Objective performance metrics for improved space telerobotics training

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-50).NASA astronauts undergo many hours of formal training and self-study to gain proficiency in space teleoperation tasks. After each lesson, instructors score an astronaut's performance in several broad skill categories, including 'General Situational Awareness', 'Maneuvers/Task Performance', and 'Hand- Controller Techniques'. A plus, check, or minus indicates that the student is ahead of, at, or behind the expected skill level. The scoring of the final evaluation for a robotics training course is also largely subjective, with the instructor designating an integer score for the student between 1 (Unsatisfactory) and 5 (Strong) in the same skill categories. This thesis research project was designed to: (1) consider the variety of quantitative metrics that could be embedded into a space robotics training simulation, and (2) investigate at what point and by what means it is most constructive for performance assessment to be revealed to an operator-in-training. We reviewed the current largely qualitative space robotics performance metrics, as well as new quantitative kinematic metrics of manual control skills-including those explored thus far only in laboratory experiments-and additional measures of executive function and supervisory control performance. Kinematic metrics include quantitative measures such as rate of change of linear and rotational acceleration. Potential measures of executive function and supervisory control include camera selection and clearance monitoring. To instantiate our ideas, we chose a specific "fly-to" space telerobotics task taught in the early phases of NASA Generic Robotics Training (GRT) and developed a pilot training experiment (n=16) using our virtual robotics training workstation. Our goal was to evaluate potential performance metrics designed to encourage use of multi-axis control, and to compare real-time ("live") performance feedback alternatives (live visual vs. live aural vs. none). Movement time decreased and multi-axis and bimanual control use gradually increased across trials. All subjects had the opportunity to view post-trial performance feedback including these metrics. Although our subjects overwhelmingly preferred the live, visual feedback condition, no reliable additional effects of live feedback condition were found, except perhaps among the more experienced subjects. However, the experiment demonstrated that embedded performance metrics potentially could quantify and improve some important aspects of GRT evaluations.Supported by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute through NASA NCC9-58by Rachel Emily Forman.S.M

What Do Core Obligations under the Right to Health Bring to Universal Health Coverage?

Can the right to health, and particularly the core obligations of states specified under this right, assist in formulating and implementing universal health coverage (UHC), now included in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals? In this paper, we examine how core obligations under the right to health could lead to a version of UHC that is likely to advance equity and rights. We first address the affinity between the right to health and UHC as evinced through changing definitions of UHC and the health domains that UHC explicitly covers. We then engage with relevant interpretations of the right to health, including core obligations. We turn to analyze what core obligations might bring to UHC, particularly in defining what and who is covered. Finally, we acknowledge some of the risks associated with both UHC and core obligations and consider potential avenues for mitigating these risks

Self-authorship to Create and Shape the Identity of Women in STEM

Problem: The very low and declining percentage of females undertaking advanced science and mathematics subjects in Year 12 has been noted by the Office of the Chief Scientist (2014) and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (Roberts, 2014). In 2011, only 28% of STEM-employed Australians were female, and this figure dropped to 14% for engineering students (Professionals Australia, 2014). Similar figures are evident in the US where Nobel Laureate Carol Grinder notes not only a deficit of women entering STEM-related fields, but also that many women experience many practical, psychological, and social barriers to continuing and advancing in their STEM careers 1. Given the low level of females employed in STEM-related careers and the high proportion of female primary preservice teachers, the focus on supporting and developing female STEM teachers is crucial. This study asserts that the communication and collaboration between female STEM teachers and females employed in STEM-related industries is key to raising the profile of females in this space, creating communities, and sharing expertise. Plan: To support the development of empowered and resilient women in STEM, the project employed a process of self-authorship (Kegan, 1994) to support and capture the emergent STEM identity of preservice teachers and engineering students. Self-authorship is “the ability to collect, interpret, and analyse information and reflect on one’s own beliefs in order to form judgements” (Baxter Magolda, 1998, p. 143). Self-authorship is “about the cognitive process people use to make meaning” (Creamer & Laughlin, 2005, p. 14). Action: Whilst working as members of a STEM Community of Practice comprising pre-service teachers and engineering students at Curtin University, members (students and academics) participated in guided reflective writing. Guiding questions asked about participants’ interest in STEM, influential others, their self-view as Steminists, how their self-view developed over the period of the project, and how they envisaged their future STEM selves. The Community of Practice was formed during an internally funded Makerspace in STEM project in 2016 that engaged higher education students on campus in a designated physical Makerspace in the Engineering Pavilion, virtually (via a closed Facebook site), and at an Independent Catholic girls’ school in Perth. Reflection: This presentation reports on the initial questions of influence and impact of the project, in particular the Community of Practice as an incubator to nurture professional identity. The narratives authored by the students and the research team (female academics) indicate diverse reasons for participating in the community and the reflections on personal and professional growth were insightful and support the physical and virtual modes of the community

The right to health of non-nationals and displaced persons in the sustainable development goals era: challenges for equity in universal health care

Introduction: Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), United Nations (UN) Member States reported progress on the targets toward their general citizenry. This focus repeatedly excluded marginalized ethnic and linguistic minorities, including people of refugee backgrounds and other vulnerable non-nationals that resided within a States’ borders. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to be truly transformative by being made operational in all countries, and applied to all, nationals and non-nationals alike. Global migration and its diffuse impact has intensified due to escalating conflicts and the growing violence in war-torn Syria, as well as in many countries in Africa and in Central America. This massive migration and the thousands of refugees crossing borders in search for safety led to the creation of two-tiered, ad hoc, refugee health care systems that have added to the sidelining of non-nationals in MDG-reporting frameworks. Conclusion: We have identified four ways to promote the protection of vulnerable non-nationals’ health and well being in States’ application of the post-2015 SDG framework: In setting their own post-2015 indicators the UN Member States should explicitly identify vulnerable migrants, refugees, displaced persons and other marginalized groups in the content of such indicators. Our second recommendation is that statisticians from different agencies, including the World Health Organization’s Gender, Equity and Human Rights programme should be actively involved in the formulation of SDG indicators at both the global and country level. In addition, communities, civil society and health justice advocates should also vigorously engage in country’s formulation of post-2015 indicators. Finally, we advocate that the inclusion of non-nationals be anchored in the international human right to health, which in turn requires appropriate financing allocations as well as robust monitoring and evaluation processes that can hold technocratic decision-makers accountable for progress.publishedVersio

Rationale, Study Design, and Cohort Characteristics for the Markers for Environmental Exposures (MEE) Study.

Environmental factors have been linked to many diseases and health conditions, but reliable assessment of environmental exposures is challenging. Developing biomarkers of environmental exposures, rather than relying on self-report, will improve our ability to assess the association of such exposures with disease. Epigenetic markers, most notably DNA methylation, have been identified for some environmental exposures, but identification of markers for additional exposures is still needed. The rationale behind the Markers for Environmental Exposures (MEE) Study was to (1) identify biomarkers, especially epigenetic markers, of environmental exposures, such as pesticides, air/food/water contaminants, and industrial chemicals that are commonly encountered in the general population; and (2) support the study of potential relationships between environmental exposures and health and health-related factors. The MEE Study is a cross-sectional study with potential for record linkage and follow-up. The well-characterized cohort of 400 postmenopausal women has generated a repository of biospecimens, including blood, urine, and saliva samples. Paired data include an environmental exposures questionnaire, a breast health questionnaire, dietary recalls, and a food frequency questionnaire. This work describes the rationale, study design, and cohort characteristics of the MEE Study. In addition to our primary research goals, we hope that the data and biorepository generated by this study will serve as a resource for future studies and collaboration

Vault-1 - A Mission Architecture for Human Exploration of Near-Earth Objects

In 2011, the Keck Institute for Space Studies hosted the Caltech Space Challenge, a week long workshop/competition directed towards the President's initiative of sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025. Two teams composed of 16 students each, representing 12 different nations, competed to prepare a mission proposal by the end of the week. This report highlights some of the work done by Team Voyager. Not only is this work useful in showing that a manned mission to a Near-Earth Object is feasible by 2025, but it also demonstrates the utility of intense, relatively short student competitions. This study is an outline of Vault-1, a proposed human mission to a Near-Earth Object. In addition to continuing human exploration, Vault-1 aims to make new discoveries about the origins of the Solar System, to develop technologies geared towards deep space exploration and a manned Mars mission, and to gain critical knowledge and experience to better protect Earth from future asteroid impacts. The primary target of this endeavor is 1999AO10, an asteroid that is larger than 30 m that also has an achievable mission duration of less than 200 days. 2000SG344 is a viable secondary target. Vault-1 will nominally carry 3 crew members to 1999AO10; after 14 days at the asteroid, the astronauts will return safely to the Earth with samples from the asteroid

RELICS: A Very Large (θE∼40"\theta_{E}\sim40") Cluster Lens -- RXC J0032.1+1808

Extensive surveys with the \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} (HST) over the past decade, targeting some of the most massive clusters in the sky, have uncovered dozens of galaxy-cluster strong lenses. The massive cluster strong-lens scale is typically \theta_{E}\sim10\arcsec to \sim30-35\arcsec, with only a handful of clusters known with Einstein radii \theta_{E}\sim40\arcsec or above (for $z_{source}=2$, nominally). Here we report another very large cluster lens, RXC J0032.1+1808 ($z=0.3956$), the second richest cluster in the redMapper cluster catalog and the 85th most massive cluster in the Planck Sunyaev-Zel'dovich catalog. With our Light-Traces-Mass and fully parametric (dPIEeNFW) approaches, we construct strong lensing models based on 18 multiple images of 5 background galaxies newly identified in the \textit{Hubble} data mainly from the \textit{Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey} (RELICS), in addition to a known sextuply imaged system in this cluster. Furthermore, we compare these models to Lenstool and GLAFIC models that were produced independently as part of the RELICS program. All models reveal a large effective Einstein radius of \theta_{E}\simeq40\arcsec ($z_{source}=2$), owing to the obvious concentration of substructures near the cluster center. Although RXC J0032.1+1808 has a very large critical area and high lensing strength, only three magnified high-redshift candidates are found within the field targeted by RELICS. Nevertheless, we expect many more high-redshift candidates will be seen in wider and deeper observations with \textit{Hubble} or \emph{JWST}. Finally, the comparison between several algorithms demonstrates that the total error budget is largely dominated by systematic uncertainties.Comment: 23 pages, accepted for publication in Ap

Genome-wide linkage screen for testicular germ cell tumour susceptibility loci

A family history of disease is a strong risk factor for testicular germ cell tumour (TGCT). In order to identify the location of putative TGCT susceptibility gene(s) we conducted a linkage search in 237 pedigrees with two or more cases of TGCT. One hundred and seventy-nine pedigrees were evaluated genome-wide with an average inter-marker distance of 10 cM. An additional 58 pedigrees were used to more intensively investigate several genomic regions of interest. Genetic linkage analysis was performed with the ALLEGRO software using two model-based parametric analyses and a non-parametric analysis. Six genomic regions on chromosomes 2p23, 3p12, 3q26, 12p13-q21, 18q21-q23 and Xq27 showed heterogeneity LOD (HLOD) scores of greater than 1, with a maximum HLOD of 1.94 at 3q26. Genome-wide simulation studies indicate that the observed number of HLOD peaks greater than one does not differ significantly from that expected by chance. A TGCT locus at Xq27 has been previously reported. Of the 237 pedigrees examined in this study, 66 were previously unstudied at Xq27, no evidence for linkage to this region was observed in this new pedigree set. Overall, the results indicate that no single major locus can account for the majority of the familial aggregation of TGCT, and suggests that multiple susceptibility loci with weak effects contribute to the diseas