Changes in spectral reflectance of wheat leaves in response to specific macronutrient deficiency.

In wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plants, deficiency of an essential element may drastically affect growth, appearance, and most importantly yield. Wheat, the focus of this study, is one of the crops studied in the CELSS program. Information about nutrient deficiencies in crops grown in controlled environment is essential to optimize food productivity. The main objective of this study was to determine whether deficiency of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (M) alters spectral reflectance properties of wheat leaves. Plants were grown in the greenhouse and growth chamber, in a modified Hoagland's nutrient solution. Spectral reflectance of fully expanded wheat leaves from 280 to 1100 nm, nutrient concentrations (N, P, K, and Ca) and chlorophyll (Chl) were determined when deficiency symptoms were first evident (approximately 6-7 weeks). Chlorophyll content and fresh and dry weight, were used to assess the severity of the nutrient stress. All nutrient deficiencies affected chlorophyll content and generally increased reflectance in the visible (VIS) 400-700 nm and infrared (IR) 700-1100 nm ranges. Magnesium and nitrogen deficiencies had the most pronounced effect on chlorophyll concentration height, and reflectance. All macronutrient deficiencies tested reduced chlorophyll concentration, increase reflectance in the visible range and caused a shift in the position of the red edge (the point of maximum slope on the reflectance spectrum of vegetation between red and near-infrared wavelengths) toward shorter or longer wavelengths; depending upon the element. In the greenhouse, N and Mg induced the greatest increase in reflectance of 33% and 25% in the VI range and 86% and 53% in the IR range, respectively. However, in the growth chamber, an increase of 97% and 25% occurred in the VI range, and 20% and 33% in the IR range, respectively. In the IR range in the growth chamber, P, K, and Ca deficiency caused a reduction in reflectance (412-770 nm). This research indicates that mineral deficiencies and reflectance are not specific to one environment and could have important implications for the design of CELSS in space, and perhaps the future of terrestrial agriculture.     

Metabolic changes in rats subjected to space flight for 18.5 days in the biosatellite Cosmos 936

From an investigation of the activity of six glucocorticoid dependent liver enzymes, the existence of chronic, transient, stress-induced hypercorticosteronaemia during flight is probable. This hypercorticosteronaemia arises from weightlessness and induces gluconeogenesis. Weightlessness also caused substantial increases in liver glycogen level. The increased lipolytic activity and that of lipoprotein lipase in several groups of animals could be interpreted as enhancement of fat mobilization and utilization under the influence of stress. As this latter enhancement was also found in ground-based controls, it may have been due to the stress of handling rather than to space flight per se.     

CELSS nutrition system utilizing snails

At the 40th IAF Congress in Malaga, a nutrition system for a lunar base CELSS was presented. A lunar base with a total of eight crew members was envisaged. In this paper, four species of plants--rice, soybean, lettuce and strawberry--were introduced to the system. These plants were sufficient to satisfy fundamental nutritional needs of the crew members. The supply of nutrition from plants and the human nutritional requirements could almost be balanced. Our study revealed that the necessary plant cultivation area per crew member would be nearly 40 m3 in the lunar base. The sources of nutrition considered in the study were energy, sugar, fat, amino acids, inorganic salt and vitamins; however, calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin A and sodium were found to be lacking. Therefore, a subsystem to supply these elements is of considerable value. In this paper, we report on a study for breeding snails and utilizing meat as food. Nutrients supplied from snails are shown to compensate for the above mentioned lacking elements. We evaluate the snail breeder and the associated food supply system as a subsystem of closed ecological life support system.     

A spectroscopic method for measuring turbulence in QSO Lyα forest clouds

The effects of a finite correlation length of a turbulent velocity field on the line formation process are considered for hydrogen absorption lines observed in quasar spectra. It is shown that both thermal and large-scale stochastic motions with a finite correlation length (0<l<) lead in general tosmaller equivalent widths of hydrogen lines than in the case when macroscopic motions are assumed to be completely uncorrelated (l0). Different influence of this effect on optically thin and thick absorption lines allows us to measure eventually turbulent characteristics of the gas in the Ly forest clouds. It is emphasized that possible measurements of the deuterium abundance in the early Universe could yield systematically higher ratios of D/H if the finite-correlation-length effects are ignored.     

Biochemical constraints for survival under Martian conditions.

A wide variety of terrestrial organisms, the so-called "anhydrobiotes," has learned to survive in a state of extreme dehydration in dry environments. Strategies for survival include the accumulation of certain polyols and nonreducing saccharides, which help to prevent damage to membranes and proteins, but at low water partial pressure DNA is also progressively damaged by various lesions, including strand breaks and cross-linking to proteins. These lesions, if they are not too numerous, can be repaired before the first replication step after rehydration, but long-term exposure to dry conditions finally diminishes the chances of survival as these lesions accumulate. If an organism has no chance to repair the accumulated DNA damage during intermittent periods of active life, survival will not exceed a few decades. The restriction of survival by dryness-induced DNA lesions is corroborated by new data on conidia of Aspergillus and the free plasmid pBR 322. Our results will be discussed with respect to the chance of finding dormant life or biochemical fossils on the surface of Mars.     

绿色制造中的干切削技术

冷却润滑液的存储、使用以及废弃处理需要专门的物流系统,因而费用很高;冷却润滑液处理不当会对人的健康以及环境造成危害;工件经过湿加工后必须进行清洁处理,这都费时费力,同时增加了对系统的要求.基于上述原因,近年来干切削技术受到广泛关注.     

Refractive Errors in Angle-of-Elevation Measurements

It is shown that the errors associated with radio elevation measurements may be investigated systematically using a variational technique. The error occurring when spaced antennas are used is compared with that for a single directional antenna. Integral expressions are obtained for the refractive errors.     

Weak Signal Detection in Non-Gaussian Noise of Unknown Level

An adaptive threshold detector to test for the presence of a weak signal in additive non-Gaussian noise of unknown level is discussed. The detector consists of a locally optimum detector, a noise level estimator, and a decision device. The detection threshold is made adaptive according to the information provided by the noise level estimator in order to keep a fixed false-alarm probability. Asymptotic performance characteristics are obtained indicating relationships among the basic system parameters such as the reference noise sample size and the underlying noise statistics. It is shown that, as the reference noise sample size is made sufficiently large, the adaptive threshold detector attains the performance of a corresponding locally optimum detector for detecting the weak signal were the noise level known.