706 research outputs found
Some Wild Plant and Animal Life That Has Been Presented in Thirty First Grade Readers During the Last Fifteen Years
Since the interests of children often center around wild plants and animals, the writer has attempted to picture the needs for realistic and scientific material for first grade children.
The use of the child\u27s interests and needs as guides for teacher\u27s planning necessitates a comprehensive knowledge of available material, that is why the study of wild plant and animal life that has been presented in thirty first grade readers is of great importance. Even in the first grade the child\u27s desire to find out should be encouraged in his reading rather than his dependence upon being told. What materials on wild plant and animal life can a teacher expect to have? Because wild plant and animal life is living, and because it is in some form, within the living experience of practically every child (two vital characteristics of material for children) this study has been made in an attempt to answer the preceding question.
The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it is to determine the wild plant and animal life material found in thirty first grade readers, and a comparison of this material with wild plant and animal life existing in Texas.
Although the wild life of Texas has been used as a basis of comparison in this phase of the study it may be applied generally to the Southwest. Because of the range in geographical and climatic conditions in Texas we find here many birds, other animals, flowers, and trees of neighboring states. For example: the Arizona State Bird is a native of Texas; the Oklahoma State Flower is wild in Texas; the Louisiana Pines grow in abundance in East Texas.
Second, this study is to determine the trends in the use of information on wild plant and animal life in thirty first grade readers from 1922 to 1937. This phase of study should be of considerable value to first grade teachers of the nation. It portrays the amount and type of material existing about certain animals and plants in groups of five year periods. Are your readers among those books in which most space was given to fantastic, realistic, or scientific discussions? Does this study emphasize for you the need of a certain type of reading material? What should be done about it?
If the thirty different readers in this unusually well equipped first grade room lack the needed material for these children, could it be expected that first grade children in an average school room situation are getting what they need
Coz: Finding Code that Counts with Causal Profiling
Improving performance is a central concern for software developers. To locate
optimization opportunities, developers rely on software profilers. However,
these profilers only report where programs spent their time: optimizing that
code may have no impact on performance. Past profilers thus both waste
developer time and make it difficult for them to uncover significant
optimization opportunities.
This paper introduces causal profiling. Unlike past profiling approaches,
causal profiling indicates exactly where programmers should focus their
optimization efforts, and quantifies their potential impact. Causal profiling
works by running performance experiments during program execution. Each
experiment calculates the impact of any potential optimization by virtually
speeding up code: inserting pauses that slow down all other code running
concurrently. The key insight is that this slowdown has the same relative
effect as running that line faster, thus "virtually" speeding it up.
We present Coz, a causal profiler, which we evaluate on a range of
highly-tuned applications: Memcached, SQLite, and the PARSEC benchmark suite.
Coz identifies previously unknown optimization opportunities that are both
significant and targeted. Guided by Coz, we improve the performance of
Memcached by 9%, SQLite by 25%, and accelerate six PARSEC applications by as
much as 68%; in most cases, these optimizations involve modifying under 10
lines of code.Comment: Published at SOSP 2015 (Best Paper Award
Effects of Flight on Gene Expression and Aging in the Honey Bee Brain and Flight Muscle
Honey bees move through a series of in-hive tasks (e.g., “nursing”) to outside tasks (e.g., “foraging”) that are coincident with physiological changes and higher levels of metabolic activity. Social context can cause worker bees to speed up or slow down this process, and foragers may revert back to their earlier in-hive tasks accompanied by reversion to earlier physiological states. To investigate the effects of flight, behavioral state and age on gene expression, we used whole-genome microarrays and real-time PCR. Brain tissue and flight muscle exhibited different patterns of expression during behavioral transitions, with expression patterns in the brain reflecting both age and behavior, and expression patterns in flight muscle being primarily determined by age. Our data suggest that the transition from behaviors requiring little to no flight (nursing) to those requiring prolonged flight bouts (foraging), rather than the amount of previous flight per se, has a major effect on gene expression. Following behavioral reversion there was a partial reversion in gene expression but some aspects of forager expression patterns, such as those for genes involved in immune function, remained. Combined with our real-time PCR data, these data suggest an epigenetic control and energy balance role in honey bee functional senescence
First Frontier Field Constraints on the Cosmic Star-Formation Rate Density at z~10 - The Impact of Lensing Shear on Completeness of High-Redshift Galaxy Samples
We search the complete Hubble Frontier Field dataset of Abell 2744 and its
parallel field for z~10 sources to further refine the evolution of the cosmic
star-formation rate density (SFRD) at z>8. We independently confirm two images
of the recently discovered triply-imaged z~9.8 source by Zitrin et al. (2014)
and set an upper limit for similar z~10 galaxies with red colors of
J_125-H_160>1.2 in the parallel field of Abell 2744. We utilize extensive
simulations to derive the effective selection volume of Lyman-break galaxies at
z~10, both in the lensed cluster field and in the adjacent parallel field.
Particular care is taken to include position-dependent lensing shear to
accurately account for the expected sizes and morphologies of highly-magnified
sources. We show that both source blending and shear reduce the completeness at
a given observed magnitude in the cluster, particularly near the critical
curves. These effects have a significant, but largely overlooked, impact on the
detectability of high-redshift sources behind clusters, and substantially
reduce the expected number of highly-magnified sources. The detections and
limits from both pointings result in a SFRD which is higher by 0.4+-0.4 dex
than previous estimates at z~10 from blank fields. Nevertheless, the
combination of these new results with all other estimates remain consistent
with a rapidly declining SFRD in the 170 Myr from z~8 to z~10 as predicted by
cosmological simulations and dark-matter halo evolution in LambdaCDM. Once
biases introduced by magnification-dependent completeness are accounted for,
the full six cluster and parallel Frontier Field program will be an extremely
powerful new dataset to probe the evolution of the galaxy population at z>8
before the advent of the JWST.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, changed to match accepted version to appear in
Ap
The Asymptotic Giant Branch and the Tip of the Red Giant Branch as Probes of Star Formation History: The Nearby Dwarf Irregular Galaxy KKH 98
We investigate the utility of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) and the red
giant branch (RGB) as probes of the star formation history (SFH) of the nearby
(D=2.5 Mpc) dwarf irregular galaxy, KKH 98. Near-infrared (IR) Keck Laser Guide
Star Adaptive Optics (AO) images resolve 592 IR bright stars reaching over 1
magnitude below the Tip of the Red Giant Branch. Significantly deeper optical
(F475W and F814W) Hubble Space Telescope images of the same field contain over
2500 stars, reaching to the Red Clump and the Main Sequence turn-off for 0.5
Gyr old populations. Compared to the optical color magnitude diagram (CMD), the
near-IR CMD shows significantly tighter AGB sequences, providing a good probe
of the intermediate age (0.5 - 5 Gyr) populations. We match observed CMDs with
stellar evolution models to recover the SFH of KKH 98. On average, the galaxy
has experienced relatively constant low-level star formation (5 x 10^-4 Mo
yr^-1) for much of cosmic time. Except for the youngest main sequence
populations (age < 0.1 Gyr), which are typically fainter than the AO data flux
limit, the SFH estimated from the the 592 IR bright stars is a reasonable match
to that derived from the much larger optical data set. Differences between the
optical and IR derived SFHs for 0.1 - 1 Gyr populations suggest that current
stellar evolution models may be over-producing the AGB by as much as a factor
of three in this galaxy. At the depth of the AO data, the IR luminous stars are
not crowded. Therefore these techniques can potentially be used to determine
the stellar populations of galaxies at significantly further distances.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figs, accepted for publication in Ap
Identifying Very Metal-Rich Stars with Low-Resolution Spectra: Finding Planet-Search Targets
We present empirical calibrations that estimate stellar metallicity,
effective temperature and surface gravity as a function of Lick/IDS indices.
These calibrations have been derived from a training set of 261 stars for which
(1) high-precision measurements of [Fe/H], T_eff and log g have been made using
spectral-synthesis analysis of HIRES spectra, and (2) Lick indices have also
been measured. Our [Fe/H] calibration, which has precision 0.07 dex, has
identified a number of bright (V < 9) metal-rich stars which are now being
screened for hot Jupiter-type planets. Using the Yonsei-Yale stellar models, we
show that the calibrations provide distance estimates accurate to 20% for
nearby stars.
This paper outlines the second tier of the screening of planet-search targets
by the N2K Consortium, a project designed to identify the stars most likely to
harbor extrasolar planets. Discoveries by the N2K Consortium include the
transiting hot Saturn HD 149026 b (Sato et al. 2005, astro-ph/0507009) and HD
88133 b (Fischer et al. 2005). See Ammons et al. (2005, In Press) for a
description of the first tier of N2K metallicity screening, calibrations using
broadband photometry.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
Using Verification Technology to Specify and Detect Malware
Computer viruses and worms are major threats for our computer infrastructure, and thus, for economy and society at large. Recent work has demonstrated that a model checking based approach to malware detection can capture the semantics of security exploits more accurately than traditional approaches, and consequently achieve higher detection rates. In this approach, malicious behavior is formalized using the expressive specification language CTPL based on classic CTL. This paper gives an overview of our toolchain for malware detection and presents our new system for computer assisted generation of malicious code specifications
Simultaneous Exoplanet Characterization and deep wide-field imaging with a diffractive pupil telescope
High-precision astrometry can identify exoplanets and measure their orbits
and masses, while coronagraphic imaging enables detailed characterization of
their physical properties and atmospheric compositions through spectroscopy. In
a previous paper, we showed that a diffractive pupil telescope (DPT) in space
can enable sub-microarcsecond accuracy astrometric measurements from wide-field
images by creating faint but sharp diffraction spikes around the bright target
star. The DPT allows simultaneous astrometric measurement and coronagraphic
imaging, and we discuss and quantify in this paper the scientific benefits of
this combination for exoplanet science investigations: identification of
exoplanets with increased sensitivity and robustness, and ability to measure
planetary masses to high accuracy. We show how using both measurements to
identify planets and measure their masses offers greater sensitivity and
provides more reliable measurements than possible with separate missions, and
therefore results in a large gain in mission efficiency. The combined
measurements reliably identify potentially habitable planets in multiple
systems with a few observations, while astrometry or imaging alone would
require many measurements over a long time baseline. In addition, the combined
measurement allows direct determination of stellar masses to percent-level
accuracy, using planets as test particles. We also show that the DPT maintains
the full sensitivity of the telescope for deep wide-field imaging, and is
therefore compatible with simultaneous scientific observations unrelated to
exoplanets. We conclude that astrometry, coronagraphy, and deep wide-field
imaging can be performed simultaneously on a single telescope without
significant negative impact on the performance of any of the three techniques.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. This second paper, following the paper
describing the diffractive pupil telescope (DPT) astrometric technique, shows
how simultaneous astrometry and coronagraphy observations, enabled by the DPT
concept, constrain the orbital parameters and mass of exoplanet
Triggered or Self-Regulated Star Formation within Intermediate Redshift Luminous Infrared Galaxies (I). Morphologies and Spatially Resolved Spectral Energy Distributions
We imaged a set of 15 intermediate redshift (z~0.8) luminous infrared
galaxies (LIRGs) with the Keck Laser Guide Star (LGS) AO facility. These
galaxies were selected from the GOODS-S field, allowing us to combine the high
spatial resolution HST optical (B, V, i, and z-bands) images with our
near-infrared (K'-band) images to study the LIRG morphologies and spatially
resolved spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Two thirds of the LIRGs are disk
galaxies, with only one third showing some evidence for interactions, minor, or
major mergers. In contrast with local LIRG disks (which are primarily barred
systems), only 10% of the LIRG disks in our sample contain a prominent bar.
While the optical bands tend to show significant point-like substructure,
indicating distributed star formation, the AO K-band images tend to be smooth.
The SEDs of the LIRGs are consistent with distributed dusty star formation, as
exhibited by optical to IR colors redder than allowed by old stellar
populations alone. This effect is most pronounced in the galaxy cores, possibly
indicating central star formation. We also observed a set of 11 intermediate
redshift comparison galaxies, selected to be non-ellipticals with apparent
K-band magnitudes comparable to the LIRGs. The "normal" (non-LIRG) systems
tended to have lower optical luminosity, lower stellar mass, and more irregular
morphology than the LIRGs. Half of the "normal" galaxies have SEDs consistent
with intermediate aged stellar populations and minimal dust. The other half
show evidence for some dusty star formation, usually concentrated in their
cores. Our work suggests that the LIRG disk galaxies are similar to large disk
systems today, undergoing self regulated star formation, only at 10 - 20 times
higher rates. (Abridged)Comment: Accepted for Publication in AJ. 27 pages, 21 figures, 3 table
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