A Catalog of Background Stars Reddened by Dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds

Normal field stars located behind dense clouds are a valuable resource in interstellar astrophysics, as they provide continua in which to study phenomena such as gas-phase and solid-state absorption features, interstellar extinction and polarization. This paper reports the results of a search for highly reddened stars behind the Taurus Dark Cloud complex. We use the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Point Source Catalog to survey a 50 sq deg area of the cloud to a limiting magnitude of K = 10.0. Photometry in the 1.2-2.2 micron passbands from 2MASS is combined with photometry at longer infrared wavelengths (3.6-12 micron) from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite to provide effective discrimination between reddened field stars and young stellar objects (YSOs) embedded in the cloud. Our final catalog contains 248 confirmed or probable background field stars, together with estimates of their total visual extinctions, which span the range 2-29 mag. We also identify the 2MASS source J04292083+2742074 (IRAS 04262+2735) as a previously unrecognized candidate YSO, based on the presence of infrared emission greatly in excess of that predicted for a normal reddened photosphere at wavelengths >5 microns

Oscillons: an encounter with dynamical chaos in 1953?

We present evidences that Ben F. Laposky (1914-2000) might have been the first person who created a family of nonlinear analog circuits that allowed him to observe chaotic attractors and other trademarks of nonlinear science as early as 1953.Comment: accepted to Chao

How and Why is An Answer (Still) Correct? Maintaining Provenance in Dynamic Knowledge Graphs

Knowledge graphs (KGs) have increasingly become the backbone of many critical knowledge-centric applications. Most large-scale KGs used in practice are automatically constructed based on an ensemble of extraction techniques applied over diverse data sources. Therefore, it is important to establish the provenance of results for a query to determine how these were computed. Provenance is shown to be useful for assigning confidence scores to the results, for debugging the KG generation itself, and for providing answer explanations. In many such applications, certain queries are registered as standing queries since their answers are needed often. However, KGs keep continuously changing due to reasons such as changes in the source data, improvements to the extraction techniques, refinement/enrichment of information, and so on. This brings us to the issue of efficiently maintaining the provenance polynomials of complex graph pattern queries for dynamic and large KGs instead of having to recompute them from scratch each time the KG is updated. Addressing these issues, we present HUKA which uses provenance polynomials for tracking the derivation of query results over knowledge graphs by encoding the edges involved in generating the answer. More importantly, HUKA also maintains these provenance polynomials in the face of updates---insertions as well as deletions of facts---to the underlying KG. Experimental results over large real-world KGs such as YAGO and DBpedia with various benchmark SPARQL query workloads reveals that HUKA can be almost 50 times faster than existing systems for provenance computation on dynamic KGs

Effects of Capsaicin on the Hemodynamic Responses to Handgrip Exercise: Potential Influence of Race

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Creating the cultures of the future: cultural strategy, policy and institutions in Gramsci. Part three: Is there a theory of cultural policy in Gramsci’s prison notebooks?

In this article, I argue that Gramsci’s prison notes on questions of cultural strategy, policy and institutions, which have so far been largely overlooked by scholars, provide further analytical insights to those offered by his more general concepts. Together they enrich the theoretical underpinnings for critical frameworks of analysis as well as for radical practices of cultural strategy, cultural policy-making and cultural organisation. On the basis of a detailed analysis of these notes, I then answer the question of whether they amount to a theory of cultural policy

Northeast Folklore volume 1 numbers 1-4

The first ever issue of Northeast Folklore was published in the spring of 1958 under the editorship of Edward D. Ives (known as Sandy) and Bacil F. Kirtley through the Department of English at the University of Maine. The four editions that year were later bound into a single volume. Table of Contents Number 1 (Spring): Mishaps of a Maine Lobsterman Maine Winter Menus: A Study in Ingenuity “Young Jimmy Foulger:” A Hitherto Unrecorded Ballad in the Northeast John Ellis – Hunter, Guide, Legend Number 2 (Summer): Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore Selected Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore Collections and Studies Prior to 1950 Number 3 (Fall): Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada The Creation of Folk Songs Number 4 (Winter): Yankee Doodle: An Early Version Two Stories from the Maine Lumberwoods The First Miramichi Folksong Festival Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canadahttps://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/nf/1001/thumbnail.jp

Northeast Folklore volume 1 numbers 1-4

The first ever issue of Northeast Folklore was published in the spring of 1958 under the editorship of Edward D. Ives (known as Sandy) and Bacil F. Kirtley through the Department of English at the University of Maine. The four editions that year were later bound into a single volume. Table of Contents Number 1 (Spring): Mishaps of a Maine Lobsterman Maine Winter Menus: A Study in Ingenuity “Young Jimmy Foulger:” A Hitherto Unrecorded Ballad in the Northeast John Ellis – Hunter, Guide, Legend Number 2 (Summer): Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore Selected Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore Collections and Studies Prior to 1950 Number 3 (Fall): Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada The Creation of Folk Songs Number 4 (Winter): Yankee Doodle: An Early Version Two Stories from the Maine Lumberwoods The First Miramichi Folksong Festival Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canadahttps://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/nf/1001/thumbnail.jp

NK-Like T Cells and Plasma Cytokines, but Not Anti-Viral Serology, Define Immune Fingerprints of Resilience and Mild Disability in Exceptional Aging

Exceptional aging has been defined as maintenance of physical and cognitive function beyond the median lifespan despite a history of diseases and/or concurrent subclinical conditions. Since immunity is vital to individual fitness, we examined immunologic fingerprint(s) of highly functional elders. Therefore, survivors of the Cardiovascular Health Study in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA were recruited (n = 140; mean age = 86 years) and underwent performance testing. Blood samples were collected and examined blindly for humoral factors and T cell phenotypes. Based on results of physical and cognitive performance testing, elders were classified as “impaired” or “unimpaired”, accuracy of group assignment was verified by discriminant function analysis. The two groups showed distinct immune profiles as determined by factor analysis. The dominant immune signature of impaired elders consisted of interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and T cells expressing inhibitory natural killer-related receptors (NKR) CD158a, CD158e, and NKG2A. In contrast, the dominant signature of unimpaired elders consisted of IL-5, IL-12p70, and IL-13 with co-expression of IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-17, and T cells expressing stimulatory NKRs CD56, CD16, and NKG2D. In logistic regression models, unimpaired phenotype was predicted independently by IL-5 and by CD4+CD28nullCD56+CD57+ T cells. All elders had high antibody titers to common viruses including cytomegalovirus. In cellular bioassays, T cell receptor (TCR)-independent ligation of either CD56 or NKG2D elicited activation of T cells. Collectively, these data demonstrate the importance of immunological parameters in distinguishing between health phenotypes of older adults. NKR+ T cells and cytokine upregulation indicate a unique physiologic environment in old age. Correlation of particular NKR+ T cell subsets and IL-5 with unimpaired performance, and NKR-driven TCR-independent activation of T cells suggest novel immunopathway(s) that could be exploited to improve immunity in old age

The Effects of COVID-19 Restrictions on College Students Physical Activity and Mental Health

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Concept and optical design of the cross-disperser module for CRIRES

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Oliva, Ernesto, A. Tozzi, D. Ferruzzi, L. Origlia, A. Hatzes, R. Follert, T. Loewinger et al. "Concept and optical design of the cross-disperser module for CRIRES+." In SPIE Astronomical Telescopes+ Instrumentation, pp. 91477R-91477R. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2014, which has been published in final form at 10.1117/12.2054381