Experiment Luxembourg

The earlier orbits and ephemerides for the Soviet satellites were not sufficiently accurate to be very useful in making observations in Alaska. Extrapolations from our own observations gave better predictions. This merely pointed out the fact that rough observations of meridian transits at high latitudes will give better values of the inclination of the orbit than precision observations at low latitudes. Hence, it was decided to observe visually the meridian transits estimating the altitude by noting the position with respect to the stars or using crude alidade measurements. The times of the earlier observations were observed on a watch or clock and the clock correction obtained from WWV. Later the times were determined with the aid of stop watches, taking time intervals from WWV signals. This rather meager program of optical observations of the Soviet satellites was undertaken to give supplementary data for use of the radio observations, and particularly to assist in the prediction of position of the satellite so that the 61-foot radar of Stanford Research Institute could be set accurately enough to observe it (the beam width at the half-power points is about 3°). This report contains primarily the visual observations made at the Geophysical Institute by various members of the staff, and a series of observations by Olaf Halverson at Nome, Alaska. In addition there is a short discussion of the geometry of the trajectory, the illumination of a circumpolar satellite, and a note on the evaluation of Brouwer's moment factors.The research reported In this document has been sponsored by the Geophysics Research Directorate of the Air Force Cambridge Research Center* Air Research and Development Command, under Contract AF 19(604)-3880.List of Figures -- Introduction -- Present knowledge of the electron densities and collision frequencies in the D region of the ionosphere. -- The theory of radio wave interaction. -- The outline of the planned experiment. -- Some comments about the planned experiment. Some comments about gyrointeraction. -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- ReferencesYe

Experiment Luxembourg, Scientific Report No. 3

Contract No. AF 19(604)-3860 -- GEOPHYSICS RESEARCH DIRECTORATE AIR FORCE CAMBRIDGE RESEARCH CENTER AIR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMAND UNITED STATES AIR FORCE; BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTSLIST OF FIGURES -- ABSORPTION OF RADIO WAVES AND METEORIC IONIZATION -- METEORIC IONIZATION -- ABSORPTION AND SPORADIC METEORS -- ABSORPTION AND METEOR SHOWERS -- IONIZING EFFICIENCY OF METEORS -- CONCLUSIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- REFERENCESYe

Possibility of prediction of avalanches in power law systems

We consider a modified Burridge-Knopoff model with a view to understand results of acoustic emission (AE) relevant to earthquakes by adding a dissipative term which mimics bursts of acoustic signals. Interestingly, we find a precursor effect in the cumulative energy dissipated which allows identification of a large slip event. Further, the AE activity for several large slip events follows a universal stretched exponential behavior with corrections in terms of time-to-failure. We find that many features of the statistics of AE signals such as their amplitudes, durations and the intervals between successive AE bursts obey power laws consistent with recent experimental results. Large magnitude events have different power law from that of the small ones, the latter being sensitive to the pulling speed

On the predictability of individual events in power law systems

We consider a modified Burridge-Knopoff model with a view to understand results of acoustic emission (AE) relevant to earthquakes by adding a dissipative term which mimics bursts of acoustic signals. Interestingly, we find a precursor effect in the cumulative energy dissipated which allows identification of a large slip event. Further, the AE activity for several large slip events follows a universal stretched exponential behavior with corrections in terms of time-to-failure. We find that many features of the statistics of AE signals such as their amplitudes, durations and the intervals between successive AE bursts obey power laws consistent with recent experimental results. Large magnitude events have different power law from that of the small ones, the latter being sensitive to the pulling speed

Dynamics of the peel front and the nature of acoustic emission during peeling of an adhesive tape

We investigate the peel front dynamics and acoustic emission of an adhesive tape within the context of a recent model by including an additional dissipative energy that mimics bursts of acoustic signals. We find that the nature of the peeling front can vary from smooth to stuck-peeled configuration depending on the values of dissipation coefficient, inertia of the roller, mass of the tape. Interestingly, we find that the distribution of AE bursts shows a power law statistics with two scaling regimes with increasing pull velocity as observed in experiments. In this regimes, the stuck-peeled configuration is similar to the `edge of peeling' reminiscent of a system driven to a critical state.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Experiment Luxembourg, Scientific Report No. 4

Experiment Luxembourg was designed to measure the electron density and electron collision-frequency as a function of height in the D region over College, Alaska using the technique of radio-wave interaction. A block diagram, which includes all the equipment necessary for the actual operation of the experiment, is described and illustrated in detail. The major parts of the system are: the disturbing transmitter operating on 17.5 Mc/s and using a 4x4 array of Yagi antennas, the wanted transmitter operating on ~ 5 Mc/s and using a circular polarization unit with 4 dipoles arranged in a quadrangle, a similar circular polarization unit and antenna for 5 Mc/s at the receiving site, and the delicate receiving system which detects a cross-modulation of 1x10 -4 for a one volt input signal. Some values of electron density and collision-frequency have been obtained and will be discussed in following publications.Contract No. AF 19(604)-3880 -- GEOPHYSICS RESEARCH DIRECTORATE AIR FORCE CAMBRIDGE RESEARCH LABORATORIES AIR FORCE RESEARCH DIVISION (ARDC) UNITED STATES AIR FORCE BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTSLIST OP FIGURES -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- TRANSMITTING SITE : Timer Wanted transmitter ; Circular polarization unit ; 5 Mc/s antenna ; Disturbing transmitter ; Duplexer ; 17.5 Mc/s receiver ; 17.5 Mc/s antenna -- RECEIVING SITE : 5 Mc/s antenna ; Circular polarization unit ; 5 Mc/s Super-pro receiver ; Wide band IF amplifier ; Pulse shaper and delay control ; Receiver gate and reference signal generator ; Signal gate ; Selective amplifier ; Phase sensitive detector ; E.A. recorder ; 17.5 Mc/s Collins receiver ; Scope unit ; Calibration -- Results -- AcknowledgementsYe

Missing physics in stick-slip dynamics of a model for peeling of an adhesive tape

It is now known that the equations of motion for the contact point during peeling of an adhesive tape mounted on a roll introduced earlier are singular and do not support dynamical jumps across the two stable branches of the peel force function. By including the kinetic energy of the tape in the Lagrangian, we derive equations of motion that support stick-slip jumps as a natural consequence of the inherent dynamics. In the low mass limit, these equations reproduce solutions obtained using a differential-algebraic algorithm introduced for the earlier equations. Our analysis also shows that mass of the ribbon has a strong influence on the nature of the dynamics.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E (Rapid Communication

A Parameterized Centrality Metric for Network Analysis

A variety of metrics have been proposed to measure the relative importance of nodes in a network. One of these, alpha-centrality [Bonacich, 2001], measures the number of attenuated paths that exist between nodes. We introduce a normalized version of this metric and use it to study network structure, specifically, to rank nodes and find community structure of the network. Specifically, we extend the modularity-maximization method [Newman and Girvan, 2004] for community detection to use this metric as the measure of node connectivity. Normalized alpha-centrality is a powerful tool for network analysis, since it contains a tunable parameter that sets the length scale of interactions. By studying how rankings and discovered communities change when this parameter is varied allows us to identify locally and globally important nodes and structures. We apply the proposed method to several benchmark networks and show that it leads to better insight into network structure than alternative methods.Comment: 11 pages, submitted to Physical Review