Drifter studies in warm core rings

The results of multiple deployments of surface drifters in warm core rings of the Gulf Stream are presented. Four satellite drifters (tracked by the Argos system) were deployed on nine separate occasions and two LORAN-C drifters (operated by the University of Miami) were deployed three times. Drifter studies were conducted during four cruises aboard the R/V Endeavor in 1982 in conjunction with the Warm Core Rings Experiment and one cruise of the USNS Bartlett in January 1983 which was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. Translational velocities and periods of rotation are provided for two rings: 82B and 82H.National Science Foundation under grant OCE80-1698

Chemiluminescence Study on Thermal Degradation of Aircraft Tire Elastomers

Since the autoxidative process accounts in part for the degradation of rubber, including aircraft tires, it was felt that a study of the chemiluminescence from unsaturated elastomers could contribute significantly to an understanding of the degradation mechanism. The study revealed similarities in chemiluminescence behavior between four elastomers which were investigated, and it shows that similar oxidation mechanisms occur. Oxidative chemiluminescence was observed from purified samples of cis-1,4-polybutadiene, cis-1,4-polyisoprene, trans-polypentenamer, and 1,2-polybutadiene in an oxygen atmosphere at 25-150 C. The elastomer samples were placed in a 600 watt oven which is equipped with gas inlets for introducing any desired atmosphere. Chemiluminescence emission from the samples was focused with a two inch quartz lens onto the detector of a 12" photomultiplier which is connected to a photon counter. A strip-chart recorder, connected to the counter, permitted automatic data collection. Diagrams of the apparatus are included. The chemical reactions which occurred from the thermal decomposition of the polymer samples are described, and results (and tabulated data) are discussed

Enhancement of vaccinia virus based oncolysis with histone deacetylase inhibitors

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDI) dampen cellular innate immune response by decreasing interferon production and have been shown to increase the growth of vesicular stomatitis virus and HSV. As attenuated tumour-selective oncolytic vaccinia viruses (VV) are already undergoing clinical evaluation, the goal of this study is to determine whether HDI can also enhance the potency of these poxviruses in infection-resistant cancer cell lines. Multiple HDIs were tested and Trichostatin A (TSA) was found to potently enhance the spread and replication of a tumour selective vaccinia virus in several infection-resistant cancer cell lines. TSA significantly decreased the number of lung metastases in a syngeneic B16F10LacZ lung metastasis model yet did not increase the replication of vaccinia in normal tissues. The combination of TSA and VV increased survival of mice harbouring human HCT116 colon tumour xenografts as compared to mice treated with either agent alone. We conclude that TSA can selectively and effectively enhance the replication and spread of oncolytic vaccinia virus in cancer cells. © 2010 MacTavish et al

SeaWiFS technical report series. Volume 10: Modeling of the SeaWiFS solar and lunar observations

Post-launch stability monitoring of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWifs) will include periodic sweeps of both an onboard solar diffuser plate and the moon. The diffuser views will provide short-term checks and the lunar views will monitor long-term trends in the instrument's radiometric stability. Models of the expected sensor response to these observations were created on the SeaWiFS computer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) using the Interactive Data Language (IDL) utility with a graphical user interface (GUI). The solar model uses the area of intersecting circles to simulate the ramping of sensor response while viewing the diffuser. This model is compared with preflight laboratory scans of the solar diffuser. The lunar model reads a high-resolution lunar image as input. The observations of the moon are simulated with a bright target recovery algorithm that includes ramping and ringing functions. Tests using the lunar model indicate that the integrated radiance of the entire lunar surface provides a more stable quantity than the mean of radiances from centralized pixels. The lunar model is compared to ground-based scans by the SeaWiFS instrument of a full moon in December 1992. Quality assurance and trend analyses routines for calibration and for telemetry data are also discussed

Structural Measurements for Enhanced MAV Flight

Our sense of touch allows us to feel the forces in our limbs when we walk, swim, or hold our arms out the window of a moving car. We anticipate this sense is key in the locomotion of natural flyers. Inspired by the sense of touch, the overall goal of this research is to develop techniques for the estimation of aerodynamic loads from structural measurements for flight control applications. We submit a general algorithm for the direct estimation of distributed steady loads over bodies from embedded noisy deformation-based measurements. The estimation algorithm is applied to a linearly elastic membrane test problem where three applied distributed loads are estimated using three measurement configurations with various amounts of noise. We demonstrate accurate load estimates with simple sensor configurations, despite noisy measurements. Online real-time aerodynamic load estimates may lead to flight control designs that improve the stability and agility of micro air vehicles

The Spitzer-South Pole Telescope Deep Field: Survey Design and IRAC Catalogs

The Spitzer-South Pole Telescope Deep Field (SSDF) is a wide-area survey using Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) to cover 94 square degrees of extragalactic sky, making it the largest IRAC survey completed to date outside the Milky Way midplane. The SSDF is centered at 23:30,-55:00, in a region that combines observations spanning a broad wavelength range from numerous facilities. These include millimeter imaging from the South Pole Telescope, far-infrared observations from Herschel/SPIRE, X-ray observations from the XMM XXL survey, near-infrared observations from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey, and radio-wavelength imaging from the Australia Telescope Compact Array, in a panchromatic project designed to address major outstanding questions surrounding galaxy clusters and the baryon budget. Here we describe the Spitzer/IRAC observations of the SSDF, including the survey design, observations, processing, source extraction, and publicly available data products. In particular, we present two band-merged catalogs, one for each of the two warm IRAC selection bands. They contain roughly 5.5 and 3.7 million distinct sources, the vast majority of which are galaxies, down to the SSDF 5-sigma sensitivity limits of 19.0 and 18.2 Vega mag (7.0 and 9.4 microJy) at 3.6 and 4.5 microns, respectively.Comment: Accepted by ApJS; this version updated to conform to refereed articl

Stability and power optimality in time-periodic flapping wing structures

This paper investigates the nonlinear dynamics of a vehicle with two flexible flapping wings. The body dynamics and the wings\u27 deformation are monolithically grouped into a single system of equations, with aerodynamics accounted for by a quasi-steady blade element method. A periodic shooting method is then used to locate closed orbits of this non-autonomous system, and Floquet multipliers assess the linearized stability about the nonlinear orbit. This framework is then exposed to a gradient based optimizer, in order to quantify the role of wing planform variables, wing structure variables, and kinematic actuation variables in obtaining vehicles with superior open-loop stability characteristics, and/or low-power requirements

The Cluster and Field Galaxy AGN Fraction at z = 1 to 1.5: Evidence for a Reversal of the Local Anticorrelation Between Environment and AGN Fraction

The fraction of cluster galaxies that host luminous AGN is an important probe of AGN fueling processes, the cold ISM at the centers of galaxies, and how tightly black holes and galaxies co-evolve. We present a new measurement of the AGN fraction in a sample of 13 clusters of galaxies (M >= 10^{14} Msun) at 1<z<1.5 selected from the Spitzer/IRAC Shallow Cluster Survey, as well as the field fraction in the immediate vicinity of these clusters, and combine these data with measurements from the literature to quantify the relative evolution of cluster and field AGN from the present to z~3. We estimate that the cluster AGN fraction at 1<z<1.5 is f_A = 3.0^{+2.4}_{-1.4}% for AGN with a rest-frame, hard X-ray luminosity greater than L_{X,H} >= 10^{44} erg/s. This fraction is measured relative to all cluster galaxies more luminous than M*_{3.6}(z)+1, where M*_{3.6}(z) is the absolute magnitude of the break in the galaxy luminosity function at the cluster redshift in the IRAC 3.6um bandpass. The cluster AGN fraction is 30 times greater than the 3sigma upper limit on the value for AGN of similar luminosity at z~0.25, as well as more than an order of magnitude greater than the AGN fraction at z~0.75. AGN with L_{X,H} >= 10^{43} erg/s exhibit similarly pronounced evolution with redshift. In contrast with the local universe, where the luminous AGN fraction is higher in the field than in clusters, the X-ray and MIR-selected AGN fractions in the field and clusters are consistent at 1<z<1.5. This is evidence that the cluster AGN population has evolved more rapidly than the field population from z~1.5 to the present. This environment-dependent AGN evolution mimics the more rapid evolution of star-forming galaxies in clusters relative to the field.Comment: ApJ Accepted. 16 pages, 8 figures in emulateapj forma

Early-type Galaxies at z ~ 1.3. II. Masses and Ages of Early-type Galaxies in Different Environments and Their Dependence on Stellar Population Model Assumptions

We have derived masses and ages for 79 early-type galaxies (ETGs) in different environments at z ~ 1.3 in the Lynx supercluster and in the GOODS/CDF-S field using multi-wavelength (0.6-4.5 μm; KPNO, Palomar, Keck, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer) data sets. At this redshift the contribution of the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase is important for ETGs, and the mass and age estimates depend on the choice of the stellar population model used in the spectral energy distribution fits. We describe in detail the differences among model predictions for a large range of galaxy ages, showing the dependence of these differences on age. Current models still yield large uncertainties. While recent models from Maraston and Charlot & Bruzual offer better modeling of the TP-AGB phase with respect to less recent Bruzual & Charlot models, their predictions do not often match. The modeling of this TP-AGB phase has a significant impact on the derived parameters for galaxies observed at high redshift. Some of our results do not depend on the choice of the model: for all models, the most massive galaxies are the oldest ones, independent of the environment. When using the Maraston and Charlot & Bruzual models, the mass distribution is similar in the clusters and in the groups, whereas in our field sample there is a deficit of massive (M ≳ 10^(11) M_☉) ETGs. According to those last models, ETGs belonging to the cluster environment host on average older stars with respect to group and field populations. This difference is less significant than the age difference in galaxies of different masses

Constructing a WISE High Resolution Galaxy Atlas

After eight months of continuous observations, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mapped the entire sky at 3.4 {\mu}m, 4.6 {\mu}m, 12 {\mu}m and 22 {\mu}m. We have begun a dedicated WISE High Resolution Galaxy Atlas (WHRGA) project to fully characterize large, nearby galaxies and produce a legacy image atlas and source catalogue. Here we summarize the deconvolution technique used to significantly improve the spatial resolution of WISE imaging, specifically designed to study the internal anatomy of nearby galaxies. As a case study, we present results for the galaxy NGC 1566, comparing the WISE super-resolution image processing to that of Spitzer, GALEX and ground-based imaging. The is the first paper in a two part series; results for a much larger sample of nearby galaxies is presented in the second paper.Comment: Published in the AJ (2012, AJ, 144, 68