2,319 research outputs found
Electricity Intensities of the OECD and South Africa: A Comparison
Improving a country’s electricity efficiency is considered one of the important ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and to meet its commitments concerning climate change mitigation. In this paper, we conduct a comparative analysis between South Africa and OECD members’ total and sectoral electricity intensities. This is done to establish a sense of South Africa’s relative performance in this regard, to ascertain the possible scope for improvement and, if such scope exists, to determine in which of the industrial sectors
South Africa’s Electricity Consumption: A Sectoral Decomposition Analysis
South Africa's electricity consumption has increased sharply since the early 1990s. Here we conduct a sectoral decomposition analysis of the electricity consumption for the period 1993 to 2006, to determine the main drivers of this increase. The results show that the increase was due mainly to output- or production-related factors, with structural changes playing a secondary role. While there is some evidence of efficiency improvements, indicated here as a slowdown in the rate of increase in electricity intensity, it was not nearly sufficient to offset the combined production and structural effects that propelled electricity consumption higher.
New Image Statistics for Detecting Disturbed Galaxy Morphologies at High Redshift
Testing theories of hierarchical structure formation requires estimating the
distribution of galaxy morphologies and its change with redshift. One aspect of
this investigation involves identifying galaxies with disturbed morphologies
(e.g., merging galaxies). This is often done by summarizing galaxy images
using, e.g., the CAS and Gini-M20 statistics of Conselice (2003) and Lotz et
al. (2004), respectively, and associating particular statistic values with
disturbance. We introduce three statistics that enhance detection of disturbed
morphologies at high-redshift (z ~ 2): the multi-mode (M), intensity (I), and
deviation (D) statistics. We show their effectiveness by training a
machine-learning classifier, random forest, using 1,639 galaxies observed in
the H band by the Hubble Space Telescope WFC3, galaxies that had been
previously classified by eye by the CANDELS collaboration (Grogin et al. 2011,
Koekemoer et al. 2011). We find that the MID statistics (and the A statistic of
Conselice 2003) are the most useful for identifying disturbed morphologies.
We also explore whether human annotators are useful for identifying disturbed
morphologies. We demonstrate that they show limited ability to detect
disturbance at high redshift, and that increasing their number beyond
approximately 10 does not provably yield better classification performance. We
propose a simulation-based model-fitting algorithm that mitigates these issues
by bypassing annotation.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The Effects of an AGN on Host Galaxy Colour and Morphology Measurements
We assess the effects of simulated active galactic nuclei (AGNs) on the
colour and morphology measurements of their host galaxies. To test the
morphology measurements, we select a sample of galaxies not known to host AGNs
and add a series of point sources scaled to represent specified fractions of
the observed V band light detected from the resulting systems; we then compare
morphology measurements of the simulated systems to measurements of the
original galaxies. AGN contributions >20 per cent bias most of the morphology
measurements tested, though the extent of the apparent bias depends on the
morphological characteristics of the original galaxies. We test colour
measurements by adding to non-AGN galaxy spectra a quasar spectrum scaled to
contribute specified fractions of the rest-frame B band light detected from the
resulting systems. A quasar fraction of 5 per cent can move the NUV-r colour of
an elliptical galaxy from the UV-optical red sequence to the green valley, and
20 per cent can move it into the blue cloud. Combining the colour and
morphology results, we find that a galaxy/AGN system with an AGN contribution
>20 per cent may appear bluer and more bulge-dominated than the underlying
galaxy. We conclude that (1) bulge-dominated, E/S0/Sa, and early-type
morphology classifications are accurate for red AGN host galaxies and may be
accurate for blue host galaxies, unless the AGN manifests itself as a
well-defined point source; and (2) although highly unobscured AGNs, such as the
quasar used for our experiments, can significantly bias the measured colours of
AGN host galaxies, it is possible to identify such systems by examining optical
images of the hosts for the presence of a point source and/or measuring the
level of nuclear obscuration.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Augmented collisional ionization via excited states in XUV cluster interactions
The impact of atomic excited states is investigated via a detailed model of
laser-cluster interactions, which is applied to rare gas clusters in intense
femtosecond pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV). This demonstrates the
potential for a two-step ionization process in laser-cluster interactions, with
the resulting intermediate excited states allowing for the creation of high
charge states and the rapid dissemination of laser pulse energy. The
consequences of this excitation mechanism are demonstrated through simulations
of recent experiments in argon clusters interacting with XUV radiation, in
which this two-step process is shown to play a primary role; this is consistent
with our hypothesis that XUV-cluster interactions provide a unique window into
the role of excited atomic states due to the relative lack of photoionization
and laser field-driven phenomena. Our analysis suggests that atomic excited
states may play an important role in interactions of intense radiation with
materials in a variety of wavelength regimes, including potential implications
for proposed studies of single molecule imaging with intense X-rays.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
The Effect of Mass Ratio on the Morphology and Time-scales of Disc Galaxy Mergers
The majority of galaxy mergers are expected to be minor mergers. The
observational signatures of minor mergers are not well understood, thus there
exist few constraints on the minor merger rate. This paper seeks to address
this gap in our understanding by determining if and when minor mergers exhibit
disturbed morphologies and how they differ from the morphology of major
mergers. We simulate a series of unequal-mass moderate gas-fraction disc galaxy
mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for
identifying galaxy mergers via projected separation and quantitative morphology
(the Gini coefficient G, asymmetry A, and the second-order moment of the
brightest 20% of the light M20) depends on the merger mass ratio, relative
orientations and orbital parameters. We find that G-M20 is as sensitive to 9:1
baryonic mass ratio mergers as 1:1 mergers, with observability time-scales ~
0.2-0.4 Gyr. In contrast, asymmetry finds mergers with baryonic mass ratios
between 4:1 and 1:1 (assuming local disc galaxy gas-fractions). Asymmetry
time-scales for moderate gas-fraction major disc mergers are ~ 0.2-0.4 Gyr, and
less than 0.06 Gyr for moderate gas-fraction minor mergers. The relative
orientations and orbits have little effect on the time-scales for morphological
disturbances. Observational studies of close pairs often select major mergers
by choosing paired galaxies with similar luminosities and/or stellar masses.
Therefore, the various ways of finding galaxy mergers (G-M20, A, close pairs)
are sensitive to galaxy mergers of different mass ratios. By comparing the
frequency of mergers selected by different techniques, one may place empirical
constraints on the major and minor galaxy merger rates.Comment: 16 pages; resubmitted to MNRA
Visual span and change detection in soccer: an expertise study
There is evidence to suggest that sports experts are able to extract more perceptual information from a single fixation than novices when exposed to meaningful tasks that are specific to their field of expertise. In particular, Reingold et al. (2001) showed that chess experts use a larger visual span including fewer fixations when compared to their less skilled counterparts. The aim of the present study was to examine whether also in a more complex environment, namely soccer, skilled players use a larger visual span and fewer fixations than less skilled players when attempting to recognise players' positions. To this end, we combined the gaze-contingent window technique with the change detection paradigm. Results seem to suggest that skilled soccer players do not use a larger visual span than less skilled players. However, skilled soccer players showed significantly fewer fixations of longer duration than their less skilled counterparts, supporting the notion that experts may extract more information from a single glance. © 2011 Psychology Press
The Efficacy of Galaxy Shape Parameters in Photometric Redshift Estimation: A Neural Network Approach
We present a determination of the effects of including galaxy morphological parameters in photometric redshift estimation with an artificial neural network method. Neural networks, which recognize patterns in the information content of data in an unbiased way, can be a useful estimator of the additional information contained in extra parameters, such as those describing morphology, if the input data are treated on an equal footing. We use imaging and five band photometric magnitudes from the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey. It is shown that certain principal components of the morphology information are correlated with galaxy type. However, we find that for the data used the inclusion of morphological information does not have a statistically significant benefit for photometric redshift estimation with the techniques employed here. The inclusion of these parameters may result in a trade-off between extra information and additional noise, with the additional noise becoming more dominant as more parameters are added
The Effect of Gas Fraction on the Morphology and Time-scales of Disc Galaxy Mergers
Gas-rich galaxy mergers are more easily identified by their disturbed
morphologies than mergers with less gas. Because the typical gas fraction of
galaxy mergers is expected to increase with redshift, the under-counting of low
gas-fraction mergers may bias morphological estimates of the evolution of
galaxy merger rate. To understand the magnitude of this bias, we explore the
effect of gas fraction on the morphologies of a series of simulated disc galaxy
mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for
identifying major and minor galaxy mergers via close projected pairs and
quantitative morphology (the Gini coefficient G, the second-order moment of the
brightest 20% of the light M20, and asymmetry A) depends on baryonic gas
fraction f(gas). Strong asymmetries last significantly longer in high
gas-fraction mergers of all mass ratios, with time-scales ranging from >= 300
Myr for f(gas) ~ 20% to >= 1 Gyr for f(gas) ~ 50%. Therefore the strong
evolution with redshift observed in the fraction of asymmetric galaxies may
reflect evolution in the gas properties of galaxies rather than the global
galaxy merger rate. On the other hand, the time-scale for identifying a galaxy
merger via G-M20 is weakly dependent on gas-fraction (~ 200-400 Myr),
consistent with the weak evolution observed for G-M20 mergers.Comment: 15 pages; resubmitted to MNRA
- …