Contracts, grants and funding summary of supersonic cruise research and variable-cycle engine technology programs, 1972 - 1982

NASA-SCAR (AST) program was initiated in 1972 at the direct request of the Executive Office of the White House and Congress following termination of the U.S. SST program. The purpose of SCR was to conduct a focused research and technology program on those technology programs which contributed to the SST termination and, also, to provide an expanded data base for future civil and military supersonic transport aircraft. Funding for the Supersonic Cruise Research (SCR) Program was initiated in fiscal year 1973 and terminated in fiscal year 1981. The program was implemented through contracts and grants with industry, universities, and by in-house investigations at the NASA/OAST centers. The studies included system studies and five disciplines: propulsion, stratospheric emissions impact, materials and structures, aerodynamic performance, and stability and control. The NASA/Lewis Variable-Cycle Engine (VCE) Component Program was initiated in 1976 to augment the SCR program in the area of propulsion. After about 2 years, the title was changed to VCE Technology program. The total number of contractors and grantees on record at the AST office in 1982 was 101 for SCR and 4 for VCE. This paper presents a compilation of all the contracts and grants as well as the funding summaries for both programs

Percolation for the stable marriage of Poisson and Lebesgue

Let $\Xi$ be the set of points (we call the elements of $\Xi$ centers) of Poisson process in $\R^d$, $d\geq 2$, with unit intensity. Consider the allocation of $\R^d$ to $\Xi$ which is stable in the sense of Gale-Shapley marriage problem and in which each center claims a region of volume $\alpha\leq 1$. We prove that there is no percolation in the set of claimed sites if $\alpha$ is small enough, and that, for high dimensions, there is percolation in the set of claimed sites if $\alpha<1$ is large enough.Comment: revised version (only minor correction since v2), 16 pages, 3 figure

A new gas discharge process for preparation of non-fouling surfaces on biomaterials

A non-fouling surface containing immobilized polyethylene oxide (PEO) was achieved using an argon radio-frequency glow discharge treatment (RFGD) of polyethylene films precoated with Brij hydrocarbon-PEO surfactants. Surface wettability of RFGD-treated and washed surfaces increased the most when PEO surfactants with unsaturated and/or long alkyl tails were used. ESCA measurements of treated and washed surfaces showed increases of surface O/C ratios and ether carbon peaks in high resolution Cls spectra. These results demonstrate the retention of the PEO surfactants on the treated surfaces. Fibrinogen adsorp tion on these treated surfaces was significantly reduced, from 500 to 50 ng/cm2, indicating the non-fouling properties of the RFGD-immobilized PEO surfactants

Spinal and Supraspinal Motor Control Predictors of Rate of Torque Development

During explosive movements and potentially injurious situations, the ability to rapidly generate torque is critical. Previous research has suggested that different phases of rate of torque development (RTD) are differentiately controlled. However, the extent to which supraspinal and spinal mechanisms predict RTD at different time intervals is unknown. RTD of the plantarflexors across various phases of contraction (i.e., 0–25, 0–50, 0–100, 0–150, 0–200, and 0–250 ms) was measured in 37 participants. The following predictor variables were also measured: (a) gain of the resting soleus H-reflex recruitment curve; (b) gain of the resting homonymous post-activation depression recruitment curve; (c) gain of the GABAergic presynaptic inhibition recruitment curve; (d) the level of postsynaptic recurrent inhibition at rest; (e) level of supraspinal drive assessed by measuring V waves; and (f) the gain of the resting soleus M wave. Stepwise regression analyses were used to determine which variables significantly predicted allometrically scaled RTD. The analyses indicated that supraspinal drive was the dominant predictor of RTD across all phases. Additionally, recurrent inhibition predicted RTD in all of the time intervals except 0–150 ms. These results demonstrate the importance of supraspinal drive and recurrent inhibition to RTD

Archives of Memory: A Soldier Recalls World War II

“Tell me about the war”—these words launched a ten-year project in oral history by a husband-and-wife team. Howard Hoffman fought in World War II from Cassino to the Elbe as a mortar crewman and a forward observer. His war experiences are of intrinsic interest to readers who seek a foot soldier’s view of those historic events. But the principal purpose of this study was to explore the bounds of memory, to gauge its accuracy and its stability over time, and to determine the effects of various efforts to enhance it. Alice Hoffman, a historian, initiated the study because she recognized the critical role of memory in gathering oral history; Howard Hoffman, the subject, is an experimental psychologist. Alice’s tape-recorded interviews with her husband over a period of ten years are the basic material of the study, which compares the events as recounted in the first phase of the interviews with later accounts of the same experiences and with the written records of his company as well as the memories of fellow soldiers and the evidence of photographs and other documents. This engrossing story of World War II breaks new ground for practitioners of oral history. The Hoffmans’ findings indicate that a subset of human memory exists that is so permanent and resistant to change that it can properly be labeled “archival”. In addition to describing some of the circumstances under which archival memories are formed, the Hoffmans describe the conditions that were found to influence their storage and retrieval. If you are an oral historian who enjoys war stories, you will take up this book without hesitation; if you don’t enjoy them, you should persist anyway. —Oral History Review A significant work in oral history. This book will help those who collect and use oral histories understand how and what people remember. —American Historical Reviewhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_military_history/1004/thumbnail.jp

Tunable coupling in circuit quantum electrodynamics with a superconducting V-system

Recent progress in superconducting qubits has demonstrated the potential of these devices for the future of quantum information processing. One desirable feature for quantum computing is independent control of qubit interactions as well as qubit energies. We demonstrate a new type of superconducting charge qubit that has a V-shaped energy spectrum and uses quantum interference to provide independent control over the qubit energy and dipole coupling to a superconducting cavity. We demonstrate dynamic access to the strong coupling regime by tuning the coupling strength from less than 200 kHz to more than 40 MHz. This tunable coupling can be used to protect the qubit from cavity-induced relaxation and avoid unwanted qubit-qubit interactions in a multi-qubit system.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Two-photon imaging of cancer cell extravasation in live mice

Abstract MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells were engineered to express cytoplasmic paxillin-GFP and nuclear H2B-mCherry. In order to image extravasation, the cancer cells were injected in the blood stream of nude mice. Using 2-photon excitation microscopy we can simultaneously excite the two probes and also visualize the autofluorescence of tissues. A skin flap was opened to visualize blood vessels and recognize the position of the cancer cells. Two-photon imaging showed that after an initial phase in which the cells are non-adherent, some cells spread on the internal surface of the capillaries. Days later some cells started to appear on the external side of the capillary. The extravasated cells extend very long protrusions into the tissue. The goal was to determine if at the end of the long protrusion, if it is possible to observe the formation of focal adhesions by imaging paxillin-GFP. Preliminary results show that when cells start to adhere to the blood vessel wall they form focal adhesions as determined by the characteristic elongated features observed in the paxillin-GFP channel. New approaches will allow the tracking of the tip of the protrusion to determine if focal adhesions are forming there as the cells extravasate. This is important in establishing the mechanism of cell extravasation and migration in tissues. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1412. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-141

Data assimilation insights on selecting the most valuable atmospheric measurements

We discuss how objective guidance on selecting the most valuable atmospheric measurements on future Mars spacecraft missions can be provided through already developed Martian atmospheric data assimilation systems, and in particular through Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) which are widely used to design instruments for the Earth’s atmosphere