The most popular form of arti cial neural network, feedforward networks with sigmoidal activation functions, and a new statistical technique, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) can both be classi ed as nonlinear, nonparametric function estimation techniques, and both show great promise for tting general nonlinear multivariate functions. In comparing the two methods on a variety of ...

The Viking mission was the only mission to date that conducted life detection experiments. It revealed ambiguous and still controversial results. New findings and hypotheses urge a re-evaluation of the Viking results and a re-evaluation of the evidence for the possible presence of life on Mars in general. Recent findings of abundant water ice on Mars, the presence of liquid contemporary water o...

[1] The presence of valley networks (VN) on Mars suggests that early Mars was warmer and wetter than present. However, detailed geomorphic analyses of individual networks have not led to a consensus regarding their origin. An additional line of evidence can be provided by the global pattern of dissection on Mars, but the currently available global map of VN, compiled from Viking images, is inco...

The Arabidopsis thaliana genome is currently being sequenced, eventually leading towards the unravelling of all potential genes. We wanted to gain more insight into the way this genome might be organized at the ultrastructural level. To this extent we identified matrix attachment regions demarking potential chromatin domains, in a 16 kb region around the plastocyanin gene. The region was cloned...

Instruments proposed to satisfy measurement objectives of future NASA AOs, and the NRC Decadal Survey missions, will need on-board processing technologies to support autonomy, operations, and science data processing. Traditionally, payload design flows down from measurement objectives, to algorithm design, to realization on a computational platform with limited capabilities. We will describe a ...

Introduction: In future human exploration of Mars, many challenges face us. Mars is a dusty planet and dust and windblown particulates will present one of the most significant difficulties [1]. The dust and granular regolith will challenge materials, machines, and people. Our experience with dust-covered astronauts on the Moon and with landers and rovers on Mars suggests that significant effort...

This study presents a hybrid framework to predict stability solutions of buried structures under active trapdoor conditions in natural clays with anisotropy and heterogeneity by combining physics-based data-driven modeling. Finite-element limit analysis (FELA) newly developed anisotropic undrained shear (AUS) failure criterion is used identify the underlying mechanisms as well develop numerical...

Accurate prediction of compressive strength concrete is one the key issues in industry. In this paper, a method fly ash-slag based on multiple adaptive regression splines (MARS) proposed, and model analysis process determined by analyzing principle algorithm. Based Concrete Compressive Strength dataset UCI, MARS for was constructed with cement content, blast furnace slag powder ash water reduci...

Crater cataloging is an important yet time-consuming part of geological mapping. We present automated Detection Algorithm (CDA) that competitive with expert-human researchers and hundreds times faster. The CDA uses multiple neural networks to process digital terrain model thermal infra-red imagery identify locate craters across the surface Mars. use additional post-processing filters refine rem...

Mars has surely been scrutinised since the dawn of humankind. Its appearance every couple of years like a drop of blood in the sky led to warlike attributes in the ancient world. In the 16th century Tycho Brahe made accurate observations of the position of Mars that enabled Johannes Kepler to obtain his first two laws of planetary motion. These in turn were explained by Newton’s laws of motion ...