4,074 research outputs found
Mode identification in rapidly rotating stars
Context: Recent calculations of pulsation modes in rapidly rotating polytropic models and models based on the Self-Consistent Field method have shown that the frequency spectrum of low degree pulsation modes can be described by an empirical formula similar to Tassoul's asymptotic formula, provided that the underlying rotation profile is not too differential.
Aims: Given the simplicity of this asymptotic formula, we investigate whether it can provide a means by which to identify pulsation modes in rapidly rotating stars.
Methods: We develop a new mode identification scheme which consists in scanning a multidimensional parameter space for the formula coefficients which yield the best-fitting asymptotic spectra. This mode identification scheme is then tested on artificial spectra based on the asymptotic formula, on random frequencies and on spectra based on full numerical eigenmode calculations for which the mode identification is known beforehand. We also investigate the effects of adding random frequencies to mimic the effects of chaotic modes which are also expected to show up in such stars.
Results: In the absence of chaotic modes, it is possible to accurately find a correct mode identification for most of the observed frequencies provided these frequencies are sufficiently close to their asymptotic values. The addition of random frequencies can very quickly become problematic and hinder correct mode identification. Modifying the mode identification scheme to reject the worst fitting modes can bring some improvement but the results still remain poorer than in the case without chaotic modes
Words are Malleable: Computing Semantic Shifts in Political and Media Discourse
Recently, researchers started to pay attention to the detection of temporal
shifts in the meaning of words. However, most (if not all) of these approaches
restricted their efforts to uncovering change over time, thus neglecting other
valuable dimensions such as social or political variability. We propose an
approach for detecting semantic shifts between different viewpoints--broadly
defined as a set of texts that share a specific metadata feature, which can be
a time-period, but also a social entity such as a political party. For each
viewpoint, we learn a semantic space in which each word is represented as a low
dimensional neural embedded vector. The challenge is to compare the meaning of
a word in one space to its meaning in another space and measure the size of the
semantic shifts. We compare the effectiveness of a measure based on optimal
transformations between the two spaces with a measure based on the similarity
of the neighbors of the word in the respective spaces. Our experiments
demonstrate that the combination of these two performs best. We show that the
semantic shifts not only occur over time, but also along different viewpoints
in a short period of time. For evaluation, we demonstrate how this approach
captures meaningful semantic shifts and can help improve other tasks such as
the contrastive viewpoint summarization and ideology detection (measured as
classification accuracy) in political texts. We also show that the two laws of
semantic change which were empirically shown to hold for temporal shifts also
hold for shifts across viewpoints. These laws state that frequent words are
less likely to shift meaning while words with many senses are more likely to do
so.Comment: In Proceedings of the 26th ACM International on Conference on
Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM2017
On the Space Time of a Galaxy
We present an exact solution of the averaged Einstein's field equations in
the presence of two real scalar fields and a component of dust with spherical
symmetry. We suggest that the space-time found provides the characteristics
required by a galactic model that could explain the supermassive central object
and the dark matter halo at once, since one of the fields constitutes a central
oscillaton surrounded by the dust and the other scalar field distributes far
from the coordinate center and can be interpreted as a halo. We show the
behavior of the rotation curves all along the background. Thus, the solution
could be a first approximation of a ``long exposition photograph'' of a galaxy.Comment: 8 pages REVTeX, 11 eps figure
Substructure and halo density profiles in a Warm Dark Matter Cosmology
We performed a series of high-resolution simulations designed to study the
substructure of Milky Way-size galactic halos (host halos) and the density
profiles of halos in a warm dark matter (WDM) scenario with a non-vanishing
cosmological constant. The virial masses of the host halos range from 3.5 x
10^12 to 1.7 x 10^12 solar masses and they have more than 10^5 particles each.
A key feature of the WDM power spectrum is the free-streaming length R_f which
fixes an additional parameter for the model of structure formation. We analyze
the substructure of host halos using three R_f values: 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 Mpc
and compare results to the predictions of the cold dark matter (CDM) model. We
find that guest halos (satellites) do form in the WDM scenario but are more
easily destroyed by dynamical friction and tidal disruption than their
counterparts in a CDM model. The small number of guest halos that we find
within the virial radii of host halos at z = 0 in the WDM models is the result
of a less efficient halo accretion and a higher satellite destruction rate.
Under the assumption that each guest halo hosts a luminous galaxy, we find that
the observed circular velocity function of satellites around the Milky Way and
Andromeda is well described by the R_f = 0.1 Mpc WDM model. In the R_f =
0.1-0.2 Mpc models, the surviving subhalos at z=0 have an average concentration
parameter c_1/5 which is approximately twice smaller than that of the
corresponding CDM subhalos. This difference, very likely, produces the higher
satellite destruction rate found in the WDM models. The density profile of host
halos is well described by the NFW fit whereas guest halos show a wide variety
of density profiles (abridged).Comment: Uses emulateapj.sty: 10 pages, 4 figures, ApJ accepted. Some changes
have been introduced as suggested by the referee: (1) the description of the
numerical simulations was sligthly modified to make it clearer, (2) the
ellipticities of the host halos are now measured, and (3) the discussion
section was divided in two subsections and enlarge
Application of iChip to Grow “Uncultivable” Microorganisms and its Impact on Antibiotic Discovery
Purpose. Antibiotics have revolutionized modern medicine, allowing significant progress in healthcare and improvement in life expectancy. Development of antibiotic resistance by pathogenic bacteria is a natural phenomenon; however, the rate of antibiotic resistance emergence is increasing at an alarming rate, due to indiscriminate use of antibiotics in healthcare, agriculture and even everyday products. Traditionally, antibiotic discovery has been conducted by screening extracts of microorganisms for antimicrobial activity. However, this conventional source has been over-used to such an extent that it poses the risk of “running out” of new antibiotics. Aiming to increase access to a greater diversity of microorganisms, a new cultivation method with an in situ approach called iChip has been designed. The iChip has already isolated many novel organisms, as well as Teixobactin, a novel antibiotic with significant potency against Gram-positive bacteria
Turbulent dissipation in the ISM: the coexistence of forced and decaying regimes and implications for galaxy formation and evolution
We discuss the dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy Ek in the global ISM
by means of 2-D, MHD, non-isothermal simulations in the presence of model
radiative heating and cooling. We argue that dissipation in 2D is
representative of that in three dimensions as long as it is dominated by shocks
rather than by a turbulent cascade. Energy is injected at a few isolated sites
in space, over relatively small scales, and over short time periods. This leads
to the coexistence of forced and decaying regimes in the same flow. We find
that the ISM-like flow dissipates its turbulent energy rapidly. In simulations
with forcing, the input parameters are the radius l_f of the forcing region,
the total kinetic energy e_k each source deposits into the flow, and the rate
of formation of those regions, sfr_OB. The global dissipation time t_d depends
mainly on l_f. In terms of measurable properties of the ISM, t_d >= Sigma_g
u_rms^2/(e_k sfr_OB), where Sigma_g is the average gas surface density and
u_rms is the rms velocity dispersion. For the solar neighborhood, t_d >=
1.5x10^7 yr. The global dissipation time is consistently smaller than the
crossing time of the largest energy-containing scales. In decaying simulations,
Ek decreases with time as t^-n, where n~0.8-0.9. This suggests a decay with
distance d as Ek\propto d^{-2n/(2-n)} in the mixed forced+decaying case. If
applicable to the vertical direction, our results support models of galaxy
evolution in which stellar energy injection provides significant support for
the gas disk thickness, but not models of galaxy formation in which this energy
injection is supposed to reheat an intra-halo medium at distances of up to
10-20 times the optical galaxy size, as the dissipation occurs on distances
comparable to the disk height.Comment: 23 pages, including figures. To appear in ApJ. Abstract abridge
Using hand proportions to test taxonomic boundaries within the \u3ci\u3eTupaia glis\u3c/i\u3e species complex (Scandentia, Tupaiidae)
Treeshrews (order Scandentia) comprise 2 families of squirrel-sized terrestrial, arboreal, and scansorial mammals distributed throughout much of tropical South and Southeast Asia. The last comprehensive taxonomic revision of treeshrews was published in 1913, and a well-supported phylogeny clarifying relationships among all currently recognized extant species within the order has only recently been published. Within the family Tupaiidae, 2 widely distributed species, the northern treeshrew, Tupaia belangeri (Wagner, 1841), and the common treeshrew, T. glis (Diard, 1820), represent a particularly vexing taxonomic complex. These 2 species are currently distinguished primarily based on their respective distributions north and south of the Isthmus of Kra on the Malay Peninsula and on their different mammae counts. This problematic species complex includes 54 published synonyms, many of which represent putative island endemics. The widespread T. glis and T. belangeri collectively comprise a monophyletic assemblage representing the sister lineage to a clade composed of the golden-bellied treeshrew, T. chrysogaster Miller, 1903 (Mentawai Islands), and the long-footed treeshrew, T. longipes (Thomas, 1893) (Borneo). As part of a morphological investigation of the T. glis–T. belangeri complex, we studied the proportions of hand bones, which have previously been shown to be useful in discriminating species of soricids (true shrews). We measured 38 variables from digital X-ray images of 148 museum study skins representing several subspecies of T. glis, T. belangeri, T. chrysogaster, and T. longipes and analyzed these data using principal components and cluster analyses. Manus proportions among these 4 species readily distinguish them, particularly in the cases of T. chrysogaster and T. longipes. We then tested the distinctiveness of several of the populations comprising T. glis and T. longipes. T. longipes longipes and T. l. salatana Lyon, 1913, are distinguishable from each other, and populations of T. ‘‘glis’’ from Bangka Island and Sumatra are distinct from those on the Malay Peninsula, supporting the recognition of T. salatana, T. discolor Lyon, 1906, and T. ferruginea Raffles, 1821 as distinct species in Indonesia. These relatively small, potentially vulnerable treeshrew populations occur in the Sundaland biodiversity hotspot and will require additional study to determine their appropriate conservation status
Using hand proportions to test taxonomic boundaries within the \u3ci\u3eTupaia glis\u3c/i\u3e species complex (Scandentia, Tupaiidae)
Treeshrews (order Scandentia) comprise 2 families of squirrel-sized terrestrial, arboreal, and scansorial mammals distributed throughout much of tropical South and Southeast Asia. The last comprehensive taxonomic revision of treeshrews was published in 1913, and a well-supported phylogeny clarifying relationships among all currently recognized extant species within the order has only recently been published. Within the family Tupaiidae, 2 widely distributed species, the northern treeshrew, Tupaia belangeri (Wagner, 1841), and the common treeshrew, T. glis (Diard, 1820), represent a particularly vexing taxonomic complex. These 2 species are currently distinguished primarily based on their respective distributions north and south of the Isthmus of Kra on the Malay Peninsula and on their different mammae counts. This problematic species complex includes 54 published synonyms, many of which represent putative island endemics. The widespread T. glis and T. belangeri collectively comprise a monophyletic assemblage representing the sister lineage to a clade composed of the golden-bellied treeshrew, T. chrysogaster Miller, 1903 (Mentawai Islands), and the long-footed treeshrew, T. longipes (Thomas, 1893) (Borneo). As part of a morphological investigation of the T. glis–T. belangeri complex, we studied the proportions of hand bones, which have previously been shown to be useful in discriminating species of soricids (true shrews). We measured 38 variables from digital X-ray images of 148 museum study skins representing several subspecies of T. glis, T. belangeri, T. chrysogaster, and T. longipes and analyzed these data using principal components and cluster analyses. Manus proportions among these 4 species readily distinguish them, particularly in the cases of T. chrysogaster and T. longipes. We then tested the distinctiveness of several of the populations comprising T. glis and T. longipes. T. longipes longipes and T. l. salatana Lyon, 1913, are distinguishable from each other, and populations of T. ‘‘glis’’ from Bangka Island and Sumatra are distinct from those on the Malay Peninsula, supporting the recognition of T. salatana, T. discolor Lyon, 1906, and T. ferruginea Raffles, 1821 as distinct species in Indonesia. These relatively small, potentially vulnerable treeshrew populations occur in the Sundaland biodiversity hotspot and will require additional study to determine their appropriate conservation status
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