29 research outputs found
Observing Supermassive Black Holes across cosmic time: from phenomenology to physics
In the last decade, a combination of high sensitivity, high spatial
resolution observations and of coordinated multi-wavelength surveys has
revolutionized our view of extra-galactic black hole (BH) astrophysics. We now
know that supermassive black holes reside in the nuclei of almost every galaxy,
grow over cosmological times by accreting matter, interact and merge with each
other, and in the process liberate enormous amounts of energy that influence
dramatically the evolution of the surrounding gas and stars, providing a
powerful self-regulatory mechanism for galaxy formation. The different
energetic phenomena associated to growing black holes and Active Galactic
Nuclei (AGN), their cosmological evolution and the observational techniques
used to unveil them, are the subject of this chapter. In particular, I will
focus my attention on the connection between the theory of high-energy
astrophysical processes giving rise to the observed emission in AGN, the
observable imprints they leave at different wavelengths, and the methods used
to uncover them in a statistically robust way. I will show how such a combined
effort of theorists and observers have led us to unveil most of the SMBH growth
over a large fraction of the age of the Universe, but that nagging
uncertainties remain, preventing us from fully understating the exact role of
black holes in the complex process of galaxy and large-scale structure
formation, assembly and evolution.Comment: 46 pages, 21 figures. This review article appears as a chapter in the
book: "Astrophysical Black Holes", Haardt, F., Gorini, V., Moschella, U and
Treves A. (Eds), 2015, Springer International Publishing AG, Cha
Corneal Biomechanical Properties and their Correlates with Healing Process after Descemetic versus Pre-Descemetic Lamellar Keratoplasty
A Plasma Humoral Factor of Extrarenal Origin Causing Release of Reninlike Activity in Hypotensive Dogs
Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir Joint Exercise – Part II
Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir joint exercise
The 1st EuNetAir Air Quality Joint Intercomparison Exercise organized in Aveiro (Portugal) from 13th–27th October 2014, focused on the evaluation and assessment of environmental gas, particulate matter (PM) and meteorological microsensors, versus standard air quality reference methods through an experimental urban air quality monitoring campaign. The IDAD-Institute of Environment and Development Air Quality Mobile Laboratory was placed at an urban traffic location in the city centre of Aveiro to conduct continuous measurements with standard equipment and reference analysers for CO, NOx, O3, SO2, PM10, PM2.5, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation and precipitation. The comparison of the sensor data generated by different microsensor-systems installed side-by-side with reference analysers, contributes to the assessment of the performance and the accuracy of microsensor-systems in a real-world context, and supports their calibration and further development. The overall performance of the sensors in terms of their statistical metrics and measurement profile indicates significant differences in the results depending on the platform and on the sensors considered. In terms of pollutants, some promising results were observed for O3 (r2: 0.12–0.77), CO (r2: 0.53–0.87), and NO2 (r2: 0.02–0.89). For PM (r2: 0.07–0.36) and SO2 (r2: 0.09–0.20) the results show a poor performance with low correlation coefficients between the reference and microsensor measurements. These field observations under specific environmental conditions suggest that the relevant microsensor platforms, if supported by the proper post processing and data modelling tools, have enormous potential for new strategies in air quality control
Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir joint exercise
Assessment of air quality microsensors versus reference methods: The EuNetAir Joint Exercise - Part II
The EuNetAir Joint Exercise focused on the evaluation and assessment of environmental gaseous, particulate matter (PM) and meteorological microsensors versus standard air quality reference methods through an experimental urban air quality monitoring campaign. This work presents the second part of the results, including evaluation of parameter dependencies, measurement uncertainty of sensors and the use of machine learning approaches to improve the abilities and limitations of sensors. The results confirm that the microsensor platforms, supported by post processing and data modelling tools, have considerable potential in new strategies for air quality control. In terms of pollutants, improved correlations were obtained between sensors and reference methods through calibration with machine learning techniques for CO (r2=0.13-0.83), NO2 (r2=0.24-0.93), O3 (r2=0.22-0.84), PM10 (r2=0.54-0.83), PM2.5 (r2=0.33-0.40) and SO2 (r2=0.49-0.84). Additionally, the analysis performed suggests the possibility of compliance with the data quality objectives (DQO) defined by the European Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC) for indicative measurements