Critical issues in connection with human missions to Mars: protection of and from the Martian environment.

Human missions to Mars are planned to happen within this century. Activities associated therewith will interact with the environment of Mars in two reciprocal ways: (i) the mission needs to be protected from the natural environmental elements that can be harmful to human health, the equipment or to their operations; (ii) the specific natural environment of Mars should be protected so that it retains its value for scientific and other purposes. The following environmental elements need to be considered in order to protect humans and the equipment on the planetary surface: (i) cosmic ionizing radiation, (ii) solar particle events; (iii) solar ultraviolet radiation; (iv) reduced gravity; (v) thin atmosphere; (vi) extremes in temperatures and their fluctuations; and (vii) surface dust. In order to protect the planetary environment, the requirements for planetary protection as adopted by COSPAR for lander missions need to be revised in view of human presence on the planet. Landers carrying equipment for exobiological investigations require special consideration to reduce contamination by terrestrial microorganisms and organic matter to the greatest feasible extent. Records of human activities on the planet's surface should be maintained in sufficient detail that future scientific experimenters can determine whether environmental modifications have resulted from explorations.     

基于仿真的单元化制造系统的单元分组

在传统单元分组方法的基础上,提出了用仿真方法解决瓶颈机床的分组问题.采用着色Petri网,对生产系统建模.以BEA算法作为分组基础,经过仿真试验得到最终的单元分组结果.试验表明,用仿真的方法能够弥补传统分组算法复杂的缺点.     

The finite element approximation of vector fields in curvilinear coordinates

We demonstrate that it is possible to express each component of the displacement vector for the interior point of the finite element (FE) through all components of nodal unknowns in curvilinear coordinates. The effectiveness of the valid technique of vector approximation for displacement fields has been verified on an example.     

炉渣滤床技术处理亚麻生产废水

为了确定处理包头亚麻厂亚麻生产废水的设计方案，设计之前在现场进行了生产试验。在包头亚麻厂污水处理站，模拟炉渣滤床制造了3米高的炉渣滤层，滤渣从工厂锅炉房取用，将实际排放的亚麻煮漂车间、细纱车间、粗纱车间的生产废水混合后，通过炉渣滤层过滤处理，处理后出水由厂化验室和包头环保局化验。试验结果表明，处理后的排水各项指标完全达到国家排放标准。该工艺处理费用低，运行效果稳定，管理简便，具有明显的经济效益、环境效益和社会效益。     

The Origin of Mercury

Mercury’s unusually high mean density has always been attributed to special circumstances that occurred during the formation of the planet or shortly thereafter, and due to the planet’s close proximity to the Sun. The nature of these special circumstances is still being debated and several scenarios, all proposed more than 20 years ago, have been suggested. In all scenarios, the high mean density is the result of severe fractionation occurring between silicates and iron. It is the origin of this fractionation that is at the centre of the debate: is it due to differences in condensation temperature and/or in material characteristics (e.g. density, strength)? Is it because of mantle evaporation due to the close proximity to the Sun? Or is it due to the blasting off of the mantle during a giant impact? In this paper we investigate, in some detail, the fractionation induced by a giant impact on a proto-Mercury having roughly chondritic elemental abundances. We have extended the previous work on this hypothesis in two significant directions. First, we have considerably increased the resolution of the simulation of the collision itself. Second, we have addressed the fate of the ejecta following the impact by computing the expected reaccretion timescale and comparing it to the removal timescale from gravitational interactions with other planets (essentially Venus) and the Poynting–Robertson effect. To compute the latter, we have determined the expected size distribution of the condensates formed during the cooling of the expanding vapor cloud generated by the impact. We find that, even though some ejected material will be reaccreted, the removal of the mantle of proto-Mercury following a giant impact can indeed lead to the required long-term fractionation between silicates and iron and therefore account for the anomalously high mean density of the planet. Detailed coupled dynamical–chemical modeling of this formation mechanism should be carried out in such a way as to allow explicit testing of the giant impact hypothesis by forthcoming space missions (e.g. MESSENGER and BepiColombo).     

Problems of application of face gasodynamic seals in aircraft engines

Problems arising in introduction of gasodynamic seals in aircraft engines are considered. The operation of a face gasodynamic seal as part of a natural gas pump is analyzed and its efficiency in the presence of oil is shown.     

基于特征模型的全系数自适应控制系统稳定性研究

讨论了基于特征模型的黄金分割加逻辑微分自适应控制律组成闭环系统的稳定性问题。针对参数未知、线性定常或慢时变的二阶不稳定对象,本文给出了在采样周期满足一定条件下,上述闭环系统渐近稳定的充分条件,其中包含对于时变参数变化范围和非线性阻尼系数的约束条件。     

Two years of INTEGRAL observation of the BHC IGR J17464-3213

On March 2003, IBIS, the γ-ray imager on board the INTEGRAL satellite, detected an outburst from a new source, IGR J17464-3213, that turned out to be an HEAO-1 transient, namely H1743-322. The spectral and temporal evolutions of the source were observed by INTEGRAL in different periods. Also RXTE observed the source for the first time on 2003 March 29 during a PCA Galactic bulge scan. The source flux decayed below the RXTE PCA sensitivity limit in November 2003, then in April 2004 it was again detected by INTEGRAL. On July 3, 2004 the source was again detected by RXTE/PCA at a 2–10 keV intensity of 16 mCrab and on July 7, reached 69 mCrab. Recently, a new outburst was observed on August 2005. We briefly summarise here the behaviour of the source observed by INTEGRAL from March 2003 to August 2005. The new outbursts of the source and the analysis of all the data collected (now public) give a global view of the spectral and time behaviour of this X-ray transient.     

Earthshine and Asteroseismology Telescope (East) Network

Several automated optical telescopes have been setup at appropriate longitudes around the globe to study earthshine variations and asteroseismology. The first telescope has been setup at Teide Observatory, Tenerife, Spain in October 2004. The intensity of earthshine relates to the average of Earth’s albedo, and in turn relates to the global temperature of the Earth. A global network is necessary because each site can measure the earthshine reflected from only a part of the Earth. The network will also be used for asteroseismology study. It can measure photometric variations of pulsating stars. The long-term and continuous measurements allow the accurate determination of mode frequencies of stellar pulsations, which provides information on the properties of stellar interior.