INTESPACE's new thermal-vacuum test facility: SIMMER

The development of an European satellite market over the last 10 years, the industrialization of space applications, and the new requirements from satellite prime contractors have led INTESPACE to increase the test center's environmental testing capacities through the addition of a new thermal-vacuum test facility of impressive dimensions referred to as the SIMMER. The SIMMER is a simulator specifically created for the purpose of conducting acceptance tests of satellites and of large structures of the double launching ARIANE IV or half ARIANE V classes. The chamber is 8.3 meters long with a diameter of 10 meters. The conceptual design of a chamber in the horizontal plane and at floor level is in a view to simplify test preparation and to permit final electrical checks of the spacecraft in its actual test configuration prior to the closing of the chamber. The characteristics of the SIMMER complies with the requirements being currently defined in terms of thermal-vacuum tests: (1) thermal regulation (temperatures cycling between 100 K and 360 K); (2) clean vacuum (10(exp -6) mbar); (3) 600 measurement channels; and (4) 100 000 cleanliness class. The SIMMER is located in INTESPACE's space vehicle test complex in which a large variety of environmental test facilities are made available for having a whole test program completed under one and a same roof

A novel intensity limiting approach to Metal Artefact Reduction in 3D CT baggage imagery

This paper introduces a novel technique for Metal Artefact Reduction (MAR) in the previously unconsidered context 3D CT baggage imagery. The output of a conventional sinogram completion-based MAR approach is refined by imposing an upper limit on the intensity of the corrected images and by performing post-filtering using the non-local means filter. Furthermore, performance is evaluated using a novel quantitative analysis technique, using the ratio of noisy 3D SIFT detection points identified, as well as a standard qualitative comparison (visual quality). The objective of the quantitative analysis is to evaluate the impact of MAR on the application of computer vision techniques for automatic object recognition. The study yields encouraging results in both the qualitative and quantitative analyses. The proposed method yields a significant improvement in performance when compared to algorithms based on linear interpolation and reprojection-reconstruction; especially in terms of reducing the occurrence of new artefacts in the corrected images. The results serve as a strong indication that MAR will aid human and computerised analyses of 3D CT baggage imagery for transport security screening

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference

Obesity Paradox in the Clinical Significance of Effective Prosthetic Orifice Area after Aortic Valve Replacement.

peer reviewe

Transition Between Regular Reflection and Mach Reflection in the Dual-Solution Domain

A study of the shock-reflection domain for steady flow is presented. Conditions defining boundaries between different possible shock-reflection solutions are given, and where possible, simple analytic expressions for these conditions are presented. A new, more accurate estimate of the steady-state Mach stem height is derived based on geometric considerations of the flow. In particular, the location of the sonic throat through which the subsonic convergent flow behind the Mach stem is accelerated to divergent supersonic flow is considered. Comparisons with previous computational and experimental work show that the theory presented in this thesis more accurately predicts the Mach stem height than previous theories. The Mach stem height theory is generalized to allow for a moving triple point. Based on this moving triple point theory, a Mach stem growth rate theory is developed. This theory agrees well with computational and experimental results. Numerical computations of the effects of water vapor disturbances are also presented. These disturbances are shown to be sufficient to cause transition from regular reflection to Mach reflection in the dual-solution domain. These disturbances are also modeled as a simple energy deposition on one of the wedges, and an estimate for the minimum energy required to cause transition is derived. Experimental results using an asymmetric wedge configuration in the Ludwieg tube facility at the California institute of Technology are presented. A Mach 4.0 nozzle was designed and built for the Ludwieg tube facility. This Mach number is sufficient to provide a large dual-solution domain, while being small enough not to require preheating of the test gas. The test time of the facility is 100ms, which requires the use of high-speed cinematography and a fast motor to rotate one of the two wedges. Hysteresis in the transition between regular to Mach reflection was successfully demonstrated in the Ludwieg tube facility. The experiments show that regular reflection could be maintained up to a shock angle approximately halfway between the von Neumann condition and the detachment condition. Energy deposition studies were performed using an Nd:YAG laser. Triggering transition in this manner is found to depend on the location of the energy deposition. This finding is consistent with the numerical work presented in this thesis. Experiments were also performed to measure the Mach stem height and its growth rate. These results are compared with the theoretical estimates presented in this thesis. Excellent agreement between the steady-state Mach stem height and the theoretical estimates is seen. Comparisons of Mach stem growth rate with theoretical estimates show significant differences, but do show good agreement regarding the time required to reach the steady-state height.</p

Character merchandising and the celebrity in South African law

Thesis (LL.M.) -- University of Stellenbosch, 1996.Full text to be digitised and attached to bibliographic record