A Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane - VIII. Small-diameter sources

Information of small-diameter sources is extracted from the Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane carried out with the Urumqi 25-m telescope. We performed two-dimensional elliptical Gaussian fits to the 6cm maps to obtain a list of sources with total-intensity and polarised flux densities. The source list contains 3832 sources with a fitted diameter smaller than 16 arcmin and a peak flux density exceeding 30 mJy, so about 5 times the rms noise, of the total-intensity data. The cumulative source count indicates completeness for flux densities exceeding about 60 mJy. We identify 125 linearly polarised sources at 6cm with a peak polarisation flux density greater than 10 mJy, so about 3 times the rms noise, of the polarised-intensity data. Despite lacking compact steep spectrum sources, the 6cm catalogue lists about 20 percent more sources than the Effelsberg 21cm source catalogue at the same angular resolution and for the same area. Most of the faint 6cm sources must have a flat spectrum and are either HII regions or extragalactic. When compared with the Green Bank 6cm (GB6) catalogue, we obtain higher flux densities for a number of extended sources with complex structures. Polarised 6cm sources density are uniformly distributed in Galactic latitude. Their number density decreases towards the inner Galaxy. More than 80 percent of the polarised sources are most likely extragalactic. With a few exceptions, the sources have a higher percentage polarisation at 6cm than at 21cm. Depolarisation seems to occur mostly within the sources with a minor contribution from the Galactic foreground emission.Comment: A&A accepted, 9 pages, 5 figures, Tables 1 and 2 are accessible from http://zmtt.bao.ac.cn/6cm

Prediction of infectious disease epidemics via weighted density ensembles

Accurate and reliable predictions of infectious disease dynamics can be valuable to public health organizations that plan interventions to decrease or prevent disease transmission. A great variety of models have been developed for this task, using different model structures, covariates, and targets for prediction. Experience has shown that the performance of these models varies; some tend to do better or worse in different seasons or at different points within a season. Ensemble methods combine multiple models to obtain a single prediction that leverages the strengths of each model. We considered a range of ensemble methods that each form a predictive density for a target of interest as a weighted sum of the predictive densities from component models. In the simplest case, equal weight is assigned to each component model; in the most complex case, the weights vary with the region, prediction target, week of the season when the predictions are made, a measure of component model uncertainty, and recent observations of disease incidence. We applied these methods to predict measures of influenza season timing and severity in the United States, both at the national and regional levels, using three component models. We trained the models on retrospective predictions from 14 seasons (1997/1998 - 2010/2011) and evaluated each model's prospective, out-of-sample performance in the five subsequent influenza seasons. In this test phase, the ensemble methods showed overall performance that was similar to the best of the component models, but offered more consistent performance across seasons than the component models. Ensemble methods offer the potential to deliver more reliable predictions to public health decision makers.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Magnetic fields of the W4 superbubble

Superbubbles and supershells are the channels for transferring mass and energy from the Galactic disk to the halo. Magnetic fields are believed to play a vital role in their evolution. We study the radio continuum and polarized emission properties of the W4 superbubble to determine its magnetic field strength. New sensitive radio continuum observations were made at 6 cm, 11 cm, and 21 cm. The total intensity measurements were used to derive the radio spectrum of the W4 superbubble. The linear polarization data were analysed to determine the magnetic field properties within the bubble shells. The observations show a multi-shell structure of the W4 superbubble. A flat radio continuum spectrum that stems from optically thin thermal emission is derived from 1.4 GHz to 4.8 GHz. By fitting a passive Faraday screen model and considering the filling factor fne , we obtain the thermal electron density ne = 1.0/\sqrt{fne} (\pm5%) cm^-3 and the strength of the line-of-sight component of the magnetic field B// = -5.0/\sqrt{fne} (\pm10%) {\mu}G (i.e. pointing away from us) within the western shell of the W4 superbubble. When the known tilted geometry of the W4 superbubble is considered, the total magnetic field Btot in its western shell is greater than 12 {\mu}G. The electron density and the magnetic field are lower and weaker in the high-latitude parts of the superbubble. The rotation measure is found to be positive in the eastern shell but negative in the western shell of the W4 superbubble, which is consistent with the case that the magnetic field in the Perseus arm is lifted up from the plane towards high latitudes. The magnetic field strength and the electron density we derived for the W4 superbubble are important parameters for evolution models of superbubbles breaking out of the Galactic plane.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

A Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane IX. HII regions

Large-scale radio continuum surveys provide data to get insights into the physical properties of radio sources. HII regions are prominent radio sources produced by thermal emission of ionised gas around young massive stars. We identify and analyse HII regions in the Sino-German 6cm polarisation survey of the Galactic plane. Objects with flat radio continuum spectra together with infrared and/or Halpha emission were identified as HII regions. For HII regions with small apparent sizes, we cross-matched the 6cm small-diameter source catalogue with the radio HII region catalogue compiled by Paladini and the infrared HII region catalogue based on the WISE data. Extended HII regions were identified by eye by overlaying the Paladini and the WISE HII regions onto the 6cm survey images for coincidences. The TT-plot method was employed for spectral index verification. A total of 401 HII regions were identified and their flux densities were determined with the Sino-German 6cm survey data. In the surveyed area, 76 pairs of sources are found to be duplicated in the Paladini HII region catalogue, mainly due to the non-distinction of previous observations with different angular resolutions, and 78 objects in their catalogue are misclassified as HII regions, being actually planetary nebulae, supernova remnants or extragalactic sources that have steep spectra. More than 30 HII regions and HII region candidates from our 6cm survey data, especially extended ones, do not have counterparts in the WISE HII region catalogue, of which 9 are identified for the first time. Based on the newly derived radio continuum spectra and the evidence of infrared emission, the previously identified SNRs G11.1-1.0, G20.4+0.1 and G16.4-0.5 are believed to be HII regions.Comment: version after some minor corrections and language editing, full Table 2 - 5 will appear in CDS, accepted for publication in A&

An absolutely calibrated survey of polarized emission from the northern sky at 1.4 GHz

A new polarization survey of the northern sky at 1.41 GHz is presented. The observations were carried out using the 25.6m telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Canada, with an angular resolution of 36 arcmin. The data are corrected for ground radiation to obtain Stokes U and Q maps on a well-established intensity scale tied to absolute determinations of zero levels, containing emission structures of large angular extent, with an rms noise of 12 mK. Survey observations were carried out by drift scanning the sky between -29 degr and +90 degr declination. The fully sampled drift scans, observed in steps of 0.25 degr to 2.5 degr in declination, result in a northern sky coverage of 41.7% of full Nyquist sampling. The survey surpasses by a factor of 200 the coverage, and by a factor of 5 the sensitivity, of the Leiden/Dwingeloo polarization survey (Spoelstra 1972) that was until now the most complete large-scale survey. The temperature scale is tied to the Effelsberg scale. Absolute zero-temperature levels are taken from the Leiden/Dwingeloo survey after rescaling those data by the factor of 0.94. The paper describes the observations, data processing, and calibration steps. The data are publicly available at http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/konti/26msurvey or http://www.drao.nrc.ca/26msurvey.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

The Fragmenting Superbubble Associated with the HII Region W4

New observations at high latitudes above the HII region W4 show that the structure formerly identified as a chimney candidate, an opening to the Galactic halo, is instead a superbubble in the process of fragmenting and possibly evolving into a chimney. Data at high Galactic latitudes (b > 5 degrees) above the W3/W4 star forming region at 1420 and 408 MHz Stokes I (total power) and 1420 MHz Stokes Q and U (linear polarization) reveal an egg-shaped structure with morphological correlations between our data and the H-alpha data of Dennison, Topasna, & Simonetti. Polarized intensity images show depolarization extending from W4 up the walls of the superbubble, providing strong evidence that the radio continuum is generated by thermal emission coincident with the H-alpha emission regions. We conclude that the parts of the HII region hitherto known as W4 and the newly revealed thermal emission are all ionized by the open cluster OCl 352. Assuming a distance of 2.35 kpc, the ovoid structure is 164 pc wide and extends 246 pc above the mid-plane of the Galaxy. The shell's emission decreases in total-intensity and polarized intensity in various locations, appearing to have a break at its top and another on one side. Using a geometric analysis of the depolarization in the shell's walls, we estimate that a magnetic field line-of-sight component of 3 to 5 uG exists in the shell. We explore the connection between W4 and the Galactic halo, considering whether sufficient radiation can escape from the fragmenting superbubble to ionize the kpc-scale H-alpha loop discovered by Reynolds, Sterling & Haffner.Comment: 42 pages, 14 figures; Accepted for publication in Ap

A Sino-German λ\lambda6\ cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane VI. Discovery of supernova remnants G178.2-4.2 and G25.1-2.3

Supernova remnants (SNRs) were often discovered in radio surveys of the Galactic plane. Because of the surface-brightness limit of previous surveys, more faint or confused SNRs await discovery. The Sino-German $\lambda$6\ cm Galactic plane survey is a sensitive survey with the potential to detect new low surface-brightness SNRs. We want to identify new SNRs from the $\lambda$6\ cm survey map of the Galactic plane. We searched for new shell-like objects in the $\lambda$6\ cm survey maps, and studied their radio emission, polarization, and spectra using the $\lambda$6\ cm maps together with the $\lambda$11\ cm and $\lambda$21\ cm Effelsberg observations. Extended polarized objects with non-thermal spectra were identified as SNRs. We have discovered two new, large, faint SNRs, G178.2-4.2 and G25.1-2.3, both of which show shell structure. G178.2-4.2 has a size of 72 arcmin x 62 arcmin with strongly polarized emission being detected along its northern shell. The spectrum of G178.2-4.2 is non-thermal, with an integrated spectral index of $\alpha = -0.48\pm0.13$. Its surface brightness is $\Sigma_{1 GHz} = 7.2 x 10^{-23}{Wm^{-2} Hz^{-1} sr^{-1}}$, which makes G178.2-4.2 the second faintest known Galactic SNR. G25.1-2.3 is revealed by its strong southern shell which has a size of 80 arcmin x 30\arcmin. It has a non-thermal radio spectrum with a spectral index of $\alpha = -0.49\pm0.13$. Two new large shell-type SNRs have been detected at $\lambda$6\ cm in an area of 2200 deg^2 along the the Galactic plane. This demonstrates that more large and faint SNRs exist, but are very difficult to detect.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics. For the version with high resolution figures, please go to http://zmtt.bao.ac.cn/6cm/papers/2newSNR.pd

Structure and formation energy of carbon nanotube caps

We present a detailed study of the geometry, structure and energetics of carbon nanotube caps. We show that the structure of a cap uniquely determines the chirality of the nanotube that can be attached to it. The structure of the cap is specified in a geometrical way by defining the position of six pentagons on a hexagonal lattice. Moving one (or more) pentagons systematically creates caps for other nanotube chiralities. For the example of the (10,0) tube we study the formation energy of different nanotube caps using ab-initio calculations. The caps with isolated pentagons have an average formation energy 0.29+/-0.01eV/atom. A pair of adjacent pentagons requires a much larger formation energy of 1.5eV. We show that the formation energy of adjacent pentagon pairs explains the diameter distribution in small-diameter nanotube samples grown by chemical vapor deposition.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures (gray scale only due to space); submitted to Phys. Rev.

Ballastic signature identification systems study

The results are described of an attempt to establish a uniform procedure for documenting (recording) expended bullet signatures as effortlessly as possible and to build a comprehensive library of these signatures in a form that will permit the automated comparison of a new suspect bullet with the prestored library. The ultimate objective is to achieve a standardized format that will permit nationwide interaction between police departments, crime laboratories, and other interested law enforcement agencies