A Y-band look of the sky with 1-m class telescopes

Y -band is a broad passband that is centered at ~ 1 micron. It is becoming a new, popular window for extragalactic study especially for observation of red objects thanks to recent CCD technology developments. In order to better understand the general characteristics of objects in Y -band, and to investigate the promise of Y -band observations with small telescopes, we carried out imaging observation of several extragalactic fields, brown dwarfs and high redshift quasars with Y -band filter at the Mt. Lemmon Optical Astronomy Observatory and the Maidanak observatory. From our observations, we constrain the bright end of the galaxy and the stellar number counts in Y -band. Also, we test the usefulness of high redshift quasar (z > 6) selection via i-z-Y color-color diagram, to demonstrate that the i-z-Y color-color diagram is effective for the selection of high redshift quasars even with a conventional optical CCD camera installed at a 1-m class telescope.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in JKA

Electrocatalytic arsenite oxidation in bicarbonate solutions combined with CO₂ reduction to formate

Sunlight-driven water-energy nexus technologies are receiving increasing attention. This study presents a hybrid electrochemical system that catalyzes the oxidation of As(III) to As(V) with a nanoparticulate TiO₂ electrocatalyst (Ti/Ir_(1-x)Ta_xO_y/TiO₂; denoted as an n-TEC) while simultaneously converting CO₂ to formate on a Bi electrode in aqueous bicarbonate solutions at circum-neutral pH. Linear sweep voltammograms of n-TEC exhibit a specific As(III) oxidation peak (E_(p,As)), at which the Faradaic efficiency (FE) of As(V) production is ∼100%. However, the application of a potential higher than the peak (E > E_(p,As)) leads to a significant decrease in the FE due to water oxidation. Upon the addition of chloride, the oxidation of water and chloride occur competitively, producing reactive chlorine species responsible for mediating the oxidation of As(III). The Bi electrodes synthesized via the electrodeposition of Bi³⁺ typically show high FEs of >80% for formate production in bicarbonate solution purged with CO₂. The addition of chloride significantly enhances the current while maintaining the FE. The n-TEC catalyst and Bi electrodes are paired in a single device equipped with a membrane, and significant effort is made to achieve the same FEs in both the anodic and cathodic reactions as in their half-reactions. Finally, the optimized n-TEC/Bi pair is coupled with a low-cost, commercially available photovoltaic (PV). Various technical factors that drive the overall reactions with the PV are considered, and maximum FEs of ∼95% are achieved for the production of both As(V) and formate

Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN)

We describe the overall characteristics and the performance of an optical CCD camera system, Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN), which is being used at the 2.1 m Otto Struve Telescope of the McDonald Observatory since 2010 August. CQUEAN was developed for follow-up imaging observations of red sources such as high redshift quasar candidates (z >= 5), Gamma Ray Bursts, brown dwarfs, and young stellar objects. For efficient observations of the red objects, CQUEAN has a science camera with a deep depletion CCD chip which boasts a higher quantum efficiency at 0.7 - 1.1 um than conventional CCD chips. The camera was developed in a short time scale (~ one year), and has been working reliably. By employing an auto-guiding system and a focal reducer to enhance the field of view on the classical Cassegrain focus, we achieve a stable guiding in 20 minute exposures, an imaging quality with FWHM >= 0.6" over the whole field (4.8' * 4.8'), and a limiting magnitude of z = 23.4 AB mag at 5-sigma with one hour total integration time.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASP. 26 pages including 5 tables and 24 figure

c-Jun N-terminal kinase activation has a prognostic implication and is negatively associated with FOXO1 activation in gastric cancer

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Abstract Background Since the biological function of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in gastric cancer remains unclear, we investigated the clinical significance of JNK activation and its association with FOXO1 activation. Methods Immunohistochemical tissue array analysis of 483 human gastric cancer specimens was performed, and the results of the immunostaining were quantified. The correlation between JNK activation (nuclear staining for pJNK) and clinicopathological features, the proliferation index, prognosis or FOXO1 inactivation (cytoplasmic staining for pFOXO1) was analyzed. The SNU-638 gastric cancer cell line was used for in vitro analysis. Results Nuclear staining of pJNK was found in 38 % of the gastric carcinomas and was higher in the early stages of pTNM (P < 0.001). pJNK staining negatively correlated with lymphatic invasion (P = 0.034) and positively correlated with intestinal type by Laurens classification (P = 0.037), Ki-67-labeling index (P < 0.001), cyclin D1 (P = 0.045), cyclin E (P < 0.001) and pFOXO1 (P < 0.001). JNK activation correlated with a longer patients survival (P =0.008) and patients with a JNK-active and FOXO1-inactive tumor had a higher survival rate than the remainder of the population (P = 0.004). In vitro analysis showed that JNK inhibition by SP600125 in SNU-638 cells decreased cyclin D1 protein expression and increased FOXO1 activation. Further, JNK inhibition markedly suppressed colony formation, which was partially restored by FOXO1 shRNA expression. Conclusions Our results indicate that JNK activation may serve as a valuable prognostic factor in gastric cancer, and that it is implicated in gastric tumorigenesis, at least in part, through FOXO1 inhibition

AKARI Observation of the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) Supercluster at z = 0.087: mid-infrared view of transition galaxies

We present the mid-infrared (MIR) properties of galaxies within a supercluster in the North Ecliptic Pole region at z?0.087 observed with the AKARI satellite. We use data from the AKARI NEP-Wide (5.4 deg2) IR survey and the CLusters of galaxies EVoLution studies (CLEVL) mission program. We show that near-IR (3 {\mu}m)-mid- IR (11 {\mu}m) color can be used as an indicator of the specific star formation rate and the presence of intermediate age stellar populations. From the MIR observations, we find that red-sequence galaxies consist not only of passively evolving red early-type galaxies, but also of 1) "weak-SFG" (disk-dominated star-forming galaxies which have star formation rates lower by \sim 4 \times than blue-cloud galaxies), and 2) "intermediate- MXG" (bulge-dominated galaxies showing stronger MIR dust emission than normal red early-type galaxies). Those two populations can be a set of transition galaxies from blue, star-forming, late-type galaxies evolving into red, quiescent, early-type ones. We find that the weak-SFG are predominant at intermediate masses (1010M\odot < M\star < 1010.5M\odot) and are typically found in local densities similar to the outskirts of galaxy clusters. As much as 40% of the supercluster member galaxies in this mass range can be classified as weak-SFGs, but their proportion decreases to < 10% at larger masses (M\star > 1010.5 M\odot) at any galaxy density. The fraction of the intermediate-MXG among red- sequence galaxies at 1010M\odot < M\star < 1011M\odot also decreases as the density and mass increase. In particular, \sim42% of the red-sequence galaxies with early-type morphologies are classified as intermediate-MXG at intermediate densities. These results suggest that the star formation activity is strongly dependent on the stellar mass, but that the morphological transformation is mainly controlled by the environment.Comment: 46 pages, 25 figures, accepted for publication in Ap