Civil mini-RPA's for the 1980's: Avionics design considerations

A number of remote sensing or surveillance tasks (e.g., fire fighting, crop monitoring) in the civilian sector of our society may be performed in a cost effective manner by use of small remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). This study was conducted to determine equipment (and the associated technology) that is available, and that could be applied to the mini-RPA and to examine the potential applications of the mini-RPA with special emphasis on the wild fire surveillance mission. The operational considerations of using the mini-RPA as affected by government regulatory agencies were investigated. These led to equipment requirements (e.g., infra-red sensors) over and above those for the performance of the mission. A computer technology survey and forecast was performed. Key subsystems were identified, and a distributed microcomputer configuration, that was functionally modular, was recommended. Areas for further NASA research and development activity were also identified

Organization and use of a Software/Hardware Avionics Research Program (SHARP)

The organization and use is described of the software/hardware avionics research program (SHARP) developed to duplicate the automatic portion of the STOLAND simulator system, on a general-purpose computer system (i.e., IBM 360). The program's uses are: (1) to conduct comparative evaluation studies of current and proposed airborne and ground system concepts via single run or Monte Carlo simulation techniques, and (2) to provide a software tool for efficient algorithm evaluation and development for the STOLAND avionics computer

An Approach to the Questionnaire State in the Knowledge-Based Operations Management System

This paper discusses some preliminary thoughts about the development of a questionnaire for the Knowledge-based Operations Management System (KOMS) project. The questionnaire is designed to elicit information from managers, regarding the type of operating problems faced by them in terms of decisions which have to be made. This information is to be used to design the type of operating system appropriate for the case in question.The role of the questionnaire in relation to KOMS is discussed, with an account of the tasks that this stage would perform in the system. The type of information needed at each point has been lined briefly.Supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under contract 67-A-0204-007

The General N-Location Distribution Problem

This paper studies the one-period, general network distribution problem with linear costs. The approach is to decompose the problem into a transportation problem that represents a stocking decision, and decoupled newsboy problems that represent the realization of demand with the usual associated holding and shortage costs. This approach leads to a characterization of optimal policies in terms of the dual of the transportation problem. Specifically, it is shown that there is a correspondence between the optimal policies and the extreme points, edges, faces etc. of the dual feasible region. This method is not directly suitable for the solution of large problems but the exact solution for small problems can be obtained. It is shown that the three location case involves 37 policies as compared to seven for the two location case. For the numerical solutions of large problems, the problem has been formulated as a linear program with column generation. This latter approach is quite robust in the sense that it is easily extended to incorporate capacity constraints and the multiproduct case. Extensions of this work are briefly discussed.Supported in part by the Office o Naval Research under contract 67-A-0204-007

Comparison of Piezo and Ball Copper Pressure Measurements in Closed Vessel System

A series of Closed Vessel firings are carried out at different pressure levels in the range of 0 to 1800 kg/cm/sup 2/ covering the complete pressure range of ball copper and Marl 8 crusher gauge combination. The pressure are simultaneously measured by a piezo (tourmaline) gauge and the ball copper pressures are evaluated from the Tarage table for existing standard ball copper as required by U.K. ordnance, using suitable temperature corrections. The results indicated that the agreement between the piezo and ball copper pressures is generally very good. At the pressure levels of 600,1200 and 1800 kg/cm/sup 2/, the magnitudes of percentage deviation of ball copper pressures from piezo pressures are from 0.2 to 3.4, 2.6 to 4.2 and 2.0 to 4.6 respectively. The pressure recorded by ball coppers are found to be slightly on higher side compared to piezo pressure in nearly all the measurements

Molecular markers for discriminating Streptococcus pyogenes and S. dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis

Given the increasing aetiological importance of Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis in diseases which are primarily attributed to S. pyogenes, molecular markers are essential to distinguish these species and delineate their epidemiology more precisely. Many clinical microbiology laboratories rely on agglutination reactivity and biochemical tests to distinguish them. These methods have limitations which are particularly exacerbated when isolates with mixed properties are encountered. In order to provide additional distinguishing parameters that could be used to unequivocally discriminate these two common pathogens, we assess here three molecular targets: the speB gene, intergenic region upstream of the scpG gene (IRSG) and virPCR. Of these, the former two respectively gave positive and negative results for S. pyogenes, and negative and positive results for S. dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis. Thus, a concerted use of these nucleic acid-based methods is particularly helpful in epidemiological surveillance to accurately assess the relative contribution of these species to streptococcal infections and diseases

The Liquisolid technique: an overview

A novel "Powder Solution Technology" involves absorption and adsorption efficiency which makes use of liquid medications, drug suspensions admixed with suitable carriers, coating materials and formulated into free flowing, dry looking, non adherent and compressible powder forms. Based upon a new mathematical model expression, improved flow characteristics and hardness of the formulation has been achieved by changing the proportion of Avicel ® PH 200 and Aerosil ® PH 200 from 50:1 ratio to 5:1 and in which the drug is dispersed in an almost molecularly state. Due to their significantly improved wetting properties a greater drug surface area is exposed to the dissolution media, resulting in an increased dissolution rate and bio availability. By using the Liquisolid technique, sustained drug delivery systems were developed for the water soluble drugs in which hydrophobic non-volatile solvents are used as vehicles.A nova "Tecnologia da Solução Sólida" envolve eficiência de absorção e de adsorção, faz uso de medicações líquidas, suspensões de fármacos e misturas com transportadores adequados, materiais de cobertura e é formulada em formas sólidas em fluxo livre, secas, não aderentes e compressíveis. Com base em novo modelo matemático, características aprimoradas de fluxo e dureza da formulação foram alcançadas modificando-se a proporção de Avicel ® PH 200 e Aerosil ® PH 200 de 50:1 para 5:1, na qual o fármaco é disperso quase que no estado molecular. Devido às propriedades de umidificação significativamente aprimoradas e à área do fármaco exposta ao meio de dissolução, que resulta na velocidade de dissolução, a biodisponibilidade foi aumentada. Utilizando a técnica Liquisólido, desenvolveram-se sistemas de liberação controlada de fármacos solúveis em água, nos quais solventes hidrofóbicos não voláteis foram usados como veículos

Healthcare Utilization and Costs Among High-Need and Frail Mexican American Medicare Beneficiaries

Objectives To examine Medicare health care spending and health services utilization among high-need population segments in older Mexican Americans, and to examine the association of frailty on health care spending and utilization. Methods Retrospective cohort study of the innovative linkage of Medicare data with the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (H-EPESE) were used. There were 863 participants, which contributed 1,629 person years of information. Frailty, cognition, and social risk factors were identified from the H-EPESE, and chronic conditions were identified from the Medicare file. The Cost and Use file was used to calculate four categories of Medicare spending on: hospital services, physician services, post-acute care services, and other services. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) with a log link gamma distribution and first order autoregressive, correlation matrix was used to estimate cost ratios (CR) of population segments, and GEE with a logit link binomial distribution was applied to estimate odds ratios (OR) of healthcare use. Results Participants in the major complex chronic illness segment who were also pre-frail or frail had higher total costs and utilization compared to the healthy segment. The CR for total Medicare spending was 3.05 (95% CI, 2.48–3.75). Similarly, this group had higher odds of being classified in the high-cost category 5.86 (95% CI, 3.35–10.25), nursing home care utilization 11.32 (95% CI, 3.88–33.02), hospitalizations 4.12 (95% CI, 2.88–5.90) and emergency room admissions 4.24 (95% CI, 3.04–5.91). Discussion Our findings highlight that frailty assessment is an important consideration when identifying high-need and high-cost patients