Influence of a long duration exposure, 69 months, to the space flight factors in Artemia cysts, tobacco and rice seeds.

Three french laboratories have participated in the Free Flyer Biostack experiment. Artemia cysts, tobacco seeds and rice caryopsis and embryos were used. Biological objects in monolayers were dead. In opposite, a large fraction of samples used in bulk survived. A stimulatory effect occurred in the first steps of development in Artemia cysts. In fact, the larval survival was unchanged or slightly reduced. In tobacco a drastic decrease in germination and survival rate was observed. Space flight did not induce genetic changes. In rice, results depend on the variety which was investigated; the growth rate stimulation in flight samples is discussed with respect to controls.     

Algorithms for Power Converter Design Optimization

A practical optimization approach for power converters is established which allows conception of a design to meet all powercircuit performance requirements and concurrently to optimize a defined quantity such as weight or losses. In addition to facilitating a cost effective design, the computer-aided approach provides a means to readily assess a) the weight-efficiency tradeoff, b) impacts of converter requirements and component characteristics on a given design, and c) optimum power-system configurations. The following two popular algorithms for nonlinearly constrained optimization are utilized to design the power converter: 1) the sequential unconstrained minimization technique, SUMT Version 4; 2) the ALAG penalty function technique, ALAG5. These algorithms are compared, and suggestions are made for improving the efficiency of the optimization algorithms for power converter design.     

A new approach to robust fault detection and identification

A methodology for instrument fault detection and identification (FDI) in linear dynamical systems subject to plant parameter variations or uncertainties is presented. At the heart of this approach is a robust estimator for which the necessary and sufficient conditions to its existence are outlined. The robust estimator can simultaneously estimate the unmeasurable state variables of the system for the purpose of control and provide necessary information for FDI purposes. A novel feature of this approach is that it can actually identify the shape and magnitude of the failures. The scheme allows for fast and accurate FDI, and can account for structural uncertainties and variations in the parameters of the dynamical model of the system. The overall fault tolerant control system strategy proposed is verified through simulation studies performed on the control of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft in the vertical plane     

LET dependence of cell death, mutation induction and chromatin damage in human cells irradiated with accelerated carbon ions.

We investigated the LET dependence of cell death, mutation induction and chromatin break induction in human embryo (HE) cells irradiated by accelerated carbon-ion beams. The results showed that cell death, mutation induction and induction of non-rejoining chromatin breaks detected by the premature chromosome condensation (PCC) technique had the same LET dependence. Carbon ions of 110 to 124keV/micrometer were the most effective at all endpoints. However, the number of initially induced chromatin breaks was independent of LET. About 10 to 15 chromatin breaks per Gy per cell were induced in the LET range of 22 to 230 keV/micrometer. The deletion pattern of exons in the HPRT locus, analyzed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), was LET-specific. Almost all of the mutants induced by 124 keV/micrometer beams showed deletion of the entire gene, while all mutants induced by 230keV/micrometer carbon-ion beams showed no deletion. These results suggest that the difference in the density distribution of carbon-ion track and secondary electron with various LET is responsible for the LET dependency of biological effects.     

Tracking of crossing targets with imaging sensors

The authors present an algorithm for the tracking of crossing targets using the centroid measurement and the centroid offset measurement of the distributed image formed by the targets. The measurements are obtained by a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imaging sensor. The joint probabilistic data association merged-measurement coupled filter (JPDAMCF) is used for state estimation which performs filtering in a coupled manner for the targets with common measurements. Two filters are examined: one assuming the displacement noise white and the other one modeling it correctly as autocorrelated. The latter is shown to yield substantially better performance. The proposed algorithm demonstrates the usefulness of the JPDAMCF for tracking crossing targets in combination with the models for the centroid and offset measurements. Even though the centroid offset measurement requires more computations and a more complex model for estimation, it yields significantly better results if the filter accounts for its colored measurement noise     

Comments on `Comparison of two-sensor tracking methods based onstate vector fusion and measurement fusion' by J. Roecker et al

As shown in the above named work (ibid., vol.24, p.447-9, July, 1988), the improvement in the centralized scheme over the decentralized one was shown to be about 6-8%. The reason is briefly described     

Qualitative Reasoning methods for CELSS modeling.

Qualitative Reasoning (QR) is a branch of Artificial Intelligence that arose from research on engineering problem solving. This paper describes the major QR methods and techniques, which, we believe, are capable of addressing some of the problems that are emphasized in the literature and posed by CELSS modeling, simulation, and control at the supervisory level.     

Modeling of the radiation exposure during the flight of the second Bulgarian cosmonaut on board the Mir Space Station.

An experiment involving active detection of space radiation was carried out in the Space Research Institute (SRI) of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, in preparation of the flight of the second Bulgarian cosmonaut. The radiations that would be encountered on the flight were modelled including solar and galactic cosmic rays and the particle radiation in the Earth's radiation belts. The dose rate was calculated for these different radiations behind the shielding of the space station. The variations in dose rates over the period of the flight were calculated and compared with measurements made during the orbit of the Mir Space Station. The calculated and measured dose rates agreed within 15-35%.     

Joint probabilistic data association for autonomous navigation

A new autonomous navigation scheme based on the joint probabilistic data association (JPDA) approach that processes landmark detections in the field of view (FOV) of an on-board sensor is developed. These detections-some true, some false-are associated to a set of stored landmarks and used to update the state of the vehicle. The results obtained from Monte Carlo simulations prove the ability of this navigation filter to perform in very high false alarm environments. In the different environmental conditions tested in the simulations, the performance of the JPDA navigation filter (JPDANF) is very close to that of the filter based on perfect data association. The very efficient cluster decomposition algorithm presented for the purpose of the navigation problem can also be used in many multitarget tracking applications