INSA scientific activities in the space astronomy area

Support to Astronomy operations is an important and long-lived activity within INSA. Probably the best known (and traditional) INSA activities are those related with real-time spacecraft operations: Ground station maintenance and operation (Ground station engineers and operators); spacecraft and payload real-time operation (spacecraft and instruments controllers); computing infrastructure maintenance (operators, analysts) and general site services.In this paper, we'll show a different perspective, probably not so well-known, presenting some INSA recent activities at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) and NASA Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex (MDSCC) directly related to scientific operations. Basic lines of activity involved include: Operations support for science operations; system and software support for real time systems; technical administration and IT support; R \& D activities, radioastronomy (at MDSCC and ESAC) and scientific research projects. This paper is structured as follows: first, INSA activities in two ESA cornerstone astrophysics missions, XMM-Newton and Herschel, will be outlined. Then, our activities related to Science infrastructure services, represented by the Virtual Observatory (VO) framework and the Science Archives development facilities are briefly shown. Radio Astronomy activities will be described afterwards, and finally, a few research topics in which INSA scientists are involved will be also described.Comment: 6 pages. Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish AstronomicalSociety (SEA) held in Santander, 7-11 July, 200

Quantifying Non-circular Streaming Motions in Disc Galaxies

High-quality velocity maps of galaxies frequently exhibit signatures of non-circular streaming motions. We here apply the software tool, "velfit" recently proposed by Spekkens & Sellwood, to five representative galaxies from the THINGS sample. We describe the strengths and weaknesses of the tool, and show that it is both more powerful and yields results that are more easily interpreted than the commonly used procedure. We demonstrate that it can estimate the magnitudes of forced non-circular motions over a broad range of bar strengths from a strongly barred galaxy, through cases of mild bar-like distortions to placing bounds on the shapes of halos in galaxies having extended rotation curves. We identify mild oval distortions in the inner parts of two dwarf galaxies, NGC 2976 and NGC 7793, and show that the true strength of the non-axisymmetric gas flow in the strongly barred galaxy NGC 2903 is revealed more clearly in our fit to an optical Halpha map than to the neutral hydrogen data. The method can also yield a direct estimate of the ellipticity of a slowly-rotating potential distortion in the flat part of a rotation curve, and we use our results to place tight bounds on the possible ellipticity of the outer halos of NGC 3198 and NGC 2403.Comment: 12 pages, 8 color figures, to appear in MNRAS. Version 2 of the software can be downloaded from http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~spekkens/velfit

Productive Development Policies in Argentina

In contrast to the limited impact of aggregate-level productive development policies (PDPs) in Argentina, micro-level PDPs in several sectors have proven highly successful. This study seeks to understand how these PDPs succeeded in a challenging environment, what kinds of mechanisms were generated to ensure adaptation and learning, and how these PDPs evolved. Of importance is not only policy design and implementation, but also the policymaking. Following a historical overview of PDP in Argentina, the paper presents three case studies: i) the Argentine Technology Fund (FONTAR), a horizontal PDP; ii) the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), a vertical PDP; and iii) the application of both horizontal and vertical PDPs to the biotechnology sector. Lessons learned and conclusions are presented in a final section.Productive Development Policies, Industrial Policy, Policymaking, Argentina

Methodological Flaws in Cognitive Animat Research

In the field of convergence between research in autonomous machine construction and biological systems understanding it is usually argued that building robots for research on auton- omy by replicating extant animals is a valuable strategy for engineering autonomous intelligent systems. In this paper we will address the very issue of animat construction, the ratio- nale behind this, their current implementations and the value they are producing. It will be shown that current activity, as it is done today, is deeply flawed and useless as research in the science and engineering of autonomy

The relationship between gluteus maximus activation and running kinematics in recreational distance runners

Within the running community, there are strategies that a trainer will utilize to improve the performance of an athlete. One of these strategies suggests that an increase in activation of the Gluteus Maximus (GM) muscle will result in an increase in the efficiency of runners. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between GM activation and running kinematics. Methods: Three female and seven male recreational runners (27±8 yrs) from California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt and the local community. A Pearson product-correlation was used to determine the strength of the relationship between Gluteus Maximus activation and kinematic variables at 11km/hr. For each trial, muscle activation (2000 Hz; Delsys Trigno) of the Rectus Femoris (RF), Biceps Femoris (BF), Soleus (SOL), Tibialis Anterior (TA) muscles and leg kinematics (200 Hz; Vicon Nexus) were collected in the last two minutes of each six-minute trial. Results/Discussion: When examining the relationship between muscle activation and kinematic variables, no lower extremity muscles examined were correlated with peak joint angles and spatio-temporal kinematics. This lack of a relationship between muscle activation and running kinematics may be related to the Spring-Mass mechanics of running in which elastic energy is stored and released in the muscle-tendon units, thus reducing the amount of work performed by the muscles. Conclusion: GM activation does not correlate with running kinematic variables at intermediate running speeds. The results of this study will be beneficial to coaches and athletes in developing a training program to improve running performance