Soil microstructure and electron microscopy

As part of the process of comparing Martian soils with terrestial soils, high resolution electron microscopy and associated techniques should be used to examine the finer soil particles, and various techniques of electron and optical microscopy should be used to examine the undisturbed structure of Martian soils. To examine the structure of fine grained portions of the soil, transmission electron microscopy may be required. A striking feature of many Martian soils is their red color. Although the present-day Martian climate appears to be cold, this color is reminiscent of terrestial tropical red clays. Their chemical contents are broadly similar

What is a Good Plan? Cultural Variations in Expert Planners’ Concepts of Plan Quality

This article presents the results of a field research study examining commonalities and differences between American and British operational planners’ mental models of planning. We conducted Cultural Network Analysis (CNA) interviews with 14 experienced operational planners in the US and UK. Our results demonstrate the existence of fundamental differences between the way American and British expert planners conceive of a high quality plan. Our results revealed that the American planners’ model focused on specification of action to achieve synchronization, providing little autonomy at the level of execution, and included the belief that increasing contingencies reduces risk. The British planners’ model stressed the internal coherence of the plan, to support shared situational awareness and thereby flexibility at the level of execution. The British model also emphasized the belief that reducing the number of assumptions decreases risk. Overall, the American ideal plan serves a controlling function, whereas the British ideal plan supports an enabling function. Interestingly, both the US and UK would view the other’s ideal plan as riskier than their own. The implications of cultural models of plans and planning are described for establishing performance measures and designing systems to support multinational planning teams

US/UK Mental Models of Planning: The Relationship Between Plan Detail and Plan Quality

This paper presents the results of a research study applying a new cultural analysis method to capture commonalities and differences between US and UK mental models of operational planning. The results demonstrate the existence of fundamental differences between the way US and UK planners think about what it means to have a high quality plan. Specifically, the present study captures differences in how US and UK planners conceptualize plan quality. Explicit models of cultural differences in conceptions of plan quality are useful for establishing performance metrics for multinational planning teams. This paper discusses the prospects of enabling automatic evaluation of multinational team performance by combining recent advances in cultural modelling with enhanced ontology languages

The Gaia Ultra-Cool Dwarf Sample -- II : Structure at the end of the main sequence

© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.We identify and investigate known late M, L, and T dwarfs in the Gaia second data release. This sample is being used as a training set in the Gaia data processing chain of the ultracool dwarfs work package. We find 695 objects in the optical spectral range M8–T6 with accurate Gaia coordinates, proper motions, and parallaxes which we combine with published spectral types and photometry from large area optical and infrared sky surveys. We find that 100 objects are in 47 multiple systems, of which 27 systems are published and 20 are new. These will be useful benchmark systems and we discuss the requirements to produce a complete catalogue of multiple systems with an ultracool dwarf component. We examine the magnitudes in the Gaia passbands and find that the G BP magnitudes are unreliable and should not be used for these objects. We examine progressively redder colour–magnitude diagrams and see a notable increase in the main-sequence scatter and a bivariate main sequence for old and young objects. We provide an absolute magnitude – spectral subtype calibration for G and G RP passbands along with linear fits over the range M8–L8 for other passbands.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The Nuclear Propulsion of Merchant Ships: Aspects of Risk and Regulation

The paper first considers the underlying nuclear physics and then explores the potential application of that science to the propulsion of merchant ships. In achieving that aim the paper examines the options for the exploitation of nuclear technology and considers some of the engineering implications of deploying the technology. Consideration is then given to the application of nuclear propulsion to a series of ship types including tankers, container ships and cruise vessels. In each case two sizes of ship are chosen, one of fairly conventional size and the other much larger

The nuclear propulsion of merchant ships: Aspects of engineering, science and technology

This paper first considers the underlying nuclear physics and then explores the potential application of that science to the propulsion of merchant ships. It then examines the options for the exploitation of nuclear technology and considers some of the engineering implications of deploying the technology. Consideration is then given to the application of nuclear propulsion to a series of ship types, including tankers, container ships and cruise vessels. In each case two sizes of ship are chosen, one of fairly conventional size and the other much larger

Bioabsorbable mesh use in midline abdominal wall prophylaxis and repair achieving fascial closure: a cross-sectional review of stage of innovation

Background: Achieving stable closure of complex or contaminated abdominal wall incisions remains challenging. This study aimed to characterise the stage of innovation for bioabsorbable mesh devices used during both midline closure prophylaxis and complex abdominal wall reconstruction and to evaluate the quality of current evidence. Methods: A systematic review of published and ongoing studies was performed until 31st December 2019. Inclusion criteria were studies where bioabsorbable mesh was used to support fascial closure either prophylactically after midline laparotomy or for repair of incisional hernia with midline incision. Exclusion criteria were: (1) study design was a systematic review, meta-analysis, letter, review, comment, or conference abstract; (2) included less than p patients; (3) only evaluated biological, synthetic or composite meshes. The primary outcome measure was the IDEAL framework stage of innovation. The key secondary outcome measure was the risk of bias in non-randomised studies of interventions (ROBINS-I) criteria for study quality. Results: Twelve studies including 1287 patients were included. Three studies considered mesh prophylaxis and nine studies considered hernia repair. There were only two published studies of IDEAL 2B. The remainder was IDEAL 2A studies. The quality of the evidence was categorised as having a risk of bias of a moderate, serious or critical level in nine of the twelve included studies using the ROBINS-I tool. Conclusion: The evidence base for bioabsorbable mesh is limited. Better reporting and quality control of surgical techniques are needed. Although new trial results over the next decade will improve the evidence base, more trials in emergency and contaminated settings are required to establish the limits of indication.This article is freely available via Open Access. Click on the Publisher URL to access it via the publisher's site.published version, accepted version (12 month embargo

Extending Native Winter Pasture Use with Spring Grazing Practices

Improving profitability will help sustain the economic viability of ranch operations. Feed costs typically represent well over half of annual cow-calf production costs. Two things, 1) grazing strategies aimed at increasing the proportion of feed supplied through grazing and 2) decreasing reliance on high-cost harvested forages, have the potential to improve profit

Strain induced half-metal to semiconductor transition in GdN

We have investigated the electronic structure and magnetic properties of GdN as a function of unit cell volume. Based on the first-principles calculations of GdN, we observe that there is a transformation in conduction properties associated with the volume increase: first from halfmetallic to semi-metallic, then ultimately to semiconducting. We show that applying stress can alter the carrier concentration as well as mobility of the holes and electrons in the majority spin channel. In addition, we found that the exchange parameters depend strongly on lattice constant, thus the Curie temperature of this system can be enhanced by applying stress or doping impurities.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

When resources collide: Towards a theory of coincidence in information spaces

This paper is an attempt to lay out foundations for a general theory of coincidence in information spaces such as the World Wide Web, expanding on existing work on bursty structures in document streams and information cascades. We elaborate on the hypothesis that every resource that is published in an information space, enters a temporary interaction with another resource once a unique explicit or implicit reference between the two is found. This thought is motivated by Erwin Shroedingers notion of entanglement between quantum systems. We present a generic information cascade model that exploits only the temporal order of information sharing activities, combined with inherent properties of the shared information resources. The approach was applied to data from the world's largest online citizen science platform Zooniverse and we report about findings of this case study