Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA)

We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA are to explore the utility of the emerging VR and VWs technologies for scientific and scholarly work in general, and to facilitate and accelerate their adoption by the scientific research community. MICA itself is an experiment in academic and scientific practices enabled by the immersive VR technologies. We describe the current and planned activities and research directions of MICA, and offer some thoughts as to what the future developments in this arena may be.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in the refereed proceedings of "Facets of Virtual Environments" (FaVE 2009), eds. F. Lehmann-Grube, J. Sablating, et al., ICST Lecture Notes Ser., Berlin: Springer Verlag (2009); version with full resolution color figures is available at http://www.mica-vw.org/wiki/index.php/Publication

The organization and management of the Virtual Astronomical Observatory

The U.S. Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO; http://www.us-vao.org/) has been in operation since May 2010. Its goal is to enable new science through efficient integration of distributed multi-wavelength data. This paper describes the management and organization of the VAO, and emphasizes the techniques used to ensure efficiency in a distributed organization. Management methods include using an annual program plan as the basis for establishing contracts with member organizations, regular communication, and monitoring of processes.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. SPIE Conference 8449: Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy

Reconstructing Galaxy Spectral Energy Distributions from Broadband Photometry

We present a novel approach to photometric redshifts, one that merges the advantages of both the template fitting and empirical fitting algorithms, without any of their disadvantages. This technique derives a set of templates, describing the spectral energy distributions of galaxies, from a catalog with both multicolor photometry and spectroscopic redshifts. The algorithm is essentially using the shapes of the templates as the fitting parameters. From simulated multicolor data we show that for a small training set of galaxies we can reconstruct robustly the underlying spectral energy distributions even in the presence of substantial errors in the photometric observations. We apply these techniques to the multicolor and spectroscopic observations of the Hubble Deep Field building a set of template spectra that reproduced the observed galaxy colors to better than 10%. Finally we demonstrate that these improved spectral energy distributions lead to a photometric-redshift relation for the Hubble Deep Field that is more accurate than standard template-based approaches.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX AASTeX, accepted for publication in A

Apparent Clustering of Intermediate-redshift Galaxies as a Probe of Dark Energy

We show the apparent redshift-space clustering of galaxies in redshift range of 0.2--0.4 provides surprisingly useful constraints on dark energy component in the universe, because of the right balance between the density of objects and the survey depth. We apply Fisher matrix analysis to the the Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), as a concrete example. Possible degeneracies in the evolution of the equation of state (EOS) and the other cosmological parameters are clarified.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Phys.Rev.Lett., replaced with the accepted versio

A comparison of estimators for the two-point correlation function

Nine of the most important estimators known for the two-point correlation function are compared using a predetermined, rigorous criterion. The indicators were extracted from over 500 subsamples of the Virgo Hubble Volume simulation cluster catalog. The ``real'' correlation function was determined from the full survey in a 3000Mpc/h periodic cube. The estimators were ranked by the cumulative probability of returning a value within a certain tolerance of the real correlation function. This criterion takes into account bias and variance, and it is independent of the possibly non-Gaussian nature of the error statistics. As a result for astrophysical applications a clear recommendation has emerged: the Landy & Szalay (1993) estimator, in its original or grid version Szapudi & Szalay (1998), are preferred in comparison to the other indicators examined, with a performance almost indistinguishable from the Hamilton (1993) estimator.Comment: aastex, 10 pages, 1 table, 1 figure, revised version, accepted in ApJ

SUPERVISING MICROWAVE TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORKS WITH THE REALEX EXPERT SYSTEM SHELL

To effectively supervise a telecommunication network, an intelligent supervisory system is proposed consisting of a traditional process monitoring. a fault diagnostic, a communication handler and a database manager subsystem. The whole system is based on a generic expert system shell designed to operate in industrial environment. The diagnostic subsystem contains a two-level inference engine to operate on structural information and traditional if-then rules. To ensure easy mapping of the supervisory system to any telecommunication network a configuration environment consisting of several compilers integrated into a multi-window editor was also developed. The system was implemented on two interconnected IBM PC-s running MS WINDOWS 3.0

Comparing local energy cascade rates in isotropic turbulence using structure function and filtering formulations

Two common definitions of the spatially local rate of kinetic energy cascade at some scale $\ell$ in turbulent flows are (i) the cubic velocity difference term appearing in the generalized Kolmogorov-Hill equation (GKHE) (structure function approach), and (ii) the subfilter-scale energy flux term in the transport equation for subgrid-scale kinetic energy (filtering approach). We perform a comparative study of both quantities based on direct numerical simulation data of isotropic turbulence at Taylor-scale Reynolds number of 1250. While observations of negative subfilter-scale energy flux (backscatter) have in the past led to debates regarding interpretation and relevance of such observations, we argue that the interpretation of the local structure function-based cascade rate definition is unambiguous since it arises from a divergence term in scale space. Conditional averaging is used to explore the relationship between the local cascade rate and the local filtered viscous dissipation rate as well as filtered velocity gradient tensor properties such as its invariants. We find statistically robust evidence of inverse cascade when both the large-scale rotation rate is strong and the large-scale strain rate is weak. Even stronger net inverse cascading is observed in the ``vortex compression'' $R>0$, $Q>0$ quadrant where $R$ and $Q$ are velocity gradient invariants. Qualitatively similar, but quantitatively much weaker trends are observed for the conditionally averaged subfilter scale energy flux. Flow visualizations show consistent trends, namely that spatially the inverse cascade events appear to be located within large-scale vortices, specifically in subregions when $R$ is large

Paradigmaváltás a csontmetasztázisok sebészetében. I. Végtagi és medencelokalizációjú áttétek

According to the statistical data of tumor registries the incidence of cancer has increased in the last decade, however the mortality shows only a slight change due to the new and effective multimodal treatments. The aim of our overview article is to present the changes in the survival of the metastatic patients, and to demonstrate which factors influence their prognosis. The improvement of survival resulted in a more active surgical role both in metastases of the bone of the extremities and the pelvis. We present a diagnostic flow chart and current options for the reconstruction of the different regions of the bone and skeleton, and we will discuss their potential advantages, disadvantages and complications. It is evident that apart from the impending and pathological fracture surgery it is not the first choice of treatment but rather a palliative measure. The aim of surgery is to alleviate pain, to regain mobility and improve quality of life. If possible minimal invasive techniques are performed, as they are less demanding and allow fast rehabilitation for the patient, and they are solutions that last for a lifetime. In optimal conditions radical curative surgery can be performed in about 10 to 15 per cent of the cases, and better survival is encouraging. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(40): 1563-1569