The Dust Management Project: Characterizing Lunar Environments and Dust, Developing Regolith Mitigation Technology and Simulants

A return to the Moon to extend human presence, pursue scientific activities, use the Moon to prepare for future human missions to Mars, and expand Earth?s economic sphere, will require investment in developing new technologies and capabilities to achieve affordable and sustainable human exploration. From the operational experience gained and lessons learned during the Apollo missions, conducting long-term operations in the lunar environment will be a particular challenge, given the difficulties presented by the unique physical properties and other characteristics of lunar regolith, including dust. The Apollo missions and other lunar explorations have identified significant lunar dust-related problems that will challenge future mission success. Comprised of regolith particles ranging in size from tens of nanometers to microns, lunar dust is a manifestation of the complex interaction of the lunar soil with multiple mechanical, electrical, and gravitational effects. The environmental and anthropogenic factors effecting the perturbation, transport, and deposition of lunar dust must be studied in order to mitigate it?s potentially harmful effects on exploration systems and human explorers. The Dust Management Project (DMP) is tasked with the evaluation of lunar dust effects, assessment of the resulting risks, and development of mitigation and management strategies and technologies related to Exploration Systems architectures. To this end, the DMP supports the overall goal of the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) of addressing the relevant high priority technology needs of multiple elements within the Constellation Program (CxP) and sister ETDP projects. Project scope, plans, and accomplishments will be presented

Assessment of Turbulent CFD Against STS-128 Hypersonic Flight Data

Turbulent CFD simulations are compared against surface temperature measurements of the space shuttle orbiter windward tiles at reentry flight conditions. Algebraic turbulence models are used within both the LAURA and DPLR CFD codes. The flight data are from temperature measurements obtained by seven thermocouples during the STS-128 mission (September 2009). The flight data indicate boundary layer transition onset over the Mach number range 13.5{15.5, depending upon the location on the vehicle. But the boundary layer flow appeared to be transitional down through Mach 12, based upon the flight data and CFD trends. At Mach 9 the simulations match the flight data on average within 20 F/11 C, where typical surface temperatures were approximately 1600 F/870 C

Designing a mobile augmented memory system for people with traumatic brain injuries

Augmented memory systems help people remember events in their lives. Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) often have memory impairments. We conducted a user study to learn about strategies individuals with TBI use to remember events in their lives. We explored what characteristics individuals with TBI expect of an augmented memory system. We then investigated these aspects in an initial mobile app design, and propose here a concept for a rehearsal application that addresses the issues found in our studies

THE POWER OF STRUCTURED DESIGNS AND MIXED MODELS IN A REAL WORLD EXPERIMENT

Justifications usually given for adopting an automated system pertain to a reduction in labor and an improvement in quality control. A manufacturer of a prototype instrument that automated some of the steps for culturing bacteria wanted to compare the automated system to the manual system. The manufacturer wanted to compare the two systems in 1) Total time needed to isolate the target bacteria, 2) Ability to isolate the target bacteria, 3) Amount of interference from background (non-target) bacterial growth, and 1) Extent of cross (sample to sample) contamination. This paper presents the experimental design used to make these comparisons and how the design helped discover some surprising results about laboratory quality control. The experiment presented illustrates the importance of a good experimental design, the power of current statistical tools, and that a thorough and appropriate analysis of a data set requires side-by-side good detective work by both statistician and client

The Role of MMP9 in Satellite Cell Activation After Increased Activity

The unique adaptive ability of skeletal muscle to meet functional demands is exemplified in its response to exercise. Though little is known about the molecular mechanisms that regulate this plasticity, the extracellular matrix (ECM) is believed to play a large role. The basal lamina is a specialized layer of ECM that lies in direct contact with the cell membrane of muscle fibers and facilitates environment-to-cell interactions. Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) is an enzyme in the basal lamina that regulates much of these adaptive processes. During exercise, the regenerative process of damaged tissue requires the activation of muscle-specific stem cells known as satellite cells. Satellite cell activity has been proposed to be activated by MMP-9; However, there are no studies that look at this interaction. Thus the overall goal of the present proposal is to 1) determine the effects of MMP-9 on muscle hypertrophy via satellite cell activation and 2) assess whether hypertrophy of the plantaris muscle observed after functional overload (FO) is due to the increased size of existing muscle fibers or the addition of new muscle fibers. FO of the plantaris muscle, a calf muscle responsible for ankle extension, was performed in WT and MMP-9 knockout (MMP-9 KO) mice (~4 mos of age) by removing the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles and randomly placed into the following groups: 1) 2-day FO (n=5/group) and 14-day FO (n=5/group). A 0-day time point for each group was added as a baseline control (n=5/group). Fluorescence immunohistochemistry was performed using anti-Pax7 and anti-laminin antibodies to label satellite cells and the basal lamina, respectively. There was a general increase in satellite cells after 14-days FO compared to 0- and 2-days in both the WT and MMP-9 KO mice. There also was no observable trend or pattern in fiber count between time points for both WT and MMP-9 KO mice. However as the sample size is based on n=1 for each group at each time point no inference to statistical significance can be made. At this juncture, more samples are being analyzed to determine these relationships

Encephalitis caused by a Lyssavirus in fruit bats in Australia.

This report describes the first pathologic and immunohistochemical recognition in Australia of a rabies-like disease in a native mammal, a fruit bat, the black flying fox (Pteropus alecto). A virus with close serologic and genetic relationships to members of the Lyssavirus genus of the family Rhabdoviridae was isolated in mice from the tissue homogenates of a sick juvenile animal