Germination, growth rates, and electron microscope analysis of tomato seeds flown on the LDEF

The purpose of the experiment was to determine cosmic rays long-term effects on living tissue. A batch of tomato seeds were flown in orbit aboard the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) for almost 6 y. During this time, the seeds received an abundant exposure to cosmic radiation. Upon the return of the LDEF to Earth, the seeds were distributed throughout the United States and 30 foreign countries for analysis. Our university analysis included germination and growth rates as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray analysis of the control as well as space exposed tomato seeds.

In analyzing the seeds under the electron microscope, usual observations were performed on the nutritional and epidermis layer of the seed. These layers appeared to be more porous in the space exposed seeds than on Earth-based control seeds. This unusual characteristic may explain the increases in the space seeds growth pattern. (Several test results showed that the space-exposed seeds germinated sooner than Earth-based seeds. Also, the space-exposed seeds grew at a faster rate.) The porous nutritional region may allow the seeds to receive necessary nutrients and liquids more readily, thus enabling the plant to grow at a faster rate.

Roots, leaves and stems were cut into small sections and mounted. After sputter coating the specimens with argon/gold palladium plasma, they were viewed under the electron microscope. Many micrographs were taken. The X-ray analysis displayed possible identifications of calcium, potassium, chlorine, copper, aluminum, silicon, phosphate, carbon, and sometimes sulfur and iron. The highest concentrations were shown in potassium and calcium. As a result of the electron interaction and X-ray production within the open seeds, the traditional layers of the space-exposed seed gave peaks of Mg, P and S, while the Earth seed gave an iron peak, which was not detected in the space-exposed seed because of electron beam positioning difference. The space-exposed seed and the Earth-control seed specimens displayed high concentrations of copper.     

Analytical formulae for the optimization of the process of low-power phase modulation in a quadratic nonlinear medium

We show that using the approximation of fixed intensity analytical formulae, describing the process of induced phase modulation for the beams involved in second-order nonlinear optical processes can be derived. Expressions that allow the optimization of the phase shifts experienced by the fundamental and generated waves are presented for nonlinear quadratic processes, second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency mixing. In the case of seeding at the generated wavelength, the phase shift of the fundamental wave is due to two interactions: (i) a cubic one, based on coupled second-order processes (cascade cubic nonlinearity) and (ii) single quadratic interaction with participation of the seeding wave. By comparison with the exact numerical solution, we defined the input parameters of the beams for which this analytical approach is valid. It is shown that phase shifts exceeding /2 can be correctly predicted using the expressions obtained.     

Laser nitriding of iron: Influence of the laser parameters on the nitriding efficiency

Laser nitriding of Armco iron in nitrogen was studied for KrF-excimer-laser irradiation. The influence of the energy density and number of pulses on the nitrogen take-up and the nitride phases formed was investigated using Resonant Nuclear Reaction Analysis (RNRA) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Besides the original a-iron, austenite-Fe(N), martensite-Fe(N),-Fe₂₊N, and-Fe₁₆N₂ were identified. The fraction of the e-phase was found to increase with the number of pulses and the energy density. A threshold energy density of 1.8(2) J/cm² for the laser nitriding process was found.     

The microlocal spectrum condition and Wick polynomials of free fields on curved spacetimes

Quantum fields propagating on a curved spacetime are investigated in terms of microlocal analysis. We discuss a condition on the wave front set for the correspondingn-point distributions, called microlocal spectrum condition (SC). On Minkowski space, this condition is satisfied as a consequence of the usual spectrum condition. Based on Radzikowski's determination of the wave front set of the two-point function of a free scalar field, satisfying the Hadamard condition in the Kay and Wald sense, we construct in the second part of this paper all Wick polynomials including the energy-momentum tensor for this field as operator valued distributions on the manifold and prove that they satisfy our microlocal spectrum condition.     

A Big Horizontal Solar Telescope of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in the caucasus

This paper presents the Big Horizonal Solar Telescope of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences installed at the Peak Terskol high-altitude station near Elbrus (the main mirror diameter is 650 mm and the focal length is 17.5 m). The telescope is equipped with a five-camera spectrograph intended for photographic spectral observations of active regions in the solar atmosphere and photoelectric measurements of the solar spectra with high spectral and spatial resolution. The observation procedure is described, and the results of the quality analysis of the recorded spectra and of the early measurements are presented.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 39, No. 10, pp. 1326–1333, October, 1996.The authors wish to express their gratitude to C.I.Gandzha, V.V.Kul'beda, and Yu. M. Gavrilyuk from the Solar Physics Department of the PAO of the Ukrainian NAS and to the Board of Directors of the Observatory and of the High-Altitude Station for help in the development of the instrument.This paper is dedicated to the memory of E. A. Gurtovenko, D.Sc. in Phys. and Math., who initiated the installation of the telescope at Peak Terskol and who was the leader, an executor, and an observer in this project.     

The overlay of lower envelopes and its applications

Let and be two collections of a total ofn (possibly partially defined) bivariate, algebraic functions of constant maximum degree. The minimization diagrams of are the planar maps obtained by the xy-projections of the lower envelopes of , respectively. We show that the combinatiorial complexity of the overlay of the minimization diagrams of and of is O(n^2+ɛ), for any ɛ>0. This result has several applications: (i) a near-quadratic upper bound on the complexity of the region in 3-space enclosed between the lower envelope of one such collection of functions and the upper envelope of another collection; (ii) an efficient and simple divide-and-conquer algorithm for constructing lower envelopes in three dimensions; and (iii) a near-quadratic upper bound on the complexity of the space of all plane transversals of a collection of simply shaped convex sets in three dimensions. Work on this paper by the first author was supported by National Science Foundation Grant CCR-93-01259 and an NYI award. Work on this paper by the second author was supported by the Netherlands’ Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and partially supported by ESPRIT Basic Research Action No. 6546 (project PROMotion). His current address is Department of Computer Science, Postech, San 31, Hyoja-Dong, Pohang, Kyungbuk 790–784, South Korea. Email: otfried@vision.postech.ac.kr. Work on this paper by the third author was supported by NSF Grant CCR-91-22103, by a Max-Planck Research Award, and by grants from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation the Fund for Basic Research administered by the Israeli Academy of Sciences, and the G.I.F., the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.