The operational processing of wind estimates from cloud motions: Past, present and future

Current NESS winds operations provide approximately 1800 high quality wind estimates per day to about twenty domestic and foreign users. This marked improvement in NESS winds operations was the result of computer techniques development which began in 1969 to streamline and improve operational procedures. In addition, the launch of the SMS-1 satellite in 1974, the first in the second generation of geostationary spacecraft, provided an improved source of visible and infrared scanner data for the extraction of wind estimates. Currently, operational winds processing at NESS is accomplished by the automated and manual analyses of infrared data from two geostationary spacecraft. This system uses data from SMS-2 and GOES-1 to produce wind estimates valid for 00Z, 12Z and 18Z synoptic times

Properties of the mixed μ problem and its bounds

Upper and lower bounds for the mixed μ problem have recently been developed, and here we examine the relationship of these bounds to each other and to μ. A number of interesting properties are developed and the implications of these properties for the robustness analysis of linear systems and the development of practical computation schemes are discussed. In particular we find that current techniques can only guarantee easy computation for large problems when μ equals its upper bound, and computational complexity results prohibit this possibility for general problems. In this context we present some special cases where computation is easy and make some direct comparisons between mixed μ and “Kharitonov-type” analysis methods

Matching Excluded Volume Hadron Resonance Gas Models and Perturbative QCD to Lattice Calculations

We match three hadronic equations of state at low energy densities to a perturbatively computed equation of state of quarks and gluons at high energy densities. One of them includes all known hadrons treated as point particles, which approximates attractive interactions among hadrons. The other two include, in addition, repulsive interactions in the form of excluded volumes occupied by the hadrons. A switching function is employed to make the crossover transition from one phase to another without introducing a thermodynamic phase transition. A chi-square fit to accurate lattice calculations with temperature $100 < T < 1000$ MeV determines the parameters. These parameters quantify the behavior of the QCD running gauge coupling and the hard core radius of protons and neutrons, which turns out to be $0.62 \pm 0.04$ fm. The most physically reasonable models include the excluded volume effect. Not only do they include the effects of attractive and repulsive interactions among hadrons, but they also achieve better agreement with lattice QCD calculations of the equation of state. The equations of state constructed in this paper do not result in a phase transition, at least not for the temperatures and baryon chemical potentials investigated. It remains to be seen how well these equations of state will represent experimental data on high energy heavy ion collisions when implemented in hydrodynamic simulations.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Phonon Anomalies Induced by Superconductivity

We calculate the electronic polarizability in the superconducting state near extremum vectors ${\vec Q}_0$ of the Fermi surface. A pole appears in the polarizability at frequencies $\omega$ near the superconducting gap $2\Delta$ which leads to a sharp peak at $\omega$ just below $2 \Delta$ in the lattice vibrations near ${\vec Q}_0$. A second order transition to a charge density wave state below the superconducting transition is shown to be unlikely. The results are compared with the recent inelastic neutron scattering measurements in compounds, $ANi_2B_2C$, $A=Y$ or $Lu$.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, 3 Postscript figures. Corrections and significant additions in revisio

The development of aerodynamic uncertainties for the space shuttle orbiter

The Shuttle Program development schedule and the management decision to perform an orbital, manned mission on the first launch resulted in a requirement to develop realistic aerodynamic uncertainties for the preflight aerodynamic predictions. This paper addresses the methodology in developing two types of aerodynamic uncertainties. One involves the ability to reproduce aerodynamic results between various wind tunnel tests. The second addresses the difference between preflight aerodynamic predictions and flight results derived from analysis of past aircraft programs. Both types of uncertainties for pitching moment, lateral-directional stability, rudder power, and aileron power are presented. In addition, the application of uncertainties to flight control design and fight test planning is briefly reviewed

Net Baryon Fluctuations from a Crossover Equation of State

We have constructed an equation of state which smoothly interpolates between an excluded volume hadron resonance gas at low energy density to a plasma of quarks and gluons at high energy density. This crossover equation of state agrees very well with lattice calculations at both zero and nonzero baryon chemical potential. We use it to compute the variance, skewness, and kurtosis of fluctuations of baryon number, and compare to measurements of proton number fluctuations in central Au-Au collisions as measured by the STAR collaboration in a beam energy scan at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The crossover equation of state can reproduce the data if the fluctuations are frozen out at temperatures well below than the average chemical freeze-out.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1506.0340

Further studies of X-ray structure of the Perseus cluster

The X-ray sources in the Perseus cluster have been studied by many authors. Available data on the spatial and spectral distributions are examined and summarized. Based on these observations, a consistent model is proposed for the production of X-rays and gamma-rays in the region around NGC 1275. It is shown that good agreement with observations is obtained by assuming the emission of soft X-rays for thermal bremsstrahlung and of hard X-rays and gamma-rays from the inverse Compton process

A Candidate Subspecies Discrimination System Involving a Vomeronasal Receptor Gene with Different Alleles Fixed in \u3ci\u3eM. m. domesticus\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eM. m. musculus\u3c/i\u3e

Assortative mating, a potentially efficient prezygotic reproductive barrier, may prevent loss of genetic potential by avoiding the production of unfit hybrids (i.e., because of hybrid infertility or hybrid breakdown) that occur at regions of secondary contact between incipient species. In the case of the mouse hybrid zone, where two subspecies of Mus musculus (M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus) meet and exchange genes to a limited extent, assortative mating requires a means of subspecies recognition. We based the work reported here on the hypothesis that, if there is a pheromone sufficiently diverged between M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus to mediate subspecies recognition, then that process must also require a specific receptor(s), also sufficiently diverged between the subspecies, to receive the signal and elicit an assortative mating response. We studied the mouse V1R genes, which encode a large family of receptors in the vomeronasal organ (VNO), by screening Perlegen SNP data and identified one, Vmn1r67, with 24 fixed SNP differences most of which (15/24) are nonsynonymous nucleotide substitutions between M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus. We observed substantial linkage disequilibrium (LD) between Vmn1r67 and Abpa27, a mouse salivary androgen-binding protein gene that encodes a proteinaceous pheromone (ABP) capable of mediating assortative mating, perhaps in conjunction with its bound small lipophilic ligand. The LD we observed is likely a case of association rather than residual physical linkage from a very recent selective sweep, because an intervening gene, Vmn1r71, shows significant intra(sub)specific polymorphism but no inter(sub)specific divergence in its nucleotide sequence. We discuss alternative explanations of these observations, for example that Abpa27 and Vmn1r67 are coevolving as signal and receptor to reinforce subspecies hybridization barriers or that the unusually divergent Vmn1r67 allele was not a product of fast positive selection, but was derived from an introgressed allele, possibly from Mus spretus