Pure mathematics in Australia

I.D. Macdonald argued in this journal in 1968 that there was an inadequate number of mathematicians teaching in Australian universities who were qualified by international standards to conduct honours courses and supervise research students..

The VLT-FLAMES survey of massive stars: observations in the Galactic clusters NGC3293, NGC4755 and NGC6611

We introduce a new survey of massive stars in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds using the Fibre Large Array Multi-Element Spectrograph (FLAMES) instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). Here we present observations of 269 Galactic stars with the FLAMES-Giraffe Spectrograph (R ~ 25,000), in fields centered on the open clusters NGC 3293, NGC 4755 and NGC 6611. These data are supplemented by a further 50 targets observed with the Fibre-Fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS, R = 48,000). Following a description of our scientific motivations and target selection criteria, the data reduction methods are described; of critical importance the FLAMES reduction pipeline is found to yield spectra that are in excellent agreement with less automated methods. Spectral classifications and radial velocity measurements are presented for each star, with particular attention paid to morphological peculiarities and evidence of binarity. These observations represent a significant increase in the known spectral content of NGC 3293 and NGC 4755, and will serve as standards against which our subsequent FLAMES observations in the Magellanic Clouds will be compared.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures (reduced size). Accepted for publication in A&A. A copy with full res. figures is available from http://www.ing.iac.es/~cje/flames_mw.ps.gz. Minor changes following correction of proof

The impacts of climate change on sea temperature around the UK and Ireland

What is already happening? • Sea surface temperature (SST) around the UK generally shows a significant warming trend of around 0.3C per decade over the last 40 years. • Regional variations exist in this trend with surface warming being greatest across the southern North Sea and least across the north-west of the domain. • Warm-season (Autumn) near-bottom temperatures have increased significantly across the southern North Sea over the last 30 years, but not across other regions of the domain. • Compared to 1982–1998, the annual number of marine heatwaves increased around the British Isles by an average of four events per year in the period 2000–2016. Larger increases of up to six additional events per year occurred to the north of the British Isles. Smaller changes occurred to the south of the region

Bag-of-Colors for Biomedical Document Image Classification

The number of biomedical publications has increased noticeably in the last 30 years. Clinicians and medical researchers regularly have unmet information needs but require more time for searching than is usually available to find publications relevant to a clinical situation. The techniques described in this article are used to classify images from the biomedical open access literature into categories, which can potentially reduce the search time. Only the visual information of the images is used to classify images based on a benchmark database of ImageCLEF 2011 created for the task of image classification and image retrieval. We evaluate particularly the importance of color in addition to the frequently used texture and grey level features. Results show that bags–of–colors in combination with the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) provide an image representation allowing to improve the classification quality. Accuracy improved from 69.75% of the best system in ImageCLEF 2011 using visual information, only, to 72.5% of the system described in this paper. The results highlight the importance of color for the classification of biomedical images

Fractal Nanotechnology

Self-similar patterns are frequently observed in Nature. Their reproduction is possible on a length scale 102–105 nm with lithographic methods, but seems impossible on the nanometer length scale. It is shown that this goal may be achieved via a multiplicative variant of the multi-spacer patterning technology, in this way permitting the controlled preparation of fractal surfaces

A Process for Assessing NASA's Capability in Aircraft Noise Prediction Technology

An acoustic assessment is being conducted by NASA that has been designed to assess the current state of the art in NASA s capability to predict aircraft related noise and to establish baselines for gauging future progress in the field. The process for determining NASA s current capabilities includes quantifying the differences between noise predictions and measurements of noise from experimental tests. The computed noise predictions are being obtained from semi-empirical, analytical, statistical, and numerical codes. In addition, errors and uncertainties are being identified and quantified both in the predictions and in the measured data to further enhance the credibility of the assessment. The content of this paper contains preliminary results, since the assessment project has not been fully completed, based on the contributions of many researchers and shows a select sample of the types of results obtained regarding the prediction of aircraft noise at both the system and component levels. The system level results are for engines and aircraft. The component level results are for fan broadband noise, for jet noise from a variety of nozzles, and for airframe noise from flaps and landing gear parts. There are also sample results for sound attenuation in lined ducts with flow and the behavior of acoustic lining in ducts

Development of corn seedlings after a period of exposition to various water potential

Fungicide treated and untreated corn seeds were sets to germinate under varying water availability conditions (0 to -12atm water potential). The seedlings obtained on each individual treatment were subsequently grown under ideal available water conditions. The results permitted to conclude that the occurrence of a water deficit during the on set of the germination process results in reductions on the length of the embryonic structures, particularly the epicotil. This effect attenuates with times due to the increase in growth velocity in environments where water potential is lower. Fungicid treated seeds, did not appear to be consistently vantageous in environments with water stress.Submetendo sementes de milho com e sem tratamento fungicida, a ambientes de germinação variáveis quanto à disponibilidade de água (0 a -12atm), o presente trabalho avaliou o desenvolvimento posterior das plântulas postas em ambientes sem limitações hídricas. Os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que a ocorrência de déficit hídrico, durante o início do processo de germinação, promove reduções posteriores no comprimento das estruturas embrionárias e, de forma mais acentuada, do epicótilo; apesar disso, esse efeito se atenua com o passar do tempo pela elevação progressiva na velocidade de crescimento em ambientes que oferecem menores potenciais hídricos. Paralelamente, o tratamento fungicida das sementes pode não trazer vantagens em ambientes hidricamente deficientes; esta afirmação, contudo, considera o papel toalha como meio fornecedor de água o que, em contrapartida, exige cautela na sua extrapolação para as condições proporcionadas pelo solo