Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Cleaning environmental sensing data streams based on individual sensor reliability

Environmental sensing is becoming a significant way for understanding and transforming the environment, given recent technology advances in the Internet of Things (IoT). Current environmental sensing projects typically deploy commodity sensors, which are known to be unreliable and prone to produce noisy and erroneous data. Unfortunately, the accuracy of current cleaning techniques based on mean or median prediction is unsatisfactory. In this paper, we propose a cleaning method based on incrementally adjusted individual sensor reliabilities, called influence mean cleaning (IMC). By incrementally adjusting sensor reliabilities, our approach can properly discover latent sensor reliability values in a data stream, and improve reliability-weighted prediction even in a sensor network with changing conditions. The experimental results based on both synthetic and real datasets show that our approach achieves higher accuracy than the mean and median-based approaches after some initial adjustment iterations.Yihong Zhang, Claudia Szabo and Quan Shen

Joint consensus statement on the vaccination of adult and paediatric haematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients: prepared on behalf of the British society of blood and marrow transplantation and cellular therapy (BSBMTCT), the Children's cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG), and British Infection Association (BIA)

Haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients have deficiencies in their adaptive immunity against vaccine preventable diseases. National and International guidance recommends that HSCT recipients are considered ‘never vaccinated’ and offered a comprehensive course of revaccination. This position statement aims to draw upon the current evidence base and existing guidelines, and align this with national vaccine availability and licensing considerations in order to recommend a pragmatic and standardised re-vaccination schedule for adult and paediatric HSCT recipients in the UK