Imaging Water Dissociation on TiO₂(110)

Scanning tunneling microscopy has been used to identify the adsorption site of H₂O on TiO₂(110)-(1 x 1) at 150 K, and to monitor the site of the dissociation products at 290 K. Water adsorbs onto the rows of fivefold coordinated Ti atoms at 150 K, dissociating by 290 K to form bridging but not terminal hydroxyls. This points to the involvement of bridging O vacancies in the dissociation pathway

Hole cutter

An adjustable hole cutter is described for use in forming circular openings in workpieces. The hole cutter is characterized by a mount of a substantially planar configuration, positionable into a plane paralleling the working plane of a selected workpiece. It also contains a shaft for imparting rotary motion to the mount about an axis of rotation normally related to the working plane, a plurality of stabilizing struts for resiliently supporting the mount in parallelism with the working plane as rotary motion is imparted thereto, a drill bit for drilling a pilot hole concentric with the axis of rotation, and an elongated cutting tool adjustably seated within a radially extended slot

Hemodynamic studies of the legs under weightlessness

Following exposure to weightlessness, alterations in the return of blood from the legs play a crucial role in orthostatic tolerance and may be an important factor in work tolerance. To investigate some of the hemodynamic mechansism involved, an experiment was performed on the Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 missions to study arterial blood flow, venous compliance, and muscle pumping of blood. Skylab 4 results indicated that the most likely cause of increased blood flow was an increase in cardiac output secondary to increased central venous pressure caused by blood redistribution. Changes in venous compliance are thought to be primarily changes in somatic musculature which is postulated to primarily determine venous compliance of the legs. This was also thought to be demonstrated by the changes in muscle pumping. It is thought that these compliance changes, when taken with the decreased blood volume; provide a basis for the changes seen in orthostatic tolerance, work capacity and lower body negative pressure response

A numerical comparison of discrete Kalman filtering algorithms: An orbit determination case study

The numerical stability and accuracy of various Kalman filter algorithms are thoroughly studied. Numerical results and conclusions are based on a realistic planetary approach orbit determination study. The case study results of this report highlight the numerical instability of the conventional and stabilized Kalman algorithms. Numerical errors associated with these algorithms can be so large as to obscure important mismodeling effects and thus give misleading estimates of filter accuracy. The positive result of this study is that the Bierman-Thornton U-D covariance factorization algorithm is computationally efficient, with CPU costs that differ negligibly from the conventional Kalman costs. In addition, accuracy of the U-D filter using single-precision arithmetic consistently matches the double-precision reference results. Numerical stability of the U-D filter is further demonstrated by its insensitivity of variations in the a priori statistics

The FOMC’s “considerable period”

Monetary policy

Finite element methodology for integrated flow-thermal-structural analysis

Papers entitled, An Adaptive Finite Element Procedure for Compressible Flows and Strong Viscous-Inviscid Interactions, and An Adaptive Remeshing Method for Finite Element Thermal Analysis, were presented at the June 27 to 29, 1988, meeting of the AIAA Thermophysics, Plasma Dynamics and Lasers Conference, San Antonio, Texas. The papers describe research work supported under NASA/Langley Research Grant NsG-1321, and are submitted in fulfillment of the progress report requirement on the grant for the period ending February 29, 1988

Anthropometric changes and fluid shifts

Several observations of body size, shape, posture, and configuration were made to document changes resulting from direct effects of weightlessness during the Skylab 4 mission. After the crewmen were placed in orbit, a number of anatomical and anthropometric changes occurred including a straightening of the thoracolumbar spine, a general decrease in truncal girth, and an increase in height. By the time of the earliest in-flight measurement on mission day 3, all crewmen had lost more than two liters of extravascular fluid from the calf and thigh. The puffy facies, the bird legs effect, the engorgement of upper body veins, and the reduced volume of lower body veins were all documented with photographs. Center-of-mass measurements confirmed a fluid shift cephalad. This shift remained throughout the mission until recovery, when a sharp reversal occurred; a major portion of the reversal was completed in a few hours. The anatomical changes are of considerable scientific interest and of import to the human factors design engineer, but the shifts of blood and extravascular fluid are of more consequence. It is hypothesized that the driving force for the fluid shift is the intrinsic and unopposed lower limb elasticity that forces venous blood and then other fluid cephalad

HABEAS CORPUS-FEDERAL COURTS-MAY APPLICATION FOR HABEAS CORPUS ADDRESSED TO ONE FEDERAL JUDGE BE HEARD BY ANOTHER JUDGE OF THE SAME COURT?

Petitioner applied to a specific district court judge for a writ of habeas corpus. Following the practice of the court of which he was a member, this judge filed the petition with the clerk of the court, and it was assigned to a second judge, who denied the petition. From this decision petitioner appealed. Two questions were raised (1) whether a writ of habas corpus should be granted; and (2) whether it is mandatory that a petition of habeas corpus addressed to a specific judge of the district court be heard and determined by that judge to the exclusion of any other judge of the same court. On the first question it was held that there was no merit to the petition since it was insufficient on its face. On the second question the court held that a petition addressed to one judge of the district court need not be heard by that particular judge but may be transferred to another judge of the same court. Burall v. Johnston, (C.C.A. 9th, 1944) 146 F. (2d) 230

A mass-balance/photochemical assessment of DMS sea-to-air flux as inferred from NASA GTE PEM-West a and B observations

This study reports dimethyl sulfide (DMS) sea-to-air fluxes derived from a mass-balance/photochemical-modeling approach. The region investigated was the western North Pacific covering the latitude range of 0°-30°N. Two NASA airborne databases were used in this study: PEM-West A in September-October 1991 and PEM-West B in February-March 1994. A total of 35 boundary layer (BL) sampling runs were recorded between the two programs. However, after filtering these data for pollution impacts and DMS lifetime considerations, this total was reduced to 13. Input for each analysis consisted of atmospheric DMS measurements, the equivalent mixing depth (EMD) for DMS, and model estimated values for OH and NO3. The evaluation of the EMD took into account both DMS within the BL as well as that transported into the overlying atmospheric buffer layer (BuL). DMS fluxes ranged from 0.6 to 3.0 μmol m-2d-1 for PEM-West A (10 sample runs) and 1.4 to 1.9 μmol m-2d-1 for PEM-West B (3 sample runs). Sensitivity analyses showed that the photochemically evaluated DMS flux was most influenced by the DMS vertical profile and the diel profile for OH. A propagation of error analysis revealed that the uncertainty associated with individual flux determinations ranged from a factor of 1.3 to 1.5. Also assessed were potential systematic errors. The first of these relates to our noninclusion of large-scale mean vertical motion as it might appear in the form of atmospheric subsidence or as a convergence. Our estimates here would place this error in the range of O to 30%. By far the largest systematic error is that associated with stochastic events (e.g., those involving major changes in cloud coverage). In the latter case, sensitivity tests suggested that the error could be as high as a factor of 2. With improvements in such areas as BL sampling time, direct observations of OH, improved DMS vertical profiling, direct assessment of vertical velocity in the field, and preflight (24 hours) detailed meteorological data, it appears that the uncertainty in this approach could be reduced to ±25%. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union