The Role and Contributions of Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) Imaging in Magnetospheric Substorm Research

Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) imaging has contributed substantially to substorm research. This technique has allowed significant advances in areas such as observation and quantification of injected particle drift as a function of energy, observation of dynamics in the tail that are directly related to the effects of imposed (growth phase) and induced (expansion phase) electric fields on the plasma, the prompt extraction of oxygen from the ionosphere during substorms, the relationship between storms and substorms, and the timing of substorm ENA signatures. We present discussion of the advantages and shortcomings of the ENA technique for studying space plasmas. Although the technique is in its infancy, it is yielding results that enrich our understanding of the substorm process and its effects.     

Observations of the Acceleration of Polar Solar Wind Near Solar Maximum

In a previous paper (Tappin et al., 1999) we used cross-correlation analysis of high-cadence observations with the LASCO coronagraphs to trace the acceleration of the solar wind at low latitudes. In this paper we present a similar analysis carried out over the North pole of the Sun. The observations which were made in March 2000 with the C3 coronagraph show low bulk flow speeds (comparable to or lower than those seen at the equator in early 1998). We observe the acceleration continuing to the edge of the C3 field of view at about 30 R _⊙. We also observe, as at low latitude, a high-speed tail but now reaching out well beyond 2000 km s⁻¹. We do not see a clear signature of a fast polar bulk flow. We therefore conclude that at this phase of the solar cycle, any fast bulk flow occupies only a small part of the line of sight and is therefore overwhelmed by the denser slow solar wind in these observations. We also show that the fast component is consistent with observed solar wind speeds at 1 AU. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The role of DNA repair on cell killing by charged particles.

It can be noted that it is not simple double strand breaks (dsb) but the non-reparable breaks that are associated with high biological effectiveness in the cell killing effect for high LET radiation. Here, we have examined the effectiveness of fast neutrons and low (initial energy = 12 MeV/u) or high (135 MeV/u) energy charged particles on cell death in 19 mammalian cell lines including radiosensitive mutants. Some of the radiosensitive lines were deficient in DNA dsb repair such as LX830, M10, V3, and L5178Y-S cells and showed lower values of relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for fast neutrons if compared with their parent cell lines. The other lines of human ataxia-telangiectasia fibroblasts, irs 1, irs 2, irs 3 and irs1SF cells, which were also radiosensitive but known as proficient in dsb repair, showed moderated RBEs. Dsb repair deficient mutants showed low RBE values for heavy ions. These experimental findings suggest that the DNA repair system does not play a major role against the attack of high linear energy transfer (LET) radiations. Therefore, we hypothesize that a main cause of cell death induced by high LET radiations is due to non-reparable dsb, which are produced at a higher rate compared to low LET radiations.     

Simulation experiments of the effect of space environment on bacteriophage and DNA thin films.

The main goal of PUR experiment (phage and uracil response) is to examine and quantify the effect of specific space conditions on nucleic acid models. To achieve this an improved method was elaborated for the preparation of DNA and bacteriophage thin films. The homogeneity of the films was controlled by UV spectroscopy and microscopy. To provide experimental evidence for the hypothesis that interplanetary transfer of the genetic material is possible, phage T7 and isolated T7 DNA thin films have been exposed to selected space conditions: intense UVC radiation (lambda=254 nm) and high vacuum (10(-4) Pa). The effects of DNA hydration, conformation and packing on UV radiation damage were examined. Characteristic changes in the absorption spectrum, in the electrophoretic pattern of DNA and the decrease of the amount of PCR products have been detected indicating the photodamage of isolated and intraphage DNA.     

Influence of long-term altered gravity on the swimming performance of developing cichlid fish: including results from the 2nd German Spacelab Mission D-2.

This study presents qualitative and quantitative data concerning gravity-dependent changes in the swimming behaviour of developing cichlid fish larvae (Oreochromis mossambicus) after a 9 resp. 10 days exposure to increased acceleration (centrifuge experiments), to reduced gravity (fast-rotating clinostat), changed accelerations (parabolic aircraft flights) and to near weightlessness (2nd German Spacelab Mission D-2). Changes of gravity initially cause disturbances of the swimming performance of the fish larvae. With prolonged stay in orbit a step by step normalisation of the swimming behaviour took place in the fish. After return to 1g earth conditions no somersaulting or looping could be detected concerning the fish, but still slow and disorientated movements as compared to controls occurred. The fish larvae adapted to earth gravity within 3-5 days. Fish seem to be in a distinct early developmental stages extreme sensitive and adaptable to altered gravity; However, elder fish either do not react or show compensatory behaviour e.g. escape reactions.     

AFIT neural network research

A brief summary of research done at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in the area of neural networks is provided. It has been shown that backpropagation, used for feedforward artificial neural networks, is just a degenerate version of an extended Kalman filter, and that networks can do about as well as the optimum statistical classification technique. A method of finding the importance of features for use by a neural network classifier has been determined. Techniques for using neural networks for image segmentation have been developed. In optical pattern recognition, techniques that allow the processing of real FLIR (forward-looking infrared) images with existing binary spatial light modulators have been devised. An optical direction of arrival detector applicable to laser illumination direction determination has been designed and tested; the design is similar to a fly's eye. Coated mirrors for the optical confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer have been designed, specified, fabricated, and installed. Significant progress has been made in the use of neural networks for processing multiple-feature sets for speech recognition     

Design and implementation of near-field, wideband synthetic aperture beamformers

A coarray-based near-field, wideband synthetic aperture beamformer using stepped-frequency signal synthesis and post-data acquisition processing is presented. While coarray techniques offer significant reduction in the number of array elements for a given angular resolution, the hybrid subarray-stepped frequency realization of wideband systems simplifies implementations and offers flexibility in beamforming. Proof of concept is provided using real data collected in an anechoic chamber for several pulse shapes and array weightings.     

Synthetic-aperture radar processing using fast factorized back-projection

Exact synthetic aperture radar (SAR) inversion for a linear aperture may be obtained using fast transform techniques. Alternatively, back-projection integration in time domain can also be used. This technique has the benefit of handling a general aperture geometry. In the past, however, back-projection has seldom been used due to heavy computational burden. We show that the back-projection integral can be recursively partitioned and an effective algorithm constructed based on aperture factorization. By representing images in local polar coordinates it is shown that the number of operations is drastically reduced and can be made to approach that of fast transform algorithms. The algorithm is applied to data from the airborne ultra-wideband CARABAS SAR and shown to give a reduction in processing time of two to three orders of magnitude.     

RPC-MAG The Fluxgate Magnetometer in the ROSETTA Plasma Consortium

The fluxgate magnetometer experiment onboard the ROSETTA spacecraft aims to measure the magnetic field in the interaction region of the solar wind plasma with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It consists of a system of two ultra light (about 28 g each ) triaxial fluxgate magnetometer sensors, mounted on the 1.5 m long spacecraft boom. The measurement range of each sensor is ±16384 nT with quantization steps of 31 pT. The magnetometer sensors are operated with a time resolution of up to 0.05 s, corresponding to a bandwidth of 0–10 Hz. This performance of the RPC-MAG sensors allows detailed analyses of magnetic field variations in the cometary environment. RPC-MAG furthermore is designed to study possible remnant magnetic fields of the nucleus, measurements which will be done in close cooperation with the ROSETTA lander magnetometer experiment ROMAP.     

A method for constructing an airfoil using a specified chord velocity diagram

A problem of determining a shape of the airfoil being streamlined by a potential incompressible inviscid flow is solved by the successive approximation method using a specified chord velocity diagram. It is shown that a closed airfoil that possesses a specified chord velocity diagram can be constructed with a sufficient accuracy; if the chord diagram is unsuccessfully specified, the closed airfoil may prove to be not univalent, that is, physically unrealizable.