Pilot interaction with automated airborne decision making systems

The use of advanced software engineering methods (e.g., from artificial intelligence) to aid aircraft crews in procedure selection and execution is investigated. Human problem solving in dynamic environments as effected by the human's level of knowledge of system operations is examined. Progress on the development of full scale simulation facilities is also discussed

Production of Neutral Fermion in Linear Magnetic Field through Pauli Interaction

We calculate the production rate of neutral fermions in linear magnetic fields through the Pauli interaction. It is found that the production rate is exponentially decreasing function with respect to the inverse of the magnetic field gradient, which shows the non-perturbative characteristics analogous to the Schwinger process. It turns out that the production rate density depends on both the gradient and the strength of magnetic fields in 3+1 dimension. It is quite different from the result in 2+1 dimension, where the production rate depends only on the gradient of the magnetic fields, not on the strength of the magnetic fields. It is also found that the production of neutral fermions through the Pauli interaction is a magnetic effect whereas the production of charged particles through minimal coupling is an electric effect.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Pilot interaction with automated airborne decision making systems

Two project areas were pursued: the intelligent cockpit and human problem solving. The first area involves an investigation of the use of advanced software engineering methods to aid aircraft crews in procedure selection and execution. The second area is focused on human problem solving in dynamic environments, particulary in terms of identification of rule-based models land alternative approaches to training and aiding. Progress in each area is discussed

Better age estimations using UV-optical colours: breaking the age-metallicity degeneracy

We demonstrate that the combination of GALEX UV photometry in the FUV (~1530 angstroms) and NUV (~2310 angstroms) passbands with optical photometry in the standard U,B,V,R,I filters can efficiently break the age-metallicity degeneracy. We estimate well-constrained ages, metallicities and their associated errors for 42 GCs in M31, and show that the full set of FUV,NUV,U,B,V,R,I photometry produces age estimates that are ~90 percent more constrained and metallicity estimates that are ~60 percent more constrained than those produced by using optical filters alone. The quality of the age constraints is comparable or marginally better than those achieved using a large number of spectrscopic indices.Comment: Published in MNRAS (2007), 381, L74 (doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2007.00370.x

Impact of reionization on CMB polarization tests of slow-roll inflation

Estimates of inflationary parameters from the CMB B-mode polarization spectrum on the largest scales depend on knowledge of the reionization history, especially at low tensor-to-scalar ratio. Assuming an incorrect reionization history in the analysis of such polarization data can strongly bias the inflationary parameters. One consequence is that the single-field slow-roll consistency relation between the tensor-to-scalar ratio and tensor tilt might be excluded with high significance even if this relation holds in reality. We explain the origin of the bias and present case studies with various tensor amplitudes and noise characteristics. A more model-independent approach can account for uncertainties about reionization, and we show that parametrizing the reionization history by a set of its principal components with respect to E-mode polarization removes the bias in inflationary parameter measurement with little degradation in precision.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Rotating Black Hole Entropy from Two Different Viewpoints

Using the brick-wall method, we study the entropy of Kerr-Newman black hole from two different viewpoints, a rest observer at infinity and zero angular momentum observer near horizon. We investigate this with scalar field in the canonical quantization approach. An observer at infinity can take one of the two possible frequency ranges; one is with positive frequencies only and the other is with the whole range including negative frequencies. On the other hand, a zero angular momentum observer near horizon can take positive frequencies only. For the observer at infinity the superradiant modes appear in either choice of the frequency ranges and the two results coincide. For the zero angular momentum observer superradiant modes do not appear due to absence of ergoregion. The resulting entropies from the two viewpoints turn out to be the same.Comment: LaTeX 18 pages, 2 figures, Minor modifications in section 3(ZAMO

Simple Scheme for Efficient Linear Optics Quantum Gates

We describe the construction of a conditional quantum control-not (CNOT) gate from linear optical elements following the program of Knill, Laflamme and Milburn [Nature {\bf 409}, 46 (2001)]. We show that the basic operation of this gate can be tested using current technology. We then simplify the scheme significantly.Comment: Problems with PDF figures correcte