Solar X-rays - A comparsion with microwave radiation

OSO-I data analysis for comparison of solar X-rays and microwave radiatio

Airborne antenna coverage requirements for the TCV B-737 aircraft

The airborne antenna line of sight look angle requirement for operation with a Microwave Landing System (MLS) was studied. The required azimuth and elevation line of sight look angles from an antenna located on an aircraft to three ground based antenna sites at the Wallops Flight Center (FPS-16 radar, MLS aximuth, and MLS elevation) as the aircraft follows specific approach paths selected as representative of MLS operations at the Denver, Colorado, terminal area are presented. These required azimuth and elevation look angles may be interpreted as basic design requirements for antenna of the TCV B-737 airplane for MLS operations along these selected approach paths

Oxygen Absorption in Cooling Flows

The inhomogeneous cooling flow scenario predicts the existence of large quantities of gas in massive elliptical galaxies, groups, and clusters that have cooled and dropped out of the flow. Using spatially resolved, deprojected X-ray spectra from the ROSAT PSPC we have detected strong absorption over energies ~0.4-0.8 keV intrinsic to the central ~1 arcmin of the galaxy, NGC 1399, the group, NGC 5044, and the cluster, A1795. These systems have amongst the largest nearby cooling flows in their respective classes and low Galactic columns. Since no excess absorption is indicated for energies below ~0.4 keV the most reasonable model for the absorber is warm, collisionally ionized gas with T=10^{5-6} K where ionized states of oxygen provide most of the absorption. Attributing the absorption only to ionized gas reconciles the large columns of cold H and He inferred from Einstein and ASCA with the lack of such columns inferred from ROSAT, and also is consistent with the negligible atomic and molecular H inferred from HI, and CO observations of cooling flows. The prediction of warm ionized gas as the product of mass drop-out in these and other cooling flows can be verified by Chandra, XMM, and ASTRO-E.Comment: 4 pages (2 figures), Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, no significant changes from previous submitted versio

Mesoscale variability of free tropospheric humidity near San Nicolas Island during FIRE

Humidity variability at the top of the marine boundary layer (MBL) and in the free troposphere was examined using a variety of measurements taken on and around San Nicolas Island (SNI) during the FIRE IFO in July, 1987. Doppler wind profiler reflectivity recorded at two minute time resolution has provided the most continuous record and detail of small scale humidity fluctuations. Rawinsonde data were available from both an island site and the research vessel Point Sur. The information extractable from these sources is somewhat limited due to the frequency of launches (3 to 4/day at SNI and 6/day on the Point Sur). Some additional data were available from instrumented aircraft although scheduling flights in the neighborhood of the island was difficult due to restrictions on the air space. Other relevant data were collected at SNI near the radar and rawinsonde launch sites. A continuous record of cloud base altitude was logged by a ceilometer. Doppler acoustic sounder (sodar) reflectivity data provided a good record of inversion height. The sodar also monitored turbulent temperature fluctuations in the MBL. A small ground station recorded hourly averages of solar irradiance and downward longwave irradiance. The analysis in progress of the various data sets for two adjacent two day periods from 11 July to 14 July is described. The earlier period was chosen because the marine inversion was unusually high and there was increased frequency of rawinsonde launches at SNI. The later period was chosen because of the significant descent with time of an elevated inversion indicated by the radar data. Throughout the four day period, but especially in the first half, the turbulent humidity structure calculated from Doppler radar reflectivity shows excellent agreement with humidity profiles evaluated from rawinsonde data

The systemic environment: at the interface of aging and adult neurogenesis.

Aging results in impaired neurogenesis in the two neurogenic niches of the adult mammalian brain, the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle. While significant work has characterized intrinsic cellular changes that contribute to this decline, it is increasingly apparent that the systemic environment also represents a critical driver of brain aging. Indeed, emerging studies utilizing the model of heterochronic parabiosis have revealed that immune-related molecular and cellular changes in the aging systemic environment negatively regulate adult neurogenesis. Interestingly, these studies have also demonstrated that age-related decline in neurogenesis can be ameliorated by exposure to the young systemic environment. While this burgeoning field of research is increasingly garnering interest, as yet, the precise mechanisms driving either the pro-aging effects of aged blood or the rejuvenating effects of young blood remain to be thoroughly defined. Here, we review how age-related changes in blood, blood-borne factors, and peripheral immune cells contribute to the age-related decline in adult neurogenesis in the mammalian brain, and posit both direct neural stem cell and indirect neurogenic niche-mediated mechanisms

A dual telescope for spectroheliography in the extreme ultra-violet

Dual reflecting telescope design for ultraviolet spectroheliograph

Deconvolution of ASCA X-ray data: II. Radial temperature and metallicity profiles for 106 galaxy clusters

In Paper-I we presented a methodology to recover the spatial variations of properties of the intracluster gas from ASCA X-ray satellite observations of galaxy clusters. We verified the correctness of this procedure by applying it to simulated cluster datasets which we had subjected to the various contaminants common in ASCA data. In this paper we present the results which we obtain when we apply this method to real galaxy cluster observations. We determine broad-band temperature and cooling-flow mass-deposition rates for the 106 clusters in our sample, and obtain temperature, abundance and emissivity profiles (i.e. at least two annular bins) for 98 of these clusters. We find that 90 percent of these temperature profiles are consistent with isothermality at the 3-sigma confidence level. This conflicts with the prevalence of steeply-declining cluster temperature profiles found by Markevitch et al. (1998) from a sample of 30 clusters. In Paper-III (in preparation) we utilise our temperature and emissivity profiles to determine radial hydrostatic-mass properties for a subsample of the clusters presented in this paper.Comment: MNRAS, accpeted. Postscript copy of paper and individual postscript files for plots in Appendix B can be obtained from: http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/~da

Evaluating implicit feedback models using searcher simulations

In this article we describe an evaluation of relevance feedback (RF) algorithms using searcher simulations. Since these algorithms select additional terms for query modification based on inferences made from searcher interaction, not on relevance information searchers explicitly provide (as in traditional RF), we refer to them as implicit feedback models. We introduce six different models that base their decisions on the interactions of searchers and use different approaches to rank query modification terms. The aim of this article is to determine which of these models should be used to assist searchers in the systems we develop. To evaluate these models we used searcher simulations that afforded us more control over the experimental conditions than experiments with human subjects and allowed complex interaction to be modeled without the need for costly human experimentation. The simulation-based evaluation methodology measures how well the models learn the distribution of terms across relevant documents (i.e., learn what information is relevant) and how well they improve search effectiveness (i.e., create effective search queries). Our findings show that an implicit feedback model based on Jeffrey's rule of conditioning outperformed other models under investigation

Electronics implementation of the solar neutron experiment

The electronic equipment design and function are discussed for the solar neutron counter experiment. Circuit diagrams are included