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At least 145 records · Page 8

Accounting For Gains And Orientations In Polarimetric SAR

Calibration method accounts for characteristics of real radar equipment invalidating standard 2 X 2 complex-amplitude R (receiving) and T (transmitting) matrices. Overall gain in each combination of transmitting and receiving channels assumed different even when only one transmitter and one receiver used. One characterizes departure of polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system from simple 2 X 2 model in terms of single parameter used to transform measurements into format compatible with simple 2 X 2 model. Data processed by applicable one of several prior methods based on simple model.

Freeman, Anthony↗

Recommendations for an Executive Information System (EIS) for the NASA Accounting and Financial Information System (NAFIS)

The objectives were to: (1) survey state-of-the-art computing architectures, tools, and technologies for implementing an Executive Information System (EIS); (2) review MSFC capabilities and efforts in developing an EIS for Shuttle Projects Office and the Payloads Project Office; (3) review management reporting requirements for the NASA Accounting and Financial Information System (NAFIS) Project in the areas of cost, schedule, and technical performance, and insure that the EIS fully supports these requirements; and (4) develop and implement a pilot concept for a NAFIS EIS. A summary of the findings of this work is presented.

Goss, Ernest Preston↗

Interstellar cloud shapes - A minimum-hypothesis account involving a purely gravitational effect

The effect produced by the anisotropic gravitational field on the shape of a nonspherical, self-gravitating interstellar cloud is examined. The projected axial ratios observed for molecular clouds can be accounted for if clouds are not generally in a state of strict dynamical equilibrium. For clouds having spectral line widths dominated by supersonic turbulent motions, this purely gravitational effect predicts a mean true axial ratio q about 0.3 for both oblate and prolate cloud geometries. Clouds having p less than about 0.3 are likely to be prolate and quite elongated. The observational data on molecular cloud cores, which have essentially thermal line widths, can be fitted equally well to either oblate or prolate spheroids having q between 0.1 and 0.4 with q about 0.2 providing the best match: highly elongated cores are again more likely to be prolate. While other processes certainly operate throughout the Galaxy to influence cloud shape, it appears plausible that at least some clouds may be shaped principally by their anisotropic gravitational field.

Fleck, Robert C., Jr.↗

An efficient constraint to account for mistuning effects in the optimal design of engine rotors

Blade-to-blade differences in structural properties, unavoidable in practice due to manufacturing tolerances, can have significant influence on the vibratory response of engine rotor blade. Accounting for these differences, also known as mistuning, in design and in optimization procedures is generally not possible. This note presents an easily calculated constraint that can be used in design and optimization procedures to control the sensitivity of final designs to mistuning.

Murthy, Durbha V.↗

Determination of organic carbon and ionic accountability of various waste and product waters derived from ECLSS water recovery tests and Spacelab humidity condensate

The development of a closed-loop water recovery system for Space Station Freedom involves many technical challenges associated with contaminant removal. Attention is presently given to the characterization of contaminants constituting total organic carbon (TOC), and to the Hubaux and Vos (1970) statistical model for low level TOC that has been employed. A tabulation is given for TOC accountability in the case of both potable and hygiene waters.

Carter, Donald L.↗

NASA Accountability Report

NASA is piloting fiscal year (FY) 1997 Accountability Reports, which streamline and upgrade reporting to Congress and the public. The document presents statements by the NASA administrator, and the Chief Financial Officer, followed by an overview of NASA's organizational structure and the planning and budgeting process. The performance of NASA in four strategic enterprises is reviewed: (1) Space Science, (2) Mission to Planet Earth, (3) Human Exploration and Development of Space, and (4) Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology. Those areas which support the strategic enterprises are also reviewed in a section called Crosscutting Processes. For each of the four enterprises, there is discussion about the long term goals, the short term objectives and the accomplishments during FY 1997. The Crosscutting Processes section reviews issues and accomplishments relating to human resources, procurement, information technology, physical resources, financial management, small and disadvantaged businesses, and policy and plans. Following the discussion about the individual areas is Management's Discussion and Analysis, about NASA's financial statements. This is followed by a report by an independent commercial auditor and the financial statements.

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 1998 Accountability Report

This Accountability Report summarizes NASA's program accomplishments and its stewardship over budget and financial resources. The report is the culmination of NASA's management process, which begins with mission definition and program planning, continues with formulation and justification of NASA's budgets for the President and Congress, and ends with NASA scientific and engineering program accomplishments. This report covers NASA's activities from October 1, 1997, through September 30, 1998, with discussion of some subsequent events.

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Computerized Attendance Accounting and Emergency Assistance Communications: Viable Tools in Secondary School Administration

In the late 1968, the Space Technology Application Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) initiated a pilot study to determine whether technological aids could be developed that would help secondary school administrators cope with the volatile and chaotic situations that often accompany student activism, disorders, and riots. The study was conducted in cooperation with the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) and at the John F. Kennedy Senior High School (JFK) in Sacramento, California. The problems at JFK and in the SCUSD were identified and described to the JPL team by members of the Kennedy staff and personnel at various levels and departments within the school district. The JPL team of engineers restricted their scope to problems that appeared solvable, or at least partially solvable, through the use of technological systems. Thus far, two hardware systems have been developed for use in the school. The first, a personal emergency assistance communication system, has already been tested operationally at JFK and has met the objectives established for it. The second technological aid developed was a computerized attendance accounting system. This system has been fabricated, tested, and installed at JFK. Full-scale operational testing began in April 1971. While studies and hardware tests were in progress at JFK, contacts were made with several other schools in order that, insofar as practicable, hardware designs could allow for possible adaptation to schools other than JFK.

Roberts, Vasel W.↗

Accounting for Laminar Run & Trip Drag in Supersonic Cruise Performance Testing

An improved laminar run and trip drag correction methodology for supersonic cruise performance testing was derived. This method required more careful analysis of the flow visualization images which revealed delayed transition particularly on the inboard upper surface, even for the largest trip disks. In addition, a new code was developed to estimate the laminar run correction. Once the data were corrected for laminar run, the correct approach to the analysis of the trip drag became evident. Although the data originally appeared confusing, the corrected data are consistent with previous results. Furthermore, the modified approach, which was described in this presentation, extends prior historical work by taking into account the delayed transition caused by the blunt leading edges.

Goodsell, Aga M.↗

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 1999 Accountability Report

This Accountability Report consolidates reports required by various statutes and summarizes NASA's program accomplishments and its stewardship over budget and financial resources. It is a culmination of NASA's management process, which begins with mission definition and program planning, continues with the formulation and justification of budgets for the President and Congress, and ends with the resulting scientific and engineering program accomplishments. The report covers activities from October 1, 1998, through September 30, 1999, with a discussion of some subsequent events. Program accomplishments included the deployment and operation of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the delivery of supplies and equipment needed to live and operate on the International Space Station, and the development of the first global 3-D map of Mars. Achievements are highlighted in the Statement of the Administrator and summarized in the performance section of this report.

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NASA FY 2000 Accountability Report

This Accountability Report consolidates reports required by various statutes and summarizes NASA's program accomplishments and its stewardship over budget and financial resources. It is a culmination of NASA's management process, which begins with mission definition and program planning, continues with the formulation and justification of budgets for the President and Congress, and ends with scientific and engineering program accomplishments. The report covers activities from October 1, 1999, through September 30, 2000. Achievements are highlighted in the Statement of the Administrator and summarized in the Report.

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Viscoplastic Model Development to Account for Strength Differential: Application to Aged Inconel 718 at Elevated Temperature

The magnitude of yield and flow stresses in aged Inconel 718 are observed to be different in tension and compression. This phenomenon, called the Strength differential (SD), contradicts the metal plasticity axiom that the second deviatoric stress invariant alone is sufficient for representing yield and flow. Apparently, at least one of the other two stress invariants is also significant. A unified viscoplastic model was developed that is able to account for the SD effect in aged Inconel 718. Building this model involved both theory and experiments. First, a general threshold function was proposed that depends on all three stress invariants and then the flow and evolution laws were developed using a potential-based thermodynamic framework. Judiciously chosen shear and axial tests were conducted to characterize the material. Shear tests involved monotonic loading, relaxation, and creep tests with different loading rates and load levels. The axial tests were tension and compression tests that resulted in sufficiently large inelastic strains. All tests were performed at 650 C. The viscoplastic material parameters were determined by optimizing the fit to the shear tests, during which the first and the third stress invariants remained zero. The threshold surface parameters were then fit to the tension and compression test data. An experimental procedure was established to quantify the effect of each stress invariant on inelastic deformation. This requires conducting tests with nonproportional three-dimensional load paths. Validation of the model was done using biaxial tests on tubular specimens of aged Inconel 718 using proportional and nonproportional axial-torsion loading. These biaxial tests also helped to determine the most appropriate form of the threshold function; that is, how to combine the stress invariants. Of the set of trial threshold functions, the ones that incorporated the third stress invariant give the best predictions. However, inclusion of the first stress invariant does not significantly improve the model predictions. The model shows excellent predictive capability for nonproportional load paths. Additionally, it reduces to the well-known models of Mises Drucker and Drucker-Prager. The requisite experiments involve reasonably simple load paths in the axial-shear stress plane and hence can be performed on a variety of different materials: be they metallic, geological. polymeric, ceramic or granular. The general form of the threshold function allows representation of inelastic deformation in a range of materials.

Iyer, Saiganesh↗

Broadband Noise of Fans - With Unsteady Coupling Theory to Account for Rotor and Stator Reflection/Transmission Effects

This report examines the effects on broadband noise generation of unsteady coupling between a rotor and stator in the fan stage of a turbofan engine. Whereas previous acoustic analyses treated the blade rows as isolated cascades, the present work accounts for reflection and transmission effects at both blade rows by tracking the mode and frequency scattering of pressure and vortical waves. The fan stage is modeled in rectilinear geometry to take advantage of a previously existing unsteady cascade theory for 3D perturbation waves and thereby use a realistic 3D turbulence spectrum. In the analysis, it was found that the set of participating modes divides itself naturally into "independent mode subsets" that couple only among themselves and not to the other such subsets. This principle is the basis for the analysis and considerably reduces computational effort. It also provides a simple, accurate scheme for modal averaging for further efficiency. Computed results for a coupled fan stage are compared with calculations for isolated blade rows. It is found that coupling increases downstream noise by 2 to 4 dB. Upstream noise is lower for isolated cascades and is further reduced by including coupling effects. In comparison with test data, the increase in the upstream/downstream differential indicates that broadband noise from turbulent inflow at the stator dominates downstream noise but is not a significant contributor to upstream noise.

Hanson, Donald B.↗

Improving the Accuracy of Satellite Sea Surface Temperature Measurements by Explicitly Accounting for the Bulk-Skin Temperature Difference

The focus of this research was to determine whether the accuracy of satellite measurements of sea surface temperature (SST) could be improved by explicitly accounting for the complex temperature gradients at the surface of the ocean associated with the cool skin and diurnal warm layers. To achieve this goal, work was performed in two different major areas. The first centered on the development and deployment of low-cost infrared radiometers to enable the direct validation of satellite measurements of skin temperature. The second involved a modeling and data analysis effort whereby modeled near-surface temperature profiles were integrated into the retrieval of bulk SST estimates from existing satellite data. Under the first work area, two different seagoing infrared radiometers were designed and fabricated and the first of these was deployed on research ships during two major experiments. Analyses of these data contributed significantly to the Ph.D. thesis of one graduate student and these results are currently being converted into a journal publication. The results of the second portion of work demonstrated that, with presently available models and heat flux estimates, accuracy improvements in SST retrievals associated with better physical treatment of the near-surface layer were partially balanced by uncertainties in the models and extra required input data. While no significant accuracy improvement was observed in this experiment, the results are very encouraging for future applications where improved models and coincident environmental data will be available. These results are included in a manuscript undergoing final review with the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.

Wick, Gary A.↗

Distributed Accounting on the Grid

By the late 1990s, the Internet was adequately equipped to move vast amounts of data between HPC (High Performance Computing) systems, and efforts were initiated to link together the national infrastructure of high performance computational and data storage resources together into a general computational utility 'grid', analogous to the national electrical power grid infrastructure. The purpose of the Computational grid is to provide dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to computational resources for the computing community in the form of a computing utility. This paper presents a fully distributed view of Grid usage accounting and a methodology for allocating Grid computational resources for use on a Grid computing system.

Thigpen, William↗

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fiscal Year 2001 Accountability Report

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent Agency established to plan and manage the future of the Nation's civil aeronautics and space program. This Accountability Report covers Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 (October 1, 2000, through September 30, 2001), with discussion of some subsequent events. The Report contains an overview addressing the Agency's critical programs and financial performance and includes highlights of performance organized by goals and objectives of the Enterprises and Crosscutting Processes. The Report also summarizes NASA's stewardship over budget and financial resources, including audited financial statements and footnotes. The financial statements reflect an overall position of offices and activities, including assets and liabilities, as well as results of operations, pursuant to requirements of Federal law (31 U.S.C. 3515(b)). The auditor's opinions on NASA's financial statements, reports on internal controls, and compliance with laws and regulations are included in this report.

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Improving the Accuracy of Satellite Sea Surface Temperature Measurements by Explicitly Accounting for the Bulk-Skin Temperature Difference

The focus of this research was to determine whether the accuracy of satellite measurements of sea surface temperature (SST) could be improved by explicitly accounting for the complex temperature gradients at the surface of the ocean associated with the cool skin and diurnal warm layers. To achieve this goal, work centered on the development and deployment of low-cost infrared radiometers to enable the direct validation of satellite measurements of skin temperature. During this one year grant, design and construction of an improved infrared radiometer was completed and testing was initiated. In addition, development of an improved parametric model for the bulk-skin temperature difference was completed using data from the previous version of the radiometer. This model will comprise a key component of an improved procedure for estimating the bulk SST from satellites. The results comprised a significant portion of the Ph.D. thesis completed by one graduate student and they are currently being converted into a journal publication.

Castro, Sandra L.↗

Neither Milk Production, Milk Transfer Nor Pup Growth Hormone Account for Reduced Body Weights of Rat Pups Reared In Hypergravity

Studies spanning the gravity continuum from 0 to 2-g are revealing new insights into how mammalian reproduction and development may proceed in the microgravity of space. Rat pups reared from either conception or midgestation in hypergravity (hg) weigh 6-15% less than 1-g controls. In the present study we analyzed maternal and pup factors that may account for reduced body weight of hg reared pups. Beginning on Gestational day (G)11 of the rats' 22 day pregnancy, rat dams and their litters were continuously exposed to either 1.5-g, 1.75-g or 2.0-g. Prolaction (Prl) and oxytocin (OT) were measured in hg-exposed dams during either pregnancy (G20) or lactation (Postnatal day [P] 10). Gravity related differences in Prl were not observed whereas OT was depressed during lactation in hg dams relative to controls (p less than 0.05). Milk transfer measured during a discrete suckling episode was actually increased in hg-reared litters and comparable numbers of milk-letdowns were observed in the two conditions. Recent reports using dwarfing phenotypes in mouse mutants have provided evidence for postnatal dependence on growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). Plasma GH measured in P10 pups using enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was significantly elevated in hg pups relative to 1-g controls (mean +/- sd., ng/ml: 2.0-g, 10.6 [3.0], 1.5-g 8.9 [4.0], 1.0-g, 7.95 [3.1]). Together, these findings suggest that neither milk production, milk transfer nor pup GH play significant roles in reduced body weights of hg-reared pups. Studies underway are focused on insulin-like growth factors.

Bear, L. A.↗