Results of the attitude reconstruction for the UniSat-6 microsatellite using in-orbit data

UniSat-6 is a civilian microsatellite that was launched in orbit on the 19th of June, 2014. Its main mission consisted in the in-orbit release of a number of on-board carried Cubesats and in the transmission to the UniSat-6 ground station of telemetry data and images from an on-board mounted camera. The spacecraft is equipped with a passive magnetic attitude control system. Gyros and magnetometers provide the information about the attitude of the spacecraft. The importance of reconstructing the attitude motion of UniSat-6 lies in the dual possibility, for future missions, of:controlling the direction of ejection of the on-board carried satelliteshaving an accurate pointing for remote sensing operation.The reconstruction of the attitude motion of UniSat-6 is based on the data of the on-board Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) gyros and magnetometers, downloaded at the passages over the ground station in Roma, Italy. At ground, these data have been processed with the UnScented QUaternion Estimator (USQUE) algorithm. This estimator is an adaptation of the Unscented Filter to the problem of spacecraft attitude estimation. The USQUE is based on a dual attitude representation, which involves both quaternions and Generalized Rodrigues Parameters. In this work, the propagation phase of the algorithm contains only a kinematic model of the motion of the spacecraft. This paper presents the results of the reconstruction of the UniSat-6 attitude using on-board measurements. The results show that the spacecraft effectively stabilized its attitude motion thanks to the on-board magnetic devices

Enabling Ubiquitous OLAP Analyses

An OLAP analysis session is carried out as a sequence of OLAP operations applied to multidimensional cubes. At each step of a session, an operation is applied to the result of the previous step in an incremental fashion. Due to its simplicity and flexibility, OLAP is the most adopted paradigm used to explore the data stored in data warehouses. With the goal of expanding the fruition of OLAP analyses, in this thesis we touch several critical topics. We first present our contributions to deal with data extractions from service-oriented sources, which are nowadays used to provide access to many databases and analytic platforms. By addressing data extraction from these sources we make a step towards the integration of external databases into the data warehouse, thus providing richer data that can be analyzed through OLAP sessions. The second topic that we study is that of visualization of multidimensional data, which we exploit to enable OLAP on devices with limited screen and bandwidth capabilities (i.e., mobile devices). Finally, we propose solutions to obtain multidimensional schemata from unconventional sources (e.g., sensor networks), which are crucial to perform multidimensional analyses

Healthy lifestyles are associated with a better response to periodontal therapy: A prospective cohort study

Aim: To evaluate the association between lifestyle behaviours and clinical periodontal outcomes following Steps 1/2 of periodontal therapy.Methods: A total of 120 subjects with untreated Stage II/III periodontitis participated in this study. At baseline, questionnaires were administered to assess the following lifestyle behaviours: adherence to Mediterranean diet (MD), physical activity (PA) and stress levels, sleep quality, smoking and alcohol use. Participants received Steps 1/2 of periodontal therapy and were re-evaluated after 3 months. A composite outcome of the endpoint of therapy (i.e., no sites with probing pocket depth [PPD] >= 4 mm with bleeding on probing, and no sites with PPD >= 6 mm) was regarded as the primary outcome. Simple and multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the association between lifestyle behaviours and clinical periodontal outcomes. Disease severity at baseline, body mass index, diabetes, household disposable income and plaque control were considered as confounders.Results: Multiple regression analyses showed significantly lower odds of achieving the endpoint of therapy in subjects with poor sleep quality (odds ratio [OR] = 0.13; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.03-0.47; p <.01), smoking (OR = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.06-0.52; p <.05) and alcohol use above the suggested intake (OR = 0.21; 95% CI: 0.07-0.63; p <.01). Subjects with a combination of `unhealthy lifestyles' (low adherence to MD and low PA levels and high levels of stress and poor sleep quality) showed higher proportions of residual PPD >= 6 mm (MD = 1.51; 95% CI: 0.23-2.80; p <.05) and lower odds of achieving the endpoint of therapy (OR = 0.85; 95% CI: 0.33-0.99; p <.05) at re-evaluation.Conclusions: Subjects with unhealthy lifestyle behaviours showed worse clinical outcomes 3 months after Steps 1/2 of periodontal therapy

An iterative guidance and navigation algorithm for orbit rendezvous of cooperating cubeSats

Modern space missions often require satellites to perform guidance, navigation, and control tasks autonomously. Despite their limited resources, small satellites are also involved in this trend, as in-orbit rendezvous and docking maneuvers and formation flying have become common requirements in their operational scenarios. A critical aspect of these tasks is that these algorithms are very much intertwined with each other, although they are often designed completely independently of one another. This paper describes the design and simulation of a guidance and relative navigation architecture for the rendezvous of two cooperating CubeSats. The integration of the two algorithms provides robustness to the solution, by simulating realistic levels of noise and uncertainty in the guidance law implementation. The proposed guidance law is derived based on the linearized equations of orbital motion, written in terms of spherical coordinates. The trajectory is iteratively corrected at a fixed time step, so that errors from the navigation and the initial orbital condition can be recovered. The navigation algorithm processes the bearing and range measurements from a camera and an intersatellite link through an unscented filter to provide the information required from the guidance law. A Monte Carlo campaign based on a 3-DOF simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed solution.</jats:p

A reference architecture and model for sensor data warehousing

Funding: UK EPSRC under grant number EP/N007565/1, “Science of Sensor Systems Software”.Sensor data is becoming far more available thanks to the growth in both sensor systems and Internet of Things devices. Much of the value of sensor data comes from examining trends that occur over long timescales, ranging from hours to years. However, making use of data a long time after it has been collected has significant implications for the data-handling systems used to manage it. In particular, the data must be contextualised into the environment in which it was collected to avoid misleading (and potentially dangerous) mis-interpretation. We apply data warehousing techniques to develop an extensible model to capture contextual metadata alongside sensor datasets, and show how this can be used to support the analysis of datasets long after collection. We present our baseline reference framework for sensor context and derive multidimensional schemata representing different modelling and analysis scenarios. Finally, we exercise the model with two case studies.PostprintPeer reviewe

Effect of unacylated ghrelin on peripheral nerve regeneration

Ghrelin is a circulating peptide hormone released by enteroendocrine cells of the gastrointestinal tract as two forms, acylated and unacylated. Acylated ghrelin (AG) binds to the growth hormone secretagogue receptor 1a (GHSR1a), thus stimulating food intake, growth hormone release, and gastrointestinal motility. Conversely, unacylated GHR (UnAG), through binding to a yet unidentified receptor, protects the skeletal muscle from atrophy, stimulates muscle regeneration, and protects cardiomyocytes from ischemic damage. Recently, interest about ghrelin has raised also among neuroscientists because of its effect on the nervous system, especially the stimulation of neurogenesis in spinal cord, brain stem, and hippocampus. However, few information is still available about its effectiveness on peripheral nerve regeneration. To partially fill this gap, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of UnAG on peripheral nerve regeneration after median nerve crush injury and after nerve transection immediately repaired by means of an end-to-end suture. To this end, we exploited FVB1 Myh6/Ghrl transgenic mice in which overexpression of the ghrelin gene (Ghrl) results in selective up-regulation of circulating UnAG levels, but not of AG. Regeneration was assessed by both functional evaluation (grasping test) and morphometrical analysis of regenerated myelinated axons. Results obtained lead to conclude that UnAG could have a role in development of peripheral nerves and during more severe lesions

Human Factors and Neurophysiological Metrics in Air Traffic Control: a Critical Review

International audienceThis article provides the reader a focused and organised review of the research progresses on neurophysiological indicators, also called “neurometrics”, to show how neurometrics could effectively address some of the most important Human Factors (HFs) needs in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) field. The state of the art on the most involved HFs and related cognitive processes (e.g. mental workload, cognitive training) is presented together with examples of possible applications in the current and future ATM scenarios, in order to better understand and highlight the available opportunities of such neuroscientific applications. Furthermore, the paper will discuss the potential enhancement that further research and development activities could bring to the efficiency and safety of the ATM service

Muon identification for LHCb Run 3

Muon identification is of paramount importance for the physics programme of LHCb. In the upgrade phase, starting from Run 3 of the LHC, the trigger of the experiment will be solely based on software. The luminosity increase to $2\times10^{33}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ will require an improvement of the muon identification criteria, aiming at performances equal or better than those of Run 2, but in a much more challenging environment. In this paper, two new muon identification algorithms developed in view of the LHCb upgrade are presented, and their performance in terms of signal efficiency versus background reduction is shown

A scoping review

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil; and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Elsevier LtdBackground: Even though clinical practice is crucial for nursing students' personal and professional development, it is recurrently associated with stress. However, stressful situations may not only elicit negative responses, but positive responses as well, and such aspects should be further investigated. Aim: To explore the literature addressing the positive and negative aspects of stress experienced by nursing students during clinical practicum. Design: This scoping review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Data sources: CINAHL, MEDLINE/PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, IBECS, LILACS, BDENF and two theses and dissertations repositories. Review methods: Searches were conducted from June to August 2022. Studies addressing the positive and negative aspects of stress experienced by nursing students during clinical practice were included regardless of the method adopted. Results: This review included 32 studies published between 1999 and 2022 in 25 countries across four continents: Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. Stress can positively influence academic performance, especially in mobilizing a search for learning and professional development and in integrating theoretical knowledge and improving clinical skills and competencies. Negatively, stress can cause biopsychosocial symptoms that compromise a student's academic performance and can cause doubts and uncertainties about the construction of their professional identity. Conclusions: Although the negative aspects stand out over the positive ones, it is evident that both are present in the clinical practice environment. When considering stress of nursing students, educators should conduct the teaching-learning process in order to reduce the negative impact and promote the positive side of stressful situations.publishersversionpublishe