Photosynthetic Gas Exchange in the Closed Ecosystem for Space. Phase II, Part III. Screening for Thermophilic Algae and Mutation Studies

An algal screening and mutation study was undertaken to obtain algae superior to Chlorella 71105 for use in a photosynthetic gas exchanger. Of the forty-four thermophilic algae studied, eighteen appeared to have growth rates as great as Chlorella 71105. Optimization of the physical and chemical environments of these strains is recommended as a way to further improve growth rates and concomitant oxygen production. The mutation study revealed that Chlorella 71105 is relatively resistant to germicidal ultraviolet radiation. No high temperature mutants of Chlorella 71105 were found

Chromatographic test facility. Analysis and design of a capsule landing system and surface vehicle control system for Mars exploration

Test facility to verify design concepts and mathematical models of chromatograph for atmospheric composition analysis of Mar

Optimization of Single-Sided Charge-Sharing Strip Detectors

Simulation of the charge sharing properties of single-sided CZT strip detectors with small anode pads are presented. The effect of initial event size, carrier repulsion, diffusion, drift, trapping and detrapping are considered. These simulations indicate that such a detector with a 150 µm pitch will provide good charge sharing between neighboring pads. This is supported by a comparison of simulations and measurements for a similar detector with a coarser pitch of 225 µm that could not provide sufficient sharing. The performance of such a detector used as a gamma-ray imager is discussed

The Persuasive Defense of Jesus in the Gospel According to John

Image restoration strategies are reviewed and then applied to Jesus\u27 discourse in the Gospel according to St. John. Brief reviews of verbal attacks on Jesus are given, followed by descriptions of the defense strategies he employed to deal with the accusations. Jesus primarily engaged in denial and transcendence. Some charges were so serious that they required unequivocal denial. However, it should not be surprising that Jesus also used transcendence given his desire to advance a more spiritual order of religious practice

A Functional Analysis of Non-Presidential Primary Debates

Despite the fact that political debates are increasingly common at all levels of government, relatively little work investigates the content of non-presidential debates (and work on primary debates is even less common). This study breaks new ground by analyzing four non-presidential primary debates. Two Democratic gubernatorial debates, one Republican U.S. Senate debate, and one Republican U.S. House debate were content analyzed using the framework of the functional theory of political campaign discourse. Overall, these debates were mainly positive, with 71% acclaims, 22% attacks, and 7% defenses. The Democratic (and gubernatorial) debates had more attacks and defenses and fewer defenses than the Republican (congressional) debates. Overall, these campaign messages focused more on policy (60%) than character (40%). The Democratic (gubernatorial) debates emphasized policy even more (65% to 55%), and character less (35% to 45%), than the Republican (congressional) debates

Because I Said So: A Functional Theory Analysis of Evidence in Political TV Spots

This study examines presidential general election television advertising (1952-2004), primary advertising (1952-2008), and non-presidential advertising from 2002 (gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, U.S. House) to understand the use of evidence (statements for which sources are provided) in such campaign messages. 8% of the themes in these spots were supported by evidence (that is, identified a source for a claim). However, the longitudinal presidential data suggests that evidence in advertising was rare until the 1990s, when Bill Clinton in particular employed a great deal of evidence in his spots. Although the appeals across all ads were mainly positive (70% of the themes in these ads were acclaims), evidence disproportionately supported attacks (65% of the utterances with evidence were attacks). No consistent topic evidence emerged for use of evidence in these ads (a tendency to use evidence to support policy in general presidential ads, and to support character in senate ads). Candidates in this sample used newspapers most frequently as sources of evidence, followed by governmental reports and statements from one‘s opponent, voting record, and other sources

On the value of the Kullback-Leibler divergence for cost-effective spectral imaging of plants by optimal selection of wavebands

The practical value of a criterion based on statistical information theory is demonstrated for the selection of optimal wavelength and bandwidth of low-cost lighting systems in plant imaging applications. Kullback–Leibler divergence is applied to the problem of spectral band reduction from hyperspectral imaging. The results are illustrated on various plant imaging problems and show similar results to the one obtained with state-of-the-art criteria. A specific interest of the proposed approach is to offer the possibility to integrate technological constraints in the optimization of the spectral bands selected

Newspaper Coverage of the 2008 General Election Presidential Campaigns

News coverage of political campaigns is very important to the political campaign process. Some voters pay little attention to debates or other sources of information about the candidates and their policies. The news is one important source of this information. Newspapers can also supplement and reinforce the information possessed by voters who do attend to campaign messages. This study content analyzed news coverage of the 2008 general election presidential campaign (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today). Horse race coverage was most common topic (45%), followed by themes about character (32%), and policy (23%). The tone of newspaper coverage was more positive (51%) than negative (39%; 9% of themes reported the candidates‘ defenses)

Magnetic structure of the antiferromagnetic half-Heusler compound NdBiPt

We present results of single crystal neutron diffraction experiments on the rare-earth, half-Heusler antiferromagnet (AFM) NdBiPt. This compound exhibits an AFM phase transition at $T_{\mathrm N}=2.18$~K with an ordered moment of $1.78(9)$~$\mu_{\mathrm B}$ per Nd atom. The magnetic moments are aligned along the $[001]$-direction, arranged in a type-I AFM structure with ferromagnetic planes, alternating antiferromagnetically along a propagation vector $\tau$ of $(100)$. The $R$BiPt ($R$= Ce-Lu) family of materials has been proposed as candidates of a new family of antiferromagnetic topological insulators (AFTI) with magnetic space group that corresponds to a type-II AFM structure where ferromagnetic sheets are stacked along the space diagonal. The resolved structure makes it unlikely, that NdBiPt qualifies as an AFTI.Comment: As resubmitted to PRB, corrected typos and changed symbols in Fig.

Universal conductance fluctuations in epitaxial GaMnAs ferromagnets: structural and spin disorder

Mesoscopic transport measurements reveal a large effective phase coherence length in epitaxial GaMnAs ferromagnets, contrary to usual 3d-metal ferromagnets. Universal conductance fluctuations of single nanowires are compared for epilayers with a tailored anisotropy. At large magnetic fields, quantum interferences are due to structural disorder only, and an unusual behavior related to hole-induced ferromagnetism is evidenced, for both quantum interferences and decoherence. At small fields, phase coherence is shown to persist down to zero field, even in presence of magnons, and an additional spin disorder contribution to quantum interferences is observed under domain walls nucleation.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure