ALBERT

Notes: Abstract We report on the development and current capabilities of the ALOMAR Rayleigh/Mie/Raman lidar. This instrument is one of the core instruments of the international ALOMAR facility, located near Andenes in Norway at 69°N and 16°E. The major task of the instrument is to perform advanced studies of the Arctic middle atmosphere over altitudes between about 15 to 90 km on a climatological basis. These studies address questions about the thermal structure of the Arctic middle atmosphere, the dynamical processes acting therein, and of aerosols in the form of stratospheric background aerosol, polar stratospheric clouds, noctilucent clouds, and injected aerosols of volcanic or anthropogenic origin. Furthermore, the lidar is meant to work together with other remote sensing instruments, both ground- and satellite-based, and with balloon- and rocket-borne instruments performing in situ observations. The instrument is basically a twin lidar, using two independent power lasers and two tiltable receiving telescopes. The power lasers are Nd:YAG lasers emitting at wavelengths 1064, 532, and 355 nm and producing 30 pulses per second each. The power lasers are highly stabilized in both their wavelengths and the directions of their laser beams. The laser beams are emitted into the atmosphere fully coaxial with the line-of-sight of the receiving telescopes. The latter use primary mirrors of 1.8 m diameter and are tiltable within 30° off zenith. Their fields-of-view have 180 μrad angular diameter. Spectral separation, filtering, and detection of the received photons are made on an optical bench which carries, among a multitude of other optical components, three double Fabry-Perot interferometers (two for 532 and one for 355 nm) and one single Fabry-Perot interferometer (for 1064 nm). A number of separate detector channels also allow registration of photons which are produced by rotational-vibrational and rotational Raman scatter on N2 and N2+O2 molecules, respectively. Currently, up to 36 detector channels simultaneously record the photons collected by the telescopes. The internal and external instrument operations are automated so that this very complex instrument can be operated by a single engineer. Currently the lidar is heavily used for measurements of temperature profiles, of cloud particle properties such as their altitude, particle densities and size distributions, and of stratospheric winds. Due to its very effective spectral and spatial filtering, the lidar has unique capabilities to work in full sunlight. Under these conditions it can measure temperatures up to 65 km altitude and determine particle size distributions of overhead noctilucent clouds. Due to its very high mechanical and optical stability, it can also employed efficiently under marginal weather conditions when data on the middle atmosphere can be collected only through small breaks in the tropospheric cloud layers.

Notes: Cytochrome c2 serves as the secondary electron donor that reduces the photo-oxidized bacteriochlorophyll dimer in photosynthetic bacteria. Cytochrome c2 from Rhodobacter sphaeroides has been crystallized in three different forms. At high ionic strength, crystals of a hexagonal space group (P6122) were obtained, while at low ionic strength, triclinic (P1) and tetragonal (P41212) crystals were formed. The three-dimensional structures of the cytochrome in all three crystal forms have been determined by X-ray diffraction at resolutions of 2.20 Å (hexagonal), 1.95 Å, (triclinic) and 1.53 Å (tetragonal). The most significant difference observed was the binding of an imidazole molecule to the iron atom of the heme group in the hexagonal structure. This binding displaces the sulfur atom of Met l00, which forms the axial ligand in the triclinic and tetragonal structures.

Notes: The effects of transfusing cores of grass silage with mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen containing 0%, 0·2%, 2%, 5% and 20% oxygen were investigated. Changes in populations of yeasts, lactobacilli and streptococci were measured and the relationship between populations after 7 days' transfusion and oxygen concentration were tested against the predictions of two models, based on Monod and logistic growth functions. Yeasts were related to oxygen by the Monod model, while lactobacilli and streptococci were related by the logistic model. The differences were ascribed to yeasts initiating deterioration by growing aerobically, while lactobacilli and streptococci grew fermentatively once the environment had changed following yeast growth. Dry-matter losses were related to oxygen by the Monod model. Changes in temperature were related to dry matter loss (through measurements of CO2 evolution) using a simple heat balance model.

Notes: Abstract— It is well known that the fatigue strength of a thick-walled cylinder is enhanced by autofrettage. However, this does not appear to have been explained from fracture mechanics. The present paper shows that two uncertainties arise when this is attempted. Firstly, the distribution of residual stress resulting from the autofrettage pressure must be estimated and secondly a realistic stress intensity factors for subsequent fatigue cracking must be defined. A number of available stress intensity solutions are modified with the author's predictions to the residual stress following an elastic-plastic autofrettage pressure in a closed cylinder of hardening material. A comparison with experiment has enabled the various approaches to be appraised. It is shown that a modified stress intensity factor of Bowie and Freese is most consistent with the propagation fatigue life observed in autofrettaged cylinders provided their solution is adapted to account for the propagation of a semi-elliptical crack front in the presence of residual stress. Other K1 estimates appear to lead to dangerously optimistic predictions particularly within the range of fluctuating pressure where failure occurs between 105 and 106 cycles. The contribution to fatigue failure from initiation cycles is expressed as a power function of the observed life for cyclic pressures in the region of the fatigue limit.

Notes: An initial electron density distribution for a crystal structure may be directly derived from observed diffraction data by maximizing the product of the observed and calculated Patterson functions with respect to the electron density values within an envelope. This maximization problem may be formulated as an eigenvalue equation, in which potential electron density distributions are obtained as eigendensities (eigenvectors) of a symmetric matrix. Elements of this matrix depend only on the indices and intensities of the observed reflections, and on the coordinates of grid points inside the envelope. Eigendensities are calculated for a set of small envelopes (enclosing about 20% of the molecular volume) covering a unique region of the unit cell whose points are unrelated by space-group operations, origin shifts or changes in enantiomorph. On the basis of correlation coefficients between the observed and calculated values for both the Patterson function and structure factor amplitudes, a small set of eigendensities are selected for combination into a final electron density distribution. This electron density distribution may be Fourier transformed to yield calculated structure factors. Test calculations on lysozyme indicate that phase errors of less than 60° may be obtained for strong low-resolution reflections by this procedure. An extension of this approach to handle crystal structures containing non-crystallographic symmetry is described.

Notes: Abstract Quantitative tectonic modelling demonstrates an interaction of flexure of the lithosphere underlying the western Betics with crustal thinning in the Alboran Basin and flank uplift in the Internal Zone. In the eastern Betics the flexural response is overprinted by post-thrusting extensional events. Lateral variations in thermal structure and rheology of the lithosphere along strike of the Betics shed light on changes in tectonic configuration and are consistent with evidence for lateral variations in the mode of extension in the Alboran Basin. Flexural modelling and subsidence analysis of Neogene basins in the Internal Zone of the Betics, with spatial development controlled by contrasts in lithosphere rheology, demonstrate that at least two extensional events have affected the orogenic evolution of the Betics. The first event appears to reflect Oligocene-Early Miocene rifting observed throughout the Western Mediterranean. The second phase, which caused the present configuration of the Betics, corresponds to Tortonian-Recent extension centered in the Alboran Basin.

Notes: Abstract A two-dimensional, nonlinear, time-dependent, elliptic, numerical method coupled with an appropriate coordinate transformation is used to investigate the stability of free convection induced by an isothermally heated semi-infinite surface embedded in a fluid-saturated porous medium. It is found that the basic boundary layer flow is stable even to large amplitude disturbance for nondimensional distances of up to 1024 from the leading edge of the heated surface.