16,365 research outputs found
OpenForensics:a digital forensics GPU pattern matching approach for the 21st century
Pattern matching is a crucial component employed in many digital forensic (DF) analysis techniques, such as file-carving. The capacity of storage available on modern consumer devices has increased substantially in the past century, making pattern matching approaches of current generation DF tools increasingly ineffective in performing timely analyses on data seized in a DF investigation. As pattern matching is a trivally parallelisable problem, general purpose programming on graphic processing units (GPGPU) is a natural fit for this problem. This paper presents a pattern matching framework - OpenForensics - that demonstrates substantial performance improvements from the use of modern parallelisable algorithms and graphic processing units (GPUs) to search for patterns within forensic images and local storage devices
Strain-stress study of AlxGa1-xN/AlN heterostructures on c-plane sapphire and related optical properties
This work presents a systematic study of stress and strain of AlxGa1-xN/AlN
with composition ranging from GaN to AlN, grown on a c-plane sapphire by
metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, using synchrotron radiation
high-resolution X-ray diffraction and reciprocal space mapping. The c-plane of
the AlxGa1-xN epitaxial layers exhibits compressive strain, while the a-plane
exhibits tensile strain. The biaxial stress and strain are found to increase
with increasing Al composition, although the lattice mismatch between the
AlxGa1-xN and the buffer layer AlN gets smaller. A reduction in the lateral
coherence lengths and an increase in the edge and screw dislocations are seen
as the AlxGa1-xN composition is varied from GaN to AlN, exhibiting a clear
dependence of the crystal properties of AlxGa1-xN on the Al content. The
bandgap of the epitaxial layers is slightly lower than predicted value due to a
larger tensile strain effect on the a-axis compared to the compressive strain
on the c-axis. Raman characteristics of the AlxGa1-xN samples exhibit a shift
in the phonon peaks with the Al composition. The effect of strain is also
discussed on the optical phonon energies of the epitaxial layers. The
techniques discussed here can be used to study other similar materials.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Measurements of Far-UV Emission from Elliptical Galaxies at z=0.375
The ``UV upturn'' is a sharp rise in spectra of elliptical galaxies shortward
of rest-frame 2500 A. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nearby giant elliptical
galaxies, and is thought to arise primarily from low-mass evolved stars on the
extreme horizontal branch and beyond. Models suggest that the UV upturn is a
very strong function of age for these old stellar populations, increasing as
the galaxy gets older. In some models the change in UV/optical flux ratio is a
factor of 25 over timescales of less than 3 Gyr. To test the predictions for
rapid evolution of the UV upturn, we have observed a sample of normal
elliptical galaxies in the z=0.375 cluster Abell 370 with the Faint Object
Camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. A combination of two long-pass
filters was used to isolate wavelengths shortward of rest-frame 2700 A,
providing a measurement of the UV upturn at a lookback time of approximately 4
Gyr. Surprisingly, the four elliptical galaxies observed show a range of UV
upturn strength that is similar to that seen in nearby elliptical galaxies,
with an equivalent 1550-V color ranging from 2.9-3.4 mag. Our result is
inconsistent with some models for the UV upturn; other models are consistent
only for a high redshift of formation (z_f >= 4).Comment: 4 pages, Latex. 1 figure. To appear in ApJL. Uses emulateapj.sty and
apjfonts.sty. Revision includes minor ApJ edits & fixes typo
Mission-oriented requirements for updating MIL-H-8501. Volume 1: STI proposed structure
The structure of a new flying and ground handling qualities specification for military rotorcraft is presented. This preliminary specification structure is intended to evolve into a replacement for specification MIL-H-8501A. The new structure is designed to accommodate a variety of rotorcraft types, mission flight phases, flight envelopes, and flight environmental characteristics and to provide criteria for three levels of flying qualities, a systematic treatment of failures and reliability, both conventional and multiaxis controllers, and external vision aids which may also incorporate synthetic display content. Existing and new criteria were incorporated into the new structure wherever they could be substantiated
Halos of Spiral Galaxies. III. Metallicity Distributions
(Abriged) We report results of a campaign to image the stellar populations in
the halos of highly inclined spiral galaxies, with the fields roughly 10 kpc
(projected) from the nuclei. We use the F814W (I) and F606W (V) filters in the
Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, on board the Hubble Space telescope. Extended
halo populations are detected in all galaxies. The color-magnitude diagrams
appear to be completely dominated by giant-branch stars, with no evidence for
the presence of young stellar populations in any of the fields. We find that
the metallicity distribution functions are dominated by metal-rich populations,
with a tail extending toward the metal poor end. To first order, the overall
shapes of the metallicity distribution functions are similar to what is
predicted by simple, single-component model of chemical evolution with the
effective yields increasing with galaxy luminosity. However, metallicity
distributions significantly narrower than the simple model are observed for a
few of the most luminous galaxies in the sample. It appears clear that more
luminous spiral galaxies also have more metal-rich stellar halos. The
increasingly significant departures from the closed-box model for the more
luminous galaxies indicate that a parameter in addition to a single yield is
required to describe chemical evolution. This parameter, which could be related
to gas infall or outflow either in situ or in progenitor dwarf galaxies that
later merge to form the stellar halo, tends to act to make the metallicity
distributions narrower at high metallicity.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures (ApJ, in press
The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in Compact Groups
From R-band images of 39 Hickson compact groups (HCGs), we use galaxy counts
to determine a luminosity function extending to M_R=-14.0, approximately two
magnitudes deeper than previous compact group luminosity functions. We find
that a single Schechter function is a poor fit to the data, so we fit a
composite function consisting of separate Schechter functions for the bright
and faint galaxies. The bright end is best fit with M^*=-21.6 and alpha=-0.52
and the faint end with M^*=-16.1 and alpha=-1.17. The decreasing bright end
slope implies a deficit of intermediate luminosity galaxies in our sample of
HCGs and the faint end slope is slightly steeper than that reported for earlier
HCG luminosity functions. Furthermore, luminosity functions of subsets of our
sample reveal more substantial dwarf populations for groups with x-ray halos,
groups with tidal dwarf candidates, and groups with a dominant elliptical or
lenticular galaxy. Collectively, these results support the hypothesis that
within compact groups, the initial dwarf galaxy population is replenished by
"subsequent generations" formed in the tidal debris of giant galaxy
interactions.Comment: 26 pages, to be published in The Astrophysical Journal, 8 greyscale
plates (figures 1 and 2) can be retrieved at
http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/sdh/pubs.htm
Data-driven discovery of cardiolipin-selective small molecules by computational active learning
Subtle variations in the lipid composition of mitochondrial membranes can have a profound impact on mitochondrial function. The inner mitochondrial membrane contains the phospholipid cardiolipin, which has been demonstrated to act as a biomarker for a number of diverse pathologies. Small molecule dyes capable of selectively partitioning into cardiolipin membranes enable visualization and quantification of the cardiolipin content. Here we present a data-driven approach that combines a deep learning-enabled active learning workflow with coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations and alchemical free energy calculations to discover small organic compounds able to selectively permeate cardiolipin-containing membranes. By employing transferable coarse-grained models we efficiently navigate the all-atom design space corresponding to small organic molecules with molecular weight less than â500 Da. After direct simulation of only 0.42% of our coarse-grained search space we identify molecules with considerably increased levels of cardiolipin selectivity compared to a widely used cardiolipin probe 10-N-nonyl acridine orange. Our accumulated simulation data enables us to derive interpretable design rules linking coarse-grained structure to cardiolipin selectivity. The findings are corroborated by fluorescence anisotropy measurements of two compounds conforming to our defined design rules. Our findings highlight the potential of coarse-grained representations and multiscale modelling for materials discovery and design
Infrared luminosities of galaxies in the Local Volume
Near-infrared properties of 451 galaxies with distances D \leq 10 Mpc are
considered basing on the all-sky two micron survey (2MASS). A luminosity
function of the galaxies in the K-band is derived within [-25,-11] mag. The
local (D < 8 Mpc) luminosity density is estimated to be 6.8*10^8 L_sun/Mpc^3
that exceeds (1.5+-0.1) times the global cosmic density in the K-band. Virial
mass-to-K-luminosity ratios are determined for nearby groups and clusters. In
the luminosity range of (5*10^{10} - 2*10^{13})L_sun, the groups and clusters
follow the relation \lg(M/L_K) propto (0.27+-0.03) lg(L_K) with a scatter of
\~0.1 comparable to errors of the observables. The mean ratio ~=
(20-25) M_sun/L_sun for the galaxy systems turns out to be significantly lower
than the global ratio, (80-90)M_sun/L_sun, expected in the standard
cosmological model with the matter density of Omega_m =0.27. This discrepancy
can be resolved if most of dark matter in the universe is not associated with
galaxies and their systems.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures. Astronomy Letters, submitte
Far-ultraviolet imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-North: Star formation in normal galaxies at z < 1
We present far-ultraviolet (FUV) imaging of the Hubble Deep Field-North (HDF-N) taken with the Solar Blind Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS SBC) and the FUV MAMA detector of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The full WFPC2 deep field has been observed at 1600 Ă
. We detect 134 galaxies and one star down to a limit of FUV_(AB) ~ 29. All sources have counterparts in the WFPC2 image. Redshifts (spectroscopic or photometric) for the detected sources are in the range 0 < z < 1. We find that the FUV galaxy number counts are higher than those reported by GALEX, which we attribute at least in part to cosmic variance in the small HDF-N field of view. Six of the 13 Chandra sources at z < 0.85 in the HDF-N are detected in the FUV, and those are consistent with starbursts rather than active galactic nuclei. Cross-correlating with Spitzer sources in the field, we find that the FUV detections show general agreement with the expected L_(IR)/L_(UV) versus ÎČ relationship. We infer star formation rates (SFRs), corrected for extinction using the UV slope, and find a median value of 0.3 M_â yr^(-1) for FUV-detected galaxies, with 75% of detected sources having SFR < 1 M_â yr^(-1). Examining the morphological distribution of sources, we find that about half of all FUV-detected sources are identified as spiral galaxies. Half of morphologically selected spheroid galaxies at z < 0.85 are detected in the FUV, suggesting that such sources have had significant ongoing star formation in the epoch since z ~ 1
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