CosmoDM and its application to Pan-STARRS data

The Cosmology Data Management system (CosmoDM) is an automated and flexible data management system for the processing and calibration of data from optical photometric surveys. It is designed to run on supercomputers and to minimize disk I/O to enable scaling to very high throughput during periods of reprocessing. It serves as an early prototype for one element of the ground-based processing required by the Euclid mission and will also be employed in the preparation of ground based data needed in the eROSITA X-ray all sky survey mission. CosmoDM consists of two main pipelines. The first is the single-epoch or detrending pipeline, which is used to carry out the photometric and astrometric calibration of raw exposures. The second is the co- addition pipeline, which combines the data from individual exposures into deeper coadd images and science ready catalogs. A novel feature of CosmoDM is that it uses a modified stack of As- tromatic software which can read and write tile compressed images. Since 2011, CosmoDM has been used to process data from the DECam, the CFHT MegaCam and the Pan-STARRS cameras. In this paper we shall describe how processed Pan-STARRS data from CosmoDM has been used to optically confirm and measure photometric redshifts of Planck-based Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect selected cluster candidates.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Proceedings of Precision Astronomy with Fully Depleted CCDs Workshop (2014). Accepted for publication in JINS

Management of postoperative nausea and vomiting: focus on palonosetron

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) remains a significant problem in modern anesthetic practice, with an incidence in high-risk groups of up to 80%. In addition to being unpleasant and distressing for the patient, PONV has the potential to adversely affect patient and surgical outcomes. Advances in PONV prophylaxis over recent years include using non-pharmacological means to reduce baseline risk, a change to less emetogenic anesthetic techniques and the combination of multiple antiemetic drugs. The 5-hydroxytryptamine-3 (5-HT3) antagonists have proven a particularly valuable addition to the armamentarium against PONV. Palonosetron is a second-generation 5-HT3 antagonist that has recently been approved for prophylaxis against PONV. It has unique structural, pharmacological and clinical properties that distinguish it from other agents in its class. This review summarizes current evidence on PONV prophylaxis, reviews the 5-HT3 antagonists in particular and focuses on the established and future roles of palonosetron

Clinical results of resection arthrodesis by triangular external fixation for posttraumatic arthrosis of the ankle joint in 89 cases

The methods for ankle arthrodesis differ significantly, probably a sign that no method is clearly superior to others. In the last ten years there is a clear favour toward internal fixation. We retrospectively evaluate the technique and evaluate the clinical long term results of external fixation in a triangular frame

Current Status of Quark Gluon Plasma Signals

Compelling evidence for the creation of a new form of matter has been claimed to be found in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS. We discuss the uniqueness of often proposed experimental signatures for quark matter formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. It is demonstrated that so far none of the proposed signals like J\psi meson production/suppression, strangeness enhancement, dileptons, and directed flow unambigiously show that a phase of deconfined matter has been formed in SPS Pb+Pb collisions. We emphasize the need for systematic future measurements to search for simultaneous irregularities in the excitation functions of several observables in order to come close to pinning the properties of hot, dense QCD matter from data.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the Symposium on Fundamental Issues in Elementary Matter In Honor and Memory of Michael Danos 241. WE-Heraeus-Seminar Bad Honnef, Germany, 25--29 September 2000. To appear in Heavy Ion Phy

A data mining approach to the SAR values over large MR image repositories

Purpose: In magnetic resonance imaging, the radiofrequency energy absorption arises as one of the main safety concerns, being mainly related with increased body temperature. Monitoring radiofrequency absorption is achieved by the estimation of specific absorption rate (SAR), whose implementation lies on equipment manufacturers, which in turn are not totally enlightening about its calculus. This work presents an exploratory approach of whole-body SAR values stored in DICOM metadata aiming to find correlation with body weight, body mass index (BMI), gender and pulse sequences for abdominal/pelvic (17.812 series) and head (29.907 series) studies. Methods and Materials: All studies were acquired in a 3 Tesla scanner with high-performance gradients. Data were extracted using Dicoogle, a DICOM metadata mining tool. Several DICOM tags were analysed (e.g. patient weight, height, gender, sequence name). For each study type, specifically weighted pulse sequences were related with weight, BMI and gender through boxplot diagrams, statistical and effect size analysis. Results: SAR limits were never exceeded. Generally, SAR values tended to decrease with increasing body weight and BMI values for abdominal/pelvic studies. On the other hand, head studies showed different trends regarding distinct pulse sequences. SAR values tend to be higher in male individuals (p<0,05). As expected, turbo spin echo sequences present the highest SAR values. The values found for echo gradient spoiled sequence (FLASH) were also high. Conclusion: It is confirmed that SAR estimates are related with the analysed variables. An individual examination of pulse sequences is recommended to observe trends regarding weight, BMI or gender.publishe

Eliciting Efficiency Requirements with Use Cases

Non-functional requirements provide the glue between functional requirements and architectural decisions. Thus, it is important to elicit and specify the nonfunctional requirements precisely. In practice, however, they are mostly neglected. In this paper, we sketch an approach developed in the context of the EMPRESS project, which allows efficiency requirements to be elicited in conjunction with use case. This is part of a more general, experience -based approach to elicit and specify nonfunctional requirements in concert with functional requirements and architecture

Near-IR search for lensed supernovae behind galaxy clusters: III. Implications for cluster modeling and cosmology

Massive galaxy clusters at intermediate redshifts act as gravitational lenses that can magnify supernovae (SNe) occurring in background galaxies. We assess the possibility to use lensed SNe to put constraints on the mass models of galaxy clusters and the Hubble parameter at high redshift. Due to the standard candle nature of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), observational information on the lensing magnification from an intervening galaxy cluster can be used to constrain the model for the cluster mass distribution. A statistical analysis using parametric cluster models was performed to investigate the possible improvements from lensed SNe Ia for the accurately modeled galaxy cluster A1689 and the less well constrained cluster A2204. Time delay measurements obtained from SNe lensed by accurately modeled galaxy clusters can be used to measure the Hubble parameter. For a survey of A1689 we estimate the expected rate of detectable SNe Ia and of multiply imaged SNe. The velocity dispersion and core radius of the main cluster potential show strong correlations with the predicted magnifications and can therefore be constrained by observations of SNe Ia in background galaxies. This technique proves especially powerful for galaxy clusters with only few known multiple image systems. The main uncertainty for measurements of the Hubble parameter from the time delay of strongly lensed SNe is due to cluster model uncertainties. For the extremely well modeled cluster A1689, a single time delay measurement could be used to determine the Hubble parameter with a precision of ~ 10%. We conclude that observations of SNe Ia behind galaxy clusters can be used to improve the mass modeling of the large scale component of galaxy clusters and thus the distribution of dark matter. Time delays from SNe strongly lensed by accurately modeled galaxy clusters can be used to measure the Hubble constant at high redshifts.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&

The Self-Calibrating Hubble Diagram

As an increasing number of well measured type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) become available, the statistical uncertainty on w has been reduced to the same size as the systematic uncertainty. The statistical error will decrease further in the near future, and hence the improvement of systematic uncertainties needs to be addressed, if further progress is to be made. We study how uncertainties in the primary reference spectrum - which are a main contribution to the systematic uncertainty budget - affect the measurement of the Dark Energy equation of state parameter w from SNe Ia. The increasing number of SN observations can be used to reduce the uncertainties by including perturbations of the reference spectrum as nuisance parameters in a cosmology fit, thus "self-calibrating" the Hubble diagram. We employ this method to real SNe data for the first time and find the perturbations of the reference spectrum consistent with zero at the 1%-level. For future surveys we estimate that ~3500 SNe will be required for our method to outperform the standard method of deriving the cosmological parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Update to revised version accepted for publication in JCA