SRC seal testing

Small venthole drilled in semisealed silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) cavity eliminates entrapped helium. Although these devices show slightly greater leak than those before lead installation, it is now possible to distinguish device with good hermetic seal from defective one

Cyclotron resonance propulsion system semiannual report no. 1

Cyclotron resonance plasma accelerator for space propulsion application

An overview of aerospace gas turbine technology of relevance to the development of the automotive gas turbine engine

Technology areas related to gas turbine propulsion systems with potential for application to the automotive gas turbine engine are discussed. Areas included are: system steady-state and transient performance prediction techniques, compressor and turbine design and performance prediction programs and effects of geometry, combustor technology and advanced concepts, and ceramic coatings and materials technology

Route planning in a four-dimensional environment

Robots must be able to function in the real world. The real world involves processes and agents that move independently of the actions of the robot, sometimes in an unpredictable manner. A real-time integrated route planning and spatial representation system for planning routes through dynamic domains is presented. The system will find the safest most efficient route through space-time as described by a set of user defined evaluation functions. Because the route planning algorthims is highly parallel and can run on an SIMD machine in O(p) time (p is the length of a path), the system will find real-time paths through unpredictable domains when used in an incremental mode. Spatial representation, an SIMD algorithm for route planning in a dynamic domain, and results from an implementation on a traditional computer architecture are discussed

Right Temporoparietal Junction Involvement in Autonomic Responses to the Suffering of Others: A Preliminary Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study.

Functional neuroimaging studies have emphasized distinct networks for social cognition and affective aspects of empathy. However, studies have not considered whether substrates of social cognition, such as the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ), play a role in affective responses to complex empathy-related stimuli. Here, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to test whether the right TPJ contributes to psychophysiological responses to another person's emotional suffering. We used a theory of mind functional localizer and image-guided TMS to target the sub-region of the right TPJ implicated in social cognition, and measured autonomic and subjective responses to an empathy induction video. We found evidence that TMS applied at 1 Hz over the right TPJ increased withdrawal of parasympathetic nervous system activity during the empathy induction (n = 32), but did not affect sympathetic nervous system activity (n = 27). Participants who received TMS over the right TPJ also reported feeling more irritation and annoyance, and were less likely to report feeling compassion over and above empathic sadness, than participants who received TMS over the vertex (N = 34). This study provides preliminary evidence for the role of right TPJ functioning in empathy-related psychophysiological and affective responding, potentially blurring the distinction between neural regions specific to social cognition vs. affective aspects of empathy

An ERTS-1 study of coastal features on the North Carolina coast

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Simulator study of the effect of control-system time delays on the occurrence of pilot-induced oscillations and on pilot tracking performance with a space-shuttle-orbiter configuration

Using a six degree-of-freedom motion-base simulator, the effect of control-system time delays on the occurrence of pilot-induced oscillations (PIO's) on the vehicle handling qualities and on pilot tracking performance for a landing-approach configuration of the Space Shuttle orbiter was studied. A linearized math model was employed which represented a 300-knot orbiter with almost all time delays removed. Additional time delays were then inserted following the pilot's hand-controller signals. Only pitch and roll commands were used for vehicle control. The simulation employed an air to air tracking task as a means of emphasizing PIO tendencies. Two astronauts, two research pilots, and one simulation engineer served as test subjects. Results showed that PIO's occurred when the amount of added time delay approximated that existing for the orbiter configuration flown in the approach and landing tests. Increasing the amount of delay increased PIO occurrences and resulted in degraded tracking performance. Decreasing the amount of time delay eliminated the PIO's