Quantitative Analyses of Cirques on the Faroe Islands: Evidence for Time Transgressive Glacier Occupation

This study presents the first analysis of ice‐free cirques on the Faroe Islands using a Geographical Information System (GIS) and the Automated Cirque Metric Extraction (ACME) tool. The length, width, area, circularity, mean aspect, mean slope, and elevation range, minimum, and maximum were calculated using ACME. Cirque distance to coastline was measured using ArcGIS. A total of 116 cirques were identified. Mean cirque length is 950 m and mean cirque width is 890 m. Average cirque area is 0.8 km2 and mean elevation is 386 m a.s.l. The modal orientation of the aspect of cirques is north‐northeast, with a vector mean of 7° and mean resultant length of 0.09. Aspect data have large dispersion, which shows evidence of cloudy ablation seasons in the past. The dispersion in aspect may also be related to the time transgressive nature of glacier occupation in these cirques. Past equilibrium‐line altitudes (ELAs) of cirque glaciers reconstructed with the minimum point method resulted in a mean palaeo‐ELA of 213 m a.s.l. Positive, linear relationships are observed between palaeo‐ELA and cirque distance to coastline. There are at least two possible interpretations of this relationship: (i) that the cirque formation is dependent on pre‐existing topography with cirques forming at the head of valleys, which occurs at higher elevations further inland, and (ii) that this relationship demonstrates the importance of access to moisture for glacier survival. A combination of both interpretations is also possible. Positive linear relationships are also observed between longitude and palaeo‐ELA indicative of palaeo‐precipitation patterns along an east–west gradient. Cirques on the Faroe Islands are smaller in length and width and present at lower elevations compared to cirques located in other regions of the world. The timing of glacial occupation in these cirques is not known, and the landforms likely formed over multiple glaciations

System for Contributing and Discovering Derived Mission and Science Data

A system was developed to provide a new mechanism for members of the mission community to create and contribute new science data to the rest of the community. Mission tools have allowed members of the mission community to share first order data (data that is created by the mission s process in command and control of the spacecraft or the data that is captured by the craft itself, like images, science results, etc.). However, second and higher order data (data that is created after the fact by scientists and other members of the mission) was previously not widely disseminated, nor did it make its way into the mission planning process

Science Activity Planner for the MER Mission

The Maestro Science Activity Planner is a computer program that assists human users in planning operations of the Mars Explorer Rover (MER) mission and visualizing scientific data returned from the MER rovers. Relative to its predecessors, this program is more powerful and easier to use. This program is built on the Java Eclipse open-source platform around a Web-browser-based user-interface paradigm to provide an intuitive user interface to Mars rovers and landers. This program affords a combination of advanced display and simulation capabilities. For example, a map view of terrain can be generated from images acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Explorer instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft and overlaid with images from a navigation camera (more precisely, a stereoscopic pair of cameras) aboard a rover, and an interactive, annotated rover traverse path can be incorporated into the overlay. It is also possible to construct an overhead perspective mosaic image of terrain from navigation-camera images. This program can be adapted to similar use on other outer-space missions and is potentially adaptable to numerous terrestrial applications involving analysis of data, operations of robots, and planning of such operations for acquisition of scientific data

Framework for ReSTful Web Services in OSGi

Ensemble ReST is a software system that eases the development, deployment, and maintenance of server-side application programs to perform functions that would otherwise be performed by client software. Ensemble ReST takes advantage of the proven disciplines of ReST (Representational State Transfer. ReST leverages the standardized HTTP protocol to enable developers to offer services to a diverse variety of clients: from shell scripts to sophisticated Java application suite

An Extensible, User- Modifiable Framework for Planning Activities

This software provides a development framework that allows planning activities for the Mars Science Laboratory rover to be altered at any time, based on changes of the Activity Dictionary. The Activity Dictionary contains the definition of all activities that can be carried out by a particular asset (robotic or human). These definitions (and combinations of these definitions) are used by mission planners to give a daily plan of what a mission should do. During the development and course of the mission, the Activity Dictionary and actions that are going to be carried out will often be changed. Previously, such changes would require a change to the software and redeployment. Now, the Activity Dictionary authors are able to customize activity definitions, parameters, and resource usage without requiring redeployment. This software provides developers and end users the ability to modify the behavior of automatically generated activities using a script. This allows changes to the software behavior without incurring the burden of redeployment. This software is currently being used for the Mars Science Laboratory, and is in the process of being integrated into the LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) mission, as well as the International Space Station

MSLICE Science Activity Planner for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission

MSLICE (Mars Science Laboratory InterfaCE) is the tool used by scientists and engineers on the Mars Science Laboratory rover mission to visualize the data returned by the rover and collaboratively plan its activities. It enables users to efficiently and effectively search all mission data to find applicable products (e.g., images, targets, activity plans, sequences, etc.), view and plan the traverse of the rover in HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) images, visualize data acquired by the rover, and develop, model, and validate the activities the rover will perform. MSLICE enables users to securely contribute to the mission s activity planning process from their home institutions using off-the-shelf laptop computers. This software has made use of several plug-ins (software components) developed for previous missions [e.g., Mars Exploration Rover (MER), Phoenix Mars Lander (PHX)] and other technology tasks. It has a simple, intuitive, and powerful search capability. For any given mission, there is a huge amount of data and associated metadata that is generated. To help users sort through this information, MSLICE s search interface is provided in a similar fashion as major Internet search engines. With regard to the HiRISE visualization of the rover s traverse, this view is a map of the mission that allows scientists to easily gauge where the rover has been and where it is likely to go. The map also provides the ability to correct or adjust the known position of the rover through the overlaying of images acquired from the rover on top of the HiRISE image. A user can then correct the rover s position by collocating the visible features in the overlays with the same features in the underlying HiRISE image. MSLICE users can also rapidly search all mission data for images that contain a point specified by the user in another image or panoramic mosaic. MSLICE allows the creation of targets, which provides a way for scientists to collaboratively name features on the surface of Mars. These targets can also be used to convey instrument-pointing information to the activity plan. The software allows users to develop a plan of what they would like the rover to accomplish for a given time period. When developing the plan, the user can input constraints between activities or groups of activities. MSLICE will enforce said constraints and ensure that all mission flight rules are satisfied

Derivatives of a benzoquinone acyl hydrazone with activity against Toxoplasma gondii

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite with global incidence. The acute infection, toxoplasmosis, is treatable but current regimens have poor host tolerance and no cure has been found for latent infections. This work builds upon a previous high throughput screen which identified benzoquinone acyl hydrazone (KG8) as the most promising compound; KG8 displayed potent in vitro activity against T. gondii but only marginal in vivoefficacy in a T. gondii animal model. To define the potential of this new lead compound, we now describe a baseline structure-activity relationship for this chemotype. Several derivatives displayed IC50\u27s comparable to that of the control treatment pyrimethamine with little to no cytotoxicity. The best of these, KGW44 and KGW59, had higher metabolic stability than KG8. In an in vivo T. gondii murine model, KGW59 significantly increased survivorship. This work provides new insights for optimization of this novel chemotype

Shared Antigen-specific CD8⁺ T cell Responses Against the SARS-COV-2 Spike Protein in HLA A*02:01 COVID-19 Participants

We report here on antigens from the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, that when presented by Class I MHC, can lead to cytotoxic CD8⁺ T cell anti-viral responses in COVID-19 patients. We present a method in which the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is converted into a library of peptide antigen-Major Histocompatibility Complexes (pMHCs) as single chain trimers that contain the peptide antigen, the MHC HLA allele, and the β-2 microglobulin sub-unit. That library is used to detect the evolution of virus-specific T cell populations from two COVID-19 patients, at two time points over the course of infection. Both patients exhibit similar virus-specific T cell populations, but very different time-trajectories of those populations. These results can be used to track those virus-specific T cell populations over the course of an infection, thus providing deep insight into the variations in immune system trajectories observed in different COVID-19 patients