Top-mounted inlet system feasibility for transonic-supersonic fighter aircraft

The more salient findings are presented of recent top inlet performance evaluations aimed at assessing the feasibility of top-mounted inlet systems for transonic-supersonic fighter aircraft applications. Top inlet flow field and engine-inlet performance test data show the influence of key aircraft configuration variables-inlet longitudinal position, wing leading-edge extension planform area, canopy-dorsal integration, and variable incidence canards-on top inlet performance over the Mach range of 0.6 to 2.0. Top inlet performance data are compared with those or more conventional inlet/airframe integrations in an effort to assess the viability of top-mounted inlet systems relative to conventional inlet installations

Experimental aerodynamic characteristics of two V/STOL fighter/attack aircraft configurations at Mach numbers from 1.6 to 2.0

Tests were conducted in the Ames 9 by 7 ft supersonic wind tunnel to measure the aerodynamic characteristics of two horizontal attitude takeoff and landing V/STOL fighter/attack aircraft concepts. One concept featured a jet diffuser ejector for its vertical lift system and the other employed a remote augmentation lift system (RALS). Test results for Mach numbers from 1.6 to 2.0 are reported. Effects of varying the angle of attack (-4 deg to +17 deg), angle of sideslip (-4 deg to +8 deg) Mach number, and configuration building were investigated. The effects of wing trailing edge flap deflections, canard incidence, and vertical tail deflections were also explored as well as the effects of varying the canard longitudinal location and shapes of the inboard nacelle body strakes

Measurement of the charged pion mass using X-ray spectroscopy of exotic atoms

The $5g-4f$ transitions in pionic nitrogen and muonic oxygen were measured simultaneously by using a gaseous nitrogen-oxygen mixture at 1.4\,bar. Due to the precise knowledge of the muon mass the muonic line provides the energy calibration for the pionic transition. A value of (139.57077\,$\pm$\,0.00018)\,MeV/c$^{2}$ ($\pm$\,1.3ppm) is derived for the mass of the negatively charged pion, which is 4.2ppm larger than the present world average

Enteric glia express proteolipid protein 1 and are a transcriptionally unique population of glia in the mammalian nervous system

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113731/1/glia22876.pd

On the characterisation of a Bragg spectrometer with X-rays from an ECR source

Narrow X-ray lines from helium-like argon emitted from a dedicated ECR source have been used to determine the response function of a Bragg crystal spectrometer equipped with large area spherically bent silicon (111) or quartz (10$\bar{1}$) crystals. The measured spectra are compared with simulated ones created by a ray-tracing code based on the expected theoretical crystal's rocking curve and the geometry of the experimental set-up.Comment: Version acceptee (NIM

The Jacobian as a measure of planar dose congruence

We propose a new starting point for comparing dose distributions in therapeutic radiation physics using a Jacobian-based measure. The measure is normalization independent, free of tunable parameters, bounded and converges to a unique value when comparing unrelated dose distributions. We present a preliminary demonstration of the sensitivity and general characteristics of this measure.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Optimisation of a current generation ICP-QMS and benchmarking against MC-ICP-MS spectrometry for the determination of lead isotope ratios in environmental samples

© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Novel ANOVA methodology was used to benchmark ICP-QMS against MC-ICP-MS for Pb isotope ratios, demonstrating "fitness-for-purpose" in environmental source apportionment. The precision and accuracy of lead (Pb) isotope measurements obtained from quadrupole-based mass spectrometers (ICP-QMS) are considered to be limited by a number of factors originating in different components of the instruments. In this study, experimental and instrumental protocols were optimised for determining lead isotope ratios in urban soil digests. Experimental measures included individual dilution of all samples and isotopic standards (SRM-981, NIST) to a single Pb concentration intended to produce an intensity which was high enough to negate blanks and interferences but low enough to ensure the detector operated only in pulse counting mode. Instrumental protocols included batch dead time correction, optimisation of dwell time and the number of scans employed and correction of mass discrimination by sequential application of both internal ( 203 Tl/ 205 Tl ratio) and external (SRM-981, NIST) standards. This optimised methodology was benchmarked against multi-collector mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) measurements of Pb isotope ratios using replicate digest solutions of the same soil; but after these had been subjected to Pb separation using an ion-exchange procedure. On the assumption that MC-ICP-MS measurements are more accurate, small additive and multiplicative differences were observed in only the 4 th decimal place. ANOVA was used to compare the precisions of the two techniques demonstrating equal precisions c. 0.08% for 207 Pb/ 206 Pb, suggesting a sample heterogeneity limitation. By contrast, for 207 Pb/ 204 Pb, the worst-case ratio, ICP-QMS had a 10-fold poorer precision, despite negligible interference from 204 Hg, implying an instrumental limitation. The study concludes that ICP-QMS can provide valuable source apportionment information for most Pb isotope ratios but further efforts should focus on improving assay of the 207 Pb/ 204 Pb ratio

Deficits in audiovisual speech perception in normal aging emerge at the level of whole-word recognition.

Over the next 2 decades, a dramatic shift in the demographics of society will take place, with a rapid growth in the population of older adults. One of the most common complaints with healthy aging is a decreased ability to successfully perceive speech, particularly in noisy environments. In such noisy environments, the presence of visual speech cues (i.e., lip movements) provide striking benefits for speech perception and comprehension, but previous research suggests that older adults gain less from such audiovisual integration than their younger peers. To determine at what processing level these behavioral differences arise in healthy-aging populations, we administered a speech-in-noise task to younger and older adults. We compared the perceptual benefits of having speech information available in both the auditory and visual modalities and examined both phoneme and whole-word recognition across varying levels of signal-to-noise ratio. For whole-word recognition, older adults relative to younger adults showed greater multisensory gains at intermediate SNRs but reduced benefit at low SNRs. By contrast, at the phoneme level both younger and older adults showed approximately equivalent increases in multisensory gain as signal-to-noise ratio decreased. Collectively, the results provide important insights into both the similarities and differences in how older and younger adults integrate auditory and visual speech cues in noisy environments and help explain some of the conflicting findings in previous studies of multisensory speech perception in healthy aging. These novel findings suggest that audiovisual processing is intact at more elementary levels of speech perception in healthy-aging populations and that deficits begin to emerge only at the more complex word-recognition level of speech signals