15,903 research outputs found
Analysis of reentry into the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) for the LifeSat mission
This study investigates the reentry of the LifeSat vehicles into the WSMR. The LifeSat mission consists of two reusable reentry satellites, each carrying a removable payload module, which scientists will use to study long-term effects of microgravity, Van Allen belt radiation, and galactic cosmic rays on living organisms. A series of missions is planned for both low-Earth circular orbits and highly elliptic orbits. To recover the payload module with the specimens intact, a soft parachute landing and recovery at the WSMR is planned. This analysis examines operational issues surrounding the reentry scenario to assess the feasibility of the reentry
ICONA: Inter Cluster ONOS Network Application
Several Network Operating Systems (NOS) have been proposed in the last few
years for Software Defined Networks; however, a few of them are currently
offering the resiliency, scalability and high availability required for
production environments. Open Networking Operating System (ONOS) is an open
source NOS, designed to be reliable and to scale up to thousands of managed
devices. It supports multiple concurrent instances (a cluster of controllers)
with distributed data stores. A tight requirement of ONOS is that all instances
must be close enough to have negligible communication delays, which means they
are typically installed within a single datacenter or a LAN network. However in
certain wide area network scenarios, this constraint may limit the speed of
responsiveness of the controller toward network events like failures or
congested links, an important requirement from the point of view of a Service
Provider. This paper presents ICONA, a tool developed on top of ONOS and
designed in order to extend ONOS capability in network scenarios where there
are stringent requirements in term of control plane responsiveness. In
particular the paper describes the architecture behind ICONA and provides some
initial evaluation obtained on a preliminary version of the tool.Comment: Paper submitted to a conferenc
Circumstellar grain extinction properties of recently discovered post AGB stars
The circumstellar grains of two hot evolved post asymptotic giant branch (post AGB) stars, HD 89353 and HD 213985 were examined. From ultraviolet spectra, energy balance of the flux, and Kurucz models, the extinction around 2175 A was derived. With visual spectra, an attempt was made to detect 6614 A diffuse band absorption arising from the circumstellar grains so that we could examine the relationship of these features to the infrared features. For both stars, we did not detect any diffuse band absorption at 6614 A, implying the carrier of this diffuse band is not the carrier of the unidentified infrared features not of the 2175 A bump. The linear ultraviolet extinction of the carbon-rich star HD 89353 was determined to continue across the 2175 A region with no sign of the bump; for HD 213985 it was found to be the reverse: a strong, wide bump in the mid-ultraviolet. The 213985 bump was found to be positioned at 2340 A, longward of its usual position in the interstellar medium. Since HD 213985 was determined to have excess carbon, the bump probably arises from a carbonaceous grain. Thus, in view of the ultraviolet and infrared properties of the two post AGB stars, ubiquitous interstellar infrared emission features do not seem to be associated with the 2175 A bump. Instead, the infrared features seem related to the linear ultraviolet extinction component: hydrocarbon grains of radius less than 300 A are present with the linear HD 89353 extinction; amorphous anhydrous carbonaceous grains of radius less than 50 A might cause the shifted ultraviolet extinction bump of HD 213985
Precision determination of absolute neutron flux
A technique for establishing the total neutron rate of a highly-collimated
monochromatic cold neutron beam was demonstrated using a method of an
alpha-gamma counter. The method involves only the counting of measured rates
and is independent of neutron cross sections, decay chain branching ratios, and
neutron beam energy. For the measurement, a target of 10B-enriched boron
carbide totally absorbed the neutrons in a monochromatic beam, and the rate of
absorbed neutrons was determined by counting 478keV gamma rays from neutron
capture on 10B with calibrated high-purity germanium detectors. A second
measurement based on Bragg diffraction from a perfect silicon crystal was
performed to determine the mean de Broglie wavelength of the beam to a
precision of 0.024 %. With these measurements, the detection efficiency of a
neutron monitor based on neutron absorption on 6Li was determined to an overall
uncertainty of 0.058 %. We discuss the principle of the alpha-gamma method and
present details of how the measurement was performed including the systematic
effects. We also describe how this method may be used for applications in
neutron dosimetry and metrology, fundamental neutron physics, and neutron cross
section measurements.Comment: 44 page
Characterization and cloning of fasciclin I and fasciclin II glycoproteins in the grasshopper
Monoclonal antibodies were previously used to identify two glycoproteins, called fasciclin I and II (70 and 95 kDa, respectively), which are expressed on different subsets of axon fascicles in the grasshopper (Schistocerca americana) embryo. Here the monoclonal antibodies were used to purify these two membrane-associated glycoproteins for further characterization. Fasciclin II appears to be an integral membrane protein, where fasciclin I is an extrinsic membrane protein. The amino acid sequences of the amino terminus and fragments of both proteins were determined. Using synthetic oligonucleotide probes and antibody screening, we isolated genomic and cDNA clones. Partial DNA sequences of these clones indicate that they encode fasciclins I and II
Memory and Spin Injection Devices Involving Half Metals
We suggest memory and spin injection devices fabricated with half-metallic materials and based on the anomalous Hall effect. Schematic diagrams of the memory chips, in thin film and bulk crystal form, are presented. Spin injection devices made in thin film form are also suggested. These devices do not need any external magnetic field but make use of their own magnetization. Only a gate voltage is needed. The carriers are 100% spin polarized. Memory devices may potentially be smaller, faster, and less volatile than existing ones, and the injection devices may be much smaller and more efficient than existing spin injection devices
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