The CFHTLS Strong Lensing Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and T0002 release sample

AIMS: We present data from the CFHTLS Strong Lensing Legacy Survey (SL2S). Due to the unsurpassed combined depth, area and image quality of the Canada-France-Hawaii Legacy Survey it is becoming possible to uncover a large, statistically well-defined sample of strong gravitational lenses which spans the dark halo mass spectrum predicted by the concordance model from galaxy to cluster haloes. METHODS: We describe the development of several automated procedures to find strong lenses of various mass regimes in CFHTLS images. RESULTS: The preliminary sample of about 40 strong lensing candidates discovered in the CFHTLS T0002 release, covering an effective field of view of 28 deg$^2$ is presented. These strong lensing systems were discovered using an automated search and consist mainly of gravitational arc systems with splitting angles between 2 and 15 arcsec. This sample shows for the first time that it is possible to uncover a large population of strong lenses from galaxy groups with typical halo masses of about $10^{13}h^{-1}M_\odot$. We discuss the future evolution of the SL2S project and its main scientific aims for the next 3 years, in particular our observational strategy to extract the hundreds of gravitational rings also present in these fields.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, A&A in pres

Forms and processes of information systems evolution

The way in which software evolves over time has been much studied and is now fairly well-understood. What has been less thoroughly studied are the processes by which information systems – containing software as one component, but also with significant human and organisational aspects – evolve. In many organisations, few information systems are built at all from scratch, but rather are modified from or built on top of existing ones or bolted together from third-party components. In practice, the old division between design, implementation and maintenance has largely disappeared. In this paper, I discuss the nature of IS evolution. I make a distinction between planned (intentional and strategic) evolution, for which we can formulate a clear process; and unplanned (emergent and externally-driven) evolution, where we can simply study the dynamics of the process and be ready for events

Hyper Converged Infrastructures: Beyond virtualization

Hyper Convergence has brought virtualization and IT strategies to a new level. Datacenters are undergoing a deep paradigm shift from a hardware-centric to an application-centric approach which leverages on software defined architectures, while IT is more and more being delivered as services rather than assets or products. Throughout different evolving phases since the initial attempts to convergence, the concept has been refined down to a level where,ultimately, a whole datacenter could be fully managed from a centralized single point, abstracting the whole hardware layer and exposing it to the administrators as a transparent pool of resources. This paper analyzes the evolution of infrastructures and tries to dig into the reality and convenience of Hyper Convergence

Green revolution 2.0: a sustainable energy path

This repository item contains a single issue of Sustainable Development Insights, a series of short policy essays that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The series seeks to promote a broad interdisciplinary dialogue on how to accelerate sustainable development at all levels.The Green Revolution in agriculture greatly increased crop yields and averted mass starvation, but it also turned small farms into factory farms that concentrated production in a few locations and reduced the diversity of crops. In this paper, Professor Nalin Kulatilaka, Co-Director of BU’s Clean Energy & Environmental Sustainability Initiative, calls for a Green Energy Revolution that decentralizes energy supplies through a smart electricity network. He argues that such a revolution could provide for a diversity of energy sources located closer to users, which in turn could shift consumption patterns, reduce losses and decrease overall energy demand. He concludes that shifting to such a system “will adopt clean energy technologies while fostering new businesses, creating new jobs and ultimately empowering society to reach new heights in energy conservation and sustainability“

The role of transitional justice and access to justice in conflict resolution and democratic advancement

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Integration, management and communication of heterogeneous design resources with WWW technologies

Recently, advanced information technologies have opened new pos-sibilities for collaborative designs. In this paper, a Web-based collaborative de-sign environment is proposed, where heterogeneous design applications can be integrated with a common interface, managed dynamically for publishing and searching, and communicated with each other for integrated multi-objective de-sign. The CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) is employed as an implementation tool to enable integration and communication of design application programs; and the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is used as a common data descriptive language for data exchange between heterogeneous applications and for resource description and recording. This paper also intro-duces the implementation of the system and the encapsulating issues of existing legacy applications. At last, an example of gear design based on the system is il-lustrated to identify the methods and procedure developed by this research

Gravitationally Lensed HI with MeerKAT

The SKA era is set to revolutionize our understanding of neutral hydrogen (HI) in individual galaxies out to redshifts of z~0.8; and in the z > 6 intergalactic medium through the detection and imaging of cosmic reionization. Direct HI number density constraints will, nonetheless, remain relatively weak out to cosmic noon (z~2) - the epoch of peak star formation and black hole accretion - and beyond. However, as was demonstrated from the 1990s with molecular line observations, this can be overcome by utilising the natural amplification afforded by strong gravitational lensing, which results in an effective increase in integration time by the square of the total magnification (\mu^2) for an unresolved source. Here we outline how a dedicated lensed HI survey will leverage MeerKAT's high sensitivity, frequency coverage, large instantaneous bandwidth, and high dynamic range imaging to enable a lasting legacy of high-redshift HI emission detections well into the SKA era. This survey will not only provide high-impact, rapid-turnaround MeerKAT science commissioning results, but also unveil Milky Way-like systems towards cosmic noon which is not possible with any other SKA precursors/pathfinders. An ambitious lensed HI survey will therefore make a significant impact from MeerKAT commissioning all the way through to the full SKA era, and provide a more complete picture of the HI history of the Universe.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication, Proceedings of Science, workshop on "MeerKAT Science: On the Pathway to the SKA", held in Stellenbosch 25-27 May 2016. Comments welcom

The Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE): Proposal to ESA's Cosmic Vision

The Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE) is a wide-field space imager whose primary goal is the study of dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision. For this purpose, DUNE is optimised for the measurement of weak gravitational lensing but will also provide complementary measurements of baryonic accoustic oscillations, cluster counts and the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect. Immediate auxiliary goals concern the evolution of galaxies, to be studied with unequalled statistical power, the detailed structure of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and the demographics of Earth-mass planets. DUNE is an Medium-class mission which makes use of readily available components, heritage from other missions, and synergy with ground based facilities to minimise cost and risks. The payload consists of a 1.2m telescope with a combined visible/NIR field-of-view of 1 deg^2. DUNE will carry out an all-sky survey, ranging from 550 to 1600nm, in one visible and three NIR bands which will form a unique legacy for astronomy. DUNE will yield major advances in a broad range of fields in astrophysics including fundamental cosmology, galaxy evolution, and extrasolar planet search. DUNE was recently selected by ESA as one of the mission concepts to be studied in its Cosmic Vision programme.Comment: Accepted in Experimental Astronom

RETHINKING THE BUSINESS PROCESS THROUGH REENGINEERING

Rethinking business through reengineering is based on the assumption that to meet contemporary demands of quality, service, flexibility, and low cost, processes must be kept simple. Examples of simplifying processes are combining several jobs into one, letting workers make decisions, performing the steps in a process in a natural order, and performing work where it makes the most sense. The net result is that work may be shifted across functional boundaries several times to expedite its accomplishment. Traditional inspection and control procedures are often eliminated or deferred until the process is complete, providing further cost savings. The authors, focusing their research on enterprises from Oltenia Region, demonstrate how reengineering can be carried out in a variety of corporate settings. But although workers are the ones who need to be empowered to carry out reengineering, the authors are adamant that the process must start at the top. This is because it involves making major changes that are likely to cut across traditional organizational boundaries. Those empowered to make the changes at lower levels must know they have the support of top management, or change won�t occur.reengineering, rethinking business processes, regional economy, leadership, organization