97,089 research outputs found
The Pacific Northwest story
The establishment of image analysis facilities for the operational utilization of LANDSAT data in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington is discussed. The hardware and software resources are described for each facility along with the range of services
ELSA: An Integrated, Semi-Automated Nebular Abundance Package
We present ELSA, a new modular software package, written in C, to analyze and
manage spectroscopic data from emission-line objects. In addition to
calculating plasma diagnostics and abundances from nebular emission lines, the
software provides a number of convenient features including the ability to
ingest logs produced by IRAF's splot task, to semi-automatically merge spectra
in different wavelength ranges, and to automatically generate various data
tables in machine-readable or LaTeX format. ELSA features a highly
sophisticated interstellar reddening correction scheme that takes into account
temperature and density effects as well as He II contamination of the hydrogen
Balmer lines. Abundance calculations are performed using a 5-level atom
approximation with recent atomic data, based on R. Henry's ABUN program.
Improvements planned in the near future include use of a three-region
ionization model, similar to IRAF's nebular package, error propagation, and the
addition of ultraviolet and infrared line analysis capability. Detailed
documentation for all aspects of ELSA are available at
http://www.williams.edu/Astronomy/research/PN .Comment: 2 pages, contributed paper, IAU Symp. 234, Planetary Nebulae in Our
Galaxy and Beyon
A Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Polarimeter Using Superconducting Bearings
Measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
radiation are expected to significantly increase our understanding of the early
universe. We present a design for a CMB polarimeter in which a cryogenically
cooled half wave plate rotates by means of a high-temperature superconducting
(HTS) bearing. The design is optimized for implementation in MAXIPOL, a
balloon-borne CMB polarimeter. A prototype bearing, consisting of commercially
available ring-shaped permanent magnet and an array of YBCO bulk HTS material,
has been constructed. We measured the coefficient of friction as a function of
several parameters including temperature between 15 and 80 K, rotation
frequency between 0.3 and 3.5 Hz, levitation distance between 6 and 10 mm, and
ambient pressure between 10^{-7} and 1 torr. The low rotational drag of the HTS
bearing allows rotations for long periods of time with minimal input power and
negligible wear and tear thus making this technology suitable for a future
satellite mission.Comment: 6 pages, IEEE-Transactions of Applied Superconductivity, 2003, Vol.
13, in pres
Negations in syllogistic reasoning: Evidence for a heuristic–analytic conflict
An experiment utilizing response time measures was conducted to test dominant processing strategies in syllogistic reasoning with the expanded quantifier set proposed by Roberts (2005). Through adding negations to existing quantifiers it is possible to change problem surface features without altering logical validity. Biases based on surface features such as atmosphere, matching, and the probability heuristics model (PHM; Chater & Oaksford, 1999; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1995) would not be expected to show variance in response latencies, but participant responses should be highly sensitive to changes in the surface features of the quantifiers. In contrast, according to analytic accounts such as mental models theory and mental logic (e.g., Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991; Rips, 1994) participants should exhibit increased response times for negated premises, but not be overly impacted upon by the surface features of the conclusion. Data indicated that the dominant response strategy was based on a matching heuristic, but also provided evidence of a resource-demanding analytic procedure for dealing with double negatives. The authors propose that dual-process theories offer a stronger account of these data whereby participants employ competing heuristic and analytic strategies and fall back on a heuristic response when analytic processing fails
Theory of adhesion: role of surface roughness
We discuss how surface roughness influence the adhesion between elastic
solids. We introduce a Tabor number which depends on the length scale or
magnification, and which gives information about the nature of the adhesion at
different length scales. We consider two limiting cases relevant for (a)
elastically hard solids with weak adhesive interaction (DMT-limit) and (b)
elastically soft solids or strong adhesive interaction (JKR-limit). For the
former cases we study the nature of the adhesion using different adhesive force
laws (, , where is the wall-wall separation). In
general, adhesion may switch from DMT-like at short length scales to JKR-like
at large (macroscopic) length scale. We compare the theory predictions to the
results of exact numerical simulations and find good agreement between theory
and the simulation results
Contact mechanics with adhesion: Interfacial separation and contact area
We study the adhesive contact between elastic solids with randomly rough,
self affine fractal surfaces. We present molecular dynamics (MD) simulation
results for the interfacial stress distribution and the wall-wall separation.
We compare the MD results for the relative contact area and the average
interfacial separation, with the prediction of the contact mechanics theory of
Persson. We find good agreement between theory and the simulation results. We
apply the theory to the system studied by Benz et al. involving polymer in
contact with polymer, but in this case the adhesion gives only a small
modification of the interfacial separation as a function of the squeezing
pressure.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Heat transfer investigation of Langley Research Center transition models at a Mach number of 8, volume 2
The results are presented of a wind tunnel test program to determine aerodynamic heat transfer distributions on delta body and straight body transition models of the space shuttle. Heat transfer rates were determined by the phase-change paint technique on Stycast and RTV models using Tempilag as the surface temperature indicator. The nominal test conditions were: Mach 8, length Reynolds numbers of 5 million and 7.4 million, and angles of attack of 20, 40, and 60 deg. Model details, test conditions, and reduced heat transfer data are included. Data reduction of the phase-change paint photographs was performed by utilizing a new technique
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