Matrix attachment regions (MARs) can be operationally defined as DNA fragments that bind to the nuclear matrix. We have created a library of randomly obtained MARs from tobacco (Nicotiana tobacum) by cloning DNA fragments that co-isolate with nuclear matrixes prepared by a method involving lithium diiodosalicylate. The interactions of several of the cloned MARs with nuclear matrixes were tested...

[1] The objectives of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Radio Science Gravity Investigation are to improve knowledge of the static structure and characterize the temporal variability of the Martian gravitational field relevant to the planet’s internal dynamics, the structure and dynamics of the atmosphere, and the orbital evolution of spacecraft at Mars. The investigation will utilize range...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

This paper discusses an approach of QoS service differentiation in mobile ad hoc networks. We aim to investigate the performances of the proposed semi-stateless approach, named “MARS”, over the existing stateless approaches. Mars supports both real-time UDP traffic, and best-effort UDP and TCP traffic. The main objective of MARS is to minimize the end-to-end delay of traffic. The proposed model...

Introduction: Extensional fault scarps on Mars bear a striking resemblance to fault scarps on Earth, including geometric features such as horsts, grabens, relay ramps and breached relay ramps, en echelon arrangement of faults and grabens, and scaling characteristics [1], [2], [3]. Other surface features associated with extensional faulting on Mars are lines (" chains ") of circular topo-graphic...

A new approach for the robotic exploration of Mars is detailed in this paper: the use of small, ultralightweight, autonomous rotary-wing aerial platforms. Missions based on robotic rotorcraft could make excellent candidates for NASA Mars Scout program. The paper details the work to date and future planning required for the development of such ‘Mars rotorcraft.’