Contribution of large scale geophysical survey to analysis of the evolution of the western boundary of the city of Allonnes (Sarthes, France): Integration of Google images, the Napoleonic cadastre and large magnetic surveys

How is it possible to comprehend the anthropogenic evolution of landscapes? A. Levy, in his book about urban morphology, states that “the concept of the layouts’ morphology covers how these layouts are distributed within the space of the whole city according to the various stages of urban growths and their expansion procedures”. Thus, the urban binomial (couple) networks/frames perfectly explains the construction process of the towns’ composition. Mapping of Allonnes’ urban composition demons..

The VPH Hypermodelling framework for cancer multiscale models in the clinical practice

The VPH Hypermodelling framework is a collaborative computational platform providing a complete Problem Solving Environment to execute, on distributed computational architectures, sophisticated predictive models involving patient medical data or specialized repositories. In the CHIC' project, it will be enhanced to support clinicians in providing prompt personalised cancer treatments. It supports several computational architectures with strict security policies

Batilly-en-Gâtinais (Loiret), a rural aristocratic settlement

The site of “Pierriers” at Batilly-en-Gatinais (France) was first located in aerial photographs (Dominique Chesnoy) taken at the beginning of 2000. Archaeological testing by René Chemin from INRAP was carried out in 2005 during the construction of the A19 motorway. Excavation followed between July 2006 and March 2007 under the direction of Sophie Liegard (INRAP, site I& 1-2). Concurrently, Terra NovA (now GEOCARTA sa.) undertook magnetic surveys to the north and south of the main enclosure wi..

JPCam: A 1.2Gpixel camera for the J-PAS survey

JPCam is a 14-CCD mosaic camera, using the new e2v 9k-by-9k 10microm-pixel 16-channel detectors, to be deployed on a dedicated 2.55m wide-field telescope at the OAJ (Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre) in Aragon, Spain. The camera is designed to perform a Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) survey of the northern sky. The J-PAS survey strategy will use 54 relatively narrow-band (~13.8nm) filters equi-spaced between 370 and 920nm plus 3 broad-band filters to achieve unprecedented photometric red-shift accuracies for faint galaxies over ~8000 square degrees of sky. The cryostat, detector mosaic and read electronics is being supplied by e2v under contract to J-PAS while the mechanical structure, housing the shutter and filter assembly, is being designed and constructed by a Brazilian consortium led by INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais). Four sets of 14 filters are placed in the ambient environment, just above the dewar window but directly in line with the detectors, leading to a mosaic having ~10mm gaps between each CCD. The massive 500mm aperture shutter is expected to be supplied by the Argelander-Institut fur Astronomie, Bonn. We will present an overview of JPCam, from the filter configuration through to the CCD mosaic camera. A brief outline of the main J-PAS science projects will be included.Comment: 11 pages and 9 figure

Antitumor Effect by Either FLASH or Conventional Dose Rate Irradiation Involves Equivalent Immune Responses.

The capability of ultrahigh dose rate FLASH radiation therapy to generate the FLASH effect has opened the possibility to enhance the therapeutic index of radiation therapy. The contribution of the immune response has frequently been hypothesized to account for a certain fraction of the antitumor efficacy and tumor kill of FLASH but has yet to be rigorously evaluated. To investigate the immune response as a potentially important mechanism of the antitumor effect of FLASH, various murine tumor models were grafted either subcutaneously or orthotopically into immunocompetent mice or in moderately and severely immunocompromised mice. Mice were locally irradiated with single dose (20 Gy) or hypofractionated regimens (3 × 8 or 2 × 6 Gy) using FLASH (≥2000 Gy/s) and conventional (CONV) dose rates (0.1 Gy/s), with/without anti-CTLA-4. Tumor growth was monitored over time and immune profiling performed. FLASH and CONV 20 Gy were isoeffective in delaying tumor growth in immunocompetent and moderately immunodeficient hosts and increased tumor doubling time to >14 days versus >7 days in control animals. Similar observations were obtained with a hypofractionated scheme, regardless of the microenvironment (subcutaneous flank vs ortho lungs). Interestingly, in profoundly immunocompromised mice, 20 Gy FLASH retained antitumor activity and significantly increased tumor doubling time to >14 days versus >8 days in control animals, suggesting a possible antitumor mechanism independent of the immune response. Analysis of the tumor microenvironment showed similar immune profiles after both irradiation modalities with significant decrease of lymphoid cells by ∼40% and a corresponding increase of myeloid cells. In addition, FLASH and CONV did not increase transforming growth factor-β1 levels in tumors compared with unirradiated control animals. Furthermore, when a complete and long-lasting antitumor response was obtained (>140 days), both modalities of irradiation were able to generate a long-term immunologic memory response. The present results clearly document that the tumor responses across multiple immunocompetent and immunodeficient mouse models are largely dose rate independent and simultaneously contradict a major role of the immune response in the antitumor efficacy of FLASH. Therefore, our study indicates that FLASH is as potent as CONV in modulating antitumor immune response and can be used as an immunomodulatory agent

Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to z∼1z \sim 1. I. MUFFIT: A Multi-Filter Fitting code for stellar population diagnostics

We present MUFFIT, a new generic code optimized to retrieve the main stellar population parameters of galaxies in photometric multi-filter surveys, and we check its reliability and feasibility with real galaxy data from the ALHAMBRA survey. Making use of an error-weighted $\chi^2$-test, we compare the multi-filter fluxes of galaxies with the synthetic photometry of mixtures of two single stellar populations at different redshifts and extinctions, to provide through a Monte Carlo method the most likely range of stellar population parameters (mainly ages and metallicities), extinctions, redshifts, and stellar masses. To improve the diagnostic reliability, MUFFIT identifies and removes from the analysis those bands that are significantly affected by emission lines. We highlight that the retrieved age-metallicity locus for a sample of $z \le 0.22$ early-type galaxies in ALHAMBRA at different stellar mass bins are in very good agreement with the ones from SDSS spectroscopic diagnostics. Moreover, a one-to-one comparison between the redshifts, ages, metallicities, and stellar masses derived spectroscopically for SDSS and by MUFFIT for ALHAMBRA reveals good qualitative agreements in all the parameters. In addition, and using as input the results from photometric-redshift codes, MUFFIT improves the photometric-redshift accuracy by $\sim 10$-$20\%$, and it also detects nebular emissions in galaxies, providing physical information about their strengths. Our results show the potential of multi-filter galaxy data to conduct reliable stellar population studies with the appropiate analysis techniques, as MUFFIT.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&

The Mass-Metallicity relation explored with CALIFA: I. Is there a dependence on the star formation rate?

We present the results on the study of the global and local M-Z relation based on the first data available from the CALIFA survey (150 galaxies). This survey provides integral field spectroscopy of the complete optical extent of each galaxy (up to 2-3 effective radii), with enough resolution to separate individual HII regions and/or aggregations. Nearly $\sim$3000 individual HII regions have been detected. The spectra cover the wavelength range between [OII]3727 and [SII]6731, with a sufficient signal-to-noise to derive the oxygen abundance and star-formation rate associated with each region. In addition, we have computed the integrated and spatially resolved stellar masses (and surface densities), based on SDSS photometric data. We explore the relations between the stellar mass, oxygen abundance and star-formation rate using this dataset. We derive a tight relation between the integrated stellar mass and the gas-phase abundance, with a dispersion smaller than the one already reported in the literature ($\sigma_{\Delta{\rm log(O/H)}}=$0.07 dex). Indeed, this dispersion is only slightly larger than the typical error derived for our oxygen abundances. However, we do not find any secondary relation with the star-formation rate, other than the one induced due to the primary relation of this quantity with the stellar mass. We confirm the result using the $\sim$3000 individual HII regions, for the corresponding local relations. Our results agree with the scenario in which gas recycling in galaxies, both locally and globally, is much faster than other typical timescales, like that of gas accretion by inflow and/or metal loss due to outflows. In essence, late-type/disk dominated galaxies seem to be in a quasi-steady situation, with a behavior similar to the one expected from an instantaneous recycling/closed-box model.Comment: 19 Pages, 8 figures, Accepted for Publishing in Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A

CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey: I. Survey presentation

We present here the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, which has been designed to provide a first step in this direction.We summarize the survey goals and design, including sample selection and observational strategy.We also showcase the data taken during the first observing runs (June/July 2010) and outline the reduction pipeline, quality control schemes and general characteristics of the reduced data. This survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopic information of a diameter selected sample of $\sim600$ galaxies in the Local Universe (0.005< z <0.03). CALIFA has been designed to allow the building of two-dimensional maps of the following quantities: (a) stellar populations: ages and metallicities; (b) ionized gas: distribution, excitation mechanism and chemical abundances; and (c) kinematic properties: both from stellar and ionized gas components. CALIFA uses the PPAK Integral Field Unit (IFU), with a hexagonal field-of-view of \sim1.3\sq\arcmin', with a 100% covering factor by adopting a three-pointing dithering scheme. The optical wavelength range is covered from 3700 to 7000 {\AA}, using two overlapping setups (V500 and V1200), with different resolutions: R\sim850 and R\sim1650, respectively. CALIFA is a legacy survey, intended for the community. The reduced data will be released, once the quality has been guaranteed. The analyzed data fulfill the expectations of the original observing proposal, on the basis of a set of quality checks and exploratory analysis. We conclude from this first look at the data that CALIFA will be an important resource for archaeological studies of galaxies in the Local Universe.Comment: 32 pages, 29 figures, Accepted for publishing in Astronomy and Astrophysic

A rapid high-performance semi-automated tool to measure total kidney volume from MRI in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

OBJECTIVES: To develop a high-performance, rapid semi-automated method (Sheffield TKV Tool) for measuring total kidney volume (TKV) from magnetic resonance images (MRI) in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). METHODS: TKV was initially measured in 61 patients with ADPKD using the Sheffield TKV Tool and its performance compared to manual segmentation and other published methods (ellipsoidal, mid-slice, MIROS). It was then validated using an external dataset of MRI scans from 65 patients with ADPKD. RESULTS: Sixty-one patients (mean age 45 ± 14 years, baseline eGFR 76 ± 32 ml/min/1.73 m2) with ADPKD had a wide range of TKV (258-3680 ml) measured manually. The Sheffield TKV Tool was highly accurate (mean volume error 0.5 ± 5.3% for right kidney, - 0.7 ± 5.5% for left kidney), reproducible (intra-operator variability - 0.2 ± 1.3%; inter-operator variability 1.1 ± 2.9%) and outperformed published methods. It took less than 6 min to execute and performed consistently with high accuracy in an external MRI dataset of T2-weighted sequences with TKV acquired using three different scanners and measured using a different segmentation methodology (mean volume error was 3.45 ± 3.96%, n = 65). CONCLUSIONS: The Sheffield TKV Tool is operator friendly, requiring minimal user interaction to rapidly, accurately and reproducibly measure TKV in this, the largest reported unselected European patient cohort with ADPKD. It is more accurate than estimating equations and its accuracy is maintained at larger kidney volumes than previously reported with other semi-automated methods. It is free to use, can run as an independent executable and will accelerate the application of TKV as a prognostic biomarker for ADPKD into clinical practice. KEY POINTS: • This new semi-automated method (Sheffield TKV Tool) to measure total kidney volume (TKV) will facilitate the routine clinical assessment of patients with ADPKD. • Measuring TKV manually is time consuming and laborious. • TKV is a prognostic indicator in ADPKD and the only imaging biomarker approved by the FDA and EMA