3,900 research outputs found
Rehabilitating Health Systems in Post-Conflict Situations
Although baseline data for post-conflict situations are frequently unavailable, there is a clear deterioration in the health conditions of populations during and following conflict. Excess mortality and morbidity, displaced populations, and vulnerability to communicable diseases during and following conflict all call for immediate relief and restoration of basic services. As much as possible, short-term relief and assistance programmes should be implemented in a manner compatible with longer term health system rehabilitation. This paper presents a framework for analyzing the inputs and policies that make up post-conflict rehabilitation programmes in the health sector. Post-conflict ...health, conflict, war, institutions
Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability
In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively.
Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads.
In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONRâs Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included:
1999: âCollaborative Decision Making Toolsâ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates)
2000: âThe Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Supportâ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.)
2001: âContinuing the Revolution in Military Affairsâ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR)
2002: âTransformation ... â Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security)
2003: âDeveloping the New Infostructureâ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelOâNeil (Boeing)
2004: âInteroperabilityâ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII
Solid earth science in the 1990s. Volume 2: Panel reports
This is the second volume of a three-volume report. Volume 2, Panel Reports, outlines a plan for solid Earth science research for the next decade. The science panels addressed the following fields: plate motion and deformation, lithospheric structure and evolution, volcanology, Earth structure and dynamics, Earth rotation and reference frames, and geopotential fields
Evaluating the Risk Posed by Propulsive Small Satellites with Unencrypted Communications Channels to High-Value Orbital Regimes
Propulsion systems for small-satellites are approaching the market. At the same time, some operators do not encrypt their communications links, creating the near-term potential for an unauthorized actor to send spurious commands to a satellite. At worst, an unauthorized activation of the propulsion system could precipitate a conjunction. Aside from the potential loss of system hardware, the reputational costs to the industry of such an incident could be significant and far-reaching. To establish a physical basis for the feasibility of this risk, we simulate the potential altitude increase from a 300 km circular orbit generated for a 10 kg nano-satellite coupled with each of the propulsion system types under advanced development. We find that chemical reaction systems enable the satellite to access all altitudes within LEO over short time domains and that electrostatic propulsion is capable of reaching GEO, though over long time domains. Manufacturers, launch service providers and brokers, regulators, and the CubeSat community all have potential roles to play in managing this risk
Mission Planning Application Software for Solar Powered UAVs
The growing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for dedicated civilian use over the last
decade has attracted the attention of investigators and engineers all over the world. It is
important to note that the non-necessity of manual piloting is ideally suited to the operation
of dirty, dangerous, dull (long autonomy) or large scale missions (use of swarms of UAVs) [1],
however it demands a greater level of attention to the development of technologies that allow
and ease the planning, operation and management of such vehicles. A lot of improvement has
been made in the development of solar-powered UAVs, which promise a low-energy cost, silent
and clean operation. However, despite solar energy being free and abundant, among many the
present cost, complexity, solar energy capture systemsâ efficiency, electric storage and
traction efficiency, as well as the consequent requirement for large-size vehicles, greatly
restricts the extensive use of these UAVs [2], besides the added difficulties from the absence
of a human pilot. Nevertheless, the present work covers the development of a graphical user
interface (GUI) associated to the improvement of a mission planning software created by past
work, allying flexibility and quickness to the planning efficiency of solar UAV operations.
Beyond facilitating the input of necessary data to the optimization of a pre-set route, this
interface allows to export the optimized route to the open-source ground control station (GCS)
program âMissionPlannerâ (MP) [3]. In addition, as part of an exhaustive testing process, the
final ensembled software was run several times, proving its capabilities and limitations in a real
operational situation.A crescente procura por veĂculos aĂ©reos nĂŁo tripulados (UAV) para uso civil na Ășltima dĂ©cada
tem atraĂdo a atenção de investigadores e engenheiros um pouco por todo o mundo. Ă
importante realçar que a sua desnecessidade de pilotagem manual Ă© idealmente adequada Ă
realização de missĂ”es âsujasâ, perigosas, monĂłtonas (longa autonomia) ou de grande escala
(uso de âenxamesâ de UAVs) [1], contudo exige uma maior atenção ao desenvolvimento de
tecnologias que permitam e facilitem o planeamento, operação e gestĂŁo destes veĂculos.
Bastantes avanços tĂȘm sido feitos em UAVs movidos a energia solar, que prometem uma
operação de baixo custo energético, silenciosa e limpa. Contudo, por mais que a energia solar
seja livre e abundante, o presente custo, complexidade, eficiĂȘncia dos sistemas de captação
solar, do armazenamento e da tração usando energia elétrica, bem como a consequente
necessidade de veĂculos de grande tamanho, restringe muito a aplicação extensiva destes
veĂculos [2], para alĂ©m das dificuldades acrescidas pela ausĂȘncia de um piloto humano.
Não obstante, esta dissertação abrange o desenvolvimento de um interface gråfico de utilizador
(GUI) associado ao aperfeiçoamento de um software de planeamento de missÔes criado a partir
de projetos passados, aliando a flexibilidade e rapidez Ă eficiĂȘncia de planeamento da operação
de UAVs solares. Para além de facilitar a introdução de dados necessårios à otimização de uma
rota predefinida, este interface permite exportar a rota otimizada para o programa open-source
de estação de controlo de solo (GCS) âMissionPlannerâ (MP) [3]. Para alĂ©m disso, o software
conjunto final foi também executado como parte de um teste exaustivo, provando as suas
capacidades e limitaçÔes numa situação real de operação
Structural Design Considerations for a 50 kW-Class Solar Array for NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission
NASA is planning an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to take place in the 2020s. To enable this multi-year mission, a 40 kW class solar electric propulsion (SEP) system powered by an advanced 50 kW class solar array will be required. Powered by the SEP module (SEPM), the ARM vehicle will travel to a large near-Earth asteroid, descend to its surface, capture a multi-metric ton (t) asteroid boulder, ascend from the surface and return to the Earth-moon system to ultimately place the ARM vehicle and its captured asteroid boulder into a stable distant orbit. During the years that follow, astronauts flying in the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle (MPCV) will dock with the ARM vehicle and conduct extra-vehicular activity (EVA) operations to explore and sample the asteroid boulder. This paper will review the top structural design considerations to successfully implement this 50 kW class solar array that must meet unprecedented performance levels. These considerations include beyond state-of-the-art metrics for specific mass, specific volume, deployed area, deployed solar array wing (SAW) keep in zone (KIZ), deployed strength and deployed frequency. Analytical and design results are presented that support definition of stowed KIZ and launch restraint interface definition. An offset boom is defined to meet the deployed SAW KIZ. The resulting parametric impact of the offset boom length on spacecraft moment of inertias and deployed SAW quasistatic and dynamic load cases are also presented. Load cases include ARM spacecraft thruster plume impingement, asteroid surface operations and Orion docking operations which drive the required SAW deployed strength and damping. The authors conclude that to support NASA's ARM power needs, an advanced SAW is required with mass performance better than 125 W/kg, stowed volume better than 40 kW/cu m, a deployed area of 200 sq m (100 sq m for each of two SAWs), a deployed SAW offset distance of nominally 3-4 m, a deployed SAW quasistatic strength of nominally 0.1 g in any direction, a deployed loading displacement under 2 m, a deployed fundamental frequency above 0.1 Hz and deployed damping of at least 1%. These parameters must be met on top of challenging mission environments and ground testing requirements unique to the ARM project
- âŠ