992 research outputs found
The ground-based solar observations database BASS 2000
BASS 2000 is the French solar database for ground-based instruments. We
describe hereafter our organization, our tasks and the products we can deliver
to the international community. Our prospects cover data mining into the THeMIS
archive, a participation to the EST endeavour and the creation and curation of
the ESPaDOnS/NARVAL stellar spectra database.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure (to appear in the Procs. of Solar Polarization
Workshop #5, eds. Berdyugina, Nagendra and Ramelli
Forces on Dust Grains Exposed to Anisotropic Interstellar Radiation Fields
Grains exposed to anisotropic radiation fields are subjected to forces due to
the asymmetric photon-stimulated ejection of particles. These forces act in
addition to the ``radiation pressure'' due to absorption and scattering. Here
we model the forces due to photoelectron emission and the photodesorption of
adatoms. The ``photoelectric'' force depends on the ambient conditions relevant
to grain charging. We find that it is comparable to the radiation pressure when
the grain potential is relatively low and the radiation spectrum is relatively
hard. The calculation of the ``photodesorption'' force is highly uncertain,
since the surface physics and chemsitry of grain materials are poorly
understood at present. For our simple yet plausible model, the photodesorption
force dominates the radiation pressure for grains with size >~0.1 micron
exposed to starlight from OB stars. We find that the anisotropy of the
interstellar radiation field is ~10% in the visible and ultraviolet. We
estimate size-dependent drift speeds for grains in the cold and warm neutral
media and find that micron-sized grains could potentially be moved across a
diffuse cloud during its lifetime.Comment: LaTeX(41 pages, 19 figures), submitted to Ap
Satellites of the largest Kuiper Belt objects
We have searched the four brightest objects in the Kuiper Belt for the presence of satellites using the newly commissioned Keck Observatory Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics system. Satellites are seen around three of the four objects: Pluto (whose satellite Charon is well-known and whose recently discovered smaller satellites are too faint to be detected), 2003 EL61 (where a second satellite is seen in addition to the previously known satellite), and 2003 UB313 (where a satellite is seen for the first time). The object 2005 FY9, the brightest Kuiper Belt object (KBO) after Pluto, does not have a satellite detectable within 0".4 with a brightness of more than 1% of the primary. The presence of satellites around three of the four brightest KBOs is inconsistent with the fraction of satellites in the Kuiper Belt at large at the 99.2% confidence level, suggesting a different formation mechanism for these largest KBO satellites. The two satellites of 2003 EL61, and the one satellite of 2003 UB313, with fractional brightnesses of 5% and 1.5%, and 2%, of their primaries, respectively, are significantly fainter relative to their primaries than other known KBO satellites, again pointing to possible differences in their origin
Keck Observatory Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics Discovery and Characterization of a Satellite to the Large Kuiper Belt Object 2003 EL_(61)
The newly commissioned laser guide star adaptive optics system at Keck Observatory has been used to discover and characterize the orbit of a satellite to the bright Kuiper Belt object 2003 EL_(61). Observations over a 6 month period show that the satellite has a semimajor axis of 49,500 ± 400 km, an orbital period of 49.12 ± 0.03 days, and an eccentricity of 0.050 ± 0.003. The inferred mass of the system is (4.2 ± 0.1) × 10^(21) kg, or ~32% of the mass of Pluto and 28.6% ± 0.7% of the mass of the Pluto-Charon system. Mutual occultations occurred in 1999 and will not occur again until 2138. The orbit is fully consistent neither with one tidally evolved from an earlier closer configuration nor with one evolved inward by dynamical friction from an earlier more distant configuration
What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups
It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building
tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an
inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast
startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the
importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups.
In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different
types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty
European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a
prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we
identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in
early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2)
team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To
speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate
the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of
prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version
can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne,
German
Properties of LiMnBO3 glasses and nanostructured glass-ceramics
Polycrystalline LiMnBO3 is a promising cathode material for Li-ion batteries.
In this work, we investigated the thermal, structural and electrical properties
of glassy and nanocrystallized materials having the same chemical composition.
The original glass was obtained via a standard meltquenching method. SEM and
7Li solid-state NMR indicate that it contains a mixture of two distinct glassy
phases. The results suggest that the electrical conductivity of the glass is
dominated by the ionic one. The dc conductivity of initial glass was estimated
to be in the order of 10-18 S.cm-1 at room temperature. The thermal
nanocrystallization of the glass produces a nanostructured glass-ceramics
containing MnBO3 and LiMnBO3 phases. The electric conductivity of this
glass-ceramics is increased by 6 orders of magnitude, compared to the starting
material at room temperature. Compared to other manganese and borate containing
glasses reported in the literature, the conductivity of the nanostructured
glass ceramics is higher than that of the previously reported glassy materials.
Such improved conductivity stems from the facilitated electronic transport
along the grain boundaries
Sonically-enhanced widgets: comments on Brewster and Clarke, ICAD 1997
This paper presents a review of the research surrounding the paper “The Design and Evaluation of a Sonically Enhanced Tool Palette” by Brewster and Clarke from ICAD 1997. A historical perspective is given followed by a discussion of how this work has fed into current developments in the area
Euclidean Distances, soft and spectral Clustering on Weighted Graphs
We define a class of Euclidean distances on weighted graphs, enabling to
perform thermodynamic soft graph clustering. The class can be constructed form
the "raw coordinates" encountered in spectral clustering, and can be extended
by means of higher-dimensional embeddings (Schoenberg transformations).
Geographical flow data, properly conditioned, illustrate the procedure as well
as visualization aspects.Comment: accepted for presentation (and further publication) at the ECML PKDD
2010 conferenc
Playing fast and loose with music recognition
We report lessons from iteratively developing a music recognition system to enable a wide range of musicians to embed musical codes into their typical performance practice. The musician composes fragments of music that can be played back with varying levels of embellishment, disguise and looseness to trigger digital interactions. We collaborated with twenty-three musicians, spanning professionals to amateurs and working with a variety of instruments. We chart the rapid evolution of the system to meet their needs as they strove to integrate music recognition technology into their performance practice, introducing multiple features to enable them to trade-off reliability with musical expression. Collectively, these support the idea of deliberately introducing ‘looseness’ into interactive systems by addressing the three key challenges of control, feedback and attunement, and highlight the potential role for written notations in other recognition-based systems
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