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The dynamics of rain-induced fades on satellite radio links is studied by evaluating the rate at which the first Fresnel zone volume fills with rain. A compact expression for the fade slope on a terrestrial path is derived which shows that once the rain rate is specified, fade slope is very sensitive to differences in rain velocity. Thus, there is no unique relationship between fade slope and rain rate.
The main objective of the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) has been stated as 'the development of techniques that may be applied to satellite observations of the radiation reflected and emitted from the Earth to yield quantitative information concerning land surface climatological conditions'. The major field study, FIFE (the First ISLSCP Field Experiment), was conducted in 1987-89 to accomplish this objective. Four intensive field campaigns (IFC's) were carried out in 1987 and one in 1989. Factors contributing to observed reflected radiation from the FIFE site must be understood before the radiation observed by satellites can be used to quantify surface processes. Our last report (Walter-Shea et al., 1992b) focused on slope effects on incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation and net radiation from data collected in 1989. We report here on the final analysis of the slope data as well as results from thermal radiation studies conducted during the FIFE experiment. The specific areas reported are the following: (1) analysis of slope effects on measured reflectance values and estimates of surface albedo; (2) using remotely-measured surface temperatures as a means of estimating sensible heat flux from the Konza Prairie; (3) extracting canopy temperatures from remotely-measured composite surface temperatures; (4) modeling the measured composite temperature of partially vegetated surfaces; and (5) estimating gap distribution in partially vegetated surfaces from reflectance measurements.
A 2.4-m telescope and a CCD spectrograph have been used to measure the optical reflectance spectrum of the 5145 Pholus outer solar system object in the 4400-9600 A range, with 10 A/pixel dispersion. No emission lines were detected, and a reflectance slope value intermediate between two previously reported slopes is obtained. This steep red slope is indicative of organic surface material, prompting the suggestion that the object is of primitive composition and at either the initial or terminal state of its thermal evolution.
Deep images were made with 10 arcsec resolution at 8.44 GHz with microjansky sensitivity of two regions previously imaged at several lower frequencies. The differential microjansky source count fits a power-law distribution with slope 2.3 +/- 0.2. This slope is roughly constant between 1.41 and 8.44 GHz and between S(v) = about 4 and X(v) = 1000 microJy. Unless the majority of radio sources at microJy levels are local, their average luminosity and/or space density probably has evolved with cosmic epoch in order to sustain the steep and nearly Euclidean value of the slope over such a large range in flux density. The 8.44 GHz counts probably converge at less than the 1 microjansky level if the evolutionary properties of these weak sources are similar to those of luminous gE radio galaxies and quasars. The median angular size of sources detected at 8.44 GHz at microjansky levels is 2.6 +/- 1.4 arcsec, and 40 percent of the source are larger than 5 arcsec.
The characteristics of the sea surface height variability in the South Atlantic are investigated on the basis of almost 3 yr of Geosat data. The nature of the sea surface height field is shown to be nonstationary, heterogeneous, and anisotropic. The wavenumber spectral characteristics of the sea surface height field, such as spectral slopes, shape, breaks in spectral slopes, and energy density values, vary with latitude and longitude within the basin. The spectral slopes exhibit a spectral dependence approaching k exp -5 in the high-energy areas and k exp -3 in the low-energy areas. Along-track characteristic wavelengths are found to decrease from north to south and from west to east. The energy exhibits maximum values in the highly energetic eddy-shedding regions of the Malvinas-Brazil confluence and the Agulhas leakage region.
3C 351 is one of the most X-ray-quiet radio quasars (alpha(ox) about 1.6). We have observed 3C 351 with the ROSAT position sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) and find a complex X-ray spectrum which is not well reproduced by a power law plus low-energy cut-off model. Soft excess, partial covering, and 'warm absorber' models can all produce acceptable fits, although only the warm absorber model gives typical values for the high-energy continuum slope. The alpha(ox) measured by using quasi-simultaneous ROSAT, MMT, and HST observations is in the range 1.5-1.6, significantly above the average of 1.37 for a complete sample of 33 3CR quasars. If the soft excess or partial covering models are correct, 3C 351 appears X-ray-quiet in the PSPC band because it has an extremely steep or flat intrinsic high-energy spectral slope. However, if the warm absorber model is correct, the quasar is intrinsically X-ray-quiet; the normalization of the intrinsic (unabsorbed) X-ray emission is unusually low relative to the optical luminosity. We investigate the properties of our warm absorber model in some detail. The apparently complicated behavior of the fit parameters may be understood by considering the effects of changing absorbing column and ionization parameter on intrinsic power-law-spectra of different slopes.
The field of a uniformly loaded wing in subsonic flow is discussed in terms of the acceleration potential. It is shown that, for the design of such wings, the slope of the mean camber surface at any point can be determined by a line integration around the wing boundary. By an additional line integration around the wing boundary, this method is extended to include the case where the local section lift coefficient varies with spanwise location (the chordwise loading at every section still remaining uniform). For the uniformly loaded wing of polygonal plan form, the integrations necessary to determine the local slope of the surface and the further integration of the slopes to determine the ordinate can be done analytically. An outline of these integrations and the resulting formulas are included. Calculated results are given for a sweptback wing with uniform chordwise loading and a highly tapered spanwise loading, a uniformly loaded delta wing, a uniformly loaded sweptback wing, and the same sweptback wing with uniform chordwise loading but elliptical span load distribution.
Method of prediction of fatigue lives of intermetallic-matrix/fiber composite parts at high temperatures styled after method of universal slopes. It suffices to perform relatively small numbers of fatigue tests. Data from fatigue tests correlated with tensile-test data by fitting universal-slopes equation to both sets of data. Thereafter, universal-slopes equation used to predict fatigue lives from tensile properties.
Power-law distributions are commonly used to describe the frequency of occurrences of crater diameters, stellar masses, ring particle sizes, planetesimal sizes, and meteoroid masses to name a few. The distributions are simple, and this simplicity has led to a number of misstatements in the literature about the kind of power-law that is being used: differential, cumulative, or incremental. Although differential and cumulative power-laws are mathematically trivial, it is a hybrid incremental distribution that is often used and the relationship between the incremental distribution and the differential or cumulative distributions is not trivial. In many cases the slope of an incremental power-law will be nearly identical to the slope of the cumulative power-law of the same distribution, not the differential slope. The discussion that follows argues for a consistent usage of these terms and against the oft-made implicit claim that incremental and differential distributions are indistinguishable.
A study on the performance of a supervised fully polarimetric maximum likelihood classifier for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data when applied to a specific classification context: forest classification based on age classes and in the presence of a sloping terrain is presented. For the experimental part, the polarimetric AIRSAR data at P, L, and C-band, acquired over the German Black Forest near Freiburg in the frame of the 1989 MAESTRO-1 campaign and the 1991 MAC Europe campaign was used, MAESTRO-1 with an ESA/JRC sponsored campaign, and MAC Europe (Multi-sensor Aircraft Campaign); in both cases the multi-frequency polarimetric JPL Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) radar was flown over a number of European test sites. The study is structured as follows. At first, the general characteristics of the classifier and the dependencies from some parameters, like frequency bands, feature vector, calibration, using test areas lying on a flat terrain are investigated. Once it is determined the optimal conditions for the classifier performance, we then move on to the study of the slope effect. The bulk of this work is performed using the Maestrol data set. Next the classifier performance with the MAC Europe data is considered. The study is divided into two stages: first some of the tests done on the Maestro data are repeated, to highlight the improvements due to the new processing scheme that delivers 16 look data. Second we experiment with multi images classification with two goals: to assess the possibility of using a training set measured from one image to classify areas in different images; and to classify areas on critical slopes using different viewing angles. The main points of the study are listed and some of the results obtained so far are highlighted.
Cryoplanation terraces are step- or table like residual landforms consisting of a nearly horizontal bedrock surface covered by a thin veneer of rock debris and bounded by ascending or descending scarps or both. Among examples studied, rubble-covered scarps range in height from 3 to 76 m and slope from 9 deg to 32 deg; nearly vertical scarps exist where bedrock is exposed or thinly buried. Simple transverse nivation hollows, which are occupied by large seasonal snow banks, commonly indent the lower surfaces of sharply angular ascending scarps. Terrace treads slope from 1 deg to 10 deg and commonly cut across bedrock structures such as bedding, rock contacts, foliation, joints, faults, and shear zones. Debris on terrace treads is generally 0.8-2.5 m thick. Permafrost table is generally present from 0.5 to 2 m below the tread surface. Permafrost is shallowest in the floors of nivation hollows and deepest in the well-drained margins of terrace treads. Side slopes of cryoplanation terraces are shallowly buried bedrock surfaces that are littered with a variety of mass-movement deposits.
From photometric and spectroscopic observations of the stars in 30 Doradus we determine the effective stellar temperatures and bolometric magnitudes. We construct the theoretical H-R diagram, and using stellar evolution models we then bin the stars by mass to obtain the initial mass function (IMF). The IMF shows marked curvature; it flattens out at lower masses, even for those masses above which the photometry is complete. Best estimates of the IMF slope yield values of Gamma -1.5 +/- 0.2 for mass above 12 solar masses, where the Salpeter slope is Gamma = -1.35. However, there are indications that different regions of 30 Doradus have different IMF slopes, perhaps as the result of sequential star formation effects.
The difference in the vertical ozone profile at Syowa between 1966-1981 and 1982-1988 is shown. The month-height cross section of the slope of the linear regressions between ozone partial pressure and 100-mb temperature is also shown. The vertically integrated values of the slopes are in close agreement with the slopes calculated by linear regression of Dobson total ozone on 100-mb temperature in the period of 1982-1988.
Remote sensing of primary production in the euphotic zone has been based mostly on visible-band and water-leaving radiance measured with the coastal zone color scanner. There are some robust, simple relationships for calculating integral production based on surface measurements, but they also require knowledge for photoadaptive parameters such as maximum photosynthesis which currently cannot be obtained from spave. A 17,000-station data set is used to show that space-based estimates of maximum photosynthesis could improve predictions of psi, the water column light utiliztion index, which is an important term in many primary productivity models. Temperature is also examined as a factor for predicting hydrographic structure and primary production. A simple model is used to relate temperature and maximum photosynthesis; the model incorporates (1) the positive relationship between maximum photosynthesis and temperature and (2) the strongly negative relationship between temperature and nitrate in the ocean (which directly affects maximum growth rates via nitrogen limitation). Since these two factors relate to carbon and nitrogen, 'balanced carbon/nitrogen assimilation' was calculated using the Redfield ratio, It is expected that the relationship between maximum balanced carbon assimilation versus temperature is concave-down, with the peak dependent on nitrate uptake kinetics, temperature-nitrate relationships,a nd the carbon chlorophyll ration. These predictions were compared with the sea truth data. The minimum turnover time for nitrate was also calculated using this approach. Lastly, sea surface temperature gradients were used to predict the slope of isotherms (a proxy for the slope of isopycnals in many waters). Sea truth data show that at size scales of several hundred kilometers, surface temperature gradients can provide information on the slope of isotherms in the top 200 m of the water column. This is directly relevant to the supply of nutrients into the surface mixed layer, which is useful for predicting integral biomass and primary production.
We use counts of faint galaxies in the regions of compact groups to extend the study of the luminosity function of galaxies in compact groups to absolute magnitudes as faint as M(sub B) = -14.5 + 5 log h. We find a slope of the faint end of the luminosity function of approximately alpha = -0.8, with a formal uncertainty of 0.15. This slope is not significantly different from that found for galaxies in other environments. Our results do not support previous suggestions of a dramatic underabundance of intrinsically faint galaxies in compact groups, which were based on extrapolations from fits at brighter magnitudes. The normal faint-end slope of the luminosity function in compact groups is in agreement with previous evidence that most galaxies in compact groups have not been dramatically affected by recent merging.
UV stellar photometry is presented for 1563 stars within a 40 minutes circular field in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), excluding the 10 min x 10 min field centered on R136 investigated earlier by Hill et al. (1993). Magnitudes are computed from images obtained by the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) in bands centered at 1615 A and 2558 A. Stellar masses and extinctions are estimated for the stars in associations using the evolutionary models of Schaerer et al. (1993), assuming the age is 4 Myr and that the local LMC extinction follows the Fitzpatrick (1985) 30 Dor extinction curve. The estimated slope of the initial mass function (IMF) for massive stars (greater than 15 solar mass) within the Lucke and Hodge (LH) associations is Gamma = -1.08 +/- 0.2. Initial masses and extinctions for stars not within LH associations are estimated assuming that the stellar age is either 4 Myr or half the stellar lifetime, whichever is larger. The estimated slope of the IMF for massive stars not within LH associations is Gamma = -1.74 +/- 0.3 (assuming continuous star formation), compared with Gamma = -1.35, and Gamma = -1.7 +/- 0.5, obtained for the Galaxy by Salpeter (1955) and Scalo (1986), respectively, and Gamma = -1.6 obtained for massive stars in the Galaxy by Garmany, Conti, & Chiosi (1982). The shallower slope of the association IMF suggests that not only is the star formation rate higher in associations, but that the local conditions favor the formation of higher mass stars there. We make no corrections for binaries or incompleteness.
ASCA has detected the z = 3.384 quasar S5 0014+813 up to energies of 34 keV in the quasar rest frame using the two gas imaging spectrometer (GIS) instruments. The combined X-ray spectrum has a signal-to-noise ratio of over 50 sigma and is consistent with a single power law of energy slope 0.63 +/- 0.03 over the 0.8-8 keV (observed) energy range. The spectrum is also well fitted with a simple thermal bremsstrahlung model of kT = 40 +/- 4 keV (in the quasar frame), which raises obvious possibilities for contributions to the diffuse X-ray background. A maximum solid angle of Omega(sub d)/2(pi) = 0.4(90% confidence) can be placed on the strength of a Compton reflection component above the energy of the Fe K-edge. The Fe K 6.4 keV fluorescence line has a rest frame equivalent width less than 120 eV (90% confidence) at its redshifted energy of 1.46 keV. The weakness of these features differentiates this high-luminosity, high-redshift quasar from the majority of Seyfert galaxies using its X-ray spectrum alone. The GIS slope is consistent with the slope derived by the ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC). The normalization at 1 keV in the ASCA observation is, however, a factor 30%-40% higher than in the ROSAT observation, suggesting a significant increase in the 1 keV (observed) flux over the 31.5 months between the two observations (7.2 months, rest frame).
We hypothesize that the steep frontal slope and high peaks of the Beni region and Himalayan front largely reflect the high orographic precipitation and high erosion rates occurring in these regions and that the more gentle topography of the semiarid Pilcomayo region reflects a tectonic landform only slightly modified by erosion. We propose that orographic precipitation impinging on a plateau margin will generally tend to drop moisture low on the slope, eroding back the plateau while enhancing or maintaining the steep long-wavelength slope. A numerical model coupling orographic precipitation, erosion, and tectonic uplift demonstrates the plausibility of this hypothesis. The erosional efflux in both the Beni and Nepal Himalaya have been considerable, and simple mass balance calculations for the Himalaya suggest that during the Neogene, the erosional mass efflux has generally outpaced the tectonic mass influx. This contrasts with the apparent prior domination of tectonic influx and may reflect a decrease in the rate of tectonic addition during the same period, and/or increased late Cenozoic erosion rates.