The Milky Way 3-Helium Abundance

We are making precise determinations of the abundance of the light isotope of helium, ³He. The ³He abundance in Milky Way sources impacts stellar evolution, chemical evolution, and cosmology. The abundance of ³He is derived from measurements of the hyperfine transition of ³He⁺ which has a rest wavelength of 3.46 cm (8.665 GHz). As with all the light elements, the present interstellar ³He abundance results from a combination of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBNS) and stellar nucleosynthesis. We are measuring the ³He abundance in Milky Way H ii regions and planetary nebulae (PNe). The source sample is currently comprised of 60 H ii regions and 12 PNe. H ii regions are examples of zero-age objects that are young relative to the age of the Galaxy. Therefore their abundances chronicle the results of billions of years of Galactic chemical evolution. PNe probe material that has been ejected from low-mass (M≤ 2M _⊙) to intermediate-mass (M∼2–5M _⊙) stars to be further processed by future stellar generations. Because the Milky Way ISM is optically thin at centimeter wavelengths, our source sample probes a larger volume of the Galactic disk than does any other light element tracer of Galactic chemical evolution. The sources in our sample possess a wide range of physical properties (including object type, size, temperature, excitation, etc.). The ³He abundances we derive have led to what has been called “The ³He Problem”.     

Report of the COSPAR mars special regions colloquium

In this paper we present the findings of a COSPAR Mars Special Regions Colloquium held in Rome in 2007. We review and discuss the definition of Mars Special Regions, the physical parameters used to define Mars Special Regions, and physical features on Mars that can be interpreted as Mars Special Regions. We conclude that any region experiencing temperatures > −25 °C for a few hours a year and a water activity > 0.5 can potentially allow the replication of terrestrial microorganisms. Physical features on Mars that can be interpreted as meeting these conditions constitute a Mars Special Region. Based on current knowledge of the martian environment and the conservative nature of planetary protection, the following features constitute Mars Special regions: Gullies and bright streaks associated with them, pasted-on terrain, deep subsurface, dark streaks only on a case-by-case basis, others to be determined. The parameter definition and the associated list of physical features should be re-evaluated on a regular basis.     

基于MSER的无人机图像建筑区域提取

对建筑区域自动检测与提取是无人机(UAV,Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)图像处理的一项重要功能.在分析无人机成像特点和最大稳定极值区域(MSER,Maximum Stable Extremal Regions)算法对无人机侦察图像建筑区域检测的适用性基础上,提出了一种基于MSER的无人机侦察图像建筑区域提取算法.算法包含5步:无人机图像预处理,运用MSER算法分析计算图像稳定区域,通过计算稳定区域密度筛选建筑区域,进一步利用自适应K均值聚类算法对建筑区进行划分,最后采用Graham算法生成建筑区的边界从而实现了建筑区的自动提取.选取无人机实飞图像数据进行实验统计,本算法提取精度为92.25%;同时与基于Gabor变换的纹理特征、SIFT特征点的提取算法相比,建筑区域提取时间缩短,满足无人机实时应用需求.      

A study of acoustic halos in active region NOAA 11330 using multi-height SDO observations

We analyze data from the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instruments on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to characterize the spatio-temporal acoustic power distribution in active regions as a function of the height in the solar atmosphere. For this, we use Doppler velocity and continuum intensity observed using the magnetically sensitive line at 6173?Å as well as intensity at 1600?Å and 1700?Å. We focus on the power enhancements seen around AR 11330 as a function of wave frequency, magnetic field strength, field inclination and observation height. We find that acoustic halos occur above the acoustic cutoff frequency and extends up to 10?mHz in HMI Doppler and AIA 1700?Å observations. Halos are also found to be strong functions of magnetic field and their inclination angle. We further calculate and examine the spatially averaged relative phases and cross-coherence spectra and find different wave characteristics at different heights.     

RadioAstron probes the ultra-fine spatial structure in the H2O maser emission in the star forming region W49N

H₂O maser emission associated with the massive star formation region W49N were observed with the Space-VLBI mission RadioAstron. The procedure for processing of the maser spectral line data obtained in the RadioAstron observations is described. Ultra-fine spatial structures in the maser emission were detected on space-ground baselines of up to 9.6 Earth diameters. The correlated flux densities of these features range from 0.1% to 0.6% of the total flux density. These low values of correlated flux density are probably due to turbulence either in the maser itself or in the interstellar medium.     

An optimization approach for observation association with systemic uncertainty applied to electro-optical systems

The observation to observation measurement association problem for dynamical systems can be addressed by determining if the uncertain admissible regions produced from each observation have one or more points of intersection in state space. An observation association method is developed which uses an optimization based approach to identify local Mahalanobis distance minima in state space between two uncertain admissible regions. A binary hypothesis test with a selected false alarm rate is used to assess the probability that an intersection exists at the point(s) of minimum distance. The systemic uncertainties, such as measurement uncertainties, timing errors, and other parameter errors, define a distribution about a state estimate located at the local Mahalanobis distance minima. If local minima do not exist, then the observations are not associated. The proposed method utilizes an optimization approach defined on a reduced dimension state space to reduce the computational load of the algorithm. The efficacy and efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated on observation data collected from the Georgia Tech Space Object Research Telescope.     

对机动目标最优拦截轨迹区域性转化的实现

本文给出一种遗传算法，可用于实现对机动目标状态群的实时估计，进而给出对机动目标拦截的全局性最优问题向拦截的区域性最优问题的转化方法。     

基于伪彩色的感兴趣目标检测方法

若获取的灰度图像中含有较大噪声时,传统Itti算法经常会出现漏检以及错检的情况。为此,提出了基于伪彩色的感兴趣目标检测方法。首先对灰度图像添加相应的彩色信息,生成一幅目标细节较为清晰的伪彩图;其次根据Itti算法进行显著性计算;最后通过模板匹配检测出感兴趣目标。实验结果表明：算法能够达到补偿由于噪声问题引起的显著性目标无法检测的问题。     

Solar magnetic feature detection and tracking for space weather monitoring

We present an automated system for detecting, tracking, and cataloging emerging active regions throughout their evolution and decay using SOHO Michelson Doppler Interferometer (MDI) magnetograms. The SolarMonitor Active Region Tracking (SMART) algorithm relies on consecutive image differencing to remove both quiet-Sun and transient magnetic features, and region-growing techniques to group flux concentrations into classifiable features. We determine magnetic properties such as region size, total flux, flux imbalance, flux emergence rate, Schrijver’s R-value, R^∗ (a modified version of R), and Falconer’s measurement of non-potentiality. A persistence algorithm is used to associate developed active regions with emerging flux regions in previous measurements, and to track regions beyond the limb through multiple solar rotations. We find that the total number and area of magnetic regions on disk vary with the sunspot cycle. While sunspot numbers are a proxy to the solar magnetic field, SMART offers a direct diagnostic of the surface magnetic field and its variation over timescale of hours to years. SMART will form the basis of the active region extraction and tracking algorithm for the Heliophysics Integrated Observatory (HELIO).