To better understand the role of tensegrity structures in biological systems and their application to robotics, the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA, has developed and validated two software environments for the analysis, simulation and design of tensegrity robots. These tools, along with...
An upscaled elliptic-parabolic system of partial differential equations
describing the multiscale flow of a single-phase incompressible fluid and
transport of a dissolved chemical by advection and diffusion through a heterogeneous
porous medium is developed without the usual assumptions of scale
separation. After a review of homogenization results for the traditional...
Forests play a crucial role in the global carbon (C) cycle by storing and sequestering a substantial amount of C in the terrestrial biosphere. Due to temporal dynamics in climate and vegetation activity, there are significant regional variations in carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes between the biosphere and atmosphere in forests...
Characterization of local boiling trends, in addition to the typically reported area-averaged trends, is essential for the robust design and implementation of phase change technologies to sensitive heat transfer applications such as electronics cooling. This paper compares local and area-averaged boiling curves during a phase change process using non-intrusive quantitative...
Certain institutions traditionally have had broad socializing influence over their members, providing templates for identity that comprehend all aspects of life from the existential and moral to the mundanely material. Marketization and detraditionalization undermine that socializing role. This study examines the consequences when, for some members, such an institution loses...
Estimating nonmarket benefits for erosion protection can help inform better decision making and policies for communities to adapt to climate change. We estimate private values for a coastal protection option in an empirical setting subject to irreversible loss from coastal erosion and a land-use policy that provides identifying variation in...
For the first time in several years, the El Niño-Southern
Oscillation did not dominate regional climate conditions
around the globe. A weak La Niña dissipated to ENSOneutral
conditions by spring, and while El Niño appeared
to be emerging during summer, this phase never fully
developed as sea surface temperatures in...