3,380 research outputs found
Geographical information retrieval with ontologies of place
Geographical context is required of many information retrieval tasks in which the target of the search may be documents, images or records which are referenced to geographical space only by means of place names. Often there may be an imprecise match between the query name and the names associated with candidate sources of information. There is a need therefore for geographical information retrieval facilities that can rank the relevance of candidate information with respect to geographical closeness of place as well as semantic closeness with respect to the information of interest. Here we present an ontology of place that combines limited coordinate data with semantic and qualitative spatial relationships between places. This parsimonious model of geographical place supports maintenance of knowledge of place names that relate to extensive regions of the Earth at multiple levels of granularity. The ontology has been implemented with a semantic modelling system linking non-spatial conceptual hierarchies with the place ontology. An hierarchical spatial distance measure is combined with Euclidean distance between place centroids to create a hybrid spatial distance measure. This is integrated with thematic distance, based on classification semantics, to create an integrated semantic closeness measure that can be used for a relevance ranking of retrieved objects
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Spatial epidemiological patterns suggest mechanisms of land-sea transmission for Sarcocystis neurona in a coastal marine mammal.
Sarcocystis neurona was recognised as an important cause of mortality in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) after an outbreak in April 2004 and has since been detected in many marine mammal species in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Risk of S. neurona exposure in sea otters is associated with consumption of clams and soft-sediment prey and is temporally associated with runoff events. We examined the spatial distribution of S. neurona exposure risk based on serum antibody testing and assessed risk factors for exposure in animals from California, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. Significant spatial clustering of seropositive animals was observed in California and Washington, compared with British Columbia and Alaska. Adult males were at greatest risk for exposure to S. neurona, and there were strong associations with terrestrial features (wetlands, cropland, high human housing-unit density). In California, habitats containing soft sediment exhibited greater risk than hard substrate or kelp beds. Consuming a diet rich in clams was also associated with increased exposure risk. These findings suggest a transmission pathway analogous to that described for Toxoplasma gondii, with infectious stages traveling in freshwater runoff and being concentrated in particular locations by marine habitat features, ocean physical processes, and invertebrate bioconcentration
Complementary reaction analyses and the isospin mixing of the 4- states in 16O
Data from the inelastic scattering of electrons, and of intermediate energy
protons and pions leading to ``stretched'' configuration 4- states near 19 MeV
excitation in 16O as well as from charge exchange (p,n) scattering to an
isobaric analogue (4-) state in 16F have been analyzed to ascertain the degree
of isospin mixing contained within those states and of the amount of
d_{5/2}-p_{3/2}^{-1} particle-hole excitation strength they exhaust. The
electron and proton scattering data have been analyzed using microscopic models
of the structure and reactions, with details constrained by analyses of elastic
scattering data.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure
Laboratory Focus on Improving the Culture of Biosafety: Statewide Risk Assessment of Clinical Laboratories That Process Specimens for Microbiologic Analysis
The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene challenged Wisconsin laboratories to examine their biosafety practices and improve their culture of biosafety. One hundred three clinical and public health laboratories completed a questionnaire-based, microbiology-focused biosafety risk assessment. Greater than 96% of the respondents performed activities related to specimen processing, direct microscopic examination, and rapid nonmolecular testing, while approximately 60% performed culture interpretation. Although they are important to the assessment of risk, data specific to patient occupation, symptoms, and travel history were often unavailable to the laboratory and, therefore, less contributory to a microbiology-focused biosafety risk assessment than information on the specimen source and test requisition. Over 88% of the respondents complied with more than three-quarters of the mitigation control measures listed in the survey. Facility assessment revealed that subsets of laboratories that claim biosafety level 1, 2, or 3 status did not possess all of the biosafety elements considered minimally standard for their respective classifications. Many laboratories reported being able to quickly correct the minor deficiencies identified. Task assessment identified deficiencies that trended higher within the general (not microbiology-specific) laboratory for core activities, such as packaging and shipping, direct microscopic examination, and culture modalities solely involving screens for organism growth. For traditional microbiology departments, opportunities for improvement in the cultivation and management of highly infectious agents, such as acid-fast bacilli and systemic fungi, were revealed. These results derived from a survey of a large cohort of small- and large-scale laboratories suggest the necessity for continued microbiology-based understanding of biosafety practices, vigilance toward biosafety, and enforcement of biosafety practices throughout the laboratory setting
Gravity Spy: Integrating Advanced LIGO Detector Characterization, Machine Learning, and Citizen Science
(abridged for arXiv) With the first direct detection of gravitational waves,
the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has
initiated a new field of astronomy by providing an alternate means of sensing
the universe. The extreme sensitivity required to make such detections is
achieved through exquisite isolation of all sensitive components of LIGO from
non-gravitational-wave disturbances. Nonetheless, LIGO is still susceptible to
a variety of instrumental and environmental sources of noise that contaminate
the data. Of particular concern are noise features known as glitches, which are
transient and non-Gaussian in their nature, and occur at a high enough rate so
that accidental coincidence between the two LIGO detectors is non-negligible.
In this paper we describe an innovative project that combines crowdsourcing
with machine learning to aid in the challenging task of categorizing all of the
glitches recorded by the LIGO detectors. Through the Zooniverse platform, we
engage and recruit volunteers from the public to categorize images of glitches
into pre-identified morphological classes and to discover new classes that
appear as the detectors evolve. In addition, machine learning algorithms are
used to categorize images after being trained on human-classified examples of
the morphological classes. Leveraging the strengths of both classification
methods, we create a combined method with the aim of improving the efficiency
and accuracy of each individual classifier. The resulting classification and
characterization should help LIGO scientists to identify causes of glitches and
subsequently eliminate them from the data or the detector entirely, thereby
improving the rate and accuracy of gravitational-wave observations. We
demonstrate these methods using a small subset of data from LIGO's first
observing run.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Neutral Hydrogen Clouds near Early-Type Dwarf Galaxies of the Local Group
Parkes neutral hydrogen 21 cm line (HI) observations of the surroundings of 9
early-type Local Group dwarfs are presented. We detected numerous HI clouds in
the general direction of those dwarfs and these clouds are often offset from
the optical center of the galaxies. Although all the observed dwarfs, except
Antlia, occupy phase-space regions where the High-Velocity Cloud (HVC) density
is well above average, the measured offsets are smaller than one would expect
from a fully random cloud distribution. Possible association is detected for 11
of the 16 investigated clouds, while, for two galaxies, Sextans and Leo I, no
HI was detected. The galaxies where HI clouds were found not to coincide with
the optical, yet have a significant probability of being associated are:
Sculptor dSph, Tucanna, LGS3, Cetus, and Fornax. If the clouds are indeed
associated, these galaxies have HI masses of ,
, , , and , respectively.
However, neither ram pressure nor tidal stripping can easily explain the
offsets. In some cases, large offsets are found where ram pressure should be
the least effective.Comment: Accepted in AJ, June 200
Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Are There Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies?
(Abridged) A simple six-parameter LCDM model provides a successful fit to
WMAP data, both when the data are analyzed alone and in combination with other
cosmological data. Even so, it is appropriate to search for any hints of
deviations from the now standard model of cosmology, which includes inflation,
dark energy, dark matter, baryons, and neutrinos. The cosmological community
has subjected the WMAP data to extensive and varied analyses. While there is
widespread agreement as to the overall success of the six-parameter LCDM model,
various "anomalies" have been reported relative to that model. In this paper we
examine potential anomalies and present analyses and assessments of their
significance. In most cases we find that claimed anomalies depend on posterior
selection of some aspect or subset of the data. Compared with sky simulations
based on the best fit model, one can select for low probability features of the
WMAP data. Low probability features are expected, but it is not usually
straightforward to determine whether any particular low probability feature is
the result of the a posteriori selection or of non-standard cosmology. We
examine in detail the properties of the power spectrum with respect to the LCDM
model. We examine several potential or previously claimed anomalies in the sky
maps and power spectra, including cold spots, low quadrupole power,
quadropole-octupole alignment, hemispherical or dipole power asymmetry, and
quadrupole power asymmetry. We conclude that there is no compelling evidence
for deviations from the LCDM model, which is generally an acceptable
statistical fit to WMAP and other cosmological data.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, also available with higher-res figures on
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov; accepted by ApJS; (v2) text as accepte
Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results
We present cosmological parameter constraints based on the final nine-year
WMAP data, in conjunction with additional cosmological data sets. The WMAP data
alone, and in combination, continue to be remarkably well fit by a
six-parameter LCDM model. When WMAP data are combined with measurements of the
high-l CMB anisotropy, the BAO scale, and the Hubble constant, the densities,
Omegabh2, Omegach2, and Omega_L, are each determined to a precision of ~1.5%.
The amplitude of the primordial spectrum is measured to within 3%, and there is
now evidence for a tilt in the primordial spectrum at the 5sigma level,
confirming the first detection of tilt based on the five-year WMAP data. At the
end of the WMAP mission, the nine-year data decrease the allowable volume of
the six-dimensional LCDM parameter space by a factor of 68,000 relative to
pre-WMAP measurements. We investigate a number of data combinations and show
that their LCDM parameter fits are consistent. New limits on deviations from
the six-parameter model are presented, for example: the fractional contribution
of tensor modes is limited to r<0.13 (95% CL); the spatial curvature parameter
is limited to -0.0027 (+0.0039/-0.0038); the summed mass of neutrinos is <0.44
eV (95% CL); and the number of relativistic species is found to be 3.84+/-0.40
when the full data are analyzed. The joint constraint on Neff and the
primordial helium abundance agrees with the prediction of standard Big Bang
nucleosynthesis. We compare recent PLANCK measurements of the
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect with our seven-year measurements, and show their
mutual agreement. Our analysis of the polarization pattern around temperature
extrema is updated. This confirms a fundamental prediction of the standard
cosmological model and provides a striking illustration of acoustic
oscillations and adiabatic initial conditions in the early universe.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures, v3: Version accepted to Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Series. Includes improvements in response to referee and
community; corrected 3 entries in Table 10, (w0 & wa model). See the Legacy
Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis (LAMBDA):
http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/current/ for further detai
HI in Arp72 and similarities with M51-type systems
We present neutral hydrogen (H{\sc i}) observations with the Giant Metrewave
Radio Telescope ({\it GMRT}) of the interacting galaxies NGC5996 and NGC5994,
which make up the Arp72 system. Arp72 is an M51-type system and shows a complex
distribution of H{\sc i} tails and a bridge due to tidal interactions. H{\sc i}
column densities ranging from 0.8 atoms cm in the
eastern tidal tail to 1.7 atoms cm in the bridge
connecting the two galaxies, are seen to be associated with star-forming
regions. We discuss the morphological and kinematic similarities of Arp72 with
M51, the archetypal example of the M51-type systems, and Arp86, another
M51-type system studied with the {\it GMRT}, and suggest that a multiple
passage model of Salo & Laurikainen may be preferred over the classical single
passage model of Toomre & Toomre, to reproduce the H{\sc i} features in Arp72
as well as in other M-51 systems depicting similar optical and H{\sc i}
features.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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