The hunt for the Milky Way's accreted disc

The Milky Way is expected to host an accreted disc of stars and dark matter. This forms as massive >1:10 mergers are preferentially dragged towards the disc plane by dynamical friction and then tidally shredded. The accreted disc likely contributes only a tiny fraction of the Milky Way's thin and thick stellar disc. However, it is interesting because: (i) its associated `dark disc' has important implications for experiments hoping to detect a dark matter particle in the laboratory; and (ii) the presence or absence of such a disc constrains the merger history of our Galaxy. In this work, we develop a chemo-dynamical template to hunt for the accreted disc. We apply our template to the high-resolution spectroscopic sample from Ruchti et al. (2011), finding at present no evidence for accreted stars. Our results are consistent with a quiescent Milky Way with no >1:10 mergers since the disc formed and a correspondingly light `dark disc'. However, we caution that while our method can robustly identify accreted stars, our incomplete stellar sample makes it more challenging to definitively rule them out. Larger unbiased stellar samples will be required for this.Comment: 14 pages; 8 figures; 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Information Security Fundamentals

Information Security Fundamentals allows security professionals to gain a solid understandings of the foundations of the field and the entire range of issues that practitioners must address. This book enables you to understand the key elements that comprise the successful information security program and apply these concepts into your own effort. The book examines the element computer security, employee roles and responsibilities, and common threats. It examines the need for management controls, policies and procedures, and risk analysis, and also presents a comprehensive list of task and objectives that kame up a typical information protection program. The volume discusses organizational wide (Tier 1) policies and their documentation, and legal and business requirements. It explains policy format, focusing on global, topic-specific, and application-specific policies. Following a review of asset classification, the book explores access control, the components of physical security, and the foundation and processes of risk analysis and risk management. Information Security Fundamentals concludes by describing business continuity planning, including preventive controls, recovery strategies, and ways to conduct a business impact analysis. Features : • Provides a solid understanding of the foundations of the field and the entire range of issues that practitioners must address • Discusses the legal requirements that impact security policies, including Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) • Details physical sequrity requirement and controls, and offers a sample physical security policy • Examines elements of the risk analysis process such as asset definition, threat identification occurrence probability, and more • Describes components of business continuity planning, outlining how to conduct a business impact analysis, and how to test a pla

Reusing Data and Metadata to Create New Metadata Through Machine-Learning & Other Programmatic Methods

Recent improvements in natural language processing (NLP) enable metadata to be created programmatically from reused original metadata or even the dataset itself. Transfer-learning applied to NLP has greatly improved performance and reduced training data requirements. In this talk, well compare machine-generated metadata to human-generated metadata and discuss characteristics of metadata and data archives that affect suitability for machine-learning reuse of metadata. Where as human-generated metadata is often populated once, populated from the perspective of data supplier, populated by many individuals with different words for the same thing, and limited in length, machine-generated metadata can be updated any number of times, generated from the perspective of any user, constrained to a standardized set of terms that can be evolved over time, and be any length required. Machine-learning generated metadata offers benefits but also additional needs in terms of version control, process transparency, human-computer interaction, and IT requirements. As a successful example, well discuss how a dataset of abstracts and associated human-tagged keywords from a standardized list of several thousand keywords were used to create a machine-learning model that predicted keyword metadata for open-source code projects on code.nasa.gov. Well also discuss a less successful example from data.nasa.gov to show how data archive architecture and characteristics of initial metadata can be strong controls on how easy it is to leverage programmatic methods to reuse metadata to create additional metadata

Pyla-Vigla: A Case Study Assessing the Imperial Strategies of the Hellenistic Diadochoi in Cyprus

The aim of the present study is to examine the mechanisms the Diadochoi implemented to gain and maintain control over Cyprus using Pyla-Vigla, a recently discovered fortified garrison, as a case study. Alexander the Great’s successors faced a seemingly insurmountable problem: How does one govern, control, and maintain the largest territorial empire the world had ever seen? Alexander’s imperial strategy was predicated upon maintaining native governing institutions of newly subjugated lands and appointing new leaders. This system could not work for the Diadochoi because without a clear path to succession, a twenty-nine-year period of incessant conflict ensued throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. The surviving successors adopted various strategies to exercise imperial authority over their rivals, which ultimately led to the creation of three ruling Hellenistic dynasties: Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Antigonids. Pyla-Vigla represents one of many such strategies

Procurement Strategies for Reducing Capital Costs of Zero-Emission Buses

One of the challenges to deployment and commercialization of zero-emission buses is the high capital cost of the vehicles relative to vehicles powered using conventional technologies. A strategy for reducing these costs is to increase sales volume, which has been successfully driven through funding opportunities like the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Program. Another strategy for increasing sales volume is to combine vehicle purchases from multiple transit agencies through a joint procurement. There have been extensive exercises in Europe to decrease the cost of fuel cell electric buses using a joint procurement strategy, with some level of success. This paper explores the current landscape for procuring zero-emission buses and evaluates whether a joint procurement strategy could be an effective way to decrease vehicle costs in the North American market

Agreement of a Novel Vertical Jump System to Measure Vertical Jump Height: Brower Vertical Jump and Vertec Vertical Jump Systems

Topics in Exercise Science and Kinesiology Volume 2: Issue 1, Article 12, 2021. Validity refers to the ability of a device to measure what it was intended to measure. Therefore, purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of a novel vertical jump height tool designed by Brower Timing Systems (Salt Lake City, Ut). The Brower vertical jump system was compared to the Vertec jump tester. A convenience sample (n=67) of college students performed three maximum countermovement jumps, with the average score being recorded. Data was collected simultaneously for both devices. Results showed a strong and statistically significant correlation between the Vertec vertical jump tester and Brower vertical jump (r = 0.971, p \u3c 0.001.) A paired t-test showed no significant difference (p = 0.170, t = 1.386) between the two systems. An analysis of equivalence was also performed with alpha set at 0.05 and an upper and lower bound set at +/- 0.5. The observed effect was statistically not different from zero and statistically equivalent to zero. Based on the statistical analysis, it can be concluded the Vertec and Brower vertical jump height systems have a high correlation and are equivalent. The Brower system can be an option for assessing vertical jump height, specifically, the Brower system may be useful for high throughput field environments such as testing teams or larger groups to provide valid data

Body Composition of Utah Highway Patrol Officers: No Difference Between Air Displacement Plethysmography and Alternative Tools for Measurement and Prediction.

Topics in Exercise Science and Kinesiology Volume 3: Issue 1, Article 6, 2022. Different techniques exist for examining body composition. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in body fat percentage as measured by air displacement plethysmography (ADP), body adiposity index (BAI), bioelectrical impedance (BIA), a body mass index conversion equation (BMID), and skinfolds (SKF). Twenty-one male Utah Highway Patrol Officers participated in this study (age 35.19 ± 10.32 years, 1.79 ± 0.09 m tall, 92.20 ± 14.56 kg in weight, and 105.52 ± 10.01 cm hip circumference). All measurements were taken during a single visit and performed in the same order for all participants beginning with BIA, followed by ADP, and SKF. The BAI and BMI conversion equation were later calculated. For ADP and SKF the Brozek equation was used to convert body density to percent body fat (%BF). No significant differences were found among the different measurement techniques. No significant correlations were found between ADP, BAI, BIA, BMID, and SKF. Bland-Altman plots revealed small levels of bias, however, the upper and lower limits of agreement were large for all measures. Prediction equations such as BAI and BMID may be cheaper and faster for assessing large populations when compared with traditional laboratory techniques. This study found no significant different among the measurement techniques. Despite the non-significant differences, the authors suggest using a single measurement technique and not using techniques interchangeably