Development, design, fabrication and evaluation of a real-time video compression system

This is the final report on the work done by David Hein at the NASA-AMES Research Center. The main emphasis is on the work done on the Conditional Replenishment Emulator. The progress for May and a description of the emulator are given. Brief summaries of the work that was done in the other areas covered by the contract over the entire contract period are also provided

Amplified wind turbine apparatus

An invention related to the utilization of wind energy and increasing the effects thereof for power generation is described. Amplified wind turbine apparatus is disclosed wherein ambient inlet air is prerotated in a first air rotation chamber having a high pressure profile increasing the turbulence and Reynolds number thereof. A second rotation chamber adjacent and downstream of the turbine has a low pressure core profile whereby flow across the turbine is accelerated and thereafter exits the turbine apparatus through a draft anti-interference device. Interference with ambient winds at the outlet of the turbine apparatus is thus eliminated. Pivotable vanes controlled in response to prevailing wind direction admit air to the chambers and aid in imparting rotation. A central core may be utilized for creating the desired pressure profile in the chamber

Tube coupling device

A first annular ring of a tube coupling device has a keyed opening sized to fit around the nut region of a male coupling, and a second annular ring has a keyed opening sized to fit around the nut of a female coupling. Each ring has mating ratchet teeth and these rings are biased together, thereby engaging these teeth and preventing rotation of these rings. This in turn prevents the rotation of the male nut region with respect to the female nut. For tube-to-bulkhead locking, one facet of one ring is notched, and a pin is pressed into an opening in the bulkhead. This pin is sized to fit within one of the notches in the ring, thereby preventing rotation of this ring with respect to the bulkhead

Mechanical solar motor: A concept

Motor is proposed to convert radiation from sun directly into mechanical energy. Motor utilizes thermal expansion of liquid, heated by sun, as driving force. Unlike most thermally powered systems, it does not require that liquid be converted into vapor

Mechanical thermal motor

An apparatus is described for converting thermal energy such as solar energy into mechanical motion for driving fluid pumps and similar equipment. The thermal motor comprises an inner concentric cylinder carried by a stationary core member. The core member has a cylindrical disc plate fixed adjacent to a lower portion and extending radially from it. An outer concentric cylinder rotatably carried on the disc plate defining a space between the inner and outer concentric cylinders. A spiral tubular member encircles the inner concentric cylinder and is contained within the space between the inner and outer cylinders. One portion is connected to the inner concentric cylinder and a second portion connected to the outer concentric cylinder. A heated fluid is conveyed through the tubular member and is periodically cooled causing the tubular member to expand and contract. This causes the outer concentric cylinder to reciprocally rotate on the base plate accordingly. The reciprocating motion of the outer concentric cylinder is then utilized to drive a pump member in a pump chamber

Generating Interpretable Fuzzy Controllers using Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Programming

Autonomously training interpretable control strategies, called policies, using pre-existing plant trajectory data is of great interest in industrial applications. Fuzzy controllers have been used in industry for decades as interpretable and efficient system controllers. In this study, we introduce a fuzzy genetic programming (GP) approach called fuzzy GP reinforcement learning (FGPRL) that can select the relevant state features, determine the size of the required fuzzy rule set, and automatically adjust all the controller parameters simultaneously. Each GP individual's fitness is computed using model-based batch reinforcement learning (RL), which first trains a model using available system samples and subsequently performs Monte Carlo rollouts to predict each policy candidate's performance. We compare FGPRL to an extended version of a related method called fuzzy particle swarm reinforcement learning (FPSRL), which uses swarm intelligence to tune the fuzzy policy parameters. Experiments using an industrial benchmark show that FGPRL is able to autonomously learn interpretable fuzzy policies with high control performance.Comment: Accepted at Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2018 (GECCO '18

An Ananlysis and Description of Advertising Agencies in North Dakota

This thesis describes and analyzes the advertising practices of selected North Dakota advertising agencies. Much of the data was obtained from personal interviews with executives of five North Dakota advertising agencies. Such agency topics as clients, services, media used, billings, and false and misleading advertising laws adhered to by North Dakota agencies were described. A total of 65 advertisers were represented by North Dakota advertising agencies in 1966. The large national and regional advertisers were most profitable in terms of billings to agencies. Knowledge and familiarity of markets and media of North Dakota and the surrounding area were probably the primary reasons why these relatively large advertisers purchased the services of North Dakota agencies. The small size of North Dakota agencies caused a heavy workload to be placed on all agency personnel in the performance of agency services. All services of agencies were dependent upon the amount of funds obtained from advertising accounts and the limited amount of time available to service these accounts by agency personnel. Newspapers were the most popular commissionable medium used by North Dakota agencies. The large agencies required a minimum amount of billings in commissionable media, per year, of #5,000 and the small agencies #1,000 respectively for a client to be profitable. The mean billings per North Dakota agency in 1966 were #443,000

Compendium of Applications Technology Satellite user experiments

The achievements of the user experiments performed with ATS satellites from 1967 to 1973 are summarized. Included are fixed and mobile point to point communications experiments involving voice, teletype and facsimile transmissions. Particular emphasis is given to the Alaska and Hawaii satellite communications experiments. The use of the ATS satellites for ranging and position fixing of ships and aircraft is also covered. The structure and operating characteristics of the various ATS satellite are briefly described

DC-assisted microwave quenching of YBa2Cu3O7-{\delta} coplanar waveguide to a highly dissipative state

The paper reports on finding the effect of a strong change in the microwave losses in an HTS-based coplanar waveguide (CPW) at certain values of the input power Pin and direct current Idc. CPW on the basis of 150 nm thick YBa2Cu3O7-{\delta} epitaxial film on a single crystal MgO substrate was studied experimentally. A sharp and reversible transition of the CPW into a strongly dissipative state at the certain meanings of Pin and Idc depending on temperature was observed. Apparently the effect can be explained by self-heating of HTS structure caused by magnetic flux flow under the joint influence of MW and DC.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 17 reference