The SPIRE Photometer Interactive Analysis Package SPIA

The Herschel Common Science System (HCSS) (Ott et al. 2006) (Ott & Science Ground Segment Consortium 2010) is a substantial Java software package, accompanying the development of the Herschel Mission (Pilbratt et al. 2010), supporting all of its phases. In particular the reduction of data from the scientific instruments for instrument checkout, calibration, and astronomical analysis is one of its major applications. The data reduction software is split up in modules, called "tasks". Agreed-upon sequences of tasks form pipelines that deliver well defined standard products for storage in a web-accessible Herschel Science Archive (HSA) (Leon et al. 2009). However, as astronomers and instrument scientists continue to characterize instrumental effects, astronomers already need to publish scientific results and may not have the time to acquire a sufficiently deep understanding of the system to apply necessary fixes. There is a need for intermediate level analysis tools that offer more flexibility than rigid pipelines. The task framework within the HCSS and the highly versatile Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE), together with the rich set of libraries provide the necessary tools to develop GUI-based interactive analysis packages for the Herschel instruments. The SPIRE Photometer Interactive Analysis (SPIA) package, that was demonstrated in this session, proves the validity of the concept for the SPIRE instrument (Griffin et al. 2010), breaking up the pipeline reduction into logical components, making all relevant processing parameters available in GUIs, and providing a more controlled and user-friendly access to the complexities of the system.Comment: Proceedings accompanying a focus demo given at the ADASS 2010 in Bosto

Observing Cold Dust with Herschel/SPIRE

A major component of the emission of many galaxies is in the Far Infrared and the Sub-mmillimeter. UV photons from stars are absorbed by dust and re-emitted at longer wavelengths. Fairly cold dust was found in large spirals by the Infrared Space Observatory and the Spitzer Observatory, but their longest wavelength filters were centered at 200 and 160 microns respectively, restricting detection to dust warmer than about 15 Kelvin, and missing a major part of the dust mass. The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver SPIRE ([1]) is one of the 3 instruments on board of the Herschel Space Observatory that was launched on 14 May 2009. The instrument hosts bolometer arrays with broadband photometric filters, centered at 250, 350 and 500 µm, as well as an imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer, covering the range from 200 to 670 µm at 3 different spectral resolutions. This long wavelength coverage will, among many other subjects, allow for studies that take the entire dust content of a galaxy into account. The 3 instruments of Herschel are currently undergoing performance-and science-verification operations, followed by the execution of the first large key science programs. A call for smaller open time programs is expected to be issued after the science verification phase is complete

OverPlotter: A Utility for Herschel Data Processing

The OverPlotter utility is a GUI tool written in Java to support interactive data processing (DP) and analysis for the Herschel Space Observatory within the framework of the Herschel Common Science System (HCSS)(Wieprecht et al 2004). The tool expands upon the capabilities of the TableViewer (Zhang & Schulz 2005), providing now also the means to create additional overlays of sev- eral X/Y scatter plots within the same display area. These layers can be scaled and panned, either individually, or together as one graph. Visual comparison of data with different origins and units becomes much easier. The number of available layers is not limited, except by computer memory and performance. Presentation images can be easily created by adding annotations, labeling layers and setting colors. The tool will be very helpful especially in the early phases of Herschel data analysis, when a quick access to contents of data products is important

Improved Reduction Algorithm for ISOPHOT-S Chopped Observations

The astronomical data gathered by the extrinsic photoconductors on-board the ISO satellite were greatly affected by the high energy radiation environment in space. In addition so called transients with long time constants make automated pipeline processing of the data a challenge. ISOPHOT-S is the high sensitivity spectrometer of the ISOPHOT instrument, featuring two 64 element Si:Ga arrays for the wavelength range of 2.5 to 11.6 microns. It collected a wealth of almost 300 observations of extragalactic nuclei at a spectral resolution of ~100. Most of those observations were performed using the chopped observing mode, justifying a dedicated effort to revise and improve the automatic processing techniques in order to derive a homogeneously reduced dataset with realistic uncertainties. The improvements compared to the original standard pipeline processing include techniques like ramp subdivision, smoothed sigma kappa deglitching, spike filtering and accounting for a non-Gaussian signal distribution due to the glitch residuum

Tuning the critical solution temperature of polymers by copolymerization

We study statistical copolymerization effects on the upper critical solution temperature (CST) of generic homopolymers by means of coarse-grained Langevin dynamics computer simulations and mean-field theory. Our systematic investigation reveals that the CST can change monotonically or non-monotonically with copolymerization, as observed in experimental studies, depending on the degree of non-additivity of the monomer (A-B) cross-interactions. The simulation findings are confirmed and qualitatively explained by a combination of a two-component Flory-de Gennes model for polymer collapse and a simple thermodynamic expansion approach. Our findings provide some rationale behind the effects of copolymerization and may be helpful for tuning CST behavior of polymers in soft material design.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Current and Future Space and Airborne Observatories for ISM Studies

A tremendous amount of radiation is emitted by the Interstellar Medium in the mid- and far-infrared (3-500 {\mu}m) that represents the majority of the light emitted by a galaxy. In this article we motivate ISM studies in the infrared and the construction of large specialized observatories like the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which just concluded its mission on a scientific high note, and the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that just begun its exciting scientific mission. We introduce their capabilities, present a few examples of their scientific discoveries and discuss how they complemented each other. We then consider the impact of the conclusion of SOFIA for the field in a historic context and look at new opportunities specifically for far-infrared observatories in space and in the stratosphere

BaFe2As2/Fe bilayers with [001]-tilt grain boundary on MgO and SrTiO3 bicrystal substrates

Co-doped BaFe2As2 (Ba-122) can be realized on both MgO and SrTiO3 bicrystal substrates with [001]-tilt grain boundary by employing Fe buffer layers. However, an additional spinel (i.e. MgAl2O4) buffer between Fe and SrTiO3 is necessary since an epitaxial, smooth surface of Fe layer can not be grown on bare SrTiO3. Both types of bicrystal films show good crystalline quality.Comment: Accepted for the ISS2012 Proceedins, a special issue of Physics Procedi

NC-Clustering demonstrates heterospecificity of the cryptic ant species Temnothorax luteus (FOREL, 1874) and T. racovitzai (BONDROIT, 1918) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).

Es wird gezeigt, dass die westmediterranen kryptischen Ameisenarten Temnothorax luteus (Forel, 1874) und T. racovitzai (Bondroit, 1918) mittels explorativer und hypothesengetriebener Analysen komplexer morphologischer Datensätze eindeutig unterscheidbar sind. Die Untersuchung konzentrierte sich auf das sympatrische Areal beider Arten. An 178 Arbeiterinnen aus 64 Nestproben wurden 18 morphologische Merkmale erfasst. Nach Reduktion auf die sieben meistseparierenden Merkmale ergab sich eine 100 %ige Übereinstimmung der Klassifizierungen durch hierarchische NC-Ward-, nicht hierarchische NC-K-Means- und NC-NMDS-K-Means Clusteranalyse sowie durch eine lineare Diskriminanzanalyse. Die Typenserien von T. massiliensis (Bondroit, 1918) und T. racovitzai (Bondroit, 1918) wurden mit einer a posteriori Wahrscheinlichkeit von p = 1.0000 bzw. p = 0.9992 dem gleichen Cluster zugeordnet. Die Typenserien von T. tristis (Bondroit, 1918) und T. luteus wurden beide mit p = 0.9999 einem zweiten, deutlich vom ersteren separierten Cluster zugeordnet. Daraus ergibt sich, dass T. tristis ein jüngeres Synonym von T. luteus und T. massiliensis ein jüngeres Synonym von T. racovitzai ist. Der Klassifikationsfehler auf der Ebene der Individuen betrug 1.7 % an 178 Arbeiterinnen. Trotz einer breiten Überlappung der Verbreitungsgebiete gibt es keine Hinweise auf phänotypisch gemischte Nester, was die Hypothese widerlegt, dass T. luteus and T. racovitzai einen intraspezifischen Polymorphismus repräsentieren könnten. Es wurden signifikante interspezifische Unterschiede in der geographischen Verbreitung und der thermischen Nischenkomponente gezeigt. Die mittlere Lufttemperatur von Mai bis August von 24 Fundorten von T. luteus war im Mittel um 3.77°C kälter als die von 21 Fundorten von T. racovitzai (pEvidence is presented that the W Mediterranean cryptic ant species Temnothorax luteus (Forel, 1874) and T. racovitzai (Bondroit, 1918) are clearly separable by exploratory and hypothesis-driven data analyses of complex morphological data sets. Investigation was concentrated to the sympatric range of both species. 18 morphological characters were evaluated in a total of 178 workers originating from 64 nest samples. Classifications by hierarchical NC-Ward clustering, non-hierarchical NC-K-Means clustering, NC-NMDS-K-Means clustering and linear discriminant analysis coincided by 100 % after reduction of the character set to the seven most discriminative characters. The type series of T. massiliensis (Bondroit, 1918) and T. racovitzai (Bondroit, 1918) were assigned to the same cluster with posterior probabilities of p = 1.000 in the former and p = 0.9992 in the latter. The type series of T. tristis (Bondroit, 1918) and T. luteus were allocated to another, clearly separated cluster with p = 0.9999 in each case. Accordingly, T. tristis is considered as junior synonym of T. luteus whereas T. massiliensis was established as junior synonym of T. racovitzai. The classification error of the LDA was 1.7 % in 178 individuals. Despite a broad sympatric range, there are no suggestions to any nest samples containing a mixture of both phenotypes. This rejects the hypothesis that T. luteus and T. racovitzai could represent an intraspecific dimorphism. Significant interspecific differences of the two species in geographic distribution and thermal niche were demonstrated. Mean air temperature from May to August of 24 sampling sites of T. luteus was by 3.77°C cooler than in 21 sites of T. racovitzai (

Electron spin relaxation in organic semiconductors probed through muSR

Muon spin spectroscopy and in particular the avoided level crossing technique is introduced, with the aim of showing it as a very sensitive local probe for electron spin relaxation in organic semiconductors. Avoided level crossing data on TMS-pentacene at different temperatures are presented, and they are analysed to extract the electron spin relaxation rate, that is shown to increase on increasing the temperature from 0.02 MHz to 0.33 MHz at 3 K and 300 K respectively.Comment: International Conference TSN2010 "Trends in spintronics and nanomagnetism

Memetic Graph Clustering

It is common knowledge that there is no single best strategy for graph clustering, which justifies a plethora of existing approaches. In this paper, we present a general memetic algorithm, VieClus, to tackle the graph clustering problem. This algorithm can be adapted to optimize different objective functions. A key component of our contribution are natural recombine operators that employ ensemble clusterings as well as multi-level techniques. Lastly, we combine these techniques with a scalable communication protocol, producing a system that is able to compute high-quality solutions in a short amount of time. We instantiate our scheme with local search for modularity and show that our algorithm successfully improves or reproduces all entries of the 10th DIMACS implementation challenge under consideration using a small amount of time