951-1961.

The occasion for this small, but very valuable, volume was the advent of the second decade of operation of the Alcoholism Research Foundation of Ontario, who desired to review the work of the previous decade before taking all of drug addiction into their field of research. At first, the main emphasis in their research was in the field of biological sciences; however, this has been extended until other disciplines are also well represented, including treatment and other clinical aspects of the problem, as well as sociological, biostatistical, ecological, and psychological features. This Foundation gained an additional dimension in research by awarding extramural grants. Such an arrangement has been a great aid in the change from the original, largely exploratory stage of research, and the replacement of it with a more precise sense of an over-all direction. Because of the limitation of space here, the reader is referred to the book

Problems and Opportunities of Relocation

As city-rebuilding movement enters its second decade of operation and growth, one often hears relocation described as the of urban renewal. The words carry a warning that is clear enough: If relocation phase is not managed successfully, urban renewal can do enough damage to families and businesses to create a wave of reaction-a reaction that might be sufficient to stop momentum of urban renewal process itself. There is ample justification for this view. Relocation is a difficult business at best-full of heartbreak and laced with human problems that go to very nature of urban life. Already, serious voices are asking: Is it worth it?1 On June 27, I960, after a debate devoted in large part to relocation question, House of Representatives voted 348 to 35 to pass Rabaut bill,2 which would stop all urban renewal in District of Columbia until construction is completed in fifty per cent of District's huge Southwest Redevelopment Area.3 The size of this vote, encompassing congressmen from all parts of country, and from urban as well as rural constituencies, underlines seriousness of issue. But this is only one side of coin. In Achilles heel view, relocation is regarded primarily as a responsibility-a sometimes unpleasant duty that must be discharged before we can get on with more exciting business of rebuilding a city. This ignores very real benefits that many families and businesses can reap from process of relocation: social problems that are brought to light for first time and given expert, specialized attention; lifting of aspirations of families who did not know they could live in a better environment; business opportunities uncovered by firms that are forced to give up their customary

Technical Assistance

The annual report of the Technical Assistance Board (TAB) to the Technical Assistance Committee, which covered the activities of the Expanded Program of Technical Assistance (EPTA) during 1959 and, coming as it did at the end of the first decade of operations of the program, completed the record of the first ten years, was made public in June 1960. The report revealed that the period under consideration (July 1950 to June 1960) had ended with the pledge of an increase in UN technical assistance, following some reduction in the size of the 1959 program. Although the amount pledged by the 83 member governments for operations in 1959 had been $29.6 million, causing a 3 percent reduction in the amount spent to deliver aid, pledges for 1960 were expected to reach an all-time high of $33.4 million. In the face of the retrenchment necessary in 1959, the size of the technical assistance program in Africa had continued to rise modestly, the continent having received 14 percent of the aid given on a worldwide scale, as compared to 12 percent in 1958, while slight reductions in the Latin American and Middle Eastern programs had been necessary. However, the largest expenditure on regional projects, as in the past, had been in Latin America, where the cost of UN and specialized agency participation in such projects as the Fundamental Education Center in Mexico, the Andean Indian Program, and the Central American Economic Integration Program had reached $1.1 million. A substantial proportion of new EPTA operations had been in the form of assistance to the emerging states of Africa, financed by the use of contingency funds amounting to $1.2 million in all, thus making it possible to initiate assistance for which funds would not otherwise have been available.