The primary objective of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, which will launch in 2011, is to characterize the habitability of a site on Mars through detailed analyses of the composition and geological context of surface materials. Within the framework of established mission goals, we have evaluated the value of a possible landing site in the Mawrth Vallis region of Mars that is targe...

Various iron group alloys have been electrodeposited and evaluated for properties including corrosion resistance, microstructure, electrical resistivity, magnetoresistance and other magnetic properties. Corrosion resistance depends on deposit composition and microstructure, which are controlled by solution composition and deposition variables. Maximum corrosion resistance was observed for 50Ni5...

Varved clays, which consist of alternating layers of silt and clay, are common in glaciated regions of North America and Northern Europe. This layering results in several unique engineering properties making varved clays a challenging soil for engineering design. Varved clays have hydraulic conductivity and undrained shear strength anisotropy that far exceeds that of most other soils. The stren...

On April 26, 1996, Public Law 104-134 was Chart 1 .-Payment volume, by type of disbursement, fiscal year 1997 enacted, requiring all Federal payments except tax refunds be issued electronically by January 2, 1999, thus beginning a new era in electronic N Federal tax 10.5% funds transfer (EFT). This legislation, the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996-part of the Omnibus Consolidated Resciss...

the gheshlagh bauxite deposit is located 110 km southeast of gorgan. the deposit has been developed as a stratiform horizon with more than 2 km length and a thickness of about 25 m along the contact of ruteh and elika carbonate formations. textural analysis indicates both allochthonous and autochtonous origins for the bauxites. bohemite, diaspore, anatase, rutile, hematite, goethite, kaolinite,...

this paper deals with scrutinizing the convergence properties of iterative methods to solve linear system of equations. recently, several types of the preconditioners have been applied for ameliorating the rate of convergence of the accelerated overrelaxation (aor) method. in this paper, we study the applicability of a general class of the preconditioned iterative methods under certain conditio...