FINANCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NORTH DAKOTA FARMS 1992-1994

End-of-year financial data from 700 farms enrolled in North Dakota Farm Business Management Education Program for the years 1992 to 1994 are analyzed according to 16 financial standards. All median profitability measures, median term debt coverage, term debt and capital margin, and median net farm income as a percent of gross revenue are lower in 1994 than in 1993. The median for all 16 financial measures deteriorated for 1994 in the south central and west regions due to lower livestock profitability. Financial performance of the north central region improved each of the three years.Agricultural Finance,

Tether Elevator Crawler Systems (TECS)

One of the needs of the experimenters on the space station is access to steady and controlled-variation microgravity environments. A method of providing these environments is to place the experiment on a tether attached to the space station. This provides a high degree of isolation from structural oscillations and vibrations. Crawlers can move these experiments along the tethers to preferred locations, much like an elevator. This report describes the motion control laws developed for these crawlers and the testing of laboratory models of these tether elevator crawlers

Auroral thermosphere temperatures from observations of 6300 A emissions

Doppler temperatures determined from observations of the atomic oxygen OI 6300 A line during March 1984 at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks are presented. Temperatures are obtained from Fabry-Perot Interferometer pressure scans using a Fourier transform smoothing and fitting technique; this technique is presented in detail. The temperatures and the spread in the temperatures are consistent from day to day. On the clear nights of March 10 to 13, the temperatures were 800, 750, 750 and 800 K, respectively, with a spread of + or - 100 K. These temperatures are compared to the MSIS (84) model atmosphere for similar geomagnetic conditions and found to be in general agreement; they are also consistent with results obtained by other investigators

Space shuttle ram glow: Implication of NO2 recombination continuum

The ram glow data gathered to data from imaging experiments on space shuttle suggest the glow is a continuum (within 34 angstrom resolution); the continuum shape is such that the peak is near 7000 angstroms decreasing to the blue and red, and the average molecular travel leading to emission after leaving the surface is 20 cm (assuming isotropic scattering from the surface). Emission continuum is rare in molecular systems but the measured spectrum does resemble the laboratory spectrum of NO2 (B) recombination continuum. The thickness of the observed emission is consistent with the NO2 hypothesis given an exit velocity of approx. 2.5 km/sec (1.3 eV) which leaves approx. 3.7 eV of ramming OI energy available for unbonding the recombined NO2 from the surface. The NO2 is formed in a 3-body recombination of OI + NO + m = NO2 + m where OI originates from the atmosphere and NO is chemically formed on the surface from atmospheric NI and OI. The spacecraft surface then acts as the n for the reaction: Evidence exists from orbital mass spectrometer data that the NO and NO2 chemistry described in this process does occur on surfaces of spectrometer orifices in orbit. Surface temperature effects are likely a factor in the NO sticking efficiency and, therefore, glow intensities

NASA-FAA helicopter Microwave Landing System curved path flight test

An ongoing series of joint NASA/FAA helicopter Microwave Landing System (MLS) flight tests was conducted at Ames Research Center. This paper deals with tests done from the spring through the fall of 1983. This flight test investigated and developed solutions to the problem of manually flying curved-path and steep glide slope approaches into the terminal area using the MLS and flight director guidance. An MLS-equipped Bell UH-1H helicopter flown by NASA test pilots was used to develop approaches and procedures for flying these approaches. The approaches took the form of Straight-in, U-turn, and S-turn flightpaths with glide slopes of 6 deg, 9 deg, and 12 deg. These procedures were evaluated by 18 pilots from various elements of the helicopter community, flying a total of 221 hooded instrument approaches. Flying these curved path and steep glide slopes was found to be operationally acceptable with flight director guidance using the MLS

Experiment to evaluate feasibility of utilizing Skylab-EREP remote sensing data for tectonic analysis of the Bighorn Mountains region, Wyoming-Montana

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Spacecraft ram glow and surface temperature

Space shuttle glow intensity measurements show large differences when the data from different missions are compared. In particular, on the 41-G mission the space shuttle ram glow was observed to display an unusually low intensity. Subsequent investigation of this measurement and earlier measurements suggest that there was a significant difference in temperature of the glow producing ram surfaces. The highly insulating properties coupled with the high emissivity of the shuttle tile results in surfaces that cool quickly when exposed to deep space on the night side of the orbit. The increased glow intensity is consistent with the hypothesis that the glow is emitted from excited NO2. The excited NO2 is likely formed through three body recombination (OI + NO + M = NO2*) where ramming of OI interacts with weakly surface bound NO. The NO is formed from atmospheric OI and NI which is scavenged by the spacecraft moving through the atmosphere. It is postulated that the colder surfaces retain a thicker layer of NO thereby increasing the probability of the reaction. It has been found from the glow intensity/temperature data that the bond energy of the surface bound precursor, leading to the chemical recombination producing the glow, is approximately 0.14 eV. A thermal analysis of material samples of STS-8 was made and the postulated temperature change of individual material samples prior to the time of glow measurements above respective samples are consistent with the thermal effect on glow found for the orbiter surface

FINANCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NORTH DAKOTA FARMS, 1993-1995

The performance of over 500 North Dakota farms, 1993-1995, is summarized using 16 financial measures. Farms are categorized by geographic region, farm type, farm size, gross cash sales, farm tenure, net farm income, debt-to-asset, and age of farmer to analyze relationships between financial performance and farm characteristics.Farm financial management, farm management, farm income, liquidity, solvency, profitability, repayment capacity, financial efficiency, financial benchmarks, tenure, North Dakota., Agricultural Finance,

GRB Flares: UV/Optical Flaring (Paper I)

We present a new algorithm for the detection of flares in gamma-ray burst (GRB) light curves and use this algorithm to detect flares in the UV/optical. The algorithm makes use of the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) to analyze the residuals of the fitted light curve, removing all major features, and to determine the statistically best fit to the data by iteratively adding additional `breaks' to the light curve. These additional breaks represent the individual components of the detected flares: T_start, T_stop, and T_peak. We present the detection of 119 unique flaring periods detected by applying this algorithm to light curves taken from the Second Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) GRB Afterglow Catalog. We analyzed 201 UVOT GRB light curves and found episodes of flaring in 68 of the light curves. For those light curves with flares, we find an average number of ~2 flares per GRB. Flaring is generally restricted to the first 1000 seconds of the afterglow, but can be observed and detected beyond 10^5 seconds. More than 80% of the flares detected are short in duration with Delta t/t of < 0.5. Flares were observed with flux ratios relative to the underlying light curve of between 0.04 to 55.42. Many of the strongest flares were also seen at greater than 1000 seconds after the burst.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 20 pages (including 8 figures and 1 table

Laboratory investigation of visible shuttle glow mechanisms

Laboratory experiments designed to uncover mechanistic information about the spectral and spatial characteristics of shuttle glow were conducted. The luminescence was created when a pulse of O atoms traveling at orbital velocities was directed toward NO molecules previously adsorbed to aluminum, nickel, and Z306 Chemglaz (a common baffle black) coated surfaces held at various temperatures. Spectral and spatial measurements were made using a CCD imaging spectrometer. Corroborative spectral information was recorded in separate measurements using a scanning monochromator and gated photomultiplier arrangement. The e-folding distance at several temperatures was calculated from images of the surface glow using the photometrics image processing capability of the imaging spectrometer. The e-folding distance was not altered as a function of incoming O beam velocity. The results are presented and the observations provide direct evidence that the visible shuttle glow results from recombination of oxygen atoms and surface bound NO