Climate dynamics experiments using a GCM simulations

The study of surface-atmosphere interactions has begun with studies of the effect of altering the ocean and land boundaries. A ten year simulation of global climate using observed sea surface temperature anomalies has begun using the NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM1). The results for low resolution (R15) were computed for the first 8 years of the simulation and compared with the observed surface temperatures and the MSU (Microwave Sounding Unit) observations of tropospheric temperature. A simulation at higher resolution (T42) was done to ascertain the effect of interactive soil hydrology on the system response to an El Nino sea surface temperature perturbation. Initial analysis of this simulations was completed

86 GHz polarimetry of OVV1633+382 after a major mm flare

The 18 mag QSO 1633+382 (4C38.41, z=1.807) showed a very pronounced outburst in 2001/2002. With a peak amplitude of more than 9 Jy at 90GHz, this flare was brighter than any known previous flare in this source (data available since 1980).During onset, the mm-flare was particulary fast, with an increase of more than 2 Jy at 230 GHz in less than 8 days. Since January 2002, the mm-flux of 1633+382 is decaying. During this decline, however, local flux variations with amplitudes of 1-3 Jy were seen, indicative of underlying and more rapid source activity on time scales of 1-2 months. After the main peak occurring in 2001.99, the 90 GHz flux showed secondary maxima at approximately half year intervals in 2002.3, 2002.7 and 2003.13. This kind of periodicity might be explained via the lighthouse model (Camenzind and Krockenberger 1992), which is based on the magnetic accelerator of Blanford and Payne (1982). At present the millimeter flux is nearly back to its quiescent level of 2-2.5 Jy, which the source had before the flare began. Our VLBA Polarimetry monitoring started June 2002 during the onset of the flare. At cm wavelength, the flare is only marginally detected which implies very high opacity of the source.Comment: 4 pages. 5 figures. Proceedings of the 7th European VLBI Network Symposium held in Toledo, Spain on October 12-15, 2004. Editors: R. Bachiller, F. Colomer, J.-F. Desmurs, P. de Vicente (Observatorio Astronomico Nacional), p. 85-88. Needs evn2004.cl

Ballistic dynamics of a convex smooth-wall billiard with finite escape rate along the boundary

We focus on the problem of an impurity-free billiard with a random position-dependent boundary coupling to the environment. The response functions of such an open system can be obtained non-perturbatively from a supersymmetric generating functional. The derivation of this functional is based on averaging over the escape rates and results in a non-linear ballistic $\sigma$-model, characterized by system-specific parameters. Particular emphasis is placed on the {}``whispering gallery modes'' as the origin of surface diffusion modes in the limit of large dimensionless conductance.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

The F-GAMMA program: Multi-frequency study of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Fermi era. Program description and the first 2.5 years of monitoring

To fully exploit the scientific potential of the Fermi mission, we initiated the F-GAMMA program. Between 2007 and 2015 it was the prime provider of complementary multi-frequency monitoring in the radio regime. We quantify the radio variability of gamma-ray blazars. We investigate its dependence on source class and examine whether the radio variability is related to the gamma-ray loudness. Finally, we assess the validity of a putative correlation between the two bands. The F-GAMMA monitored monthly a sample of about 60 sources at up to twelve radio frequencies between 2.64 and 228.39 GHz. We perform a time series analysis on the first 2.5-year dataset to obtain variability parameters. A maximum likelihood analysis is used to assess the significance of a correlation between radio and gamma-ray fluxes. We present light curves and spectra (coherent within ten days) obtained with the Effelsberg 100-m and IRAM 30-m telescopes. All sources are variable across all frequency bands with amplitudes increasing with frequency up to rest frame frequencies of around 60 - 80 GHz as expected by shock-in-jet models. Compared to FSRQs, BL Lacs show systematically lower variability amplitudes, brightness temperatures and Doppler factors at lower frequencies, while the difference vanishes towards higher ones. The time scales appear similar for the two classes. The distribution of spectral indices appears flatter or more inverted at higher frequencies for BL Lacs. Evolving synchrotron self-absorbed components can naturally account for the observed spectral variability. We find that the Fermi-detected sources show larger variability amplitudes as well as brightness temperatures and Doppler factors, than non-detected ones. Flux densities at 86.2 and 142.3 GHz correlate with 1 GeV fluxes at a significance level better than 3sigma, implying that gamma rays are produced very close to the mm-band emission region.Comment: Accepted for publication in section 4. Extragalactic astronomy of Astronomy and Astrophysics (18 pages, 9 figures

The Far-Infrared Properties of Spatially Resolved AKARI Observations

We present the spatially resolved observations of IRAS sources from the Japanese infrared astronomy satellite AKARI All-Sky Survey during the performance verification (PV) phase of the mission. We extracted reliable point sources matched with IRAS point source catalogue. By comparing IRAS and AKARI fluxes, we found that the flux measurements of some IRAS sources could have been over or underestimated and affected by the local background rather than the global background. We also found possible candidates for new AKARI sources and confirmed that AKARI observations resolved IRAS sources into multiple sources. All-Sky Survey observations are expected to verify the accuracies of IRAS flux measurements and to find new extragalactic point sources.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted publication in PASJ AKARI special issu

The immediate upstream region of the 5 '-UTR from the AUG start codon has a pronounced effect on the translational efficiency in Arabidopsis thaliana

The nucleotide sequence around the translational initiation site is an important cis-acting element for post-transcriptional regulation. However, it has not been fully understood how the sequence context at the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) affects the translational efficiency of individual mRNAs. In this study, we provide evidence that the 5'-UTRs of Arabidopsis genes showing a great difference in the nucleotide sequence vary greatly in translational efficiency with more than a 200-fold difference. Of the four types of nucleotides, the A residue was the most favourable nucleotide from positions -1 to -21 of the 5'-UTRs in Arabidopsis genes. In particular, the A residue in the 5'-UTR from positions -1 to -5 was required for a high-level translational efficiency. In contrast, the T residue in the 5'-UTR from positions -1 to -5 was the least favourable nucleotide in translational efficiency. Furthermore, the effect of the sequence context in the -1 to -21 region of the 5'-UTR was conserved in different plant species. Based on these observations, we propose that the sequence context immediately upstream of the AUG initiation codon plays a crucial role in determining the translational efficiency of plant genes.ope

Engineering development of advanced physical fine coal cleaning for premium fuel applications: Subtask 3.3 - dewatering studies

If successful, the novel Hydrophobic Dewatering (HD) process being developed in this project will be capable of efficiently removing moisture from fine coal without the expense and other related drawbacks associated with mechanical dewatering or thermal drying. In the HD process, a hydrophobic substance is added to a coal-water slurry to displace water from the surface of coal, while the spent hydrophobic substance is recovered for recycling. For this process to have commercialization potential, the amount of butane lost during the process must be small. Earlier testing revealed the ability of the hydrophobic dewatering process to reduce the moisture content of fine coal to a very low amount as well as the determination of potential butane losses by the adsorption of butane onto the coal surface. Work performed in this quarter showed that the state of oxidation affects the amount of butane adsorbed onto the surface of the coal and also affects the final moisture content. the remaining work will involve a preliminary flowsheet of a continuous bench-scale unit and a review of the economics of the system. 1 tab

HST astrometry in the 30 Doradus region: II. Runaway stars from new proper motions in the Large Magellanic Cloud

We present a catalog of relative proper motions for 368,787 stars in the 30 Doradus region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), based on a dedicated two-epoch survey with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and supplemented with proper motions from our pilot archival study. We demonstrate that a relatively short epoch difference of 3 years is sufficient to reach a $\sim$0.1 mas yr$^{-1}$ level of precision or better. A number of stars have relative proper motions exceeding a 3-sigma error threshold, representing a mixture of Milky Way denizens and 17 potential LMC runaway stars. Based upon 183 VFTS OB-stars with the best proper motions, we conclude that none of them move faster than $\sim$0.3 mas yr$^{-1}$ in each coordinate -- equivalent to $\sim$70 km s$^{-1}$. Among the remaining 351 VFTS stars with less accurate proper motions, only one candidate OB runaway can be identified. We rule out any OB star in our sample moving at a tangential velocity exceeding $\sim$120 km s$^{-1}$. The most significant result of this study is finding 10 stars over wide range of masses, which appear to be ejected from the massive star cluster R136 in the tangential plane to angular distances from $35^{\prime\prime}$ out to $407^{\prime\prime}$, equivalent to 8-98 pc. The tangential velocities of these runaways appear to be correlated with apparent magnitude, indicating a possible dependence on the stellar mass.Comment: 45 pages (in referee format), 12 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to AJ. Comments are welcom

Solving the Uncapacitated Single Allocation p-Hub Median Problem on GPU

A parallel genetic algorithm (GA) implemented on GPU clusters is proposed to solve the Uncapacitated Single Allocation p-Hub Median problem. The GA uses binary and integer encoding and genetic operators adapted to this problem. Our GA is improved by generated initial solution with hubs located at middle nodes. The obtained experimental results are compared with the best known solutions on all benchmarks on instances up to 1000 nodes. Furthermore, we solve our own randomly generated instances up to 6000 nodes. Our approach outperforms most well-known heuristics in terms of solution quality and time execution and it allows hitherto unsolved problems to be solved