Large Mission Research Articles

The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century (review)

Reviewed by: The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century George N. Green The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century. By William R. Childs. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Pp. 334. Acknowledgments, illustrations, map, notes, index. ISBN 1585444529. $35.00, cloth.) Dr. Childs traces the history of the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC) from its founding in 1891 to an indeterminate ending in the post–World War II years. Throughout this era the agency engaged in an interaction with national regulatory commissions that the author labels "pragmatic federalism." In their first three decades the commissioners became co-managers with railroad executives, working with them and shippers to improve service and eliminate rate discriminations. An 1899 law made rebates and discriminations a felony and railway executives accountable, which greatly decreased such violations and eased the TRC's workload. Chairman John H. Reagan's personality and his emphasis on hiring experts helped build a powerful state agency, though chronically undermanned due to legislative parsimony. In 1917, the legislature first extended the commission's jurisdiction to part of the oil industry—giving the TRC authority to regulate companies transporting oil [End Page 304] for other firms. An additional law in 1919 resulted in the TRC gaining some control over oil production. Following the Reagan tradition, Chairman George Butte educated operators in sound policies (especially in conservation), gathered and analyzed statistics, and developed cooperative practices with oil operators. This system was wrecked upon the discovery of the East Texas Field, 1930, and interest group politics took over. In the 1930s the TRC developed its famous reputation for setting oil prices for the world, but Childs demonstrates this control was largely a myth devised by the agency as part of its effort to make Texas oil a "civil religion." Actually the controls were more apparent than real, but Childs's labels are useful in his description of oil regulation. The author has a firm grasp of TRC history, but can be faulted in a few instances. Childs consults the usual secondary sources regarding the state's political economy in the late nineteenth century, yet in his conclusion agrees with Jay Gould (without saying so) that the economic structure of railroading suggested that monopoly or pooling agreements would develop efficiencies, but that the Texas political culture denied this reality. Perhaps so, but the railroads denied the reality that farmers and workers had valid grievances. For the post-1930s era, he chides some scholars for ignoring the TRC's lack of concern for consumer interests, but ignores some of the usual secondary sources about Texas that were critical of the industry and the commission. Robert Engler and this writer, for instance, years ago drew some of the same conclusions Childs does—not by studying the TRC to be sure, but other sources. It was the refineries, for instance, that determined how much oil would be required every month, not the Commission, and the industry was extremely wasteful. Regarding Texans' efforts to control oil imports after the war, Childs concludes that, "In hindsight much of what the Texans argued about imports made a good deal of sense, but they were unable to persuade Congress and the American presidents otherwise" (p. 261). Actually, hindsight informs this reviewer that if the government had allowed a lot more foreign oil into the country, the opportunity was there to create a Texas or U.S. reserve, conserving a finite, crucial resource for the nation's future needs. Such a project, the very opposite of the industry–TRC approach of draining Texas first, would have been a priceless example of pragmatic federalism. Dr. Childs has a larger mission than David Prindle in the only other book-length study of the TRC, Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission (1981) and Childs has succeeded in ably chronicling and analyzing the complex history of Texas's most important state agency of the twentieth century. George N. Green University of Texas at Arlington Copyright © 2006 The Texas State Historical Association

Is translational research compatible with preclinical publication strategies?

The term "translational research" is used to describe the transfer of basic biological knowledge into practical medicine, a process necessary for motivation of public spending. In the area of cancer therapeutics, it is becoming increasingly evident that results obtained in vitro and in animal models are difficult to translate into clinical medicine. We here argue that a number of factors contribute to making the translation process inefficient. These factors include the use of sensitive cell lines and fast growing experimental tumors as targets for novel therapies, and the use of unrealistic drug concentrations and radiation doses. We also argue that aggressive interpretation of data, successful in hypothesis-building biological research, does not form a solid base for development of clinically useful treatment modalities. We question whether "clean" results obtained in simplified models, expected for publication in high-impact journals, represent solid foundations for improved treatment of patients. Open-access journals such as Radiation Oncology have a large mission to fulfill by publishing relevant data to be used for making actual progress in translational cancer research.

NASA science budget choices criticized

NASA's decision to focus its science efforts on large missions at the expense of smaller missions and research is misguided and will have a long‐term negative impact on attracting and retaining scientists and engineers to NASA‐related science, several scientists testified at a 2 March hearing.Witnesses at the hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee included NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate Mary Cleave and members or chairs of four U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) decadal surveys of various aspects of NASA science. The witnesses discussed cuts and delays to NASA projects proposed in the agency's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request. NASAs science budget would grow by 1.5 percent in FY2007,and then by just one percent per year in 2008–2011 (see Eos 87(9),2006).

Training outside of the box.

Developments in surgical training in Australasia allow for individualization of training to suit individual requirements. One uncommon career track is medical aid or missionary surgery in the developing world. It is difficult to receive appropriate training for this type of surgical practice in Australasia. The present paper describes a novel approach to preparing for this kind of work by spending a 6 month rotation in a mission hospital in rural East Africa. The surgical trainee spent 5 months working at Kijabe Hospital in Kenya. This is a large mission hospital with a busy general surgical workload and adequate staffing for training. The trainee performed 214 major cases, in a broad range of general surgery, under appropriate supervision. He also took part in regular educational sessions, surgical audit, and helped to develop one of East Africa's pioneering laparoscopic surgical -programmes. The present paper demonstrates that it is possible for Australasian trainees to gain useful experience in the rural African environment, in hospitals where appropriate surgical supervision is available.

A Challenge to Humanistic Psychology in the 21st Century

Humanistic psychology began in the 1960s as an alternative to psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Humanistic psychology's larger mission is nothing short of freedom and autonomy for all human beings. The challenge to humanistic psychology is to realize its larger mission and organize its resources to fulfill that mission. The challenge to humanistic psychology is to fulfill its own potential, to have a positive effect on global well-being. Humanistic psychology needs to encourage education for humanistic behavior; actualization of personal potential: mind, body, and spirit; diversity/multiversity; global well-being; humanistic research; media coverage; collaborative efforts; humanistic cyber education; and appropriate funding. The need for humanistic psychology in the world is greater than ever. Individualistic tendencies of humanistic psychology need to blend with a more collaborative model.

Sample return from the lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin

Automated sample return missions to the South Pole — Aitken Basin on the lunar far side are proposed as the best means of addressing major problems concerning the early impact history of the inner solar system, the nature of very large impact events, and the early differentiation of rocky planets. The opportunity to propose such missions has been opened by the recommendations of the U. S. National Research Council's Decadal Study of Solar System Exploration and the creation by NASA of the New Frontiers Program, which will support missions of intermediate cost, between the Discovery Program and large missions. A proposal for a South Pole — Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission was submitted to the Discovery Program in 2000, but not fimded. The New Frontiers Program, with a somewhat less stringent budget constraint, should allow several of the potential risks associated with the Discovery proposal to be addressed, including scientific and programmatic risks. A principal goal of current mission studies is to determine whether, within the New Frontiers Program's cost constraints, two separate samples could be collected from areas of different post-Basin geological history. If accepted by the New Frontiers Program, a South Pole — Aitken Basin sample return mission could be flown as early as 2008–2009.

THE MULTINATIONAL FORCE FOR THE CONGO

The United Nations (UN) Security Council’s recent unanimous decision to authorize the Interim Emergency Multinational Force to supplement the UN peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a welcome development. It challenges two widely held assumptions: that the UN is irrelevant, and that France and the United States can no longer work together. The French-led 1,400-strong multinational force (MNF) will be deployed in Ituri, a region of north-eastern DRC that has witnessed atrocities similar in brutality, if not scale, to the genocide in Rwanda. While a necessary and important response, it is insufficient and is likely to create new challenges. The alacrity with which the Council has acted is noteworthy, but it is also an indictment of previous policies. The international community should build on the Council’s heightened interest to re-examine the assumptions upon which the UN peacekeeping organization, known as MONUC, is based. Otherwise, the Council’s resolution will likely be viewed as another in a long line of halfsteps and missteps, which have exacerbated and perpetuated a humanitarian and moral nightmare. Put simply, the approach of UN member states—particularly the five permanent members of the Council—to the crisis in the Great Lakes and DRC, formerly Zaire, has been shameful. In April 1994, the Council’s initial response to the genocide in Rwanda was to withdraw most of its peacekeepers rather than augment the mission. Four weeks into the slaughter, it changed direction and authorized a larger mission. The Council did so, however, with the full knowledge that it would take several months for the poorly-equipped troopcontributors to deploy their contingents. As an interim measure, it eventually authorized a French-led force that is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives, but also creating a situation in which advocates of, and participants in, the genocide were able to withdraw to Zaire (many with their weapons) and regroup to pursue their struggle. Two years passed, during which the humanitarian, security, and environmental situation in north-east Zaire deteriorated. Member states failed to heed former UN SecretaryGeneral Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s pleas for a proper international force to protect Rwandan refugees and by extension the host population and countries in the region. In November 1996, the Council authorized a Canadian-led multinational force to create a humanitarian corridor to ease tensions and facilitate the dispersal of aid. But before that force was deployed, the mission was abandoned because an insurgency led by Laurent Kabila resulted in several hundred thousand Rwandan refugees returning home. Relatively THE MULTINATIONAL FORCE FOR THE CONGO COMMENTARY

A failure-distance based method to bound the reliability of nonrepairable fault-tolerant systems without the knowledge of minimal cuts

CTMC (continuous-time Markov chains) are a commonly used formalism for modeling fault-tolerant systems. One of the major drawbacks of CTMC is the well-known state-space explosion problem. This paper develops and analyzes a method (SC-BM) to compute bounds for the reliability of nonrepairable fault-tolerant systems in which only a portion of the state space of the CTMC is generated. SC-BM uses the failure distance concept as the method described previously by the authors (1997) but, unlike that method, which is based on the computation of exact failure distances, SC-BM uses lower bounds for failure distances, which are computed on the system fault-tree, avoiding the computation and holding of all minimal cuts as required in the earlier work. This is important because computation of all minimal cuts is NP-hard and the number of minimal cuts can be very large. In some cases SC-BM gives exactly the same bounds as the previous method; in other cases it gives less tight bounds. SC-BM computes tight bounds for the reliability of quite complex systems with an affordable number of generated states for short to quite large mission times. The analysis of several examples seems to show that the bounds obtained by SC-BM appreciably outperform those obtained by simpler methods, and, when they are not equal, are only slightly worse than the bounds obtained by the previous method. In addition, the overhead in CPU time due to computing lower bounds for failure distances seems to be reasonable.

Parallel Implementation of Uniformization to Compute the Transient Solution of Stochastic Automata Networks

Analysis of Stochastic Automata Networks (SAN) is a well established approach for modeling the behaviour of computing networks and systems, particularly parallel systems. The transient study of performance measures leads us to time and space complexity problems as well as error control of the numerical results. The SAN theory presents some advantages such as avoiding to build the entire infinitesimal generator and facing the time complexity problem thanks to the tensor algebra properties. The aim of this study is the computation of the transient state probability vector of SAN models. We first select and modify the (stable) uniformization method in order to compute that vector in a sequential way. We also propose a new efficient algorithm to compute a product of a vector by a tensor sum of matrices. Then, we study the contribution of parallelism in front of the increasing execution time for stiff models by developing a parallel algorithm of the uniformization. The latter algorithm is efficient and allows to process, within a fair computing time, systems with more than one million states and large mission time values.

APRAM: an advanced programmatic risk analysis method

While engineering projects are expected to accomplish more with fewer resources, the dependencies among these projects have continually increased. At NASA, for example, faster-better-cheaper (FBC) projects are being grouped into programmes to enhance the benefits of synergies among smaller projects, and to attenuate, through diversification, the risks of single large missions. Under strict resource constraints, FBC project managers must balance several types of failure risks including the effect of their project's performance on future missions. Existing risk analysis models generally focus on the quantification of either technical or management risks. These tools, while beneficial, are generally used in isolation, and tightening the constraints generally encourages decisions that can increase the risks of technical failure. Since it is difficult to balance simultaneously cost, schedule and performance of a given project as well as their effects on other projects, managers who face these problems can benefit from an integrated programmatic risk analysis. In this paper, we present an advanced programmatic risk analysis model (APRAM) that is based on probability and systems analysis. It includes both managerial and technical risks, and can support decisions such as the choice of a design and of a budget reserve at the onset of a project. The model starts with the analysis of the trade-off between reserves and system development, then incorporates the effects of testing and reviews, partial mission failures, and project dependencies within programmes. The method is illustrated by the schematic example of two projects in an unmanned space programme.

Small satellite projects in the European Space Agency (ESA)

Small satellites are becoming more important in the ESA programme for, by investing in small satellite technology, ESA expects to apply the results and experience gained to larger missions with a view to reducing the cost. Also, small satellite design and project management is good training for the engineers and managers who will take responsibility for larger projects in the future. To date ESA has launched one small satellite, which was built in a very short time-scale by young graduate students and ESA staff. Two others are in preparation: the PROBA mission, which addresses technology developments in general for future missions, and the SMART-1 mission, which is specifically aimed at proving the use of electric propulsion.

A smallsát approach to large missions

The paper reviews potential Earth observation applications of small satellites using the LEOSTAR platform under development at Matra Marconi Space. This platform is able to support both optical and radar missions thanks to its relatively large payload capability (up to 500 kg) in the small satellite class. This allows users to consider payloads in a large variety of masses for experimental or operational missions, which can be grouped in payload complements coherent for achieving complex missions. The platform is proposed on a generic basis and can be customized to match new Earth observation mission requirements, in a way similar to the buses used for geostationary communication satellites. The costs in each satellite class are reduced as the platforms become a nearly recurrent part, thus making space affordable to a wider community. After a description of the capabilities of the LEOSTAR platform, the paper illustrates a number of planned Earth observation missions which will use it. The description of the missions includes that of the instrumentation and of the end application.

Public Service Liberalism: Telecommunications and Transitions in Public Policy by Alan Stone

182 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The bibliographical essay and the footnote references provide an excellent entree to the literature. These include some unpublished dissertations, to which I would add Thomas Jaras, “Promoters and Public Servants: The Role of the British Government in the Expan­ sion of Submarine Telegraphy (1860—1870)” (Georgetown Univer­ sity, 1976). Submarine telegraph cables, later supplemented by wireless, pro­ vided means for immediate international communication of messages for over a century. They have now been replaced by underwater repeaters, fiber optics, microwaves, and satellites. But the games being played with these new technologies are much the same as the ones that Headrick so ably describes. Bernard S. Finn Dr. Finn is a curator in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The subject of one of his exhibits was British submarine cables, and he is coauthor of A Retrospective Technology Assessment: Submarine Telegraphy (San Francisco, 1979). Public Service Liberalism: Telecommunications and Transitions in Public Policy. By Alan Stone. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Pp. xiv + 296; tables, notes, index. $35.00. A political motivation drives Alan Stone’s examination of American telephone utilities from the 1876 Bell patent until the Communica­ tions Act of 1934 establishing the Federal Communications Commis­ sion: “It is the contention of this book that the new conservatism is wrong. Rather, [in public policy] there is an ideology termed public service liberalism . . . that better addresses public problems than the laissez-faire ideology and the sanctimonious muddle that modern liberalism has become” (p. xiii). By directly stating his larger mission, Stone has placed a great burden of proof on his one historical thread: the rise to dominance of the AT&T-Bell system as this nation’s designated telephone utility. That carefully documented story, the centerpiece of this book, makes for a valuable resource in policy studies and business history. The author does not succeed, however, in demonstrating that this particular history ought to serve as a model for present-day policies. Public service liberalism, we are told, is not the philosophy a national government would embrace if it were interested only in fostering the raw efficiency of its private business enterprises. Instead, it is an approach to policy concerned with the promotion of larger social values in addition to productivity. It is most easily applicable to utilities and transportation, where a certain degree of quality access is sought for all citizens. When a particular need for service to society is identified, a government should first examine TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 183 whether an openly competitive marketplace would meet the needs of communities without harm or inequity. If normal market competi­ tion should prove less than ideal, then the government, either local or federal, may choose to intervene by granting exclusive charters to a single corporation, or limited charters to several, with the provision that certain stipulations (quality of service, coverage or availability, rates) be met. The phrase Stone uses (regrettably) to capture the general approach is a “rebuttable presumption in favor of laissezfaire ” (pp. 14, 21, 23). And finally, when the chosen system is noncompetitive, the government should remain as regulator, defin­ ing and enforcing standards of service while keeping well clear of actual management. This sounds very much like a generalized description of a public utility corporation monitored by state and municipal regulatory commissions, and for good reason. Stone has taken as his ideal the model of the telecommunications industry before the New Deal. What obtains are some predictable biases in the telling of the history. Thus, Stone offers the patent policy of the Bell system as evidence that the industry was technologically progressive even when enjoying full patent protection in its early years. Other historians, especially David Noble, have painted a far less sanguine picture, showing how AT&T’s aggressive patent policy after the turn of the century blocked potential competition and innovation. AT&T presi­ dent Theodore Vail campaigned in favor of government regulation of telephony by public utility commissions in 1913, a development that permitted the full realization of a nationwide telecommunica­ tions monopoly. Stone finds in Vail’s actions a highly enlightened self-interest in the best tradition of public service liberalism. Yet when RCA’s David Sarnoff came...

An introduction to the Cassini-Huygens mission

Cassini-Huygens, a large mission sponsored by NASA and ESA, will fully explore the Saturnian system at the beginning of next century. In view of its great scientific interest and the involvement of the European Space Agency and the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Il Nuovo Cimento is publishing five papers dealing with the main features of the mission. This is a general introduction, with some attention to the planning of interplanetary space mission.

NASA's small planetary mission plan released

A ten‐page report just submitted to Congress outlines a new strategy for NASA planetary programs emphasizing small missions. If implemented, this plan would represent a shift away from large “flagship” missions that have characterized many programs of NASA's Solar System Exploration Division.There are a number of reasons for this shift in strategy. The current NASA appropriations bill requires “a plan to stimulate and develop small planetary or other space science projects, emphasizing those which could be accomplished by the academic or research communities.” Budgetary realities make it more difficult to fly large missions. There is also concern about a “significant gap” in data from planetary missions between 1998 and 2004.

A Visit to the Past and Awatovi

It was a beautiful cool Arizona morning in August, 1991, when Anna Silas, Director of the Hopi Cultural Center Museum, guided me, Penny Davis Worman and Mott Davis to Awatovi, the large prehistoric and Spanish mission site on Antelope Mesa on the Hopi Reservation. The road consisted of two sandy ruts most of the way, well worn but, to a stranger, through a sameness of sage brush and small pinyon. Even for Anna, who had not visited the site for three years, a fork in the road was confusing, and we made a wrong turn. Reversing, we made our way back to the fork and continued anew to the fenced-in ruin. This was my first visit to this famous site. For Penny and Mott, it was the first visit in 52 years. They had both been a part of the Peabody Museum Expedition there in 1939.

NASA begins to “Think Small”

NASA has begun to show clear signs of scaling down its science missions as it bows to reigning budget realities. The mammoth Earth Observing System (EOS) is already well on the way to being split into smaller components (see Eos, Sept. 24, 1991). Concurrently, a committee of scientists has advised NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) to rank smaller missions before large ones.“Small innovative missions” that “provide frequent access to space for each discipline” should be placed ahead of intermediate and large missions, said Berrien Moore III, chair of OSSA's scientific advisory committee, in a letter to Lennard Fisk, the office's associate administrator. The letter conveyed the recommendations from the committee's meeting at Woods Hole this summer.

Space physicists want small missions

An overwhelming 91% of space physicists surveyed recently believe that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should plan more frequent smaller missions, even at the expense of large missions. This was the most clearcut result of a NASA survey conducted by the Science Applications International Corporation.“This result shows that people want access to space,” said SAIC's Mark E. Pesses who, along with Rikhi Sharma, conducted the survey and presented the preliminary results at the AGU Spring Meeting. Respondents prefered smaller missions that are easier to participate in, over larger missions that take 10–15 years to fly.

On the computational aspects of performability models of fault-tolerant computer systems

It is shown that the (scaled) conditional moments of performability in Markov models are the states of a cascaded, linear, continuous-time dynamic system with identical system matrices in each stage. This interpretation leads to a simple method of computing the first moment for nonhomogeneous Markov models with finite mission time. In addition, the cascaded system representation leads to the derivation of a set of two stable algorithms for propagating the conditional moments of performability in homogeneous Markov models. In particular, a very fast doubling algorithm using diagonal Pade approximation to compute the matrix exponential and repeated squaring is derived. The algorithms are widely recognized, to be superior to those based on eigenvalue analysis in terms of both the computational efficiency and stability. The algorithms have obvious implications in solving reliability/availability models with large mission times.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Analysis of Performability for Stochastic Models of Fault-Tolerant Systems

Performability, a composite measure for the performance and reliability, may be interpreted as the probability density function of the aggregate reward obtained from a system during its mission time. For large mission times we show that known limit theorems lead to an asymptotic normal distribution for the aggregate reward. For finite mission times and Markovian models we obtain the expressions for all moments of performability and give recursions to compute coefficients involved in the expressions. We illustrate the use of the results through an example of a multiple processor computer system.