Chemical Composition of Rocks and Soils at the Pathfinder Site

As Viking Landers did not measure rock compositions, Pathfinder (PF) data are the first in this respect. This review gives no proof yet whether the PF rocks are igneous or sedimentary, but for petrogenetic reasons they could be igneous. We suggest a model in which Mars is covered by about 50% basaltic and 50% andesitic igneous rocks. The soils are a mixture of the two with addition of Mg-sulfate and -chloride plus iron compounds possibly derived from the hematite deposits.     

A statistical overview of recent literature in information fusion

The objective of this paper is to make a picture of the recent articles published on information fusion. Indeed, a great number of documents dealing with this technique are available in the literature. A classification scheme including application fields, fusion goals, fusion system architecture and mathematical tools is proposed. This overview of the last three years allows us to compute the article distribution into each class. Finally, some elements of preliminary analysis of this classification are drawn     

FEM code simulation of the magnetospheric proton fluxes

We report a study of the numeric solution to the diffusive transport equation for energetic protons magnetically trapped in the Earth's equatorial magnetosphere. The analysis takes into account the pertinent physical processes in this region, including deceleration of protons by Coulomb collisional interactions with free and bound electrons, the charge exchange process, cosmic ray albedo neutron decay source, and electric and magnetic radial diffusion. These results were obtained using the Finite Element Method with magnetic moment and geomagnetic L-shell as free variables. Steady state boundary conditions were imposed at L=1 as zero distribution function and at L=7 with proton distribution function extracted from ATS 6 satellite observations. The FEM-code yields unidirectional proton flux in the energy range of 0.1–1000 MeV at the equatorial top of the geomagnetic lines, and the results are found to be in satisfactorily agreement with the empirical NASA AP-8 model proton flux within the energy range of 0.5–100 MeV. Below 500 keV, the empirical AP-8 model proton fluxes are several orders of magnitude greater than those computed with the FEM-code at L<3. This discrepancy is difficult to explain by uncertainties of boundary spectrum parameters or transport coefficients.     

Transition radio emission of mildly relativistic particles

We report new calculations of transition radiation spectra which are correct for arbitrary energy of a particle at all frequencies down to plasma frequency. The importance of the emission mechanism for solar flares are discussed.     

Pilot error in automated systems shown by altitude deviationreports

Over 8,000 altitude deviations are reported to NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System each year. This is almost one an hour. The narratives of pilot incidents relate how errors made in the automation-assisted altitude change task are caused by the difficulty pilots are having interacting with automatic systems. This paper discusses the impact of increased automation in glass-cockpit airliners on the altitude deviations reported by pilots. By observing the way information is processed by the cockpit system, the author suggests that the philosophies of design and training need to change in order to facilitate, not debilitate, the aircrew     

Changes in surface UV solar irradiance and ozone over the balkans during the eclipse of August 11, 1999

Intensive measurements of UV solar irradiance, total ozone and surface ozone were carried out during the solar eclipse of 11 August 1999 at Thessaloniki, Greece and Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, located very close to the footprint of the moon's shadow during the solar eclipse with the maximum coverage of the solar disk reaching about 90% and 96% respectively. It is shown that during the eclipse the diffuse component is reduced less compared to the decline of the direct solar irradiance at the shorter wavelengths. A 20-minute oscillation of erythemal UV-B solar irradiance was observed before and after the time of the eclipse maximum under clear skies, indicating a possible 20-minute fluctuation in total ozone presumably caused by the eclipse induced gravity waves. The surface ozone measurements at Thessaloniki display a decrease of around 10–15 ppbv during the solar eclipse. Similarly, ozone profile measurements with a lidar system indicate a decrease of ozone up to 2 km during the solar eclipse. The eclipse offered the opportunity to test our understanding of tropospheric ozone chemistry. The use of a chemical box model suggested that photochemistry can account for a significant portion of the observed surface ozone decrease.     

DNA double strand break production and rejoining in V79 cells irradiated with light ions.

Low energy protons and other densely ionizing light ions are known to have RBE>1 for cellular end points relevant for stochastic and deterministic effects. The occurrence of a close relationship between them and induction of DNA dsb is still a matter of debate. We studied the production of DNA dsb in V79 cells irradiated with low energy protons having LET values ranging from 11 to 31 keV/micrometer, i.e. in the energy range characteristic of the Bragg peak, using the sedimentation technique. We found that the initial yield of dsb is quite insensitive to proton LET and not significantly higher than that observed with X-rays, in agreement with recent data on V79 cells irradiated with alpha particles of various LET up to 120 keV/micrometer. By contrast, RBE for cell inactivation and for mutation induction rises with the proton LET. In experiments aimed at evaluating the rejoining of dsb after proton irradiation we found that the amount of dsb left unrepaired after 120 min incubation is higher for protons than for sparsely ionizing radiation. These results indicate that dsb are not homogeneous with respect to repair and give support to the hypothesis that increasing LET leads to an increase in the complexity of DNA lesions with a consequent decrease in their repairability.     

Composition and physical properties of starch in microgravity-grown plants.

The effect of spaceflight on starch development in soybean (Glycine max L., BRIC-03) and potato (Solanum tuberosum, Astroculture-05) was compared with ground controls by biophysical and biochemical measurements. Starch grains from plants from both flights were on average 20-50% smaller in diameter than ground controls. The ratio delta X/delta rho (delta X --difference of magnetic susceptibilities, delta rho--difference of densities between starch and water) of starch grains was ca. 15% and 4% higher for space-grown soybean cotyledons and potato tubers, respectively, than in corresponding ground controls. Since the densities of particles were similar for all samples (1.36 to 1.38 g/cm3), the observed difference in delta X/delta rho was due to different magnetic susceptibilities and indicates modified composition of starch grains. In starch preparations from soybean cotyledons (BRIC-03) subjected to controlled enzymatic degradation with alpha-amylase for 24 hours, 77 +/- 6% of the starch from the flight cotyledons was degraded compared to 58 +/- 12% in ground controls. The amylose content in starch was also higher in space-grown tissues. The good correlation between the amylose content and delta X/delta rho suggests, that the magnetic susceptibility of starch grains is related to their amylose content. Since the seedlings from the BRIC-03 experiment showed elevated post-flight ethylene levels, material from another flight experiment (GENEX) which had normal levels of ethylene was examined and showed no difference to ground controls in size distribution, density, delta X/delta rho and amylose content. Therefore the role of ethylene appears to be more important for changes in starch metabolism than microgravity.     

A new method for finding electromagnetic emitter location

The position of a source of radiation is often obtained from bearing data, taken over an interval of time, and combining it with navigation data. A new method using total least squares (TLS) has been suggested for the accurate estimation of an emitter location when bearing observation errors are random. Further, an iterative two-stage approach involving TLS and Kalman filtering is developed for accurate estimation of the emitter location when bearing observation errors are an algebraic sum of random and systematic errors. The elegance and efficacy of the proposed methods are illustrated through digital computer simulated examples