5,503 research outputs found
Preliminary design of graphite composite wing panels for commercial transport aircraft
Subjectively assessed practical and producible graphite/epoxy designs were subjected to a multilevel screening procedure which considered structural functions, efficiency, manufacturing and producibility, costs, maintainability, and inspectability. As each progressive screening level was reviewed, more definitive information on the structural efficiency (weight), manufacturing, and inspection procedures was established to support the design selection. The configuration features that enhance producibility of the final selected design can be used as a generic base for application to other wing panel designs. The selected panel design showed a weight saving of 25 percent over a conventional aluminum design meeting the same design requirements. The estimated cost reduction in manufacturing was 20 percent, based on 200 aircraft and projected 1985 automated composites manufacturing capability. The panel design background information developed will be used in the follow-on tasks to ensure that future panel development represents practical and producible design approaches to graphite/epoxy wing surface panels
CASPR: Judiciously Using the Cloud for Wide-Area Packet Recovery
We revisit a classic networking problem -- how to recover from lost packets
in the best-effort Internet. We propose CASPR, a system that judiciously
leverages the cloud to recover from lost or delayed packets. CASPR supplements
and protects best-effort connections by sending a small number of coded packets
along the highly reliable but expensive cloud paths. When receivers detect
packet loss, they recover packets with the help of the nearby data center, not
the sender, thus providing quick and reliable packet recovery for
latency-sensitive applications. Using a prototype implementation and its
deployment on the public cloud and the PlanetLab testbed, we quantify the
benefits of CASPR in providing fast, cost effective packet recovery. Using
controlled experiments, we also explore how these benefits translate into
improvements up and down the network stack
Richness and Abundance of Carabidae and Staphylinidae (Coleoptera), in Northeastern Dairy Pastures Under Intensive Grazing
Dairy cattle has become popular to dairy farmers in the Northeast looking for management schemes to cut production costs. Carabidae (ground beetles) and Staphylinidae (rove beetles) are indicators of habitat disturbances, such as drainage of wetlands, or grassland for grazing animals, and their monitoring could provide one measure of ecosystem sustainability if intensive management systems expand or intensify in the future. Our objective was assess the abundance and species richness of these two beetle families under intensive grazing throughout Pennsylvania, southern New York and Vermont. We collected 4365 ground beetles (83 species) and 4,027 rove beetles (79 species) by pitfall traps in three years in Pennsylvania. Nine ground beetle species, Amara aenea, Poecilus chalcites, Pterostichus melanarius, Bembidion quadrimaculatum oppositum, Amara familiaris, Poecilus lucublandus, Agonum muelleri, Bembidion obtusum and Bembidion mimus represented 80% of the Carabidae collected.
Five other species were new to Pennsylvania. Four rove beetle species, Philonthus cognatus, Meronera venustula, Amischa analis, and Philonthus various = (carbonarius), comprised 74% of the total Staphylinidae collected. Yearly distributions of the dominant species did not change significantly in the three years with A. aenea and P. cognatus being most abundant every year. A parasitic rove beetle, Aleochara tristis, was recovered for the first time in Pennsylvania and Vermont since its release in the 1960\u27s to control face fly, Musca autumnalis.
Similar results were found in New York and Vermont. We collected 1,984 ground beetles (68 species). Pterostichus melanarius was most abundant. Pterostichus vernalis was detected for the first time in the United States (Vermont). It was previously reported from Montreal, Canada. We collected 843 rove beetles (45 species). Philonthus cognatus was the most abundant rove beetle. In addition, Tachinus corticinus, previously known only from Canada, was discovered for the first time in the United States in Vermont.
Pastures in Pennsylvania were diverse, containing 14 species of forage plants and 17 weed species. Botanical composition was similar in New York and Vermont. Sixteen species of grasses and legumes made up 90% of the plant composition and 36 species of weeds made up the remainder. This diverse plant ecosystem may explain the richness of ground and rove beetles in northeastern U.S. pastures because the heterogeneity in the plant population provided additional resources which can support a rich assemblage of beetles. Monitoring richness and abundance of Carabidae and Staphylinidae over three years in Pennsylvania suggests intensive grazing systems are ecologically sustainable
Characteristic weather phenomena of California : a regional analysis based on aeronautical weather observations
During the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1928, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics maintained an experimental meteorological service for the benefit of air transportation between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The system was
designed as a first approach toward a model weather reporting organization for air traffic.
Its main feature was the gathering of simultaneous weather observations from about 35 stations
in Southern and Central California covering an area of, roughly, 65,000 square miles.
The observation hours were 6.30 a.m., 8 a.m., 9.30 a.m., 11 a.m., 12.30 p.m., and 3.30 p.m., 120th meridian time. The regular Weather Bureau observations furnished additional data for
5 a.m. and 5 p.m. A description of the organization has been published by E. H. Bowie.
Since the service was organized strictly for the purpose of informing airplane pilots of
weather conditions over their routes and not with a view of furnishing a fertile field for
meteorological investigations, certain instrumental readings which are important in meteorological
research were not provided. Thus humidity observations are lacking, except as subsequently
obtained from the few but more thoroughly equipped stations of the U. S. Weather
Bureau, the U. S. Navy and the University of California.
A series of airplane ascents made at the Naval Air Station at San Diego provided pressure,
temperature and relative humidity observations from the upper atmosphere for part of the
period investigated. Three pilot balloon stations were established by the Fund to supplement
those of the Government, so that ample free air wind data are available.
Non-professional part-time observers were employed at most of the stations. For this
reason, inaccuracies are likely to have lessened the value of the reports. These errors occurred
chiefly in the determination of cloud forms. When the uncertainties of cloud classification
and the diffculties it presents even to the trained meteorologist are fully appreciated, the errors
in these observations are not surprising. It is the opinion of the authors that the cloud forms
herein recorded are for all practical purposes correct.
During the year in which this service was conducted by the Fund, some interesting data
were collected to add to the knowledge of meteorological conditions in California. This applies
particularly to the movement of fronts and the development, distribution and dissipation of
the persistent and frequent fogs in the area. Some of these results will be presented below
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Optical coherence tomography measurements of biological fluid flows with picolitre spatial localization
This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.Interest in studying the human and animal microcirculation has burgeoned in recent years. In part
this has been driven by recent advances in volumetric microscopy modalities, which allow the study of the
3-D morphology of the microcirculation without the limitations of 2-D intra-vital microscopy. In this paper
we highlight the power of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to image the normal and pathological
microcirculation with picolitre voxel sizes. Both Doppler and speckle-variance methods are employed to
characterize complex rheological flows both in-vitro and in-vivo. GPU accelerated image registration
methods are demonstrated in order to mitigate problems of bulk tissue motion in methods based on speckle
decorrelation. In-vivo images of the human nailfold microcirculation are shown
The NASA Electric Propulsion Program
The NASA OAST Propulsion, Power, and Energy Division supports an electric propulsion program aimed at providing benefits to a broad class of missions. Concepts which have the potential to enable or significantly benefit space exploration and exploitation are identified and advanced toward application in the near and far term. This paper summarizes recent program progress in mission/system analysis; in electrothermal, electrostatic, and electromagnetic propulsion technologies; and in propulsion/spacecraft integration
Changes in Imja Tsho in the Mount Everest Region of Nepal
Imja Tsho, located in the Sagarmatha ( Everest) National Park of Nepal, is one of the most studied and rapidly growing lakes in the Himalayan range. Compared with previous studies, the results of our sonar bathymetric survey conducted in September of 2012 suggest that its maximum depth has increased from 90.5 to 116.3 +/- 5.2 m since 2002, and that its estimated volume has grown from 35.8 +/- 0.7 to 61.7 +/- 3.7 million m(3). Most of the expansion of the lake in recent years has taken place in the glacier terminus-lake interface on the eastern end of the lake, with the glacier receding at about 52 m yr(-1) and the lake expanding in area by 0.04 km(2) yr(-1). A ground penetrating radar survey of the Imja-Lhotse Shar glacier just behind the glacier terminus shows that the ice is over 200 m thick in the center of the glacier. The volume of water that could be released from the lake in the event of a breach in the damming moraine on the western end of the lake has increased to 34.1 +/- 1.08 million m(3) from the 21 million m(3) estimated in 2002.USAID Climate Change Resilient Development (CCRD) projectFulbright FoundationNational Geographic SocietyCenter for Research in Water Resource
Development of boron calibration via hybrid comparator method in prompt gamma activation analysis
The prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) facility at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin was utilized to quantify boron concentrations in boron carbide semiconductor films deposited on silicon substrates. Calibration was complicated by the unique and varying sample geometries analyzed. In addition, there was a dearth of solid materials available with quantified boron concentrations having comparable or readily modifiable dimensions to exploit for calibration purposes. Therefore, a novel hybrid comparator method was developed for the quantification of boron utilizing aluminum as an inexpensive and easily machinable reference material. Aluminum samples were manufactured with high tolerances to match the geometry of each sample of interest. Each boron carbide film sample and its congruent aluminum sample were measured in the PGAA system. The measured aluminum responses and relevant nuclear parameters were used to standardize the measurements. A boron standard was created using a procedure derived from a similar approach used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Quality control measurements using this standard show that the method provided accuracy to within 5% for boron quantification
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