A high reliability battery management system

Over a period of some 5 years Canadian Astronautics Limited (CAL) has developed a system to autonomously manage, and thus prolong the life of, secondary storage batteries. During the development, the system was aimed at the space vehicle application using nickel cadmium batteries, but is expected to be able to enhance the life and performance of any rechargeable electrochemical couple. The system handles the cells of a battery individually and thus avoids the problems of over, and under, drive that inevitably occur in a battery of cells managed by an averaging system. This individual handling also allow cells to be totally bypassed in the event of failure, thus avoiding the losses associated with low capacity, partial short circuit, and the catastrophe of open circuit. The system has an optional capability of managing redundant batteries simultaneously, adding the advantage of on line reconditioning of one battery, while the other maintains the energy storage capability of the overall system. As developed, the system contains a dedicated, redundant, microprocessor, but the capability exists to have this computing capability time shared, or remote, and operating through a data link. As adjuncts to the basic management system CAL has developed high efficiency, polyphase, power regulators for charge and discharge power conditioning

Witness

Witness, co-written by award-winning Tanzanian-Australian filmmaker Martin Mhando and WA actor and writer David Moody, explores the law of probability as it plays out in bitter human conflicts, retelling stories of torture and atrocities from Chile to Cambodia in a constantly morphing, fractured form. As the play progresses, the men perform a collage of vignettes in which the roles of white, black, male, female, jailer, prisoner, aggressor and victim are endlessly exchanged. At one point Moody dons a curly black wig to play a comical Colonel Gaddafi; elsewhere both men perform a disturbing Auschwitz cabaret scene as “Hymie and Abe,” complete with Marx Brothers nose-and-glasse

Similar Sublattices and Coincidence Rotations of the Root Lattice A4 and its Dual

A natural way to describe the Penrose tiling employs the projection method on the basis of the root lattice A4 or its dual. Properties of these lattices are thus related to properties of the Penrose tiling. Moreover, the root lattice A4 appears in various other contexts such as sphere packings, efficient coding schemes and lattice quantizers. Here, the lattice A4 is considered within the icosian ring, whose rich arithmetic structure leads to parametrisations of the similar sublattices and the coincidence rotations of A4 and its dual lattice. These parametrisations, both in terms of a single icosian, imply an index formula for the corresponding sublattices. The results are encapsulated in Dirichlet series generating functions. For every index, they provide the number of distinct similar sublattices as well as the number of coincidence rotations of A4 and its dual.Comment: 8 pages, paper presented at ICQ10 (Zurich, Switzerland

Depositing spacing layers on magnetic film with liquid phase epitaxy

Liquid phase epitaxy spacing layer is compatible with systems which are hard-bubble proofed by use of second magnetic garnet film as capping layer. Composite is superior in that: circuit fabrication time is reduced; adherence is superior; visibility is better; and, good match of thermal expansion coefficients is provided

PoN-S : a systematic approach for applying the Physics of Notation (PoN)

Visual Modeling Languages (VMLs) are important instruments of communication between modelers and stakeholders. Thus, it is important to provide guidelines for designing VMLs. The most widespread approach for analyzing and designing concrete syntaxes for VMLs is the so-called Physics of Notation (PoN). PoN has been successfully applied in the analysis of several VMLs. However, despite its popularity, the application of PoN principles for designing VMLs has been limited. This paper presents a systematic approach for applying PoN in the design of the concrete syntax of VMLs. We propose here a design process establishing activities to be performed, their connection to PoN principles, as well as criteria for grouping PoN principles that guide this process. Moreover, we present a case study in which a visual notation for representing Ontology Pattern Languages is designed

Investigation of the growth of garnet films by liquid phase epitaxy

Liquid phase expitaxy was investigated to determine its applicability to fabricating magnetic rare earth garnet films for spacecraft data recording systems. Two mixed garnet systems were investigated in detail: (1) Gd-Y and (2) Eu-Yb-Y. All films were deposited on Gd3Ga5012 substrates. The uniaxial anisotropy of the Gd-Y garnets is primarily stress-induced. These garnets are characterized by high-domain wall mobility, low coercivity and modest anisotropy. Characteristic length was found to be relatively sensitive to temperature. The Eu-Yb-Y garnets exhibit acceptable mobilities, good temperature stability and reasonable quality factors. The uniaxial anisotropy of these garnets is primarily growth-induced. The system is well suited for compositional "tailoring" to optimize specific desirable properties. Liquid phase epitaxy can be used to deposit Gd3Ga5012 spacing layers on magnetic garnet films and this arrangement possesses certain advantages over more conventional magnetic filmspacing layer combinations. However, it cannot be used if the magnetic film is to be ion implanted