NASA Dryden Status

NASA Dryden has been engaged in exciting work that will enable lighter weight and more fuel efficient vehicles through advanced control and dynamics technologies. The main areas of emphasis are Enabling Light-weight Flexible Structures, real time control surface optimization for fuel efficiency and autonomous formation flight. This presentation provides a description of the current and upcoming work in these areas. Additionally, status is provided Dryden's work on HTV-2

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Dynamics and Controls Branch

NASA Armstrong continues its legacy of exciting work in the area of Dynamics and Control of advanced vehicle concepts. This presentation describes Armstrongs research in control of flexible structures, peak seeking control and adaptive control in the Spring of 2015

NASA Dryden Status

This slide presentation reviews several projects that NASA Dryden personnel are involved with: Integrated Resilient Aircraft Controls Project (IRAC), NASA G-III Research Aircraft, X-48B Blended Wing Body aircraft, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and the Orion CEV Launch Abort Systems Tests

Low copper levels measured in the aortic wall of New Zealand patients with non-syndromic ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm

OBJECTIVES: Studies in animals have shown causal relationships between copper (Cu) deficiency and the development of thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) [1, 2]. Cu deficiency is widespread in New Zealand (NZ) soils; the high soil pH from the use of lime fertilizers reduces the bioavailability of Cu for grazing animals and growing plants; this, in turn, reduces Cu availability in the NZ human food chain. Our study is a pilot study to explore associations between Cu and TAA. We measured Cu levels in aneurysmal aortic tissues in patients undergoing Bentall procedures and non-aneurysmal aortic tissue from coronary artery bypass graft patients. METHODS: Aortic samples were collected from 2 groups of patients during elective open-heart surgery over 4 months between November 2017 and February 2018. The groups were a TAA group, patients with non-syndromic aortic aneurysm and without the bicuspid aortic valve or known infectious or inflammatory condition (ANEURYSM; n = 13), and a control coronary artery bypass graft group (CONTROL; n = 44). Standardized digested dry tissue weighed samples were analysed from both groups. Tissue extraction of trace elements was carried out using HCl-H2O2 digestion and a highly sensitive analytical technique, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry-used to measure elemental concentrations. RESULTS: Cu concentration (mean ± SD) was significantly lower in ANEURYSM (3.34 ± 0.16 µg/g) when compared to the CONTROL group tissues (4.33 ± 0.20 µg/g) (dry weight; mean ± SD; Student's t-test, P < 0.05). Over 46% of the Aneurysm patients were Maori and live in a geographically Cu-deficient NZ territory. CONCLUSIONS: Cu deficiency may play a role in the development or progression of non-syndromic ascending aortic aneurysms in NZ. Maori patients are more at risk as they commonly live in rural NZ, dependent on locally grown nutritional sources. Further studies are required to confirm this exciting finding and to establish cause and effect relationship

Winter wheat, 1988

"August 1988.""The objective of the Missouri wheat performance testing program is to help Missouri growers select varieties best suited for their areas and conditions. The University of Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station in conjunction with the Missouri Seed Improvement Association and entrants from private companies all cooperate in evaluating public and private wheat varieties and hybrids for the state of Missouri.

Melatonin and sleep responses following exercise in elite female athletes

To determine the melatonin concentrations and subsequent sleep indices of elite netball athletes following a training day when compared to a control day. Ten elite female netball athletes (mean ± SD; age = 23 ± 6 yrs) provided saliva samples PRE (17:15h) and POST (22:00h) a training session, and a day with no training (CONTROL). Sleep monitoring was performed using wrist actigraphy to assess total time in bed (TTB), total sleep time (TST), sleep efficiency (SE) and sleep latency (SL). Melatonin levels were significantly lower (p < 0.05), both PRE and POST the training condition (6.2 and 17.6 pg/mL, respectively) when compared to the CONTROL (14.8 and 24.3 pg/mL, respectively). There were no significant differences observed between conditions for any of the sleep variables. However, a small reduction in TST could be observed following the training session condition compared to the CONTROL condition. The scheduling of netball training in the evening is shown to suppress salivary melatonin levels. This may have an influence on subsequent sleep following night-time exercise

Networked Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Teams (NUAVT)

A partnership between the NASA Ames Research Center and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) explored the ability of small unmanned aircraft to support forest fire fighting using teaming behavior. The Networked UAV Teams project flight tested mission planning algorithms for multi-UAV cooperative transit, area search, and waypoint time-of-arrival that might someday allow the early detection of developing forest fires and support the gathering of images and atmospheric samples to help improve predictions of the future behavior of established fires