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GENERALIZED PREDICTIVE PLANNING FOR AUTONOMOUS DRIVING IN DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

CASPAR Low-Cost, Dual-Manifest Payload Adapter for Minotaur IV

The Minotaur IV Launch Vehicle is being developed by the Air Force Rocket Systems Launch Program (RSLP) to utilize excess Peacekeeper missile motors and provide low-cost launches for Government payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This vehicle uses three Peacekeeper stages, an Orion 38 motor, and avionics from the heritage Minotaur I vehicle. Nominal capability for Minotaur IV is almost 4000 lbm to LEO. The fly-away cost is just over $20 million. The Composite Adapter for Shared PAyload Rides (CASPAR) Multi-Payload Adapter (MPA) will enable a Minotaur IV to launch two large satellites (1000-2000 lbm) for about$10 million each. The CASPAR MPA is being designed for projected Minotaur IV launch load environments, with design objectives of light weight, integrated vibration isolation, low shock, and modularity. An innovative composite design, including co-cured composite stiffening, provides a lightweight structure with optional access doors. Low-shock separation systems are integrated for MPA and satellite separation events. Vibration isolation systems protect the payloads from the dynamic environment of the Peacekeeper motor stack, and isolation tuning will enable a range of payloads and facilitate modular designs. Qualification testing of a full-scale adapter is planned for early 2006. Design variations are being considered for existing and new launch vehicles

Vibration Isolation for Launch of a Space Station Orbital Replacement Unit

Delivery of Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs) to on-orbit destinations such a the International Space Station (ISS) and the Hubble Space Telescope is an important component of the space program. ORUs are integrated on orbit with space assets to maintain and upgrade functionality. For ORUs comprised of sensitive equipment, the dynamic launch environment drives design and testing requirements, and high frequency random vibrations are generally the cause for failure. Vibration isolation can mitigate the structure-borne vibration environment during launch, and hardware has been developed that can provide a reduced environment for current and future launch environments. Random vibration testing of one ORU to equivalent Space Shuttle launch levels revealed that its qualification and acceptance requirements were exceeded. An isolation system was designed to mitigate the structure-borne launch vibration environment. To protect this ORU, the random vibration levels at 50 Hz must be attenuated by a factor of two and those at higher frequencies even more. Design load factors for Shuttle launch are high, so a metallic load path is needed to maintain strength margins. Isolation system design was performed using a finite element model of the ORU on its carrier with representative disturbance inputs. Iterations on the modelled to an optimized design based on flight proven SoftRide MultiFlex isolators. Component testing has been performed on prototype isolators to validate analytical predictions

Entanglements of North Atlantic right whales increase as their distribution shifts in response to climate change: The need for a new management paradigm [poster]

Presented at 2019: World Marine Mammal Science Conference, Barcelona, Spain, December 9-12, 2019.Detection rate of severely injured or entangled NARWs began to increase around 2004 - 2007.We thank the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium for data curation and dissemination, and the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network for entanglement sighting information

A Spitzer/IRS spectral study of a sample of galactic carbon-rich proto-planetary nebulae

Recent infrared spectroscopic observations have shown that proto-planetary nebulae (PPNs) are sites of active synthesis of organic compounds in the late stages of stellar evolution. This paper presents a study of Spitzer/IRS spectra for a sample of carbon-rich PPNs, all except one of which show the unidentified 21 micron emission feature. The strengths of the aromatic infrared band (AIB), 21 micron, and 30 micron features are obtained by decomposition of the spectra. The observed variations in the strengths and peak wavelengths of the features support the model that the newly synthesized organic compounds gradually change from aliphatic to aromatic characteristics as stars evolve from PPNs to planetary nebulae.Comment: 32 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Autonomous Personal Mobility Scooter for Multi-Class Mobility-On-Demand Service

In this paper, we describe the design and development of an autonomous personal mobility scooter that was used in public trials during the 2016 MIT Open House, for the purpose of raising public awareness and interest about autonomous vehicles. The scooter is intended to work cooperatively with other classes of autonomous vehicles such as road cars and golf cars to improve the efficacy of Mobility-on-Demand transportation solutions. The scooter is designed to be robust, reliable, and safe, while operating under prolonged durations. The flexibility in fleet expansion is shown by replicating the system architecture and sensor package that has been previously implemented in the road car and golf cars. We show that the vehicle performed robustly with small localization variance. A survey of the users shows that the public is very receptive to the concept of the autonomous personal mobility device.Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) (Future Urban Mobility research program)Singapore. National Research Foundatio

Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Diamonds, and Fullerenes in Interstellar Space: Puzzles to be Solved by Laboratory and Theoretical Astrochemistry

New research is presented, and previous research is reviewed, on the emission and absorption of interstellar aromatic hydrocarbons. Emission from aromatic hydrocarbons dominate the mid-infrared emission of many galaxies, including our own Milky Way galaxy. Only recently have aromatic hydrocarbons been observed in absorption in the interstellar medium, along lines of sight with high column densities of interstellar gas and dust. Much work on interstellar aromatics has been done, with astronomical observations and laboratory and theoretical astrochemistry. In many cases the predictions of laboratory and theoretical work are confirmed by astronomical observations, but in other cases clear discrepancies exist which provide problems to be solved by a combination of astronomical observations, laboratory studies, and theoretical studies. The emphasis of this paper will be on current outstanding puzzles concerning aromatic hydrocarbons which require further laboratory and theoretical astrochemistry to resolve. This paper will also touch on related topics where laboratory and theoretical astrochemistry studies are needed to explain astrophysical observations, such as a possible absorption feature due to interstellar "diamonds" and the search for fullerenes in space.Comment: Spectrochimica Acta A, Feb. 2001, in press. 33 pages including 11 postscript figures, AASTeX format. Full postscript paper also available at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~sellgren/saa.htm

Rapid climate-driven circulation changes threaten conservation of endangered north atlantic right whales

As climate trends accelerate, ecosystems will be pushed rapidly into new states, reducing the potential efficacy of conservation strategies based on historical patterns. In the Gulf of Maine, climate-driven changes have restructured the ecosystem rapidly over the past decade. Changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation have altered deepwater dynamics, driving warming rates twice as high as the fastest surface rates. This has had implications for the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, a critical food supply for the endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). The oceanographic changes have driven a deviation in the seasonal foraging patterns of E. glacialis upon which conservation strategies depend, making the whales more vulnerable to ship strikes and gear entanglements. The effects of rapid climate-driven changes on a species at risk undermine current management approaches.publishedVersio

Bacterial and viral respiratory tract microbiota and host characteristics in children with lower respiratory tract infections: a matched case-control study

BACKGROUND: Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality. Potentially pathogenic organisms are present in the respiratory tract in both symptomatic and asymptomatic children, but their presence does not necessarily indicate disease. We aimed to assess the concordance between upper and lower respiratory tract microbiota during LRTIs and the use of nasopharyngeal microbiota to discriminate LRTIs from health. METHODS: First, we did a prospective study of children aged between 4 weeks and 5 years who were admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Wilhelmina Children's Hospital (Utrecht, Netherlands) for a WHO-defined LRTI requiring mechanical ventilation. We obtained paired nasopharyngeal swabs and deep endotracheal aspirates from these participants (the so-called PICU cohort) between Sept 10, 2013, and Sept 4, 2016. We also did a matched case-control study (1:2) with the same inclusion criteria in children with LRTIs at three Dutch teaching hospitals and in age-matched, sex-matched, and time-matched healthy children recruited from the community. Nasopharyngeal samples were obtained at admission for cases and during home visits for controls. Data for child characteristics were obtained by questionnaires and from pharmacy printouts and medical charts. We used quantitative PCR and 16S rRNA-based sequencing to establish viral and bacterial microbiota profiles, respectively. We did sparse random forest classifier analyses on the bacterial data, viral data, metadata, and the combination of all three datasets to distinguish cases from controls. FINDINGS: 29 patients were enrolled in the PICU cohort. Intra-individual concordance in terms of viral microbiota profiles (96% agreement [95% CI 93-99]) and bacterial microbiota profiles (58 taxa with a median Pearson's r 0·93 [IQR 0·62-0·99]; p<0·05 for all 58 taxa) was high between nasopharyngeal and endotracheal aspirate samples, supporting the use of nasopharyngeal samples as proxy for lung microbiota during LRTIs. 154 cases and 307 matched controls were prospectively recruited to our case-control cohort. Individually, bacterial microbiota (area under the curve 0·77), viral microbiota (0·70), and child characteristics (0·80) poorly distinguished health from disease. However, a classification model based on combined bacterial and viral microbiota plus child characteristics distinguished children with LRTIs from their matched controls with a high degree of accuracy (area under the curve 0·92). INTERPRETATION: Our data suggest that the nasopharyngeal microbiota can serve as a valid proxy for lower respiratory tract microbiota in childhood LRTIs, that clinical LRTIs in children result from the interplay between microbiota and host characteristics, rather than a single microorganism, and that microbiota-based diagnostics could improve future diagnostic and treatment protocols. FUNDING: Spaarne Gasthuis, University Medical Center Utrecht, and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research