Aerospace Section News

The Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division encourages communication and cooperation among information professionals concerned with aerospace, aeronautical and related technologies. In addition, it fosters dialog with entities such as NASA, the AIAA and other important sources of technical data and bibliographical services

Biosynthesis And Characterization Of Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate-Co-4-Hydroxybutyrate) Copolymer From Cupriavidus Sp. Usmahm13

Production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-4-hydroxybutyrate) [P(3HB-co-4HB)] using combination of waste glycerine and carbon precursor by bacteria is still very limited. Therefore, this research was conducted to (i) isolate and identify a bacterium that able to produce high PHA content and 4HB monomer composition, (ii) explore the ability of the bacterium to produce P(3HB-co-4HB) using various inexpensive and renewable carbon sources, (iii) optimize the P(3HB-co-4HB) copolymer production using glycerine pitch through shake-flask fermentation using response surface methodology (RSM) and (iv) evaluate the material characteristics of the P(3HB-co-4HB) copolymers with various 4HB monomer compositions. In this study, a novel yellow-pigmented bacterium which exhibited ability of producing P(3HB-co-4HB) copolymer was successfully isolated from Perak, Malaysia and designated as Cupriavidus sp. USMAHM13. Based on the phenotypic and genotypic analyses, it could be suggested that Cupriavidus sp. USMAHM13 represents a novel species within the genus Cupriavidus. Preliminary screening of carbon sources for biosynthesis of P(3HB-co-4HB) copolymer by Cupriavidus sp. USMAHM13 revealed that high 4HB monomer composition (43 mol%) with cell dry weight and PHA content of 6.0 g/l and 49 wt%, respectively was achieved through combination of glycerine pitch (5 g/l) and 1,4-butanediol (5 g/l) via one-stage cultivation

Developing E-Business Information Without a Business School

Caltech Engineering and Science librarians describe their experiences exploring, learning and teaching business information research on a campus with minimal business resources and no business program. Caltech faculty, eager to educate sci-tech students in the business management of high technology startups, have created new curriculum with this goal in mind. Brainstorming on ways to meet the information needs of these budding entrepreneurs, two engineering librarians took the initiative to propose integrating business information resources into an innovative e-business class under development by an engineering professor. Our successful proposal challenged us to apply our information skills to a new subject area at Caltech - the fast paced arena of e-business. The result was a highly tailored class and Web site for e-business information resources. This experience, in turn, has provided a springboard for regular instructional sessions on business that address the broader needs of the Caltech community and have aided us in our awareness of other business development activities on campus. This paper also reports on how a team of non-business librarians were able to utilize skills and experience gained primarily in science and engineering and apply them to provide targeted business information resources to clients on a science and engineering campus. It also illustrates the inherent strengths of librarians in surveying, evaluating, organizing and teaching the information infrastructure of a new subject area. In one year, the Caltech Library System has not only acquired new information resources and added more business titles to its collection, it has increased its visibility to different constituencies on campus

Levy statistical fluctuations from a Random Amplifying Medium

We report the studies of emission from a novel random amplifying medium that we term a ``Levy Laser'' due to the non-Gaussian statistical nature of its emission over the ensemble of random realizations. It is observed that the amplification is dominated by certain improbable events that are ``larger than rare'', which give the intensity statistics a Levy like ``fat tail''. This, to the best of our knowledge, provides the first experimental realization of Levy flight in optics in a random amplifying medium.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures (postscript format

Theoretical optimal modulation frequencies for scattering parameter estimation and ballistic photon filtering in diffusive media

The efficiency of using intensity modulated light for estimation of scattering properties of a turbid medium and for ballistic photon discrimination is theoretically quantified in this article. Using the diffusion model for modulated photon transport and considering a noisy quadrature demodulation scheme, the minimum-variance bounds on estimation of parameters of interest are analytically derived and analyzed. The existence of a variance-minimizing optimal modulation frequency is shown and its evolution with the properties of the intervening medium is derived and studied. Furthermore, a metric is defined to quantify the efficiency of ballistic photon filtering which may be sought when imaging through turbid media. The analytical derivation of this metric shows that the minimum modulation frequency required to attain significant ballistic discrimination depends only on the reduced scattering coefficient of the medium in a linear fashion for a highly scattering medium

Prototype of a Desk-top WiTricity System for Powering House-hold Utility Equipments

Magnetic resonant coupling systems have been in vogue for some years after it was demonstrated for mid-range power transfer in 2007. This paper proposes a prototype desk-top Witricity system for powering house-hold utility equipments. The system uses the phenomena of near-field resonance coupling achieved at 400 kHz using a transmission coil wound around rim of a table and a receiver coil wound around the base of a white-LED lit table lamp. The parasitic capacitance of coils are calculated and augmented with external capacitance to achieve resonance. Distance does not come into play in this system while the system is of great practical use for household utility equipments such as table lamps mobile phones etc