The flux and source of energetic protons in Saturn's inner magnetosphere

The flux of energetic protons in Saturn's inner magnetosphere was observed in two channels from 48 to 63 and 63 to 160 MeV. Absorption features due to the G ring and the satellites Enceladus and Mimas were easily identifiable. The flux observed in the absorption slot of Mimas can be maintained by the decay of a cosmic ray albedo neutron flux of 0.007/sq cm/s/sr. This flux is entirely consistent with calculations of the neutron flux produced by galactic cosmic ray interactions with the rings of Saturn. The omnidirectional proton flux of 0.0082/sq cm/s at 2.734 R sub s requires a residence time of 30 years. Both the residence time and the energy spectrum are comparable to those found in the inner radiation belt of the Earth. The angular distribution is nearly isotropic in the Mimas slot and beyond 4R sub s. Otherwise the pitch angle distribution is pancake and is approximated by sin(n)theta with n in the range 2 to 7. This distribution is consistent with an isotropic neutron source in the ring plane

Accuracy of generic mesh conformation: the future of facial morphological analysis

Three-dimensional (3D) analysis of the face is required for the assessment of changes following surgery, to monitor the progress of pathological conditions and for the evaluation of facial growth. Sophisticated methods have been applied for the evaluation of facial morphology, the most common being dense surface correspondence. The method depends on the application of a mathematical facial mask known as the generic facial mesh for the evaluation of the characteristics of facial morphology. This study evaluated the accuracy of the conformation of generic mesh to the underlying facial morphology. The study was conducted on 10 non-patient volunteers. Thirty-four 2-mm-diameter self-adhesive, non-reflective markers were placed on each face. These were readily identifiable on the captured 3D facial image, which was captured by Di3D stereophotogrammetry. The markers helped in minimising digitisation errors during the conformation process. For each case, the face was captured six times: at rest and at the maximum movements of four facial expressions. The 3D facial image of each facial expression was analysed. Euclidean distances between the 19 corresponding landmarks on the conformed mesh and on the original 3D facial model provided a measure of the accuracy of the conformation process. For all facial expressions and all corresponding landmarks, these distances were between 0.7 and 1.7 mm. The absolute mean distances ranged from 0.73 to 1.74 mm. The mean absolute error of the conformation process was 1.13 ± 0.26 mm. The conformation of the generic facial mesh is accurate enough for clinical trial proved to be accurate enough for the analysis of the captured 3D facial images

Providing decision support for the condition-based maintenance of circuit breakers through data mining of trip coil current signatures

The focus of this paper centers on the condition assessment of 11kV-33kV distribution circuit breakers from the analysis of their trip coil current signatures captured using an innovative condition monitoring technology developed by others. Using available expert knowledge in conjunction with a structured process of data mining, thresholds associated with features representing each stage of a circuit breaker's operation may be defined and used to characterize varying states of circuit breaker condition. Knowledge and understanding of satisfactory and unsatisfactory breaker condition can be gained and made explicit from the analysis of captured trip signature data and subsequently used to form the basis of condition assessment and diagnostic rules implemented in a decision support system, used to inform condition-based decisions affecting circuit breaker maintenance. This paper proposes a data mining method for the analysis of condition monitoring data, and demonstrates this method in its discovery of useful knowledge from trip coil data captured from a population of SP Power System's in-service circuit breakers. This knowledge then forms the basis of a decision support system for the condition assessment of these circuit breakers during routine trip testing

Thermodynamic constraints on the amplitude of quantum oscillations

Magneto-quantum oscillation experiments in high temperature superconductors show a strong thermally-induced suppression of the oscillation amplitude approaching critical dopings---in support of a quantum critical origin of their phase diagrams. We suggest that, in addition to a thermodynamic mass enhancement, these experiments may directly indicate the increasing role of quantum fluctuations that suppress the oscillation amplitude through inelastic scattering. We show that the traditional theoretical approaches beyond Lifshitz-Kosevich to calculate the oscillation amplitude in correlated metals result in a contradiction with the third law of thermodynamics and suggest a way to rectify this problem.Comment: PRB Rapid commun. (2017

Acceleration of protons at 32 Jovian radii in the outer magnetosphere of jupiter

During the inbound pass of Pioneer 10, a rapid ten-fold increase of the 0.2 to MeV proton flux was observed at 32 Jovian radii (R sub J). The total event lasted for 30 minutes and was made up of a number of superimposed individual events. At the time, the spacecraft was in the outer magnetosphere about 7 R sub J below the magnetic equator. Before and after the event, the proton flux was characteristic of the low flux level normally encountered between crossings of the magnetic equator. Flux changes at different energies were coherent within 1 minute; a time comparable to the time resolution of the data. The angular distributions were highly anisotropic with protons streaming towards Jupiter. A field-aligned dumbbell distribution was observed initially, and a pancake distribution just before the flux decayed to its pre-event value. The alpha particle flux changed as rapidly as the proton flux but peaked at different times. The energetic electron flux behaved differently; it increased gradually throughout the period