Assessment of Spatial Navigation and Docking Performance During Simulated Rover Tasks

INTRODUCTION: Following long-duration exploration transits, pressurized rovers will enhance surface mobility to explore multiple sites across Mars and other planetary bodies. Multiple rovers with docking capabilities are envisioned to expand the range of exploration. However, adaptive changes in sensorimotor and cognitive function may impair the crew s ability to safely navigate and perform docking tasks shortly after transition to the new gravitoinertial environment. The primary goal of this investigation is to quantify post-flight decrements in spatial navigation and docking performance during a rover simulation. METHODS: Eight crewmembers returning from the International Space Station will be tested on a motion simulator during four pre-flight and three post-flight sessions over the first 8 days following landing. The rover simulation consists of a serial presentation of discrete tasks to be completed within a scheduled 10 min block. The tasks are based on navigating around a Martian outpost spread over a 970 sq m terrain. Each task is subdivided into three components to be performed as quickly and accurately as possible: (1) Perspective taking: Subjects use a joystick to indicate direction of target after presentation of a map detailing current orientation and location of the rover with the task to be performed. (2) Navigation: Subjects drive the rover to the desired location while avoiding obstacles. (3) Docking: Fine positioning of the rover is required to dock with another object or align a camera view. Overall operator proficiency will be based on how many tasks the crewmember can complete during the 10 min time block. EXPECTED RESULTS: Functionally relevant testing early post-flight will develop evidence regarding the limitations to early surface operations and what countermeasures are needed. This approach can be easily adapted to a wide variety of simulated vehicle designs to provide sensorimotor assessments for other operational and civilian populations

Combining Static and Dynamic Contract Checking for Curry

Static type systems are usually not sufficient to express all requirements on function calls. Hence, contracts with pre- and postconditions can be used to express more complex constraints on operations. Contracts can be checked at run time to ensure that operations are only invoked with reasonable arguments and return intended results. Although such dynamic contract checking provides more reliable program execution, it requires execution time and could lead to program crashes that might be detected with more advanced methods at compile time. To improve this situation for declarative languages, we present an approach to combine static and dynamic contract checking for the functional logic language Curry. Based on a formal model of contract checking for functional logic programming, we propose an automatic method to verify contracts at compile time. If a contract is successfully verified, dynamic checking of it can be omitted. This method decreases execution time without degrading reliable program execution. In the best case, when all contracts are statically verified, it provides trust in the software since crashes due to contract violations cannot occur during program execution.Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 27th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2017), Namur, Belgium, 10-12 October 2017 (arXiv:1708.07854

Lipid nanoparticles for cyclosporine a administration: Development, characterization, and in vitro evaluation of their immunosuppression activity

Cyclosporine A (CsA) is an immunosuppressant commonly used in transplantation for prevention of organ rejection as well as in the treatment of several autoimmune disorders. Although commercial formulations are available, they have some stability, bioavailability, and toxicity related problems. Some of these issues are associated with the drug or excipients and others with the dosage forms. With the aim of overcoming these drawbacks, lipid nanoparticles (LN) have been proposed as an alternative, since excipients are biocompatible and also a large amount of surfactants and organic solvents can be avoided. CsA was successfully incorporated into LN using the method of hot homogenization followed by ultrasonication. Three different formulations were optimized for CsA oral administration, using different surfactants: Tween® 80, phosphatidylcholine, taurocholate and Pluronic® F127 (either alone or mixtures). Freshly prepared Precirol nanoparticles showed mean sizes with a narrow size distribution ranging from 121 to 202 nm, and after freeze-drying were between 163 and 270 nm, depending on the stabilizer used. Surface charge was negative in all LN developed. High CsA entrapment efficiency of approximately 100% was achieved. Transmission electron microscopy was used to study the morphology of the optimized LN. Also, the crystallinity of the nanoparticles was studied by X-ray powder diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry. The presence of the drug in LN surfaces was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The CsA LN developed preserved their physicochemical properties for 3 months when stored at 4°C. Moreover, when the stabilizer system was composed of two surfactants, the LN formulations were also stable at room temperature. Finally, the new CsA formulations showed in vitro dose-dependent immunosuppressive effects caused by the inhibition of IL-2 levels secreted from stimulated Jurkat cells. The findings obtained in this paper suggest that new lipid nanosystems are a good alternative to produce physicochemically stable CsA formulations for oral administration

Assessment of Proficiency During Simulated Rover Operations Following Long-Duration Spaceflight

Following long-duration space travel, pressurized rovers will enhance crew mobility to explore Mars and other planetary surfaces. Adaptive changes in sensorimotor function may limit the crew s proficiency when performing some rover operations shortly after transition to the new gravitoinertial environment. The primary goal of this investigation is to quantify postflight decrements in operational proficiency in a motion-based rover simulation after International Space Station (ISS) expeditions. Given that postflight performance will also be influenced by the level of preflight proficiency attained, a ground-based normative study was conducted to characterize the acquisition of skills over multiple sessions

A 1-Million-Year Record of Environmental Change in the Central Mediterranean Sea From Organic Molecular Proxies

The Mediterranean Sea is particularly sensitive to climate oscillations and represents a key location to study past climatic and oceanographic changes. One valuable source of paleoceanographic information is through molecular biomarkers in deep sea sediments. This approach has been applied in a number of studies in this basin, but only covering the most recent glacial/interglacial cycles. Here we present, for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, a molecular biomarker record from the Strait of Sicily that covers the last million years until the present, almost continuously. We present data on alkenone derived urn:x-wiley:25724517:media:palo21102:palo21102-math-0001 index sea surface temperatures (SST) and provide insights on the evolution of the phytoplankton community composition and terrestrial inputs through the analysis of the concentrations of alkenones, brassicasterol and long-chain alcohols. The urn:x-wiley:25724517:media:palo21102:palo21102-math-0002-SST record followed a climatic evolution modulated by glacial/interglacial cycles with a marked increase in the 100 kyr-amplitude of the glacial cycles at ∼430 ka, coincident with the Mid-Brunhes transition. In addition, SSTs were consistently higher compared with other records in the western Mediterranean, indicative of the progressive warming that surface waters experience along their transit from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Central Mediterranean. Regarding the concentrations of alkenones and brassicasterol, they displayed distinct alternate peaks, some of them coeval with the deposition of sapropels. This suggests that different environmental and oceanographic conditions characterized each sapropel which, together with changes in terrestrial inputs and the degree of oligotrophy, induced the alternate proliferation of coccolithophores and diatoms.Postprin

Reestudio de una Esmectica de Marruecos oriental. I. Estudio Mineralógico

A sample from Djebel Ghassoul mines (Eastern Morocco) is studied. According to the X-RD, IR, DTA and chemical analysis results it was characterized as a saponite-like trioctahedral smectite. This material has high adsorbing capacity for polar liquids.Se estudia por análisis químico, difracción de Rayos-X, espectroscopía infrarroja y análisis térmico diferencial una muestra procedente de las minas Djebel Ghassoul (Marruecos Oriental) que se caracteriza como una esmectita trioctaédrica semejante a la saponita. La sustancia presenta buenas propiedades adsorbentes frente a líquidos polares

Reestudio de una Esmectita de Marruecos oriental. II. Propiedades coloidales y algunas aplicaciones en dermofarmacia

Rheological properties of a sample from Djebel Ghassoul mines (Eastern Morocco) is studied. The colloidal properties are superior than those of similar industrial earths such as; low sensivity to coagulation by salts and high dispersing power, which can be enhanced by the addition of small cuantities of other dispersing agents such as Na-hexametaphosphate. It can be advantageously used for the manufacturing of soaps to which it imports a low degree of alcalynity and also of tooth pastes due to its high fluorine contents.Se estudia el comportamiento reológico de un mineral procedente de las minas de Djebel Ghassoul (Marruecos Oriental) encontrando que sus propiedades coloidales son superiores a las otras muestras de interés industrial presentando poco efecto frente a sustancias salinas y sus propiedades dispersantes se acentúan con la adición de pequeñas cantidades de hexametafosfato sódico. El mineral tiene un importante contenido en flúor y se comporta como material adecuado para pasta dentrífica así como para la fabricación de jabones a los que proporciona una baja alcalinidad

Moving from Specifications to Contracts in Component-Based Design

Abstract. Program properties that are automatically inferred by static analysis tools are generally not considered to be completely trustworthy, unless the tool implementation or the results are formally verified. Here we focus on the formal verification of resource guarantees inferred by automatic cost analysis. Resource guarantees ensure that programs run within the indicated amount of resources which may refer to memory consumption, to number of instructions executed, etc. In previous work we studied formal verification of inferred resource guarantees that depend only on integer data. In realistic programs, however, resource consumption is often bounded by the size of heap-allocated data structures. Bounding their size requires to perform a number of structural heap analyses. The contributions of this paper are (i) to identify what exactly needs to be verified to guarantee sound analysis of heap manipulating programs, (ii) to provide a suitable extension of the program logic used for verification to handle structural heap properties in the context of resource guarantees, and (iii) to improve the underlying theorem prover so that proof obligations can be automatically discharged.

Efficacy of Stochastic Vestibular Stimulation to Improve Locomotor Performance in a Discordant Sensory Environment

Astronauts exposed to microgravity face sensorimotor challenges incurred when readapting to a gravitational environment. Sensorimotor Adaptability (SA) training has been proposed as a countermeasure to improve locomotor performance during re-adaptation, and it is suggested that the benefits of SA training may be further enhanced by improving detection of weak sensory signals via mechanisms such as stochastic resonance when a non-zero level of stochastic white noise based electrical stimulation is applied to the vestibular system (stochastic vestibular stimulation, SVS). The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of using SVS to improve short-term adaptation in a sensory discordant environment during performance of a locomotor task

Relationships Between Vestibular Measures as Potential Predictors for Spaceflight Sensorimotor Adaptation

Introduction: During space exploration missions astronauts are exposed to a series of novel sensorimotor environments, requiring sensorimotor adaptation. Until adaptation is complete, sensorimotor decrements occur, affecting critical tasks such as piloted landing or docking. Of particularly interest are locomotion tasks such as emergency vehicle egress or extra-vehicular activity. While nearly all astronauts eventually adapt sufficiently, it appears there are substantial individual differences in how quickly and effectively this adaptation occurs. These individual differences in capacity for sensorimotor adaptation are poorly understood. Broadly, we aim to identify measures that may serve as pre-flight predictors of and individual's adaptation capacity to spaceflight-induced sensorimotor changes. As a first step, since spaceflight is thought to involve a reinterpretation of graviceptor cues (e.g. otolith cues from the vestibular system) we investigate the relationships between various measures of vestibular function in humans. Methods: In a set of 15 ground-based control subjects, we quantified individual differences in vestibular function using three measures: 1) ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP), 2) computerized dynamic posturography and 3) vestibular perceptual thresholds. oVEMP responses are elicited using a mechanical stimuli approach. Computerized dynamic posturography was used to quantify Sensory Organization Tests (SOTs), including SOT5M which involved performing pitching head movements while balancing on a sway-reference support surface with eyes closed. We implemented a vestibular perceptual threshold task using the tilt capabilities of the Tilt-Translation Sled (TTS) at JSC. On each trial, the subject was passively roll-tilted left ear down or right ear down in the dark and verbally provided a forced-choice response regarding which direction they felt tilted. The motion profile was a single-cycle sinusoid of angular acceleration with a duration of 5 seconds (frequency of 0.2 Hz), which was selected as it requires sensory integration of otolith and semicircular canal cues. Stimuli direction was randomized and magnitude was determined using an adaptive sampling procedure. One hundred trials were provided and each subject's responses were fit with a psychometric curve to estimate the subject's threshold. Results: Roll tilt perceptual thresholds at 0.2 Hz ranged from 0.5 degrees to 1.82 degrees across the 15 subjects (geometric mean of 1.04 degrees), consistent with previous studies. The inter-individual variability in thresholds may be able to help explain individual differences observed in sensorimotor adaptation to spaceflight. Analysis is ongoing for the oVEMPS and computerized dynamic posturography to identify relationships between the various vestibular measures. Discussion: Predicting individual differences in sensorimotor adaptation is critical both for the development of personalized countermeasures and mission planning. Here we aim to develop a basis of vestibular tests and parameters which may serve as predictors of individual differences in sensorimotor adaptability through studying the relationship between these measures