Mars sample return: Site selection and sample acquisition study

Various vehicle and mission options were investigated for the continued exploration of Mars; the cost of a minimum sample return mission was estimated; options and concepts were synthesized into program possibilities; and recommendations for the next Mars mission were made to the Planetary Program office. Specific sites and all relevant spacecraft and ground-based data were studied in order to determine: (1) the adequacy of presently available data for identifying landing sities for a sample return mission that would assure the acquisition of material from the most important geologic provinces of Mars; (2) the degree of surface mobility required to assure sample acquisition for these sites; (3) techniques to be used in the selection and drilling of rock a samples; and (4) the degree of mobility required at the two Viking sites to acquire these samples

Balanced filters for the analysis of Al, Si, K, Ca, Fe, and Ni

Balanced filters evaluated for performance in X-ray fluorescence analysis of lunar and planetary surface material

Preliminary Full-Scale Wind-Tunnel Investigation of Wing Ducts for Radiators, Special Report

Wing ducts for liquid-cooled engine radiators have been investigated in the N.A.C.A. full-scale wind tunnel on a large model airplane. Th e tests were made to determine the relative merits of several types of duct and radiator installations for an airplane of a particular des ign. In the test program the principal duct dimensions were system atically varied, and the results are therefore somewhat applicable to the general problems of wing duct design, although they should be co nsidered as preliminary and only indicative of the inherent possibil ities

Full-Scale Wind-Tunnel Investigation of Wing Cooling Ducts, Special Report

The systematic investigation of wing cooling ducts at the NACA laboratory has been continued with tests in the full-scale wind tunnel on ducts of finite span. These results extend the previous investigation on section characteristics of ducts to higher Reynolds numbers and indicate the losses due to the duct ends. The data include comparisons between ducts completely within the ring and the conventional underslung ducts. Methods of flow regulation were studied and data were obtained for a wide range of internal duct resistance. The results show satisfactory correlation between the finite span and the previously measured section characteristics obtained with full-span ducts. The effects of the various design parameters on the duct characteristics are discussed. The cooling power required for the internal duct installation is shown to be only a small percentage of the engine power

Full-Scale Wind-Tunnel Investigation of Wing-Cooling Ducts Effects of Propeller Slipstream, Special Report

The safety of remotely operated vehicles depends on the correctness of the distributed protocol that facilitates the communication between the vehicle and the operator. A failure in this communication can result in catastrophic loss of the vehicle. To complicate matters, the communication system may be required to satisfy several, possibly conflicting, requirements. The design of protocols is typically an informal process based on successive iterations of a prototype implementation. Yet distributed protocols are notoriously difficult to get correct using such informal techniques. We present a formal specification of the design of a distributed protocol intended for use in a remotely operated vehicle, which is built from the composition of several simpler protocols. We demonstrate proof strategies that allow us to prove properties of each component protocol individually while ensuring that the property is preserved in the composition forming the entire system. Given that designs are likely to evolve as additional requirements emerge, we show how we have automated most of the repetitive proof steps to enable verification of rapidly changing designs

Theoretical Analysis of the Conduction Properties of Self Assembled Molecular Tunnel Junctions

As the size scale of electrical devices approach the atomic scale. Moore\u27s law is predicted to be over for semiconductor devices. Studies into the replacement of semiconductor technology with organic devices was first predicted by Avriam and Ratner[1] in 1974. Since then significant research into molecular based organic devices has been conducted. The work presented in this dissertation explores the theoretical frameworks used to model transport through molecular junctions. We present studies which seek to garner a better understanding of the charge transport through molecular junctions and how the conduction properties can be optimized. We show that a single atom can change a molecule from an insulator to a conductor. We also study the effects of sigma and pi bridges on molecular rectification. We will then show molecular devices that act as viable electrical static and dynamic switches. The studies presented here help to demonstrate the viability of organic devices in the forms of rectifiers and switches with applications ranging from the replacement of traditional semiconductor devices to neuromorphic computing

Protein Meta-Functional Signatures from Combining Sequence, Structure, Evolution, and Amino Acid Property Information

Protein function is mediated by different amino acid residues, both their positions and types, in a protein sequence. Some amino acids are responsible for the stability or overall shape of the protein, playing an indirect role in protein function. Others play a functionally important role as part of active or binding sites of the protein. For a given protein sequence, the residues and their degree of functional importance can be thought of as a signature representing the function of the protein. We have developed a combination of knowledge- and biophysics-based function prediction approaches to elucidate the relationships between the structural and the functional roles of individual residues and positions. Such a meta-functional signature (MFS), which is a collection of continuous values representing the functional significance of each residue in a protein, may be used to study proteins of known function in greater detail and to aid in experimental characterization of proteins of unknown function. We demonstrate the superior performance of MFS in predicting protein functional sites and also present four real-world examples to apply MFS in a wide range of settings to elucidate protein sequence–structure–function relationships. Our results indicate that the MFS approach, which can combine multiple sources of information and also give biological interpretation to each component, greatly facilitates the understanding and characterization of protein function