Search results for "EXPLORATION"
showing 10 items of 201 documents
Growing up morally: An experiential classroom unit on moral development
2015
One reason why many of today’s business leaders are frequently viewed as unethical, corrupt, and corruptible is that values transmitted (implicitly) by university business education courses influence students to ignore ethics. This paper argues that to help future business leaders become more ethical, business school implicit values should reflect a more ethical direction. The present paper describes an experiential pedagogy designed to help students develop morally. It does so by asking students to: 1) participate in exercises sensitizing them to ethical issues, 2) reflect on their own ethical values and decisions they’ve made in the past that either mirror or contradict those values, 3) r…
Identification of Morphological Biosignatures in Martian Analogue Field Specimens Using In Situ Planetary Instrumentation
2008
International audience; We have investigated how morphological biosignatures (i.e., features related to life) might be identified with an array of viable instruments within the framework of robotic planetary surface operations at Mars. This is the first time such an integrated lab-based study has been conducted that incorporates space-qualified instrumentation designed for combined in situ imaging, analysis, and geotechnics ( sampling). Specimens were selected on the basis of feature morphology, scale, and analogy to Mars rocks. Two types of morphological criteria were considered: potential signatures of extinct life ( fossilized microbial filaments) and of extant life (crypto-chasmoendolit…
A view of extraterrestrial soils
2009
International audience; The nature of soils on celestial bodies other than Earth is a growing area of research in planetary geology. However, disagreement over the significance of these deposits arises in part due to the lack of a unified concept and definition of soil in the literature. The pragmatic definition “medium for plant growth” is taken by some to imply the necessity of biota for soil to exist, and has been commonly adopted in the planetary science community. In contrast, a more complex and informative definition bases on scientific theory: soil is the (bio)geochemically/physically altered material at the surface of a planetary body that encompasses surficial extraterrestrial tell…
Finding near-perfect parameters for hardware and code optimizations with automatic multi-objective design space explorations
2012
Summary In the design process of computer systems or processor architectures, typically many different parameters are exposed to configure, tune, and optimize every component of a system. For evaluations and before production, it is desirable to know the best setting for all parameters. Processing speed is no longer the only objective that needs to be optimized; power consumption, area, and so on have become very important. Thus, the best configurations have to be found in respect to multiple objectives. In this article, we use a multi-objective design space exploration tool called Framework for Automatic Design Space Exploration (FADSE) to automatically find near-optimal configurations in …
Opportunity Mars Rover mission: Overview and selected results from Purgatory ripple to traverses to Endeavour crater
2011
Opportunity has been traversing the Meridiani plains since 25 January 2004 (sol 1), acquiring numerous observations of the atmosphere, soils, and rocks. This paper provides an overview of key discoveries between sols 511 and 2300, complementing earlier papers covering results from the initial phases of the mission. Key new results include (1) atmospheric argon measurements that demonstrate the importance of atmospheric transport to and from the winter carbon dioxide polar ice caps; (2) observations showing that aeolian ripples covering the plains were generated by easterly winds during an epoch with enhanced Hadley cell circulation; (3) the discovery and characterization of cobbles and boul…
Gastric outlet obstruction in a neonate because of Peutz-Jeghers syndrome
2012
Neonatal detection of Peutz-Jeghers syndrome is unusual with only 2 cases previously reported in the literature. We describe a neonate presenting with gastric outlet obstruction owing to 2 large Peutz-Jeghers polyps. The child's father and grandmother were known to have Peutz-Jeghers syndrome. On the ninth day of life, the infant underwent colonoscopy, abdominal exploration, and complete surgical resection of 3 polyps. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient was discharged home at the age of 3 weeks on full oral feeds. This is the first case report of inherited Peutz-Jeghers syndrome causing gastric outlet obstruction in a neonate.
Design Space Exploration of Parallel Embedded Architectures for Native Clifford Algebra Operations
2012
In the past few decades, Geometric or Clifford algebra (CA) has received a growing attention in many research fields, such as robotics, machine vision and computer graphics, as a natural and intuitive way to model geometric objects and their transformations. At the same time, the high dimensionality of Clifford algebra and its computational complexity demand specialized hardware architectures for the direct support of Clifford data types and operators. This paper presents the design space exploration of parallel embedded architectures for native execution of four-dimensional (4D) and five-dimensional (5D) Clifford algebra operations. The design space exploration has been described along wit…
The CZT X-ray imager on AXO
2001
DSRI has initiated a development program of CZT X-ray and gamma ray detectors employing strip readout techniques. A dramatic improvement of the energy response was found operating the detectors as so-called drift detectors. For the electronic readout, modern ASIC chips were investigated. Modular design and the low power electronics will make large area detectors using the drift strip method feasible. The performance of a prototype CZT system will be presented and discussed. One such detector system has been proposed for future space missions: The X-Ray Imager (XRI) on the Atmospheric X-ray Observatory (AXO), which is a mission proposed to the Danish Small Satellite Program and is dedicated …
Field-portable Mössbauer spectroscopy on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and beyond
2011
ABSTRACT Iron occurs naturally as Fe 2+ , Fe 3+ , and, to a lesser extent, as Fe 0 . Many fundamental (bio)geochemical processes are based on redox cycling between these oxidation states. Mossbauer spectroscopy provides quantitative information about the distribution of Fe among its oxidation states, identification of Fe-bearing phases, and relative distribution of Fe among those phases. Portable, miniaturised Mossbauer spectrometers were developed for NASA9s Mars Exploration Rovers (in operation since 2004) and provide a means for non-destructive, in-situ field investigations. On Mars, these instruments provided evidence for aqueous activity with implications for habitability, were applied…
Design and control of a novel 3D casting manipulator
2010
This paper focuses on casting manipulation and presents an innovative mechanism that allows objects placed in a three-dimensional space to be reached with a relatively small robot. Casting manipulation is a technique by which a robotic end-effector is thrown and its ballistic flight is controlled through a tether cable so as to reach a target object. Previous work presented a solution that is viable only when the position of the target object is perfectly known or aligned with the throwing plane. Our work extends the technique by use of a novel mechanical design of the arm, and a suitable control scheme for the flight of the end-effector, which makes it applicable for objects placed at gene…