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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15

Hypothalamic stimulation and baroceptor reflex interaction on renal nerve activity.

The basal level of mean renal nerve activity (MRNA-0) measured in anesthetized cats was found to be modified by the additive interaction of hypothalamic and baroceptor reflex influences. Data were collected with the four major baroceptor nerves either intact or cut, and with mean aortic pressure (MAP) either clamped with a reservoir or raised with l-epinephrine. With intact baroceptor nerves, MRNA stayed essentially constant at level MRNA-0 for MAP below an initial pressure P1, and fell approximately linearly to zero as MAP was raised to P2. Cutting the baroceptor nerves kept MRNA at MRNA-0 (assumed to represent basal central neural output) independent of MAP. The addition of hypothalamic stimulation produced nearly constant increments in MRNA for all pressure levels up to P2, with complete inhibition at some level above P2. The increments in MRNA depended on frequency and location of the stimulus. A piecewise linear model describes MRNA as a linear combination of hypothalamic, basal central neural, and baroceptor reflex activity.

Wilson, M. F.↗

Measurements, modeling, control and simulation - as applied to the human left ventricle for purposeful physiological monitoring.

Interdisciplinary engineering research effort in studying the intact human left ventricle has been employed to physiologically monitor the heart and to obtain its 'state-of-health' characteristics. The left ventricle was selected for this purpose because it plays a key role in supplying energy to the body cells. The techniques for measurement of the left ventricular geometry are described; the geometry is effectively displayed to bring out the abnormalities in cardiac function. Methods of mathematical modeling, which make it possible to determine the performance of the intact left ventricular muscle, are also described. Finally, features of a control system for the left ventricle for predicting the effect of certain physiological stress situations on the ventricle performance are discussed.

Ghista, D. N.↗

The effect of broken stringers on the stress intensity factor for a uniformly stiffened sheet containing a crack

A linear elastic stress analysis was made of a centrally cracked sheet stiffened by riveted, uniformly spaced and sized stringers. The stress intensity factor for the sheet and the load concentration factor for the most highly loaded stringer were determined for various numbers of broken stringers. A broken stringer causes the stress intensity factor to be very high when the crack tip is near the broken stringer, but causes little effect when the crack tip extends beyond several intact stringers. A broken stringer also causes an increase in the load concentration factor of the adjacent stringers. The calculated residual strengths and fatigue-crack-growth lives of a stiffened aluminum sheet with a broken stringer were only slightly less than a sheet with all intact stringers, and were still much higher than those of an unstiffened sheet.

Poe, C. C., Jr.↗

SPS salvage and disposal alternatives

A wide range of salvage options exist for the satellite power system (SPS) satellite, ranging from use in and beyond geosynchronous orbit to use in low Earth orbit to return and use on Earth. The satellite might be used intact to provide for various purposes, it might be cannibalized, or it might be melted down to supply materials for space- or ground-based products. The use of SPS beyond its nominal lifetime provides value that can be deducted from the SPS capital investment cost. It is shown that the present value of the salvage value of the SPS satellites, referenced to the system initial operation data, is likely to be on the order of five to ten percent of its on-orbit capital cost. (Given a 30 year satellite lifetime and a four percent discount rate, the theoretical maximum salvage value is 30.8 percent of the initial capital cost). The SPS demonstration satellite is available some 30 years earlier than the first full-scale SPS satellite and has a likely salvage value on the order of 80 percent of its on site capital cost. In the event that it becomes desirable to dispose of either the demonstration or full-scale SPS satellite, a number of disposal options appear to exist for which intact disposal costs are less than one percent of capital costs.

Source record↗

Satellite power system salvage and disposal alternatives

A wide range of salvage options for the SPS satellite, ranging from use in and beyond geosynchronous orbit to use in low Earth orbit in return and use on Earth are presented. The satellite can be used intact to provide power for various purposes, it can be cannibalized or it can be melted down to supply materials for space or ground based products. The use of SPS beyond its nominal lifetime provides value that can be deducted from the SPS capital investment cost. The present value of the salvage value of the SPS satellites, referenced to the system initial operation data, is on the order of five to ten percent of its on-orbit capital cost. (Given a 30 year satellite lifetime and a four percent discount rate, the theoretical maximum salvage value is 30.8 percent of the capital cost.) The SPS demonstration satellite is available some 30 years earlier than the first full scale SPS satellite and has a salvage value on the order of 80 percent of its on-orbit capital cost. In the event that it becomes desirable to dispose of either the demonstration of full scale SPS satellite, a number of disposal options is presented for which intact disposal costs are less than one percent of capital costs.

Source record↗

Sputtered protective coatings for die casting dies

Three experimental research designs investigating candidate materials and processes involved in protective die surface coating procedures by sputter deposition, using ion beam technologies, are discussed. Various pre-test results show that none of the coatings remained completely intact for 15,000 test cycles. The longest lifetime was observed for coatings such as tungsten, platinum, and molybdenum which reduced thermal fatigue, but exhibited oxidation and suppressed crack initiation only as long as the coating did not fracture. Final test results confirmed earlier findings and coatings with Pt and W proved to be the candidate materials to be used on a die surface to increase die life. In the W-coated specimens, which remained intact on the surface after thermal fatigue testing, no oxidation was found under the coating, although a few cracks formed on the surface where the coating broke down. Further research is planned.

Mirtich, M. J.↗

The effects of cutting or of stretching skeletal muscle in vitro on the rates of protein synthesis and degradation

Skeletal muscle preparations using cut muscle fibers have often been used in studies of protein metabolism. The present paper reports an investigation of the effect of muscle cutting or stretching in vitro on the rates of protein synthesis and/or degradation. Protein synthesis and content, and ATP and phosphocreatine levels were monitored in soleus and extensor digitorum longus muscles from the rat with various extents of muscle fiber cuts and following stretching to about 120% the resting length. Rates of protein synthesis are found to be significantly lower and protein degradation higher in the cut muscles than in uncut controls, while ATP and phosphocreatine concentrations decreased. Stretched intact muscles, on the other hand, are observed to have higher concentrations of high-energy phosphates than unstretched muscles, while rates of protein degradation were not affected. Results thus demonstrate that the cutting of skeletal muscle fibers alters many aspects of muscle metabolism, and that moderate decreases in ATP concentration do not alter rates of protein concentration in intact muscles in vitro.

Seider, M. J.↗

Friction and wear of iron and nickel in sodium hydroxide solutions

A loaded spherical aluminum oxider rider was made to slide, while in various solutions, on a flat iron or nickel surface reciprocate a distance of 1 cm. Time of experiments was 1 hr during which the rider passed over the rider passed over the center section of the track 540 times. Coefficients of friction were measured throughout the experiments. Wear was measured by scanning the track with a profilometer. Analysis of some of the wear tracks included use of the SEM (scanning electron microscrope) and XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). Investigated were the effect of various concentractions of NaOH and of water. On iron, increasing NaOH concentration above 0.01 N caused the friction and wear to decrease. This decrease is accompanied by a decrease in surface concentration of ferric oxide (Fe2O3) while more complex iron-oxygen compounds, not clearly identified, also form. At low concentrations of NaOH, such as 0.01 N, where the friction is high, the wear track is badely torn up and the surface is broken. At high concentration, such as 10 N, where the friction is low, the wear track is smooth. The general conclusion is that NaOH forms a protective, low friction film on iron which is destroyed by wear at low concentrations but remains intact at high concentrations of NaOH. Nickel behaves differently than iron in that only a little NaOH gives a low coefficient of friction and a surface which, although roughened in the wear track, remains intact.

Rengstorff, G. W. P.↗

Friction and wear of iron and nickel in sodium hydroxide solutions

A loaded spherical aluminum oxider rider was made to slide, while in various solutions, on a flat iron or nickel surface reciprocate a distance of 1 cm. Time of experiments was 1 hr during which the rider passed over the center section of the track 540 times. Coeficients of friction were measured throughout the experiments. Wear was measured by scanning the track with a profilometer. Analysis of some of the wear tracks included use of the SEM (scanning electron microscope) and XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). Investigated were the effect of various concentrations of NaOH and of water. On iron, increasing NaOH concentration above 0.01 N caused the friction and wear to decrease. This decrease is accompanied by a decrease in surface concentration of ferric oxide (Fe2O3) while more complex iron-oxygen compounds, not clearly identified, also form. At low concentrations of NaOH, such as 0.01 N, where the friction is high, the wear track is badly torn up and the surface is broken. At high concentration, such as 10 N, where the friction is low, the wear track is smooth. The general conclusion is that NaOH forms a protective, low friction film on iron which is destroyed by wear at low concentrations but remains intact at high conentrations of NaOH. Nickel behaves differently than iron in that only a little NaOH gives a low coefficient of friction and a surface which, although roughened in the wear track, remains intact. Previously announced in STAR as N83-10171

Rengstorff, G. P.↗

Acceleration of fusion in mouse palates by in vitro exposure to excess G

Palatal shelves from 13- and 14-day mouse embryos were excised and cultured in contiguous pairs. Experimental cultures were exposed to 2.6 G in a culture centrifuge; controls were in the same incubator. After 24 hours, palates were prepared for light or electron microscopy. Scoring of paraffin sections according to the stage of fusion seen in the medial epithelial edges (MEE) showed that palates exposed to excess G were in more advanced stages of fusion than were controls. Ultrastructurally, control MEE had tightly apposed cell membranes and numerous desmosomes; in centrifuged MEE, desmosomes had been removed and there was much intercellular space. Nuclear membranes were intact in control MEE, but showed marked deterioration in MEE of centrifuged palates. Few lysosomes and no necrosis were seen in control MEE; centrifuged MEE had numerous lysosomes as well as necrotic cells. Basal lamina were intact in controls, but interrupted in centrifuged palates. The results confirm the hypothesis that gravitational increases speed up the differentiative process.

Duke, J.↗

The use of tethered satellites for the collection of cosmic dust and the sampling of man made orbital debris far from the space station

The use of a tethered subsatellite employed downward into the earth's upper atmosphere to an altitude of about 110 km above the earth would eliminate the orbital contamination problem while at the same time affording a measure of atmospheric braking to reduce the velocities of many particles to where they may be captured intact or nearly so with properly designed collectors. The same technique could also be used to monitor the flux of all types of man-made orbital debris out to a distance of more than a hundred kilometers in any direction from the space station. In this way the build up of any debris belt orbiting earth could be determined. The actual collecting elements used for both purposes could be of several different materials and designs so as to optimize the collection of different types of particles with different densities. Stacks of foils, films, plastics, and foams, as well as simple capture cells would be mounted in clusters around the outside of a tethered satellite and protected by iris covers until the tethered had been fully deployed. If the orientation history of the satellite were known the direction of the incoming material could be infered. A chief advantage in deploying such tethered collectors from the Space Station instead of from the shuttle is the ability to maintain deployment of the tether for days instead of hours resulting in much greater yields of intact particles and impact debris.

Corso, G. J.↗

Insulin effect on amino acid uptake by unloaded rat hindlimb muscles

The effect of insulin on the uptake of alpha-amino-isobutyric acid (AIB) by unloaded rat hindlimb muscles was investigated using soleus and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles from intact and adrenalectomized (ADX) rats that were tail-casted for six days. It was found that, at insulin levels above 0.00001 units/ml, the in vitro rate of AIB uptake by muscles from intact animals was stimulated more in the weight bearing muscles than in unloaded ones. In ADX animals, this differential response to insulin was abolished.

Jaspers, S. R.↗

Pre-biotic organic matter from comets and asteroids

Only meteoritic fragments small enough to be gently decelerated by the atmosphere (10 to the -12th g to 10 to the -6th g) can deliver organic matter intact. The amount of such 'soft-landed' organic carbon can be estimated from data for the infall rate of meteoritic matter. At present rates, only about 0.0006 g/sq cm intact organic carbon would accumulate in 100 million years, but at the higher rates of about four billion yr ago, about 20 g/sq cm may have accumulated in the few hundred million years between the last cataclysmic impact and the beginning of life. It may have included some biologically important compounds that did not form by abiotic synthesis on earth.

Anders, Edward↗

Magma Electrolysis: An update

Electrolytic extraction of O2 from molten lunar soil is conceptually simple and thus a candidate process for producing O2 on the Moon. Possible container and electrode materials are being tested for durability in corrosive high-temperature silicate melts and looking for complications that might increase energy requirements. Gaseous oxygen is being produced by electrolysis of 1-2 gram quantities of silicate melts in spinel (MgAl2O4) crucibles; in these melts, spinel is a stable phase. The concentration of FeO was kept low because FeO decrease O2 production efficiency. Platinum electrodes were placed about 0.5 cm apart in the melt. The spinel crucible was still intact after 40 minutes of electrolysis, when the experiment was halted for examination. The Pt anode was also intact; its Pt was maintained in a dynamci state in which the anode was continuously oxidized but quickly reduced again by the silicate melt, inhibiting migration of Pt away from the anode. In melts with low concentrations of Al2O3 + SiO2 (2 wt percent), the energy of resistance heating was only approximately equal to 10 to 20 percent of the theoretical amount required to produce O2. In melts substantially more concentrated in Al2O3 + SiO2, higher melt viscosity resulted in frothing that, in the worst case, caused high enough melt resistivities to raise the energy requirements to nearly 10 times theoretical. Both Fe and Si are produced at the cathode; in iron-rich melts, a- and c-iron and molten ferrosilicon were observed. Production was also observed at the cathode of a previously unrecognized gas; which is not yet identified. The solubility of metallic species was measured in silicate melts. They are too low to reduce significantly the efficiency of O2 production.

Colson, Russell O.↗

Crystallization of the Fab from a human monoclonal antibody against gp 41 of human immunodeficiency virus type I

A monoclonal IgG antibody directed against gp 41 from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) has been crystallized in both intact and Fab forms. Crystals of the intact antibody grow as tetragonal-like prisms too small for conventional X-ray analysis. However, the Fab portion of the antibody produces suitable platelike crystals which belong to the space group P2(1)2(1)2(1) with unit cell constants of a = 66.5 A, b = 74.3 A, and c = 105.3 A. There is one molecule of Fab in the asymmetric unit. The Fab crystals show diffraction to d-spacings less than 3.0 A.

Casale, Elena↗

Terrestrial production vs. extraterrestrial delivery of prebiotic organics to the early Earth

A comprehensive treatment of comet/asteroid interaction with the atmosphere, ensuring surface impact, and resulting organic pyrolysis is required to determine whether more than a negligible fraction of the organics in incident comets and asteroids actually survived collision with Earth. Results of such an investigation, using a smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulation of cometary and asteroidal impacts into both oceans and rock, demonstrate that organics will not survive impacts at velocities approx. greater than 10 km s(exp -1), and that even comets and asteroids as small as 100m in radius cannot be aerobraked to below this velocity in 1 bar atmospheres. However, for plausible dense (10 bar CO2) early atmospheres, there will be sufficient aerobraking during atmospheric passage for some organics to survive the ensuing impact. Combining these results with analytical fits to the lunar impact record shows that 4.5 Gyr ago Earth was accreting at least approx. 10(exp 6) kg yr(exp 1) of intact cometary organics, a flux which thereafter declined with a approx. 100 Myr half-life. The extent to which this influx was augmented by asteroid impacts, as well as the effect of more careful modelling of a variety of conservative approximations, is currently being quantified. These results may be placed in context by comparison with in situ organic production from a variety of terrestrial energy sources, as well as organic delivery by interplanetary dust. Which source dominated the early terrestrial prebiotic inventory is found to depend on the nature of the early terrestrial atmosphere. However, there is an intriguing symmetry: it is exactly those dense CO2 atmospheres where in situ atmospheric production of organic molecules should be the most difficult, in which intact cometary organics would be delivered in large amounts.

Chyba, C. F.↗

Analysis of LDEF experiment AO187-2: Chemically and isotopic measurements of micrometeoroids by secondary ion mass spectrometry

Numerous 'extended impacts' found in both leading and trailing edge capture cells have been successfully analyzed for the chemical composition of projectile residues by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Most data have been obtained from the trailing edge cells where 45 of 58 impacts have been classified as 'probably natural' and the remainder as 'possibly man-made debris.' This is in striking contrast to leading edge cells where 9 of 11 impacts so far measured are definitely classified as orbital debris. Although all the leading edge cells had lost their plastic entrance foils during flight, the rate of foil failure was similar to that of the trailing edge cells, 10 percent of which were recovered intact. Ultra-violet embrittlement is suspected as the major cause of failure on both leading and trailing edges. The major impediment to the accurate determination of projectile chemistry is the fractionation of volatile and refractory elements in the hypervelocity impact and redeposition processes. This effect had been noticed in simulation experiment but is more pronounced in the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) capture cells, probably due to the higher average velocities of the space impacts. Surface contamination of the pure Ge surfaces with a substance rich in Si but also containing Mg and Al provides an additional problem for the accurate determination of impactor chemistry. The effect is variable, being much larger on surfaces that were exposed to space than in those cells that remained intact. Future work will concentrate on the analyses of more leading edge impacts and the development of new SIMS techniques for the measurement of elemental abundances in extended impacts.

Source record↗

Micromotional studies of utricular and canal afferents

The long-range goal of this research was to refine our understanding of the sensitivity of the vestibular components of the ear to very-low-amplitude motion, especially, the role of gravity in this sensitivity. We focused on the American bullfrog--a common animal subject for vestibular sensory research. Our principal experimental method was to apply precise, sinusoidal microrotational stimuli to an anesthetized animal subject, to record the resulting responses in an individual vestibular nerve fiber from the intact ear, and to use intracellular dye to trace the fiber and thus identify the vestibular sensor that gave rise to it. In this way, we were able to identify specific micromotional sensitivities and to associate those sensitivities definitely with specific sensors. Furthermore, by recording from nerve fibers after they leave the intact inner-ear cavity, we were able to achieve these identifications without interrupting the delicate micromechanics of the inner ear. We were especially concerned with the relative roles of the utricle and the anterior semicircular canal in the sensing of microrotational motion of the head about horizontal axes, and with the role of gravity in mediating that sensing process in the utricle. The functional characterization of individual nerve fibers was accomplished with a conventional analytical tool, the cycle histogram, in which the nerve impulse rate was plotted against the phase of the sinusoidal stimulus.

Lewis, Edwin R.↗