Resource Utilization and Site Selection for a Self-Sufficient Martian Outpost

As a planet with striking similarities to Earth, Mars is an important focus for scientific research aimed at understanding the processes of planetary evolution and the formation of our solar system. Fortunately, Mars is also a planet with abundant natural resources, including assessible materials that can be used to support human life and to sustain a self-sufficient martian outpost. Resources required include water, breathable air, food, shelter, energy, and fuel. Through a mission design based on in situ resource development, we can establish a permanent outpost on Mars beginning with the first manned mission. This paper examines the potential for supporting the first manned mission with the objective of achieving self-sufficiency through well-understood resource development and a program of rigorous scientific research aimed at extending that capability. We examine the potential for initially extracting critical resources from the martian environment, and discuss the scientific investigations required to identify additional resources in the atmosphere, on the surface, and within the subsurface. We also discuss our current state of knowledge of Mars, technical considerations of resource utilization, and using unmanned missions' data for selecting an optimal site. The primary goal of achieving self-sufficiency on Mars would accelerate the development of human colonization beyond Earth, while providing a robust and permanent martian base from which humans can explore and conduct long-term research on planetary evolution, the solar system, and life itself

Modelling VM latent characteristics and predicting application performance using semi-supervised non-negative matrix factorization

Funding: This work is a part of the ABC (Adaptive Brokerage for the Cloudproject) funded by EPSRC EP/R010528/1.Selecting a suitable VM instance type for an application can be difficult task because of the number of options and the variety of application requirements. Recent research takes a data-driven approach to model VM performance, but this requires carefully choosing a small set of relevant benchmarks as input. We propose a semi-supervised matrix-factorization-based latent variable approach to predict the performance of an unknown new application. This method allows to take a large set of benchmarks as input for VM performance modelling, and it uses the model and the performance measure of the new application on some of the target VMs to predict the performance on the rest of all VMs. We ran experiments with 373 micro-benchmarks from stress-ng and 37 AWS EC2 VMs to predict the scores of Geekbench accurately. Our initial results showed that the RMSE and STD of the predicted scores are 6.7 and 4.5 when sampling Geekbench on 5 VMs, and 10.0 and 2.8 when sampling 10.Postprin

Unexpected effects of urban food activism on community and human wellbeing

Open Access via the Taylor & Francis/JISC Open Select agreement This project was funded by the University of Aberdeen and the Wellcome Trust through the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) project (Grant number 205200/Z/16/Z).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Analysis of wave III of brain stem auditory evoked potential waveforms during microvascular decompression of cranial nerve VII for hemifacial spasm

INTRODUCTION:: Intraoperative monitoring of brain stem auditory evoked potential during microvascular decompression (MVD) prevent hearing loss (HL). Previous studies have shown that changes in wave III (wIII) are an early and sensitive sign of auditory nerve injury. OBJECTIVE:: To evaluate the changes of amplitude and latency of wIII of brain stem auditory evoked potential during MVD and its association with postoperative HL. Hearing loss was classified by American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) criteria, based on changes in pure tone audiometry and speech discrimination score. METHODS:: Retrospective analysis of wIII in patients who underwent intraoperative monitoring with brain stem auditory evoked potential during MVD was performed. A univariate logistic regression analysis was performed on independent variables amplitude of wIII and latency of wIII at change max and On-Skin, or a final recording at the time of skin closure. A further analysis for the same variables was performed adjusting for the loss of wave. RESULTS:: The latency of wIII was not found to be significantly different between groups I and II. The amplitude of wIII was significantly decreased in the group with HL. Regression analysis did not find any increased odds of HL with changes in the amplitude of wIII. CONCLUSIONS:: Changes in wave III did not increase the odds of HL in patients who underwent brain stem auditory evoked potential s during MVD. This information might be valuable to evaluate the value of wIII as an alarm criterion during MVD to prevent HL. © 2014 by the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society

Managerial Discretion: An Empirical Review and Focus on Future Research Directions

Scholars have long been interested in when and to what degree managers are able to exert control over their organizations. In this review, we examine managerial discretion, or the latitude of action available to managers. Since its introduction, scholars have attempted to explain when managers will have discretion, what discretion means for organizational outcomes, and how discretion may differentially influence organizational outcomes when it enables or constrains leaders. Our review indicates that while a significant number of studies have examined discretion, few have attempted to validate the prescriptions of the managerial discretion construct. Furthermore, studies to date have primarily focused on the industry task environment as a measure of discretion, with less attention focused on the manager’s characteristics and the internal organization. We then assess construct validity and the measurement of managerial discretion, offering recommendations to future researchers for improving the operationalization of this construct. Finally, we consider how discretion forces may interact as either complements or substitutes and how such interactions may have both organizational- and individual-level consequences

Synthesis of active filters employing thin-film distributed-parameter networks

This thesis deals with the problem of realizing filter and delay functions by means of an active network structure composed of distributed RC networks in conjunction with a negative-impedance converter. Presented is a general synthesis technique which can be used for the realization of rational filter and delay functions such as those expressable with Butterworth, Chevyshev, or Bessel polynomials. The method is made possible through the use of a distributed RC structure which possesses rational admittance parameters. To demonstrate the application of the synthesis technique, a number of active networks are presented and compared with their discrete component equivalents. Experimental results are presented to verify the theory of the distributed structure and to show the effectiveness of its use in active filter and delay network

Board Committees in Corporate Governance: A Cross-Disciplinary Review and Agenda for the Future

The importance of board committees – specialized subgroups that exist to perform many of the board\u27s most critical functions, such as setting executive compensation, identifying potential board members, and overseeing financial reporting – has grown over time due to increased legal requirements and greater complexity of the environment in which firms operate. This has resulted in a large body of work examining board committees across the accounting, finance, and management disciplines. However, this research has developed rather independently within each discipline, preventing scholars and practitioners from developing a comprehensive understanding of board committees. To address this issue, we conduct a comprehensive review of the literature that: 1) summarizes and synthesizes antecedents and outcomes associated with board committees in publicly-traded firms in English common law countries; and 2) offers a critical analysis of existing research, providing recommendations for advancements and new directions in board committee research

Board Committees in Corporate Governance: A Cross‐Disciplinary Review and Agenda for the Future

The importance of board committees – specialized subgroups that exist to perform many of the board\u27s most critical functions, such as setting executive compensation, identifying potential board members, and overseeing financial reporting – has grown over time due to increased legal requirements and greater complexity of the environment in which firms operate. This has resulted in a large body of work examining board committees across the accounting, finance, and management disciplines. However, this research has developed rather independently within each discipline, preventing scholars and practitioners from developing a comprehensive understanding of board committees. To address this issue, we conduct a comprehensive review of the literature that: 1) summarizes and synthesizes antecedents and outcomes associated with board committees in publicly‐traded firms in English common law countries; and 2) offers a critical analysis of existing research, providing recommendations for advancements and new directions in board committee research