The Montage Image Mosaic Service: Custom Image Mosaics On-Demand

The Montage software suite has proven extremely useful as a general engine for reprojecting, background matching, and mosaicking astronomical image data from a wide variety of sources. The processing algorithms support all common World Coordinate System (WCS) projections and have been shown to be both astrometrically accurate and flux conserving. The background ‘matching’ algorithm does not remove background flux but rather finds the best compromise background based on all the input and matches the individual images to that. The Infrared Science Archive (IRSA), part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at Caltech, has now wrapped the Montage software as a CGI service and provided a compute and request management infrastructure capable of producing approximately 2 TBytes / day of image mosaic output (e.g. from 2MASS and SDSS data). Besides the basic Montage engine, this service makes use of a 16-node LINUX cluster (dual processor, dual core) and the ROME request management software developed by the National Virtual Observatory (NVO). ROME uses EJB/database technology to manage user requests, queue processing and load balance between users, and managing job monitoring and user notification. The Montage service will be extended to process userdefined data collections, including private data uploads

Magnetostriction of single crystal and polycrystalline Tb0.60Dy0.40 at cryogenic temperatures

At cryogenic temperatures, single crystals of TbDy alloys exhibit giant magnetostrictions of nearly 9000 ppm, making these materials promising for engineering service in cryogenic actuators, valves, and positioners. The preparation of single crystals is difficult and costly. Preliminary results on the magnetostriction of textured polycrystalline materials are presented here. For instance, polycrystalline Tb0.60Dy0.40, plane-rolled (one direction of applied stress) to induce crystallographic texture, has shown magnetostrictions at 77 K of 3000 ppm for an applied field of 4.5 kOe and an applied load of 23 MPa, or 48% that of a single crystal under similar conditions. Comparisons are presented between the magnetostrictive response of plane- and form-rolled (two orthogonal directions of applied stress) polycrystalline Tb0.60Dy0.40 at 10 and 77 K. It is reported that at 10 K plane-rolled Tb0.60Dy0.40 exhibits 1600 ppm magnetostriction at an applied field of 4.4 kOe with a minimal applied load of 0.28 MPa. An observed restoration of the initial unstrained state may be a useful feature of polycrystalline materials for engineering service. Finally it is reported that thermal expansion measurements provide a measure of crystallographic texture for comparison with the magnetostriction

Interpretation, translation and intercultural communication in refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France

This article explores the interplay between language and intercultural communication within refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France, using material taken from ethnographic research that involved a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis in both countries over a two-year period (2007–2009). It is concerned, in particular, to examine the role played by interpreters in facilitating intercultural communication between asylum applicants and the different administrative and legal actors responsible for assessing or defending their claims. The first section provides an overview of refugee status determination procedures in the UK and France, introducing the main administrative and legal contexts of the asylum process within which interpreters operate in the two countries. The second section compares the organisation of interpreting services, codes of conduct for interpreters and institutional expectations about the nature of interpreters’ activity on the part of the relevant UK and French authorities. The third section then explores some of the practical dilemmas for interpreters and barriers to communication that exist in refugee status determination procedures in the two countries. The article concludes by emphasising the complex and active nature of the interpreter's role in UK and French refugee status determination procedures

QUANTITATIVE EFFECTS OF NUTRITIONAL ESSENTIAL AMINO ACID DEFICIENCY UPON IMMUNE RESPONSES TO TUMORS IN MICE

Mice were fed diets deficient in a single essential amino acid, and the primary immune responses to inoculation of allogenic tumor cells was measured by in vitro assay of cellular immunity. Moderate reduction of the amino acids phenylalanine-tyrosine, valine, threonine, methionine-cystine, isoleucine, and tryptophane in the diet produced profound depression of hemagglutinating and blocking antibody responses, although cytotoxic cell-mediated immunity remained intact. These diets had previously been shown to result in a selective depression of tumor growth in mice. Limitation of the amino acids arginine, histidine, and lysine in the diets gave rise to only slight depression of the immune responses. These diets had previously been shown to produce a proportional decrease in both tumor growth and host body weight. Moderate leucine restriction resulted in a paradoxical depression of cytotoxic cell-mediated immunity with little effect on serum blocking activity. Slight increases had previously been noted in the weight of tumors in mice fed leucine-restricted diets. Deficiency or imbalance of essential amino acids in the diet may produce profound depression of immune responses and apparent, marked changes in the immune resistance of the host animal to tumors

Crystal structure of the catalytic fragment of murine poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-2.

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) has become an important pharmacological target in the treatment of cancer due to its cellular role as a 'DNA-strand break sensor', which leads in part to resistance to some existing chemo- and radiological treatments. Inhibitors have now been developed which prevent PARP-1 from synthesizing poly(ADP-ribose) in response to DNA-breaks and potentiate the cytotoxicity of DNA damaging agents. However, with the recent discoveries of PARP-2, which has a similar DNA-damage dependent catalytic activity, and additional members containing the 'PARP catalytic' signature, the isoform selectivity and resultant pharmacological effects of existing inhibitors are brought into question. We present here the crystal structure of the catalytic fragment of murine PARP-2, at 2.8 A resolution, and compare this to the catalytic fragment of PARP-1, with an emphasis on providing a possible framework for rational drug design in order to develop future isoform-specific inhibitors

Flux tubes and the type-I/type-II transition in a superconductor coupled to a superfluid

We analyze magnetic flux tubes at zero temperature in a superconductor that is coupled to a superfluid via both density and gradient (``entrainment'') interactions. The example we have in mind is high-density nuclear matter, which is a proton superconductor and a neutron superfluid, but our treatment is general and simple, modeling the interactions as a Ginzburg-Landau effective theory with four-fermion couplings, including only s-wave pairing. We numerically solve the field equations for flux tubes with an arbitrary number of flux quanta, and compare their energies. This allows us to map the type-I/type-II transition in the superconductor, which occurs at the conventional kappa = 1/sqrt(2) if the condensates are uncoupled. We find that a density coupling between the condensates raises the critical kappa and, for a sufficiently high neutron density, resolves the type-I/type-II transition line into an infinite number of bands corresponding to ``type-II(n)'' phases, in which n, the number of quanta in the favored flux tube, steps from 1 to infinity. For lower neutron density, the coupling creates spinodal regions around the type-I/type-II boundary, in which metastable flux configurations are possible. We find that a gradient coupling between the condensates lowers the critical kappa and creates spinodal regions. These exotic phenomena may not occur in nuclear matter, which is thought to be deep in the type-II region, but might be observed in condensed matter systems.Comment: 14 pages, improved discussion of the effects of varying the neutron/proton condensate ratio; added reference

Connecting the time domain community with the Virtual Astronomical Observatory

The time domain has been identified as one of the most important areas of astronomical research for the next decade. The Virtual Observatory is in the vanguard with dedicated tools and services that enable and facilitate the discovery, dissemination and analysis of time domain data. These range in scope from rapid notifications of time-critical astronomical transients to annotating long-term variables with the latest modeling results. In this paper, we will review the prior art in these areas and focus on the capabilities that the VAO is bringing to bear in support of time domain science. In particular, we will focus on the issues involved with the heterogeneous collections of (ancillary) data associated with astronomical transients, and the time series characterization and classification tools required by the next generation of sky surveys, such as LSST and SKA.Comment: Submitted to Proceedings of SPIE Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes and Systems IV, Amsterdam, 2012 July 2-

Results and recommendations from an intercomparison of six Hygroscopicity-TDMA systems

The performance of six custom-built Hygrocopicity-Tandem Differential Mobility Analyser (H-TDMA) systems was investigated in the frame of an international calibration and intercomparison workshop held in Leipzig, February 2006. The goal of the workshop was to harmonise H-TDMA measurements and develop recommendations for atmospheric measurements and their data evaluation. The H-TDMA systems were compared in terms of the sizing of dry particles, relative humidity (RH) uncertainty, and consistency in determination of number fractions of different hygroscopic particle groups. The experiments were performed in an air-conditioned laboratory using ammonium sulphate particles or an external mixture of ammonium sulphate and soot particles. The sizing of dry particles of the six H-TDMA systems was within 0.2 to 4.2% of the selected particle diameter depending on investigated size and individual system. Measurements of ammonium sulphate aerosol found deviations equivalent to 4.5% RH from the set point of 90% RH compared to results from previous experiments in the literature. Evaluation of the number fraction of particles within the clearly separated growth factor modes of a laboratory generated externally mixed aerosol was done. The data from the H-TDMAs was analysed with a single fitting routine to investigate differences caused by the different data evaluation procedures used for each H-TDMA. The differences between the H-TDMAs were reduced from +12/-13% to +8/-6% when the same analysis routine was applied. We conclude that a common data evaluation procedure to determine number fractions of externally mixed aerosols will improve the comparability of H-TDMA measurements. It is recommended to ensure proper calibration of all flow, temperature and RH sensors in the systems. It is most important to thermally insulate the aerosol humidification unit and the second DMA and to monitor these temperatures to an accuracy of 0.2 degrees C. For the correct determination of external mixtures, it is necessary to take into account size-dependent losses due to diffusion in the plumbing between the DMAs and in the aerosol humidification unit.Peer reviewe