750 research outputs found
Metacarpophalangeal pattern profile analysis of a sample drawn from a North Wales population
This is tha author's PDF version of an article published in Annals of human biology© 2001. The definitive version is available at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsSexual dimorphism and population differences were investigated using metacarpophalangeal pattern profile (MCPP) analysis. Although it is an anthropmetric technique, MCPP analysis is more frequently used in genetic syndrome analysis and has been under-used in the study of human groups. The present analysis used a series of hand radiographics from Gwynedd, North Wales, to make comparisons, first, between the sexes within the sample and then with previously reported data from Japan. The Welsh sexes showed MCPP analyses that indicated size and shape differences but certain similarities in shape were also evident. Differences with the Japanese data were more marked. MCPP anlysis is a potentially useful anthropmetric technique but requires further statistical development
La violenza del maschio e la vendetta della donna nella Pentesilea di Heinrich von Kleist
Agli inizi dellâOttocento, con lâomonima tragedia, Heinrich von Kleist riprende la figura di Pentesilea, guerriera amazzone, che una passione irrefrenabile trasforma in assassina incapace di concedersi allâamato se non in un orrendo gesto di necrofilia. Nel presente saggio si Ăš cercato di rileggere la violenza di Pentesilea come la vendetta di una donna che, proprio perchĂ© accetta senza elaborarla la visione maschilista, violenta e possessiva, dellâamore come gliela impone Achille, non puĂČ fare altro che vendicarsi dimostrandogli che, pur se ossessionata dallâamore, non puĂČ accettare la schiavitĂč, neanche quella dâamore, nĂ© lo stupro continuato di un rapporto coniugale.In the early nineteenth century, with the homonymous tragedy, Heinrich von Kleist takes the figure of Penthesilea, the Amazon warrior, who is turned into an uncontrollable passion-killer unable to enjoy the beloved one if not in a horrific act of necrophilia. In this paper, we tried to reread the violence shown by Penthesilea as the revenge of a woman, who does not accept a sexist vision, a violent and possessive love as imposed to her by Achilles. She does not have other choice but to take revenge by showing that, although obsessed by love, she cannot accept slavery, even that of love, nor the continued rape of a marital relationship
Semi-supervised Learning for Photometric Supernova Classification
We present a semi-supervised method for photometric supernova typing. Our
approach is to first use the nonlinear dimension reduction technique diffusion
map to detect structure in a database of supernova light curves and
subsequently employ random forest classification on a spectroscopically
confirmed training set to learn a model that can predict the type of each newly
observed supernova. We demonstrate that this is an effective method for
supernova typing. As supernova numbers increase, our semi-supervised method
efficiently utilizes this information to improve classification, a property not
enjoyed by template based methods. Applied to supernova data simulated by
Kessler et al. (2010b) to mimic those of the Dark Energy Survey, our methods
achieve (cross-validated) 95% Type Ia purity and 87% Type Ia efficiency on the
spectroscopic sample, but only 50% Type Ia purity and 50% efficiency on the
photometric sample due to their spectroscopic follow-up strategy. To improve
the performance on the photometric sample, we search for better spectroscopic
follow-up procedures by studying the sensitivity of our machine learned
supernova classification on the specific strategy used to obtain training sets.
With a fixed amount of spectroscopic follow-up time, we find that deeper
magnitude-limited spectroscopic surveys are better for producing training sets.
For supernova Ia (II-P) typing, we obtain a 44% (1%) increase in purity to 72%
(87%) and 30% (162%) increase in efficiency to 65% (84%) of the sample using a
25th (24.5th) magnitude-limited survey instead of the shallower spectroscopic
sample used in the original simulations. When redshift information is
available, we incorporate it into our analysis using a novel method of altering
the diffusion map representation of the supernovae. Incorporating host
redshifts leads to a 5% improvement in Type Ia purity and 13% improvement in
Type Ia efficiency.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Supernovae in Low-Redshift Galaxy Clusters: Observations by the Wise Observatory Optical Transient Search (WOOTS)
We describe the Wise Observatory Optical Transient Search (WOOTS), a survey
for supernovae (SNe) and other variable and transient objects in the fields of
redshift 0.06-0.2 Abell galaxy clusters. We present the survey design and
data-analysis procedures, and our object detection and follow-up strategies. We
have obtained follow-up spectroscopy for all viable SN candidates, and present
the resulting SN sample here. Out of the 12 SNe we have discovered, seven are
associated with our target clusters while five are foreground or background
field events. All but one of the SNe (a foreground field event) are Type Ia
SNe. Our non-cluster SN sample is uniquely complete, since all SN candidates
have been either spectroscopically confirmed or ruled out. This allows us to
estimate that flux-limited surveys similar to WOOTS would be dominated (~80%)
by SNe Ia. Our spectroscopic follow-up observations also elucidate the
difficulty in distinguishing active galactic nuclei from SNe. In separate
papers we use the WOOTS sample to derive the SN rate in clusters for this
redshift range, and to measure the fraction of intergalactic cluster SNe. We
also briefly report here on some quasars and asteroids discovered by WOOTS.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. Comments welcom
Supernovae in the Subaru Deep Field: An Initial Sample, and Type Ia Rate, out to Redshift 1.6
Large samples of high-redshift supernovae (SNe) are potentially powerful
probes of cosmic star formation, metal enrichment, and SN physics. We present
initial results from a new deep SN survey, based on re-imaging in the R, i', z'
bands, of the 0.25 deg2 Subaru Deep Field (SDF), with the 8.2-m Subaru
telescope and Suprime-Cam. In a single new epoch consisting of two nights of
observations, we have discovered 33 candidate SNe, down to a z'-band magnitude
of 26.3 (AB). We have measured the photometric redshifts of the SN host
galaxies, obtained Keck spectroscopic redshifts for 17 of the host galaxies,
and classified the SNe using the Bayesian photometric algorithm of Poznanski et
al. (2007) that relies on template matching. After correcting for biases in the
classification, 55% of our sample consists of Type Ia supernovae and 45% of
core-collapse SNe. The redshift distribution of the SNe Ia reaches z ~ 1.6,
with a median of z ~ 1.2. The core-collapse SNe reach z ~ 1.0, with a median of
z ~ 0.5. Our SN sample is comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope/GOODS sample
both in size and redshift range. The redshift distributions of the SNe in the
SDF and in GOODS are consistent, but there is a trend (which requires
confirmation using a larger sample) for more high-z SNe Ia in the SDF. This
trend is also apparent when comparing the SN Ia rates we derive to those based
on GOODS data. Our results suggest a fairly constant rate at high redshift that
could be tracking the star-formation rate. Additional epochs on this field,
already being obtained, will enlarge our SN sample to the hundreds, and
determine whether or not there is a decline in the SN Ia rate at z >~ 1.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS accepte
Exploring the spectral diversity of low-redshift Type Ia supernovae using the Palomar Transient Factory
We present an investigation of the optical spectra of 264 low-redshift (z <
0.2) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory,
an untargeted transient survey. We focus on velocity and pseudo-equivalent
width measurements of the Si II 4130, 5972, and 6355 A lines, as well those of
the Ca II near-infrared (NIR) triplet, up to +5 days relative to the SN B-band
maximum light. We find that a high-velocity component of the Ca II NIR triplet
is needed to explain the spectrum in ~95 per cent of SNe Ia observed before -5
days, decreasing to ~80 per cent at maximum. The average velocity of the Ca II
high-velocity component is ~8500 km/s higher than the photospheric component.
We confirm previous results that SNe Ia around maximum light with a larger
contribution from the high-velocity component relative to the photospheric
component in their Ca II NIR feature have, on average, broader light curves and
lower Ca II NIR photospheric velocities. We find that these relations are
driven by both a stronger high-velocity component and a weaker contribution
from the photospheric Ca II NIR component in broader light curve SNe Ia. We
identify the presence of C II in very-early-time SN Ia spectra (before -10
days), finding that >40 per cent of SNe Ia observed at these phases show signs
of unburnt material in their spectra, and that C II features are more likely to
be found in SNe Ia having narrower light curves.Comment: 18 page, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Network of protein interactions within the Drosophila inner kinetochore.
The kinetochore provides a physical connection between microtubules and the centromeric regions of chromosomes that is critical for their equitable segregation. The trimeric Mis12 sub-complex of the Drosophila kinetochore binds to the mitotic centromere using CENP-C as a platform. However, knowledge of the precise connections between Mis12 complex components and CENP-C has remained elusive despite the fundamental importance of this part of the cell division machinery. Here, we employ hydrogen-deuterium exchange coupled with mass spectrometry to reveal that Mis12 and Nnf1 form a dimer maintained by interacting coiled-coil (CC) domains within the carboxy-terminal parts of both proteins. Adjacent to these interacting CCs is a carboxy-terminal domain that also interacts with Nsl1. The amino-terminal parts of Mis12 and Nnf1 form a CENP-C-binding surface, which docks the complex and thus the entire kinetochore to mitotic centromeres. Mutational analysis confirms these precise interactions are critical for both structure and function of the complex. Thus, we conclude the organization of the Mis12-Nnf1 dimer confers upon the Mis12 complex a bipolar, elongated structure that is critical for kinetochore function.The work was funded by the Foundation for Polish Science via an International PhD Projects Programme grant to MR and MD; Polish National Science Center via collaborative Harmonia 5 grant to MD and DMG (2013/10/M/NZ2/00298), and by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK via programme grants to DMG. ZL was on leave from the Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary, and supported by the FEBS Long Term fellowship. We are grateful to Magdalena Kaus-Drobek and Kinga Fituch for help with the structural characterisation of peptides. We thank Andrea Musacchio and his group for sharing their data before publication.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Royal Society Publishing via http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsob.15023
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