Discovery of Counter-Rotating Gas in the Galaxies NGC1596 and NGC3203 and the Incidence of Gas Counter-Rotation in S0 Galaxies

We have identified two new galaxies with gas counter-rotation (NGC1596 and NGC3203) and have confirmed similar behaviour in another one (NGC128), this using results from separate studies of the ionized-gas and stellar kinematics of a well-defined sample of 30 edge-on disc galaxies. Gas counter-rotators thus represent 10+/-5% of our sample, but the fraction climbs to 21+/-11% when only lenticular (S0) galaxies are considered and to 27+/-13% for S0s with detected ionized-gas only. Those fractions are consistent with but slightly higher than previous studies. A compilation from well-defined studies of S0s in the literature yields fractions of 15+/-4% and 23+/-5%, respectively. Although mainly based on circumstantial evidence, we argue that the counter-rotating gas originates primarily from minor mergers and tidally-induced transfer of material from nearby objects. Assuming isotropic accretion, twice those fractions of objects must have undergone similar processes, underlining the importance of (minor) accretion for galaxy evolution. Applications of gas counter-rotators to barred galaxy dynamics are also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, including 1 table and 2 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Version with full resolution figures available at http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~bureau/pub_list.htm

Gamma-based clustering via ordered means with application to gene-expression analysis

Discrete mixture models provide a well-known basis for effective clustering algorithms, although technical challenges have limited their scope. In the context of gene-expression data analysis, a model is presented that mixes over a finite catalog of structures, each one representing equality and inequality constraints among latent expected values. Computations depend on the probability that independent gamma-distributed variables attain each of their possible orderings. Each ordering event is equivalent to an event in independent negative-binomial random variables, and this finding guides a dynamic-programming calculation. The structuring of mixture-model components according to constraints among latent means leads to strict concavity of the mixture log likelihood. In addition to its beneficial numerical properties, the clustering method shows promising results in an empirical study.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOS805 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Random Feature Maps via a Layered Random Projection (LaRP) Framework for Object Classification

The approximation of nonlinear kernels via linear feature maps has recently gained interest due to their applications in reducing the training and testing time of kernel-based learning algorithms. Current random projection methods avoid the curse of dimensionality by embedding the nonlinear feature space into a low dimensional Euclidean space to create nonlinear kernels. We introduce a Layered Random Projection (LaRP) framework, where we model the linear kernels and nonlinearity separately for increased training efficiency. The proposed LaRP framework was assessed using the MNIST hand-written digits database and the COIL-100 object database, and showed notable improvement in object classification performance relative to other state-of-the-art random projection methods.Comment: 5 page

Equivalence of the Falicov-Kimball and Brandt-Mielsch forms for the free energy of the infinite-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model

Falicov and Kimball proposed a real-axis form for the free energy of the Falicov-Kimball model that was modified for the coherent potential approximation by Plischke. Brandt and Mielsch proposed an imaginary-axis form for the free energy of the dynamical mean field theory solution of the Falicov-Kimball model. It has long been known that these two formulae are numerically equal to each other; an explicit derivation showing this equivalence is presented here.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, typeset with ReVTe

Using action understanding to understand the left inferior parietal cortex in the human brain

Published in final edited form as: Brain Res. 2014 September 25; 1582: 64–76. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2014.07.035.Humans have a sophisticated knowledge of the actions that can be performed with objects. In an fMRI study we tried to establish whether this depends on areas that are homologous with the inferior parietal cortex (area PFG) in macaque monkeys. Cells have been described in area PFG that discharge differentially depending upon whether the observer sees an object being brought to the mouth or put in a container. In our study the observers saw videos in which the use of different objects was demonstrated in pantomime; and after viewing the videos, the subject had to pick the object that was appropriate to the pantomime. We found a cluster of activated voxels in parietal areas PFop and PFt and this cluster was greater in the left hemisphere than in the right. We suggest a mechanism that could account for this asymmetry, relate our results to handedness and suggest that they shed light on the human syndrome of apraxia. Finally, we suggest that during the evolution of the hominids, this same pantomime mechanism could have been used to ‘name’ or request objects.We thank Steve Wise for very detailed comments on a draft of this paper. We thank Rogier Mars for help with identifying the areas that were activated in parietal cortex and for comments on a draft of this paper. Finally, we thank Michael Nahhas for help with the imaging figures. This work was supported in part by the NIH grant RO1NS064100 to LMV. (RO1NS064100 - NIH)Accepted manuscrip

Analytical and experimental study of two concentric cylinders coupled by a fluid gap

From a structural point of view a liquid coolant type nuclear reactor consists of a heavy steel vessel containing the core and related mechanical components and filled with a hot fluid. This vessel is protected from the severe environment of the core by a shielding structure, the thermal liner, which is usually a relatively thin steel cylinder concentric with the reactor vessel and separated from it by a gap filled with the coolant fluid. This arrangement leads to a potential vibration problem if the fundamental frequency, or one of the higher natural vibration frequencies, of this liner system is close to the frequency of some vibration source present in the reactor vessel. The shell rigidly clamped at its base and free at the top was investigated since it is a better description of the conditions encountered in typical reactor designs

Calculation of a Class of Three-Loop Vacuum Diagrams with Two Different Mass Values

We calculate analytically a class of three-loop vacuum diagrams with two different mass values, one of which is one-third as large as the other, using the method of Chetyrkin, Misiak, and M\"{u}nz in the dimensional regularization scheme. All pole terms in \epsilon=4-D (D being the space-time dimensions in a dimensional regularization scheme) plus finite terms containing the logarithm of mass are kept in our calculation of each diagram. It is shown that three-loop effective potential calculated using three-loop integrals obtained in this paper agrees, in the large-N limit, with the overlap part of leading-order (in the large-N limit) calculation of Coleman, Jackiw, and Politzer [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 10}, 2491 (1974)].Comment: RevTex, 15 pages, 4 postscript figures, minor corrections in K(c), Appendix B removed, typos corrected, acknowledgements change