2,797 research outputs found
US National Gemini Office in the NOIRLab era
This article presents an overview of the US National Gemini Office (US NGO)
and its role within the International Gemini Observatory user community.
Throughout the years, the US NGO charter changed considerably to accommodate
the evolving needs of astronomers and the observatory. The current landscape of
observational astronomy requires effective communication between stakeholders
and reliable/accessible data reduction tools and products, which minimize the
time between data gathering and publication of scientific results. Because of
that, the US NGO heavily invests in producing data reduction tutorials and
cookbooks. Recently, the US NGO started engaging with the Gemini user community
through social media, and the results have been encouraging, increasing the
observatory's visibility. The US NGO staff developed tools to assess whether
the support provided to the user community is sufficient and effective, through
website analytics and social media engagement numbers. These quantitative
metrics serve as the baseline for internal reporting and directing efforts to
new or current products. In the era of the NSF's National Optical-Infrared
Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), the US NGO is well-positioned to be
the liaison between the US user base and the Gemini Observatory. Furthermore,
collaborations within NOIRLab programs, such as the Astro Data Lab and the Time
Allocation Committee, enhance the US NGO outreach to attract users and develop
new products. The future landscape laid out by the Astro 2020 report confirms
the need to establish such synergies and provide more integrated user support
services to the astronomical community at large.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, published in the Journal of Astronomical
Telescopes, Instruments, and System
BFM-SI: A new implementation of the biogeochemical flux model in sea ice
This work describes a novel implementation of the Biogeochemical Flux Model (BFM) in a sea ice system (BFMSI). The chosen representative groups of the sea ice food web rely on the same dynamics as the BFM. The main differences between BFM and BFMSI stand in the type and number of functional groups, in the parameters assigned to several physiological and ecological processes and in the dimensional size classes they represent. The differential equations of BFMSI are written here according to the nomenclature associated to the new sea ice state variables. At the boundaries, the sea ice system is also coupled to the atmosphere and to the ocean through the exchange of organic and inorganic matter. This is done by computing the entrapment of particulate and dissolved matter and gases when sea ice grows and release to the ocean when sea ice melts to ensure mass conservation. The implementation of the BFM in sea ice and the coupling structure in General Circulation Models will add a new component that may provide new adequate estimate of the role and importance of sea ice biogeochemistry in the global carbon cycle
Copula Density Neural Estimation
Probability density estimation from observed data constitutes a central task
in statistics. Recent advancements in machine learning offer new tools but also
pose new challenges. The big data era demands analysis of long-range spatial
and long-term temporal dependencies in large collections of raw data, rendering
neural networks an attractive solution for density estimation. In this paper,
we exploit the concept of copula to explicitly build an estimate of the
probability density function associated to any observed data. In particular, we
separate univariate marginal distributions from the joint dependence structure
in the data, the copula itself, and we model the latter with a neural
network-based method referred to as copula density neural estimation (CODINE).
Results show that the novel learning approach is capable of modeling complex
distributions and it can be applied for mutual information estimation and data
generation.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for
possible publicatio
The TNFR Wengen regulates the FGF pathway by an unconventional mechanism
Unveiling the molecular mechanisms of receptor activation has led to much understanding of development as well as the identification of important drug targets. We use the Drosophila tracheal system to study the activity of two families of widely used and conserved receptors, the TNFRs and the RTK-FGFRs. Breathless, an FGFR, controls the program of differentiation of the tracheal terminal cells in response to ligand activation. Here we identify a role for Wengen, a TNFR, in repressing the terminal cell program by regulating the MAPK pathway downstream of Breathless. We find that Wengen acts independently of both its canonical ligand and downstream pathway genes. Wengen does not stably localise at the membrane and is instead internalised-a trafficking that seems essential for activity. We show that Breathless and Wengen colocalise in intracellular vesicles and form a complex. Furthermore, Wengen regulates Breathless accumulation, possibly regulating Breathless trafficking and degradation. We propose that, in the tracheal context, Wengen interacts with Breathless to regulate its activity, and suggest that such unconventional mechanism, involving binding by TNFRs to unrelated proteins, may be a general strategy of TNFRs.© 2023. Springer Nature Limited
Migraine-specific quality of life questionnaire and relapse on medication overuse headache
Background: The management of Medication overuse headache (MOH) represents a difficult challenge for clinicians and headache experts, particularly for the responder rate after a successful withdrawal treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of demographic and clinical characteristics as well as the score of Migraine-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MSQ), Migraine Disability Questionnaire and Leeds Dependence Questionnaire in predicting a response after a successful withdrawal treatment in patients with MOH.
Methods: This ancillary study is part of a randomized trial that demonstrated the safety and the efficacy of a 3-month treatment with sodium valproate (VPA) (800 mg/day vs placebo) in MOH. Demographic and clinical characteristics and questionnaire results were obtained from the entire sample.
Results: A significant correlation was found only between MOH relapse and the total MSQ score, the Role Preventive sub-scale and the Emotional Function sub-scale, suggesting a poorer quality of life in non responders.
Conclusion: A high MSQ score could be associated with a poor short-term outcome in MOH patients after a successful treatment with detoxification followed by a new treatment
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