Continued support in the study of lunar and planetary surfaces

Radar observations of various planetary surfaces are discussed. A radar investigation of Mars was conducted in conjunction with the Viking landing site selection process. Quasi-specular scattering from the lunar surface was interpreted in terms of horizonal scale dependence upon observing wavelengths. Furthermore, the effect of the extremely high temperatures encountered on the surface of Venus upon the dielectric constant of geophysical materials, and hence on the interpretation of radar results, was considered. The use of radio and radar techniques for the study of Saturns rings was also investigated

Modelling and directionally encoding the acoustics of a room

Geometrical methods are often used to model the acoustic properties of a room, but are valid only for high frequencies. At low frequencies. diffraction and the effects of room modes cannot be neglected. A method for modelling the two-dimensional propagation of sound within an enclosed room is presented which encompasses both of these particular properties by making use of a digital waveguide model

Pre-Assembeld Non-Load Bearing Interior Partition Panels

Gives an illustrated description of a design for pre-assembled interior partitioning walls created by the Small Homes Council aimed at realize the cost savings of using pre-fabricated materials in home construction.Lumber Dealers Research Counci

Dynamic resource allocation scheme for distributed heterogeneous computer systems

This invention relates to a resource allocation in computer systems, and more particularly, to a method and associated apparatus for shortening response time and improving efficiency of a heterogeneous distributed networked computer system by reallocating the jobs queued up for busy nodes to idle, or less-busy nodes. In accordance with the algorithm (SIDA for short), the load-sharing is initiated by the server device in a manner such that extra overhead in not imposed on the system during heavily-loaded conditions. The algorithm employed in the present invention uses a dual-mode, server-initiated approach. Jobs are transferred from heavily burdened nodes (i.e., over a high threshold limit) to low burdened nodes at the initiation of the receiving node when: (1) a job finishes at a node which is burdened below a pre-established threshold level, or (2) a node is idle for a period of time as established by a wakeup timer at the node. The invention uses a combination of the local queue length and the local service rate ratio at each node as the workload indicator

HD 4915: A Maunder Minimum Candidate

We study the magnetic activity cycle of HD 4915 using the \ion{Ca}{2} H \& K emission line strengths measured by Keck I/HIRES spectrograph. The star has been observed as a part of California Planet Search Program from 2006 to present. We note decreasing amplitude in the magnetic activity cycle, a pattern suggesting the star's entry into a Magnetic Grand Minimum (MGM) state, reminiscent of the Sun's Maunder and Dalton Minima. We recommend further monitoring of the star to confirm the grand minimum nature of the dynamo, which would provide insight into the state of the Sun's chromosphere and the global magnetic field during its grand minima. We also recommend continued observations of H \& K emission lines, and ground or space based photometric observations to estimate the sunspot coverage.Comment: To be submitted to AAS Journals; comments welcom

Waveguide physical modeling of vocal tract acoustics: flexible formant bandwidth control from increased model dimensionality

Digital waveguide physical modeling is often used as an efficient representation of acoustical resonators such as the human vocal tract. Building on the basic one-dimensional (1-D) Kelly-Lochbaum tract model, various speech synthesis techniques demonstrate improvements to the wave scattering mechanisms in order to better approximate wave propagation in the complex vocal system. Some of these techniques are discussed in this paper, with particular reference to an alternative approach in the form of a two-dimensional waveguide mesh model. Emphasis is placed on its ability to produce vowel spectra similar to that which would be present in natural speech, and how it improves upon the 1-D model. Tract area function is accommodated as model width, rather than translated into acoustic impedance, and as such offers extra control as an additional bounding limit to the model. Results show that the two-dimensional (2-D) model introduces approximately linear control over formant bandwidths leading to attainable realistic values across a range of vowels. Similarly, the 2-D model allows for application of theoretical reflection values within the tract, which when applied to the 1-D model result in small formant bandwidths, and, hence, unnatural sounding synthesized vowels

Structural breaks and regional disparities in the transmission of monetary policy

Using a regional VAR, we find large differences in the effects of monetary policy shocks across regions of the United States. We also find that the region-level effects of monetary policy differ a great deal between the pre-Volcker and Volcker-Greenspan periods in terms of their depth and length. The two sample periods also yield very different rankings of the regions in terms of the effects of monetary policy. Our regional VAR also suggests that aggregate VARs that ignore regional variations can suffer from severe aggregation bias. We use the results of our regional VAR to find evidence that recession depth related to the banking concentration and that the total cost of recession is related to the industry mix. Finally, we demonstrate that the differences between the two sample periods are due to changes in the mechanism by which monetary policy shocks are propagated.Monetary policy ; Regional economics ; Economic conditions

Regional VARs and the channels of monetary policy

We find that the magnitudes of the regional effects of monetary policy were considerably dampened during the Volcker-Greenspan era. Further, regional differences in the depths of monetary-policy-induced recessions are related to the concentration of the banking sector, whereas differences in the total cost of these recessions are related to industry mix.Monetary policy