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At least 73 records · Page 4

Water vapor radiometer measurements of the tropospheric delay fluctuations at Goldstone over a full year

One year of near-continuous water vapor radiometer (WVR) measurements at DSS 13 has provided a database for characterizing the Goldstone tropospheric delay properties in a statistical sense. The results have been expressed in terms of the Allan standard deviation of delay and compared to a previous model for Goldstone fluctuations and the specifications of the Cassini Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE). The new WVR data indicate that average fluctuation levels at hour time scales or less are approximately 30 percent lower than the earlier Goldstone model predictions. At greater than 1 h time scales, the WVR indicated fluctuation levels are in closer agreement with the model, although noise floor limitations may be artificially raising the average WVR-derived atmospheric fluctuation levels at the longer time scales. When scaled to two-way Doppler tracking at 20 deg elevation, as will occur for the GWE, these results indicate that Goldstone winter tropospheric delay fluctuations will typically be a factor of 10 larger than the GWE requirements at 1000 s and a factor of 4 larger at 10,000 s.

Keihm, S. J.↗

Performance of a Ka-band transponder breadboard for deep-space applications

This article summarizes the design concepts applied in the development of and advanced Ka-band (34.4 GHz/32 GHz) transponder breadboard for the next generation of space communications systems applications. The selected architecture upgrades the X-band (7.2 GHz/8.4 GHz) deep-space transponder (DST) to provide Da-band up/Ka- and X-band down capability. The Ka-band transponder breadboard incorporates several state-of-the-art components, including sampling mixers, a Ka-band dielectric resonator oscillator, and microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs). The MMICs that were tested in the breadboard include upconverters, downconverters, automatic gain control circuits, mixers, phase modulators, and amplifiers. The measured receiver dynamic range, tracking range, acquisition rate, static phase error, and phase jitter characteristics of the Ka-band breadboard interfaced to the advanced engineering model X-band DST are in good agreement with the expected performance. The results show a receiver tracking threshold of -149 dBm with a dynamic range of 80 dB and a downlink phase jitter of 7 deg rms. The analytical results of phase noise and Allan standard deviation are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Mysoor, N. R.↗

Calibrating Atmospheric Delay for the Cassini Gravitational Wave Experiment

The Cassini spacecraft together with one of the stations of the Deep Space Network (DSN) have been instrumented to carry out extremely precise Doppler tracking that will be used to search for the direct evidence of Gravitational radiation passing through our solar system. The two-way communications link between the ground antenna and the spacecraft constitute an "antenna" for gravitational waves that would perturb the phase of the RF signal in the link. The experiments will be carried out during the long cruise phase of the spacecraft on its journey to Saturn and will be sensitive to gravitational wave perturbations larger than the noise level fluctuations of 3 x 10(exp -15) as measured in the Allan Standard Deviation domain. The use of simultaneous, coherent X- and Ka-Band up and down signals will reduce the errors associated with charged particle fluctuations in the interplanetary medium and Earth's ionosphere to a negligible level. The primary fluctuations in the phase of the signals both to and from the spacecraft are expected to be caused by fluctuations in water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere We have designed and are testing a new atmospheric calibration system (with duplicate components) to sense line-of-sight water vapor and its physical temperature with a goal of calibrating 95% or more of tropospheric path delay fluctuations during the Cassini Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE). The critical component of the calibration system consists of a newly designed water vapor radiometer having a I degree sensing beamwidth and 0.01 K brightness temperature stability over hour time scales. Auxiliary instrumentation includes a microwave temperature profiler to retrieve the vertical distribution of the vapor physical temperature, and surface meteorology. A detailed error budget has been developed to account for all of the possible sources of error during calibration of the GWE and will be discussed. Two identical calibration systems have been constructed in order to provide capability as well as backup during the actual GWE experiment. We will report on side-by-side testing of the vapor and temperature sensing components of this calibrations system as well as a comparison with a short baseline radio interferometric measurement at our Goldstone complex.

Resch, G. M.↗

Media Calibration in the Deep Space Network: A Status Report

A new media calibration system (MCS) has been implemented at the Goldstone complex of the DSN (Deep Space Network). It is intended to calibrate the delay of radio signals imposed by the neutral atmosphere. The system provides periodic measurements of both the static dry and fluctuating wet components of this delay. In particular, the system will calibrate the fluctuations in line of sight path delay due to atmospheric water vapor that we believe will dominate the error budget for several radio science and radio astronomy experiments. We have compared two of these media calibration systems with a connected element interferometer on a 21 km baseline. In this report we describe a total of 30 observations in which a radio source was tracked for an hour or more and the delay residuals then calibrated using the MCS. The accuracy of the comparison appears to be limited by systematic errors in the interferometer, which are under investigation. However, our results do indicate that the MCS can meet or exceed the two-way Allan standard deviation specification of 1.5 x 10( exp -15) on time scales of 2,000 - 10,000 sec, as required by the Cassini GWE (Gravitational Wave Experiment) for two way Doppler tracking.

Naudet, Charles J.↗

Characterizing DSN System Frequency Stability with Spacecraft Tracking Data

This paper describes a recent effort in characterizing frequency stability performance of the ground system in the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). Unlike the traditional approach where performance is obtained from special calibration sessions that are both time consuming and require manual setup, the new method taps into the daily spacecraft tracking data. This method significantly increases the amount of data available for analysis, roughly by two orders of magnitude; making it possible to conduct trend analysis with reasonable confidence. Since the system is monitored daily, any significant variation in performance can be detected timely. This helps the DSN maintain its performance commitment to customers.

performance analysis↗

A Celestial Reference Frame Based on Kalman Filtering

In this study, we investigate a novel approach to the determination of celestial reference frames (CRF). Instead of a constant model for radio sources positions, we adopt a time series representation, which allows temporal variations of radio source coordinates to be taken into account. In particular, the added flexibility is beneficial for radio sources with extended structure. We compute our time series-based CRF solutions by Kalman filtering and smoothing radio source positions, which are initially obtained from single-session VLBI analysis. The temporal resolution of the estimated CRF coordinates is identical to that of the input data, i.e. usually 1-4 days. The magnitude of the coordinate variations is controlled by the amount of process noise applied in the filter, which is in turn derived from analyzing the Allan standard deviation of the corresponding radio source coordinate time series. Measures have been developed to reduce the impact of observation errors and datum effects on the noise model.

Soja, B.↗

Deviations from uniform power law scaling in nonstationary time series

A classic problem in physics is the analysis of highly nonstationary time series that typically exhibit long-range correlations. Here we test the hypothesis that the scaling properties of the dynamics of healthy physiological systems are more stable than those of pathological systems by studying beat-to-beat fluctuations in the human heart rate. We develop techniques based on the Fano factor and Allan factor functions, as well as on detrended fluctuation analysis, for quantifying deviations from uniform power-law scaling in nonstationary time series. By analyzing extremely long data sets of up to N = 10(5) beats for 11 healthy subjects, we find that the fluctuations in the heart rate scale approximately uniformly over several temporal orders of magnitude. By contrast, we find that in data sets of comparable length for 14 subjects with heart disease, the fluctuations grow erratically, indicating a loss of scaling stability.

Non-NASA Center↗

Metastable Solution Thermodynamic Properties and Crystal Growth Kinetics

The crystal growth rates of NH4H2PO4, KH2PO4, (NH4)2SO4, KAl(SO4)2 central dot 12H2O, NaCl, and glycine and the nucleation rates of KBr, KCl, NaBr central dot 2H2O, (NH4)2Cl, and (NH4)2SO4 were expressed in terms of the fundamental driving force of crystallization calculated from the activity of supersaturated solutions. The kinetic parameters were compared with those from the commonly used kinetic expression based on the concentration difference. From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, rate expressions based on the chemical potential difference provide accurate kinetic representation over a broad range of supersaturation. The rates estimated using the expression based on the concentration difference coincide with the true rates of crystallization only in the concentration range of low supersaturation and deviate from the true kinetics as the supersaturation increases.

Kim, Soojin↗

Stability and noise spectra of relative Loran-C frequency comparisons

Relative comparisons of Loran-C frequency transmissions between the master station of Catanzaro (Simeri Crichi) and the X, Z slave stations of Estartit (Spain) and Lampedusa (Italy) are carrying out by the GG LORSTA monitor station of the Mediterranean Sea Loran-C chain. These comparisons are able to emphasize the relative and, under certain conditions, the absolute rate of the emitting standard frequencies of the slave stations and some relevant statistical properties of the Loran-C Method for frequency transmission and time synchronization. The stability of each Loran-C frequency standard transmission is subject to perturbations, more or less known, due to the propagation medium and other causes. Following the Allan (1966) method for data processing, the performance of the relative rate of frequency of the transmissions of the X, Z slave stations are described calculating the standard deviation of a set of N frequency measurements from its mean averaged during sampling times. This standard deviation is designated as the measure of the stability of the Loran-C frequency transmission.

Proverbio, E.↗

Measuring Frequency Instability Of A Large Antenna

Frequency instability of antenna under test determined from measurement of phase deviation between outputs of two antennas. Fiber-optic system used to minimize spurious component of frequency instability contributed by propagation of signal from reference antenna to Allan-variance-measuring instrument. Intended primarily to reveal contributions of wind and air-temperature effects on antenna and beam-waveguide structures to overall frequency instabilities of received signals. Technique simpler, less expensive, potentially capable of providing instability data in shorter measuring times, and more precise.

Otoshi, Tom Y.↗

Long-Time Relaxation Induced by Dynamic Forcing in Geomaterials

We introduce a theoretical model and experimental evidence of the long-time relaxation process (slow dynamics) in rocks and other geomaterials following a dynamic wave excitation, at scales ranging from the laboratory to the Earth. The model is based on the slow recovery of an ensemble of grain contacts and asperities broken by a mechanical impact. It includes an Arrhenius-type equation for recovery of the metastable, broken contacts. The model provides a characteristic size of the broken contacts (order 10–9 m) and predicts that their number increases with impact amplitude. Theoretical results are in sufficient agreement with the laboratory and field data in that they suggest both the logarithmic law of recovery rate and deviations from this law.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Lectures on statistical mechanics

Presented here is a transcription of the lecture notes from Professor Allan N. Kaufman’s graduate statistical mechanics course Physics 212A and 212B at the University of California Berkeley from the 1972–1973 academic year. 212A addressed equilibrium statistical mechanics with topics: fundamentals (micro-canonical and sub-canonical ensembles, adiabatic law and action conservation, fluctuations, pressure, and virial theorem), classical fluids and other systems (equation of state, deviations from ideality, virial coefficients and van der Waals potential, canonical ensemble and partition function, quasistatic evolution, grand-canonical ensemble and partition function, chemical potential, simple model of a phase transition, quantum virial expansion, numerical simulation of equations of state, and phase transition), chemical equilibrium (systems with multiple species and chemical reactions, law of mass action, Saha equation, chemical equilibrium including ionization and excited states), and long-range interactions (including Coulomb, dipole, and gravitational interactions, Debye–Hückel theory, and shielding). 212B addressed nonequilibrium statistical mechanics with topics: fundamentals (definitions: realizations, moments, characteristic function, and discrete variables), Brownian motion (Langevin equation, fluctuation–dissipation theorem, spatial diffusion, Boltzmann’s H-theorem), Liouville and Klimontovich equations, Landau equation (derivation, elaboration, and H-theorem, and irreversibility), Markov processes and Fokker–Planck equation (derivations of the Fokker–Planck equation and a master equation), linear response and transport theory (linear Boltzmann equation, linear response theory of Kubo and Mori, relation of entropy production to electrical conductivity, transport relations and coefficients, normal mode solutions of the transport equations, sketch of a generalized Langevin equation method for transport theory), and an introduction to nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics.

plasma dynamics↗

Measurement of Atmospheric CO2 Column Concentrations to Cloud Tops With a Pulsed Multi-Wavelength Airborne Lidar

We have measured the column-averaged atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio to a variety of cloud tops by using an airborne pulsed multi-wavelength integrated-path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar. Airborne measurements were made at altitudes up to 13 km during the 2011, 2013 and 2014 NASA Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) science campaigns flown in the United States West and Midwest and were compared to those from an in situ sensor. Analysis of the lidar backscatter profiles shows the average cloud top reflectance was approx. 5% for the CO2 measurement at 1572.335 nm except to cirrus clouds, which had lower reflectance. The energies for 1 micro-s wide laser pulses reflected from cloud tops were sufficient to allow clear identification of CO2 absorption line shape and then to allow retrievals of atmospheric column CO2 from the aircraft to cloud tops more than 90% of the time. Retrievals from the CO2 measurements to cloud tops had minimal bias but larger standard deviations when compared to those made to the ground, depending on cloud top roughness and reflectance. The measurements show this new capability helps resolve CO2 horizontal and vertical gradients in the atmosphere. When used with nearby full-column measurements to ground, the CO2 measurements to cloud tops can be used to estimate the partial-column CO2 concentration below clouds, which should lead to better estimates of surface carbon sources and sinks. This additional capability of the range-resolved CO2 IPDA lidar technique provides a new benefit for studying the carbon cycle in future airborne and space-based CO2 missions.

atmospheric↗

Data fusion for a vision-aided radiological detection system: Calibration algorithm performance

In order to improve the ability to detect, locate, track and identify nuclear/radiological threats, the University of Florida nuclear detection community has teamed up with the 3D vision community to collaborate on a low cost data fusion system. The key is to develop an algorithm to fuse the data from multiple radiological and 3D vision sensors as one system. The system under development at the University of Florida is being assessed with various types of radiological detectors and widely available visual sensors. A series of experiments were devised utilizing two EJ-309 liquid organic scintillation detectors (one primary and one secondary), a Microsoft Kinect for Windows v2 sensor and a Velodyne HDL-32E High Definition LiDAR Sensor which is a highly sensitive vision sensor primarily used to generate data for self-driving cars. Each experiment consisted of 27 static measurements of a source arranged in a cube with three different distances in each dimension. The source used was Cf-252. The calibration algorithm developed is utilized to calibrate the relative 3D-location of the two different types of sensors without need to measure it by hand; thus, preventing operator manipulation and human errors. The algorithm can also account for the facility dependent deviation from ideal data fusion correlation. Use of the vision sensor to determine the location of a sensor would also limit the possible locations and it does not allow for room dependence (facility dependent deviation) to generate a detector pseudo-location to be used for data analysis later. Using manually measured source location data, our algorithm-predicted the offset detector location within an average of 20 cm calibration-difference to its actual location. Calibration-difference is the Euclidean distance from the algorithm predicted detector location to the measured detector location. The Kinect vision sensor data produced an average calibration-difference of 35 cm and the HDL-32E produced an average calibration-difference of 22 cm. Using NaI and He-3 detectors in place of the EJ-309, the calibration-difference was 52 cm for NaI and 75 cm for He-3. In conclusion, the algorithm is not detector dependent; however, from these results it was determined that detector dependent adjustments are required.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Characterizing the effect of incrementally increasing dry bulb temperature on linear and nonlinear measures of heart rate variability in nonpregnant, mid-gestation, and late-gestation sows

Abstract Characterizing the sow physiological response to an increased heat load is essential for effective heat stress mitigation. The study objective was to characterize the effects of a 400-min heating episode on sow heart rate variability (HRV) at different reproductive stages. HRV is a commonly used noninvasive proxy measure of autonomic function. Twenty-seven sows were enrolled in the study according to their gestation stage at time of selection: 1) nonpregnant (NP; n = 7), 2) mid-gestation (MID; 57.3 ± 11.8 d gestation; n = 11), and 3) late-gestation (LATE; 98.8 ± 4.9 d gestation; n = 8). The HRV data utilized in the study were collected from each pig as the dry bulb temperature in the room increased incrementally from 19.84 ± 2.15 °C to 35.54 ± 0.43 °C (range: 17.1–37.5 °C) over a 400-min period. After data collection, one 5-min set of continuous heart rate data were identified per pig for each of nine temperature intervals (19–20.99, 21–22.99, 23–24.99, 25–26.99, 27–28.99, 29–30.99, 31–32.99, 33–34.99, and 35–36.99 °C). Mean inter-beat interval length (RR), standard deviation of r-r intervals (SDNN), root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), high frequency spectral power (HF), sample entropy (SampEn), short-term detrended fluctuation analysis (DFAα1), and three measures (%REC, DET, LMEAN) derived from recurrence quantification analysis were calculated for each data set. All data were analyzed using the PROC GLIMMIX procedure in SAS 9.4. Overall, LATE sows exhibited lower RR than NP sows (P < 0.01). The standard deviation of r–r intervals and RMSSD differed between each group (P < 0.01), with LATE sows exhibiting the lowest SDNN and RMSSD and NP sows exhibiting the greatest SDNN and RMSSD. Late-gestation sows exhibited lower HF than both MID and NP sows (P < 0.0001), greater DFA values than NP sows (P = 0.05), and greater DET compared to MID sows (P = 0.001). Late-gestation also sows exhibited greater %REC and LMEAN compared to MID (P < 0.01) and NP sows (all P < 0.01). In conclusion, LATE sows exhibited indicators of greater autonomic stress throughout the heating period compared to MID and NP sows. However, temperature by treatment interactions were not detected as dry bulb increased. Future studies are needed to fully elucidate the effect of gestational stage and increasing dry bulb temperature on sow HRV.

Agriculture↗

A New Hybrid Spatio-temporal Model for Estimating Daily Multi-year PM2.5 Concentrations Across Northeastern USA Using High Resolution Aerosol Optical Depth Data

The use of satellite-based aerosol optical depth (AOD) to estimate fine particulate matter PM(sub 2.5) for epidemiology studies has increased substantially over the past few years. These recent studies often report moderate predictive power, which can generate downward bias in effect estimates. In addition, AOD measurements have only moderate spatial resolution, and have substantial missing data. We make use of recent advances in MODIS satellite data processing algorithms (Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC), which allow us to use 1 km (versus currently available 10 km) resolution AOD data.We developed and cross validated models to predict daily PM(sub 2.5) at a 1X 1 km resolution across the northeastern USA (New England, New York and New Jersey) for the years 2003-2011, allowing us to better differentiate daily and long term exposure between urban, suburban, and rural areas. Additionally, we developed an approach that allows us to generate daily high-resolution 200 m localized predictions representing deviations from the area 1 X 1 km grid predictions. We used mixed models regressing PM(sub 2.5) measurements against day-specific random intercepts, and fixed and random AOD and temperature slopes. We then use generalized additive mixed models with spatial smoothing to generate grid cell predictions when AOD was missing. Finally, to get 200 m localized predictions, we regressed the residuals from the final model for each monitor against the local spatial and temporal variables at each monitoring site. Our model performance was excellent (mean out-of-sample R(sup 2) = 0.88). The spatial and temporal components of the out-of-sample results also presented very good fits to the withheld data (R(sup 2) = 0.87, R(sup)2 = 0.87). In addition, our results revealed very little bias in the predicted concentrations (Slope of predictions versus withheld observations = 0.99). Our daily model results show high predictive accuracy at high spatial resolutions and will be useful in reconstructing exposure histories for epidemiological studies across this region.

Air pollution↗