The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. IX. Colors, Lensing and Stellar Masses of Early-type Galaxies

We present the current photometric dataset for the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey, including HST photometry from ACS, WFPC2, and NICMOS. These data have enabled the confirmation of an additional 15 grade `A' (certain) lens systems, bringing the number of SLACS grade `A' lenses to 85; including 13 grade `B' (likely) systems, SLACS has identified nearly 100 lenses and lens candidates. Approximately 80% of the grade `A' systems have elliptical morphologies while ~10% show spiral structure; the remaining lenses have lenticular morphologies. Spectroscopic redshifts for the lens and source are available for every system, making SLACS the largest homogeneous dataset of galaxy-scale lenses to date. We have developed a novel Bayesian stellar population analysis code to determine robust stellar masses with accurate error estimates. We apply this code to deep, high-resolution HST imaging and determine stellar masses with typical statistical errors of 0.1 dex; we find that these stellar masses are unbiased compared to estimates obtained using SDSS photometry, provided that informative priors are used. The stellar masses range from 10^10.5 to 10^11.8 M$_\odot$ and the typical stellar mass fraction within the Einstein radius is 0.4, assuming a Chabrier IMF. The ensemble properties of the SLACS lens galaxies, e.g. stellar masses and projected ellipticities, appear to be indistinguishable from other SDSS galaxies with similar stellar velocity dispersions. This further supports that SLACS lenses are representative of the overall population of massive early-type galaxies with M* >~ 10^11 M$_\odot$, and are therefore an ideal dataset to investigate the kpc-scale distribution of luminous and dark matter in galaxies out to z ~ 0.5.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables, published in Ap

Adaptive Adjustable Tricycle

As a part of the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering curriculum, all students must take part in a three quarter long senior design project. Students are presented with existing problems, select a project, and then apply the knowledge they have gained throughout their academic career to design and build a solution. The intent behind this project is to create an experience that is similar to an engineering project in industry, by applying engineering and teamwork skills to solve a problem. Team Trikeceratops’ mission was to develop an adaptive adjustable tricycle to be used in the Special Education Department of the Buena Park School District for recreational use and physical therapy. The design team was comprised of four Cal Poly mechanical engineering students and a kinesiology student-consultant who worked through three primary design phases over the course of nine months to develop a functional prototype. These phases included ideation and conception, detailed design, and manufacturing, all of which have different requirements that call for a variety of skill sets. During ideation and conception, Team Trikeceratops developed lists of requirements from sponsor input, divided the project into components, generated ideas, and refined the options to reach an overall conceptual design. This initial phase was also essential in developing a team mentality and establishing the basic rules and guidelines by which the team would operate. At the end of ideation and conception, the team had developed a full theoretical design that would meet the customer requirements. Detailed design was the second phase wherein the students took the conceptual design and applied engineering knowledge to clearly define the solution. In this phase, most of the more stereotypical engineering occurred. Students sized tubing for the frame, performed calculations and analysis on components, created manufacturing drawings, identified part numbers for acquisition, and began contacting companies for parts and services. At the end of detailed design, the team had a bill of materials, manufacturing plan, contact information for suppliers, and fully dimensioned drawings for manufacturing custom parts. The third phase of product development was manufacturing and testing. Students cut, notched, welded, and machined various custom components while simultaneously overcoming problems of improper sizing and extended lead times on ordered materials. Following this process, the students tested the tricycle to ensure that it met the customer requirements set forth in the Design Verification Plan and Report (DVPR). At the end of this phase a functioning prototype was completed and staged for delivery and the final report was compiled. This remainder of this report details Team Trikeceratops’ progress from initial concept generation to prototype realization and explores each part of the aforementioned engineering design process in depth

Multilevel blocking approach to the fermion sign problem in path-integral Monte Carlo simulations

A general algorithm toward the solution of the fermion sign problem in finite-temperature quantum Monte Carlo simulations has been formulated for discretized fermion path integrals with nearest-neighbor interactions in the Trotter direction. This multilevel approach systematically implements a simple blocking strategy in a recursive manner to synthesize the sign cancellations among different fermionic paths throughout the whole configuration space. The practical usefulness of the method is demonstrated for interacting electrons in a quantum dot.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, incl. two figure

Closing in on the picture : analyzing interactions in video recordings

This paper provides a detailed account of the processing and analysing of data, obtained through video recording during reflective practitioner research. It sets out five stages in the analysis of video recordings of classroom interactions during a series of educational drama lessons: from decisions relating to the selection of data for close analysis, to the seeking of themes, and finally to the presentation of conclusions. The researcher adapted and synthesised several processes derived from discourse analysis (Wells, 2001; Spiers, 2004; Gee, 2005) to produce a range of instruments for use in transcription and analysis of verbal and non-verbal discourse. These include: a simple transcription key; classifications for verbal and non-verbal discourse; and a template for a transcription and analysis matrix

K_L \ra \mu^\pm e^\mp \nu \overline{\nu} as background to K_L \ra \mu^\pm e^\mp

We consider the process K_L \ra \mu^\pm e^\mp \nu \overline{\nu} at next to leading order in chiral perturbation theory. This process occurs in the standard model at second order in the weak interaction and constitutes a potential background in searches for new physics through the modes K_L \ra \mu^\pm e^\mp. We find that the same cut, $M_{\mu e}>489$~MeV, used to remove the sequential decays K_{l3}\ra \pi_{l2} pushes the B(K_L \ra \mu^\pm e^\mp \nu \overline{\nu}) to the $10^{-23}$ level, effectively removing it as a background.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure appended as postscript file after \end{document}. Fermilab-Pub-93/024-

Antioxidant vitamin intakes assessed using a food-frequency questionnaire: correlation with biochemical status in smokers and non-smokers

The increasing interest in the possible role of antioxidant vitamins in many disease states means that methods of assessing vitamin intakes which are suitable for large-scale investigations are now required. The suitability of the food-frequency questionnaire, which was developed by the Medical Research Council - Cardiff Group, for determining dietary intake of antioxidant vitamins in epidemiological studies was investigated in 196 Scottish men. The validity of the dietary data was assessed by comparison with serum vitamin concentrations, and separate analyses were performed for current smokers and non-smokers. The results showed that total energy intake and the percentage of energy derived from sugar were higher in smokers, and that both dietary and serum values of vitamin C, β-carotene and vitamin E were lower in smokers than non-smokers. After adjustment for serum lipids, energy intake and body mass index, correlation coefficients between dietary and serum vitamins C and E were similar for smokers (r 0.555 and 0.25 respectively) and non-smokers (r 0.58 and 0.32 respectively). Correlation between dietary and serum carotenes was reduced from 0.28 in non-smokers to 0.09 in smokers and correlations for retinol and total vitamin A were weakly significant only for non-smokers. The food-frequency questionnaire assigned > 70% of subjects correctly into the upper or lower plus adjacent tertiles of serum vitamin values, with the exception of β-carotene and total vitamin A for smokers. Thus, the food-frequency questionnaire appeared to be an adequate tool for assigning individuals into tertiles of serum antioxidant vitamins with the main exception of β-carotene for smokers. Marked differences do occur between the vitamins and between the smoking groups which may reflect reduced accuracy of reporting on the food-frequency questionnaire or differential absorption and metabolism of the vitamin

Social Preferences, Skill Segregation and Wage Dynamics

We study the earning structure and the equilibrium asignment of workers to firms in a model in which workers have social preferences, and skills are perfectly substitutable in production. Firms offer long-term contracts, and we allow for frictions in the labour market in the form of mobility costs. The model delivers specific predictions about the nature of worker flows, about the characteristic of workplace skill segregation, and about wage dispersion both within and cross firms. We shows that long-term contracts in the resence of social preferences associate within-firm wage dispersion with novel "internal labour market" features such as gradual promotions, productivity-unrelated wage increases, and downward wage flexibility. These three dynamic features lead to productivity-unrelated wage volatily within firms.Publicad

Time-variation of Jupiter's internal magnetic field consistent with zonal wind advection

Determination of the time dependency (secular variation) of a planet’s magnetic field provides a window into understanding the dynamo responsible for generating its field. However, of the six Solar System planets with active dynamos, secular variation has been firmly established only for Earth. Here, we compare magnetic field observations of Jupiter from the Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and Ulysses spacecraft (acquired 1973–1992) with a new Juno reference model (JRM09). We find a consistent, systematic change in Jupiter’s field over this 45-year time span, which cannot be explained by changes in the magnetospheric field or by changing the assumed rotation rate of Jupiter. Through a simplified forward model, we find that the inferred change in the field is consistent with advection of the field by Jupiter’s zonal winds, projected down to 93–95% of Jupiter’s radius (where the electrical conductivity of the hydrogen envelope becomes sufficient to advect the field). This result demonstrates that zonal wind interactions with Jupiter’s magnetic field are important and lends independent support to atmospheric and gravitational-field determinations of the profile of Jupiter’s deep winds

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) blended spectra catalogue: strong galaxy-galaxy lens and occulting galaxy pair candidates

We present the catalogue of blended galaxy spectra from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. These are cases where light from two galaxies are significantly detected in a single GAMA fibre. Galaxy pairs identified from their blended spectrum fall into two principal classes: they are either strong lenses, a passive galaxy lensing an emission-line galaxy; or occulting galaxies, serendipitous overlaps of two galaxies, of any type. Blended spectra can thus be used to reliably identify strong lenses for follow-up observations (high-resolution imaging) and occulting pairs, especially those that are a late-type partly obscuring an early-type galaxy which are of interest for the study of dust content of spiral and irregular galaxies. The GAMA survey setup and its AUTOZ automated redshift determination were used to identify candidate blended galaxy spectra from the cross-correlation peaks. We identify 280 blended spectra with a minimum velocity separation of 600 km s−1, of which 104 are lens pair candidates, 71 emission-line-passive pairs, 78 are pairs of emission-line galaxies and 27 are pairs of galaxies with passive spectra. We have visually inspected the candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS) images. Many blended objects are ellipticals with blue fuzz (Ef in our classification). These latter ‘Ef’ classifications are candidates for possible strong lenses, massive ellipticals with an emission-line galaxy in one or more lensed images. The GAMA lens and occulting galaxy candidate samples are similar in size to those identified in the entire SDSS. This blended spectrum sample stands as a testament of the power of this highly complete, second-largest spectroscopic survey in existence and offers the possibility to expand e.g. strong gravitational lens surveys