Space Environments and Effects Concept: Transitioning Research to Operations and Applications

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is embarking on a course to expand human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) while expanding its mission to explore the solar system. Destinations such as Near Earth Asteroids (NEA), Mars and its moons, and the outer planets are but a few of the mission targets. NASA has established numerous offices specializing in specific space environments disciplines that will serve to enable these missions. To complement these existing discipline offices, a concept focusing on the development of space environment and effects application is presented. This includes space climate, space weather, and natural and induced space environments. This space environment and effects application is composed of 4 topic areas; characterization and modeling, engineering effects, prediction and operation, and mitigation and avoidance. These topic areas are briefly described below. Characterization and modeling of space environments will primarily focus on utilization during Program mission concept, planning, and design phases. Engineering effects includes materials testing and flight experiments producing data to be used in mission planning and design phases. Prediction and operation pulls data from existing sources into decision-making tools and empirical data sets to be used during the operational phase of a mission. Mitigation and avoidance will develop techniques and strategies used in the design and operations phases of the mission. The goal of this space environment and effects application is to develop decision-making tools and engineering products to support the mission phases of mission concept through operations by focusing on transitioning research to operations. Products generated by this space environments and effects application are suitable for use in anomaly investigations. This paper will outline the four topic areas, describe the need, and discuss an organizational structure for this space environments and effects application

Testing a Purportedly More Learnable Auction Mechanism

We describe an auction mechanism in the class of Groves mechanisms that has received attention in the computer science literature because of its theoretical property of being more “learnable” than the standard second price auction mechanism. We bring this mechanism, which we refer to as the “clamped second price auction mechanism,” into the laboratory to determine whether it helps human subjects learn to play their optimal strategy faster than the standard second price auction mechanism. Contrary to earlier results within computer science using simulated reinforcement learning agents, we find that both in settings where subjects are given complete information about auction payoff rules and in settings where they are given no information about auction payoff rules,subjects converge on playing their optimal strategy significantly faster in sequential auctions conducted with a standard second price auction mechanism than with a clamped second price auction mechanism. We conclude that while it is important for mechanism designers to think more about creating learnable mechanisms, the clamped second price auction mechanism in fact produces slower learning in human subjects than the standard second price auction mechanism. Our results also serve to highlight differences in behavior between simulated agents and human bidders that mechanism designers should take into account before placing too much faith in simulations to test the performance of mechanisms intended for human use.Engineering and Applied Science

A NASA Applied Spaceflight Environments Office Concept

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is launching a bold and ambitious new space initiative. A significant part of this new initiative includes exploration of new worlds, the development of more innovative technologies, and expansion our presence in the solar system. A common theme to this initiative is the exploration of space beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). As currently organized, NASA does not have an Agency-level office that provides coordination of space environment research and development. This has contributed to the formation of a gap between spaceflight environments knowledge and the application of this knowledge for multi-program use and for use outside NASA. This paper outlines a concept to establish a NASA-level Applied Spaceflight Environments (ASE) office that will provide coordination and funding for sustained multi-program support in three technical areas that have demonstrated these needs through customer requests. These technical areas are natural environments characterization and modeling, materials and systems analysis and test, and operational space environments modeling. Additionally the ASE office will serve as an entry point of contact for external users who wish to take advantage of data and assets associated with space environments, including space weather. This paper will establish the need for the ASE, discuss a concept for organizational structure and outline the scope in the three technical areas

Interleukin-6 and soluble interleukin-6 receptor levels in posttraumatic stress disorder : associations with lifetime diagnostic status and psychological context.

This study correlated lifetime PTSD diagnostic status with interleukin-6 (IL-6) and soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) levels, and tested whether these correlations are sensitive to psychological context. Midlife women attended two research visits where blood was drawn (beginning of visits) and saliva and oral mucosal transudate were collected (beginning and end of visits) to measure IL-6 and sIL-6R. Women were classified as PTSD−/− (past and current symptoms below subsyndromal levels), PTSD+/− (past symptoms at or above subsyndromal levels), or PTSD +/+ (past and current symptoms at or above subsyndromal levels). PTSD+/+ women, compared to the other women, showed more negative emotion at the beginning of the visits, higher salivary IL-6 levels at the beginning versus end of visits, and positive correlations between negative emotion, salivary IL-6, and plasma sIL-6R. Their plasma sIL-6R levels exceeded those of the PTSD+/− women. Overall, IL-6 sensitivity to anticipation and to negative emotions, and higher sIL-6R levels, differentiated persistent versus remitted PTSD

Understanding Accretion Outbursts in Massive Protostars through Maser Imaging

The bright maser emission produced by several molecular species at centimeter to long millimeter wavelengths provides an essential tool for understanding the process of massive star formation. Unimpeded by the high dust optical depths that affect shorter wavelength observations, the high brightness temperature of these emission lines offers a way to resolve accretion and outflow motions down to scales below $\sim$1 au in deeply embedded Galactic star-forming regions at kiloparsec distances. The recent identification of extraordinary accretion outbursts in two high-mass protostars, both of which were heralded by maser flares, has rapidly impacted the traditional view of massive protostellar evolution, leading to new hydrodynamic simulations that can produce such episodic outbursts. In order to understand how these massive protostars evolve in response to such events, larger, more sensitive ground-based centimeter wavelength interferometers are needed that can simultaneously image multiple maser species in the molecular gas along with faint continuum from the central ionized gas. Fiducial observations of a large sample of massive protostars will be essential in order to pinpoint the progenitors of future accretion outbursts, and to quantify the outburst-induced changes in their protostellar photospheres and outflow and accretion structures. Knowledge gained from these studies will have broader impact on the general topic of accretion onto massive objects.Comment: Science white paper submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1806.0698

Exploring the Role of Contextual Integrity in Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System Workaround Decisions: An Information Security and Privacy Perspective

Many healthcare providers in the US are seeking increased efficiency and effectiveness by rapidly adopting information technology (IT) solutions such as electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Legislation such as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which codified the adoption and “meaningful use” of electronic records in the US, has further spurred the industry-wide adoption of EMR. However, despite what are often large investments in EMR, studies indicate that the healthcare industry maintains a culture of system workarounds. Though perhaps not uncommon, the creation of informal workflows among healthcare workers is problematic for assuring information security and patient privacy, particularly when involving decisions of information management (e.g., information storage, retrieval, and/or transmission). Drawing on the framework of contextual integrity, we assert that one can often explain workarounds involving information transmissions in terms of trade-offs informed by context-specific informational norms. We surveyed healthcare workers and analyzed their willingness to engage in a series of EMR workaround scenarios. Our results indicate that contextual integrity provides a useful framework for understanding information transmission and workaround decisions in the health sector. Armed with these findings, managers and system designers should be better able to anticipate healthcare workers’ information transmission principles (e.g., privacy norms) and workaround patterns (e.g., usage norms). We present our findings and discuss their significance for research and practice

A Study of Nektonic and Benthic Faunas of the Shallow Gulf of Mexico Off the State of Mississippi As Related to Some Physical, Chemical, and Geological Factors

A seasonal study of the nektonic and benthic faunas of the shallow Gulf of Mexico off Mississippi was conducted from January 1967 through May 1969. It was planned to sample monthly six fixed offshore stations at depths ranging from 5 to 50 fathoms in the open Gulf. In general this was carried out fairly well. Water samples were taken from surface, midwater, and bottom levels each time a station was occupied, and temperatures and salinities were recorded for each of these. Samples were tested for the presence of nitrates, nitrites, ortho-phosphates and total phosphates. Secchi disc extinction points were recorded. Grab samples were taken for the determination of bottom composition. Plankton samples were taken from surface, midwater and bottom levels. Copepods, brachyuran zoea and megalops, stomatopod larvae, Lucifer faxoni, Acetes a. carolinae, Penilia avirostris, Doliolum sp. and fish eggs and larvae were present in greatest abundance. Surface and benthic nekton samples were obtained. Dredge samples were made quarterly and twelve invertebrate species and three species of fishes were collected. Renilla mülleri was the most abundant species taken, and the fish catch consisted of Centropristes ocyurus, Citharichthys spilopterus and Etropus crossotus. Accounts of 50 invertebrate species (24,679 specimens) and 129 fishes (93,563 specimens) taken in trawl hauls is presented. Temperature and salinity data are given for all species. Relative abundance, seasonal bathymetric distributions and movements, apparent growth patterns, catch per unit of effort and various biological data are noted for the most abundant species. Station 5 (40 fathoms) produced the largest percentage of trawl catches (22.7). Renilla mülleri was the most abundant invertebrate taken in trawling. The brown shrimp, Penaeus aztecus, was second in abundance (10.92%). The five most abundant species comprising 80.57% numerically of the catch were croaker, longspine porgy, butterfish, spot, and seatrout. The species comprising 91.89% of the catch by weight were the croaker, longspine porgy, spot, seatrout, lizardfish, butterfish, pinfish, bank sea bass, sea catfish and black fin sea robin. The families Sciaenidae, Sparidae and Stromateidae were represented by the greatest numbers and comprised 82.9% of the total catch. Families considered to be of commercial importance contributed 92.9% to the total fish catch