The Odcombian Climber: How Thomas Coryate Employed Media for Social Advantage

Thomas Coryate (1577?-1617), the writer, traveler and social climber, embraced various media in order to achieve social gains. This thesis surveys the content and materiality of writings by and about Coryate to investigate the nature of his sociability. The study begins by drawing on John Hoskyns’ (1566–1638) poem, “Convivium philosophicum,” to explore how Coryate used oral and social performance to create a unique form of sociability through which mockery is transmuted into praise. This thesis then addresses how Coryate’s sociability factored into the conflation of aspects of manuscript and print media in the production of the “Panegyricke Verses” that were published with Coryate’s travel narrative, Coryats Crudities (1611). Finally, it gauges the success of Coryate’s social maneuvering by analyzing Coryate’s follow up to his travel narrative, Coryats Crambe (1611) and an anonymously pirated version of the “Panegyricke Verses,” The Odcombian Banqvet (1611)

Rotational periods of very young brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars in ChaI

We have studied the photometric variability of very young brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars (masses well below 0.2 M_sun) in the ChaI star forming region. We have determined photometric periods in the Gunn i and R band for the three M6.5-M7 type brown dwarf candidates ChaHa2, ChaHa3 and ChaHa6 of 2.2 to 3.4 days. These are the longest photometric periods found for any brown dwarf so far. If interpreted as rotationally induced they correspond to moderately fast rotational velocities, which is fully consistent with their v sini values and their relatively large radii. We have also determined periods for the two M5-M5.5 type very low-mass stars B34 and CHXR78C. In addition to the Gunn i and R band data, we have analysed JHK_s monitoring data of the targets, which have been taken a few weeks earlier and confirm the periods found in the optical data. Upper limits for the errors in the period determination are between 2 and 9 hours. The observed periodic variations of the brown dwarf candidates as well as of the T Tauri stars are interpreted as modulation of the flux at the rotation period by magnetically driven surface features, on the basis of a consistency with v sini values as well as (R-i) color variations typical for spots. Furthermore, the temperatures even for the brown dwarfs in the sample are relatively high (>2800K) because the objects are very young. Therefore, the atmospheric gas should be sufficiently ionized for the formation of spots on one hand and the temperatures are too high for significant dust condensation and hence variabilities due to clouds on the other hand.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Self-affine surface morphology of plastically deformed metals

We analyze the surface morphology of metals after plastic deformation over a range of scales from 10 nm to 2 mm, using a combination of atomic force microscopy and scanning white-light interferometry. We demonstrate that an initially smooth surface during deformation develops self-affine roughness over almost four orders of magnitude in scale. The Hurst exponent $H$ of one-dimensional surface profiles is initially found to decrease with increasing strain and then stabilizes at $H \approx 0.75$. By analyzing their statistical properties we show that the one-dimensional surface profiles can be mathematically modelled as graphs of a fractional Brownian motion. Our findings can be understood in terms of a fractal distribution of plastic strain within the deformed samples

Composite absorbing potentials

The multiple scattering interferences due to the addition of several contiguous potential units are used to construct composite absorbing potentials that absorb at an arbitrary set of incident momenta or for a broad momentum interval.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, 2 postscript figures. Accepted in Phys. Rev. Let

Cancer Biology Data Curation at the Mouse Tumor Biology Database (MTB)

Many advances in the field of cancer biology have been made using mouse models of human cancer. The Mouse Tumor Biology (MTB, "http://tumor.informatics.jax.org":http://tumor.informatics.jax.org) database provides web-based access to data on spontaneous and induced tumors from genetically defined mice (inbred, hybrid, mutant, and genetically engineered strains of mice). These data include standardized tumor names and classifications, pathology reports and images, mouse genetics, genomic and cytogenetic changes occurring in the tumor, strain names, tumor frequency and latency, and literature citations.

Although primary source for the data represented in MTB is peer-reviewed scientific literature an increasing amount of data is derived from disparate sources. MTB includes annotated histopathology images and cytogenetic assay images for mouse tumors where these data are available from The Jackson Laboratory’s mouse colonies and from outside contributors. MTB encourages direct submission of mouse tumor data and images from the cancer research community and provides investigators with a web-accessible tool for image submission and annotation. 

Integrated searches of the data in MTB are facilitated by the use of several controlled vocabularies and by adherence to standard nomenclature. MTB also provides links to other related online resources such as the Mouse Genome Database, Mouse Phenome Database, the Biology of the Mammary Gland Web Site, Festing's Listing of Inbred Strains of Mice, the JAX® Mice Web Site, and the Mouse Models of Human Cancers Consortium's Mouse Repository. 

MTB provides access to data on mouse models of cancer via the internet and has been designed to facilitate the selection of experimental models for cancer research, the evaluation of mouse genetic models of human cancer, the review of patterns of mutations in specific cancers, and the identification of genes that are commonly mutated across a spectrum of cancers.

MTB is supported by NCI grant CA089713

Type-I ELM mode structure observed by divertor thermography in ASDEX Upgrade

In the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak, power deposition structures on the outer divertor target surfaces during type-I Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) have been discovered by infra red thermography. These structures are radially and toroidally separated non-axisymmetric spirals. They are most obvious about 80 mm away from the toroidal symmetric strike zone on the target plates. The spiral structure of the power load is caused by a toroidally structured energy release in the outer midplane during the non-linear phase of a type-I ELM cycle as shown by basic field line tracing. The resulting structures correspond to values around z(m) n ≈ 12 and m ≈ 50 (for q95 ≈ 4)

Discovery of Two T Dwarf Companions with the Spitzer Space Telescope

We report the discovery of T dwarf companions to the nearby stars HN Peg (G0V, 18.4 pc, ~0.3 Gyr) and HD 3651 (K0V, 11.1 pc, ~7 Gyr). During an ongoing survey of 5'x5' fields surrounding stars in the solar neighborhood with IRAC aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope, we identified these companions as candidate T dwarfs based on their mid-IR colors. Using near-IR spectra obtained with SpeX at the NASA IRTF, we confirm the presence of methane absorption that characterizes T dwarfs and measure spectral types of T2.5+/-0.5 and T7.5+/-0.5 for HN Peg B and HD 3651 B, respectively. By comparing our Spitzer data to images from 2MASS obtained several years earlier, we find that the proper motions of HN Peg B and HD 3651 B are consistent with those of the primaries, confirming their companionship. HN Peg B and HD 3651 B have angular separations of 43.2" and 42.9" from their primaries, which correspond to projected physical separations of 795 and 476 AU, respectively. A comparison of their luminosities to the values predicted by theoretical evolutionary models implies masses of 0.021+/-0.009 and 0.051+/-0.014 Msun for HN Peg B and HD 3651 B. In addition, the models imply an effective temperature for HN Peg B that is significantly lower than the values derived for other T dwarfs at similar spectral types, which is the same behavior reported by Metchev & Hillenbrand for the young late-L dwarf HD 203030 B. Thus, the temperature of the L/T transition appears to depend on surface gravity. Meanwhile, HD 3651 B is the first substellar companion directly imaged around a star that is known to harbor a close-in planet from RV surveys. The discovery of this companion supports the notion that the high eccentricities of close-in planets like the one near HD 3651 may be the result of perturbations by low-mass companions at wide separations.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres

On the MBM12 Young Association

I present a comprehensive study of the MBM12 young association (MBM12A). By combining infrared (IR) photometry from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) survey with new optical imaging and spectroscopy, I have performed a census of the MBM12A membership that is complete to 0.03 Msun (H~15) for a 1.75deg X 1.4deg field encompassing the MBM12 cloud. I find five new members with masses of 0.1-0.4 Msun and a few additional candidates that have not been observed spectroscopically. From an analysis of optical and IR photometry for stars in the direction of MBM12, I identify M dwarfs in the foreground and background of the cloud. By comparing the magnitudes of these stars to those of local field dwarfs, I arrive at a distance modulus 7.2+/-0.5 (275 pc) to the MBM12 cloud; it is not the nearest molecular cloud and is not inside the local bubble of hot ionized gas as had been implied by previous distance estimates of 50-100 pc. I have also used Li strengths and H-R diagrams to constrain the absolute and relative ages of MBM12A and other young populations; these data indicate ages of 2 +3/-1 Myr for MBM12A and 10 Myr for the TW Hya and Eta Cha associations. MBM12A may be a slightly evolved version of the aggregates of young stars within the Taurus dark clouds (~1 Myr) near the age of the IC 348 cluster (~2 Myr).Comment: to be published in The Astrophysical Journal, 41 pages, 14 figures, also found at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/sfgroup/preprints.htm