We Could, but Should We? Ethical Considerations for Providing Access to GeoCities and Other Historical Digital Collections

We live in an era in which the ways that we can make sense of our past are evolving as more artifacts from that past become digital. At the same time, the responsibilities of traditional gatekeepers who have negotiated the ethics of historical data collection and use, such as librarians and archivists, are increasingly being sidelined by the system builders who decide whether and how to provide access to historical digital collections, often without sufficient reflection on the ethical issues at hand. It is our aim to better prepare system builders to grapple with these issues. This paper focuses discussions around one such digital collection from the dawn of the web, asking what sorts of analyses can and should be conducted on archival copies of the GeoCities web hosting platform that dates to 1994.This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the US National Science Foundation (grants 1618695 and 1704369), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Start Smart Labs, and Compute Canada

Longitudinal assessment of high blood pressure in children with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

ObjectiveNonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects 9.6% of children and may put these children at elevated risk of high blood pressure and subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Therefore, we sought to determine the prevalence of and risk factors for high blood pressure in children with NAFLD.MethodsCohort study performed by the NIDDK NASH Clinical Research Network. There were 484 children with NAFLD ages 2 to 17 at enrollment; 382 children were assessed both at enrollment and 48 weeks afterwards. The main outcomes were high blood pressure at baseline and persistent high blood pressure at both baseline and 48 weeks.ResultsPrevalence of high blood pressure at baseline was 35.8% and prevalence of persistent high blood pressure was 21.4%. Children with high blood pressure were significantly more likely to have worse steatosis than children without high blood pressure (mild 19.8% vs. 34.2%, moderate 35.0% vs. 30.7%, severe 45.2% vs. 35.1%; P = 0.003). Higher body mass index, low-density lipoprotein, and uric acid were independent risk factors for high blood pressure (Odds Ratios: 1.10 per kg/m2, 1.09 per 10 mg/dL, 1.25 per mg/dL, respectively). Compared to boys, girls with NAFLD were significantly more likely to have persistent high blood pressure (28.4% vs.18.9%; P = 0.05).ConclusionsIn conclusion, NAFLD is a common clinical problem that places children at substantial risk for high blood pressure, which may often go undiagnosed. Thus blood pressure evaluation, control, and monitoring should be an integral component of the clinical management of children with NAFLD

A Case Study of On-the-Fly Wide-Field Radio Imaging Applied to the Gravitational-wave Event GW 151226

We apply a newly-developed On-the-Fly mosaicing technique on the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) at 3 GHz in order to carry out a sensitive search for an afterglow from the Advanced LIGO binary black hole merger event GW 151226. In three epochs between 1.5 and 6 months post-merger we observed a 100 sq. deg region, with more than 80% of the survey region having a RMS sensitivity of better than 150 uJy/beam, in the northern hemisphere having a merger containment probability of 10%. The data were processed in near-real-time, and analyzed to search for transients and variables. No transients were found but we have demonstrated the ability to conduct blind searches in a time-frequency phase space where the predicted afterglow signals are strongest. If the gravitational wave event is contained within our survey region, the upper limit on any late-time radio afterglow from the merger event at an assumed mean distance of 440 Mpc is about 1e29 erg/s/Hz. Approximately 1.5% of the radio sources in the field showed variability at a level of 30%, and can be attributed to normal activity from active galactic nuclei. The low rate of false positives in the radio sky suggests that wide-field imaging searches at a few Gigahertz can be an efficient and competitive search strategy. We discuss our search method in the context of the recent afterglow detection from GW 170817 and radio follow-up in future gravitational wave observing runs.Comment: 11 pages. 6 figures. 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Machine Learning Modeling of Horizontal Photovoltaics Using Weather and Location Data

Solar energy is a key renewable energy source; however, its intermittent nature and potential for use in distributed systems make power prediction an important aspect of grid integration. This research analyzed a variety of machine learning techniques to predict power output for horizontal solar panels using 14 months of data collected from 12 northern-hemisphere locations. We performed our data collection and analysis in the absence of irradiation data—an approach not commonly found in prior literature. Using latitude, month, hour, ambient temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, and cloud ceiling as independent variables, a distributed random forest regression algorithm modeled the combined dataset with an R2 value of 0.94. As a comparative measure, other machine learning algorithms resulted in R2 values of 0.50–0.94. Additionally, the data from each location was modeled separately with R2 values ranging from 0.91 to 0.97, indicating a range of consistency across all sites. Using an input variable permutation approach with the random forest algorithm, we found that the three most important variables for power prediction were ambient temperature, humidity, and cloud ceiling. The analysis showed that machine learning potentially allowed for accurate power prediction while avoiding the challenges associated with modeled irradiation data

Rotational Velocities of Individual Components in Very Low Mass Binaries

We present rotational velocities for individual components of 11 very low mass (VLM) binaries with spectral types between M7 and L7.5. These results are based on observations taken with the near-infrared spectrograph, NIRSPEC, and the Keck II laser guide star adaptive optics system. We find that the observed sources tend to be rapid rotators (v sin i > 10 km s^(–1)), consistent with previous seeing-limited measurements of VLM objects. The two sources with the largest v sin i, LP 349–25B and HD 130948C, are rotating at ~30% of their break-up speed, and are among the most rapidly rotating VLM objects known. Furthermore, five binary systems, all with orbital semimajor axes ≾3.5 AU, have component v sin i values that differ by greater than 3σ. To bring the binary components with discrepant rotational velocities into agreement would require the rotational axes to be inclined with respect to each other, and that at least one component is inclined with respect to the orbital plane. Alternatively, each component could be rotating at a different rate, even though they have similar spectral types. Both differing rotational velocities and inclinations have implications for binary star formation and evolution. We also investigate possible dynamical evolution in the triple system HD 130948A–BC. The close binary brown dwarfs B and C have significantly different v sin i values. We demonstrate that components B and C could have been torqued into misalignment by the primary star, A, via orbital precession. Such a scenario can also be applied to another triple system in our sample, GJ 569A–Bab. Interactions such as these may play an important role in the dynamical evolution of VLM binaries. Finally, we note that two of the binaries with large differences in component v sin i, LP 349–25AB and 2MASS 0746+20AB, are also known radio sources

Fast Radio Burst Tomography of the Unseen Universe

The discovery of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) at cosmological distances has opened a powerful window on otherwise unseen matter in the Universe. In the 2020s, observations of $>10^{4}$ FRBs will assess the baryon contents and physical conditions in the hot/diffuse circumgalactic, intracluster, and intergalactic medium, and test extant compact-object dark matter models.Comment: Science white paper submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey. 15 pages, 3 color figure

Rotational Velocities of Very Low Mass Binaries

We present rotational velocities for individual components of eleven very low mass (VLM) binaries with spectral types between M7.5 and L4. These results are based on observations taken with the near-infrared spectrograph, NIRSPEC, and the Keck II laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system. The binaries were targeted as part of a dynamical mass program, and their orbital inclinations are used to translate vsini into a rotational velocity for each component. We find that the observed sources tend to be rapid rotators (vsini > 10 km s^(-1)), consistent with previous measurements for ultracool objects. Five systems have component vsini's that are statistically different, with three binaries having velocity differences greater than 25 km s^(-1). To bring these discrepant rotational velocities into agreement would require their rotational axes to be inclined between 10 to 40° with respect to each other, and that at least one component has a significant inclination with respect to the orbital plane. Alternatively, each component could be rotating at a different rate, even though they have similar spectral types. Both differing rotational velocities and inclinations have interesting implications for binary star formation. Two of the binaries with large differences in rotational velocity are also known radio sources, LP 349-25AB and 2MASS 0746+20AB. LP 349-25B is rotating at ∼95 km s^(-1), within a factor of ∼3 of the break up speed, and is one of the most rapidly rotating VLM objects known