PC tools for project management: Programs and the state-of-the-practice

The use of microcomputer tools for NASA project management; which features are the most useful; the impact of these tools on job performance and individual style; and the prospects for new features in project management tools and related tools are addressed. High, mid, and low end PM tools are examined. The pro's and con's of the tools are assessed relative to various tasks. The strengths and weaknesses of the tools are presented through cases and demonstrations

Inevitable decay: Debates over climate, food security, and plant heredity in nineteenth-century Britain

Climate change and the failure of crops are significant but overlooked events in the history of heredity. Bad weather and dangerously low harvests provided momentum and urgency for answers to questions about how best to improve and acclimatize staple varieties. In the 1790s, a series of crop failures in Britain led to the popularization of and widespread debate over Thomas Andrew Knight’s suggestion that poor weather was in fact largely unconnected to the bad harvests. Rather, Knight argued, Britain’s older varieties—particularly its fruit trees—were coming to the natural end of their lifespans. At a period when Britain was trying to maximize its agricultural land usage, Knight campaigned that his fellow farmers ought to set aside land and resources in order to cultivate new varieties—an expensive and time-consuming procedure—in order to avoid disaster. In this paper, I argue that Knight’s lifelong commitment to his position demonstrates the role played by changes in climate and weather on popular understandings of plant heredity. Further, drawing upon the historiography of Britain’s climate and agriculture, I show that despite reliable weather and good harvests, Knight’s campaign survived for several decades before the continued health of Britain’s trees was finally treated as sufficient evidence to dispense with Knight’s warnings. This case provides a means of thinking about the history of heredity as it is shaped and impacted by changes in climate and local conditions

William Benjamin Carpenter and the emerging science of heredity

In the nineteenth century, farmers, doctors, and the wider public shared a family of questions and anxieties concerning heredity. Questions over whether injuries, mutilations, and bad habits could be transmitted to offspring had existed for centuries, but found renewed urgency in the popular and practical scientific press from the 1820s onwards. Sometimes referred to as “Lamarckism” or “the inheritance of acquired characteristics,” the potential for transmitting both desirable and disastrous traits to offspring was one of the most pressing scientific questions of the nineteenth century. As I argue in this paper, Carpenter’s religious commitments to abolition and the temperance movement shaped his understanding of heredity. But this also committed him to a body of evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics that was coming under criticism for being untrustworthy. Carpenter used his popular treatises on physiology to promote these older, familiar ideas about heredity because they provided vital means of arguing for the unity of mankind and the hereditary dangers of intemperance. While early nineteenth century physiology has been seen by some historians as a challenge to religious authority, given its potentially materialist accounts of the body and the actions of the soul, this paper demonstrates how the missionary and institutional activities of the Unitarian church were ideologically supported by Carpenter’s publications

Prospective Study of Infection, Colonization and Carriage of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in an Outbreak Affecting 990 Patients

In the three years between November 1989 and October 1992, an outbreak of methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus (MRSA) affected 990 patients at a university hospital. The distribution of patients with carriage, colonization or infection was investigated prospectively. Nosocomial acquisition was confirmed in at least 928 patients, 525 of whom were identified from clinical specimens as being infected (n=418) or colonized (n=107) by MRSA. An additional 403 patients were identified from screening specimens, of whom 58 subsequently became infected and 18 colonized. Screening of the nose, throat and perineum detected 98 % of all carriers. Of the 580 infections in 476 patients, surgical wound, urinary tract and skin infections accounted for 58 % of the infections. Of the 476 infected patients, death was attributable to MRSA infection in 13 %. Colonization with MRSA was found in 127 patients and 42 % of 165 colonized sites were the skin. Auto-infection from nasal carriage or cross-infection, probably via staff hands, seemed to be the most common mode of acquisition of MRSA infections

Desire, marriage, and overpopulation: the sexual lives of insects in the Enlightenment

During the eighteenth century, the discovery of sexual reproduction in insect species prompted the demise of spontaneous generation and new developments in natural history, theology, and political economy. The sexual lives of insects prompted debates on whether insects were governed by desire, free will, and even marital tendency. Fuelled by the democratisation of microscopy, early modern entomology took a new turn and breadth: the study of insects and of their sexual lives provided unexpected new insights into human sexuality, reproduction, and Malthusian fears of overpopulation. This article surveys the intellectual culture of entomology and natural history during the crucial decades when entomologists worked to quantify the reproductive capacities of insect species. Assessing the influences these entomological works had within political economy and theology, we argue that the sexual lives of insects − once analysed and delineated − influenced familiar ideological features of the intellectual landscape of the late Enlightenment, particularly in the theological philosophies of northern Europe and in the political economy of population in Britain

Advanced Technology Support for Information Management at Friends of the Earth

We report early results from a project to study the application of advanced technology to enhance information management in a medium sized enterprise where the collection, analysis and dissemination of information are key business processes. Our two-year TCD-funded project is a collaboration between University College London (UCL) and Friends of the Earth (FOE), a research and campaigning organisation with 65 full time employees and a turnover of about 3.5 million pounds. We explain our strategy for re-engineering information management at FOE and present three example projects which demonstrate the application of innovative IT solutions to problems associated with fundamental working practices

The Shaping of Form: Exploring Designers’ Use of Aesthetic Knowledge

Research on design and designers has emphasized the tacit nature of the aesthetic knowledge that these professionals draw upon to make decisions about formal properties of objects and spaces, but is less clear about how design teams address the difficulties associated with expressing and sharing this type of knowledge. A ten-month ethnography in a design consultancy revealed a range of multimodal and cross-modal ways in which members of a design team compensate their imperfect capacity of articulating verbally their aesthetic knowledge in order to gradually construct a common knowledge base enabling creative collaboration. In so doing, our study offers two main contributions. It illuminates the interplay between designers’ aesthetic experiences, visceral responses, and intuitive cognitive processes that enable designers to draw upon their aesthetic knowledge to support the collective accomplishment of their task, and provides an interpretation of the design process as a form of ‘creative’ intuition driven by emotional reactions to environmental stimuli and emerging formal solutions

Mobile laminar air flow screen for additional operating room ventilation: reduction of intraoperative bacterial contamination during total knee arthroplasty

Background Surgical site infections are important complications in orthopedic surgery. A mobile laminar air flow (LAF) screen could represent a useful addition to an operating room (OR) with conventional turbulent air ventilation (12.5 air changes/h), as it could decrease the bacterial count near the operating field. The purpose of this study was to evaluate LAF efficacy at reducing bacterial contamination in the surgical area during 34 total knee arthroplasties (TKAs). Materials and methods The additional unit was used in 17 operations; the LAF was positioned beside the operating table between two of the surgeons, with the air flow directed towards the surgical area (wound). The whole team wore conventional OR clothing and the correct hygiene procedures and rituals were used. Bacterial air contamination (CFU/m3) was evaluated in the wound area in 17 operations with the LAF unit and 17 without the LAF unit. Results The LAF unit reduced the mean bacterial count in the wound area from 23.5 CFU/m3 without the LAF to 3.5 CFU/m3 with the LAF (P<0.0001), which is below the suggested limit for anORwith ultraclean laminar ventilation. There were no significant differences in the mean bacterial count in the instrument table area: 28.6 CFU/m3 were recorded with the LAF (N = 6) unit and 30.8 CFU/m3 (N = 6) without the LAF unit (P = 0.631). During six operations with LAF and six without LAF, particle counts were performed and the number of 0.5 lm particles was analyzed. The particle counts decreased significantly when the LAF unit was used (P = 0.003). Conclusion When a mobile LAF unit was added to the standard OR ventilation, bacterial contamination of the wound area significantly decreased to below the accepted level for an ultraclean OR, preventing SSI infections