Method for Deriving Telescope Specifications for Earth-Detecting Coronagraphs and Its Use in Prioritizing Technology Development Investments

Different potential exoplanet mission concepts require different enabling and enhancing technologies. Decisions regarding prioritizing the development of these technologies can be made using a Science-Driven Systems-Engineering framework. The white paper makes the following specific recommendations. (1) Any potential telescope/coronagraph combination should develop a wavefront stability error budget using the method described in this white paper. That error budget will inform discussions about what technology development will be needed to enable the mission. (2) Enhancing and enabling technologies requiring investment include: low noise reaction wheels or control moment gyros; micro-thruster technology; active vibration isolation; materials and design practice for making lightweight stiff structures and optical components; 200-hertz wavefront sensing and control; 500-hertz sub-picometer-precision edge sensor and position actuators; non-destructive process to quantify CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) homogeneity of 4-meter class mirrors to an uncertainty of plus or minus 1 parts per billion per degree Kelvin over a 100 by 100 sampling; laser gauge positional metrology system; and predictive active thermal control

The supplementary irrigation effects on drought tolerance and ornamental characteristics of safflower varieties

Supplementary irrigation is a high-performance operation for increasing crop production and income of farmers in dryland conditions. In order to study the effect of supplementary irrigation on drought tolerance and ornamental characteristics of safflower genotypes an experiment was conducted in 2013-14 at North Khorasan Dryland Agricultural Research Station. The experimental design was split plot based on RCBD. Factors were included five levels of irrigation, i.e., no irrigation, irrigation at rosette stage, flowering stage, seed filling and irrigation in flowering + seed filling as the main factors, and sub factors were varieties in three levels included Feraman, Sina and Syrian. The effect of supplementary irrigation on harvest index, seed/main head, seed/sub head, thousand kernel weight and seed yield was significant. The effect of supplementary irrigation on traits: RGR, CGR, hollow seeds, number of flowers and flower size was not significant. The highest yield and harvest index were obtained with irrigation at flowering stage in "Feraman". Since the "Feraman" variety has shiny red flowers and spineless leaves, is a good plant for flower trade.Keywords: carthamus tinctorius; flower color; optimum irrigation; spineless leaf

CONFLLVM: A Compiler for Enforcing Data Confidentiality in Low-Level Code

We present an instrumenting compiler for enforcing data confidentiality in low-level applications (e.g. those written in C) in the presence of an active adversary. In our approach, the programmer marks secret data by writing lightweight annotations on top-level definitions in the source code. The compiler then uses a static flow analysis coupled with efficient runtime instrumentation, a custom memory layout, and custom control-flow integrity checks to prevent data leaks even in the presence of low-level attacks. We have implemented our scheme as part of the LLVM compiler. We evaluate it on the SPEC micro-benchmarks for performance, and on larger, real-world applications (including OpenLDAP, which is around 300KLoC) for programmer overhead required to restructure the application when protecting the sensitive data such as passwords. We find that performance overheads introduced by our instrumentation are moderate (average 12% on SPEC), and the programmer effort to port OpenLDAP is only about 160 LoC.Comment: Technical report for CONFLLVM: A Compiler for Enforcing Data Confidentiality in Low-Level Code, appearing at EuroSys 201

The Effect of Mulch, Pruning and Plant Density on Some Traits of Related to Production in Pepino

Pepino (Solanum muricatum) a new vegetable crops, is from Solanaceae family and cultivated as annual crops. In order to investigate the effects of mulch, pruning and plant density on some traits of related to production in Pepino, an experiment was conducted based on a randomized complete design with five replications at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad greenhouse during 2009-2010. Traits such as leaf area, number of panicles per plant, number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit diameter and fruit weight. Treatment included: 3 levels of mulch (rice straw mulch, wood chips mulch and control), 3 levels of prune (two peduncular, 3 peduncular and controls) and 2 levels of plant density (3.3 and 4.3 plants per m2). The results indicated that the effect of mulch in all of the traits was significant (p≤0.01). Wood chips mulch in all of the traits was better than rice straw and control. Pruning was significant in all of the traits. The number of panicles and the number of fruits per plant were higher in tree peduncular but increasing the number of fruits was associated with a reduction in size. Interaction between mulch and pruning was significant in all of the traits. Plant density applied had significant effects on traits related to fruit

Fulvic acid affects pepper antioxidant activity and fruit quality

Fulvic acid has been considered as a valuable fertilizer for sustainable agriculture. The present investigation  was undertaken to evaluate the effect of fulvic acid (FA) on antioxidant compounds and fruit quality of pepper  under field conditions. Plants were grown in the Department of Horticulture Farm, Ferdowsi University of  Mashhad, Iran (latitude 36‹ 17Œ N, longitude 59‹ 35Œ E and 985 m elevation). The experiment was designed in randomized block design with three replications. Treatments consisted of five levels of fulvic acid (0, 25, 100, 175 and 250 mg kg-1). The results indicate that fruit antioxidant activity, total phenolic, carbohydrate,  capsaicin and carotenoids contents were influenced by fulvic acid, but total flavonoid and ascorbic acid  contents were not affected significantly by fulvic acid treatments applications. FA applied at 25 mg kg-1 resulted in the highest carbohydrate content, lycopene and ƒÀ-carotene contents, while the lowest values  were recorded in the control. Fulvic acid treatments positively affected fruit quality (total soluble solids and titratable acidity); total soluble solids and titratable acidity significantly increased in response to FA  treatments. These results confirm that the use of fulvic acid have a positive effect on antioxidant activity and quality of hot pepper under field conditions.Key words: Fulvic acid, antioxidant activity, quality, pepper

HabEx Telescope WFE Stability Specification Derived from Coronagraph Starlight Leakage

HabEx is a space-based 4-meter diameter telescope with ultraviolet (UV), optical, and near-infrared (near-IR) imaging and spectroscopy capabilities. Three driving science goals during its five-year primary mission: 1. To seek out nearby worlds and explore their habitability.; 2. To map out nearby planetary systems and understand the diversity of the worlds they contain.; 3. To carry out observations that open up new windows on the universe from the UV through near-IR

Effects of cadmium on morphological structure of sperm in Caspiomyzon wagneri (Kessler, 1870) (Petromyzontiformes : Petromyzontidae)

The present study aimed to investigate effects of the heavy metal Cd on the sperm morphological indices of Caspimyzon wagneri. The sperm were exposed to 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10, 100 and 1000 mg.L-1 Cd for three minutes, three and 36 hours. The sperms exposed to Cd showed an increase in the length, width and surface of the head, flagella degradation and slightly flagella breakage. With increase of Cd concentration or the exposure duration, the damages found in sperms increased. But when exposure to contaminant exceeds than certain period of time,damage effects caused changes in the sperm structure as head length reduction and head width increasing and thereby reducing the sperm’s head surface, complete cutting of flagella at all samples and deformation of the sperm’s head from oval to circular, which these changes became visible during 36 hours of exposure to cadmium.Therefore, the results revealed that the arrival of pollutants including cadmium to the natural reproduction ground of this species due to induction the harmful effects on sperm morphology factors will have adverse effects on sperm function and fertilization rate and reduce them, and as such will be considered a serious threat to the survival generation of this rare species

Assessing benthic health of hard substratum macrobenthic community using soft bottom indicators and their relationship with environmental condition

This study aimed to assess ecological quality status of hard substratum macroinvertebrates communities of the Caspian Sea with three ecological indices and their relationship with environmental factors. For this purpose, benthic communities of the Caspian Sea basin were studied seasonally during 2014 in 8 sampling sites. Temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen; pH, nitrate, nitrite, silicate and phosphate were measured as environmental factors. The benthic classification indices AMBI (AZTI Marine Biotic Index), M-AMBI (Multivariate AMBI) and BENTIX (BENthic IndeX) were applied to assess the ecological status of the studied area. Results showed low dissimilarity based on species composition and abundance among seasons, while all seasons discriminated clearly based on environmental factors. In addition, AMBI index was more successful to assess ecological health of hard substratum in the Caspian Sea basin than M-AMBI and BENTIX. Furthermore, AMBI showed high sensitivity to environmental variation. Results indicated that temperature, nitrate, silicate, phosphate and nitrite were the most important factors in the composition and abundance fluctuation of hard substratum macroinvertebrates communities, respectively

Method for deriving optical telescope performance specifications for Earth-detecting coronagraphs

Direct detection and characterization of extrasolar planets has become possible with powerful new coronagraphs on ground-based telescopes. Space telescopes with active optics and coronagraphs will expand the frontier to imaging Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars. Currently, NASA is studying potential space missions to detect and characterize such planets, which are dimmer than their host stars by a factor of 10¹⁰. One approach is to use a star-shade occulter. Another is to use an internal coronagraph. The advantages of a coronagraph are its greater targeting versatility and higher technology readiness, but one disadvantage is its need for an ultrastable wavefront when operated open-loop. Achieving this requires a system-engineering approach, which specifies and designs the telescope and coronagraph as an integrated system. We describe a systems engineering process for deriving a wavefront stability error budget for any potential telescope/coronagraph combination. The first step is to calculate a given coronagraph’s basic performance metrics, such as contrast. The second step is to calculate the sensitivity of that coronagraph’s performance to its telescope’s wavefront stability. The utility of the method is demonstrated by intercomparing the ability of several monolithic and segmented telescope and coronagraph combinations to detect an exo-Earth at 10 pc

Method for deriving optical telescope performance specifications for Earth-detecting coronagraphs

Direct detection and characterization of extrasolar planets has become possible with powerful new coronagraphs on ground-based telescopes. Space telescopes with active optics and coronagraphs will expand the frontier to imaging Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of nearby Sun-like stars. Currently, NASA is studying potential space missions to detect and characterize such planets, which are dimmer than their host stars by a factor of 10¹⁰. One approach is to use a star-shade occulter. Another is to use an internal coronagraph. The advantages of a coronagraph are its greater targeting versatility and higher technology readiness, but one disadvantage is its need for an ultrastable wavefront when operated open-loop. Achieving this requires a system-engineering approach, which specifies and designs the telescope and coronagraph as an integrated system. We describe a systems engineering process for deriving a wavefront stability error budget for any potential telescope/coronagraph combination. The first step is to calculate a given coronagraph’s basic performance metrics, such as contrast. The second step is to calculate the sensitivity of that coronagraph’s performance to its telescope’s wavefront stability. The utility of the method is demonstrated by intercomparing the ability of several monolithic and segmented telescope and coronagraph combinations to detect an exo-Earth at 10 pc