Radio galaxy shape measurement with Hamiltonian Monte Carlo in the visibility domain

Radio weak lensing, while a highly promising complementary probe to optical weak lensing, will require incredible precision in the measurement of galaxy shape parameters. In this paper, we extend the Bayesian Inference for Radio Observations model fitting approach to measure galaxy shapes directly from visibility data of radio continuum surveys, instead of from image data. We apply a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) technique for sampling the posterior, which is more efficient than the standard Monte Carlo Markov Chain method when dealing with a large dimensional parameter space. Adopting the exponential profile for galaxy model fitting allows us to analytically calculate the likelihood gradient required by HMC, allowing a faster and more accurate sampling. The method is tested on SKA1-MID simulated observations at 1.4 GHz of a field containing up to 1000 star-forming galaxies. It is also applied to a simulated observation of the weak lensing precursor survey SuperCLASS. In both cases we obtain reliable measurements of the galaxies' ellipticity and size for all sources with signal-to-noise ratio ≥ 10, and we also find relationships between the convergence properties of the HMCtechnique and some source parameters. Direct shape measurement in the visibility domain achieves high accuracy at the expected source number densities of the current and next SKA precursor continuum surveys. The proposed method can be easily extended for the fitting of other galaxy and scientific parameters, as well as simultaneously marginalizing over systematic and instrumental effects

Civil-military relations and co-operation in Kosovo 1999 to 2001

Co-operation between civil society actors and military personnel is increasingly common in humanitarian missions since the early 1990s. However the interaction has led to varying degrees of friction between both groups, at times lessening the coordination and efficiency of the civil-military relationship. Existing theories of civilmilitary relations are largely based upon the relationship between the military and their civilian government, and have not been tested within the relationships experienced at the ground level during peace enforcement type missions. This study tests the theories of Samuel Huntington within the context o f the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) led mission in Kosovo (KFOR) between 1999 and 2001. This period of time encompasses the NATO bombing campaign, including their interaction with civilian agencies during the refugee crisis, and the subsequent deployment of KFOR into Kosovo. The study examines KFOR’s interaction with various civilian entities including NGO’s, police forces, civilian administration, political and paramilitary figures. The methodological framework o f the study uses hypotheses generated from the work o f Huntington, and then tests the hypotheses with reference to KFOR’s actions and interactions with civilian entities. The thesis concludes that Huntington’s theory, with some qualifications, can successfully account for interaction in such an environment

Experimental study on the hydro-mechanical behavior of soils improved using the CSM technology

Deep Mixing Methods (DMMs) can be regarded as constantly evolving technologies for improving soil properties in order to satisfy predefined design requirements. Their applications are very common in geotechnical engineering and, in some cases, they can be conveniently selected instead of more traditional techniques. Despite DMMs are customarily used to strengthen soft soils like peats, clays, and silts, they can also be used very effectively in various subsoil configurations for several purposes, as, for instance, in the case of soil liquefaction prevention or cut-off/retaining walls. Even if soil mixing practice has become very consolidated in geotechnical engineering and numerous researchers in the past have tried to develop predictive equations taking into account the more relevant factors affecting the strength of DM constructions, i.e. influence of binder, soil, mixing and curing conditions, there is still no widely applicable formula for the estimation of the field strength characterized by a reasonable level of accuracy. Predictions are normally based on the mechanical behaviour of laboratory prepared mixtures, which, most of the time, significantly differ from in-situ treated soils due to the specific mixing, curing, and subsoil conditions encountered at the site. Technical standards were recently developed to provide general guidelines for the production of good quality laboratory mixed soil samples. Similarly, other codes concerning the critical deep mixing site construction aspects were introduced in several counties in order to improve the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) programmes conceived to verify the treatment effectiveness. However, a direct correlation between laboratory and field mixing performance is still far from being described, probably owing to the lack of a sufficient number of well documented case histories. In this research, a comparison tool between laboratory and field procedures has been tentatively deduced from energetic considerations depending on mixing efforts transferred to the soil to be treated using different devices. This thesis mainly focuses on the results of a comprehensive experimental investigation carried out on treated soil mixtures collected from several worldwide jobsites in which the Cutter Soil Mixing (CSM) technology was used. CSM, launched since 2003, is a recent and efficient system that, besides other DMMs, has the advantage of a high level of process control providing detailed information regarding the in-situ mixing method. The elaboration of these data, which significantly support the usual QA/QC procedures, has been used to define a new easily determinable site parameter closely related to the mixing efficacy, which, in turn, greatly influences the performance attained. As other DM methods, CSM produces some amount of spoil material, which is deemed to contain part of the binder introduced into the soil to activate hydration reactions once combined with both water and minerals in the ground. Since no estimation methods are available to evaluate the binder loss, an approximate amount of binding material is customarily added and mixed with the natural soil, hampering the performance prediction. To remedy this situation, a new formulation has been proposed to estimate the binder loss and to compute a more proper cement content. During the research activity, mechanical, hydraulic, mineralogical, and micro-structural tests were carried out in order to describe in detail the behaviour of the CSM treated material from different points of view and to acquire a reliable picture of the main factors affecting the relevant properties of stabilized soils. The obtained test results allowed to develop a new mathematical model for the evolution of the mechanical strength of granular and cohesive soils treated with the CSM technique as a function of the specific site conditions. The defined procedure has proved to be very effective in the major part of the case histories considered in this work

Generation and Applications of Knowledge Graphs in Systems and Networks Biology

The acceleration in the generation of data in the biomedical domain has necessitated the use of computational approaches to assist in its interpretation. However, these approaches rely on the availability of high quality, structured, formalized biomedical knowledge. This thesis has the two goals to improve methods for curation and semantic data integration to generate high granularity biological knowledge graphs and to develop novel methods for using prior biological knowledge to propose new biological hypotheses. The first two publications describe an ecosystem for handling biological knowledge graphs encoded in the Biological Expression Language throughout the stages of curation, visualization, and analysis. Further, the second two publications describe the reproducible acquisition and integration of high-granularity knowledge with low contextual specificity from structured biological data sources on a massive scale and support the semi-automated curation of new content at high speed and precision. After building the ecosystem and acquiring content, the last three publications in this thesis demonstrate three different applications of biological knowledge graphs in modeling and simulation. The first demonstrates the use of agent-based modeling for simulation of neurodegenerative disease biomarker trajectories using biological knowledge graphs as priors. The second applies network representation learning to prioritize nodes in biological knowledge graphs based on corresponding experimental measurements to identify novel targets. Finally, the third uses biological knowledge graphs and develops algorithmics to deconvolute the mechanism of action of drugs, that could also serve to identify drug repositioning candidates. Ultimately, the this thesis lays the groundwork for production-level applications of drug repositioning algorithms and other knowledge-driven approaches to analyzing biomedical experiments

Change blindness: eradication of gestalt strategies

Arrays of eight, texture-defined rectangles were used as stimuli in a one-shot change blindness (CB) task where there was a 50% chance that one rectangle would change orientation between two successive presentations separated by an interval. CB was eliminated by cueing the target rectangle in the first stimulus, reduced by cueing in the interval and unaffected by cueing in the second presentation. This supports the idea that a representation was formed that persisted through the interval before being 'overwritten' by the second presentation (Landman et al, 2003 Vision Research 43149–164]. Another possibility is that participants used some kind of grouping or Gestalt strategy. To test this we changed the spatial position of the rectangles in the second presentation by shifting them along imaginary spokes (by ±1 degree) emanating from the central fixation point. There was no significant difference seen in performance between this and the standard task [F(1,4)=2.565, p=0.185]. This may suggest two things: (i) Gestalt grouping is not used as a strategy in these tasks, and (ii) it gives further weight to the argument that objects may be stored and retrieved from a pre-attentional store during this task

A Modular and Open-Source Framework for Virtual Reality Visualisation and Interaction in Bioimaging

Life science today involves computational analysis of a large amount and variety of data, such as volumetric data acquired by state-of-the-art microscopes, or mesh data from analysis of such data or simulations. The advent of new imaging technologies, such as lightsheet microscopy, has resulted in the users being confronted with an ever-growing amount of data, with even terabytes of imaging data created within a day. With the possibility of gentler and more high-performance imaging, the spatiotemporal complexity of the model systems or processes of interest is increasing as well. Visualisation is often the first step in making sense of this data, and a crucial part of building and debugging analysis pipelines. It is therefore important that visualisations can be quickly prototyped, as well as developed or embedded into full applications. In order to better judge spatiotemporal relationships, immersive hardware, such as Virtual or Augmented Reality (VR/AR) headsets and associated controllers are becoming invaluable tools. In this work we present scenery, a modular and extensible visualisation framework for the Java VM that can handle mesh and large volumetric data, containing multiple views, timepoints, and color channels. scenery is free and open-source software, works on all major platforms, and uses the Vulkan or OpenGL rendering APIs. We introduce scenery's main features, and discuss its use with VR/AR hardware and in distributed rendering. In addition to the visualisation framework, we present a series of case studies, where scenery can provide tangible benefit in developmental and systems biology: With Bionic Tracking, we demonstrate a new technique for tracking cells in 4D volumetric datasets via tracking eye gaze in a virtual reality headset, with the potential to speed up manual tracking tasks by an order of magnitude. We further introduce ideas to move towards virtual reality-based laser ablation and perform a user study in order to gain insight into performance, acceptance and issues when performing ablation tasks with virtual reality hardware in fast developing specimen. To tame the amount of data originating from state-of-the-art volumetric microscopes, we present ideas how to render the highly-efficient Adaptive Particle Representation, and finally, we present sciview, an ImageJ2/Fiji plugin making the features of scenery available to a wider audience.:Abstract Foreword and Acknowledgements Overview and Contributions Part 1 - Introduction 1 Fluorescence Microscopy 2 Introduction to Visual Processing 3 A Short Introduction to Cross Reality 4 Eye Tracking and Gaze-based Interaction Part 2 - VR and AR for System Biology 5 scenery — VR/AR for Systems Biology 6 Rendering 7 Input Handling and Integration of External Hardware 8 Distributed Rendering 9 Miscellaneous Subsystems 10 Future Development Directions Part III - Case Studies C A S E S T U D I E S 11 Bionic Tracking: Using Eye Tracking for Cell Tracking 12 Towards Interactive Virtual Reality Laser Ablation 13 Rendering the Adaptive Particle Representation 14 sciview — Integrating scenery into ImageJ2 & Fiji Part IV - Conclusion 15 Conclusions and Outlook Backmatter & Appendices A Questionnaire for VR Ablation User Study B Full Correlations in VR Ablation Questionnaire C Questionnaire for Bionic Tracking User Study List of Tables List of Figures Bibliography Selbstständigkeitserklärun

A Search for Squarks and Gluinos using the Jets and Missing Energy Signature at D0

http://www.idw-online.de/pages/de/news400327 Wissenschaftsministerin Svenja Schulze hat die heutige Entscheidung der DFG, gegen vier Wissenschaftler eine schriftliche Rüge wegen Fehlverhaltens auszusprechen, begrüßt. „Ich finde es richtig, dass die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft hier klare Kante zeigt. Aber wir müssen zugleich auch etwas tun, damit es zukünftig möglichst wenig schwarze Schafe in der Forschung gibt – Open Access in der Wissenschaft kann dabei eine Antwort sein“, sagte die Min..

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationDigital image processing has wide ranging applications in combustion research. The analysis of digital images is used in practically every scale of studying combustion phenomena from the scale of individual atoms to diagnosing and controlling large-scale combustors. Digital image processing is one of the fastest-growing scientific areas in the world today. From being able to reconstruct low-resolution grayscale images from transmitted signals, the capabilities have grown to enabling machines carrying out tasks that would normally require human vision, perception, and reasoning. Certain applications in combustion science benefit greatly from recent advances in image processing. Unfortunately, since the two fields - combustion and image processing research - stand relatively far from each other, the most recent results are often not known well enough in the areas where they may be applied with great benefits. This work aims to improve the accuracy and reliability of certain measurements in combustion science by selecting, adapting, and implementing the appropriate techniques originally developed in the image processing area. A number of specific applications were chosen that cover a wide range of physical scales of combustion phenomena, and specific image processing methodologies were proposed to improve or enable measurements in studying such phenomena. The selected applications include the description and quantification of combustion-derived carbon nanostructure, the three-dimensional optical diagnostics of combusting pulverized-coal particles and the optical flow velocimetry and quantitative radiation imaging of a pilot-scale oxy-coal flame. In the field of the structural analysis of soot, new structural parameters were derived and the extraction and fidelity of existing ones were improved. In the field of pulverized-coal combustion, the developed methodologies allow for studying the detailed mechanisms of particle combustion in three dimensions. At larger scales, the simultaneous measurement of flame velocity, spectral radiation, and pyrometric properties were realized

Life coaching : the attempt of new middle class for self-change

This thesis aims to analyze the pursuit of the new middle class for a self-change via coaching practice, by depicturing the habitus of this class and the coaching sessions. For this study, I made a qualitative research in Istanbul based on interviews done with both the life coaches and coachees, and document analysis of the web sites of the life coaches and the books written by them. My research findings show that coaching can be conceptualized as a practice, which is used by the members of the new middle class habitus to reconstruct their rooted dispositions. I depict the habitus of the new middle class through the reproduction strategies of education, gender, and omnivore taste. Within this scope, I trace the formation of a new doxa, which is formed through coaching mentality, and panopticon, which is constructed as a new self-disciplining mechanism. Also, I look at the agency of coaching practice in the ways it shapes a new self-narration and an emotional language for coachees, by way of using a series of spiritual or rational methods. This process of self-change is investigated as a production of reciprocally displayed identity performances, resting upon developing interaction along the sessions. Within this context, my thesis is based upon two main arguments. The first is that the members of the new middle class engage in a process of habitus transformation, in order to reach their socially founded ideal selves. The other is the finding that the coachees’ acquirement of the new self-perception, that is imposed by the coaches through the regime of truth, relies on a understanding in compatible with the existing system.Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iv Öz ................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................vii List of Figures ...............................................................................................................ix List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... x CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1. What is Life Coaching? ..................................................................................... 3 1.2. The Framework of Coaching ............................................................................. 4 1.3. The History of Coaching ................................................................................... 9 1.4. Coaching in Turkey ......................................................................................... 12 1.5. Disciplinary Background of Coaching ............................................................. 13 1.6. Methodology .................................................................................................. 16 1.7. Outline of the Study ....................................................................................... 21 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................. 22 2.1. Pierre Bourdieu’s Theoretical Framework: an approach to connect social and cognitive structures ............................................................................................... 24 2.1.1. The Formation of Field Struggle: capital as the source of position ........ 24 2.1.2. Coherence vs. Conflict Between Field and Habitus: the function of ‘’doxa’’ .......................................................................................................................... 27 2.1.3. The Production and Maintenance of Social Stratification: the founded “taste” as the founder of distinction ................................................................ 28 2.1.4. Petite Bourgeoisie: a class with “cultural good will” .............................. 31 2.2. The Theory of Symbolic Interactionism: revival of agency ............................ 34 2.2.1. Erving Goffman’s Theoretical Framework : the self as a dramaturgical and ritualistic performance .................................................................................... 36 2.3. Michel Foucault’s Theoretical Framework: construction of a self-technology ............................................................................................................................... 41 3. COACHING PRACTICE AS A WAY OF RECONSTRUCTING THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS HABITUS ..................................................................................................................... 45 3.1. Neoliberal Transformation: emergence of a new life structure .................... 45 3.2. The New Middle Class .................................................................................... 49 3.3. The New Middle Class Habitus in Turkey ....................................................... 51 3.4. Hire a Life Coach : an approach to changing inherited habitus ..................... 57 3.4.1. The First Case: Ayça, 34, Higher Education ............................................ 61 3.4.2. The Second Case: Pelin, 31, Visual Communication ............................... 63 3.5. Correspondence Between Coaches and Coachees in Terms of Habitual Conflict: is the war really over? ............................................................................. 67 3.5.1. The Third Case: Emir, 44, Life Coach, An Old Bank Director .................. 69 3.5.2. The Fourth Case: Aslı, 35, Life Coach and Visual Communication ......... 71 3.6. The Taste Mapping in the Coaching World: the omnivore style.................... 72 3.7. The Transition from one Doxa to a New one: the competent individual ...... 75 4. THE AGENCY OF COACHING PRACTICE: CONFIGURATION OF A NEW SELF THROUGH A SPECIFIC REGIME OF TRUTH ................................................................................... 83 4.1. Therapeutic (Re)Construction of Selves of Coachees: a narration of a divided persona .................................................................................................................. 83 4.2. Does Society Really Withdraw from the Stage? ............................................. 87 4.3. Narrative Performance of a “Triumphant Self” ............................................. 90 4.4. The Use of Spiritual Techniques for Self-Change ........................................... 93 4.5. The Use of Rational Techniques for Self-Change ........................................... 96 4.6. The Transformation of Emotions: a textual and oral reconstruction of self 102 4.7. The (Re) Construction of Selves of Life Coaches .......................................... 107 4.8. The Dynamics of Interaction between Coaches and Coachees ................... 113 5. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 120 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 126 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................. 13