Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The \u27Un-Buoy\u27 Solution: Logistic Considerations Using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology and Improved Communications Infrastructure

Moored buoys have long served national interests, but incur high development, construction, installation, and maintenance costs. Buoys which drift off-location can pose hazards to mariners, and in coastal waters may cause environmental damage. Moreover, retrieval, repair and replacement of drifting buoys may be delayed when data would be most useful. Such gaps in coastal buoy data can pose a threat to national security by reducing maritime domain awareness. The concept of self-positioning buoys has been advanced to reduce installation cost by eliminating mooring hardware. We here describe technology for operation of reduced cost self-positioning buoys which can be used in coastal or oceanic waters. The ASC SCOUT model is based on a self-propelled, GPS-positioned, autonomous surface craft that can be pre-programmed, autonomous, or directed in real time. Each vessel can communicate wirelessly with deployment vessels and other similar buoys directly or via satellite. Engineering options for short or longer term power requirements are considered, in addition to future options for improved energy delivery systems. Methods of reducing buoy drift and position-maintaining energy requirements for self-locating buoys are also discussed, based on the potential of incorporating traditional maritime solutions to these problems. We here include discussion of the advanced Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) communications draft protocol which offers improved wireless communication capabilities underwater, to adjacent vessels, and to satellites. DTN is particularly adapted for noisy or loss-prone environments, thus it improves reliability. In addition to existing buoy communication via commercial satellites, a growing network of small satellites known as PICOSATs can be readily adapted to provide low-cost communications nodes for buoys. Coordination with planned vessel Automated Identification Systems (AIS) and International Maritime Organization standards for buoy and vessel notificat- - ion systems are reviewed and the legal framework for deployment of autonomous surface vessels is considered

DESIGN TOOLS FOR INFLATABLE STRUCTURES

This paper shows different tools and approaches that can be useful for the definition of the design of pneumatic structures. Some of these tools have been applied for the design of a Tensairity® hull

Simulations for single-dish intensity mapping experiments

HI intensity mapping is an emerging tool to probe dark energy. Observations of the redshifted HI signal will be contaminated by instrumental noise, atmospheric and Galactic foregrounds. The latter is expected to be four orders of magnitude brighter than the HI emission we wish to detect. We present a simulation of single-dish observations including an instrumental noise model with 1/f and white noise, and sky emission with a diffuse Galactic foreground and HI emission. We consider two foreground cleaning methods: spectral parametric fitting and principal component analysis. For a smooth frequency spectrum of the foreground and instrumental effects, we find that the parametric fitting method provides residuals that are still contaminated by foreground and 1/f noise, but the principal component analysis can remove this contamination down to the thermal noise level. This method is robust for a range of different models of foreground and noise, and so constitutes a promising way to recover the HI signal from the data. However, it induces a leakage of the cosmological signal into the subtracted foreground of around 5%. The efficiency of the component separation methods depends heavily on the smoothness of the frequency spectrum of the foreground and the 1/f noise. We find that as, long as the spectral variations over the band are slow compared to the channel width, the foreground cleaning method still works.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to MNRA

Soil indexes related to irrigated corn yields : in a typic torrifluvent of Mendoza (Argentina)

In this work we took advantage of the great variability among replicates of the same fertilizer treatments in order to find relationships between soil characteris-tics and grain and stubble yield of eaeh plol. In this loamy alluvial soil of ca. 60 cm deep over the stony subsoil (pebbles, gravel.etc). The grain yield in the 12 non fertilized plots ranged between ca. 5 t/ha and 15 Uha, and the stubble between 7.75 Uha and 26,65 t/ ha. The general CV was 45%. The irrigation regime was optimized keeping the minimum available water at 30% of the total. Among the many soil characteris-tics studied total soil nitrogen (Nt) was the one that correlated most with the yield; P extracted with C02 satura-ted water at a 1: 1O relation (P-C02 1: 1O) and exchangea-ble potassium with amonium acetate (Ke-NH4) also showed some degree of correlation but the two of them showed significant correlations to Nt. Regression equations were calculated. Two group of plots were separated among the total 96 in the assay, and the minimum and maximum values of the related soil indexes were given. The group 1 was characterized by a minimum grain yield of ca. 14 Uha and group 11 by a maximum yield of 5 Uha. The minimum values fer group I and the maximum for group 11, as mg/kg in the 0-60 cm soillayer were, respectively : Nt 725 and 319 ; P-C02 1:103.68 and 2.43; Ke-NH4 180 and 147. In the 12 non fertilized plots the regression equation found between grain yield in kg/ha (Y) and total Nt mg/kg in the 0-60 cm soillayer was: Y =-3 393 + 24.04 X, r2 0.945 and the Standard error of estimation ± 916.Fil: Nijensohn, León. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería AgrícolaFil: Maffei, José A. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería AgrícolaFil: Rearte, Emilio . Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería Agrícol

Gravitational waves from galaxy encounters

We discuss the emission of gravitational radiation produced in encounters of dark matter galactic halos. To this aim we perform a number of numerical simulations of typical galaxy mergers, computing the associated gravitational radiation waveforms as well as the energy released in the processes. Our simulations yield dimensionless gravitational wave amplitudes of the order of $10^{-13}$ and gravitational wave frequencies of the order of $10^{-16}$ Hz, when the galaxies are located at a distance of 10 Mpc. These values are of the same order as those arising in the gravitational radiation originated by strong variations of the gravitational field in the early Universe, and therefore, such gravitational waves cannot be directly observed by ground-based detectors. We discuss the feasibility of an indirect detection by means of the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) induced by such waves. Our results show that the gravitational waves from encounters of dark matter galactic halos leave much too small an imprint on the CMB polarization to be actually observed with ongoing and future missions.Comment: 9 pages with revtex style, 3 ps figures; to be published in Physical Review

Increase in circulating levels of cardiac natriuretic peptides after hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women

The mechanisms that mediate the cardioprotective action of steroid hormones in postmenopausal women are poorly understood. To study the inter-relationship between female steroid hormones and cardiac natriuretic peptides, plasma levels of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) were measured in postmenopausal women, both before and after oestrogen replacement therapy. A total of 22 healthy postmenopausal women (mean age 51.9±4.6 years) were enrolled in the study; all had been postmenopausal for at least 1 year and all reported climacteric symptoms accompanied by increased levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (&gt;30m-i.u./ml) and luteinizing hormone (&gt;20m-i.u./ml), and a reduction in oestradiol (&lt;25pg/ml). All women were given hormone replacement therapy with transdermal oestradiol, either patch (50μg/24 h) or gel (1mg/day), cyclically combined with oral dihydrogesterone (10mg/day for 12 days/month, on days 19-30 of the month). ANP and BNP were measured directly in plasma samples with specific and sensitive immunoradiometric assays before and after hormone replacement therapy (transdermal oestradiol combined with oral dihydrogesterone). Body weight, arterial blood pressure and echocardiographic examination values did not change after hormone replacement therapy. As expected, serum oestradiol increased significantly and gonadotropins decreased as an effect of the hormone replacement therapy. On average, both ANP and BNP had increased significantly after 3 months of hormone replacement therapy [ANP: before treatment, 17.6±9.6pg/ml; after, 23.6±5.6pg/ml (P = 0.0173); BNP: before treatment, 12.6±10.2pg/ml; after, 19.8±14.0pg/ml (P&lt;0.0001)]. Our study indicates that hormone replacement therapy for a period of 3 months induces a rise in the circulating levels of cardiac natriuretic hormones in postmenopausal women. Our data also suggest the working hypothesis that cardiac natriuretic peptides may play an important role in mediating the cardioprotective effects of female steroid sex hormones in women throughout life.</jats:p

HI intensity mapping with FAST

We discuss the detectability of large-scale HI intensity fluctuations using the FAST telescope. We present forecasts for the accuracy of measuring the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations and constraining the properties of dark energy. The FAST $19$-beam L-band receivers ($1.05$--$1.45$ GHz) can provide constraints on the matter power spectrum and dark energy equation of state parameters ($w_{0},w_{a}$) that are comparable to the BINGO and CHIME experiments. For one year of integration time we find that the optimal survey area is $6000\,{\rm deg}^2$. However, observing with larger frequency coverage at higher redshift ($0.95$--$1.35$ GHz) improves the projected errorbars on the HI power spectrum by more than $2~\sigma$ confidence level. The combined constraints from FAST, CHIME, BINGO and Planck CMB observations can provide reliable, stringent constraints on the dark energy equation of state.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, submitted to "Frontiers in Radio Astronomy and FAST Early Sciences Symposium 2015" conference proceedin