Mating Flights of \u3ci\u3eEphoron Album\u3c/i\u3e (Ephemeroptera: Polymitarcidae) in Michigan

Mating flights of the mayfly Ephoron album (Say) were observed on the Sturgeon River in Houghton County, Michigan, on five evenings between 16 and 22 August, 1977. Peak emergence occurred about 30 minutes befqre sunset on 19 August and the flight period lasted about two hours. Many more adult males than females were collected on three evenings, but on one evening females greatly outnumbered males collected

DECam integration tests on telescope simulator

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a next generation optical survey aimed at measuring the expansion history of the universe using four probes: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the survey, the DES Collaboration is building the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square degree, 570 Megapixel CCD camera which will be mounted at the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory. DES will survey 5000 square degrees of the southern galactic cap in 5 filters (g, r, i, z, Y). DECam will be comprised of 74 250 micron thick fully depleted CCDs: 62 2k x 4k CCDs for imaging and 12 2k x 2k CCDs for guiding and focus. Construction of DECam is nearing completion. In order to verify that the camera meets technical specifications for DES and to reduce the time required to commission the instrument, we have constructed a full sized telescope simulator and performed full system testing and integration prior to shipping. To complete this comprehensive test phase we have simulated a DES observing run in which we have collected 4 nights worth of data. We report on the results of these unique tests performed for the DECam and its impact on the experiments progress.Comment: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics (TIPP 2011). To appear in Physics Procedia. 8 pages, 3 figure

ArborZ: Photometric Redshifts Using Boosted Decision Trees

Precision photometric redshifts will be essential for extracting cosmological parameters from the next generation of wide-area imaging surveys. In this paper we introduce a photometric redshift algorithm, ArborZ, based on the machine-learning technique of Boosted Decision Trees. We study the algorithm using galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and from mock catalogs intended to simulate both the SDSS and the upcoming Dark Energy Survey. We show that it improves upon the performance of existing algorithms. Moreover, the method naturally leads to the reconstruction of a full probability density function (PDF) for the photometric redshift of each galaxy, not merely a single "best estimate" and error, and also provides a photo-z quality figure-of-merit for each galaxy that can be used to reject outliers. We show that the stacked PDFs yield a more accurate reconstruction of the redshift distribution N(z). We discuss limitations of the current algorithm and ideas for future work.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Ap

Flexible nine-channel photodetector probe facilitated intraspinal multisite transcutaneous photobiomodulation therapy dosimetry in cadaver dogs

Noninvasive photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) of spinal cord disease remains speculative due to the lack of evidence for whether photobiomodulatory irradiances can be transcutaneously delivered to the spinal cord under a clinically acceptable PBMT surface irradiation protocol. We developed a flexible nine-channel photodetection probe for deployment within the spinal canal of a cadaver dog after hemilaminectomy to measure transcutaneously transmitted PBMT irradiance at nine sites over an eight-cm spinal canal length. The probe was built upon a 6.325-mm tubular stem, to the surface of which nine photodiodes were epoxied at approximately 1 cm apart. The photodiode has a form factor of 4.80 mm×2.10 mm×1.15 mm (length×width×height). Each photodiode was individually calibrated to deliver 1 V per 7.58 μW/cm2 continuous irradiance at 850 nm. The outputs of eight photodiodes were logged concurrently using a data acquisition module interfacing eight channels of differential analog signals, while the output of the ninth photodiode was measured by a precision multimeter. This flexible probe rendered simultaneous intraspinal (nine-site) measurements of transcutaneous PBMT irradiations at 980 nm in a pilot cadaver dog model. At a surface continuous irradiance of 3.14 W/cm2 applied off-contact between L1 and L2, intraspinal irradiances picked up by nine photodiodes had a maximum of 327.48 μW/cm2 without the skin and 5.68 μW/cm2 with the skin.Electrical & Computer EngineeringVeterinary Clinical Science

Active Learning to Overcome Sample Selection Bias: Application to Photometric Variable Star Classification

Despite the great promise of machine-learning algorithms to classify and predict astrophysical parameters for the vast numbers of astrophysical sources and transients observed in large-scale surveys, the peculiarities of the training data often manifest as strongly biased predictions on the data of interest. Typically, training sets are derived from historical surveys of brighter, more nearby objects than those from more extensive, deeper surveys (testing data). This sample selection bias can cause catastrophic errors in predictions on the testing data because a) standard assumptions for machine-learned model selection procedures break down and b) dense regions of testing space might be completely devoid of training data. We explore possible remedies to sample selection bias, including importance weighting (IW), co-training (CT), and active learning (AL). We argue that AL---where the data whose inclusion in the training set would most improve predictions on the testing set are queried for manual follow-up---is an effective approach and is appropriate for many astronomical applications. For a variable star classification problem on a well-studied set of stars from Hipparcos and OGLE, AL is the optimal method in terms of error rate on the testing data, beating the off-the-shelf classifier by 3.4% and the other proposed methods by at least 3.0%. To aid with manual labeling of variable stars, we developed a web interface which allows for easy light curve visualization and querying of external databases. Finally, we apply active learning to classify variable stars in the ASAS survey, finding dramatic improvement in our agreement with the ACVS catalog, from 65.5% to 79.5%, and a significant increase in the classifier's average confidence for the testing set, from 14.6% to 42.9%, after a few AL iterations.Comment: 43 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Ap

PreCam, a Precursor Observational Campaign for Calibration of the Dark Energy Survey

PreCam, a precursor observational campaign supporting the Dark Energy Survey (DES), is designed to produce a photometric and astrometric catalog of nearly a hundred thousand standard stars within the DES footprint, while the PreCam instrument also serves as a prototype testbed for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam)'s hardware and software. This catalog represents a potential 100-fold increase in Southern Hemisphere photometric standard stars, and therefore will be an important component in the calibration of the Dark Energy Survey. We provide details on the PreCam instrument's design, construction and testing, as well as results from a subset of the 51 nights of PreCam survey observations on the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy's Curtis-Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. We briefly describe the preliminary data processing pipeline that has been developed for PreCam data and the preliminary results of the instrument performance, as well as astrometry and photometry of a sample of stars previously included in other southern sky surveys.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, submitted to PAS

Exome-wide association study to identify rare variants influencing COVID-19 outcomes : Results from the Host Genetics Initiative

Publisher Copyright: Copyright: © 2022 Butler-Laporte et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Host genetics is a key determinant of COVID-19 outcomes. Previously, the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative genome-wide association study used common variants to identify multiple loci associated with COVID-19 outcomes. However, variants with the largest impact on COVID-19 outcomes are expected to be rare in the population. Hence, studying rare variants may provide additional insights into disease susceptibility and pathogenesis, thereby informing therapeutics development. Here, we combined whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing from 21 cohorts across 12 countries and performed rare variant exome-wide burden analyses for COVID-19 outcomes. In an analysis of 5,085 severe disease cases and 571,737 controls, we observed that carrying a rare deleterious variant in the SARS-CoV-2 sensor toll-like receptor TLR7 (on chromosome X) was associated with a 5.3-fold increase in severe disease (95% CI: 2.75–10.05, p = 5.41x10-7). This association was consistent across sexes. These results further support TLR7 as a genetic determinant of severe disease and suggest that larger studies on rare variants influencing COVID-19 outcomes could provide additional insights.Peer reviewe

Maize, sunflower and marrowstem kale cultivated as the second crop under the conditions of sprinkler irrigation and differentiated nitrogen fertilization

В 1981-1983 гг. в окрестностях т. Быдгощи была проведена серия полевых опытов по влиянию орошения дождеванием на урожай зеленой и сухой массы и содержание общего белка у кукурузы, подсолнечника и кормовой капусты возделываемых в качестве второй культуры после озимой ржи в качестве промежуточной культуры при дифференцированных дозах азотного удобрения. Полученные результаты показывают, что среди сравниваемых культур заметной тенденцией к высшим урожаям сухой массы отличалась кукуруза. Орошение и удобрение повышающимися дозами азота приводили к повышению урожаев сухой массы. Установлено также повышение содержания общего белка под влиянием доз азота.A series of field experiments on the effect of sprinkler irrigation on the green and dry matter yields and the total protein content in maize, sunflower and marrowstem kale cultivated as the second crop after winter rye as the after- crop at different nitrogen rates was carried out in 1981-1983. in the environs of Bydgoszcz. The results obtained have proved that among the crops compared it was maize, which distinguished itself with a marked tendency to higher dry matter yields. Irrigation and increased nitrogen fertilization level resulted in a growth of dry matter yields. Also an increase of the total protein content under the nitrogen fertilization has been found

Yielding of rescue bromegrass, cocksfoot, alfalfa and their mixtures on light soil under irrigation conditions

В опыте проведенном в местности Любостронь около г. Быдгощи на почве слабого ржаного комплекса в трех 2-летних сериях исследованийх (I - 1981-1982,11 - 1982-1983, III - 1983-1984 гг.) была установлена пригодность к возделыванию костра униолового, ежи сборной, люцерны и их смесей. В условиях орошения эти растения дали в среднем для серии соответственно 70, 60, 70 тонн зеленой и 15, 14, 15 тонн сухой массы с гектара, причем эти урожай были выше в сравнении с урожаями полученными без орошений на 38, 64, 42% зеленой и 35, 47, 33% сухой массы.A suitability for cultivation of rescue bromegrass, cocksfoot, alfalfa and their mixtures on soil of the weak ryeland complex at the Lubostroń locality near Bydgoszcz was tested in the experiments carried out in three 2-year series (I - 1981-1982, II - 1982-1983, III - 1983-1984). Mean yields of green matter amounted under the irrigation conditions to 70, 60, 70 t and of dry matter to 15, 14, 15 t, respectively, from hectare, being higher as compared with yields without irrigation by 38, 64 and 42%, respectively, of green and by 35, 47 and 33%, respectively, of dry matter from hectare