Thermal insulating conformal blanket

The conformal thermal insulating blanket may have generally rigid batting material covered by an outer insulating layer formed of a high temperature resistant woven ceramic material and an inner insulating layer formed of a woven ceramic fiber material. The batting and insulating layers may be fastened together by sewing or stitching using an outer mold layer thread fabricated of a high temperature resistant material and an inner mold layer thread of a ceramic fiber material. The batting may be formed to a composite structure that may have a firmness factor sufficient to inhibit a pillowing effect after the stitching to not more than 0.03 inch. The outer insulating layer and an upper portion of the batting adjacent the outer insulating layer may be impregnated with a ceramic coating material

Application of attributables to the correlation of surveillance radar measurements.

Space surveillance by radar is especially used for the low Earth orbit to maintain a database, also calledcatalogue, of objects on orbit. Among others, surveillance radars which are constantly scanning a region ofinterest in the sky are used for this purpose. The detections from such a radar which cannot be assigned toan already known catalogue object might not contain enough information to obtain a reliable initial orbitfor a new catalogue entry from a single measured pass, also called tracklet. Instead, two tracklets can becombined to improve the quality of the initial orbit which leads to the correlation problem. This means thatit has to be tested whether two tracklets belong to the same object and an initial orbit has to be derivedby combining the tracklets. A common approach to condense the information in the tracklet is fitting themwith so-called attributables. Because radar observations include different types of observables, the fitting ofthese attributables has to be considered as an important part of the entire correlation process. This paperanalyses the effect of the attributable fitting considering the achieved accuracy and influence on the trackletcorrelation. A new singularity-free coordinate system is introduced, which improves the results of the fittingand correlation. Finally, a test on a simulated survey scenario introduces two additional filters to remove falsepositive correlations. It is shown that the attributable-based approach can be applied successfully to trackletsof up to three minutes length with different detection frequencie

Secondary forest succession in the Mata Atlantica, Brazil: floristic and phytosociological trends.

This study aimed at understanding the dynamics of ecological processes and the use of secondary forests in Santa Catarina state (Brazil). The data base for these studies was formed through forest inventories carried out in the three forest types of the state. The results of this study demonstrate that the patterns of diversity are very similar among the three forest types; however, the species compositions among the types are quite different. A total of 343 woody species belonging to 73 families were found in the 24,000 m2 sampling area, revealing the potential role of secondary forest in the conservation of biodiversity at the landscape scale. As expected, a small set of pioneer species dominates young secondary forests with shade-tolerant species becoming structurally important after 30 years. The patterns of forest structure and species diversity observed in study largely conform to the postagricultural secondary succession observed for many tropical forests.Article ID 759893

Brazilian montane rainforest expansion induced by Heinrich Stadial 1 event

The origin of modern disjunct plant distributions in the Brazilian Highlands with strong floristic affinities to distant montane rainforests of isolated mountaintops in the northeast and northern Amazonia and the Guyana Shield remains unknown. We tested the hypothesis that these unexplained biogeographical patterns reflect former ecosystem rearrangements sustained by widespread plant migrations possibly due to climatic patterns that are very dissimilar from present-day conditions. To address this issue, we mapped the presence of the montane arboreal taxa Araucaria, Podocarpus, Drimys, Hedyosmum, Ilex, Myrsine, Symplocos, and Weinmannia, and cool-adapted plants in the families Myrtaceae, Ericaceae, and Arecaceae (palms) in 29 palynological records during Heinrich Stadial 1 Event, encompassing a latitudinal range of 30°S to 0°S. In addition, Principal Component Analysis and Species Distribution Modelling were used to represent past and modern habitat suitability for Podocarpus and Araucaria. The data reveals two long-distance patterns of plant migration connecting south/southeast to northeastern Brazil and Amazonia with a third short route extending from one of them. Their paleofloristic compositions suggest a climatic scenario of abundant rainfall and relative lower continental surface temperatures, possibly intensified by the effects of polar air incursions forming cold fronts into the Brazilian Highlands. Although these taxa are sensitive to changes in temperature, the combined pollen and speleothems proxy data indicate that this montane rainforest expansion during Heinrich Stadial 1 Event was triggered mainly by a less seasonal rainfall regime from the subtropics to the equatorial region.This work was funded by FAPESP research grant 2015/50683-2 to P.E. De Oliveira, VULPES Project, Belmount Forum