IMPACT Concept of Operations

NASAs future exploration missions mandate a significant paradigm change for mission planning, spacecraft design, human systems integration, and in-flight medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, resupply missions, and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints require further development of the human health and performance system, which includes the medical, task performance, wellness, data, human and other systems necessary to keep the crew healthy and functioning optimally. The human health and performance system will be tightly integrated with mission and habitat design to provide a sufficient human health and performance infrastructure to enable mission success. A suite of systems engineering tools will aid in the decision making process for the development of such a human health and performance system. This Concept of Operations provides a vision for a tool suite to conduct evaluations of human health and performance system options, inform research prioritization, and provide trade study support, based on evidence, risks, and systems engineering principles. The integrated tool suite under development is IMPACT

Development of Human System Integration at NASA

Human Systems Integration seeks to design systems around the capabilities and limitations of the humans which use and interact with the system, ensuring greater efficiency of use, reduced error rates, and less rework in the design, manufacturing and operational deployment of hardware and software. One of the primary goals of HSI is to get the human factors practitioner involved early in the design process. In doing so, the aim is to reduce future budget costs and resources in redesign and training. By the preliminary design phase of a project nearly 80% of the total cost of the project is locked in. Potential design changes recommended by evaluations past this point will have little effect due to lack of funding or a huge cost in terms of resources to make changes. Three key concepts define an effective HSI program. First, systems are comprised of hardware, software, and the human, all of which operate within an environment. Too often, engineers and developers fail to consider the human capacity or requirements as part of the system. This leads to poor task allocation within the system. To promote ideal task allocation, it is critical that the human element be considered early in system development. Poor design, or designs that do not adequately consider the human component, could negatively affect physical or mental performance, as well as, social behavior. Second, successful HSI depends upon integration and collaboration of all the domains that represent acquisition efforts. Too often, these domains exist as independent disciplines due to the location of expertise within the service structure. Proper implementation of HSI through participation would help to integrate these domains and disciplines to leverage and apply their interdependencies to attain an optimal design. Via this process domain interests can be integrated to perform effective HSI through trade-offs and collaboration. This provides a common basis upon which to make knowledgeable decisions. Finally, HSI must be considered early in the requirements development phase of system design and acquisition. This will provide the best opportunity to maximize return on investment (ROI) and system performance. HSI requirements must be developed in conjunction with capability ]based requirements generation through functional. HSI requirements will drive HSI metrics and embed HSI issues within the system design. After a system is designed, implementation of HSI oversights can be very expensive. An HSI program should be included as an integral part of a total system approach to vehicle and habitat development. This would include, but not limited to, workstation design, D&C development, volumetric analysis, training, operations, and human -robotic interaction. HSI is a necessary process for Human Space Flight programs to meet the Agency Human ]System standards and thus mitigate human risks to acceptable levels. NASA has been involved in HSI planning, procedures development, process, and implementation for many years, and has been building several internal and publicly accessible products to facilitate HSI fs inclusion in the NASA Systems Engineering Lifecycle. Some of these products include: NASA STD 3001 Volumes 1 and 2, Human Integration Design Handbook, NASA HSI Implementation Plan, NASA HSI Implementation Plan Templates, NASA HSI Implementation Handbook, and a 2 ]hour short course on HSI delivered as part of the NASA Space and Life Sciences Directorate Academy. These products have been created leveraging industry best practices and lessons learned from other Federal Government agencies

Treatment of early life status epilepticus: What can we learn from animal models?

Treatment of status epilepticus (SE) in infants and children is challenging. There is a recognition that a broad set of developmental processes need to be considered to fully appreciate the physiologic complexity of severe seizures, and seizure outcomes, in infants and children. The development and use of basic models to elucidate important mechanisms will help further our understanding of these processes. Here we review some of the key experimental models and consider several areas relevant to treatment that could lead to productive translational research. Terminating seizures quickly is essential. Understanding pharmacoresistance of SE as it relates to receptor trafficking will be critical to seizure termination. Once a severe seizure is terminated, how will the developing brain respond? Basic studies suggest that there are important acute and long-term histopathologic, and pathophysiologic, consequences that, if left unaddressed, will produce long-lasting deficits on the form and function of the central nervous system. To fully utilize the evidence that basic models produce, age- and development- and model-specific frameworks have to be considered carefully. Studies have demonstrated that severe seizures can cause perturbations to developmental processes during critical periods of development that lead to life-long deficits. Unfortunately, some of the drugs that are commonly used to treat seizures may also produce negative outcomes by enhancing Cl--mediated depolarization, or by accelerating programmed cell death. More research is needed to understand these phenomena and their relevance to the human condition, and to develop rational drugs that protect the developing brain from severe seizures to the fullest extent possible

The evolution of a subharmonic mode in a vortex street

The development of a subharmonic three-dimensional instability mode in a vortex street is investigated both numerically and experimentally. The flow past a ring is considered as a test case, as a previous stability analysis has predicted that for a range of aspect ratios, the first-occurring instability of the vortex street is subharmonic. For the flow past a circular cylinder, the development of three-dimensional flow in the vortex street is known to lead to turbulent flow through the development of spatio-temporal chaos, whereas subharmonic instabilities have been shown to cause a route to chaos through the development of a period-doubling cascade. The three-dimensional vortex street in the flow past a ring is analysed to determine if a subharmonic instability can alter the route to turbulence for a vortex street. A linear stability analysis and non-axisymmetric computations are employed to compute the flow past a ring with an aspect ratio AR=5, and comparisons with experimental dye visualizations are included to verify the existence of a subharmonic mode in the wake. Computations at higher Reynolds numbers confirm that the subharmonic instability does not initiate a period-doubling cascade in the wake

It Takes a Library to Support Distance Learners

Wallace Library\u27s philosophy is to create and provide resources and services that will support all users. Consequently, distance learners and distance faculty have a plethora of online resources available to them, some of which is pushed out, saving time and effort for the library user. The evolvement of Wallace\u27s online resources is continuous, focused on the student or professor\u27s research need from a geographic distance

Brain Energy Metabolism During Experimental Neonatal Seizures

During flurothyl seizures in 4-day-old rats, cortical concentration of ATP, phosphocreatine and glucose fell while lactate rose. Cortical energy use rate more than doubled, while glycolytic rate increased fivefold. Calculation of the cerebral metabolic balance during sustained seizures suggests that energy balance could be maintained in hyperglycemic animals, and would decline slowly in normoglycemia, but would be compromised by concurrent hypoglycemia, hyperthermia or hypoxia. These results suggest that the metabolic challenge imposed on the brain by this model of experimental neonatal seizures is milder than that seen at older ages, but can become critical when associated with other types of metabolic stress

Experimental investigation of in-line flow-induced vibration of a rotating circular cylinder

This study experimentally investigates the in-line flow-induced vibration (FIV) of an elastically mounted circular cylinder under forced axial rotation in a free stream. The present experiments characterise the structural vibration, fluid forces and wake structure of the fluid–structure system at a low mass ratio (the ratio of the total mass to the displaced fluid mass) over a wide parameter space spanning the reduced velocity range

Cereal and Pulse Crops with Improved Resistance to Pratylenchus thornei Are Needed to Maximize Wheat Production and Expand Crop Sequence Options

n the subtropical grain region of eastern Australia, two experiments were conducted, one initially with 2490 P. thornei/kg soil, the other with 8150 P. thornei/kg soil at 0–0.9 m soil depth. We determined the effect of P. thornei, residual from a weed-free fallow and pre-cropping with several cultivars each of barley (Hordeum vulgare), faba bean (Vicia faba), chickpea (Cicer arietinum), and wheat (Triticum aestivum) (Phase 1), on the growth of wheat cultivars with intolerance or tolerance to P. thornei (Phase 2). Pratylenchus thornei substantially increased after growing all cultivars of the Phase 1 faba bean, barley, and most cultivars of chickpea and wheat, and decreased after two moderately resistant wheat cultivars and the fallow treatment. The biomass of the Phase 2 tolerant cultivar ranged from 5070 to 6780 kg/ha and the intolerant cultivar 1020 to 4740 kg/ha. There was a negative linear relationship between P. thornei population densities and biomass of the Phase 2 intolerant cultivar but not of the tolerant cultivar. Growers are at risk of financial loss because they are restricted in their choice of crops to reduce damaging population densities of P. thornei. The development of resistant and tolerant crop genotypes can maximize production in P. thornei-affected farming systems

Human Influences on Elk Movement Rates and Resource Selection in the Wildland-Urban Interface.

Elk (Cervus elaphus) are known to select for refuge from hunting by humans (elk hunting). In many areas in the western U.S., elk hunting is completely excluded in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) as a result of land ownership change and subdivision, thus providing refugia for elk. Many of these WUI elk populations are increasing rapidly, and pose a significant credibility challenge to wildlife managers. The North Hills Elk Herd, in Missoula, Montana, has been growing at ~11 percent since the early 1980s, and the herd now numbers over 300 animals. Landownership is a complex matrix of public and private lands that range from partial to complete exclusion of hunting, thus elk hunting pressure is low and provides multiple refugia. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks used elk hunting in this setting to reduce population growth, crop depredation, and habituation. Little is known about the efficacy of elk hunting on elk movement rates and habitat selection. We used First-Passage Time (FPT) and Resource Selection Functions (RSF) analysis based on nine GPS collared adult female elk during three hunting seasons with increasing hunting pressure (2007-2009) to test relationships between elk movement rates and resource selection in the WUI. Elk FPT decreased annually, if they were accessible, and differed by hunting mode and season. Elk selected for intermediate distances from homes, trails, and weakly avoided access. These data have been used to modify hunting season structure, acquire conservation easements, and develop lasting partnerships in a complex matrix of ownerships