Coronal mass ejection detection using wavelets,curvelets and ridgelets: Applications for space weather monitoring

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large-scale eruptions of plasma and magnetic field that can produce adverse space weather at Earth and other locations in the Heliosphere. Due to the intrinsic multiscale nature of features in coronagraph images, wavelet and multiscale image processing techniques are well suited to enhancing the visibility of CMEs and suppressing noise. However, wavelets are better suited to identifying point-like features, such as noise or background stars, than to enhancing the visibility of the curved form of a typical CME front. Higher order multiscale techniques, such as ridgelets and curvelets, were therefore explored to characterise the morphology (width, curvature) and kinematics (position, velocity, acceleration) of CMEs. Curvelets in particular were found to be well suited to characterising CME properties in a self-consistent manner. Curvelets are thus likely to be of benefit to autonomous monitoring of CME properties for space weather applications.     

Study of GNSS-measured ionospheric total electron content variations generated by powerful HF-heating

The purpose of this work is to report the experimental evidences for the influence of perturbations in the electron density in the dayside mid-latitude ionosphere, that are caused by high-frequency heating of the F2 layer, on the GNSS signals. The experiments were carried out at the Sura heater (Radio Physical Research Institute, N. Novgorod). During the sessions of ionospheric heating with different time modulations of the radiated power the rays linking the navigational satellites with the ground receiver intersected the heated region. Variations in the total electron content (TEC) were studied; these variations are proportional to the reduced phases of navigational signals. It is shown that with the square-wave modulation of the radiated power (with periods of 1, 6, 10 and 15 min), perturbations with periods of the main modulation of heating and its harmonics appear in the spectrum of TEC variations. Examples are presented of identification of the heating-induced variations in TEC, including determination of the amplitudes and time characteristics of these variations.     

The origin of the prompt optical emission in GRB 060111B

The detection of a bright optical emission measured with good temporal resolution during the prompt phase makes GRB 060111B a rare event that is especially useful for constraining theories of the prompt optical emission. Comparing this burst with other GRBs with evidence of optical peaks, we find that the optical peak epoch (t_p) is anti-correlated with the high energy burst energetic assuming an isotropic energy release (E_iso) in agreement with Liang et al. (2009), and that the steeper is the post-peak afterglow decay, the less is the agreement with the correlation. GRB 060111B is among the latters and it does not match the correlation. The Cannonball scenario is also discussed and we find that this model cannot be excluded for GRB 060111B.     

Estimate of the NO concentration in the auroral region based on emission intensities of 391.4, 557.7, and 630.0 nm

Using numerical modeling, the influence of the NO concentration on the intensity of 557.7 nm emission in aurora caused by electron precipitation has been studied. It has been shown that the O₂ ⁺ NO reaction, which reduces the contribution of the dissociative recombination of the O₂ ⁺ ion into the formation of the ¹S state of atomic oxygen, is the main channel of suppression of the intensity of the emission at 557.7 nm. A method of estimating the NO concentration in the aurora based on the data of photometric measurements of emissions at 391.4, 557.7, and 630.0 nm has been proposed. The method has been tested using the data of simultaneous rocket measurements of emissions at 391.4, 557.7, and 630.0 nm and the NO content in aurora. A good agreement of estimates of the NO concentrations performed by the method to the results of direct measurements has been obtained.     

Neutral surfaces of coronal magnetic field and solar filaments

The shape of solar filaments is compared with the projection of parts of the neutral surface of the coronal magnetic field within a certain range of heights at different aspects of observation due to the rotation of the Sun. Neutral surfaces are calculated in the potential approximation from the photospheric data. The comparison shows that the material of filaments is concentrated mainly near the neutral surface of the potential field. The traces of the neutral surface section by the horizontal plane serve as polarity inversion lines (PILs) of the vertical field at the given height. In projection onto the disk, a lower edge of the filament with the intermediate barbs protruding on each side is delineated by the PIL at the low height, while an upper edge touches the high-height PIL. All material of the filament is enclosed in the space between these two lines. Although in reality the magnetic field structure near filaments differs very strongly from the potential field structure, their neutral surfaces can be similar and close, especially at low heights. This fact is probably the cause of the observed correlation. It can be used to determine the height of the upper edge of filaments above the photosphere in the case of observations only on the disk.     

An approach to forming the design performance of the attitude control system for small spacecraft

The elements for various types of attitude control systems used in a number of small spacecraft are considered. An approach for assessment of such system effectiveness based on design requirements for spacecraft purpose and restriction in accuracy, mass and energy is proposed.     

An improved approach for rainfall estimation over Indian summer monsoon region using Kalpana-1 data

In this paper, an improved Kalpana-1 infrared (IR) based rainfall estimation algorithm, specific to Indian summer monsoon region is presented. This algorithm comprises of two parts: (i) development of Kalpana-1 IR based rainfall estimation algorithm with improvement for orographic warm rain underestimation generally suffered by IR based rainfall estimation methods and (ii) cooling index to take care of the growth and decay of clouds and thereby improving the precipitation estimation.     

An evolutionary computational framework for capacity-safety trade-off in an air transportation network

Airspace safety and airport capacity are two key challenges to sustain the growth in Air Transportation. In this paper, we model the Air Transportation Network as two sub-networks of airspace and airports, such that the safety and capacity of the overall Air Transportation network emerge from the interaction between the two. We propose a safety-capacity trade-off approach,using a computational framework, where the two networks can inter-act and the trade-off between capacity and safety in an Air Transport Network can be established. The framework comprise of an evolutionary computation based air traffic scenario generation using a flow capacity estimation module(for capacity), Collision risk estimation module(for safety) and an air traffic simulation module(for evaluation). The proposed methodology to evolve air traffic scenarios such that it minimizes collision risk for given capacity estimation was tested on two different air transport network topologies(random and small-world) with the same number of airports. Experimental results indicate that though airspace collision risk increases almost linearly with the increasing flow(flow intensity) in the corresponding airport network, the critical flow depend on the underlying network configuration. It was also found that, in general, the capacity upper bound depends not only on the connectivity among airports and their individual performances but also the configuration of waypoints and mid-air interactions among conflicts. Results also show that airport network can accommodate more traffic in terms of capacity but the corresponding airspace network cannot accommodate the resulting traffic flow due to the bounds on collision risk.