Electrodynamic Dust Shields on the International Space Station: Exposure to the space environment

Electrodynamic Dust Shields (EDS) have been in development at NASA as a dust mitigation method for lunar and Martian missions. An active dust mitigation strategy, such as that provided by the EDS, that can remove dust from surfaces, is of crucial importance to the planetary exploration program. We report on the development of a flight experiment to fully expose four EDS panels to the space environment. This flight experiment is part of the Materials International Space Station experiment X (MISSE-X), an external platform on the International Space Station that will expose materials to the space environment.     

Conditional rate derivation in the presence of intervening variables using a Markov chain

When conducting inferential and epidemiologic studies, researchers are often interested in the distribution of time until the occurrence of some specified event, a form of incidence calculation. Furthermore, this interest often extends to the effects of intervening factors on this distribution. In this paper we impose the assumption that the phenomena being investigated are governed by a stationary Markov chain and review how one may estimate the above distribution. We then introduce and relate two different methods of investigating the effects of intervening factors. In particular, we show how an investigator may evaluate the effect of potential intervention programs. Finally, we demonstrate the proposed methodology using data from a population study.     

‘Praying Mantis’ diffuse reflectance accessory for UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy

Conclusion The characteristics of the PM accessory allow reflecting measurements on a new variety of samples such as fruits, vegetables, tissue cultures, fermentation broths or reagent-impregnated dip sticks currently being developed for clinical laboratories.     

An electrostatic precipitator system for the Martian environment

Human exploration missions to Mars will require the development of technologies for the utilization of the planet's own resources for the production of commodities. However, the Martian atmosphere contains large amounts of dust. The extraction of commodities from this atmosphere requires prior removal of this dust. We report on our development of an electrostatic precipitator able to collect Martian simulated dust particles in atmospheric conditions approaching those of Mars. Extensive experiments with an initial prototype in a simulated Martian atmosphere showed efficiencies of 99%. The design of a second prototype with aerosolized Martian simulated dust in a flow-through is described.     

Effects of metal ion binding on an oncomodulin mutant containing a novel calcium-binding loop

The Ca²⁺-binding protein oncomodulin was altered by cassette mutagenesis of the CD site (CDOM33) with a sequence that was derived by a consensus method using over 250 known Ca²⁺-binding loop sequences. This mutant was studied using time-resolved and steady-state fluorescence from the Trp residue included at position 7 of the loop (position 57 of the protein sequence). The fluorescence characteristics of this species in the absence and presence of metal ions were compared to those of a tetradecapeptide containing the loop and the single Trp mutant of oncomodulin, Y57W. The fluorescence properties of CDOM33 were quite different from the peptide, both in the apo form and in response to metal binding. The consensus CD loop in CDOM33 exhibited the characteristics of a Ca²⁺/Mg²⁺ site in contrast to the Ca²⁺ specificity of the wild-type CD loop. The Trp analogue, 5-hydroxytryptophan (5HW), was incorporated into both oncomodulin mutants to produce Y75(5HW) and 5HW-CDOM33. Results showed that this intrinsic probe was relatively insensitive to structural changes in the mutants upon metal binding compared to Trp itself.