7,296 research outputs found
The Effect of Spatial Gradients in Stellar Mass-to-Light Ratio on Black Hole Mass Measurements
We have tested the effect of spatial gradients in stellar mass-to-light ratio
(Y) on measurements of black hole masses (MBH) derived from stellar orbit
superposition models. Such models construct a static gravitational potential
for a galaxy and its central black hole, but typically assume spatially uniform
Y. We have modeled three giant elliptical galaxies with gradients alpha = d(log
Y)/d(log r) from -0.2 to +0.1. Color and line strength gradients suggest mildly
negative alpha in these galaxies. Introducing a negative (positive) gradient in
Y increases (decreases) the enclosed stellar mass near the center of the galaxy
and leads to systematically smaller (larger) MBH measurements. For models with
alpha = -0.2, the best-fit values of MBH are 28%, 27%, and 17% lower than the
constant-Y case, in NGC 3842, NGC 6086, and NGC 7768, respectively. For alpha =
+0.1, MBH are 14%, 22%, and 17% higher than the constant-Y case for the three
respective galaxies. For NGC 3842 and NGC 6086, this bias is comparable to the
statistical errors from individual modeling trials. At larger radii, negative
(positive) gradients in Y cause the total stellar mass to decrease (increase)
and the dark matter fraction within one effective radius to increase
(decrease).Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. To appear in ApJ
Global variability in belowground autotrophic respiration in terrestrial ecosystems
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Belowground autotrophic respiration (RA) is one of the largest but most highly uncertain carbon flux components in terrestrial ecosystems. However, RA has not been explored globally before and still acts as a "black box" in global carbon cycling currently. Such progress and uncertainty motivate the development of a global RA dataset and understanding its spatial and temporal patterns, causes, and responses to future climate change. We applied the random forest (RF) algorithm to upscale an updated dataset from the Global Soil Respiration Database (v4) - covering all major ecosystem types and climate zones with 449 field observations, using globally gridded temperature, precipitation, soil and other environmental variables. We used a 10-fold cross validation to evaluate the performance of RF in predicting the spatial and temporal pattern of RA. Finally, a globally gridded RA dataset from 1980 to 2012 was produced with a spatial resolution of 0.5ĝ × 0.5ĝ (longitude × latitude) and a temporal resolution of 1 year (expressed in g C m-2 yr-1; grams of carbon per square meter per year). Globally, mean RA was 43.8±0.4 Pg C yr-1, with a temporally increasing trend of 0.025±0.006 Pg C yr-2 from 1980 to 2012. Such an incremental trend was widespread, representing 58 % of global land. For each 1 ĝC increase in annual mean temperature, global RA increased by 0.85±0.13 Pg C yr-2, and it was 0.17±0.03 Pg C yr-2 for a 10 mm increase in annual mean precipitation, indicating positive feedback of RA to future climate change. Precipitation was the main dominant climatic driver controlling RA, accounting for 56 % of global land, and was the most widely spread globally, particularly in dry or semi-arid areas, followed by shortwave radiation (25 %) and temperature (19 %). Different temporal patterns for varying climate zones and biomes indicated uneven responses of RA to future climate change, challenging the perspective that the parameters of global carbon stimulation are independent of climate zones and biomes. The developed RA dataset, the missing carbon flux component that is not constrained and validated in terrestrial ecosystem models and Earth system models, will provide insights into understanding mechanisms underlying the spatial and temporal variability in belowground vegetation carbon dynamics. The developed RA dataset also has great potential to serve as a benchmark for future data-model comparisons. The developed RA dataset in a common NetCDF format is freely available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7636193 (Tang et al., 2019)
THE IDENTIFICATION OF z -DROPOUTS IN PAN-STARRS1: THREE QUASARS AT 6.5< z < 6.7
Luminous distant quasars are unique probes of the high-redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) and of the growth of massive galaxies and black holes in the early universe. Absorption due to neutral hydrogen in the IGM makes quasars beyond a redshift of z ≃ 6.5 very faint in the optical z band, thus locating quasars at higher redshifts requires large surveys that are sensitive above 1 micron. We report the discovery of three new z > 6.5 quasars, corresponding to an age of the universe of 6.5 quasars from four to seven. The quasars have redshifts of z = 6.50, 6.52, and 6.66, and include the brightest z-dropout quasar reported to date, PSO J036.5078 + 03.0498 with M[subscript 1450] = -27.4. We obtained near-infrared spectroscopy for the quasars, and from the Mg ii line, we estimate that the central black holes have masses between 5 × 10[superscript 8] and 4 × 10[superscript 9] M[subscript ʘ] and are accreting close to the Eddington limit (L[subscript Bol]/L[subscript Edd] = 0.13 - 1.2). We investigate the ionized regions around the quasars and find near-zone radii of R[subscript NZ] = 1.5 - 5.2 proper Mpc, confirming the trend of decreasing near-zone sizes with increasing redshift found for quasars at 5.7 < z < 6.4. By combining R[subscript NZ] of the PS1 quasars with those of 5.7 < z < 7.1 quasars in the literature, we derive a luminosity-corrected redshift evolution of R[subscript NZ,corrected] = (7.2 ± 0.2) - (6.1 ± 0.7) x (z - 6) Mpc. However, the large spread in R[subscript NZ] in the new quasars implies a wide range in quasar ages and/or a large variation in the neutral hydrogen fraction along different lines of sight.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AST-1109915
A metal-poor damped Ly-alpha system at redshift 6.4
We identify a strong Ly-alpha damping wing profile in the spectrum of the
quasar P183+05 at z=6.4386. Given the detection of several narrow metal
absorption lines at z=6.40392, the most likely explanation for the absorption
profile is that it is due to a damped Ly-alpha system. However, in order to
match the data a contribution of an intergalactic medium 5-38% neutral or
additional weaker absorbers near the quasar is also required. The absorption
system presented here is the most distant damped Ly-alpha system currently
known. We estimate an HI column density (cm),
metallicity ([O/H]), and relative chemical abundances of a
system consistent with a low-mass galaxy during the first Gyr of the universe.
This object is among the most metal-poor damped Ly-alpha systems known and,
even though it is observed only ~850 Myr after the big bang, its relative
abundances do not show signatures of chemical enrichment by Population III
stars.Comment: Updated to match published versio
COCAM: a cooperative video edge caching and multicasting approach based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning in multi-clouds environment
The evolution of the Internet of Things technology (IoT) has boosted the drastic increase in network traffic demand. Caching and multicasting in the multi-clouds scenario are effective approaches to alleviate the backhaul burden of networks and reduce service latency. However, existing works do not jointly exploit the advantages of these two approaches. In this paper, we propose COCAM, a cooperative video edge caching and multicasting approach based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning to minimize the transmission number in the multi-clouds scenario with limited storage capacity in each edge cloud. Specifically, by integrating a cooperative transmission model with the caching model, we provide a concrete formulation of the joint problem. Then, we cast this decision-making problem as a multi-agent extension of the Markov decision process and propose a multi-agent actor-critic algorithm in which each agent learns a local caching strategy and further encompasses the observations of neighboring agents as constituents of the overall state. Finally, to validate the COCAM algorithm, we conduct extensive experiments on a real-world dataset. The results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms other baseline algorithms in terms of the number of video transmissions
Morpholino-functionalized phosphorus dendrimers for precision regenerative medicine: osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells
A novel bioactive macromolecule based on morpholino-functiona lized phosphorus dendrimers (generation 2, G2-Mor+
) was devel oped for osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells
(MSCs). Interestingly, through in vitro tests, it was shown that G2-
Mor+ dendrimer can strongly promote the transformation of MSCs
into osteoblasts, which implies the potential application of phos phorus de medicine.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Star Formation Rate Indicators in Wide-Field Infrared Survey Preliminary Release
With the goal of investigating the degree to which theMIR luminosity in
theWidefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) traces the SFR, we analyze 3.4,
4.6, 12 and 22 {\mu}m data in a sample of {\guillemotright} 140,000
star-forming galaxies or star-forming regions covering a wide range in
metallicity 7.66 < 12 + log(O/H) < 9.46, with redshift z < 0.4. These
star-forming galaxies or star-forming regions are selected by matching the WISE
Preliminary Release Catalog with the star-forming galaxy Catalog in SDSS DR8
provided by JHU/MPA 1.We study the relationship between the luminosity at 3.4,
4.6, 12 and 22 {\mu}m from WISE and H\alpha luminosity in SDSS DR8. From these
comparisons, we derive reference SFR indicators for use in our analysis. Linear
correlations between SFR and the 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 {\mu}m luminosity are
found, and calibrations of SFRs based on L(3.4), L(4.6), L(12) and L(22) are
proposed. The calibrations hold for galaxies with verified spectral
observations. The dispersion in the relation between 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 {\mu}m
luminosity and SFR relates to the galaxy's properties, such as 4000 {\deg}A
break and galaxy color.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
The effect of fluorination on the luminescent behaviour of 8-hydroxyquinoline boron compounds
MicroRNA expression, survival, and response to interferon in liver cancer
BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma is a common and aggressive cancer that occurs mainly in men. We examined microRNA expression patterns, survival, and response to interferon alfa in both men and women with the disease. METHODS: We analyzed three independent cohorts that included a total of 455 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who had undergone radical tumor resection between 1999 and 2003. MicroRNA-expression profiling was performed in a cohort of 241 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma to identify tumor-related microRNAs and determine their association with survival in men and women. In addition, to validate our findings, we used quantitative reverse-transcriptase-polymerase- chain-reaction assays to measure microRNAs and assess their association with survival and response to therapy with interferon alfa in 214 patients from two independent, prospective, randomized, controlled trials of adjuvant interferon therapy. RESULTS: In patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, the expression of miR-26a and miR-26b in nontumor liver tissue was higher in women than in men. Tumors had reduced levels of miR-26 expression, as compared with paired noncancerous tissues, which indicated that the level of miR-26 expression was also associated with hepatocellular carcinoma. Moreover, tumors with reduced miR-26 expression had a distinct transcriptomic pattern, and analyses of gene networks revealed that activation of signaling pathways between nuclear factor κB and interleukin-6 might play a role in tumor development. Patients whose tumors had low miR-26 expression had shorter overall survival but a better response to interferon therapy than did patients whose tumors had high expression of the microRNA. CONCLUSIONS: The expression patterns of microRNAs in liver tissue differ between men and women with hepatocellular carcinoma. The miR-26 expression status of such patients is associated with survival and response to adjuvant therapy with interferon alfa. Copyright © 2009 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.published_or_final_versio
Two band gap field-dependent thermal conductivity of
The thermal conductivity of the new superconductor was
studied as a function of the temperature and a magnetic field. No anomaly in
the thermal conductivity is observed around the superconducting
transition in absence or presence of magnetic fields up to 14 Tesla; upon that
field the superconductivity of persisted. The thermal conductivity in
zero-field shows a -linear increase up to 50K. The thermal conductivity is
found to increase with increasing field at high fields. We interpret the
findings as if there are two subsystems of quasiparticles with different
field-dependent characters in a two ( and )-band superconductor reacting
differently with the vortex structure. The unusual enhancement of at low temperature but higher than a () critical field
is interpreted as a result of the overlap of the low energy states outside the
vortex cores in the -band.Comment: 6 pages,3 figure
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