Argentine Land Registry Launches Territorial Information System

The Dirección General del Catastro Territorial (General Directorate of Cadastre Land [DGCT]) of the Province of Formosa, Argentina, is responsible for managing, maintaining, and updating the geographic information and legal valuation of approximately 160,000 parcels that make up the province, contributing to traffic safety, secure land tenure, land-use planning, and urban financing through property taxes. To continue to fulfill these responsibilities, it was necessary to have reliable, high-quality land information that could be accessed easily and efficiently.

The territorial information system's management module links to digital documents, such as these scanned cadastral surveys and the legal document that validates the transaction.

Officials implemented a new GIS to address these needs and realize their vision of having a digital cadastre that is open and allows citizens easy access to the provincial land registry information. This project involved new technological advances within the provincial administration.
http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall12articles/argentine-land-registry-launches-territorial-information-system.html

Math formula gives new glimpse into the magical mind of Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan.

December 22 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian mathematician renowned for somehow intuiting extraordinary numerical patterns and connections without the use of proofs or modern mathematical tools. A devout Hindu, Ramanujan said that his findings were divine, revealed to him in dreams by the goddess Namagiri.
"I wanted to do something special, in the spirit of Ramanujan, to mark the anniversary," says Emory mathematician Ken Ono. "It's fascinating to me to explore his writings and imagine how his brain may have worked. It's like being a mathematical anthropologist."
Ono, a number theorist whose work has previously uncovered hidden meanings in the notebooks of Ramanujan, set to work on the 125th-anniversary project with two colleagues and former students: Amanda Folsom, from Yale, and Rob Rhoades, from Stanford.
The result is a formula for mock modular forms that may prove useful to physicists who study black holes. The work, which Ono recently presented at the Ramanujan 125 conference at the University of Florida, also solves one of the greatest puzzles left behind by the enigmatic Indian genius.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Math_formula_gives_new_glimpse_into_the_magical_mind_of_Ramanujan_999.html

ESA's powerful new tracking station ready for service

Forty metres tall and with a moving antenna assembly weighing 610 tonnes, the station strikes a starkly beautiful pose 1500 m up on an arid Argentinian plain, where high tech meets the high Pampas.

A new satellite tracking station at Malargue, Argentina, will be formally inaugurated on Tuesday, completing the trio of deep-space stations and confirming ESA as one of the world's most technologically advanced space organisations.
The massive radio reflector dish of ESA's new station is the most visible indication of the impressive technology that will soon track missions voyaging hundreds of millions of kilometres deep in our Solar System.
Forty metres tall and with a moving antenna assembly weighing 610 tonnes, the station strikes a starkly beautiful pose 1500 m up on an arid Argentinian plain, where high tech meets the high Pampas.
In addition to tracking missions at Mars and Venus, it can also conduct radio science experiments, allowing scientists in Europe and Argentina to study the matter through which the spacecraft-ground communication signals travel.

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/ESAs_powerful_new_tracking_station_ready_for_service_999.html

CU-Boulder team develops swarm of pingpong ball-sized robots by Staff Writers

Assistant Professor Nikolaus Correll hopes to create a design methodology for aggregating the droplets into more complex behaviors such as assembling parts of a large space telescope or an aircraft.

University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Nikolaus Correll likes to think in multiples. If one robot can accomplish a singular task, think how much more could be accomplished if you had hundreds of them.
Correll and his computer science research team, including research associate Dustin Reishus and professional research assistant Nick Farrow, have developed a basic robotic building block, which he hopes to reproduce in large quantities to develop increasingly complex systems.







http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/CU_Boulder_team_develops_swarm_of_pingpong_ball_sized_robots_999.html

Beating Heart of J-2X Engine Finishes Year of Testing by Staff Writers

The powerpack assembly burned millions of pounds of propellants during a series of 13 tests totaling more than an hour and a half in 2012. The testing team set several records for hot-firing duration at Stennis test stands during the summer.

NASA on Thursday took another step toward human exploration of new destinations in the solar system. At the agency's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, engineers conducted the final test-firing of the J-2X powerpack assembly, an important component of America's next heavy-lift rocket.
The J-2X engine is the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen engine developed in the United States in decades. Designed and built by NASA and industry partner Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., the engine will power the upper stage of NASA's 143-ton (130-metric-ton) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The powerpack is a system of components on top of the engine that feeds propellants to the bell nozzle of the engine to produce thrust.

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Beating_Heart_of_J_2X_Engine_Finishes_Year_of_Testing_999.html