Design of a Thermal and Micrometeorite Protection System for an Unmanned Lunar Cargo Lander

The first vehicles to land on the lunar surface during the establishment phase of a lunar base will be unmanned lunar cargo landers. These landers will need to be protected against the hostile lunar environment for six to twelve months until the next manned mission arrives. The lunar environment is characterized by large temperature changes and periodic micrometeorite impacts. An automatically deployable and reconfigurable thermal and micrometeorite protection system was designed for an unmanned lunar cargo lander. The protection system is a lightweight multilayered material consisting of alternating layers of thermal and micrometeorite protection material. The protection system is packaged and stored above the lander common module. After landing, the system is deployed to cover the lander using a system of inflatable struts that are inflated using residual fuel (liquid oxygen) from the fuel tanks. Once the lander is unloaded and the protection system is no longer needed, the protection system is reconfigured as a regolith support blanket for the purpose of burying and protecting the common module, or as a lunar surface garage that can be used to sort and store lunar surface vehicles and equipment. A model showing deployment and reconfiguration of the protection system was also constructed

Redistricting in California: Its Effects on Voter Turnout in Minority Populations and Misrepresentation

This thesis analyzes the history behind reapportionment and how the task of redistricting has differed in the past decades. For the most part, there was always been a public outcry when the task was in the hands of the Legislature. Fear of political gerrymandering and the creation of safe districts was enough for people to pass a series of initiatives to try and correct the system. While many initiatives failed to pass, Proposition 11, passed in 2008, created the Citizen’s Redistricting Commission—a 14-member committee put in charge of drawing this years’ plans. This paper also looks at population trends in the past decade and takes into account the impact of the increase in Latinos in the state of California

A renorming in some Banach spaces with applications to fixed point theory

AbstractWe consider a Banach space X endowed with a linear topology τ and a family of seminorms {Rk(⋅)} which satisfy some special conditions. We define an equivalent norm ⦀⋅⦀ on X such that if C is a convex bounded closed subset of (X,⦀⋅⦀) which is τ-relatively sequentially compact, then every nonexpansive mapping T:C→C has a fixed point. As a consequence, we prove that, if G is a separable compact group, its Fourier–Stieltjes algebra B(G) can be renormed to satisfy the FPP. In case that G=T, we recover P.K. Lin's renorming in the sequence space ℓ1. Moreover, we give new norms in ℓ1 with the FPP, we find new classes of nonreflexive Banach spaces with the FPP and we give a sufficient condition so that a nonreflexive subspace of L1(μ) can be renormed to have the FPP

Galaxy Clusters as mirrors of the distant Universe. Implications for the kSZ and ISW effects

It is well known that Thomson scattering of CMB photons in galaxy clusters introduces new anisotropies in the CMB radiation field, but however little attention is payed to the fraction of CMB photons that are scattered off the line of sight, causing a slight blurring of the CMB anisotropies present at the moment of scattering. In this work we study this {\it blurring} effect, and find that it has a non-negligible impact on estimations of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect: it induces a 10% correction in 20-40% of the clusters/groups, and a 100% correction in $\sim 5$% of the clusters in an ideal (noiseless) experiment. We explore the possibility of using this blurring term to probe the CMB anisotropy field at different epochs in our Universe. In particular, we study the required precision in the removal of the kSZ that enables detecting the blurring term $-\tau_T \delta T / T_0$ in galaxy cluster populations placed at different redshift shells. By mapping this term in those shells, we would provide a tomographic probe for the growth of the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect (ISW) during the late evolutionary stages of the Universe. We find that the required precision of the cluster peculiar velocity removal is of the order of 100 -- 200 km s$^{-1}$ in the redshift range 0.2 -- 0.8, after assuming that all clusters more massive than 10$^{14}$ h$^{-1}$ M$_{\odot}$ are observable. These errors are comparable to the total expected linear line of sight velocity dispersion for clusters in WMAPV cosmogony, and correspond to a residual level of roughly 900 -- 1800 $\tau_T \mu$K per cluster, including all types of contaminants and systematics. Were this precision requirement achieved, then independent constraints on the intrinsic cosmological dipole would be simultaneously provided.Comment: Notation clarified and typos and errors corrected in eqs.(2-4

Tomography of the Reionization Epoch with Multifrequency CMB Observations

We study the constraints that future multifrequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments will be able to set on the metal enrichment history of the Inter Galactic Medium at the epoch of reionisation. We forecast the signal to noise ratio for the detection of the signal introduced in the CMB by resonant scattering off metals at the end of the Dark Ages. We take into account systematics associated to inter-channel calibration, PSF reconstruction errors and innacurate foreground removal. We develop an algorithm to optimally extract the signal generated by metals during reionisation and to remove accurately the contamination due to the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Although demanding levels of foreground characterisation and control of systematics are required, they are very distinct from those encountered in HI-21cm studies and CMB polarization, and this fact encourages the study of resonant scattering off metals as an alternative way of conducting tomography of the reionisation epoch. An ACT-like experiment with optimistic assumtions on systematic effects, and looking at clean regions of the sky, can detect changes of 3%-12% (95% c.l.) of the OIII abundance (with respect its solar value) in the redshift range $z\in$ [12,22], for reionization redshift $z_{\rm re}>10$. However, for $z_{\rm re} <10$, it can only set upper limits on NII abundance increments of $\sim$ 60% its solar value in the redshift range $z\in$ [5.5,9], (95% c.l.). These constraints assume that inter-channel calibration is accurate down to one part in $10^{4}$, which constitutes the most critical technical requirement of this method, but still achievable with current technology.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal. Comments are welcom

La Libertad y Sus Acontecimientos: Un Enfoque En el Existencialismo y el Uso de la Libertad Dentro de Artefactos Culturales

Uno de los temas mas prevalentes dentro del existencialismo es el de la libertad. Se puede discutir que la libertad no es posible dentro de nuestra sociedad, pero Savater, autor de “El valor de elegir”, nos indica que la libertad existe dentro de los reglamentos de nuestra sociedad. Savater propone que la acción es resultado de el conocimiento, la imaginación, y la decisión. Dentro de este proceso se puede reconocer los aspectos existencialistas de la voluntad, la ignorancia, la inquietud, y el azar respectivamente. Esta obra se enfoca en los tres aspectos que describe Savater como los puntos esenciales de la acción, y como es que Savater expande en las ideas de la libertad que ya han sido expresadas por otros filósofos famosos. En particular, esta obra propondrá ejemplos de las ideas detrás de la acción de parte de obras secundarias, libros, y cinematografía (Sexo por Compasión, Lazarillo de Tormes, y La Familia de Pascual Duarte) para poder proveer ejemplos de las vidas de los personajes que ejemplifican las ideas de Savater. Tras el conocimiento de los filósofos de los cuales Savater fundó su perspectiva, y las obras ejemplares, esta obra intentará disponer un argumento para poder indicar que la libertad es el resultado de la acción por la cual todos somos libres

In vivo Neutralization of Pro-inflammatory Cytokines During Secondary Streptococcus pneumoniae Infection Post Influenza A Virus Infection

An overt pro-inflammatory immune response is a key factor contributing to lethal pneumococcal infection in an influenza pre-infected host and represents a potential target for therapeutic intervention. However, there is a paucity of knowledge about the level of contribution of individual cytokines. Based on the predictions of our previous mathematical modeling approach, the potential benefit of IFN-γ- and/or IL-6-specific antibody-mediated cytokine neutralization was explored in C57BL/6 mice infected with the influenza A/PR/8/34 strain, which were subsequently infected with the Streptococcus pneumoniae strain TIGR4 on day 7 post influenza. While single IL-6 neutralization had no effect on respiratory bacterial clearance, single IFN-γ neutralization enhanced local bacterial clearance in the lungs. Concomitant neutralization of IFN-γ and IL-6 significantly reduced the degree of pneumonia as well as bacteremia compared to the control group, indicating a positive effect for the host during secondary bacterial infection. The results of our model-driven experimental study reveal that the predicted therapeutic value of IFN-γ and IL-6 neutralization in secondary pneumococcal infection following influenza infection is tightly dependent on the experimental protocol while at the same time paving the way toward the development of effective immune therapies

IMPACT OF DYNAMIC VOLTAGE SCALING (DVS) ON CIRCUIT OPTIMIZATION

Circuit designers perform optimization procedures targeting speed and power during the design of a circuit. Gate sizing can be applied to optimize for speed, while Dual-VT and Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) can be applied to optimize for leakage and dynamic power, respectively. Both gate sizing and Dual-VT are design-time techniques, which are applied to the circuit at a fixed voltage. On the other hand, DVS is a run-time technique and implies that the circuit will be operating at a different voltage than that used during the optimization phase at design-time. After some analysis, the risk of non-critical paths becoming critical paths at run-time is detected under these circumstances. The following questions arise: 1) should we take DVS into account during the optimization phase? 2) Does DVS impose any restrictions while performing design-time circuit optimizations?. This thesis is a case study of applying DVS to a circuit that has been optimized for speed and power, and aims at answering the previous two questions. We used a 45-nm CMOS design kit and flow. Synthesis, placement and routing, and timing analysis were applied to the benchmark circuit ISCAS?85 c432. Logical Effort and Dual-VT algorithms were implemented and applied to the circuit to optimize for speed and leakage power, respectively. Optimizations were run for the circuit operating at different voltages. Finally, the impact of DVS on circuit optimization was studied based on HSPICE simulations sweeping the supply voltage for each optimization. The results showed that DVS had no impact on gate sizing optimizations, but it did on Dual-VT optimizations. It is shown that we should not optimize at an arbitrary voltage. Moreover, simulations showed that Dual-VT optimizations should be performed at the lowest voltage that DVS is intended to operate, otherwise non-critical paths will become critical paths at run-time