GSFC Ada programming guidelines

A significant Ada effort has been under way at Goddard for the last two years. To ease the center's transition toward Ada (notably for future space station projects), a cooperative effort of half a dozen companies and NASA personnel was started in 1985 to produce programming standards and guidelines for the Ada language. The great richness of the Ada language and the need of programmers for good style examples makes Ada programming guidelines an important tool to smooth the Ada transition. Because of the natural divergence of technical opinions, the great diversity of our government and private organizations and the novelty of the Ada technology, the creation of an Ada programming guidelines document is a difficult and time consuming task. It is also a vital one. Steps must now be taken to ensure that the guide is refined in an organized but timely manner to reflect the growing level of expertise of the Ada community

Orbital transfer vehicle concept definition and system analysis study, 1985. Volume 3: System and program trades

The key system and program trade studies performed to arrive at a preferred Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) system concept and evolutionary approach to the acquisition of the requisite capabilites is documented. These efforts were expanded to encompass a Space Transportation Architecture Study (STAS) mission model and recommended unmanned cargo vehicle. The most important factors affecting the results presented are the mission model requirements and selection criteria. The reason for conducting the OTV concept definition and system analyses study is to select a concept and acquisition approach that meets a delivery requirement reflected by the mission model

Spectrophotometry of nearby field galaxies: the data

We have obtained integrated and nuclear spectra, as well as U, B, R surface photometry, for a representative sample of 196 nearby galaxies. These galaxies span the entire Hubble sequence in morphological type, as well as a wide range of luminosities (M_B=-14 to -22). Here we present the spectrophotometry for these galaxies. The selection of the sample and the U, B, R surface photometry is described in a companion paper (Paper I). Our goals for the project include measuring the current star formation rates and metallicities of these galaxies, and elucidating their star formation histories, as a function of luminosity and morphology. We thereby extend the work of Kennicutt (1992a) to lower luminosity systems. We anticipate that our study will be useful as a benchmark for studies of galaxies at high redshift. We describe the observing, data reduction and calibration techniques, and demonstrate that our spectrophotometry agrees well with that of Kennicutt. The spectra span the range 3550--7250 A at a resolution (FWHM) of ~6 A, and have an overall relative spectrophotometric accuracy of +/- 6 per cent. We present a spectrophotometric atlas of integrated and nuclear rest-frame spectra, as well as tables of equivalent widths and synthetic colors. We study the correlations of galaxy properties determined from the spectra and images. Our findings include: (1) galaxies of a given morphological class display a wide range of continuum shapes and emission line strengths if a broad range of luminosities are considered, (2) emission line strengths tend to in- crease and continua tend to get bluer as the luminosity decreases, and (3) the scatter on the general correlation between nuclear and integrated H_alpha emission line strengths is large.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJS (scheduled for Vol.127, 2000 March); 63 pages, LateX, 9 figures and 6 tables included, a spectrophotometric atlas is provided as GIF images, fig 1 as a JPEG image, in a single tar-file; a full 600 dpi version is available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~nfgs

Size matters: An empirical study of neural network training for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition

We have trained and tested a number of large neural networks for the purpose of emission probability estimation in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition. In particular, the problem under test is the DARPA Broadcast News task. Our goal here was to determine the relationship between training time, word error rate, size of the training set, and size of the neural network. In all cases, the network architecture was quite simple, comprising a single large hidden layer with an input window consisting of feature vectors from 9 frames around the current time, with a single output for each of 54 phonetic categories. Thus far, simultaneous increases to the size of the training set and the neural network improve performance; in other words, more data helps, as does the training of more parameters. We continue to be surprised that such a simple system works as well as it does for complex tasks. Given a limitation in training time, however, there appears to be an optimal ratio of training patterns to parameters of around 25:1 in these circumstances. Additionally, doubling the training data and system size appears to provide diminishing returns of error rate reduction for the largest systems

Water fragmentation by bare and dressed light ions with MeV energies: Fragment-ion-energy and time-of-flight distributions

The energy and time-of-flight distributions of water ionic fragments produced by impact of fast atoms and bare and dressed ions; namely, H+, Li0-3+, C1+, and C2+ are reported in this work. Fragment species as a function of emission energy and time-of-flight were recorded by using an electrostatic spectrometer and a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, respectively. An improved Coulomb explosion model coupled to a classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) simulation gave the energy centroids of the fragments for the dissociation channels resulting from the removal of two to five electrons from the water molecule. For the energy distribution ranging up to 50 eV, both the experiment and model reveal an isotropic production of multiple charged oxygen ions, as well as hydrogen ions. From the ion energy distribution, relative yields of the dissociation resulting from multiple ionization were obtained as a function of the charge state, as well as for several projectile energies. Multiple-ionization yields with charge state up to 4+, were extracted from the measurements of the time-of-flight spectra, focused on the production of single and multiple charged oxygen ions. The measurements were compared to ion-water collision experiments investigated at the keV energy range available in the literature, revealing differences and similarities in the fragment-ion energy distribution.Fil: Wolff, W.. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Luna, H.. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Schuch, R.. Alba Nova University Center; SueciaFil: Cariatore, Nelson Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Otranto, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Turco, Federico. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Fregenal, Daniel Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Bernardi, Guillermo Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Suárez, S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentin

Oncogenic fusion protein BCR-FGFR1 requires the breakpoint cluster region-mediated oligomerization and chaperonin Hsp90 for activation.

Mutation and translocation of fibroblast growth factor receptors often lead to aberrant signaling and cancer. This work focuses on the t(8;22)(p11;q11) chromosomal translocation which creates the breakpoint cluster region (BCR) fibroblast growth factor receptor1 (FGFR1) (BCR-FGFR1) fusion protein. This fusion occurs in stem cell leukemia/lymphoma, which can progress to atypical chronic myeloid leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, or B-cell lymphoma. This work focuses on the biochemical characterization of BCR-FGFR1 and identification of novel therapeutic targets. The tyrosine kinase activity of FGFR1 is required for biological activity as shown using transformation assays, interleukin-3 independent cell proliferation, and liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy analyses. Furthermore, BCR contributes a coiled-coil oligomerization domain, also essential for oncogenic transformation by BCR-FGFR1. The importance of salt bridge formation within the coiled-coil domain is demonstrated, as disruption of three salt bridges abrogates cellular transforming ability. Lastly, BCR-FGFR1 acts as a client of the chaperonin heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90), suggesting that BCR-FGFR1 relies on Hsp90 complex to evade proteasomal degradation. Transformed cells expressing BCR-FGFR1 are sensitive to the Hsp90 inhibitor Ganetespib, and also respond to combined treatment with Ganetespib plus the FGFR inhibitor BGJ398. Collectively, these data suggest novel therapeutic approaches for future stem cell leukemia/lymphoma treatment: inhibition of BCR oligomerization by disruption of required salt bridges; and inhibition of the chaperonin Hsp90 complex

A Risk Analysis of Carbon Sequestration in Claypan Soil with Conservation Tillage Systems and Nitrogen Fertilizers for Grain Sorghum and Soybean

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/15/06.carbon sequestration, carbon credits, nitrogen, risk, tillage, Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty, Q12,

Gasser-Leutwyler coefficients: A progress report

Last year, we reported our first results on the determination of Gasser-Leutwyler coefficients using partially quenched lattice QCD with three flavors of dynamical staggered quarks. We give an update on our progress in determining two of these coefficients, including an exhaustive effort to estimate all sources of systematic error. At this conference, we have heard about algorithmic techniques to reduce staggered flavor symmetry breaking and a method to incorporate staggered flavor breaking into the partially quenched chiral Lagrangian. We comment on our plans to integrate these developments into our ongoing program.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, Lattice2002(spectrum

Developing Earthquake-Resistant Structural Design Standard for Malaysia Based on Eurocode 8: Challenges and Recommendations

In late 2017, the Malaysian National Annex (NA) to Eurocode 8 (EC8) was released and enacted following some 13 years of deliberations and preparations. The authors of this paper aim to use this article to share their experiences and reflections during this period of developing the first national standard for the seismic design of buildings for Malaysia. To begin with, there were major challenges in implementing the 20-year-old EC8 framework for a country so far away from Europe. The first challenge was adapting the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) methodology in a low-to-moderate seismicity region where the paucity of representative seismic data presented a great deal of uncertainties. To address this situation, imposing a minimum level of seismic hazard was recommended. The second challenge was about dealing with the outdated EC8 site classification scheme, which poorly represents the potential effects of soil amplification in certain geological settings. To address this situation, an alternative site classification scheme in which the site natural period is an explicit modelling parameter was introduced. The third challenge was concerned with difficulties generated by the EC8 provisions mandating Ductility Class Medium (DCM) detailing in certain localities where the level of seismic hazard is predicted to exceed a certain threshold. To address this situation, the viable option of using strength to trade off for ductility was recommended, or in cases where ductility design is needed, a simplified set of code-compliant DCM designs was presented. The fourth challenge was about handling the requirements of EC8 that the majority of buildings are to involve dynamic analysis in their structural design when the majority of practising professionals did not have the skills of exercising proper use of the requisite software. To address this situation, a generalized force method was introduced to control the use dynamic analysis in commercial software. It is hoped that, through sharing the lessons learnt, code drafters for the future would be able to find ways of circumventing the multitude of challenges with clear thinking and pragmatism