61 research outputs found
Project LOCOST: Laser or Chemical Hybrid Orbital Space Transport
A potential mission in the late 1990s is the servicing of spacecraft assets located in GEO. The Geosynchronous Operations Support Center (GeoShack) will be supported by a space transfer vehicle based at the Space Station (SS). The vehicle will transport cargo between the SS and the GeoShack. A proposed unmanned, laser or chemical hybrid orbital space transfer vehicle (LOCOST) can be used to efficiently transfer cargo between the two orbits. A preliminary design shows that an unmanned, laser/chemical hybrid vehicle results in the fuel savings needed while still providing fast trip times. The LOCOST vehicle receives a 12 MW laser beam from one Earth orbiting, solar pumped, iodide Laser Power Station (LPS). Two Energy Relay Units (ERU) provide laser beam support during periods of line-of-sight blockage by the Earth. The baseline mission specifies a 13 day round trip transfer time. The ship's configuration consist of an optical train, one hydrogen laser engine, two chemical engines, a 18 m by 29 m box truss, a mission-flexible payload module, and propellant tanks. Overall vehicle dry mass is 8,000 kg. Outbound cargo mass is 20,000 kg, and inbound cargo mass is 6,000 kg. The baseline mission needs 93,000 kg of propellants to complete the scenario. Fully fueled, outbound mission mass is 121,000 kg. A regeneratively cooled, single plasma, laser engine design producing a maximum of 768 N of thrust is utilized along with two traditional chemical engines. The payload module is designed to hold 40,000 kg of cargo, though the baseline mission specifies less. A proposed design of a laser/chemical hybrid vehicle provides a trip time and propellant efficient means to transport cargo from the SS to a GeoShack. Its unique, hybrid propulsion system provides safety through redundancy, allows baseline missions to be efficiently executed, while still allowing for the possibility of larger cargo transfers
New Frontiers of Quantified Self: Finding New Ways for Engaging Users in Collecting and Using Personal Data
In spite of the fast growth in the market of devices and applications that allow people to collect personal information, Quantified Self (QS) tools still present a variety of issues when they are used in everyday lives of common people. In this workshop we aim at exploring new ways for designing QS systems, by gathering different researchers in a unique place for imagining how the tracking, management, interpretation and visualization of personal data could be addressed in the future
New Frontiers of Quantified Self 3: Exploring Understudied Categories of Users
Quantified Self (QS) field needs to start thinking of how situated needs may affect the use of self-tracking technologies. In this workshop we will focus on the idiosyncrasies of specific categories of users
The Seed
When it comes to managing our planted landscapes, we humans seem to prefer working against Mother Nature. Where she would provide a diverse mix of flora and fauna, we prefer trying to carpet the ground with a monoculture of lawn and then sprinkle a few colorful (and often foreign) trees, shrubs and other plants here and there as accents. We like to think that we’re in control, that we’ve created some- thing static and beautiful, but in reality we are regularly doing battle against natural processes and in many ways against our own best interests. We’ve come to accept near-constant mowing and trimming, regular use of pesticides to kill unintended plants and insects, lots of irrigation to keep things green, leaf blowing and sidewalk edging for even more tidiness and the regular removal of grass clippings, leaves and other plant residue to the landfill—necessitating a regular use of fertilizers to maintain soil fertility
FuturePD. the future of personal data: Envisioning new personalized services enabled by Quantified Self technologies
The symple choice algorythm for estimating of parametersof network protetion prioroties in analitical hierarchic process
Humans depend on services provided by ecosystems, and how services are affected by climate change is increasingly studied. Few studies, however, address changes likely to affect services from seminatural ecosystems. We analyzed ecosystem goods and services in natural and seminatural systems, specifically how they are expected to change as a result of projected climate change during the 21st century. We selected terrestrial and freshwater systems in northernmost Europe, where climate is anticipated to change more than the global average, and identified likely changes in ecosystem services and their societal consequences. We did this by assembling experts from ecology, social science, and cultural geography in workshops, and we also performed a literature review. Results show that most ecosystem services are affected by multiple factors, often acting in opposite directions. Out of 14 services considered, 8 are expected to increase or remain relatively unchanged in supply, and 6 are expected to decrease. Although we do not predict collapse or disappearance of any of the investigated services, the effects of climate change in conjunction with potential economical and societal changes may exceed the adaptive capacity of societies. This may result in societal reorganization and changes in ways that ecosystems are used. Significant uncertainties and knowledge gaps in the forecast make specific conclusions about societal responses to safeguard human well-being questionable. Adapting to changes in ecosystem services will therefore require consideration of uncertainties and complexities in both social and ecological responses. The scenarios presented here provide a framework for future studies exploring such issues
Ionic Interactions in Biological and Physical Systems: a Variational Treatment
Chemistry is about chemical reactions. Chemistry is about electrons changing
their configurations as atoms and molecules react. Chemistry studies reactions
as if they occurred in ideal infinitely dilute solutions. But most reactions
occur in nonideal solutions. Then everything (charged) interacts with
everything else (charged) through the electric field, which is short and long
range extending to boundaries of the system. Mathematics has recently been
developed to deal with interacting systems of this sort. The variational theory
of complex fluids has spawned the theory of liquid crystals. In my view, ionic
solutions should be viewed as complex fluids. In both biology and
electrochemistry ionic solutions are mixtures highly concentrated (~10M) where
they are most important, near electrodes, nucleic acids, enzymes, and ion
channels. Calcium is always involved in biological solutions because its
concentration in a particular location is the signal that controls many
biological functions. Such interacting systems are not simple fluids, and it is
no wonder that analysis of interactions, such as the Hofmeister series, rooted
in that tradition, has not succeeded as one would hope. We present a
variational treatment of hard spheres in a frictional dielectric. The theory
automatically extends to spatially nonuniform boundary conditions and the
nonequilibrium systems and flows they produce. The theory is unavoidably
self-consistent since differential equations are derived (not assumed) from
models of (Helmholtz free) energy and dissipation of the electrolyte. The
origin of the Hofmeister series is (in my view) an inverse problem that becomes
well posed when enough data from disjoint experimental traditions are
interpreted with a self-consistent theory.Comment: As prepared for Faraday Discussion, Pavel Jungwirth Organizer, 3 - 5
September 2012, Queens College Oxford, UK on Ion Specific Hofmeister Effects.
Version 2 has significant typo corrections in eq. 1 and eq. 4, and has been
reformatted to be easier to rea
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