Services provided in support of the planetary quarantine requirements of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, April - June 1971

Research in microbiology for planetary quarantin

Services provided in support of the planetary quarantine requirements of NASA Progress report, 1 Jul. - 30 Sep. 1968

Evaluation of vacuum probe for sampling dust and microbiological surface contaminatio

Services provided in support of the planetary quarantine requirements, January - March 1969

Heat shock effects on bacterial spore recovery and Apollo 9, 10, and 11 microbial contamination dat

Research on microbiological sterilization problems Progress report, Apr. - Jun. 1968

Techniques and instrumentation for Apollo spacecraft sterilization and microbial bioassay

Microorganisms detected on Apollo spacecraft Technical report, Jan. - Mar. 1970

Quantitative analysis of microorganisms found on Apollo spacecraf

Comparative levels and survival of naturally occurring microorganisms deposited on surfaces through handling and aerial fallout a preliminary report

Death rates of microorganisms deposited on surfaces of stainless steel and electronic components by handling and aerial fallout - Decontamination technique

Recovery of Viable Microorganisms from Solids. I - Model Systems

Solidification process for recovering viable microorganisms to aid spacecraft sterilization procedure

Human thermal comfort under dynamic conditions: an experimental study

Although thermal comfort has been a research topic since the 1960s, some knowledge gaps still affect understanding of the human response to changing thermal environments. To enhance knowledge in this regard, an exploratory study is presented, which aims to understand human response to monotonic thermal variations by describing its relationship with covariates of interest. Thirty-eight participants (29 females, 9 males) worked in an office-like climate chamber and were exposed to dynamic and controlled heating and cooling ramps of the operative temperature with different speeds. Participants' perception, evaluation, preference and acceptability of the indoor thermal environment were recorded by filling in dedicated questionnaires. Additionally, participants could indicate when an uncomfortable event occurred during these temperature ramps by clicking a digital button on a dedicated app. This discomfort event was defined in behavioural terms as the decision to “take action to restore a comfort condition”. Survival analysis was used to study participants’ reactions to the dynamic thermal stimuli. It showed that two distinct mechanisms caused discomfort events due to overheating and undercooling: warm discomfort is driven by the absolute value of the achieved operative temperature, while the relative change in operative temperature mainly causes cold discomfort. Compared to the current recommendations regarding temperature cycles, drifts and ramps, this result shows that current standard recommendations underestimate the risk of thermal discomfort during a cooling process while overestimating it during a heating one. The new knowledge of human reaction to a dynamic thermal environment can lead to more energy-efficient and satisfactory building control strategies

Cavity-enhanced optical detection of carbon nanotube Brownian motion

Optical cavities with small mode volume are well-suited to detect the vibration of sub-wavelength sized objects. Here we employ a fiber-based, high-finesse optical microcavity to detect the Brownian motion of a freely suspended carbon nanotube at room temperature under vacuum. The optical detection resolves deflections of the oscillating tube down to 50pm/Hz^1/2. A full vibrational spectrum of the carbon nanotube is obtained and confirmed by characterization of the same device in a scanning electron microscope. Our work successfully extends the principles of high-sensitivity optomechanical detection to molecular scale nanomechanical systems.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure