32,799 research outputs found
Completing Queries: Rewriting of IncompleteWeb Queries under Schema Constraints
Reactive Web systems, Web services, and Web-based publish/
subscribe systems communicate events as XML messages, and in
many cases require composite event detection: it is not sufficient to react
to single event messages, but events have to be considered in relation to
other events that are received over time.
Emphasizing language design and formal semantics, we describe the
rule-based query language XChangeEQ for detecting composite events.
XChangeEQ is designed to completely cover and integrate the four complementary
querying dimensions: event data, event composition, temporal
relationships, and event accumulation. Semantics are provided as
model and fixpoint theories; while this is an established approach for rule
languages, it has not been applied for event queries before
A discrete continuity
'A discrete continuity: On the relation between research and art practice' was published by The Journal of Research Practice, a peer-reviewed journal at Athabasca University Press. This article reflects on the nature of research and art practice, which makes a case for the necessary intermingling of these activities. Research is seen as an operating structure for the process and production of, among other things, art; it is regarded as integral to the processes of thinking and making, as are curiosity, creative enquiry and critical reflection. OâRiley asserts that these processes are not necessarily discipline-specific â although particular disciplines have specific procedures and goals â and it is argued that provisionality is central to what art can offer other disciplines; it can make a virtue of incompleteness. Discussing Flusser, Deutsch and Varto among others, the article posits an expanded notion of the artwork that is essentially conditional and reliant on spectatorial involvement
The C IV Mass Density of the Universe at Redshift 5
In order to search for metals in the Lyman alpha forest at redshifts z > 4,
we have obtained spectra of high S/N and resolution of three QSOs at z > 5.4
discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. These data allow us to probe to
metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium at early times with higher
sensitivity than previous studies. We find 16 C IV absorption systems with
column densities log N(C IV) = 12.50 - 13.98 over a total redshift path Delta X
= 3.29. In the redshift interval z = 4.5-5.0, where our statistics are most
reliable, we deduce a comoving mass density of C IV ions Omega(C IV) = (4.3 +/-
2.5) x 10(-8) (90% confidence limits) for absorption systems with log N(C IV) >
13.0 (for an Einstein-de Sitter cosmology with h = 0.65). This value of Omega(C
IV) is entirely consistent with those measured at z < 4; we confirm the earlier
finding by Songaila (2001) that neither the column density distribution of C IV
absorbers nor its integral show significant redshift evolution over a period of
time which stretches from 1.25 to 4.5 Gyr after the big bang. This somewhat
surprising conclusion may be an indication that the intergalactic medium was
enriched in metals at redshifts much greater than 5, perhaps by the sources
responsible for its reionization. Alternatively, the C IV systems we see may be
associated with outflows from massive star-forming galaxies at later times,
while the truly intergalactic metals may reside in regions of the Lyman alpha
forest of lower density than those probed up to now.Comment: 24 pages including 5 figures. Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journal (September 10, 2003 issue
No evidence for mass segregation in massive young clusters
Aims. We investigate the validity of the mass segregation indicators commonly
used in analysing young stellar clusters. Methods. We simulate observations by
constructing synthetic seeing-limited images of a 1000 massive clusters (10^4
Msun) with a standard IMF and a King-density distribution function. Results. We
find that commonly used indicators are highly sensitive to sample
incompleteness in observational data and that radial completeness
determinations do not provide satisfactory corrections, rendering the studies
of radial properties highly uncertain. On the other hand, we find that, under
certain conditions, the global completeness can be estimated accurately,
allowing for the correction of the global luminosity and mass functions of the
cluster. Conclusions. We argue that there is currently no observational
evidence of mass segregation in young compact clusters since there is no robust
way to differentiate between true mass segregation and sample incompleteness
effects. Caution should then be exercised when interpreting results from
observations as evidence of mass segregation.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, typos corrected. Download a high-resolution
version at http://www.astro.up.pt/~jascenso/mseg_v2.pdf (1 MB
Faint InfraRed Extragalactic Survey: Data and Source Catalogue of the MS1054-03 field
We present deep near-infrared Js, H, and Ks band imaging of a field around
MS1054-03, a massive cluster at z=0.83. The observations were carried out with
ISAAC at the ESO VLT as part of the Faint InfraRed Extragalactic Survey
(FIRES). The total integration time amounts to 25.9h in Js, 24.4h in H, and
26.5h in Ks, divided nearly equally between four pointings covering 5.5'x5.3'.
The 3-sigma total limiting AB magnitudes for point sources from the shallowest
to deepest pointing are Js=26.0-26.2, H=25.5-25.8, and Ks=25.3-25.7. The
effective spatial resolution of the coadded images has FWHM=0.48", 0.46", and
0.52" in Js, H, and Ks. We complemented the ISAAC data with deep optical
imaging using existing HST WFPC2 mosaics in the F606W and F814W filters and new
U, B and V band data from VLT FORS1. We constructed a Ks-band limited
multicolour source catalogue to Ks(total,AB)=25 (about 5-sigma for point
sources). The catalogue contains 1858 objects, of which 1663 have eight-band
photometry. We describe the observations, data reduction, source detection and
photometric measurements method. We present the number counts, colour
distributions, and photometric redshifts z_ph of the catalogue sources. We find
that our counts at the faint end 22<Ks(AB)<25, with slope dlog(N)/dm=0.20, lie
at the flatter end of published counts in other deep fields and are consistent
with those we derived in the HDF-South, the other FIRES field. Spectroscopic
redshifts z_sp are available for about 330 sources in the MS1054-03 field;
comparison between the z_ph and z_sp shows very good agreement, with
=0.078. The MS1054-03 field observations complement our
HDF-South data set with nearly five times larger area at about 0.7 brighter
magnitudes. [ABRIDGED]Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. 32 pages, 14
b/w figures, 1 color figur
Are Galaxies Optically Thin to Their Own Lyman Continuum Radiation? II. NGC 6822
Halpha and UBV photometry of NGC 6822 are used to study the distribution of
OB stars and HII regions in the galaxy and to determine whether individual
regions of the galaxy are in a state of ionization balance. Four distinct
components of the Halpha emission (bright, halo, diffuse and field)
differentiated by their surface brightnesses are identified. We find that
approximately 1/2 of all OB stars in NGC 6822 are located in the field while
only 1/4 are found in the combined bright and halo regions, suggesting that OB
stars spend roughly 3/4 of their lifetimes outside ``classical'' H II regions.
Comparing the observed Halpha emission with that predicted from stellar
ionizing flux models, we find that although the bright, halo and diffuse
regions are probably in ionization balance, the field region is producing at
least 6 times as much ionizing flux as is observed. The ionization balance
results in NGC 6822 suggest that star formation rates obtained from Halpha
luminosities must underestimate the true star formation rate in this galaxy by
about 50%. Comparing our results for NGC 6822 with previous results for the
spiral galaxy M33, we find that the inner kiloparsec of M33 is in a more
serious state of ionization imbalance, perhaps due to its higher surface
density of blue stars.Comment: Replaced version should now compile with standard aastex style files.
28 pages, aastex preprint format. Accepted in ApJ. Hardcopies of figures
available on request to [email protected]
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