9,093 research outputs found
A Study of Cool White Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12
In this work we study white dwarfs where to compare the differences in the
cooling of DAs and non-DAs and their formation channels. Our final sample is
composed by nearly DAs and more than non-DAs that are
simultaneously in the SDSS DR12 spectroscopic database and in the \textit{Gaia}
survey DR2. We present the mass distribution for DAs, DBs and DCs, where it is
found that the DCs are more massive than DAs and
DBs on average. Also we present the photometric effective temperature
distribution for each spectral type and the distance distribution for DAs and
non-DAs. In addition, we study the ratio of non-DAs to DAs as a function of
effective temperature. We find that this ratio is around for
effective temperature above and increases by a factor
of five for effective temperature cooler than . If we assume
that the increase of non-DA stars between to
is due to convective dilution, per cent of
the DAs should turn into non-DAs to explain the observed ratio. Our
determination of the mass distribution of DCs also agrees with the theory that
convective dilution and mixing are more likely to occur in massive white
dwarfs, which supports evolutionary models and observations suggesting that
higher mass white dwarfs have thinner hydrogen layers.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRA
A simple model for predicting snow albedo decay using observations from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow-Albedo (CoCoRAHS-Albedo) Network
The albedo of seasonal snow cover plays an important role in the global climate system due to its influence on Earth’s radiation budget and energy balance. Volunteer CoCoRaHS-Albedo observers collected 3,249 individual daily albedo, snow depth, and density measurements using standardized techniques at dozens of sites across New Hampshire, USA over four winter seasons. The data show that albedo increases rapidly with snow depth up to ~ 0.14 m. Multiple linear regression models using snowpack age, snow depth or density, and air temperature provide reasonable approximations of surface snow albedo during times of albedo decay. However, the linear models also reveal systematic biases that highlight an important non-linearity in snow albedo decay. Modeled albedo values are reasonably accurate within the range of 0.6 to 0.9, but exhibit a tendency to over-estimate lower albedo values and under-estimate higher albedo values. We hypothesize that rapid reduction in high albedo fresh snow results from a decrease in snow specific surface area, while during melt-events the presence of liquid water in the snowpack accelerates metamorphism and grain growth. We conclude that the CoCoRaHS-Albedo volunteer observer network provides useful snow albedo, depth, and density measurements and serves as an effective model for future measurement campaigns
Anthropogenic Habitats Facilitate Dispersal of an Early Successional Obligate: Implications for Restoration of an Endangered Ecosystem
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation disrupt the connectivity of natural landscapes, with major consequences for biodiversity. Species that require patchily distributed habitats, such as those that specialize on early successional ecosystems, must disperse through a landscape matrix with unsuitable habitat types. We evaluated landscape effects on dispersal of an early successional obligate, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis). Using a landscape genetics approach, we identified barriers and facilitators of gene flow and connectivity corridors for a population of cottontails in the northeastern United States. We modeled dispersal in relation to landscape structure and composition and tested hypotheses about the influence of habitat fragmentation on gene flow. Anthropogenic and natural shrubland habitats facilitated gene flow, while the remainder of the matrix, particularly development and forest, impeded gene flow. The relative influence of matrix habitats differed between study areas in relation to a fragmentation gradient. Barrier features had higher explanatory power in the more fragmented site, while facilitating features were important in the less fragmented site. Landscape models that included a simultaneous barrier and facilitating effect of roads had higher explanatory power than models that considered either effect separately, supporting the hypothesis that roads act as both barriers and facilitators at all spatial scales. The inclusion of LiDAR-identified shrubland habitat improved the fit of our facilitator models. Corridor analyses using circuit and least cost path approaches revealed the importance of anthropogenic, linear features for restoring connectivity between the study areas. In fragmented landscapes, human-modified habitats may enhance functional connectivity by providing suitable dispersal conduits for early successional specialists
When Politicians Talk About Politics: Identifying Political Tweets of Brazilian Congressmen
Since June 2013, when Brazil faced the largest and most significant mass
protests in a generation, a political crisis is in course. In midst of this
crisis, Brazilian politicians use social media to communicate with the
electorate in order to retain or to grow their political capital. The problem
is that many controversial topics are in course and deputies may prefer to
avoid such themes in their messages. To characterize this behavior, we propose
a method to accurately identify political and non-political tweets
independently of the deputy who posted it and of the time it was posted.
Moreover, we collected tweets of all congressmen who were active on Twitter and
worked in the Brazilian parliament from October 2013 to October 2017. To
evaluate our method, we used word clouds and a topic model to identify the main
political and non-political latent topics in parliamentarian tweets. Both
results indicate that our proposal is able to accurately distinguish political
from non-political tweets. Moreover, our analyses revealed a striking fact:
more than half of the messages posted by Brazilian deputies are non-political.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
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