68 research outputs found
Omniview motionless camera orientation system
An apparatus and method is provided for converting digital images for use in an imaging system. The apparatus includes a data memory which stores digital data representing an image having a circular or spherical field of view such as an image captured by a fish-eye lens, a control input for receiving a signal for selecting a portion of the image, and a converter responsive to the control input for converting digital data corresponding to the selected portion into digital data representing a planar image for subsequent display. Various methods include the steps of storing digital data representing an image having a circular or spherical field of view, selecting a portion of the image, and converting the stored digital data corresponding to the selected portion into digital data representing a planar image for subsequent display. In various embodiments, the data converter and data conversion step may use an orthogonal set of transformation algorithms
ToxGen: An improved reference database for the identification of type B-trichothecene genotypes in Fusarium
Type B trichothecenes, which pose a serious hazard to consumer health, occur worldwide in grains. These mycotoxins are produced mainly by three different trichothecene genotypes/chemotypes: 3ADON (3-acetyldeoxynivalenol), 15ADON (15-acetyldeoxynivalenol) and NIV (nivalenol), named after these three major mycotoxin compounds. Correct identification of these genotypes is elementary for all studies relating to population surveys, fungal ecology and mycotoxicology. Trichothecene producers exhibit enormous strain-dependent chemical diversity, which may result in variation in levels of the genotype´s determining toxin and in the production of low to high amounts of atypical compounds. New high-throughput DNA-sequencing technologies promise to boost the diagnostics of mycotoxin genotypes. However, this requires a reference database containing a satisfactory taxonomic sampling of sequences showing high correlation to actually produced chemotypes. We believe that one of the most pressing current challenges of such a database is the linking of molecular identification with chemical diversity of the strains, as well as other metadata. In this study, we use the Tri12 gene involved in mycotoxin biosynthesis for identification of Tri genotypes through sequence comparison. Tri12 sequences from a range of geographically diverse fungal strains comprising 22 Fusarium species were stored in the ToxGen database, which covers descriptive and up-to-date annotations such as indication on Tri genotype and chemotype of the strains, chemical diversity, information on trichothecene-inducing host, substrate or media, geographical locality, and most recent taxonomic affiliations. The present initiative bridges the gap between the demands of comprehensive studies on trichothecene producers and the existing nucleotide sequence databases, which lack toxicological and other auxiliary data. We invite researchers working in the fields of fungal taxonomy, epidemiology and mycotoxicology to join the freely available annotation effort.Fil: Kulik, Tomasz. Uniwersytet Warminsko-mazurski W Olsztynie;Fil: Abarenkov, Kessy. University Of Tartu.; EstoniaFil: Busko, Maciej. Poznań University of Life Sciences; PoloniaFil: Bilska, Katarzyna. University of Warmia and Mazury; PoloniaFil: van Diepeningen, Anne D.. University of Amsterdam; Países BajosFil: Ostrowska-Kolodziejczak, Anna. Poznań University of Life Science; PoloniaFil: Krawczyk, Katarzyna. University of Warmia and Mazur; PoloniaFil: Brankovics, Balázs. CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre; Países Bajos. University of Amsterdam; Países BajosFil: Stenglein, Sebastian Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnolológico Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnología. Laboratorio de Biología Funcional y Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Sawicki, Jakub. University of Warmia and Mazury; PoloniaFil: Perkowski, Juliusz. Poznań University of Life Sciences; Poloni
Iris: an Extensible Application for Building and Analyzing Spectral Energy Distributions
Iris is an extensible application that provides astronomers with a
user-friendly interface capable of ingesting broad-band data from many
different sources in order to build, explore, and model spectral energy
distributions (SEDs). Iris takes advantage of the standards defined by the
International Virtual Observatory Alliance, but hides the technicalities of
such standards by implementing different layers of abstraction on top of them.
Such intermediate layers provide hooks that users and developers can exploit in
order to extend the capabilities provided by Iris. For instance, custom Python
models can be combined in arbitrary ways with the Iris built-in models or with
other custom functions. As such, Iris offers a platform for the development and
integration of SED data, services, and applications, either from the user's
system or from the web. In this paper we describe the built-in features
provided by Iris for building and analyzing SEDs. We also explore in some
detail the Iris framework and software development kit, showing how astronomers
and software developers can plug their code into an integrated SED analysis
environment.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Computin
Deep CCD Surface Photometry of Galaxy Clusters I: Methods and Initial Studies of Intracluster Starlight
We report the initial results of a deep imaging survey of galaxy clusters.
The primary goals of this survey are to quantify the amount of intracluster
light as a function of cluster properties, and to quantify the frequency of
tidal debris. We outline the techniques needed to perform such a survey, and we
report findings for the first two galaxy clusters in the survey: Abell 1413,
and MKW 7 . These clusters vary greatly in richness and structure. We show that
our surface photometry reliably reaches to a surface brightness of \mu_v = 26.5
mags per arcsec. We find that both clusters show clear excesses over a
best-fitting r^{1/4} profile: this was expected for Abell 1413, but not for MKW
7. Both clusters also show evidence of tidal debris in the form of plumes and
arc-like structures, but no long tidal arcs were detected. We also find that
the central cD galaxy in Abell 1413 is flattened at large radii, with an
ellipticity of , the largest measured ellipticity of any cD galaxy
to date.Comment: 58 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal. Version has extremely low resolution figures to comply with 650k
limit. High resolution version is available at
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/johnf/icl1.ps.gz Obtaining high resolution version
is strongly reccomende
Kinematic Linkage Between the Broad and Narrow Line Emitting Gas in AGN
We investigate the radial velocity difference between the [OIII]5007,4959 and
H-beta lines for a sample of 200 low redshift AGN. We identify seven objects
showing an [OIII]5007 blueshift relative to H-beta with amplitude larger than
250 km/s (blue "outliers"). These line shifts are found in sources where the
broad high ionization lines (e.g. CIV1549) also show a large systematic
blueshift. Such blueshifts occur only in the population A region of the
Eigenvector 1 parameter domain (that also contains NLSy1 sources). We suggest
that [OIII] blueshifts are also associated with the high ionization outflow
originating in these sources. This is a direct kinematic linkage between narrow
and broad line emitting gas.Comment: accepted for publication by ApJ Let
ЛАБОРАТОРНАЯ СИСТЕМА ДЛЯ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ УСТАЛОСТНОЙ ДЕГРАДАЦИИ ФЕРРОМАГНИТНЫХ МАТЕРИАЛОВ И ПРИМЕРЫ ЕЕ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ
Shows the block diagram of the laboratory system for investigation of fatigue degradation in ferromagnetic materials by method of magnetic noise. Describes the principle operation of the system, given the practical results its using in assessment of the degree fatigue degradation in ferromagnetic structural steels and alloys on the basis of cyclic testing and measuring the intensity of the magnetic noise. Приведена структурная схема лабораторной системы для исследования усталостной деградации ферромагнитных материалов методом магнитных шумов. Описан принцип работы системы, приведены практические результаты ее использования при оценке степени усталостной деградации ряда конструкционных ферромагнитных сталей и сплавов на основе проведения циклических испытаний и измерения интенсивности магнитного шума
Systematic Uncertainties in Black Hole Masses Determined from Single Epoch Spectra
We explore the nature of systematic errors that can arise in measurement of
black hole masses from single-epoch spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by
utilizing the many epochs available for NGC 5548 and PG1229+204 from
reverberation mapping databases. In particular, we examine systematics due to
AGN variability, contamination due to constant spectral components (i.e.,
narrow lines and host galaxy flux), data quality (i.e., signal-to-noise ratio,
S/N), and blending of spectral features by comparing the precision and accuracy
of single-epoch mass measurements to those of recent reverberation mapping
studies. We calculate masses by characterizing the broad Hbeta emission line by
both the full width at half maximum and the line dispersion and demonstrate the
importance of removing narrow emission-line components and host starlight. We
find that the reliability of line width measurements rapidly decreases for S/N
lower than ~10 to 20 (per pixel) and that fitting the line profiles instead of
direct measurement of the data does not mitigate this problem but can, in fact,
introduce systematic errors. We also conclude that a full spectral
decomposition to deblend the AGN and galaxy spectral features is unnecessary
except to judge the contribution of the host galaxy to the luminosity and to
deblend any emission lines that may inhibit accurate line width measurements.
Finally, we present an error budget which summarizes the minimum observable
uncertainties as well as the amount of additional scatter and/or systematic
offset that can be expected from the individual sources of error investigated.
In particular, we find that the minimum observable uncertainty in single-epoch
mass estimates due to variability is ~ 20 per pixel)
spectra.Comment: 60 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Statistical Properties of Radio Emission from the Palomar Seyfert Galaxies
We have carried out an analysis of the radio and optical properties of a
statistical sample of 45 Seyfert galaxies from the Palomar spectroscopic survey
of nearby galaxies. We find that the space density of bright galaxies (-22 mag
<= M_{B_T} <= -18 mag) showing Seyfert activity is (1.25 +/- 0.38) X 10^{-3}
Mpc^{-3}, considerably higher than found in other Seyfert samples. Host galaxy
types, radio spectra, and radio source sizes are uncorrelated with Seyfert
type, as predicted by the unified schemes for active galaxies. Approximately
half of the detected galaxies have flat or inverted radio spectra, more than
expected based on previous samples. Surprisingly, Seyfert 1 galaxies are found
to have somewhat stronger radio sources than Seyfert 2 galaxies at 6 and 20 cm,
particularly among the galaxies with the weakest nuclear activity. We suggest
that this difference can be accommodated in the unified schemes if a minimum
level of Seyfert activity is required for a radio source to emerge from the
vicinity of the active nucleus. Below this level, Seyfert radio sources might
be suppressed by free-free absorption associated with the nuclear torus or a
compact narrow-line region, thus accounting for both the weakness of the radio
emission and the preponderance of flat spectra. Alternatively, the flat spectra
and weak radio sources might indicate that the weak active nuclei are fed by
advection-dominated accretion disks.Comment: 18 pages using emulateapj5, 13 embedded figures, accepted by Ap
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