Salvage and storage of infectious disease protein targets in the SSGCID high-throughput crystallization pathway using microfluidics

SSGCID protein crystals were salvaged and stored using the MPCS Plug Maker and CrystalCards when high-throughput traditional sitting-drop vapor diffusion initially failed

A Population of Dust-rich Quasars at z ~ 1.5

We report Herschel SPIRE (250, 350, and 500 μm) detections of 32 quasars with redshifts 0.5 ≤z < 3.6 from the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES). These sources are from a MIPS 24 μm flux-limited sample of 326 quasars in the Lockman Hole Field. The extensive multi-wavelength data available in the field permit construction of the rest-frame spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from ultraviolet to the mid-infrared for all sources, and to the far-infrared (FIR) for the 32 objects. Most quasars with Herschel FIR detections show dust temperatures in the range of 25-60 K, with a mean of 34 K. The FIR luminosities range from 10^(11.3) to 10^(13.5) L_☉, qualifying most of their hosts as ultra- or hyper-luminous infrared galaxies. These FIR-detected quasars may represent a dust-rich population, but with lower redshifts and fainter luminosities than quasars observed at ~1 mm. However, their FIR properties cannot be predicted from shorter wavelengths (0.3-20 μm, rest frame), and the bolometric luminosities derived using the 5100 Å index may be underestimated for these FIR-detected quasars. Regardless of redshift, we observed a decline in the relative strength of FIR luminosities for quasars with higher near-infrared luminosities

Self-interest And Public Interest: The Motivations Of Political Actors

Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics showed that the public, politicians, and bureaucrats are often public spirited. But this does not invalidate public-choice theory. Public-choice theory is an ideal type, not a claim that self-interest explains all political behavior. Instead, public-choice theory is useful in creating rules and institutions that guard against the worst case, which would be universal self-interestedness in politics. In contrast, the public-interest hypothesis is neither a comprehensive explanation of political behavior nor a sound basis for institutional design

Submillimetre line spectrum of the Seyfert galaxy NGC1068 from the Herschel-SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer

The first complete submillimetre spectrum (190-670um) of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC1068 has been observed with the SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer onboard the {\it Herschel} Space Observatory. The sequence of CO lines (Jup=4-13), lines from water, the fundamental rotational transition of HF, two o-H_2O+ lines and one line each from CH+ and OH+ have been detected, together with the two [CI] lines and the [NII]205um line. The observations in both single pointing mode with sparse image sampling and in mapping mode with full image sampling allow us to disentangle two molecular emission components, one due to the compact circum-nuclear disk (CND) and one from the extended region encompassing the star forming ring (SF-ring). Radiative transfer models show that the two CO components are characterized by density of n(H_2)=10^4.5 and 10^2.9 cm^-3 and temperature of T=100K and 127K, respectively. The comparison of the CO line intensities with photodissociation region (PDR) and X-ray dominated region (XDR) models, together with other observational constraints, such as the observed CO surface brightness and the radiation field, indicate that the best explanation for the CO excitation of the CND is an XDR with density of n(H_2) 10^4 cm^-3 and X-ray flux of 9 erg s^-1 cm^-2, consistent with illumination by the active galactic nucleus, while the CO lines in the SF-ring are better modeled by a PDR. The detected water transitions, together with those observed with the \her \sim PACS Spectrometer, can be modeled by an LVG model with low temperature (T_kin \sim 40K) and high density (n(H_2) in the range 10^6.7-10^7.9 cm^-3).Comment: Accepted for publication on the Astrophysical Journal, 30 August 201

Faint NUV/FUV Standards from Swift/UVOT, GALEX and SDSS Photometry

At present, the precision of deep ultraviolet photometry is somewhat limited by the dearth of faint ultraviolet standard stars. In an effort to improve this situation, we present a uniform catalog of eleven new faint (u sim17) ultraviolet standard stars. High-precision photometry of these stars has been taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Galaxy Evolution Explorer and combined with new data from the Swift Ultraviolet Optical Telescope to provide precise photometric measures extending from the Near Infrared to the Far Ultraviolet. These stars were chosen because they are known to be hot (20,000 < T_eff < 50,000 K) DA white dwarfs with published Sloan spectra that should be photometrically stable. This careful selection allows us to compare the combined photometry and Sloan spectroscopy to models of pure hydrogen atmospheres to both constrain the underlying properties of the white dwarfs and test the ability of white dwarf models to predict the photometric measures. We find that the photometry provides good constraint on white dwarf temperatures, which demonstrates the ability of Swift/UVOT to investigate the properties of hot luminous stars. We further find that the models reproduce the photometric measures in all eleven passbands to within their systematic uncertainties. Within the limits of our photometry, we find the standard stars to be photometrically stable. This success indicates that the models can be used to calibrate additional filters to our standard system, permitting easier comparison of photometry from heterogeneous sources. The largest source of uncertainty in the model fitting is the uncertainty in the foreground reddening curve, a problem that is especially acute in the UV.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal. 31 pages, 13 figures, electronic tables available from ApJ or on reques

The XMM-Newton wide angle survey (XWAS): the X-ray spectrum of type-1 AGN

Aims. We discuss the broad band X-ray properties of one of the largest samples of X-ray selected type-1 AGN to date (487 objects in total), drawn from the XMM-Newton Wide Angle Survey (XWAS). The objects presented in this work cover 2−10 keV (rest-frame) luminosities from ∼1042−1045 erg s−1 and are detected up to redshift ∼4. We constrain the overall properties of the broad band continuum, soft excess and X-ray absorption, along with their dependence on the X-ray luminosity and redshift.We discuss the implications for models of AGN emission. Methods. We fitted the observed 0.2−12 keV broad band spectra with various models to search for X-ray absorption and soft excess. The F-test was used with a significance threshold of 99% to statistically accept the detection of additional spectral components. Results. We constrained the mean spectral index of the broad band X-ray continuum to (Γ) = 1.96 ± 0.02 with intrinsic dispersion σ(Γ) = 0.27+0.01 −0.02. The continuum becomes harder at faint fluxes and at higher redshifts and hard (2−10 keV) luminosities. The dependence of Γ with flux is likely due to undetected absorption rather than to spectral variation. We found a strong dependence of the detection efficiency of objects on the spectral shape. We expect this effect to have an impact on the measured mean continuum shapes of sources at different redshifts and luminosities. We detected excess absorption in >∼3% of our objects, with rest-frame column densities ∼a few ×1022 cm−2. The apparent mismatch between the optical classification and X-ray properties of these objects is a challenge for the standard orientation-based AGN unification model. We found that the fraction of objects with detected soft excess is ∼36%. Using a thermal model, we constrained the soft excess mean rest-frame temperature and intrinsic dispersion to kT ∼ 100 eV and σkT ∼ 34 eV. The origin of the soft excess as thermal emission from the accretion disk or Compton scattered disk emission is ruled out on the basis of the temperatures detected and the lack of correlation of the soft excess temperature with the hard X-ray luminosity over more than 2 orders of magnitude in luminosity. Furthermore, the high luminosities of the soft excess rule out an origin in the host galaxy.We acknowledge Chris Done, Bozena Czerny, Gordon Stewart, Pilar Esquej and Ken Pounds for useful comments. We acknowledge the anonymous referee for a careful reading of the manuscript and for comments that improved the paper. S.M., M.W. and J.A.T. acknowledge support from the UK STFC research council. F.J.C. acknowledges financial support for this work from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under project ESP2006-13608-C02-01. A.C. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia fellowship and also from the MIUR and The Italian Space Agency (ASI) grants PRIN-MUR 2006-02-5203 and No. I/088/06/0. M.K. acknowledges support from the NASA grant NNX08AX50G and NNX07AG02G

The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey: VIII. the first XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue from overlapping observations

Context. XMM-Newton has observed the X-ray sky since early 2000. The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre Consortium has published catalogues of X-ray and ultraviolet sources found serendipitously in the individual observations. This series is now augmented by a catalogue dedicated to X-ray sources detected in spatially overlapping XMM-Newton observations. Aims. The aim of this catalogue is to explore repeatedly observed sky regions. It thus makes use of the long(er) effective exposure time per sky area and offers the opportunity to investigate long-term flux variability directly through the source-detection process. Methods. A new standardised strategy for simultaneous source detection on multiple observations was introduced, including an adaptive-smoothing method to describe the image background. It was coded as a new task within the XMM-Newton Science Analysis System and used to compile a catalogue of sources from 434 stacks comprising 1789 overlapping XMM-Newton observations that entered the 3XMM-DR7 catalogue, have a low background and full-frame readout of all EPIC cameras. Results. The first stacked catalogue is called 3XMM-DR7s. It contains 71 951 unique sources with positions and parameters such as fluxes, hardness ratios, quality estimates, and information on inter-observation variability, directly derived from a simultaneous fit. Source parameters are calculated for the stack and for each contributing observation. About 15% of the sources are new with respect to 3XMM-DR7. Through stacked source detection, the parameters of repeatedly observed sources are determined with higher accuracy than in the individual observations. The method is more sensitive to faint sources and tends to produce fewer spurious detections. Conclusions. With this first stacked catalogue we demonstrate the feasibility and benefit of the approach. It supplements the large data base of XMM-Newton detections with additional, in particular faint, sources and adds variability information. In the future, the catalogue will be expanded to larger samples and continued within the series of serendipitous XMM-Newton source catalogues.FJC acknowledges financial support through grant AYA2015-64346-C2-1P (MINECO/FEDER) and MTC through grant ESP2016-76683-C3-1R (MINECO/FEDER

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Two-Season ACTPol Lensing Power Spectrum

We report a measurement of the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing from two seasons of Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) CMB data. The CMB lensing power spectrum is extracted from both temperature and polarization data using quadratic estimators. We obtain results that are consistent with the expectation from the best-fit Planck LCDM model over a range of multipoles L=80-2100, with an amplitude of lensing A_lens = 1.06 +/- 0.15 (stat.) +/- 0.06 (sys.) relative to Planck. Our measurement of the CMB lensing power spectrum gives sigma_8 Omega_m^0.25 = 0.643 +/- 0.054; including baryon acoustic oscillation scale data, we constrain the amplitude of density fluctuations to be sigma_8 = 0.831 +/- 0.053. We also update constraints on the neutrino mass sum. We verify our lensing measurement with a number of null tests and systematic checks, finding no evidence of significant systematic errors. This measurement relies on a small fraction of the ACTPol data already taken; more precise lensing results can therefore be expected from the full ACTPol dataset.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, to be submitted to Physical Review