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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Significance Of Micro-Prairie Reconstruction In Urban Environments, Bruno Borsari, Neal Mundahl, Malcom F. Vidrine, Marc Pastorek Aug 2014

The Significance Of Micro-Prairie Reconstruction In Urban Environments, Bruno Borsari, Neal Mundahl, Malcom F. Vidrine, Marc Pastorek

The Prairie Naturalist

An aggressive urban sprawl during the last half century has not only contributed to habitat disturbance and extirpation, as well as a loss of knowledge and appreciation for biodiversity. Across the United States, prairie reconstruction has been a very effective approach for developing sustainable landscape designs in city parks and other open spaces. The purpose of this work is to focus on restoration and reconstruction of selected micro-prairies as a vehicle for enhanced place-based education and to partially remediate the consequences of global climate change and loss of pollinators. From the coastal prairies of southwestern Louisiana, to the eastern edge …


Towards A Sustainable Modular Robot System For Planetary Exploration, S. G. M. Hossain Apr 2014

Towards A Sustainable Modular Robot System For Planetary Exploration, S. G. M. Hossain

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis investigates multiple perspectives of developing an unmanned robotic system suited for planetary terrains. In this case, the unmanned system consists of unit-modular robots. This type of robot has potential to be developed and maintained as a sustainable multi-robot system while located far from direct human intervention. Some characteristics that make this possible are: the cooperation, communication and connectivity among the robot modules, flexibility of individual robot modules, capability of self-healing in the case of a failed module and the ability to generate multiple gaits by means of reconfiguration. To demonstrate the effects of high flexibility of an individual …