James Kass

James Kass
James R Kass Space Consulting

PhD, MS, BSc

About

84
Publications
4,806
Reads
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530
Citations
Additional affiliations
November 2000 - November 2013
University College London
Position
  • Lecturer
Description
  • Annual workshop on space psychology, being part of a course in space and extreme environment medicine
September 1999 - December 1999
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
Position
  • Research Associate
January 1999 - December 2003
Concordia University Montreal
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • Lectured in the domain of psychology and group dynamics in orbital spaceflight and associated multidisciplinary and multicultural ground operations and scientific collaboration
Education
November 1972 - March 1978
University of Leeds
Field of study
  • Physics
September 1969 - November 1972
University of Michigan
Field of study
  • Physics
September 1962 - April 1968
Concordia University Montreal
Field of study
  • Physics

Publications

Publications (84)
Presentation
Full-text available
Farming is one of the key domains whose carbon footprint may be significantly reduced by introducing appropriate measures, a prescient subject in this day and age. Many countries and organizations in the world are now trying to reduce their carbon footprint to mitigate the effects of global climate change and improve public health. All face the cha...
Book
In 2013, Mars One announced their intentions to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars beginning as early as 2024; they launched their astronaut selection program and received thousands of applications. In 2015, a documentary reality series will give the world a window into the captivating details of the crew selection and training process....
Chapter
Full-text available
There are many desired impacts on viewers of filming the crew selection and training process: The obvious ones are raising the interest in the Mars One project, and thus potentially increasing the support for the project, whether financial or in kind. But there are lesser obvious desired impacts, which are the subject of this chapter. My assumption...
Article
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This article discusses the value that logs can serve teams in the corporate environment, describing specifically what insights the teams and OD professionals can gain through the analysis of logs. We then show a few templates for logs that we have used successfully with teams. Following that, we discuss how to analyze logs and provide feedback to t...
Conference Paper
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Within the past decade several initiatives were started at the European Space Agency (ESA) at directorate, project or division level with the aim of developing dedicated Knowledge Management (KM) applications for individual communities. ESA has more recently stepped into a new phase with the objective of drawing an overall ESA-wide knowledge manage...
Conference Paper
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In many domains the benefits of utilising space infrastructure have not yet been much tapped for adding value to existing services, or for creating new and innovative ones. The necessary infrastructure already exists to a great extent, as do most of the necessary technologies; but crossing the threshold into operational implementation is the most d...
Article
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In both the Russian and U.S. space programs, crew safety and mission success have at times been jeopardized by critical incidents related to psychological, behavioral, and interpersonal aspects of crew performance. The modes used for handling interpersonal conflict may play a key role in such situations. This study analyzed conflict-handling modes...
Conference Paper
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We are currently witnessing an unprecedented increase in the number of satellites launched into orbit whose key goals are facilitating potential commercial services to billions of new and existing users. But even today space infrastructure is very much underused; nevertheless, when they are indeed used, the increased potential achieved by combining...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Space is playing an increasing role to support health on Earth, in the field of Environmental health: space helps in the monitoring of air, water and UV-radiation for example Public health: although not widely known, space supports public health using the broad selection of assets at its disposal for disease surveillance, disaster relief and emerge...
Conference Paper
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Transport of goods is a major issue for all the economies of the world. An efficient transfer of goods from producers to resellers, no matter the social or political environment, is mandatory for their business to work smoothly and efficiently according to plan. In the particular case of terrestrial transport, space technology plays such an importa...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Space is playing an increasing role to support health on Earth, in the fields of Environmental health, Public health, Wellness, and Medicine. Up to now a ‘vertical’ approach (i.e. by space domain) has been used to work with users. However, the daily health-related projects and challenges encountered by the health providers can usually only be solve...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
ESA DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIELD OF TELE-EPIDEMIOLOGY AND THE NEW OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD Pierluigi Mancini and James Kass (European Space Agency) Key to success in handling health-related crises, such as outbreak of an epidemic, or spread of infectious disease, is early detection and early response. Whether caused by terrorism, natural or man-made disa...
Article
Full-text available
Associating the words space and travel immediately brings to mind “space travel” – a subject more fitting with Jules Verne or Star Trek, but certainly not with Travelmedicus, terrestrial travellers, or tourists! Notwithstanding, travellers may be surprised to learn that indeed space, travel, and health have a lot to do with each other, and as time...
Article
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Comments submitted to the "Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Consultation on the Working Document on the processing of personal data relating to health in electronic health records"
Article
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In 2002, the European Space Agency (ESA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), under the auspices of the European Commission (EC), initiated a unique partnership in eHealth, specifically to build a vision for the provision of telemedicine to European citizens by 2010. This partnership was called t...
Article
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In order to ensure that Europe’s citizens can benefit from their right to live, work and visit other European countries knowing that their health needs will be met safely and affordably, the eHealth elements of Member States’ national health systems must be interoperable. Currently, much remains to be done to achieve this interoperability.
Chapter
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There is a common misconception that utilizing ICT for e-health purposes in developing countries is a wasteful expenditure of scarce resources. Unfortunately, this is not always very far from the truth : not only do expensive hi-tech projects sometimes act as attractive showcases for politicians, sometimes they also provide avenues for the flow of...
Article
Full-text available
GRID technology, with initiatives like the GGF, will have the potential to allow both competition and interoperability not only among applications and toolkits, but also among implementations of key services. The pyramid of eHealth interoperability should be achieved from standards in communication and data security, storage and processing, to the...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: GRID technology, with initiatives like the GGF, will have the potential to allow both competition and interoperability not only among applications and toolkits, but also among implementations of key services. The pyramid of eHealth interoperability should be achieved from standards in communication and data security, storage and process...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The authors studied the behavior of groups under isolation, and tested various methods of intervention and observation. Focus was on areas essential to diagnosing group problems and central to developing team effectiveness, such as: Morale, Norms, Decision-Making, Handling Conflict and Leadership Struggles.
Article
Full-text available
The health of the citizen has always been, and will continue to be, a critical issue for all governments within and beyond the European Union (EU). The conversion from traditional health strategies to eHealth is a giant, but inevitable, step for which the EU Health Ministers have recently (in May 2003) given their unequivocal backing via the implem...
Conference Paper
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During 1999-2000 a long-duration isolation experiment, SFINCSS, was carried out in Moscow at IBMP. Three groups were isolated over a span of 240 days: one group, over the whole period, and the second and third groups for 110 days each , one entering upon exit of the other. Thus, there were two simultaneously functioning groups at any given time, si...
Chapter
Full-text available
The importance of the psychological aspects of a team living and working together in isolation from the earth has been recognised. Much work has been done by national and international space agencies in the area of selection. Work regarding team composition and support for long-duration flight has remained mainly the domain of the Russians. While w...
Conference Paper
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The authors have used as a guide to producing their taxonomy a standard needs assessment approach. This is still very much a work-in-progress, but thus far, a continuum has emerged: 1) situations and practices devastating to the success of a joint project in any degree (ex., lip service to partnership, but no actual cooperation forthcoming); 2) sit...
Conference Paper
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The authors proposed performing a specially adapted training model in order to provide the crew with tools not only to deal with problems as they come up, but to take prophylactic measures to preclude situations from becoming critical in the first place. In summary, this planned project involved simultaneous training and gathering data. This means...
Article
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In preparation for the international manned space station various international and national space agencies are already participating with the Russian MIR programme with short, medium, and long term presence on the MIR station. Although selection criteria for all crew include careful psychological screening, with some effort also regarding team bui...
Conference Paper
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An advanced medical experiment support system designed for cardiovascular research in space, MEDEX, was first spaceborne during the German-Russian mission MIR '97. The successful application of this facility in space was the first step towards designing a more encompassing system for the upcoming International Space Station - ISS. The next step, p...
Conference Paper
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For the upcoming International Space Station (ISS) the ESA is planning four multi-user research facilities for outfitting the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF), one of which is the European Physiological Modules (EPMs) Facility. A new module for this facility, which is an entirely new development, is the „MEEMI“, which is a Multi-Electrode EEG Mappin...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A prolonged space flight is associated with a missing natural training of the antigravity muscle system of the human body thus inducing changes both of muscle structure and function. There is still incomplete knowledge about the exact nature and the underlying mechanisms of this effect. Experiments investigating the muscular performance as a functi...
Conference Paper
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With concrete plans for long duration flight taking form, a new impetus is lent to addressing the genesis of community far from mother Earth. Since the 21st century will probably be the century of Life Sciences, the future co-existence of man on another planet beyond the shuttle and the MlR station needs to be addressed. With the completion of the...
Chapter
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As future manned space missions lengthen in duration and as crew become more international and multi-cultural in nature, teamwork and crew relations take on an increasing significance in insuring mission success. This paper describes the goals and preliminary results of a psychological experiment/training program in group relations that used the CA...
Conference Paper
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MEDEX is an advanced medical experiment support system designed for space applications, whose first spaceborne application was implemented during the German-Russian mission MIR'97. This paper describes the system and it's operation philosophy; it also presents how the system can be expanded with additional modules as required. Plans for a new syste...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
An advanced medical experiment support system designed for space applications, MEDEX, was put into orbit on the MlR station and successfully operated during the German-Russian mission MIR'97. Based on the know-how and experience thus gained, various earth-bound applications are being developed. The basic philosophy of these systems involve linking...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to evaluate separately the effects of muscle atrophy and of motor co-ordination deterioration on the decrease of maximal all out power of the lower limbs due to micro-g. We therefore determined simultaneously the mechanical power and the electromyographic activity of agonist and antagonist muscle groups during MEP and MPC...
Article
The EXEMSI project has demonstrated that it is indeed possible to perform a major and useful project in a short time and on a moderate budget. In addition to achieving the scientific objectives, this simulation project provided valuable experience in the training of members of chamber crew and ground control crew for their tasks. It covered all asp...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Among the adverse phenomena of a prolonged stay in microgravity there are neuromuscular and morphological detraining effects in the human skeletal muscle system due to a heavily reduced requisition. Training programs have been developed to avoid muscle decay. Methods for continuous objective control of the effect of such measures Suitable for routi...
Conference Paper
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In conjunction with the upcoming MlR'96 Russo-German manned space mission, a parabolic flight campaign was planned in order to verify some of the experiments to be carried out. The principal driver for the campaign is the Medex facility, which will be used for various human life science experiments during the MlR'96 mission. This parabolic flight c...
Chapter
Full-text available
Chapter 21 Operational Evaluation of the Exemsi Project: In general the EXEMSI project has proved to be very successful mission. It has demonstrated that it is indeed possible to perform a major and useful project in a short time and on a moderate budget. In addition to achieving the scientific objectives, this simulation project provided valuable...
Article
Full-text available
On February 7, 1994, four Canadian Astronauts were sealed off in a hyperbaric chamber at the Canadian Government's Defense and Civil Institute for Environmental Medicine in Toronto, Canada. This space lab training mission lasted seven days and was the first to be conducted with astronauts outside of Russia. The objective of this mission was to give...
Article
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With concrete plans for long duration flight taking form a new impetus is lent to preparing man for this hostile and unnatural environment. Cramped conditions, isolation from family and loved ones, work stress, fear, and incompatibility with fellow crew, are but a few of the problems suffered by astronauts and cosmonauts during their long missions...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Working and living in orbital space brings a lot of trying and difficult circumstances together: Cramped conditions with little room for privacy, primitive comforts, isolation from the earth with no quick and easy way to return. In February, 1994, a simulation of a Spacelab like mission took place in Toronto, Canada. This ground based simulation in...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Technological development at present points more and more in the direction of advanced man-machine interfaces, multi-media, and some form of artificial intelligence becoming a part of every-day life in the future. In manned spaceflight, as with other more conventional operational environments, the marriage of these various advanced interactive medi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
With the prospect of extended manned space-flight looming in the near future, and the ever increasing costs of such endeavours, the possibilities offered by running simulated missions on the ground should be seriously considered for investigating scientific and operational aspects prior to the actual implementation of a space mission. A ground base...
Technical Report
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In preparation for the expected long-tenn mission utilisation of the Columbus Attached Pressurised Module (APM) research is being carried out by ESA on long-tenn operations. The extended isolation simulation, EXEMSI '92, at the DLR in Cologne, is part of this research. EXEMSI '92 was a simulation of isolation during operations on a long-duration sp...
Conference Paper
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This paper reports the preliminary results of the work carried out within a project of development open intelligent training system for astronaut training. The project objective is to cope with both subsystem and procedural training of astronauts who have to operate a scientific payload. The technical base for the project inherited from a previous...
Article
Full-text available
With the ever increasing complexity and use of advanced technologies in the development of equipment and experiments in spaceflight, the possibility offers itself to automating repetitious or very sensitive operations. The implementation of such automation lends itself well to teleoperations and the eventual introduction of artificial intelligence....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Aircraft training for laboratory specialists - necessary, or 'nice to have'? J. R. Kass, E. Gibson and E. Schafhauser OHB-System, Space & Environmental Technology, Operations / Human Factors Universitätsallee 27, 2800 Bremen 33, Germany. (Tel. (49) 421-22 09 80, Fax: -22 09810, Telex 245 316 ohb). ABSTRACT The selection and training of astronau...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
AUTOMATION & TELEOPERATION IN MANNED SPACEFLIGHT E. Schafhauser, J. R. Kass and E. Gibson OHB-System, Space & Environmental Technology, Operations / Human Factors Universitätsallee 27, 2800 Bremen 33, Germany. (Tel. (49) 421-22 09 80, Fax: -22 09810). ABSTRACT The desire to control the operation of scientific work by the scientist on the ground...
Article
Full-text available
Five unmedicated subjects were flown in parabolic flight. The aircraft, a Caravelle, performed single parabolae every 2 to four minutes. This resulted in alternating phases of normal, hyper-, hypo- and again hyper-gravity. Subjects sat yoga fashion upright facing towards the aircraft cockpit. Head and/or trunk were deflected 30 degrees from the upr...
Article
Full-text available
Five healthy subjects were subjected to parabolic flight with laterally tilted head, trunk, or body position. A vertical luminous line was viewed by the subjects in a head-fixed goggle device. During normal, hyper- and hypogravity phases subjective luminous line orientation was measured. The data imply that stimulation of the neck position receptor...
Article
Full-text available
For the first time in the history of parabolic flight in Europe, a series of parabolic flights in a large aircraft took place over the North Sea in May, 1990. A group of more than 20 scientists and researchers from seven institutions participated in this parabolic flight campaign, carrying out a series of scientific and technical experiments during...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Plans are underway by the European Space Agency (ESA) for putting into orbit a couple of laboratories for scientific research. Working and living in micro-gravity opens up a number of problems not encountered under normal gravity conditions on the earth. A brief overview of these plans, highlighting some of the difficulties encountered, such as mob...
Conference Paper
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The European complement to Space Station Freedom (SSF) is on the drawing board, and the cr.w ar. being s.l.ct.d. How they will spend their time on board has not yet been defined, but has been the subject of an ESA study ·Study of Columbus Crew on-Board Tasks-. A human approach to this question, based on the results of this study, is out lined below...
Preprint
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In order to prepare for the European participation in the Space Station Freedom (SSF) a study has been carried out with ESA on the subject of crew on-board tasks aboard Columbus. In order that mistakes made in the past not be repeated, the study commenced with analyses of relevant past manned missions of the Russian, US, and European programmes. Th...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Manned operations in an orbiting laboratory for extended periods of time has many characteristics in common with work in the deep sea, and is accompanied by a number of similar problems. In this paper the scenario of manned payload operations in space will be addressed : some aspects with their parallel in deep-sea work become evident. The analysis...
Article
Full-text available
Conscious space orientation depends on afferent information from different sense organs including the labyrinth, the eyes, tactile cues from the skin, joint receptors, muscle spindles, tendon organs and possibly viscera. An important role is played by impulses from the cervical position receptors in interaction with concomitant information from the...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A pilot study to measure the effect of neck-receptor stimulation on orientation and eye movement in O-g has been carried out. Stimulation involved cervical, vestibular, and combination of both sets of receptors in a roll axis. Eye rotation was measured, as well as orientation perception. Results show cervico-ocular compensatory eye torsion in O-g a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Orientation in man in everyday life is dependent on visual, vestibular, and neck-receptor cues, amongst various other inputs (von Baumgarten, 1987). All movements of the body, trunk, and head involve mixing of these sensory inputs and central processing of the signals. There could also be modulation or amplification of the signals effected by a fee...
Article
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A series of vestibular experiments were performed in conjunction with the first Spacelab mission, consisting of sets of pre-, in- and postflight tests. A multipurpose experimental apparatus used for the diverse flight and ground tests is presented. Additional apparatus together with the multi-purpose package were used in the baseline data collectio...
Article
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Thresholds for the detection of linear oscillatory motion at 0.3 Hz in the X, Y and Z body axes were determined during the flight of Spacelab-1 and on the ground pre- and post-flight, using the method of limits with a single staircase procedure. Pre-flight, Z axis thresholds (mean 0.077 ms-2) were significantly higher than X and Y thresholds (mean...
Conference Paper
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The influence of neck receptors on orientation was investigated by keeping the head still and moving the body with respect to the head, both in 1-g and in space. The apparent vertical was measured as well as torsion (rotation) of the eye.
Conference Paper
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During the flight of the Space lab D 1 Mission a series of interconnected experiments on the vestibular system (system of equilibrium) was conducted by a consortium of European scientists (see title). The experiments were planned on the basis, and in continuation of the vestibular experiments in the Spacelab-1 Mission (von Baumgarten et aI, 1984)....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In order to test the otolithic function static ocular counter-rolling (OCR) measurements were taken on four scientific crew members, before the Dl flight and on three crew members after the flight. The counter-rolling was determined by use of a motor-driven tilt table as a stimulator and by a special goggle device that employed a retinal after-imag...
Article
Full-text available
Three scientist astronauts on the D1 spacelab mission participated in a series of orientation experiments before and after exposure to orbital weightlessness. Each subject was tilted about a roll axis at 15 deg intervals up to +/- 90 deg. At each angle the subject set a luminous line to what he perceived to be the vertical. The results of these tes...
Article
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The static ocular counterrolling (OCR) of the four scientific crew members in the first Spacelab mission was measured during baseline-data-collection before and after the flight of SL-1. It was presumed that the modification of otolithic responses during spaceflight will be reflected in specific changes of the OCR-gain on the first days after recov...
Article
Full-text available
During the flight of Spacelab 1 the crew performed a number of experiments to explore changes in vestibular function and visual-vestibular interactions on exposure to microgravity. Measurements were made on the threshold for detection of linear oscillation, vestibulo-ocular reflexes elicited by angular and linear movements, oculomotor and posture r...
Article
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A series of experiments were performed in the Spacelab-1 mission on November/December, 1983, pre-, in-, and postflight. These experiments covered various aspects of the functions of the vestibular system, the inflight tests comprising threshold measurements for linear movements in three orthogonal axes, optokinetic stimulation, vestibulo-ocular ref...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A series of experiments were performed during the flight of Spacelab 1 to explore changes in vestibular function and visual-vestibular interactions associated with adaptation to microgravity. Tests were also conducted on the ground during the four months before flight and over the six days post-flight. Measurements were made of the threshold for de...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The European vestibular experiments on Space lab 1 were designed to explore vestibular adaptation to the space environment and re-adaptation to the ground by conducting a series of vestibular tests which were repeated several times at different stages before, during, and after the mission. The tests included the threshold for linear oscillation, ey...
Article
Full-text available
The weak neutral current results in a parity-violating one-pion-exchange potential in nuclei. A search for this force has been carried out with the 1081 keV γ-radiation of 18F, which is expected to be circularly polarized. Excited 18F nuclei were produced with the 16O(3He, p)18F reaction and the γ-ray polarization was measured with a multiple trans...
Article
Full-text available
Previous experience in manned spaceflight showed that space sickness can be provoked or increased by dynamic stimuli such as head movements or locomotion: However, in susceptible persons space-sickness also occurred in the weightless state without such provocative stimuli. Experiments with unilaterally destated goldfish showed that these fish altho...
Article
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Motion sickness can occur when an accelerating force acting on the human body repeatedly changes amplitude and direction or both. It also can occur without any motion after transfer into a constant force field significantly different from Earth-gravity. Dynamic and static causes of motion sickness can be distinguished accordingly. Space sickness, t...
Conference Paper
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Twenty young voluntary subjects were tested for motion perception and illusory sensations on a linear human accelerator (Sled). Continuous Constant-g-Oscillation with acceleration values of 0.03 g and 0.05 g were used as stimuli. In order to preclude a preconception, the subjects were blindfolded before and during the experiments. Vibration- and ac...
Article
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The central regions of cosmic-ray air showers near sea level have been studied with the Leeds cloud chamber for the possible occurrence of low-ionizing tracks. The average energy of the primary particles was a few times 106 GeV. Our current results give an upper limit to the ``flux'' of 1/3e quarks of 1.2 × 10-11 cm-2 sec-1 sr-1 at a 90% confidence...
Article
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No evidence for precursors to cosmic ray air showers was found ("flux"<10-8cm-2 sr-1s-1) in a sample 2.8 times that of Clay and Crouch and a system noise level several times lower. A simple model leads to a cross section for production <60 times the total proton-nucleus cross section. [Peer Reviewed] http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/...
Conference Paper
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The Leeds 3m2 cloud chamber is being used in a search for low-ionizing tracks occurring in cosmic-ray air showers generated by primary particles of average energy a few times 10E15 eV. Observations are now being continued under 250g.m2 of lead and concrete absorber in an attempt to make an efficient search near to the shower axis.
Conference Paper
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A. search has been made for precursors to extensive air showers ('tachyons') under conditions similar to those of Clay and Crouch (1974a), namely, triggering on air showers of energy about 10E15 eV and looking for a time-bunching of pulses from a 1.5 m2, 3.8 cm thick, plastic scintillator in the 100 microsecs preceding the shower.
Article
Photographs taken with the Leeds 3 m2 cloud chamber show that many shower cores, produced by primaries of average energy a few times 10 15 eV, have a pronounced structure close to the axis. A few events with well-separated double cores within the cloud chamber have been observed; explanation in terms of local hadronic interactions is unlikely. Data...
Article
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Baruch et al. (1973) have suggested the existence of particles ('mandelas') of mass ~ 40 GeV/c2 as an interpretation of the 'step' in their hadron spectrum and have noted that a large proportion of the events in the region of this step give rise to double, rather than single, bursts under an absorber. A composite absorber ( 250 g cm-2 ) equivalent...

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