Environmental effects on the UV upturn in local clusters of galaxies

ABSTRACT We explore the dependence of ultraviolet (UV) upturn colours in early-type cluster galaxies on the properties of their parent clusters (such as velocity dispersion and X-ray luminosity) and on the positions and kinematics of galaxies within them. We use a sample of 24 nearby clusters with highly complete spectroscopy and optical/infrared data to select a suitable sample of red-sequence galaxies, whose far-ultraviolet and NUV magnitudes we measure from archival GALEX data. Our results show that the UV upturn colour has no dependence on cluster properties and has the same range in all clusters. There is also no dependence on the projected position within clusters or on line-of-sight velocity. Therefore, our conclusion is that the UV upturn phenomenon is an intrinsic feature of cluster early-type galaxies, irrespective of their cluster environment.

Identifying translational science through embeddings of controlled vocabularies

Objective Translational science aims at “translating” basic scientific discoveries into clinical applications. The identification of translational science has practicality such as evaluating the effectiveness of investments made into large programs like the Clinical and Translational Science Awards. Despite several proposed methods that group publications—the primary unit of research output—into some categories, we still lack a quantitative way to place articles onto the full, continuous spectrum from basic research to clinical medicine. Materials and Methods I learn vector representations of controlled vocabularies assigned to Medline articles to obtain a translational axis that points from basic science to clinical medicine. The projected position of a term on the translational axis, expressed by a continuous quantity, indicates the term’s “appliedness.” The position of an article, determined by the average location over its terms, quantifies the degree of its appliedness, which I term the level score. Results I validate the present method by comparing with previous techniques, showing excellent agreement yet uncovering significant variations of scores of articles in previously defined categories. The measure allows us to characterize the standing of journals, disciplines, and the entire biomedical literature along the basic-applied spectrum. Analysis on large-scale citation network reveals 2 main findings. First, direct citations mainly occurred between articles with similar scores. Second, shortest paths are more likely ended up with an article closer to the basic end of the spectrum, regardless of where the starting article is on the spectrum. Conclusions The proposed method provides a quantitative way to identify translational science.

Mirach’s Goblin: Discovery of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy behind the Andromeda galaxy

Context. It is of broad interest for galaxy formation theory to carry out a full inventory of the numbers and properties of dwarf galaxies, both satellite and isolated, in the Local Volume. Aims. Ultra-deep imaging in wide areas of the sky with small amateur telescopes can help to complete the census of these hitherto unknown low-surface-brightness galaxies, which cannot be detected by the current resolved stellar population and HI surveys. We report the discovery of Donatiello I, a dwarf spheroidal galaxy located one degree from the star Mirach (β And) in a deep image taken with an amateur telescope. Methods. The color-magnitude diagram (CMD) obtained from follow-up observations obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (La Palma, Spain) reveals that this system is beyond the local group and is mainly composed of old stars. The absence of young stars and HI emission in the ALFALFA survey is typical of quenched dwarf galaxies. Our photometry suggests a distance modulus for this galaxy of (m − M) = 27.6 ± 0.2 (3.3 Mpc), although this distance cannot yet be established securely owing to the crowding effects in our CMD. At this distance, the absolute magnitude (MV = −8.3), surface brightness (μV = 26.5 mag arcsec−2), and stellar content of Donatiello I are similar to the “classical” Milky Way companions Draco or Ursa Minor. Results. The projected position and distance of Donatiello I are consistent with this object being a dwarf satellite of the closest S0-type galaxy NGC 404 (“Mirach’s Ghost”). Alternatively, it could be one of the most isolated quenched dwarf galaxies reported so far behind the Andromeda galaxy.

A Spatial, Temporal Complexity Metric for Tactical Air Traffic Control

Tactical monitoring and controlling of air traffic is becoming increasingly difficult to manage for Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) owing to an increasingly complex traffic flow. A dynamic tactical complexity model, herein known as Conflict Activity Level (CAL), has been developed and is presented in this paper. This can be achieved either by establishing an overall score for an entire region or sub-regions of interest as specified by user's input location and time. This is done by evaluating the likely aircraft flight shape profile based on its current and projected position and trajectory. From the flight shape profile, CAL values are computed based on instantaneous existing traffic numbers in the overall region or sub-regions of interest. The proposed complexity approach shows good agreement with other methods in terms of ranking the order of complexity of various air traffic scenarios and the key influencing factors contributing to conflict.

REFINEMENT OF COLORED MOBILE MAPPING DATA USING INTENSITY IMAGES

Mobile mapping systems (MMS) can capture dense point-clouds of urban scenes. For visualizing realistic scenes using point-clouds, RGB colors have to be added to point-clouds. To generate colored point-clouds in a post-process, each point is projected onto camera images and a RGB color is copied to the point at the projected position. However, incorrect colors are often added to point-clouds because of the misalignment of laser scanners, the calibration errors of cameras and laser scanners, or the failure of GPS acquisition. In this paper, we propose a new method to correct RGB colors of point-clouds captured by a MMS. In our method, RGB colors of a point-cloud are corrected by comparing intensity images and RGB images. However, since a MMS outputs sparse and anisotropic point-clouds, regular images cannot be obtained from intensities of points. Therefore, we convert a point-cloud into a mesh model and project triangle faces onto image space, on which regular lattices are defined. Then we extract edge features from intensity images and RGB images, and detect their correspondences. In our experiments, our method worked very well for correcting RGB colors of point-clouds captured by a MMS.

REFINEMENT OF COLORED MOBILE MAPPING DATA USING INTENSITY IMAGES

Mobile mapping systems (MMS) can capture dense point-clouds of urban scenes. For visualizing realistic scenes using point-clouds, RGB colors have to be added to point-clouds. To generate colored point-clouds in a post-process, each point is projected onto camera images and a RGB color is copied to the point at the projected position. However, incorrect colors are often added to point-clouds because of the misalignment of laser scanners, the calibration errors of cameras and laser scanners, or the failure of GPS acquisition. In this paper, we propose a new method to correct RGB colors of point-clouds captured by a MMS. In our method, RGB colors of a point-cloud are corrected by comparing intensity images and RGB images. However, since a MMS outputs sparse and anisotropic point-clouds, regular images cannot be obtained from intensities of points. Therefore, we convert a point-cloud into a mesh model and project triangle faces onto image space, on which regular lattices are defined. Then we extract edge features from intensity images and RGB images, and detect their correspondences. In our experiments, our method worked very well for correcting RGB colors of point-clouds captured by a MMS.

Early Localization of the Third Segment of the Vertebral Artery: The Atlanto-Mastoid Line

Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. BACKGROUND The third segment of the vertebral artery (V3) is vulnerable to injury during surgical approaches to the posterolateral craniovertebral junction. Despite numerous efforts, a roadmap to localize this segment of the artery is still lacking. OBJECTIVE To delineate the topographic anatomy of the V3 and to facilitate a safe and fast exposure during transcranial surgical approaches to the posterior craniovertebral junction. METHODS The distances between the most posteriorly prominent point (bulge) of the vertebral artery and the surrounding bony and muscular landmarks were measured in 10 cadaveric heads bilaterally (20 sides). The relative position of the vertebral artery bulge projected on the atlanto-mastoid line was calculated using trigonometric equations. Two clinical vignettes were reported to provide examples of clinical application of the described technique. RESULTS The vertebral artery bulge was found within 10.8 mm of the atlanto-mastoid line. The projected position of the vertebral artery bulge on the atlanto-mastoid line lay within 40th and 50th percentiles of its length measured from the mastoid process in 16 (89%) specimens. The close relationship between the V3 segment and superior oblique capitis muscle makes this muscle another useful guide for localization of the V3 segment. CONCLUSION The atlanto-mastoid line is a reliable guide for fast and safe exposure of the vertebral artery in the suboccipital triangle. Using this clue together with the belly of the superior oblique capitis muscle can lead the surgeon to the V3 segment safely, as illustrated in the clinical vignettes.

Projection Position-Based Sequential Pattern Mining Algorithm

PrefixSpan algorithm will construct huge amount of projected databases in the process of mining sequence patterns, especially mining dense dataset and long sequence pattern, which will cause decline of the performance of the algorithm. The resource problem can be solved by Projection position-based Sequential Pattern Mining Algorithm so as to reduce time and storage space. In order to avoid producing huge amount of projected databases and reduce unnecessary storage space and scanning time, compared with the others improved algorithm, the PSPM utilizes projected position to locate projected sequence position for mining local frequency items and deletes the non-frequent items. Experiment results demonstrate that PSPM outperforms the PrefixSpan(with pseudo-pro) algorithm in the aspect of Runtime performance.

Intelligence from Space

The spatial element, which is omnipresent in data and information relevant to organizations, is much underused in the decision-making processes within organizations. This applies also to decision-making within the domain of Competitive Intelligence. The chapter explores how the CI function may benefit from developing a spatial perspective on its domain and how building, exploring and using this perspective may be supported by a specific class of information systems designed to handle the spatial element in data: Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The chapter argues that the key element for linking GIS to CI involves the identification of situations in which spatial analysis may support organizational decision-making within the CI domain. It presents a three-step procedure for identifying how CI may recognize spatial decision problems that are useful to boost the operation of the CI function. The first step concerns identifying relevant spatial variables, for instance by analyzing economic, demographic or political trends as to their spatial implications. The second step involves using GIS for positioning the organization with respect to the identified variables (present and projected position). The third step amounts to drawing strategic conclusions from Step 2 by assessing how the competition in relationship with the own organization would be positioned along the identified spatial analysis lines.