Premission and postmission simulation studies of the foot-controlled maneuvering unit for Skylab experiment T-020

A Skylab experiment was conducted to study the maneuvering capabilities of astronauts using a relatively simple self-locomotive device, referred to as the foot-controlled maneuvering unit, and to evaluate the effectiveness of ground-based facilities simulating the operation of this device in weightless conditions of space. Some of the special considerations given in the definition and development of the experiment as related to the two ground-based simulators are reviewed. These simulators were used to train the test subjects and to obtain baseline data which could be used for comparison with the in-flight tests that were performed inside the Skylab orbital workshop. The results of both premission and postmission tests are discussed, and subjective comparisons of the in-flight and ground-based test conditions are presented

The foot-controlled maneuvering unit: Summary report on Skylab experiment T-020

Skylab experiment T-020 was conducted to study the maneuvering capabilities of astronauts using a relatively simple experimental self-locomotive device, referred to as the foot-controlled maneuvering unit, and to evaluate the effectiveness of ground-based facilities simulating the operation of this device in weightless conditions of space. The final results as presented of this experiment which includes comparison of the tests performed during missions SL-3 and SL-4 of the Skylab with those performed on the simulators. Some of the results of this experiment and those of Skylab experiment M509, which employed an experimental hard-controlled maneuvering unit, are discussed in terms of the development of a possible future operational maneuvering system

Power grids vulnerability: a complex network approach

Power grids exhibit patterns of reaction to outages similar to complex networks. Blackout sequences follow power laws, as complex systems operating near a critical point. Here, the tolerance of electric power grids to both accidental and malicious outages is analyzed in the framework of complex network theory. In particular, the quantity known as efficiency is modified by introducing a new concept of distance between nodes. As a result, a new parameter called net-ability is proposed to evaluate the performance of power grids. A comparison between efficiency and net-ability is provided by estimating the vulnerability of sample networks, in terms of both the metrics.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. Figure 2 and table II modified. Typos corrected. Version accepted for publication in Chao

Weed Control for Reduced Tillage Systems

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Jet Investigations Using the Radial Moment

We define the radial moment, , for jets produced in hadron-hadron collisions. It can be used as a tool for studying, as a function of the jet transverse energy and pseudorapidity, radiation within the jet and the quality of a perturbative description of the jet shape. We also discuss how non-perturbative corrections to the jet transverse energy affect .Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, 6 figure

Isolated Prompt Photon Production in Hadronic Final States of e+e−e^+e^- Annihilation

We provide complete analytic expressions for the isolated prompt photon production cross section in $e^+e^-$ annihilation reactions through one-loop order in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) perturbation theory. Functional dependences on the isolation cone size $\delta$ and isolation energy parameter $\epsilon$ are derived. The energy dependence as well as the full angular dependence of the cross section on $\theta_\gamma$ are displayed, where $\theta_\gamma$ specifies the direction of the photon with respect to the $e^+e^-$ collision axis. We point out that conventional perturbative QCD factorization breaks down for isolated photon production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation reactions in a specific region of phase space. We discuss the implications of this breakdown for the extraction of fragmentation functions from $e^+e^-$ annihilation data and for computations of prompt photon production in hadron-hadron reactions.Comment: 54 pages RevTeX plus 19 postscript figures submitted together in one compressed fil

Global Optimization by Energy Landscape Paving

We introduce a novel heuristic global optimization method, energy landscape paving (ELP), which combines core ideas from energy surface deformation and tabu search. In appropriate limits, ELP reduces to existing techniques. The approach is very general and flexible and is illustrated here on two protein folding problems. For these examples, the technique gives faster convergence to the global minimum than previous approaches.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. (2002

Color-Octet Fragmentation and the psi' Surplus at the Tevatron

The production rate of prompt $\psi'$'s at large transverse momentum at the Tevatron is larger than theoretical expectations by about a factor of 30. As a solution to this puzzle, we suggest that the dominant $\psi'$ production mechanism is the fragmentation of a gluon into a $c \bar c$ pair in a pointlike color-octet S-wave state, which subsequently evolves nonperturbatively into a $\psi'$ plus light hadrons. The contribution to the fragmentation function from this process is enhanced by a short-distance factor of $1/\alpha_s^2$ relative to the conventional color-singlet contribution. This may compensate for the suppression by $v^4$, where $v$ is the relative momentum of the charm quark in the $\psi'$. If this is indeed the dominant production mechanism at large $p_T$, then the prompt $\psi'$'s that are observed at the Tevatron should almost always be associated with a jet of light hadrons.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe