Galaxy Morphology - Halo Gas Connections

We studied a sample of 38 intermediate redshift MgII absorption-selected galaxies using (1) Keck/HIRES and VLT/UVES quasar spectra to measure the halo gas kinematics from MgII absorption profiles and (2) HST/WFPC-2 images to study the absorbing galaxy morphologies. We have searched for correlations between quantified gas absorption properties, and host galaxy impact parameters, inclinations, position angles, and quantified morphological parameters. We report a 3.2-sigma correlation between asymmetric perturbations in the host galaxy morphology and the MgII absorption equivalent width. We suggest that this correlation may indicate a connection between past merging and/or interaction events in MgII absorption-selected galaxies and the velocity dispersion and quantity of gas surrounding these galaxies.Comment: 6 pages; 3 figures; contributed talk for IAU 199: Probing Galaxies through Quasar Absorption Line

Forest structure, stand composition, and climate-growth response in montane forests of Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, China.

Montane forests of western China provide an opportunity to establish baseline studies for climate change. The region is being impacted by climate change, air pollution, and significant human impacts from tourism. We analyzed forest stand structure and climate-growth relationships from Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve in northwestern Sichuan province, along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. We conducted a survey to characterize forest stand diversity and structure in plots occurring between 2050 and 3350 m in elevation. We also evaluated seedling and sapling recruitment and tree-ring data from four conifer species to assess: 1) whether the forest appears in transition toward increased hardwood composition; 2) if conifers appear stressed by recent climate change relative to hardwoods; and 3) how growth of four dominant species responds to recent climate. Our study is complicated by clear evidence of 20(th) century timber extraction. Focusing on regions lacking evidence of logging, we found a diverse suite of conifers (Pinus, Abies, Juniperus, Picea, and Larix) strongly dominate the forest overstory. We found population size structures for most conifer tree species to be consistent with self-replacement and not providing evidence of shifting composition toward hardwoods. Climate-growth analyses indicate increased growth with cool temperatures in summer and fall. Warmer temperatures during the growing season could negatively impact conifer growth, indicating possible seasonal climate water deficit as a constraint on growth. In contrast, however, we found little relationship to seasonal precipitation. Projected warming does not yet have a discernible signal on trends in tree growth rates, but slower growth with warmer growing season climates suggests reduced potential future forest growth

Inexpensive multi-plane particle image velocimetry based on defocusing: proof of concept on two-component measurement

This paper presents a method for simultaneous particle image velocimetry (PIV) on parallel planes offset in depth. The method places images from two planes onto a different half of a camera sensor by using image splitting optics with variable optical path lengths. A shallow depth of field is achieved to ensure only one plane is in focus on each half of the sensor. Without needing additional lasers, the method is designed as an inexpensive means to increase the number of measurement plane(s) of single/multi-plane PIV setups and can be combined with existing plane discrimination approaches such as polarization and wavelength. The method is useful for studying instantaneous flow correlations on different planes while retaining high in-plane spatial resolution of typical planar PIV measurement. The measurement uncertainty caused by crosstalk from out-of-focus images is discussed. Experimental results from a laminar flow rig test indicate that the average measurement error of each velocity component is lower than 0.1 pixels per time step, with a 20 mm plane separation in depth and a 35 × 54 mm2 field of view. As an application with varying background scatter and out-of-plane flow motions, in-cylinder flow measurements in an optically accessible internal combustion engine were performed on two swirl planes simultaneously. Characteristics of the proposed method performing stereoscopic PIV measurements will be studied in future

Specialized Detention and Correctional Facilities

The placements covered in this chapter include child and youth residential treatment facilities, juvenile detention and correctional facilities, juvenile sexual offender treatment facilities, women\u27s prisons, and military detention and correctional institutions. For each of these specialized placements, we present their history and current philosophy,outline basic components of design, treatment services, and programming: and review the satus of evidence-based practice

On the relationship between Bayesian error bars and the input data density

We investigate the dependence of Bayesian error bars on the distribution of data in input space. For generalized linear regression models we derive an upper bound on the error bars which shows that, in the neighbourhood of the data points, the error bars are substantially reduced from their prior values. For regions of high data density we also show that the contribution to the output variance due to the uncertainty in the weights can exhibit an approximate inverse proportionality to the probability density. Empirical results support these conclusions

Specialized Detention and Correctional Facilities

The placements covered in this chapter include child and youth residential treatment facilities, juvenile detention and correctional facilities, juvenile sexual offender treatment facilities, women\u27s prisons, and military detention and correctional institutions. For each of these specialized placements, we present their history and current philosophy,outline basic components of design, treatment services, and programming: and review the satus of evidence-based practice