Six Peaks Visible in the Redshift Distribution of 46,400 SDSS Quasars Agree with the Preferred Redshifts Predicted by the Decreasing Intrinsic Redshift Model

The redshift distribution of all 46,400 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog III, Third Data Release, is examined. Six Peaks that fall within the redshift window below z = 4, are visible. Their positions agree with the preferred redshift values predicted by the decreasing intrinsic redshift (DIR) model, even though this model was derived using completely independent evidence. A power spectrum analysis of the full dataset confirms the presence of a single, significant power peak at the expected redshift period. Power peaks with the predicted period are also obtained when the upper and lower halves of the redshift distribution are examined separately. The periodicity detected is in linear z, as opposed to log(1+z). Because the peaks in the SDSS quasar redshift distribution agree well with the preferred redshifts predicted by the intrinsic redshift relation, we conclude that this relation, and the peaks in the redshift distribution, likely both have the same origin, and this may be intrinsic redshifts, or a common selection effect. However, because of the way the intrinsic redshift relation was determined it seems unlikely that one selection effect could have been responsible for both.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

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Plants of Begonia x tuberhybrida ‘Nonstop’, ‘Clips’, and ‘Musical’ were exposed to 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks of short days (SD, 9 hours day length) initiated at 3 stages of plant development (immediately upon germination, 4 or 8 weeks after germination). Prior to and succeeding short days, plants were exposed to long days (LD, 16 hours day length). Musical flowered on average 68 days, Clips 78 days and Nonstop 83 days after germination under continuous LD conditions. In Nonstop, SD for 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks delayed plant development by an average 12 days compared to LD grown plants. One, 2, or 3 weeks of SD resulted in 1 week slower flowering and 4 weeks of SD resulted in 2 weeks later flowering in Clips. The sensitivity to SD varied with plant stage in Musical. Three or 4 weeks of SD initiated at germination or 4 weeks after germination resulted in an average delayed flowering of 13 days compared to LD plants. SD initiated 8 weeks after germination had no effect on rate of development in Musical

Downlink Spectral Efficiency of Cell-Free Massive MIMO with Full-Pilot Zero-Forcing

Cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) ensures ubiquitous communication at high spectral efficiency (SE) thanks to increased macro-diversity as compared cellular communications. However, system scalability and performance are limited by fronthauling traffic and interference. Unlike conventional precoding schemes that only suppress intra-cell interference, full-pilot zero-forcing (fpZF), introduced in [1], actively suppresses also inter-cell interference, without sharing channel state information (CSI) among the access points (APs). In this study, we derive a new closed-form expression for the downlink (DL) SE of a cell-free Massive MIMO system with multi-antenna APs and fpZF precoding, under imperfect CSI and pilot contamination. The analysis also includes max-min fairness DL power optimization. Numerical results show that fpZF significantly outperforms maximum ratio transmission scheme, without increasing the fronthauling overhead, as long as the system is sufficiently distributed.Comment: Paper published in 2018 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP). {\copyright} 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other use

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The growth regulators chlormequat (Cycocel), paclobutrazol (Bonzi), daminozide (B-Nine) and Bayleton 25WP (triadimefon) were studied for their ability to control plant height in seed propagated tuberous begonia (‘Nonstop’ begonias). Bayleton is a fungicide used for powdery mildew control that also has growth regulator effects. Two ml growth regulator solution was evenly sprayed on each plant two weeks after transplanting. Cycocel (500 parts per million [ppm], 1 mg active ingredient [a.i.] per plant) resulted in 23% shorter plants than the control plants 15 weeks after transplant. Bonzi (5 ppm, 0.01 mg a.i. per plant) treated begonias were 65% and Bayleton (150 mg•liter-1, 0.3 mg per plant) treated plants 43% shorter than the control plants. The number of flowers and shoots was severely reduced on plants treated with Bonzi or Bayleton. BNine was ineffective at the rate of 3000 ppm (6 mg a.i. per plant) for controlling plant height of seed propagated tuberous begonia

Near- to mid-infrared picosecond optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled RbTiOAsO4

We describe a Ti:sapphire-pumped picosecond optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled RbTiOAsO4 that is broadly tunable in the near to mid infrared. A 4.5-mm single-grating crystal at room temperature in combination with pump wavelength tuning provided access to a continuous-tuning range from 3.35 to 5 mu m, and a pump power threshold of 90 mW was measured. Average mid-infrared output powers in excess of 100 mW and total output powers of 400 mW in similar to 1-ps pulses were obtained at 33% extraction efficiency. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.</p

The Distribution of Redshifts in New Samples of Quasi-stellar Objects

Two new samples of QSOs have been constructed from recent surveys to test the hypothesis that the redshift distribution of bright QSOs is periodic in $\log(1+z)$. The first of these comprises 57 different redshifts among all known close pairs or multiple QSOs, with image separations $\leq$ 10\arcsec, and the second consists of 39 QSOs selected through their X-ray emission and their proximity to bright comparatively nearby active galaxies. The redshift distributions of the samples are found to exhibit distinct peaks with a periodic separation of $\sim 0.089$ in $\log(1+z)$ identical to that claimed in earlier samples but now extended out to higher redshift peaks $z = 2.63, 3.45$ and 4.47, predicted by the formula but never seen before. The periodicity is also seen in a third sample, the 78 QSOs of the 3C and 3CR catalogues. It is present in these three datasets at an overall significance level $10^{-5}$ - $10^{-6}$, and appears not to be explicable by spectroscopic or similar selection effects. Possible interpretations are briefly discussed.Comment: submitted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, 15 figure