15,126 research outputs found
Unavoidable Selection Effects in the Analysis of Faint Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field: Probing the Cosmology and Merger History of Galaxies
(Abridged) We present a detailed analysis of the number count and photometric
redshift distribution of faint galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), paying
a special attention to the selection effects including the cosmological dimming
of surface brightness of galaxies. We find a considerably different result from
previous studies ignoring the selection effects, and these effects should
therefore be taken into account in the analysis. We find that the model of pure
luminosity evolution (PLE) of galaxies in the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) universe
predicts much smaller counts than those observed at faint magnitude limits by a
factor of more than 10, so that a very strong number evolution of galaxies with
\eta > 3-4 must be invoked to reproduce the I_{814} counts, when parametrized
as \phi^* \propto (1+z)^\eta. However we show that such a strong number
evolution under realistic merging processes of galaxies can not explain the
steep slope of the B_{450} and V_{606} counts, and it is seriously inconsistent
with their photometric redshift distribution. We find that these difficulties
still persist in an open universe with \Omega_0 > 0.2, but are resolved only
when we invoke a -dominated flat universe, after examining various
systematic uncertainties in modeling the formation and evolution of galaxies.
The present analysis revitalizes the practice of using faint number counts as
an important cosmological test, giving one of the arguments against the EdS
universe and suggests acceleration of the cosmic expansion by vacuum energy
density. While a modest number evolution of galaxies with \eta ~ 1 is still
necessary even in a Lambda-dominated universe, a stronger number evolution with
\eta > 1 is rejected from the HDF data, giving a strong constraint on the
merger history of galaxies.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, final version matching publication in ApJ. Some
references added. The complete ps file of Table 3 is available at
http://th.nao.ac.jp/~totani/images/paper/ty2000-table3.p
Social and cultural origins of motivations to volunteer a comparison of university students in six countries
Although participation in volunteering and motivations to volunteer (MTV) have received substantial attention on the national level, particularly in the US, few studies have compared and explained these issues across cultural and political contexts. This study compares how two theoretical perspectives, social origins theory and signalling theory, explain variations in MTV across different countries. The study analyses responses from a sample of 5794 students from six countries representing distinct institutional contexts. The findings provide strong support for signalling theory but less so for social origins theory. The article concludes that volunteering is a personal decision and thus is influenced more at the individual level but is also impacted to some degree by macro-level societal forces
Bodily relations and reciprocity in the art of Sonia Khurana
This article explores the significance of the ‘somatic’ and ‘ontological turn’ in locating the radical politics articulated in the contemporary performance, installation, video and digital art practices of New Delhi-based artist, Sonia Khurana (b. 1968). Since the late 1990s Khurana has fashioned a range of artworks that require new sorts of reciprocal and embodied relations with their viewers. While this line of art practice suggests the need for a primarily philosophical mode of inquiry into an art of the body, such affective relations need to be historicised also in relation to a discursive field of ‘difference’ and public expectations about the artist’s ethnic, gendered and national identity. Thus, this intimate, visceral and emotional field of inter- and intra-action is a novel contribution to recent transdisciplinary perspectives on the gendered, social and sentient body, that in turn prompts a wider debate on the ethics of cultural commentary and art historiography
The CMS Tracker Readout Front End Driver
The Front End Driver, FED, is a 9U 400mm VME64x card designed for reading out
the Compact Muon Solenoid, CMS, silicon tracker signals transmitted by the
APV25 analogue pipeline Application Specific Integrated Circuits. The FED
receives the signals via 96 optical fibers at a total input rate of 3.4 GB/sec.
The signals are digitized and processed by applying algorithms for pedestal and
common mode noise subtraction. Algorithms that search for clusters of hits are
used to further reduce the input rate. Only the cluster data along with trigger
information of the event are transmitted to the CMS data acquisition system
using the S-LINK64 protocol at a maximum rate of 400 MB/sec. All data
processing algorithms on the FED are executed in large on-board Field
Programmable Gate Arrays. Results on the design, performance, testing and
quality control of the FED are presented and discussed
Structure and mechanism of acetolactate decarboxylase
Acetolactate decarboxylase catalyzes the conversion of both enantiomers of acetolactate to the (R)-enantiomer of acetoin, via a mechanism that has been shown to involve a prior rearrangement of the non-natural (R)-enantiomer substrate to the natural (S)-enantiomer. In this paper, a series of crystal structures of ALDC complex with designed transition state mimics are reported. These structures, coupled with inhibition studies and site-directed mutagenesis provide an improved understanding of the molecular processes involved in the stereoselective decarboxylation/protonation events. A mechanism for the transformation of each enantiomer of acetolactate is proposed
The Origin of the Cosmic Soft X-Ray Background: Optical Identification of an Extremely Deep ROSAT Survey
We present the results of the deepest optically identified X-ray survey yet
made. The X-ray survey was made with the ROSAT PSPC and reaches a flux limit of
1.6x10^-15 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.5--2.0 keV). Above a flux limit of 2x10^-15 erg
cm^-2 s^-1 we define a complete sample of 70 sources of which 59 are
identified. Some (5) other sources have tentative identifications and in a
further 4 the X-ray error-boxes are blank to R=23 mag. At the brighter flux
levels (>= 10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1) we confirm the results of previous less deep
X-ray surveys with 84% of the sources begin QSOs. At fainter fluxes, however,
the survey is dominated by a population of galaxies with narrow optical
emission lines (NELGs). In addition, a number of groups and clusters of
galaxies are found at intermediate fluxes. Most of these are poor systems of
low X-ray luminosity and are generally found at redshifts of > 0.3. Their
numbers are consistent with a zero evolutionary scenario, in contrast to the
situation for high luminosity clusters at the same redshift. We discuss the
significance of these results to the determination of the cosmic soft X-ray
background (XRB) and show that at 2x10^-15 erg cm^-2 s^-1, we have resolved
more than 50% of the background. We also briefly consider the probable
importance of NELG objects to the residual background and look at some of the
properties of these unusual objects.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX, 17 figures from 32 postscript files. Uses mn.sty and
epsf.sty. Accepted by MNRAS. Revised version now contains data table. For
more information see http://www.astro.soton.ac.uk/~amn/UKdee
Nonsoluble and non-p-soluble length of finite groups
Every finite group G has a normal series each of whose factors either is soluble or is a direct product of nonabelian simple groups. We define the nonsoluble length λ(G) as the number of nonsoluble factors in a shortest series of this kind. Upper bounds for λ(G) appear in the study of various problems on finite, residually finite, and profinite groups. We prove that λ(G) is bounded in terms of the maximum 2-length of soluble subgroups of G, and that λ(G) is bounded by the maximum Fitting height of soluble subgroups. For an odd prime p, the non-p-soluble length λ p (G) is introduced, and it is proved that λ p (G) does not exceed the maximum p-length of p-soluble subgroups. We conjecture that for a given prime p and a given proper group variety V the non-p-soluble length λ p (G) of finite groups G whose Sylow p-subgroups belong to V is bounded. In this paper we prove this conjecture for any variety that is a product of several soluble varieties and varieties of finite exponent. As an application of the results obtained, an error is corrected in the proof of the main result of the second author’s paper Multilinear commutators in residually finite groups, Israel Journal of Mathematics 189 (2012), 207–224
Differential transcriptomic responses to heat stress in surface and subterranean diving beetles
Subterranean habitats are generally very stable environments, and as such evolutionary transitions of organisms from surface to subterranean lifestyles may cause considerable shifts in physiology, particularly with respect to thermal tolerance. In this study we compared responses to heat shock at the molecular level in a geographically widespread, surface-dwelling water beetle to a congeneric subterranean species restricted to a single aquifer (Dytiscidae: Hydroporinae). The obligate subterranean beetle Paroster macrosturtensis is known to have a lower thermal tolerance compared to surface lineages (CTmax 38°C cf. 42–46°C), but the genetic basis of this physiological difference has not been characterized. We experimentally manipulated the thermal environment of 24 individuals to demonstrate that both species can mount a heat shock response at high temperatures (35°C), as determined by comparative transcriptomics. However, genes involved in these responses differ between species and a far greater number were differentially expressed in the surface taxon, suggesting it can mount a more robust heat shock response; these data may underpin its higher thermal tolerance compared to subterranean relatives. In contrast, the subterranean species examined not only differentially expressed fewer genes in response to increasing temperatures, but also in the presence of the experimental setup employed here alone. Our results suggest P. macrosturtensis may be comparatively poorly equipped to respond to both thermally induced stress and environmental disturbances more broadly. The molecular findings presented here have conservation implications for P. macrosturtensis and contribute to a growing narrative concerning weakened thermal tolerances in obligate subterranean organisms at the molecular level
Dimensionless supersymmetry breaking couplings, flat directions, and the origin of intermediate mass scales
The effects of supersymmetry breaking are usually parameterized by soft
couplings of positive mass dimensions. However, realistic models also predict
the existence of suppressed, but non-vanishing, dimensionless
supersymmetry-breaking couplings. These couplings are technically hard, but do
not lead to disastrous quadratic divergences in scalar masses, and may be
crucial for understanding low-energy physics. In particular, analytic scalar
quartic couplings that break supersymmetry can lead to intermediate scale
vacuum expectation values along nearly-flat directions. I study the one-loop
effective potential for flat directions in the presence of dimensionless
supersymmetry-breaking terms, and discuss the corresponding renormalization
group equations. I discuss two applications: a minimal model of automatic
R-parity conservation, and an extension of this minimal model which provides a
solution to the \mu problem and an invisible axion.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX with epsf and axodraw.st
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