Deployment and Monitoring of an X-Band Dual-Polarization Phased Array Weather Radar

This thesis describes the deployment of MIRSL\u27s X-band dual-polarization Phase-Tilt Weather Radar (PTWR) at the University of Texas at Arlington during spring 2014. While this radar has been used to observe weather in Western Massachusetts, more observations of severe weather were required to determine the limits of its abilities in sensing more rapidly evolving weather systems. This site was chosen also for its proximity to the Dallas-Fort Worth Urban Testbed Network set up by the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), which provided the ability to compare and calibrate the PTWR data against another well-documented X-band weather radar. A data processing pipeline was developed for converting raw PTWR data to NetCDF format, which allows for easy sharing and mapping of weather data. Finally, this is the first in-depth documentation of the PTWR system and specifically the roof-mounted setup utilized for this deployment

A Structural Analysis of Star-Forming Region AFGL 490

We present Spitzer IRAC and MIPS observations of the star-forming region containing intermediate-mass young stellar object (YSO) AFGL 490. We supplement these data with near-IR 2MASS photometry and with deep SQIID observations off the central high extinction region. We have more than doubled the known membership of this region to 57 Class I and 303 Class II YSOs via the combined 1-24 um photometric catalog derived from these data. We construct and analyze the minimum spanning tree of their projected positions, isolating one locally over-dense cluster core containing 219 YSOs (60.8% of the region's members). We find this cluster core to be larger yet less dense than similarly analyzed clusters. Although the structure of this cluster core appears irregular, we demonstrate that the parsec-scale surface densities of both YSOs and gas are correlated with a power law slope of 2.8, as found for other similarly analyzed nearby molecular clouds. We also explore the mass segregation implications of AFGL 490's offset from the center of its core, finding that it has no apparent preferential central position relative to the low-mass members.Comment: 44 pages, 13 figures, accepted to Ap

Mass and luminosity evolution of young stellar objects

A model of protostar mass and luminosity evolution in clusters gives new estimates of cluster age, protostar birthrate, accretion rate and mean accretion time. The model assumes constant protostar birthrate, core-clump accretion, and equally likely accretion stopping. Its parameters are set to reproduce the initial mass function, and to match protostar luminosity distributions in nearby star-forming regions. It obtains cluster ages and birthrates from the observed numbers of protostars and pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, and from the modal value of the protostar luminosity. In 31 embedded clusters and complexes the global cluster age is 1-3 Myr, matching available estimates based on optical spectroscopy and evolutionary tracks. This method of age estimation is simpler than optical spectroscopy, and is more useful for young embedded clusters where optical spectrocopy is not possible. In the youngest clusters, the protostar fraction decreases outward from the densest gas, indicating that the local star-forming age increases outward from a few 0.1 Myr in small protostar-dominated zones to a few Myr in large PMS-dominated zones.Comment: To appear in The Astrophysical Journal, Part

IRAS 20050+2720: Anatomy of a young stellar cluster

IRAS 20050+2720 is young star forming region at a distance of 700 pc without apparent high mass stars. We present results of our multiwavelength study of IRAS 20050+2720 which includes observations by Chandra and Spitzer, and 2MASS and UBVRI photometry. In total, about 300 YSOs in different evolutionary stages are found. We characterize the distribution of young stellar objects (YSOs) in this region using a minimum spanning tree (MST) analysis. We newly identify a second cluster core, which consists mostly of class II objects, about 10 arcmin from the center of the cloud. YSOs of earlier evolutionary stages are more clustered than more evolved objects. The X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of IRAS 20050+2720 is roughly lognormal, but steeper than the XLF of the more massive Orion nebula complex. IRAS 20050+2720 shows a lower N_H/A_K ratio compared with the diffuse ISM.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted by A

Weed management guide for commercial vegetable growers, 1988

Cover title

Weed management guide 1990 for commercial vegetable growers / 907: 1990

Caption title."Revised annually.""October 1989.