Differences into HT and HTO concentrations in air into the Western Mediterranean Basin and Continental Europe and Safety Related Issues.

Real time Tritium concentrations in air in two chemical forms, HT and HTO, coming from an ITER-like fusion reactor as source were coupled the European Centre Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) numerical model with the Lagrangian Atmospheric-particle dispersion model FLEXPART. This tool was analyzed in nominal tritium discharge operational reference and selected incidental conditions affecting the Western Mediterranean Basin during 45 days during summer 2010 together with surface “wind observations” or weather data based in real hourly observations of wind direction and velocity providing a real approximation of the tritium behavior after the release to the atmosphere from a fusion reactor. From comparison with NORMTRI - a code using climatologically sequences as input - over the same area, the real time results have demonstrated an apparent overestimation of the corresponding climatologically sequence of Tritium concentrations in air outputs, at several distances from the reactor. For this purpose two development patterns were established. The first one was following a cyclonic circulation over the Mediterranean Sea and the second one was based on the plume delivered over the Interior of the Iberian Peninsula and Continental Europe by another stabilized circulation corresponding to a High Pressure System. One of the important remaining activities defined then, was the qualification tool. In order to validate the model of ECMWF/FLEXPART we have developed of a new complete data base of tritium concentrations for the months from November 2010 to March 2011 and defined a new set of four patterns of HT transport in air, in each case using real boundary conditions: stationary to the North, stationary to the South, fast and very fast displacement. Finally the differences corresponding to those four early patterns (each one in assessments 1 and 2) has been analyzed in terms of the tuning of safety related issues and taking into account the primary phase o- - f tritium modeling, from its discharge to the atmosphere to the deposition on the ground, will affect to the complete tritium environmental pathway altering the chronic dose by absorption, reemission and ingestion both from elemental tritium, HT and from the oxide of tritium, HT

Performance of MIMO systems in measured indoor channels with transmitter noise

This study analyzes the impact of transmitter noise on the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with linear and nonlinear receivers and precoders. We show that the performance of MIMO linear and decision-feedback receivers is not significantly influenced by the presence of transmitter noise, which does not hold true in the case of MIMO systems with precoding. Nevertheless, we also show that this degradation can be greatly alleviated when the transmitter noise is considered in the MIMO precoder design. A MIMO testbed developed at the University of A Coruña has been employed for experimentally evaluating how much the transmitter noise impacts the system performance. Both the transmitter noise and the receiver noise covariance matrices have been estimated from a set of 260 indoor MIMO channel realizations. The impact of transmitter noise has been assessed in this realistic scenario.Galicia. Consellería de Economía e Industria; 10TIC003CTGalicia. Consellería de Economía e Industria; 09TIC008105PRMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación; TEC2010-19545-C04-01Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; CSD2008-0001

LISA pathfinder micronewton cold gas thrusters: in-flight characterization

The LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission has demonstrated the ability to limit and measure the fluctuations in acceleration between two free falling test masses down to sub-femto-g levels. One of the key elements to achieve such a level of residual acceleration is the drag free control. In this scheme the spacecraft is used as a shield against any external disturbances by adjusting its relative position to a reference test mass. The actuators used to move the spacecraft are cold gas micropropulsion thrusters. In this paper, we report in-flight characterization of these thrusters in term of noise and artefacts during science operations using all the metrology capabilities of LISA Pathfinder. Using the LISA Pathfinder test masses as an inertial reference frame, an average thruster noise of ~0.17¿¿µN/Hz is observed and decomposed into a common (coherent) and an uncorrelated component. The very low noise and stability of the onboard metrology system associated with the quietness of the space environment allowed the measurement of the thruster noise down to ~20¿¿µHz, more than an order of magnitude below any ground measurement. Spectral lines were observed around ~1.5¿¿mHz and its harmonics and around 55 and 70 mHz. They are associated with the cold gas system itself and possibly to a clock synchronization issue. The thruster noise-floor exhibits an excess of ~70% compared to characterization that have been made on ground on a single unit and without the feeding system. However this small excess has no impact on the LPF mission performance and is compatible with the noise budget for the upcoming LISA gravitational wave observatory. Over the whole mission, nominal, and extension, the thrusters showed remarkable stability for both the science operations and the different maneuvers necessary to maintain LPF on its orbit around L1. It is therefore concluded that a similar cold gas system would be a viable propulsion system for the future LISA mission.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Novel methods to measure the gravitational constant in space

We present two novel methods, tested by LISA Pathfinder, to measure the gravitational constant G for the first time in space. Experiment 1 uses electrostatic suspension forces to measure a change in acceleration of a test mass due to a displaced source mass. Experiment 2 measures a change in relative acceleration between two test masses due to a slowly varying fuel tank mass. Experiment 1 gave a value of G=6.71±0.42(×10-11)¿¿m3¿s-2¿kg-1 and experiment 2 gave 6.15±0.35(×10-11)¿¿m3¿s-2¿kg-1, both consistent with each other to 1s and with the CODATA 2014 recommended value of 6.67408±0.00031(×10-11)¿¿m3¿s-2¿kg-1 to 2s. We outline several ideas to improve the results for a future experiment, and we suggest that a measurement in space would isolate many terrestrial issues that could be responsible for the inconsistencies between recent measurements.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Temperature stability in the sub-milliHertz band with LISA Pathfinder

This article has been accepted for publication in "Monthly notices of the royal astronomical society" published by Oxford University Press.LISA Pathfinder (LPF) was a technology pioneering mission designed to test key technologies required for gravitational wave detection in space. In the low frequency regime (milliHertz and below), where space-based gravitational wave observatories will operate, temperature fluctuations play a crucial role since they can couple into the interferometric measurement and the test masses’ free-fall accuracy in many ways. A dedicated temperature measurement subsystem, with noise levels in 10¿µK¿Hz-1/2 down to 1¿mHz was part of the diagnostics unit onboard LPF. In this paper we report on the temperature measurements throughout mission operations, characterize the thermal environment, estimate transfer functions between different locations, and report temperature stability (and its time evolution) at frequencies as low as 10¿µHz, where typically values around 1¿K¿Hz-1/2 were measured.Peer ReviewedPreprin

QoS constrained power minimization in the multiple stream MIMO broadcast channel

This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This version of the article: González-Coma, J. P., Joham, M., Castro, P. M., & Castedo, L. (2018). 'QoS constrained power minimization in the multiple stream MIMO broadcast channel', has been accepted for publication in Signal Processing, 143, 48–55. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.sigpro.2017.08.015.[Abstract]: This work addresses the design of optimal linear transmit filters for the Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) Broadcast Channel (BC) when several spatial streams are allocated to each user. We further consider that the Channel State Information (CSI) is perfect at the receivers but is only partial at the transmitter. A statistical model for the partial CSI is assumed and exploited for the filter design. The relationship between average rate and average Mean Square Error (MSE) is studied to determine the optimal way to distribute the per-user rates among the streams. Finally, the feasible average sum-MSE (sMSE) region is studied and the impact of the CSI uncertainty over the overall system performance is evaluated.This work was funded by Xunta de Galicia (ED431C 2016-045, ED341D R2016/012, ED431G/01), AEI of Spain (TEC2013-47141-C4-1-R, TEC2015-69648-REDC, TEC2016-75067-C4-1-R), and ERDF funds (AEI/FEDER, EU).Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-045Xunta de Galicia; ED341D R2016/012Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/0

QoS constrained power minimization in the MISO broadcast channel with imperfect CSI

This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This version of the article: González-Coma, J. P., Joham, M., Castro, P. M., & Castedo, L. (2017). 'QoS constrained power minimization in the MISO broadcast channel with imperfect CSI', has been accepted for publication in Signal Processing, 131, 447–455. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2016.09.007.[Abstract]: In this paper we consider the design of linear precoders and receivers in a Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC). We aim to minimize the transmit power while meeting a set of per-user Quality-of-Service (QoS) constraints expressed in terms of per-user average rate requirements. The Channel State Information (CSI) is assumed to be known perfectly at the receivers but only partially at the transmitter. To solve this problem we convert the QoS constraints into Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) constraints. We then leverage MSE duality between the BC and the Multiple Access Channel (MAC), as well as standard interference functions in the dual MAC, to perform power minimization by means of an Alternating Optimization (AO) algorithm. Problem feasibility is also studied to determine whether the QoS constraints can be met or not. Finally, we present an algorithm to balance the average rates and manage situations that may be unfeasible, or lead to an unacceptably high transmit power.This work was supported by Xunta de Galicia, MINECO of Spain, and FEDER funds of EU, under grants 2012/287 and TEC2013-47141-C4-1-R.Xunta de Galicia; 2012/28

A serological contribution to the Taxonomic Status of Cupriguanus, a South American Genus of Iguanid Lizards

Precipitin tests enable us to discriminate the relative taxonomic relationships of different species of the iguanid genus Cupripuanus from Austral South America. The morphologically very similar C. scapulatus and C. fasciatus appear also nearly related serologically. Both specie's lie at a stronger serological distance from the isolated and more differentiated form C. achalensis.Material digitalizado en SEDICI gracias a la colaboración del Dr. Jorge Williams (FCNM-UNLP).Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse