Arthur Guy Funkhouser, Portrait of a Doctor

The wind blew across the glazed surface of the frozen lake, intent upon entering a small cabin on the northern shore. After circling through the trees, glistening from the clean, white snow, the howling messenger of Aeolus descended, sending a wintry blast of air through a slightly opened window

Trees working in Western Australia

There is an air of inevirability about farm forestry - no-one disputs that planting trees is a sure route to curbing agriculture\u27s serious land degredation problem. Dave Berry talks with some of the key players developing the industry

Will it gel? Successful computational prediction of peptide gelators using physicochemical properties and molecular fingerprints

The self-assembly of low molecular weight gelators to form gels has enormous potential for cell culturing, optoelectronics, sensing, and for the preparation of structured materials. There is an enormous “chemical space” of gelators. Even within one class, functionalised dipeptides, there are many structures based on both natural and unnatural amino acids that can be proposed and there is a need for methods that can successfully predict the gelation propensity of such molecules. We have successfully developed computational models, based on experimental data, which are robust and are able to identify in silico dipeptide structures that can form gels. A virtual computational screen of 2025 dipeptide candidates identified 9 dipeptides that were synthesised and tested. Every one of the 9 dipeptides synthesised and tested were correctly predicted for their gelation properties. This approach and set of tools enables the “dipeptide space” to be searched effectively and efficiently in order to deliver novel gelator molecules

A Portable Eddy Covariance System for the Measurement of Ecosystem–Atmosphere Exchange of CO2, Water Vapor, and Energy

To facilitate the study of flux heterogeneity within a region, the authors have designed and field-tested a portable eddy covariance system to measure exchange of CO2, water vapor, and energy between the land surface and the atmosphere. The combination of instrumentation used in this system allows high precision flux measurements without requiring on-site infrastructure such as prepositioned towers or line power. In addition, the system contains sensors to measure a suit of soil, climatic, and energy-related parameters that are needed to quality control the fluxes and to characterize the flux footprint. The physical design and instrument packaging used in the system allows for simple transport (fits in a standard minivan) and for rapid deployment with a minimal number of field personnel (usually less than a day for one person). The power requirement for the entire system (instruments and data loggers) is less than 35 W, which is provided by a companion solar power system. Side-by-side field comparisons between this system and two permanent AmeriFlux sites and between the roving AmeriFlux intercomparison system are described here. Results of these comparisons indicate that the portable system is capable of absolute flux resolutions of about 61.2 mmol m22 s21 for CO2, 615 W m22 for LE, 67 W m22 for H, and 60.06 m s21 for u* between any given 30-min averaging periods. It is also found that, compared to a permanent Ameriflux site, the relative accuracy of this flux estimates is between 1% and 7%. Based on these results, it is concluded that this portable system is capable of making ecosystem flux measurements with an accuracy and precision comparable to most permanent AmeriFlux systems

Orbit Determination Toolbox

The Orbit Determination Toolbox is an orbit determination (OD) analysis tool based on MATLAB and Java that provides a flexible way to do early mission analysis. The toolbox is primarily intended for advanced mission analysis such as might be performed in concept exploration, proposal, early design phase, or rapid design center environments. The emphasis is on flexibility, but it has enough fidelity to produce credible results. Insight into all flight dynamics source code is provided. MATLAB is the primary user interface and is used for piecing together measurement and dynamic models. The Java Astrodynamics Toolbox is used as an engine for things that might be slow or inefficient in MATLAB, such as high-fidelity trajectory propagation, lunar and planetary ephemeris look-ups, precession, nutation, polar motion calculations, ephemeris file parsing, and the like. The primary analysis functions are sequential filter/smoother and batch least-squares commands that incorporate Monte-Carlo data simulation, linear covariance analysis, measurement processing, and plotting capabilities at the generic level. These functions have a user interface that is based on that of the MATLAB ODE suite. To perform a specific analysis, users write MATLAB functions that implement truth and design system models. The user provides his or her models as inputs to the filter commands. The software provides a capability to publish and subscribe to a software bus that is compliant with the NASA Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) standards, to exchange data with other flight dynamics tools to simplify the flight dynamics design cycle. Using the publish and subscribe approach allows for analysts in a rapid design center environment to seamlessly incorporate changes in spacecraft and mission design into navigation analysis and vice versa