Systems for dead-reckoning navigation and for simulation of instrumental error - Concepts

Navigational system for manned lunar vehicles is intended for travel totaling 30 km within 5 km of home base, total distance traveled must be indicated with 2 percent accuracy. Hardware includes two two-degrees-of-freedom gyroscopes, odometers, tachometers, and signal processing equipment

Mass measuring system Patent

Apparatus for measuring human body mass in zero or reduced gravity environmen

Practicality of electronic beam steering for MST/ST radars, part 6.2A

Electronic beam steering is described as complex and expensive. The Sunset implementation of electronic steering is described, and it is demonstrated that such systems are cost effective, versatile, and no more complex than fixed beam alternatives, provided three or more beams are needed. The problem of determining accurate meteorological wind components in the presence of spatial variation is considered. A cost comparison of steerable and fixed systems allowing solution of this problem is given. The concepts and relations involved in phase steering are given, followed by the description of the Sunset ST radar steering system. The implications are discussed, references to the competing SAD method are provided, and a recommendation concerning the design of the future Doppler ST/MST systems is made

Determination of U, V, and W from single station Doppler radar radial velocities

The ST/MST (stratosphere troposphere/mesosphere stratosphere troposphere) clear air Doppler radar, or wind profiler, is an important tool in observational meteorology because of its capability to remote observe dynamic parameters of the atmosphere. There are difficulties in transforming the observed radial velocities into meteorological wind components. How this problem has been treated in the past is reviewed, and some of the analysis is recast to a form more suited to the high diagnostic abilities of a number of fixed beam configurations with reference to a linear wind field. The results, in conjunction with other works which treats problems such as the effects of finite sample volumes in the presence of nonhomogeneous atmospheric reflectivity, have implications important to the design of both individual MST/ST radars and MST/ST radar networks. The key parameters to uncoupling terms in the scaling equations are w sub x and w sub y. Whenever the stratiform condition, which states that these two parameters are negligible, is satisfied, a five beam ST radar may determine unbiased values of u, v, and w for sample volumes directly above the radar. The divergence and partial deformation of the flow may also be determined. Three beam systems can determine w and w sub z, but are unable to obtain u and v wind components uncontaminated by vertical sheer terms, even when the stratiform condition is satisfied

The C. Elegans ROR receptor tyrosine kinase, CAM-1, non-autonomously inhibits the Wnt pathway

Inhibitors of Wnt signaling promote normal development and prevent cancer by restraining when and where the Wnt pathway is activated. ROR proteins, a class of Wnt-binding receptor tyrosine kinases, inhibit Wnt signaling by an unknown mechanism. To clarify how RORs inhibit the Wnt pathway, we examined the relationship between Wnts and the sole C. elegans ROR homolog, cam-1, during C. elegans vulval development, a Wnt-regulated process. We found that loss and overexpression of cam-1 causes reciprocal defects in Wnt-mediated cell-fate specification. Our molecular and genetic analyses revealed that the CAM-1 extracellular domain (ECD) is sufficient to non-autonomously antagonize multiple Wnts, suggesting that the CAM-1/ROR ECD sequesters Wnts. A sequestration model is supported by our findings that the CAM-1 ECD binds to several Wnts in vitro. These results demonstrate how ROR proteins help to refine the spatial pattern of Wnt activity in a complex multicellular environment

Simulation study of a geometric shape factor technique for estimating earth-emitted radiant flux densities from wide-field-of-view radiation measurements

Geometric shape factors were computed and applied to satellite simulated irradiance measurements to estimate Earth emitted flux densities for global and zonal scales and for areas smaller than the detector field of view (FOV). Wide field of view flat plate detectors were emphasized, but spherical detectors were also studied. The radiation field was modeled after data from the Nimbus 2 and 3 satellites. At a satellite altitude of 600 km, zonal estimates were in error 1.0 to 1.2 percent and global estimates were in error less than 0.2 percent. Estimates with unrestricted field of view (UFOV) detectors were about the same for Lambertian and limb darkening radiation models. The opposite was found for restricted field of view detectors. The UFOV detectors are found to be poor estimators of flux density from the total FOV and are shown to be much better as estimators of flux density from a circle centered at the FOV with an area significantly smaller than that for the total FOV

Recent results at the Sunset radar

The Sunset radar is a VHF, pulsed Doppler radar located in a narrow canyon near the Sunset townsite 15 km west of Boulder, CO. This facility is operated by the Aeronomy Laboratory, ERL, NOAA, exclusively for meteorological research and the development of the mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) and stratosphere-troposphere (ST) radar technique. Recent results include a measurement of all three components of wind velocity for the Federal Administration

ANIMAL HEALTH: THE POTENTIAL ROLE FOR LIVESTOCK DISEASE INSURANCE

Livestock Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

A comparison of vertical velocities measured from specular and nonspecular echoes by a VHF radar

For a number of years, there have been doubts about the accuracy of vertical wind velocities measured with quasi-specular reflections from mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) radar. The concern has been that the layers producing the quasi-specular reflection process this hypothetical tilt. Because of the quasi-specular reflection process, this hypothetical tilt would control the effective zenith angle of the radar antenna beam so that a small component of the horizontal velocity would be included in what was assumed to be a truly vertical beam. The purpose here is to test the hypothesis that there is an effect on the wind velocities measured on a vertical antenna beam due to a long-term tilting of the stable atmospheric layers that cause quasi-specular reflection. Gravity waves have been observed to cause short-term tilting of turbulent layers and specularly reflecting layers. In both cases, the effect was a wave-like deformation atmospheric layers with a period of a few minutes. This geometry is shown. Because of this influence of gravity waves, it was expected that there would be short-term variations in the vertical velocity