The Alabama Experiment on Galactic-Ray In-Situ Shielding (AEGIS) Project

Alabama Experiment on Galactic-ray In-situ Shielding (AEGIS) is a 6U CubeSat to characterize the effect of deep space radiation environments on lunar regolith-based shielding while providing a workforce development platform under a statewide coalition of universities. In 2018, the Alabama Space Grant Consortium (ASGC) initiated the workforce development program to teach students from multiple engineering disciplines the rigors and requirements of spacecraft design. AEGIS is the flagship mission of this program, conducted by five universities across the state. As an educational program, the project is led and developed entirely by students with the support of faculty, industry, and NASA mentors. The unique approach of AEGIS as a university-based collaboration offers both research and education opportunities, opening the door for future partnerships and missions with increasingly ambitious goals and science deliverables. AEGIS has applied to be manifested aboard the Artemis2 launch vehicle under the CubeSat Launch Initiative. This presentation provides an overview of the science mission and its objectives, the project organization and management approach, and the spacecraft design

An Overview of the Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer (ABEX) Mission

The Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer (ABEX) project is a 12U scientific and educational mission to investigate Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) through spectral analysis and localization of joint gravitational-wave GRB mergers using wavefront timing analysis. The project is in development by a multi-university collaboration across Alabama with design work conducted by students under faculty advisement. The effort is organized and funded by the Alabama Space Grant Consortium and includes the University of Alabama, University of Alabama in Birmingham, University of South Alabama, Auburn University, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. ABEX will deploy on a super-synchronous orbit and propulsively maneuver to a high eccentricity orbit of 300 km perigee by 60,000 km apogee at 27° inclination. From this high apogee destination, ABEX will observe GRB events using a suite of detectors that measure a broad energy range from keV to MeV. The highly eccentric orbit allows ABEX to perform wavefront timing between LEO gamma-ray missions as it passes through apogee. ABEX has several engineering systems being developed by cohort universities as part of its educational mission, specifically the On-Board Computers, Electrical Power System, Flight Software, chassis, and instrumentation. In this paper we present a broad overview of the mission, including the scientific and educational goals, spacecraft design, instrument design, and operations concept

Banking sector stability, efficiency, and outreach in Kenya

Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability, efficiency, and outreach of Kenya's banking system, usingaggregate, bank-level, and survey data. Banks'asset quality and liquidity positions have improved, making the system more resistant to shocks, and interest rate spreads have declined, in part due to reduction in the overhead costs of foreign banks. Outreach remains limited, but has improved in recent years, driven by mobile payments services in the domestic remittance market. Fostering a level regulatory playing field for all deposit-taking institutions is a key remaining challenge. Specifically, an effective but not overly burdensome framework for regulation and supervision of microfinance institutions and cooperatives is a priority. Maintaining an openness to new, and non-bank, providers of financial services, which has enabled the success of mobile payments, could also further outreach.Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress

A model-based systems engineering approach to space mission education of a geographically disperse student workforce

The Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer (ABEX) is a 12U CubeSat commissioned by the Alabama Space Grant Consortium; its astrophysics mission is to study the low energy, prompt emission of Gamma-ray Bursts in both gamma and X-ray spectra. The ABEX program is unique in that its workforce is comprised of individuals at seven colleges and universities around the state of Alabama. ABEX management releases Requests for Proposals (RFP) for Senior Design (SD) projects or university research groups to design and build spacecraft subsystems; university faculty with experience and facilities for the development of that subsystem respond to the RFPs to create a team. ABEX supports undergraduate SD students, graduate student mentors, and faculty technical advisors for all spacecraft subsystems in both ground and flight mission segments. Each team has between 5-15 undergraduate students, meaning ABEX teaches spacecraft design to ~85 undergraduate students at any given time; ABEX may be the largest collegiate CubeSat program in the world. The undergraduate labor force turns over, or cycles to new students, every 4-8 months, so ABEX can teach hands-on spacecraft design to over 100 students every year and has taught over 200 to date. Two features of ABEX create a difficult Systems Engineering (SE) environment: the undergraduate labor force turnover rate and the geographically disperse workforce. Most subsystem teams exist within two-semester SD courses, but some teams, like Flight Software, only exist for one semester before the undergraduate team turns over. This means the student onboarding process must be efficient and the material hand-off process effective if any substantive contribution to the spacecraft is to be made in their brief course period. A Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Integrated System Model (ISM) was created using SysML as a full-program organization of mission requirements, subsystem architectures, verification and validation procedures, and team interaction tracking methodologies for workforce turnover effect mitigation with ISM-exported artifacts as central objects of stage-gate reviews. An ABEX website was created with processes for first-time student onboarding, ISM artifact dissemination, and intercollegiate document transfer in addition to being a public relations arm for the program. With education at the forefront of ABEX, educational requirements and performance measures detailing onboarding efficiency, workforce preparedness, and alumni vocation results are defined within the ISM and used to evaluate program education proficiency. Program organization, ISM structure, and spacecraft design is presented with an emphasis on quantifying student education as a result of program involvemen

Design and Testing of a Multi-Sensor Pedestrian Location and Navigation Platform

Navigation and location technologies are continually advancing, allowing ever higher accuracies and operation under ever more challenging conditions. The development of such technologies requires the rapid evaluation of a large number of sensors and related utilization strategies. The integration of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) with accelerometers, gyros, barometers, magnetometers and other sensors is allowing for novel applications, but is hindered by the difficulties to test and compare integrated solutions using multiple sensor sets. In order to achieve compatibility and flexibility in terms of multiple sensors, an advanced adaptable platform is required. This paper describes the design and testing of the NavCube, a multi-sensor navigation, location and timing platform. The system provides a research tool for pedestrian navigation, location and body motion analysis in an unobtrusive form factor that enables in situ data collections with minimal gait and posture impact. Testing and examples of applications of the NavCube are provided

A new database structure for the IHFC Global Heat Flow Database

Periodic revisions of the Global Heat Flow Database (GHFD) take place under the auspices of the International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC) of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI). A growing number of heat-flow values, advances in scientific methods, digitization, and improvements in database technologies all warrant a revision of the structure of the GHFD that was last amended in 1976. We present a new structure for the GHFD, which will provide a basis for a reassessment and revision of the existing global heat-flow data set. The database fields within the new structure are described in detail to ensure a common understanding of the respective database entries. The new structure of the database takes advantage of today's possibilities for data management. It supports FAIR and open data principles, including interoperability with external data services, and links to DOI and IGSN numbers and other data resources (e.g., world geological map, world stratigraphic system, and International Ocean Drilling Program data). Aligned with this publication, a restructured version of the existing database is published, which provides a starting point for the upcoming collaborative process of data screening, quality control and revision. In parallel, the IHFC will work on criteria for a new quality scheme that will allow future users of the database to evaluate the quality of the collated heat-flow data based on specific criteria

Plasma Dynamics

Contains reports on five research projects.U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientifc Research (Contract AFOSR 84-0026)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS 85-14517)Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Subcontract 6264005)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS 85-15032)U.S. Department of Energy (Contract DE-ACO2-78-ET-51013)U.S. Department of Energy (Contract DE-ACO2-ET-51013

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured

Search for the neutral Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric standard model in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is reported. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data were recorded in 2011 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1 to 4.8 fb-1. Higgs boson decays into oppositely-charged muon or τ lepton pairs are considered for final states requiring either the presence or absence of b-jets. No statistically significant excess over the expected background is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are derived. The exclusion limits are for the production cross-section of a generic neutral Higgs boson, φ, as a function of the Higgs boson mass and for h/A/H production in the MSSM as a function of the parameters mA and tan β in the mhmax scenario for mA in the range of 90GeV to 500 GeV. Copyright CERN