Passive sonar fusion for submarine C2 systems

The most important sensors for gathering target information onboard a submarine are passive sonars. Problems concerning fusion of these passive sonars are discussed. Three typical passive sonars-passive noise sonar, passive ranging sonar and acoustic pulse surveillance sonar-constitute a passive sonar system for data fusion. This paper is concerned mainly with problems of significance in system development, such as tactical application background, special fusion techniques and own-ship maneuver considerations     

Crop parameters estimation by fuzzy inference system using X-band scatterometer data

Learning fuzzy rule based systems with microwave remote sensing can lead to very useful applications in solving several problems in the field of agriculture. Fuzzy logic provides a simple way to arrive at a definite conclusion based upon imprecise, ambiguous, vague, noisy or missing input information. In the present paper, a subtractive based fuzzy inference system is introduced to estimate the potato crop parameters like biomass, leaf area index, plant height and soil moisture. Scattering coefficient for HH- and VV-polarizations were used as an input in the Fuzzy network. The plant height, biomass, and leaf area index of potato crop and soil moisture measured at its various growth stages were used as the target variables during the training and validation of the network. The estimated values of crop/soil parameters by this methodology are much closer to the experimental values. The present work confirms the estimation abilities of fuzzy subtractive clustering in potato crop parameters estimation. This technique may be useful for the other crops cultivated over regional or continental level.     

On the uncertainties in the measurement of absolute (true) TEC over Indian equatorial and low latitude sectors

The Indian sector encompasses the equatorial and low latitude regions where the ionosphere is highly dynamic and is characterized by the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) resulting in large latitudinal electron density gradients causing errors and uncertainties in the estimation of range delays in satellite based navigation systems. The diurnal and seasonal variations of standard deviations in the TEC data measured during the low sunspot period 2004–2005 at 10 different Indian stations located from equator to the anomaly crest region and beyond are examined and presented. The day-to-day variability in TEC is found to be lowest at the equatorial station and increases with latitude up to the crest region of EIA and decreases beyond.     

Using GPS-TEC data to calibrate VTEC computed with the IRI model over Nigeria

This paper presents the development of a Total Electron Content (TEC) map for the Nigerian ionosphere. In this work, TEC measurements obtained from the AFRL-SCINDA GPS (Air Force Research Laboratory-Scintillation Network Decision Aid, Global Positioning System) equipment installed at Nsukka (6.87°N, 7.38°E) are used to adapt the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model for the Nigerian Ionosphere. The map is being developed as a computer program (implemented in the MATLAB programming language) that shows spatial and temporal representations of TEC for the Nigerian ionosphere. The method is aimed at showing how the IRI model can be used to estimate VTEC over wide areas by incorporating GPS measurements. This method is validated by using GPS VTEC data collected from a station in Ilorin (8.50°N, 4.55°E).     

Mini-magnetosphere: Laboratory experiment,physical model and Hall MHD simulation

Magnetosphere with a size comparable to the ion kinetic scales is investigated by means of laboratory experiment, analytical analysis and Hall MHD simulation. In experiment a specific magnetic field was observed which is non-coplanar to dipole field, does not change sign at dipole moment inversion and could be generated only via the quadratic Hall term. Magnetopause position and plasma stand off distance were found to be profoundly different between the experimental regimes with small and large ion inertia length. In the previous studies of a mini-magnetosphere by kinetic codes such novel features were observed as absence of the bow shock and plasma stopping at the Stoermer particle limit instead of the pressure balance distance. Proposed analytical model explains these features by Hall currents which tend to cancel magnetic field convection by ions. Performed numerical simulation shows a good agreement with experiment and analytical model. It gives detailed spatial structure of the Hall field and reveals that while ions penetrate deep inside mini-magnetosphere electrons overflow around it along magnetopause boundary.     

Perpendicular transport of charged particles: Results for the unified nonlinear transport theory derived from the Newton–Lorentz equation

The perpendicular diffusion coefficient is calculated by combining a recently developed Unified Nonlinear Transport (UNLT) theory with the Newton–Lorentz equation. The total perpendicular mean free path can be described as a combination of a guiding center contribution and a microscopic contribution. It is shown that the total mean free path depends strongly on the energy range of the turbulence power spectrum and on particle energy. Further, a slab/2D composite model is used to investigate the influence of each contribution to the total mean free path for a quasi-3D turbulence model. For pure 2D turbulence the UNLT reduces to the NLGC-theory. For pure slab turbulence the guiding center contribution is subdiffusive in accordance with simulations and the theorem on reduced dimensionality. Conversely, the microscopic contribution is non-zero, which has to be interpreted as normal diffusion.     

Catalogue of ionized emission line spectra in obscured AGN

High-energy, high-resolution in the spatial and energy domains is crucial to derive the geometrical distribution and the physical properties of gas and dust surrounding Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). These are, in turn, basic ingredients of any serious attempt to build an AGN structure model. We present in this paper CIELO-AGN, the first catalogue of ionized emission lines detected in the soft X-ray spectra of a sample of 69 nearby obscured AGN. This catalogue has been implemented according to an IVOA data model, and can be accessed through VO-compatible applications.     

Soil carbon distribution and site characteristics in hyper-arid soils of the Atacama Desert: A site with Mars-like soils

The soil carbon content and its relation to site characteristics are important in evaluating current local, regional, and global soil C storage and projecting future variations in response to climate change. In this study we analyzed the concentration of organic and inorganic carbon and their relationship with in situ climatic and geological characteristics in 485 samples of surface soil and 17 pits from the hyper-arid area and 51 samples with 2 pits from the arid–semiarid region from the Atacama Desert located in Peru and Chile. The soil organic carbon (SOC) in hyperarid soils ranged from 1.8 to 50.9 μg C per g of soil for the 0–0.1 m profile and from 1.8 to 125.2 μg C per g of soil for the 0–1 m profile. The analysis of climatic (temperature and precipitation), elevation, and some geologic characteristics (landforms) associated with hyper-arid soils explained partially the SOC variability. On the other hand, soil inorganic carbon (SIC) contents, in the form of carbonates, ranged from 200 to 1500 μg C per g of soil for the 0–0.1 m profile and from 200 to 3000 μg C per g of soil for the 0–1.0 m profile in the driest area. The largest accumulations of organic and inorganic carbon were found near to arid–semiarid areas. In addition, the elemental carbon concentrations show that the presence of other forms of inorganic carbon (e.g. graphite, etc.) was negligible in these hyperarid soils. Overall, the top 1 m soil layer of hyperarid lands contains ∼11.6 Tg of organic carbon and 344.6 Tg of carbonate carbon. The total stored carbon was 30.8-fold the organic carbon alone. To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating the total budget carbon on the surface and shallow subsurface on ∼160,000 km² of hyperarid soils.