High Redshift HCN Emission: Dense Star-Forming Molecular Gas in IRAS F10214+4724

Hydrogen cyanide emission in the J=1-0 transition has been detected at redshift z=2.2858 in IRAS F10214+4724 using the Green Bank Telescope . This is the second detection of HCN emission at high redshift. The large HCN line luminosity in F10214 is similar to that in the Cloverleaf (z=2.6) and the ultra-luminous infrared galaxies Mrk231 and Arp220. This is also true of the ratio of HCN to CO luminosities. The ratio of far-infrared luminosity to HCN luminosity, an indicator of the star formation rate per solar mass of dense gas, follows the correlation found for normal spirals and infrared luminous starburst galaxies. F10214 clearly contains a starburst that contributes, together with its embedded quasar, to its overall infrared luminosity. A new technique for removing spectral baselines in the search for weak, broad emission lines is presented.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; accepted ApJ(Letters

Towards Benchmarking Scene Background Initialization

Given a set of images of a scene taken at different times, the availability of an initial background model that describes the scene without foreground objects is the prerequisite for a wide range of applications, ranging from video surveillance to computational photography. Even though several methods have been proposed for scene background initialization, the lack of a common groundtruthed dataset and of a common set of metrics makes it difficult to compare their performance. To move first steps towards an easy and fair comparison of these methods, we assembled a dataset of sequences frequently adopted for background initialization, selected or created ground truths for quantitative evaluation through a selected suite of metrics, and compared results obtained by some existing methods, making all the material publicly available.Comment: 6 pages, SBI dataset, SBMI2015 Worksho

Characterization of a disease-associated mutation affecting a putative splicing regulatory element in intron 6b of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a common recessive disorder caused by >1600 mutations in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. About 13% of CFTR mutations are classified as “splicing mutations,” but for almost 40% of these, their role in affecting the pre-mRNA splicing of the gene is not yet defined. In this work, we describe a new splicing mutation detected in three unrelated Italian CF patients. By DNA analyses and mRNA studies, we identified the c.1002–1110_1113delTAAG mutation localized in intron 6b of the CFTR gene. At the mRNA level, this mutation creates an aberrant inclusion of a sequence of 101 nucleotides between exons 6b and 7. This sequence corresponds to a portion of intron 6b and resembles a cryptic exon because it is characterized by an upstream ag and a downstream gt sequence, which are most probably recognized as 5′- and 3′-splice sites by the spliceosome. Through functional analysis of this splicing defect, we show that this mutation abolishes the interaction of the splicing regulatory protein heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A2/B1 with an intronic splicing regulatory element and creates a new recognition motif for the SRp75 splicing factor, causing activation of the cryptic exon. Our results show that the c.1002–1110_1113delTAAG mutation creates a new intronic splicing regulatory element in intron 6b of the CFTR gene exclusively recognized by SRp75

Anti-phosphocholine hybridoma antibodies. I. Direct evidence for three distinct families of antibodies in the murine response

Biochemical and serological studies were performed on more than 400 anti- phosphocholine (PC) hybridoma proteins (HP) derived from six strains of mice; 26 of these HP were examined in detail. All HP possessed specificity for PC, and all those tested contained an H-chain idiotypic determinant, V(H)-PC, which is shared by PC-binding myeloma proteins (BMP) and anti-PC antibodies. Among the HP, three well-defined and distinct families that correlated well with previous studies on serum anti-PC antibodies were identified. The largest group shared idotypic determinants, an L-chain isoelectric focusing (IEF) pattern, and a binding site specificity with the PC-BMP, T15. Using the same criteria, a second group was found to be strikingly similar to another PC-BMP, M603. The third group possessed an idiotypic determinant and an L-chain IEF profile similar to M511, but differences in binding site specificities were observed among the HP. The latter two groups contained members whose L-chain IEF profiles were not identical to other members of that group. Thus, among strains there is a remarkable degree of conservation among responding anti-PC antibodies, in both the kinds of anti-PC families that exist and the immunochemical and structural characteristics of various members within a family. Differences in at least one parameter were observed in each family, demonstrating that even a relatively restricted response is heterogeneous. However, this diversity seems to operate within certain constraints

Cetacean Ecology for Santa Monica Bay and Nearby Areas, California in the Context of the Newly Established MPAs

Data on cetacean ecology are important for monitoring animals and developing conservation and management strategies in a specific area, and are crucial in the decision making process during the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs). Cetacean occurrence, distribution and behavior were investigated in Santa Monica Bay, California (1997-2007). A total of 425 boat-based surveys documented three species inhabiting the bay year-round - the common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, the long-beaked common dolphin, Delphinus capensis, and the short-beaked common dolphin, D. delphis - and ten species occurring occasionally. Coastal bottlenose dolphins were mostly found traveling, diving and feeding in waters within 0.5km of shore in 81.4% of the sightings (n=221), but were also observed occasionally in offshore waters. All other species were seen \u3e0.5km of shore, often feeding near escarpments and submarine canyons. Endangered species such as blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) and northern right whale dolphins (Lissodelphis borealis) were also recorded in the bay. The presence of a rich and diverse cetacean fauna suggests the need for long-term monitoring and a precautionary approach toward these species. These data are also essential in conservation and management decisions associated with the current creation of a MPA in Santa Monica Bay

Background modeling for video sequences by stacked denoising autoencoders

Nowadays, the analysis and extraction of relevant information in visual data flows is of paramount importance. These images sequences can last for hours, which implies that the model must adapt to all kinds of circumstances so that the performance of the system does not decay over time. In this paper we propose a methodology for background modeling and foreground detection, whose main characteristic is its robustness against stationary noise. Thus, stacked denoising autoencoders are applied to generate a set of robust characteristics for each region or patch of the image, which will be the input of a probabilistic model to determine if that region is background or foreground. The evaluation of a set of heterogeneous sequences results in that, although our proposal is similar to the classical methods existing in the literature, the inclusion of noise in these sequences causes drastic performance drops in the competing methods, while in our case the performance stays or falls slightly.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

One-neutron knockout from 57^{57}Ni

The single-particle structure of $^{57}$Ni and level structure of $^{56}$Ni were investigated with the \mbox{$^{9}$Be ($^{57}$Ni,$^{56}$Ni+$\gamma$)$\it{X}$} reaction at 73 MeV/nucleon. An inclusive cross section of 41.4(12) mb was obtained for the reaction, compared to a theoretical prediction of 85.4 mb, hence only 48(2)% of the theoretical cross section is exhausted. This reduction in the observed spectroscopic strength is consistent with that found for lighter well-bound nuclei. One-neutron removal spectroscopic factors of 0.58(11) to the ground state and 3.7(2) to all excited states of $^{56}$Ni were deduced.Comment: Phys. Rev. C, accepte