Molecular analysis of mutagenesis by high LET radiation.

Mutation induction by high linear energy transfer [LET] alpha particles and gamma-rays was scored in the human hamster hybrid [AL] cells. Southern blotting technique was used to analyse the molecular changes in the DNA from both the HGPRT- and S1- mutants. Dose dependent mutagenesis in the AL cells irradiated with the charged particles was higher by almost 20 fold at the S1 than the corresponding HGPRT locus. Southern analysis of the mutants induced by the high LET particles showed mostly multilocus deletion at both the HGPRT and S1 genes.     

Survival and alteration of the plasmid-containing microorganism Escherichia coli Z905/pPHL7 introduced into manmade closed aquatic microcosms.

It has been demonstrated that the transgenic microorganism Escherichia coli Z905/pPHL7 (AprLux+) can exist for a long time at an elevated concentration of mineral salts. The microorganism was introduced into microcosms with sterile brackish water (salinity variable from 21 to 22 g l-1) taken from Lake Shira (Khakasia, Russia). The survival of the microorganism was estimated both by measuring the growth of the colonies on solid nutrient media and by the bioluminescence exhibited by the transgenic strain in samples from the microcosms and in the enrichment culture with the added selective factor-ampicillin (50 micrograms/ml). In the enrichment culture, the bioluminescent signal was registered through the 160-day experiment. It has been shown that in the closed microcosms with brackish water the E. coli strain becomes heterogeneous in its ampicillin resistance. The populations of the transgenic strain were mainly represented by isolates able to persist in the medium containing 50 micrograms/ml, but there were also the cells (about 10%) with the threshold of ampicillin resistance not more than 0.05 micrograms/ml. Thus, it was shown that in the microcosms with brackish water and in the absence of the selective factor the transgenic strain survives and retails the recombinant plasmid.     

Changes in gravitational force induce alterations in gene expression that can be monitored in the live, developing zebrafish heart.

Little is known about the effect of microgravity on gene expression, particularly in vivo during embryonic development. Using transgenic zebrafish that express the gfp gene under the influence of a beta-actin promoter, we examined the affect of simulated-microgravity on GFP expression in the heart. Zebrafish embryos, at the 18-20 somite-stage, were exposed to simulated-microgravity for 24 hours. The intensity of GFP fluorescence associated with the heart was then determined using fluorescence microscopy. Our measurements indicated that simulated-microgravity induced a 23.9% increase in GFP-associated fluorescence in the heart. In contrast, the caudal notochord showed a 17.5% increase and the embryo as a whole showed only an 8.5% increase in GFP-associated fluorescence. This suggests that there are specific effects on the heart causing the more dramatic increase. These studies indicate that microgravity can influence gene expression and demonstrate the usefulness of this in vivo model of 'reporter-gene' expression for studying the effects of microgravity.     

Top-level modeling of an ALS system utilizing object-oriented techniques.

The possible configuration of an Advanced Life Support (ALS) System capable of supporting human life for long-term space missions continues to evolve as researchers investigate potential technologies and configurations. To facilitate the decision process the development of acceptable, flexible, and dynamic mathematical computer modeling tools capable of system level analysis is desirable. Object-oriented techniques have been adopted to develop a dynamic top-level model of an ALS system.This approach has several advantages; among these, object-oriented abstractions of systems are inherently modular in architecture. Thus, models can initially be somewhat simplistic, while allowing for adjustments and improvements. In addition, by coding the model in Java, the model can be implemented via the World Wide Web, greatly encouraging the utilization of the model. Systems analysis is further enabled with the utilization of a readily available backend database containing information supporting the model. The subsystem models of the ALS system model include Crew, Biomass Production, Waste Processing and Resource Recovery, Food Processing and Nutrition, and the Interconnecting Space. Each subsystem model and an overall model have been developed. Presented here is the procedure utilized to develop the modeling tool, the vision of the modeling tool, and the current focus for each of the subsystem models.     

Escaping near-relativistic electron beams from the solar corona

Processes in the solar corona are prodigious accelerators of energetic ions, and electrons. The angular distribution, composition, and spectra of energetic particles observed near Earth gives information on the acceleration mechanisms. A class of energetic particle observations particularly useful in understanding the solar acceleration is the near-relativistic impulsive beam-like electron events. During five years of operation the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) has measured well over 400 electron events. Approximately 25% of these electron events are impulsive beam-like events that are released onto interplanetary field lines predominantly from western solar longitudes. We extend our initial 3 year study during the rise to solar maximum (Haggerty and Roelof, 2002; Simnett et al., 2002) to a five year statistical analysis of these beam-like energetic electron events in relationship to optical flares, microwave emission, soft X-ray emission, metric and decametric type-III radio bursts, and coronal mass ejections.     

Microgravity particle research on the space station: the Gas-Grain Simulation Facility.

In the gravitational field on Earth, the large settling rate of micron-sized particles and the effects of gravity-induced convection prohibit many interesting studies of phenomena such as coagulation, collisions, and mutual interactions of droplets, dust grains and other particles. Examples of exobiology experiments involving these phenomena are the simulation of organic aerosol formation in Titan's atmosphere, studies of the role of comets in prebiotic chemical evolution, and simulations of carbon grain interactions in various astrophysical environments. The Gas-Grain Simulation Facility (GGSF) is a proposed Earth-orbital laboratory that will allow present ground-based experimental programs which study processes involving small particles and weak interactions to be extended to a new domain. Physics issues that scientists wishing to propose GGSF experiments must consider are reviewed in this paper. Specifically, coagulation, motion in gases and vacua, and wall deposition of particles in a microgravity environment are discussed.     

Optimum Steady State Position, Velocity, and Acceleration Estimation Using Noisy Sampled Position Data

A one-dimensional tracking filter based on the Kalman filtering techniques for tracking of a dynamic target such as an aircraft is discussed. The target is assumed to be moving with constant acceleration and is acted upon by a plant noise which perturbs its constant acceleration motion. The plant noise accounts for maneuvers and/or other random factors. Analytical results for estimating optimum steady state position, velocity, and acceleration of the target are obtained.     

Adaptive pulse compression via MMSE estimation

Radar pulse compression involves the extraction of an estimate of the range profile illuminated by a radar in the presence of noise. A problem inherent to pulse compression is the masking of small targets by large nearby targets due to the range sidelobes that result from standard matched filtering. This paper presents a new approach based upon a minimum mean-square error (MMSE) formulation in which the pulse compression filter for each individual range cell is adaptively estimated from the received signal in order to mitigate the masking interference resulting from matched filtering in the vicinity of large targets. The proposed method is compared with the standard matched filter and least-squares (LS) estimation and is shown to be superior over a variety of stressing scenarios.     

Near infrared studies of the massive X-ray binary 2S 0114+65

We present near-infrared spectroscopy of the massive X-ray binary 2S 0114+650. These observations covering the spectral range 1.08–2.35 μm span the region where Paschen and Brackett series recombination lines of hydrogen are expected to be seen, namely, Paβ , Brγ and Br 10–17 lines. The absence of any of these lines in emission supports earlier inferences that the optical component in 2S 0114+650 is unlikely to be a Be star but rather a B type supergiant. Near-IR photometry gives J = 8.78, H = 8.53 and K = 7.96; these values show marginal variations from earlier reported measurements.     

An approach to knowledge-aided covariance estimation

This paper introduces a parametric covariance estimation scheme for use with space-time adaptive processing (STAP) methods operating in heterogeneous clutter environments. The approach blends both a priori knowledge and data observations within a parameterized model to capture instantaneous characteristics of the cell under test (CUT) and reduce covariance errors leading to detection performance loss. We justify this method using both measured and synthetic data. Performance potential for the specific operating conditions examined herein include: 1) averaged behavior within roughly 2 dB of the optimal filter, 2) 1 dB improvement in exceedance characteristic relative to the optimal filter, highlighting improved instantaneous capability, and 3) impervious ness to corruptive target-like signals in the secondary data (no additional signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINK) loss, compared with 10 dB or greater loss for the standard STAP implementation), with corresponding detections comparable to the optimal filter case