Preliminary design study of a regenerative life support system information management and display system

The instrumentation requirements for a regenerative life support systems were studied to provide the earliest possible indication of a malfunction that will permit degradation of the environment. Four categories of parameters were investigated: environmental parameters that directly and immediately influence the health and safety of the cabin crew; subsystems' inputs to the cabin that directly maintain the cabin environmental parameters; indications for maintenance or repair; and parameters useful as diagnostic indicators. A data averager concept is introduced which provides a moving average of parameter values that is not influenced by spurious changes, and is convenient for detecting parameter rates of change. A system is included to provide alarms at preselected parameter levels

Drag-free estimation feasibility study

A drag compensation system for solar probes and other spacecraft that require a drag-free capability is presented. Estimation techniques, derived from modern control theory, are proposed

Populations of Pear Thrips, \u3ci\u3eTaeniothrips Inconsequens\u3c/i\u3e (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) in Sugar Maple Stands in Vermont: 1989-2005

Development of an effective IPM strategy for pear thrips, Taeniothrips inconsequens (Uzel) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), a pest of sugar maple, Acer saccharum Marshall, demands an understanding of their population fluctuations over time. Pear thrips populations were monitored using a standardized soil sampling method every fall from 1989 – 2005 in 14 counties of Vermont (U.S.). Data from individual sites were combined into north, central and south regions. High numbers of thrips emerged from soil sampled in 1989, 1990, 1993 and 2001, particularly in the north region (Washington, Lamoille, and Franklin counties). The central and south regions had lower pear thrips populations over all years. These results provide, for the first time, fundamental knowledge of pear thrips populations across a wide geographical area of Vermont and will assist in the design of suitable control strategies for pear thrips in the future

New World of Gossamer Superconductivity

Since the discovery of the high-T$_{c}$ cuprate superconductor La$_{2-x}$BaCuO$_{4}$ in 1986 by Bednorz and M\"{u}ller, controversy regarding the nature or origin of this remarkable superconductivity has continued. However, d-wave superconductivity in the hole-doped cuprates, arising due to the anti-paramagnon exchange, was established around 1994. More recently we have shown that the mean field theory, like the BCS theory of superconductivity and Landau's Fermi liquid theory are adequate to describe the cuprates. The keys for this development are the facts that a)the pseudogap phase is d-wave density wave (dDW) and that the high-T$_{c}$ cuprate superconductivity is gossamer (i.e. it exists in the presence of dDW).Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Relation Between Einstein And Quantum Field Equations

We show that there exists a choice of scalar field modes, such that the evolution of the quantum field in the zero-mass and large-mass limits is consistent with the Einstein equations for the background geometry. This choice of modes is also consistent with zero production of these particles and thus corresponds to a preferred vacuum state preserved by the evolution. In the zero-mass limit, we find that the quantum field equation implies the Einstein equation for the scale factor of a radiation-dominated universe; in the large-mass case, it implies the corresponding Einstein equation for a matter-dominated universe. Conversely, if the classical radiation-dominated or matter-dominated Einstein equations hold, there is no production of scalar particles in the zero and large mass limits, respectively. The suppression of particle production in the large mass limit is over and above the expected suppression at large mass. Our results hold for a certain class of conformally ultrastatic background geometries and therefore generalize previous results by one of us for spatially flat Robertson-Walker background geometries. In these geometries, we find that the temporal part of the graviton equations reduces to the temporal equation for a massless minimally coupled scalar field, and therefore the results for massless particle production hold also for gravitons. Within the class of modes we study, we also find that the requirement of zero production of massless scalar particles is not consistent with a non-zero cosmological constant. Possible implications are discussed.Comment: Latex, 24 pages. Minor changes in text from original versio