October 2023: Volume 8 Issue 1

“The Space Race Between the 1960s and 1970s and its Lasting Impact on Space Exploration” is an analysis of the progression of science throughout the aforenamed decades and the impact that space exploration had on these achievements. With a focus on the telemetry system of the Voyager Missions, this paper explores topics such as colour photography, satellites, and radio waves. It will explain concepts such as Golay coding, which allows higher resolution photographs to be transmitted from space and radio waves, thus allowing scientists to measure characteristics of other planets in our solar system (i.e., atmospheric composition). This paper will discuss how public support, and consequently funding, for space exploration has declined over time and how this trend has affected the progress of organizations such as NASA. The international space race was an instrumental part of scientific development in human history, and this paper aims to bring light to both its successes and failures.

A refined triple Langmuir probe design is described for use in a glow discharge device, which creates plasma by applying a large bias voltage across a neutral gas. The goal is to design a Langmuir probe which can measure the plasma temperature, density, and floating potential to within an order of magnitude while minimizing plasma perturbation. The probe functions in a plasma temperature range of 1-10 eV. First, an overview of the relevant theory is provided, followed by the design assumptions and a derivation of the working regime of the Langmuir probe. This working regime dictates the appropriate branch of Langmuir probe theory whose equations can be used to design the probe and extract the plasma electron temperature, density, and floating potential. Second, the probe’s radius, length, and electrode spacing are derived using the applicable branch of Langmuir probe theory. The derived probe radius, length, and electrode spacing are 0.18 mm, 3 mm, and 55 mm, respectively. Third, an overview of the electrical design used to measure the triple probe voltages and currents is described. Finally, a discussion of the limitations and future work is provided, with methods listed to improve the specificity of the relevant theory and the accuracy of the probe measurements.

The purpose of this epidemiological study was to examine the effect of childhood victimization on binge drinking. Although this association is well established in the literature, knowledge of the effects associated with different abuse types is limited. This study used the Statistics Canada General Social Survey, Cycle 28, 2014, which sampled a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of Canadian citizens and permanent residents aged 15 and over living in the provinces and territories (final study sample N = 32,038, 54.3% female, mean age group = 45 to 54). Types of childhood victimization examined in this study were physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing inter-personal violence. Using multiple linear regression analysis, we found that, adjusting for age, sex, marital status, and parental presence in the household, only physical (B = 0.222, 95% CI = 0.135, 0.309, p < 0.001) and sexual abuse (B = 0.190, 95% CI = 0.047, 0.323, p < 0.001) in childhood predicted higher levels of binge drinking. These findings highlight the need for early identification and treatment of childhood victimization for prevention of alcohol abuse later in life.

The change in human behavior from living on the land to living off the land’s resources through industrialization, increasing living standards, and rising incomes have been marked by rapidly increasing emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) into the earth’s atmosphere. The Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis posits that as income grows, environmental degradation increases until an economy reaches a tipping point, beyond which environmental degradation will decline as income increases (Stern, 2004). This study empirically examines the validity of the EKC hypothesis as applied to Canada’s provinces and territories from 1990-2020, using data on GHG emissions and GDP per capita as environmental degradation and income indicators. Overall, the results of this study support the EKC hypothesis at the Canadian level and confirm the results found by previous studies. Confirmation of the EKC indicates that increasing economic growth in Canada’s provinces and territories is unlikely to lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions and instead is likely to result in decreasing GHG emissions.