Operational parameters for the superconducting cavity maser

Tests of the superconducting cavity maser (SCM) ultra-stable frequency source have been made for the first time using a hydrogen maser for a frequency reference. In addition to characterizing the frequency stability, the sensitivity of the output frequency to several crucial parameters was determined for various operating conditions. Based on this determination, the refrigeration and thermal control systems of the SCM were modified. Subsequent tests showed substantially improved performance, especially at the longest averaging times

Spin-Excitation Mechanisms in Skyrme-Force Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock

We investigate the role of odd-odd (with respect to time inversion) couplings in the Skyrme force on collisions of light nuclei, employing a fully three-dimensional numerical treatment without any symmetry restrictions and with modern Skyrme functionals. We demonstrate the necessity of these couplings to suppress spurious spin excitations owing to the spin-orbit force in free translational motion of a nucleus but show that in a collision situation there is a strong spin excitation even in spin-saturated systems which persists in the departing fragments. The energy loss is considerably increased by the odd-odd terms

Zebra Mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) Affects the Feeding Ecology of Early Stage Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) in the Hudson River Estuary

Variability in the feeding ecology of young fishes over short and long time scales in estuaries is likely to affect population dynamics. We studied 14 years of early stage Striped Bass feeding ecology in the Hudson River Estuary over a 25-year time span, including years in which invasive zebra mussels markedly altered energy flow within the estuary. We predicted that feeding success would be low and that diet composition would be altered during years of high zebra mussel impact, particularly in upriver locations where mussels occur. Feeding success in the short term was indicated by volume of gut contents and in the long term by dry mass at length, i.e. condition; these measures were positively intercorrelated and varied significantly year to year. We tested for associations between condition and multiple biotic and abiotic environmental variables. There was a strong negative effect of zebra mussel grazing rate on condition in upriver locations and a weak positive effect in downriver locations. In upriver locations, condition was 33% higher when local salinity was high and zebra mussel grazing rates were low, whereas in downriver locations, condition was 35% higher when zebra mussel grazing rates and copepod abundance were high and local dissolved oxygen was low. Copepods, amphipods, mysids, and Leptodora constituted the highest prey-specific index of relative importance throughout the estuary. There was no evident effect of the zebra mussel invasion on diet composition. This long-term study corroborates the inferences of earlier studies that zebra mussels reduced early-stage striped bass growth rate

Long‐term research reveals multiple relationships between the abundance and impacts of a non‐native species

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147876/1/lno11029.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147876/2/lno11029_am.pd

System development and early biological tests in NASA's biomass production chamber

The Biomass Production Chamber at Kennedy Space Center was constructed to conduct large scale plant growth studies for NASA's CELSS program. Over the past four years, physical systems and computer control software have been continually upgraded and the degree of atmospheric leakage from the chamber has decreased from about 40 to 5 percent of the total volume per day. Early tests conducted with a limited degree of closure showed that total crop (wheat) growth from the best trays was within 80 percent of reported optimal yields for similar light levels. Yields from subsequent tests under more tightly closed conditions have not been as good--up to only 65 percent of optimal yields. Yields appear to have decreased with increasing closure, yet potential problems exist in cultural techniques and further studies are warranted. With the ability to tightly seal the chamber, quantitative data were gathered on CO2 and water exchange rates. Results showed that stand photosynthesis and transpiration reached a peak near 25 days after planting, soon after full vegetative ground cover was established. In the final phase of testing when atmospheric closure was the highest, ethylene gas levels in the chamber rose from about 10 to nearly 120 ppb. Evidence suggests that the ethylene originated from the wheat plants themselves and may have caused an epinastic rolling of the leaves, but no apparent detrimental effects on whole plant function

DMRG Study of Critical Behavior of the Spin-1/2 Alternating Heisenberg Chain

We investigate the critical behavior of the S=1/2 alternating Heisenberg chain using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). The ground-state energy per spin and singlet-triplet energy gap are determined for a range of alternations. Our results for the approach of the ground-state energy to the uniform chain limit are well described by a power law with exponent p=1.45. The singlet-triplet gap is also well described by a power law, with a critical exponent of p=0.73, half of the ground-state energy exponent. The renormalization group predictions of power laws with logarithmic corrections can also accurately describe our data provided that a surprisingly large scale parameter is present in the logarithm.Comment: 6 pages, 4 eps-figure

Telephone conversation impairs sustained visual attention via a central bottleneck

Recent research has shown that holding telephone conversations disrupts one's driving ability. We asked whether this effect could be attributed to a visual attention impairment. In Experiment 1, participants conversed on a telephone or listened to a narrative while engaged in multiple object tracking (MOT), a task requiring sustained visual attention. We found that MOT was disrupted in the telephone conversation condition, relative to single-task MOT performance, but that listening to a narrative had no effect. In Experiment 2, we asked which component of conversation might be interfering with MOT performance. We replicated the conversation and single-task conditions of Experiment 1 and added two conditions in which participants heard a sequence of words over a telephone. In the shadowing condition, participants simply repeated each word in the sequence. In the generation condition, participants were asked to generate a new word based on each word in the sequence. Word generation interfered with MOT performance, but shadowing did not. The data indicate that telephone conversation disrupts attention at a central stage, the act of generating verbal stimuli, rather than at a peripheral stage, such as listening or speaking