Cleaning the USNO-B Catalog through automatic detection of optical artifacts

The USNO-B Catalog contains spurious entries that are caused by diffraction spikes and circular reflection halos around bright stars in the original imaging data. These spurious entries appear in the Catalog as if they were real stars; they are confusing for some scientific tasks. The spurious entries can be identified by simple computer vision techniques because they produce repeatable patterns on the sky. Some techniques employed here are variants of the Hough transform, one of which is sensitive to (two-dimensional) overdensities of faint stars in thin right-angle cross patterns centered on bright (<13 \mag) stars, and one of which is sensitive to thin annular overdensities centered on very bright (<7 \mag) stars. After enforcing conservative statistical requirements on spurious-entry identifications, we find that of the 1,042,618,261 entries in the USNO-B Catalog, 24,148,382 of them (2.3 \percent) are identified as spurious by diffraction-spike criteria and 196,133 (0.02 \percent) are identified as spurious by reflection-halo criteria. The spurious entries are often detected in more than 2 bands and are not overwhelmingly outliers in any photometric properties; they therefore cannot be rejected easily on other grounds, i.e., without the use of computer vision techniques. We demonstrate our method, and return to the community in electronic form a table of spurious entries in the Catalog.Comment: published in A

Heterocyst placement strategies to maximize growth of cyanobacterial filaments

Under conditions of limited fixed-nitrogen, some filamentous cyanobacteria develop a regular pattern of heterocyst cells that fix nitrogen for the remaining vegetative cells. We examine three different heterocyst placement strategies by quantitatively modelling filament growth while varying both external fixed-nitrogen and leakage from the filament. We find that there is an optimum heterocyst frequency which maximizes the growth rate of the filament; the optimum frequency decreases as the external fixed-nitrogen concentration increases but increases as the leakage increases. In the presence of leakage, filaments implementing a local heterocyst placement strategy grow significantly faster than filaments implementing random heterocyst placement strategies. With no extracellular fixed-nitrogen, consistent with recent experimental studies of Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, the modelled heterocyst spacing distribution using our local heterocyst placement strategy is qualitatively similar to experimentally observed patterns. As external fixed-nitrogen is increased, the spacing distribution for our local placement strategy retains the same shape while the average spacing between heterocysts continuously increases.Comment: This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physical Biology. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The definitive publisher-authenticated version will be available onlin

Structure, bonding and morphology of hydrothermally synthesised xonotlite

The authors have systematically investigated the role of synthesis conditions upon the structure and morphology of xonotlite. Starting with a mechanochemically prepared, semicrystalline phase with Ca/Si=1, the authors have prepared a series of xonotlite samples hydrothermally, at temperatures between 200 and 250 degrees C. Analysis in each case was by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, environmental scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The authors’ use of a much lower water/solid ratio has indirectly confirmed the ‘through solution’ mechanism of xonotlite formation, where silicate dissolution is a key precursor of xonotlite formation. Concerning the role of temperature, too low a temperature (~200 degrees C) fails to yield xonotlite or leads to increased number of structural defects in the silicate chains of xonotlite and too high a temperature (>250 degrees C) leads to degradation of the xonotlite structure, through leaching of interchain calcium. Synthesis duration meanwhile leads to increased silicate polymerisation due to diminishing of the defects in the silicate chains and more perfect crystal morphologies

An abyssal hill fractionates organic and inorganic matter in deep-sea surface sediments

Current estimates suggest that more than 60% of the global seafloor are covered by millions of abyssal hills and mountains. These features introduce spatial fluid-dynamic granularity whose influence on deep-ocean sediment biogeochemistry is unknown. Here we compare biogeochemical surface-sediment properties from a fluid-dynamically well-characterized abyssal hill and upstream plain: (1) In hill sediments, organic-carbon and -nitrogen contents are only about half as high as on the plain while proteinaceous material displays less degradation; (2) on the hill, more coarse-grained sediments (reducing particle surface area) and very variable calcite contents (influencing particle surface charge) are proposed to reduce the extent, and influence compound-specificity, of sorptive organic-matter preservation. Further studies are needed to estimate the representativeness of the results in a global context. Given millions of abyssal hills and mountains, their integrative influence on formation and composition of deep-sea sediments warrants more attention

Bottom sediments of Lake Rotoma

Lake Rotoma is a deep (70-80 m), oligotrophic, warm monomictic lake of volcanic origin with insignificant stream inflow and no clearly defined outflow. For at least 60 years up to 1972 the lake level fluctuated markedly about an overall rising trend of some 6-10 m. Nearshore profiles are related to the prevailing wave climate superimposed upon the overall rising lake level, shelves being wider, less steep, and deeper about the more exposed eastern and southern shorelines. The outer portions of shelves extending well below modern storm wave base into waters as deep as 15-25 m are relict features from lower lake level stands. Sediments fine from sand-gravel mixtures nearshore to silts in basinal areas. Their composition reflects a composite provenance involving the lavas and tephras about the lake, as well as intralake diatom frustules and organic matter. The distribution pattern of surficial bottom sediments is an interplay between grains of both biological and terrigenous origin, supplied presently and in the past by a variety of processes, that have been dispersed either by the modern hydrodynamic regime or by former ones associated with lower lake levels. These interrelationships are structured by erecting 5 process-age sediment classes in the lake, namely neoteric, amphoteric, proteric, palimpsest, and relict sediments, analogous to categories postulated for sediments on oceanic continental shelves. Short-core stratigraphy includes the Kaharoa (A.D. -1020) and Tarawera (A.D. 1886) tephras. The rates of sedimentation of diatomaceous silts in basinal areas have more than doubled since the Tarawera eruption, indicating an overall increase in the fertility level of lake waters associated, perhaps, with recent farm development in the catchment

Перспективи використання тонкодисперсних вуглецевих матеріалів

У останні десятиліття особливу увагу вчених привертає дослідження різних алотропних видозмін вуглецю, зокрема природних: алмазу, графіту, лонсдейліту, фулерену, вуглецевих нанотрубок (у тому числі шунгіту – природного нанотехн-логічного матеріалу) і штучних: карбіну, графену, аморфного вуглецю (кокс, вугілля, технічний вуглець, сажа, активоване вугілля). Водночас у техніці все більше розповсюдження отримують тонкодисперсні вуглецеві матеріали, зокрема тонкодисперсне вугілля та технічний вуглець, тонкоподрібнений аморфний вуглець, активоване вугілля, дослідженню яких присвячено ряд окремих досліджень, у т.ч. і авторів статті

On the Nature of Particulate Manganese in Simulated Lake Waters

The oxidation of simulated lake waters incipiently containing 10-5 mol/l Mn2+ leads to the formation of a stable phase: γ-MnOOH. Because γ-MnOOH formed in most natural waters is of colloidal dimensions this phase will not be detected routinely. It is postulated that γ-MnOOH is the final product of an oxidation sequence with Mn3O4 as intermediate

Approaching the Gamow Window with Stored Ions : Direct Measurement of Xe 124 (p,γ) in the ESR Storage Ring

© 2019 American Physical Society. All rights reserved.We report the first measurement of low-energy proton-capture cross sections of Xe124 in a heavy-ion storage ring. Xe12454+ ions of five different beam energies between 5.5 and 8 AMeV were stored to collide with a windowless hydrogen target. The Cs125 reaction products were directly detected. The interaction energies are located on the high energy tail of the Gamow window for hot, explosive scenarios such as supernovae and x-ray binaries. The results serve as an important test of predicted astrophysical reaction rates in this mass range. Good agreement in the prediction of the astrophysically important proton width at low energy is found, with only a 30% difference between measurement and theory. Larger deviations are found above the neutron emission threshold, where also neutron and γ widths significantly impact the cross sections. The newly established experimental method is a very powerful tool to investigate nuclear reactions on rare ion beams at low center-of-mass energies.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Holistic approach to dissolution kinetics : linking direction-specific microscopic fluxes, local mass transport effects and global macroscopic rates from gypsum etch pit analysis

Dissolution processes at single crystal surfaces often involve the initial formation and expansion of localized, characteristic (faceted) etch-pits at defects, in an otherwise comparatively unreactive surface. Using natural gypsum single crystal as an example, a simple but powerful morphological analysis of these characteristic etch pit features is proposed that allows important questions concerning dissolution kinetics to be addressed. Significantly, quantitative mass transport associated with reactive microscale interfaces in quiescent solution (well known in the field of electrochemistry at ultramicroelectrodes) allows the relative importance of diffusion compared to surface kinetics to be assessed. Furthermore, because such mass transport rates are high, much faster surface kinetics can be determined than with existing dissolution methods. For the case of gypsum, surface processes are found to dominate the kinetics at early stages of the dissolution process (small etch pits) on the cleaved (010) surface. However, the contribution from mass transport becomes more important with time due to the increased area of the reactive zones and associated decrease in mass transport rate. Significantly, spatial heterogeneities in both surface kinetics and mass transport effects are identified, and the morphology of the characteristic etch features reveal direction-dependent dissolution kinetics that can be quantified. Effective dissolution velocities normal to the main basal (010) face are determined, along with velocities for the movement of [001] and [100] oriented steps. Inert electrolyte enhances dissolution velocities in all directions (salting in), but a striking new observation is that the effect is direction-dependent. Studies of common ion effects reveal that Ca2+ has a much greater impact in reducing dissolution rates compared to SO42−. With this approach, the new microscopic observations can be further analysed to obtain macroscopic dissolution rates, which are found to be wholly consistent with previous bulk measurements. The studies are thus important in bridging the gap between microscopic phenomena and macroscopic measurements