MOSAIX: a tool to built large mosaics from GALEX images

Large sky surveys are providing a huge amount of information for studies of the interstellar medium, the galactic structure or the cosmic web. Setting into a common frame information coming from different wavelengths, over large fields of view, is needed for this kind of research. GALEX is the only nearly all-sky survey at ultraviolet wavelengths and contains fundamental information for all types of studies. GALEX field of view is circular embedded in a squared matrix of 3840 x 3840 pixels. This fact makes it hard to get GALEX images properly overlapped with the existing astronomical tools such as Aladin or Montage. We developed our own software for this purpose. In this article, we describe this software and makes it available to the community.Comment: 7 pages, including 8 figures, accepted by Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Variation of the ultraviolet extinction law across the Taurus-Auriga star forming complex. A GALEX based study

The Taurus-Auriga molecular complex (TMC) is the main laboratory for the study of low mass star formation. The density and properties of interstellar dust are expected to vary across the TMC. These variations trace important processes such as dust nucleation or the magnetic field coupling with the cloud. In this article, we show how the combination of near ultraviolet (NUV) and infrared (IR) photometry can be used to derive the strength of the 2175 \AA\ bump and thus any enhancement in the abundance of small dust grains and PAHs in the dust grains size distribution. This technique is applied to the envelope of the TMC, mapped by the GALEX All Sky Survey (AIS). UV and IR photometric data have been retrieved from the GALEX-AIS and the 2MASS catalogues. NUV and K-band star counts have been used to identify the areas in the cloud envelope where the 2175 \AA\ bump is weaker than in the diffuse ISM namely, the low column density extensions of L1495, L1498 and L1524 in Taurus, L1545, L1548, L1519, L1513 in Auriga and L1482-83 in the California region. This finding agrees with previous results on dust evolution derived from Spitzer data and suggests that dust grains begin to decouple from the environmental galactic magnetic field already in the envelope.Comment: Accepted in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Outflow of hot and cold molecular gas from the obscured secondary nucleus of NGC3256: closing in on feedback physics

The nuclei of merging galaxies are often deeply buried in dense layers of gas and dust. In these regions, gas outflows driven by starburst and AGN activity are believed to play a crucial role in the evolution of these galaxies. However, to fully understand this process it is essential to resolve the morphology and kinematics of such outflows. Using near-IR integral-field spectroscopy obtained with VLT/SINFONI, we detect a kpc-scale structure of high-velocity molecular hydrogen (H2) gas associated with the deeply buried secondary nucleus of the IR-luminous merger NGC3256. We show that this structure is likely the hot component of a molecular outflow, which is detected also in the cold molecular gas by Sakamoto et al. This outflow, with a molecular gas mass of M(H2)~2x10^7 Msun, is among the first to be spatially resolved in both the hot H2 gas with VLT/SINFONI and the cold CO-emitting gas with ALMA. The hot and cold components share a similar morphology and kinematics, with a hot-to-cold molecular gas mass ratio of ~6x10^-5. The high (~100 pc) resolution at which we map the geometry and velocity structure of the hot outflow reveals a biconical morphology with opening angle ~40 deg and gas spread across a FWZI~1200 km/s. Because this collimated outflow is oriented close to the plane of the sky, the molecular gas may reach maximum intrinsic outflow velocities of ~1800 km/s, with an average mass outflow rate of at least ~20 Msun/yr. By modeling the line-ratios of various near-IR H2 transitions, we show that the H2 gas in the outflow is heated through shocks or X-rays to a temperature of ~1900K. The energy needed to drive the outflow is likely provided by a hidden Compton-thick AGN or by the nuclear starburst. We show that the global kinematics of the molecular outflow in NGC3256 mimic those of CO-outflows that have been observed at low spatial resolution in starburst- and active galaxies.Comment: Accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics (accepted 29 Aug 2014 v.3, initial submission v.1 14 March 2014), 13 pages, 8 figure

Marginal likelihood computation for model selection and hypothesis testing: an extensive review

This is an up-to-date introduction to, and overview of, marginal likelihood computation for model selection and hypothesis testing. Computing normalizing constants of probability models (or ratio of constants) is a fundamental issue in many applications in statistics, applied mathematics, signal processing and machine learning. This article provides a comprehensive study of the state-of-the-art of the topic. We highlight limitations, benefits, connections and differences among the different techniques. Problems and possible solutions with the use of improper priors are also described. Some of the most relevant methodologies are compared through theoretical comparisons and numerical experiments.Comment: Keywords: Marginal likelihood, Bayesian evidence, numerical integration, model selection, hypothesis testing, quadrature rules, double-intractable posteriors, partition function

Compressed particle methods for expensive models with application in Astronomy and Remote Sensing

In many inference problems, the evaluation of complex and costly models is often required. In this context, Bayesian methods have become very popular in several fields over the last years, in order to obtain parameter inversion, model selection or uncertainty quantification. Bayesian inference requires the approximation of complicated integrals involving (often costly) posterior distributions. Generally, this approximation is obtained by means of Monte Carlo (MC) methods. In order to reduce the computational cost of the corresponding technique, surrogate models (also called emulators) are often employed. Another alternative approach is the so-called Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) scheme. ABC does not require the evaluation of the costly model but the ability to simulate artificial data according to that model. Moreover, in ABC, the choice of a suitable distance between real and artificial data is also required. In this work, we introduce a novel approach where the expensive model is evaluated only in some well-chosen samples. The selection of these nodes is based on the so-called compressed Monte Carlo (CMC) scheme. We provide theoretical results supporting the novel algorithms and give empirical evidence of the performance of the proposed method in several numerical experiments. Two of them are real-world applications in astronomy and satellite remote sensing.Comment: published in IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic System

Mexican Organizations: Alignment, ICTs and Leadership

Regardless of their classification and size, organizations face challenges that require the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in order to overcome them. Once organizations identify and create their strategy, organization’s strategy alignment with ICTs becomes a necessity. Organizations’ management has different leadership styles that impact their outcomes; in addition, could influence such alignment. Mexican organizations, like their counterparts in other countries, implement controls for their operations. These controls demand strong support of tools that involve ICTs. Consequently, a strong differentiator is the adoption of ICTs that support their substantive work, regardless of its size. What does impact these organizations is the destination given to the investment in ICTs to support their processes. Past research in the strategic alignment of ICTs has made significant progress since the emergence of the Strategic Alignment Model (Henderson and Venkatraman 1993). Talon et al. (2016) proposed an approach, in which the alignment between the ICTs and the organizations’ objectives is given at the process level: lack of ICT support for critical activities in a specific process (ICT Deficit), ICTs fully support the key processes/macroprocesses (Alignment of ICTs), and finally surplus ICT resources (ICT surplus). The latter approach is what the present study uses for alignment measurement Goleman (2000) proposes six styles of leadership, coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. He argues that, taken individually, they seem to have a unique and direct impact on the work climate of a company, division or team and, in turn, on financial performance. Furthermore, he believes that leaders who used styles that positively affected the climate had markedly better financial outcomes than those who did not. The main argument underlying the studies discussed previously is that organizations will function well when the key ICT resources, infrastructure, associated technical/administrative skills, and knowledge assets are aligned with the organizations’ strategy. The main objective of the present research is to identify whether such alignment is oriented to the macroprocesses/key processes of the organization. Those that are key to the type of strategy defined by the organization, and measure its deficit, alignment or surplus, whether they are applicable. In addition, intends to identify whether the leadership style in the organization influences the degree of alignment and execution of such strategy

Formation of b-Bi2O3 and d-Bi2O3 during laser irradiation of Bi films studied in-situ by spatially resolved Raman spectroscopy

The formation of different phases of Bi2O3 induced by laser irradiation of Bi films has been assessed in situ by micro-Raman spectroscopy as a function of laser wavelength, power density and irradiation time. Raman mapping of the irradiated samples enabled a spatially-resolved study of the distribution of the formed Bi2O3 phases. Red laser (633 nm) irradiation was found to induce the appearance of b-Bi2O3, within a certain range of power densities, by diffusion-controlled processes. In contrast, ultraviolet (UV, 325 nm) laser irradiation, above a certain power density threshold, initially induces the formation of both b and d-Bi2O3 phases. The amount of the produced d-Bi2O3 phase increases by increasing the irradiation time, while that of the b phase follows the opposite trend. UV laser irradiation seems to be a suitable method to produce room temperature stable d-Bi2O3 patterns on Bi film

X-ray emission from stellar jets by collision against high-density molecular clouds: an application to HH 248

We investigate the plausibility of detecting X-ray emission from a stellar jet that impacts against a dense molecular cloud. This scenario may be usual for classical T Tauri stars with jets in dense star-forming complexes. We first model the impact of a jet against a dense cloud by 2D axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations, exploring different configurations of the ambient environment. Then, we compare our results with XMM-Newton observations of the Herbig-Haro object HH 248, where extended X-ray emission aligned with the optical knots is detected at the edge of the nearby IC 434 cloud. Our simulations show that a jet can produce plasma with temperatures up to 10 MK, consistent with production of X-ray emission, after impacting a dense cloud. We find that jets denser than the ambient medium but less dense than the cloud produce detectable X-ray emission only at the impact onto the cloud. From the exploration of the model parameter space, we constrain the physical conditions (jet density and velocity, cloud density) that reproduce well the intrinsic luminosity and emission measure of the X-ray source possibly associated with HH 248. Thus, we suggest that the extended X-ray source close to HH 248 corresponds to the jet impacting on a dense cloud.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. (12 pages, 12 figures