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Briefs: Medical
A device built around a pair of electronic shutters has been demonstrated to be effective as a prototype of stroboscopic goggles or eyeglasses for preventing or reducing motion sickness. The...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A South American pipeline project that traverses the Amazon jungle and the Andes Mountains to the Pacific coast originates in the Camisea fields of eastern Peru, which are among the...
Briefs: Medical
A method of growing bioengineered tissues for use in surgical replacement of damaged anterior cruciate ligaments has been invented. An anterior cruciate ligament is one of two...
Briefs: Information Technology
Two Methods for Efficient Solution of the Hitting-Set Problem
A paper addresses much of the same subject matter as that of "Fast Algorithms for Model-Based Diagnosis" (NPO-30582), which appears elsewhere in this issue of NASA Tech Briefs.
Briefs: Information Technology
Biased Randomized Algorithm for Fast Model-Based Diagnosis
A biased randomized algorithm has been developed to enable the rapid computational solution of a propositional-satisfiability (SAT) problem equivalent to a diagnosis problem. The closest competing methods of automated diagnosis are described in the preceding article "Fast Algorithms for...
Briefs: Information Technology
Two improved new methods for automated diagnosis of complex engineering systems involve the use of novel algorithms that are more efficient than prior algorithms used for the same purpose. Both the...
Briefs: Information Technology
Virtually every design decision, from a simple sketch to complex system drawings, is informed by calculations. Yet, in the race to get projects completed and products and...
Briefs: Information Technology
Telephone-Directory Program
eDirectory is a computer program that makes it possible to view entries in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) telephone directory by use of PalmPilot™ (or equivalent) personal digital assistants.
Briefs: Information Technology
Fuzzy Logic Engine
The Fuzzy Logic Engine is a software package that enables users to embed fuzzy-logic modules into their application programs.
Briefs: Information Technology
Encryption for Remote Control via Internet or Intranet
A data-communication protocol has been devised to enable secure, reliable remote control of processes and equipment via a collision-based network, while using minimal bandwidth and computation. The network could be the Internet or an intranet. Control is made secure by use of both a password...
Briefs: Information Technology
A quantum algorithm provides for the encoding of an exponentially large number of classical data bits by use of a smaller (polynomially large) number of quantum bits (qubits). The...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Software for Secondary-School Learning About Robotics
The ROVer Ranch is an interactive computer program designed to help secondary-school students learn about space-program robotics and related basic scientific concepts by involving the students in simplified design and programming tasks that exercise skills in mathematics and science.
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Atom skimmers are devices that act as low-pass velocity filters for atoms in thermal atomic beams. An atom skimmer operating in conjunction with a suitable thermal atomic-beam source (e.g., an oven...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A miniature optoelectronic instrument has been invented as a nonintrusive means of measuring a velocity gradient proportional to a shear stress in a flow near a wall. The instrument,...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A customized quadrupole ion-trap mass spectrometer (QITMS) has been built to satisfy a need for a compact, rugged instrument for measuring small concentrations of hydrogen, helium,...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
An apparatus has been developed to implement an improved method of testing flat-plate specimens of thermal-insulation materials for cryogenic application. The method includes testing...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
An improved instrument for optical absorption spectroscopy utilizes off-axis paths in an optical cavity in order to increase detection sensitivity while suppressing resonance effects. The...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Blended Buffet-Load-Alleviation System for Fighter Airplane
The capability of modern fighter airplanes to sustain flight at high angles of attack and/or moderate angles of sideslip often results in immersion of part of such an airplane in unsteady, separated, vortical flow emanating from its forebody or wings. The flows from these surfaces become...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An improved design for a capacitive sensing, rocking-mode vibratory microgyroscope is more amenable to mass production, relative to a prior design. Both the improved design and the prior...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The figure shows a prototype vacuum-compatible, fast-acting, long-life shutter unit that generates very little vibratory disturbance during switching. This is one of a number of shutters...
Briefs: Software
Generating Animated Displays of Spacecraft Orbits
Tool for Interactive Plotting, Sonification, and 3D Orbit Display (TIPSOD) is a computer program for generating interactive, animated, four-dimensional (space and time) displays of spacecraft orbits.
Briefs: Software
Three-Dimensional Audio Client Library
The Three-Dimensional Audio Client Library (3DAudio library) is a group of software routines written to facilitate development of both stand-alone (audio only) and immersive virtual-reality application programs that utilize three-dimensional audio displays.
Briefs: Software
Single-Command Approach and Instrument Placement by a Robot on a Target
AUTOAPPROACH is a computer program that enables a mobile robot to approach a target autonomously, starting from a distance of as much as 10 m, in response to a single command. AUTOAPPROACH is used in conjunction with (1) software that analyzes images acquired by stereoscopic...
Briefs: Software
APGEN Version 5.0
Activity Plan Generator (APGEN), now at version 5.0, is a computer program that assists in generating an integrated plan of activities for a spacecraft mission that does not oversubscribe spacecraft and ground resources.
Briefs: Software
Training Software in Artificial-Intelligence Computing Techniques
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Toolkit is a computer program for training scientists, engineers, and university students in three soft-computing techniques (fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms) used in artificial-intelligence applications. The program promotes an...
Briefs: Software
Diagnosis and Prognosis of Weapon Systems
The Prognostics Framework is a set of software tools with an open architecture that affords a capability to integrate various prognostic software mechanisms and to provide information for operational and battlefield decision-making and logistical planning pertaining to weapon systems. The Prognostics...
Briefs: Software
Predicting Noise From Aircraft Turbine-Engine Combustors
COMBUSTOR and CNOISE are computer codes that predict far-field noise that originates in the combustors of modern aircraft turbine engines — especially modern, low-gaseous-emission engines, the combustors of which sometimes generate several decibels more noise than do the combustors of older...
Briefs: Software
Space Physics Data Facility Web Services
The Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Web services provides a distributed programming interface to a portion of the SPDF software. (A general description of Web services is available at http://www.w3.org/ and in many current software-engineering texts and articles focused on distributed programming.) The...
Briefs: Software
Parallel Adaptive Mesh Refinement Library
Parallel Adaptive Mesh Refinement Library (PARAMESH) is a package of Fortran 90 subroutines designed to provide a computer programmer with an easy route to extension of (1) a previously written serial code that uses a logically Cartesian structured mesh into (2) a parallel code with adaptive mesh refinement...
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