A space station onboard scheduling assistant

One of the goals for the Space Station is to achieve greater autonomy, and have less reliance on ground commanding than previous space missions. This means that the crew will have to take an active role in scheduling and rescheduling their activities onboard, perhaps working from preliminary schedules generated on the ground. Scheduling is a time intensive task, whether performed manually or automatically, so the best approach to solving onboard scheduling problems may involve crew members working with an interactive software scheduling package. A project is described which investigates a system that uses knowledge based techniques for the rescheduling of experiments within the Materials Technology Laboratory of the Space Station. Particular attention is paid to: (1) methods for rapid response rescheduling to accommodate unplanned changes in resource availability, (2) the nature of the interface to the crew, (3) the representation of the many types of data within the knowledge base, and (4) the possibility of applying rule-based and constraint-based reasoning methods to onboard activity scheduling

A Definition of the Title “Son of God” in the Synoptic Gospels

This dissertation aims to define the title Son of God as applied to Jesus Christ in the Synoptic Gospels. In the Old Testament the term son of God was variously applied to angels, Israel, Israelites, Davidic kings, and possibly to the Messiah. In intertestamental Judaism the term was used mainly with reference to Israel and its righteous people, and is never specifically applied to the Messiah. In Hellenistic literature the title was sometimes given to pagan kings, emperors, and certain heroes. None of these occurrences can form the background for the Synoptic use of the title. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus uses only two titles of Himself: Son and Son of Man. With the title Son Jesus related Himself closely to God the Father in a unique and exclusive sense, particularly in such passages as Matthew 11:27 and Mark 12:6. Jesus always addresses God in prayer as Abba, a term never addressed to God by contemporary Palestinian Jews. At His trial Jesus publicly and clearly accepts the full title Son of God for Himself while claiming exclusive association with God, highlighted by a resulting charge of blasphemy. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each emphasize Jesus\u27s sonship as divinity rather than simple messiahship. Normally beings with supernatural insight designate Jesus as the Son of God: Gabriel, Satan, demons, Peter, and the heavenly voice at His baptism and Transfiguration. Jesus\u27 sonship requires a supernatural revelation and announcement. Even a pagan Roman centurion confesses Jesus\u27 sonship through the divine revelation of the cross. The key revelation occurs at Jesus\u27 baptism, where the perspective of the Father is given. In virtually every reference to Jesus\u27 sonship, it is either His supernatural origin, His unique relationship to the Father, or His claim to equality with God that is highlighted. The title may thus be defined as expressing that unique attribute of Jesus Christ by which He exclusively and ontologically shares the divine nature and character of His heavenly Father, revealing God to man as no other can do, and carrying out perfectly God\u27s purposes as Messiah, Servant, and eternal Sovereign

Righteousness and Wickedness in Ecclesiastes 7:15-18

In Eccl 7:15-18, Qoheleth discusses the problem of the value and balance of righteousness and wisdom. He has concluded that human wisdom cannot really explain all of life nor the future (6:10-7:14), and that even the principle that righteousness brings prosperity has many exceptions (7:14-15). He offers helpful counsel: Do not strive for exaggerated righteousness or try to make yourself the wisest person on earth, for these are not really worthwhile goals; and in the end, such striving will ruin your life. Likewise, do not turn to immorality or act like a fool, since God\u27s principles do still operate and you will put yourself in danger of premature death. What then of righteousness and wisdom? what good are they? Qoheleth answers that they are both of great benefit

Guidance algorithms for a free-flying space robot

Robotics is a promising technology for assembly, servicing, and maintenance of platforms in space. Several aspects of planning and guidance for telesupervised and fully autonomous robotic servicers are investigated. Guidance algorithms for proximity operation of a free flyer are described. Numeric trajectory optimization is combined with artificial intelligence based obstacle avoidance. An initial algorithm and the results of its simulating platform servicing scenario are discussed. A second algorithm experiment is then proposed

Jet directions in Seyfert galaxies: B and I imaging data

We present the results of broad-band B and I imaging observations for a sample of 88 Seyfert galaxies (29 Seyfert 1's and 59 Seyfert 2's), selected from a mostly isotropic property, the flux at 60$\mu$m. We also present the B and I imaging results for an additional sample of 20 Seyfert galaxies (7 Seyfert 1's and 13 Seyfert 2's), selected from the literature and known to have extended radio emission. The I band images are fitted with ellipses to determine the position angle and ellipticity of the host galaxy major axis. This information will be used in a future paper, combined with information from radio observations, to study the orientation of radio jets relative to the plane of their host galaxies (Kinney et al. 2000). Here we present surface brightness profiles and magnitudes in the B and I bands, as well as mean ellipticities and major axis position angles.Comment: To appear in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, June 2000. 48 pages, 7 tables, 19 gif and 11 postscript figures. Better quality figures can be obtained with the autho