Influence of long-term altered gravity on the swimming performance of developing cichlid fish: including results from the 2nd German Spacelab Mission D-2.

This study presents qualitative and quantitative data concerning gravity-dependent changes in the swimming behaviour of developing cichlid fish larvae (Oreochromis mossambicus) after a 9 resp. 10 days exposure to increased acceleration (centrifuge experiments), to reduced gravity (fast-rotating clinostat), changed accelerations (parabolic aircraft flights) and to near weightlessness (2nd German Spacelab Mission D-2). Changes of gravity initially cause disturbances of the swimming performance of the fish larvae. With prolonged stay in orbit a step by step normalisation of the swimming behaviour took place in the fish. After return to 1g earth conditions no somersaulting or looping could be detected concerning the fish, but still slow and disorientated movements as compared to controls occurred. The fish larvae adapted to earth gravity within 3-5 days. Fish seem to be in a distinct early developmental stages extreme sensitive and adaptable to altered gravity; However, elder fish either do not react or show compensatory behaviour e.g. escape reactions.     

Enzyme conversion of lignocellulosic plant materials for resource recovery in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System.

A large amount of inedible plant material composed primarily of the carbohydrate materials cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin is generated as a result of plant growth in a Controlled Ecological Life-Support System (CELSS). Cellulose is a linear homopolymer of glucose, which when properly processed will yield glucose, a valuable sugar because it can be added directly to human diets. Hemicellulose is a heteropolymer of hexoses and pentoses that can be treated to give a sugar mixture that is potentially a valuable fermentable carbon source. Such fermentations yield desirable supplements to the edible products from hydroponically-grown plants such as rapeseed, soybean, cowpea, or rice. Lignin is a three-dimensionally branched aromatic polymer, composed of phenyl propane units, which is susceptible to bioconversion through the growth of the white rot fungus, Pluerotus ostreatus. Processing conditions, that include both a hot water pretreatment and fungal growth and that lead to the facile conversion of plant polysaccharides to glucose, are presented.     

AFIT neural network research

A brief summary of research done at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in the area of neural networks is provided. It has been shown that backpropagation, used for feedforward artificial neural networks, is just a degenerate version of an extended Kalman filter, and that networks can do about as well as the optimum statistical classification technique. A method of finding the importance of features for use by a neural network classifier has been determined. Techniques for using neural networks for image segmentation have been developed. In optical pattern recognition, techniques that allow the processing of real FLIR (forward-looking infrared) images with existing binary spatial light modulators have been devised. An optical direction of arrival detector applicable to laser illumination direction determination has been designed and tested; the design is similar to a fly's eye. Coated mirrors for the optical confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer have been designed, specified, fabricated, and installed. Significant progress has been made in the use of neural networks for processing multiple-feature sets for speech recognition     

温湿度传感器检定系统设计

本文介绍了利用电子扫描开关,可一次检定多只温湿度传感器的检定系统的硬件和软件设计。     

Practical stabilization in attitude thruster control

The attitude stabilization of a spacecraft using thrusters is considered from a practical point of view, i.e., when actuator constraints, uncertainties and failures, measurement noise, fuel consumption, and inertia matrix uncertainty are considered. A variable structure controller based on sliding modes is obtained first, which guarantees global exponential stability under actuator constraints, uncertainties, and failures. The design is based on a continuous average-proportional torque selection function and a set of feasible sliding surfaces, which may be adapted to improve performance. Exponential convergence towards ultimate bounds is guaranteed when all other practical issues arise.     

A wavelet multiresolution analysis for spatio-temporal signals

The wavelet filters of the conventional 3D multiresolution analysis possess homogeneous spatial and temporal frequency characteristics which limits one's ability to match filter frequency characteristics to signal frequency behavior. Also, the conventional 3D multiresolution analysis employs an oct-tree decomposition structure which restricts the analysis of signal details to identical resolutions in space and time. This paper presents a 3D wavelet multiresolution analysis constructed from nonhomogeneous spatial and temporal filters, and an orthogonal sub-band coding scheme that decouples the spatial and temporal decomposition processes     

涡旋真空泵的密封设计

涡旋真空泵在工作过程中动、静涡盘之间间隙存在泄漏损失,它是影响涡旋真空泵工作性能的重要因素;总结了涡旋真空泵的工作原理;介绍了涡旋真空泵的密封设计与选择、间隙的确定。从材料和结构两方面阐述了密封的几种结构形式,说明了各自的工作原理,及需要注意的问题,阐明这些问题是影响泵性能指标的重要因素。     

多臂协调操作自由飞行空间机器人的位置和内力混合控制

基于多臂自由飞行空间机器人多臂协调操使负载沿着期望的轨迹运动并且控制负载所受的内力为目的，在多臂自由飞行空间机器人系统协调操作的动力学方程基础上，推导了各个机械臂协调操作负载按期望轨迹运动时各个机械臂关节的驱动力矩的计算方法；给出了作用在负载的内力的定义，根据关节力矩计算方法和PID反馈控制原理，建立了多臂自由飞行空间机器人协调操作负载时的位置和内力的控制算法；讨论了所提出的控制算法的稳定性问题，得到了负载的位置误差和内力误差的约束条件。通过仿真实验证明该控制算法能够使负载的实际位姿和内力收敛到期望的轨迹和内力。     

How much of the solar irradiance variations is caused by the magnetic field at the solar surface?

The contribution to total solar irradiance variations by the magnetic field at the solar surface is estimated. Detailed models of the irradiance changes on the basis of magnetograms show that magnetic features at the solar surface account for over 90% of the irradiance variations on a solar rotation time scale and at least 70% on a solar cycle time scale. If the correction to the VIRGO record proposed by Fröhlich & Finsterle (2001) is accepted, then magnetic features at the solar surface are responsible for over 90% of the solar cycle irradiance variations as well.