Restos de Anchitherium de Lisboa, Portugal

The Anchitherium remains from several Portuguese localities placed on IVb and Vb (Lisbon area) levels are studied. They are compared with the French and Spanish remains, and particularly with those from the Madrid basin. They are identified as Anchitherium cf. A. ezquerrae from the Vb level remains, because the remains are very scarce

Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory in Massively Parallel Computer Architectures: The Octopus Project

Octopus is a general-purpose density-functional theory (DFT) code, with a particular emphasis on the time-dependent version of DFT (TDDFT). In this paper we present the ongoing efforts to achieve the parallelization of octopus. We focus on the real-time variant of TDDFT, where the time-dependent Kohn–Sham equations are directly propagated in time. This approach has great potential for execution in massively parallel systems such as modern supercomputers with thousands of processors and graphics processing units (GPUs). For harvesting the potential of conventional supercomputers, the main strategy is a multi-level parallelization scheme that combines the inherent scalability of real-time TDDFT with a real-space grid domain-partitioning approach. A scalable Poisson solver is critical for the efficiency of this scheme. For GPUs, we show how using blocks of Kohn–Sham states provides the required level of data parallelism and that this strategy is also applicable for code optimization on standard processors. Our results show that real-time TDDFT, as implemented in octopus, can be the method of choice for studying the excited states of large molecular systems in modern parallel architectures.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog

Real-space grids and the Octopus code as tools for the development of new simulation approaches for electronic systems

Real-space grids are a powerful alternative for the simulation of electronic systems. One of the main advantages of the approach is the flexibility and simplicity of working directly in real space where the different fields are discretized on a grid, combined with competitive numerical performance and great potential for parallelization. These properties constitute a great advantage at the time of implementing and testing new physical models. Based on our experience with the Octopus code, in this article we discuss how the real-space approach has allowed for the recent development of new ideas for the simulation of electronic systems. Among these applications are approaches to calculate response properties, modeling of photoemission, optimal control of quantum systems, simulation of plasmonic systems, and the exact solution of the Schrödinger equation for low-dimensionality systems

Molecules as tracers of galaxy evolution: an EMIR survey. I. Presentation of the data and first results

We investigate the molecular gas properties of a sample of 23 galaxies in order to find and test chemical signatures of galaxy evolution and to compare them to IR evolutionary tracers. Observation at 3 mm wavelengths were obtained with the EMIR broadband receiver, mounted on the IRAM 30 m telescope on Pico Veleta, Spain. We compare the emission of the main molecular species with existing models of chemical evolution by means of line intensity ratios diagrams and principal component analysis. We detect molecular emission in 19 galaxies in two 8 GHz-wide bands centred at 88 and 112 GHz. The main detected transitions are the J=1-0 lines of CO, 13CO, HCN, HNC, HCO+, CN, and C2H. We also detect HC3N J=10-9 in the galaxies IRAS 17208, IC 860, NGC 4418, NGC 7771, and NGC 1068. The only HC3N detections are in objects with HCO+/HCN<1 and warm IRAS colours. Galaxies with the highest HC3N/HCN ratios have warm IRAS colours (60/100 {\mu}m>0.8). The brightest HC3N emission is found in IC 860, where we also detect the molecule in its vibrationally excited state.We find low HNC/HCN line ratios (<0.5), that cannot be explained by existing PDR or XDR chemical models. Bright HC3N emission in HCO+-faint objects may imply that these are not dominated by X-ray chemistry. Thus the HCN/HCO+ line ratio is not, by itself, a reliable tracer of XDRs. Bright HC3N and faint HCO+ could be signatures of embedded starformation, instead of AGN activity

Extreme Starbursts in the Local Universe

The "Extreme starbursts in the local universe" workshop was held at the Insituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada, Spain on 21-25 June 2010. Bearing in mind the advent of a new generation of facilities such as JWST, Herschel, ALMA, eVLA and eMerlin, the aim of the workshop was to bring together observers and theorists to review the latest results. The purpose of the workshop was to address the following issues: what are the main modes of triggering extreme starbursts in the local Universe? How efficiently are stars formed in extreme starbursts? What are the star formation histories of local starburst galaxies? How well do the theoretical simulations model the observations? What can we learn about starbursts in the distant Universe through studies of their local counterparts? How important is the role of extreme starbursts in the hierarchical assembly of galaxies? How are extreme starbursts related to the triggering of AGN in the nuclei of galaxies? Overall, 41 talks and 4 posters with their corresponding 10 minutes short talks were presented during the workshop. In addition, the workshop was designed with emphasis on discussions, and therefore, there were 6 discussion sessions of up to one hour during the workshop. Here is presented a summary of the purposes of the workshop as well as a compilation of the abstracts corresponding to each of the presentations. The summary and conclusions of the workshop along with a description of the future prospects by Sylvain Veilleux can be found in the last section of this document. A photo of the assistants is included.Comment: worksho

Saharan dust and association between particulate matter and case-specific mortality: a case-crossover analysis in Madrid (Spain)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Saharan dust intrusions are a common phenomenon in the Madrid atmosphere, leading induce exceedances of the 50 μg/m³- EU 24 h standard for PM₁₀.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We investigated the effects of exposure to PM₁₀between January 2003 and December 2005 in Madrid (Spain) on daily case-specific mortality; changes of effects between Saharan and non-Saharan dust days were assessed using a time-stratified case-crossover design.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Saharan dust affected 20% of days in the city of Madrid. Mean concentration of PM₁₀was higher during dust days (47.7 μg/m³) than non-dust days (31.4 μg/m³). The rise of mortality per 10 μg/m³PM₁₀concentration were always largely for Saharan dust-days. When stratifying by season risks of PM₁₀, at lag 1, during Saharan dust days were stronger for respiratory causes during cold season (IR% = 3.34% (95% CI: 0.36, 6.41) versus 2.87% (95% CI: 1.30, 4.47)) while for circulatory causes effects were stronger during warm season (IR% = 4.19% (95% CI: 1.34, 7.13) versus 2.65% (95% CI: 0.12, 5.23)). No effects were found for cerebrovascular causes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We found evidence of strongest effects of particulate matter during Saharan dust days, providing a suggestion of effect modification, even though interaction terms were not statistically significant. Further investigation is needed to understand the mechanism by which Saharan dust increases mortality.</p

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented