24,781 research outputs found
Mars Observer Radar Altimeter Radiometer (MORAR)
The Mars Observer Project will permit the advancement of the state of the topographic and hypsometric knowledge of Mars to a level of 10 m or better over the surface of the planet Mars, the measurement of microwave surface brightness temperature of Mars with an accuracy of 15 to 20 K over 24 hours, and the measurement, globally, of surface returned power related to radar cross section with an accuracy of 1 dB and a repeatability of .5 dB. The MORAR Hardware Development, Ground Data Processing, and the Mission Operations will allow the accomplishment of these scientific objectives to define globally the topography of Mars at sufficient vertical resolution and spatial scale to address both large-scale geophysical and small-scale geologic problems, and to obtain global surface electrical and scattering properties of the upper several centimeters of the Martian surface for assessment of the composition, physical state, and volatile distribution of the surface
Aerothermodynamic radiation studies
We have built and made operational a 6 in. electric arc driven shock tube which alloys us to study the non-equilibrium radiation and kinetics of low pressure (0.1 to 1 torr) gases processed by 6 to 12 km/s shock waves. The diagnostic system allows simultaneous monitoring of shock radiation temporal histories by a bank of up to six radiometers, and spectral histories with two optical multi-channel analyzers. A data set of eight shots was assembled, comprising shocks in N2 and air at pressures between 0.1 and 1 torr and velocities of 6 to 12 km/s. Spectrally resolved data was taken in both the non-equilibrium and equilibrium shock regions on all shots. The present data appear to be the first spectrally resolved shock radiation measurements in N2 performed at 12 km/s. The data base was partially analyzed with salient features identified
Coherent phenomena in semiconductors
A review of coherent phenomena in photoexcited semiconductors is presented.
In particular, two classes of phenomena are considered: On the one hand the
role played by optically-induced phase coherence in the ultrafast spectroscopy
of semiconductors; On the other hand the Coulomb-induced effects on the
coherent optical response of low-dimensional structures.
All the phenomena discussed in the paper are analyzed in terms of a
theoretical framework based on the density-matrix formalism. Due to its
generality, this quantum-kinetic approach allows a realistic description of
coherent as well as incoherent, i.e. phase-breaking, processes, thus providing
quantitative information on the coupled ---coherent vs. incoherent--- carrier
dynamics in photoexcited semiconductors.
The primary goal of the paper is to discuss the concept of quantum-mechanical
phase coherence as well as its relevance and implications on semiconductor
physics and technology. In particular, we will discuss the dominant role played
by optically induced phase coherence on the process of carrier photogeneration
and relaxation in bulk systems. We will then review typical field-induced
coherent phenomena in semiconductor superlattices such as Bloch oscillations
and Wannier-Stark localization. Finally, we will discuss the dominant role
played by Coulomb correlation on the linear and non-linear optical spectra of
realistic quantum-wire structures.Comment: Topical review in Semiconductor Science and Technology (in press)
(Some of the figures are not available in electronic form
Computation of microdosimetric distributions for small sites
Object of this study is the computation of microdosimetric functions for sites which are too small to permit experimental determination of the distributions by Rossi-counters. The calculations are performed on simulated tracks generated by Monte-Carlo techniques.
The first part of the article deals with the computational procedure. The second part presents numerical results for protons of energies 0.5, 5, 20 MeV and for site diameters of 5, 10, 100 nm
Multitemporal mapping of post-fire land cover using multiplatform PRISMA hyperspectral and Sentinel-UAV multispectral data: Insights from case studies in Portugal and Italy
Wildfires have affected global forests and the Mediterranean area with increasing recurrency and intensity in the last years, with climate change resulting in reduced precipitations and higher temperatures. To assess the impact of wildfires on the environment, burned area mapping has become progressively more relevant. Initially carried out via field sketches, the advent of satellite remote sensing opened new possibilities, reducing the cost uncertainty and safety of the previous techniques. In the present study an experimental methodology was adopted to test the potential of advanced remote sensing techniques such as multispectral Sentinel-2, PRISMA hyperspectral satellite, and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) remotely-sensed data for the multitemporal mapping of burned areas by soil–vegetation recovery analysis in two test sites in Portugal and Italy. In case study one, innovative multiplatform data classification was performed with the correlation between Sentinel-2 RBR (relativized burn ratio) fire severity classes and the scene hyperspectral signature, performed with a pixel-by-pixel comparison leading to a converging classification. In the adopted methodology, RBR burned area analysis and vegetation recovery was tested for accordance with biophysical vegetation parameters (LAI, fCover, and fAPAR). In case study two, a UAV-sensed NDVI index was adopted for high-resolution mapping data collection. At a large scale, the Sentinel-2 RBR index proved to be efficient for burned area analysis, from both fire severity and vegetation recovery phenomena perspectives. Despite the elapsed time between the event and the acquisition, PRISMA hyperspectral converging classification based on Sentinel-2 was able to detect and discriminate different spectral signatures corresponding to different fire severity classes. At a slope scale, the UAV platform proved to be an effective tool for mapping and characterizing the burned area, giving clear advantage with respect to filed GPS mapping. Results highlighted that UAV platforms, if equipped with a hyperspectral sensor and used in a synergistic approach with PRISMA, would create a useful tool for satellite acquired data scene classification, allowing for the acquisition of a ground truth
Accounting for both electron--lattice and electron--electron coupling in conjugated polymers: minimum total energy calculations on the Hubbard--Peierls hamiltonian
Minimum total energy calculations, which account for both electron--lattice
and electron--electron interactions in conjugated polymers are performed for
chains with up to eight carbon atoms. These calculations are motivated in part
by recent experimental results on the spectroscopy of polyenes and conjugated
polymers and shed light on the longstanding question of the relative importance
of electron--lattice vs. electron--electron interactions in determining the
properties of these systems.Comment: 6 pages, Plain TeX, FRL-PSD-93GR
The levels of mRNA expressed by gene palF of A. nidulans do not appear to be pH regulated
Although pal genes are putative members of a signaling cascade involved in ambient pH sensing and in the consecutive activation of PacC protein, recent findings show that most of them (palA, B, C, H and I) do not respond to ambient pH at the transcriptional level. Here, we show that mRNA levels of the remainding palF gene are also constant at various growth pH values
Local Optical Spectroscopy in Quantum Confined Systems: A Theoretical Description
A theoretical description of local absorption is proposed in order to
investigate spectral variations on a length scale comparable with the extension
of the relevant quantum states. A general formulation is derived within the
density-matrix formalism including Coulomb correlation, and applied to the
prototypical case of coupled quantum wires. The results show that excitonic
effects may have a crucial impact on the local absorption with implications for
the spatial resolution and the interpretation of near-field optical spectra.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. - 11 pages, 3 PostScript figures (1
figure in colors) embedded. Uses RevTex, and psfig style
Theoretical Properties of Projection Based Multilayer Perceptrons with Functional Inputs
Many real world data are sampled functions. As shown by Functional Data
Analysis (FDA) methods, spectra, time series, images, gesture recognition data,
etc. can be processed more efficiently if their functional nature is taken into
account during the data analysis process. This is done by extending standard
data analysis methods so that they can apply to functional inputs. A general
way to achieve this goal is to compute projections of the functional data onto
a finite dimensional sub-space of the functional space. The coordinates of the
data on a basis of this sub-space provide standard vector representations of
the functions. The obtained vectors can be processed by any standard method. In
our previous work, this general approach has been used to define projection
based Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) with functional inputs. We study in this
paper important theoretical properties of the proposed model. We show in
particular that MLPs with functional inputs are universal approximators: they
can approximate to arbitrary accuracy any continuous mapping from a compact
sub-space of a functional space to R. Moreover, we provide a consistency result
that shows that any mapping from a functional space to R can be learned thanks
to examples by a projection based MLP: the generalization mean square error of
the MLP decreases to the smallest possible mean square error on the data when
the number of examples goes to infinity
Shape-independent scaling of excitonic confinement in realistic quantum wires
The scaling of exciton binding energy in semiconductor quantum wires is
investigated theoretically through a non-variational, fully three-dimensional
approach for a wide set of realistic state-of-the-art structures. We find that
in the strong confinement limit the same potential-to-kinetic energy ratio
holds for quite different wire cross-sections and compositions. As a
consequence, a universal (shape- and composition-independent) parameter can be
identified that governs the scaling of the binding energy with size. Previous
indications that the shape of the wire cross-section may have important effects
on exciton binding are discussed in the light of the present results.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. (12 pages + 2 figures in postscript
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