1,692 research outputs found
U.S. East Coast Trough Indices at 500 hPa and New England Winter Climate Variability
Using monthly gridded 500-hPa data, two synoptic indices are defined to better understand the principle mechanisms controlling intraseasonal to multiannual winter climate variability in NewEngland (NE). The âtrough axis indexâ (TAI) is created to quantify the mean longitudinal position of the common East Coast pressure trough, and the âtrough intensity indexâ (TII) is calculated to estimate the relative amplitude of this trough at 42.5°N. The TAI and TII are then compared with records for NE regional winter precipitation, temperature, and snowfall with the goal of understanding physical mechanisms linking NE winter climate with regional sea surface temperatures (SST), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the PacificâNorth American (PNA) teleconnection pattern. The TAI correlates most significantly with winter precipitation at inland sites, such that a western (eastern)trough axis position is associated with greater (lower) average monthly precipitation. Also, significant correlations between the TAI and both NE regional SSTs and the NAO suggest that longitudinal shifting of the trough is one possible mechanism linking the North Atlantic with NE regional winterclimate variability. The NE winter temperature is significantly correlated with the TII, regional SSTs, and the NAO. While the PNA also correlates with the TII, NE winter climate variables are apparently unrelated to the PNA index
Preservation of glaciochemical time-series in snow and ice from the Penny Ice Cap, Baffin Island
A detailed investigation of major ion concentrations of snow and ice in the summit region of Penny Ice Cap (PIC) was performed to determine the effects of summer melt on the glaciochemical time-series. While ion migration due to meltwater percolation makes it difficult to confidently count annual layers in the glaciochemical profiles, time-series of these parameters do show good structure and a strong one year spectral component, suggesting that annual to biannual signals are preserved in PIC glaciochemical records
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A New Green Salamander in the Southern Appalachians: Evolutionary History of Aneides aeneus and Implications for Management and Conservation with the Description of a Cryptic Micro-endemic Species (vol 107, pg 748, 2019)
The Clustering of Ha Emitters at z=2.23 from HiZELS
We present a clustering analysis of 370 high-confidence Hα emitters (HAEs) at z = 2.23. The HAEs are detected in the Hi-Z Emission Line Survey (HiZELS), a large-area blank field 2.121 ÎŒm narrow-band survey using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope Wide Field Camera (WFCAM). Averaging the two-point correlation function of HAEs in two âŒ1° scale fields [United Kingdom Infrared Deep Sky Survey/Ultra Deep Survey (UDS) and Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) fields] we find a clustering amplitude equivalent to a correlation length of r0 = 3.7 ± 0.3 hâ1 Mpc for galaxies with star formation rates of âł7 Mâ yrâ1. The data are also well-fitted by the expected correlation function of cold dark matter (CDM), scaled by a bias factor: ÏHAE = b2ÏDM where . The corresponding âcharacteristicâ mass for the haloes hosting HAEs is log (Mh/[hâ1 Mâ]) = 11.7 ± 0.1. Comparing to the latest semi-analytic galform predictions for the evolution of HAEs in a ÎCDM cosmology, we find broad agreement with the observations, with galform predicting an HAE correlation length of âŒ4 hâ1 Mpc. Motivated by this agreement, we exploit the simulations to construct a parametric model of the halo occupation distribution (HOD) of HAEs, and use this to fit the observed clustering. Our best-fitting HOD can adequately reproduce the observed angular clustering of HAEs, yielding an effective halo mass and bias in agreement with that derived from the scaled ÏDM fit, but with the relatively small sample size the current data provide a poor constraint on the HOD. However, we argue that this approach provides interesting hints into the nature of the relationship between star-forming galaxies and the matter field, including insights into the efficiency of star formation in massive haloes. Our results support the broad picture that âtypicalâ (âČLâ) star-forming galaxies have been hosted by dark matter haloes with Mh âČ 1012 hâ1 Mâ since z â 2, but with a broad occupation distribution and clustering that is likely to be a strong function of luminosity
Modeling the color evolution of luminous red galaxies - improvements with empirical stellar spectra
Predicting the colors of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) in the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey (SDSS) has been a long-standing problem. The g,r,i colors of LRGs
are inconsistent with stellar population models over the redshift range
0.1<z<0.7. The g-r colors in the models are on average redder than the data
while the r-i colors in the models are bluer towards low redshift. Beyond
redshift 0.4, the predicted r-i color becomes instead too red, while the
predicted g-r agrees with the data. We provide a solution to this problem,
through a combination of new astrophysics and a fundamental change to the
stellar population modeling. We find that the use of the empirical library of
Pickles (1998) instead of theoretical spectra modifies the predicted colors
exactly in the way suggested by the data. The reason is a lower flux in the
empirical libraries, with respect to the theoretical ones, in the wavelength
range 5500-6500 AA. The discrepancy increases with decreasing effective
temperature independently of gravity. This result has general implications for
a variety of studies from globular clusters to high-redshift galaxies. The
astrophysical part of our solution regards the composition of the stellar
populations of these massive Luminous Red Galaxies. We find that on top of the
previous effect one needs to consider a model in which ~3% of the stellar mass
is in old metal-poor stars. Other solutions such as substantial blue Horizontal
Branch at high metallicity or young stellar populations can be ruled out by the
data. Our new model provides a better fit to the g-r and r-i colors of LRGs and
gives new insight into the formation histories of these most massive galaxies.
Our model will also improve the k- and evolutionary corrections for LRGs which
are critical for fully exploiting present and future galaxy surveys.Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letters. High resolution version available at
http://www.maraston.eu/Maraston_etal_2008.pd
Experimental demonstration of digital predistortion for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing-radio over fibre links near laser resonance
Radio over fibre (RoF), an enabling technology for distribution of wireless broadband service signals through analogue optical links, suffers from non-linear distortion. Digital predistortion has been demonstrated as an effective approach to overcome the RoF non-linearity. However, questions remain as to how the approach performs close to laser resonance, a region of significant dynamic non-linearity, and how resilient the approach is to changes in input signal and link operating conditions. In this work, the performance of a digital predistortion approach is studied for directly modulated orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing RoF links operating from 2.47 to 3.7 GHz. It extends previous works to higher frequencies, and to higher quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) levels. In addition, the resilience of the predistortion approach to changes in modulation level of QAM schemes, and average power levels are investigated, and a novel predistortion training approach is proposed and demonstrated. Both memoryless and memory polynomial predistorter models, and a simple off-line least-squares-based identification method, are used, with excellent performance improvements demonstrated up to 3.0 GHz
Spatially Extended Low Ionization Emission Regions (LIERs) at
We present spatially resolved emission diagnostics for eight
galaxies that demonstrate extended low ionization emission-line regions (LIERs)
over kpc scales. Eight candidates are selected based on their spatial extent
and emission line fluxes from slitless spectroscopic observations with the
HST/WFC3 G141 and G800L grisms in the well-studied GOODS survey fields. Five of
the candidates (62.5%) are matched to X-ray counterparts in the \textit{Chandra
X-Ray Observatory} Deep Fields. We modify the traditional
Baldwin-Philips-Terlevich (BPT) emission line diagnostic diagram to use
[SII]/(H+[NII]) instead of [NII]/H to overcome the blending of
[NII] and H+[NII] in the low resolution slitless grism spectra. We
construct emission line ratio maps and place the individual pixels in the
modified BPT. The extended LINER-like emission present in all of our
candidates, coupled with X-Ray properties consistent with star-forming galaxies
and weak [OIII]5007\AA\ detections, is inconsistent with purely
nuclear sources (LINERs) driven by active galactic nuclei. While recent
ground-based integral field unit spectroscopic surveys have revealed
significant evidence for diffuse LINER-like emission in galaxies within the
local universe , this work provides the first evidence for the
non-AGN origin of LINER-like emission out to high redshifts.Comment: 11 pages, 1 table, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysics Journal (ApJ
The environmental dependence of galaxy colors in intermediate-redshift Xârayâselected clusters
We present a wide-field imaging study of the colors of bright galaxies (â + 2) in a sample of 12 X-rayâselected clusters and groups of galaxies at z ~ 0:3. The systems cover one of the largest ranges in X-ray luminosity (Lx ~ 1043 1045 ergs s-1), and hence mass, of any sample studied at this redshift. We find that the ââredââ galaxies form a tight color-magnitude relation (CMR) and that neither the slope nor zero point of this relation changes significantly over the factor of 100 in X-ray luminosity covered by our sample. Using stellar population synthesis models, we find that our data allow a maximum possible change of 2 Gyr in the typical age of the ââredââ galaxies on the CMR over the range of Lx of our sample.We also measure the fraction of blue galaxies (fb) relative to the CMR in our clusters and find a low value of fb ~ 0.1 consistent with other X-rayâselected cluster samples.We find that there is no correlation between fb and Lx over our large Lx range. However, we do find that both the CMR and fb depend significantly on cluster radius, with the zero point of the CMR shifting blueward in B - R by 0.10 ± 0.036 mag out to a radius of 0.75 times the virial radius. This color change is equivalent to a luminosity-weighted age gradient of ~2.5 Gyr per log (radius) and is consistent with previous studies of the radial change in the zero point of the CMR. It thus appears
that the global cluster environment, in the form of cluster mass (Lx), has little influence on the properties of the bright cluster galaxies, whereas the local environment, in the form of galaxy density (radius), has a strong effect. The range of ~100 in Lx corresponds to a factor of ~40 in ram pressure efficiency, thus suggesting that ram pressure stripping or other mechanisms that depend on cluster mass, like tidal stripping or harassment, are unlikely to be solely responsible for changing the galaxy population from the ââblueââ star-forming galaxies, which dominate low-density
environments, to the ââredââ passive galaxies, which dominate cluster cores
Dark energy constraints from cosmic shear power spectra: impact of intrinsic alignments on photometric redshift requirements
Cosmic shear constrains cosmology by exploiting the apparent alignments of
pairs of galaxies due to gravitational lensing by intervening mass clumps.
However galaxies may become (intrinsically) aligned with each other, and with
nearby mass clumps, during their formation. This effect needs to be
disentangled from the cosmic shear signal to place constraints on cosmology. We
use the linear intrinsic alignment model as a base and compare it to an
alternative model and data. If intrinsic alignments are ignored then the dark
energy equation of state is biased by ~50 per cent. We examine how the number
of tomographic redshift bins affects uncertainties on cosmological parameters
and find that when intrinsic alignments are included two or more times as many
bins are required to obtain 80 per cent of the available information. We
investigate how the degradation in the dark energy figure of merit depends on
the photometric redshift scatter. Previous studies have shown that lensing does
not place stringent requirements on the photometric redshift uncertainty, so
long as the uncertainty is well known. However, if intrinsic alignments are
included the requirements become a factor of three tighter. These results are
quite insensitive to the fraction of catastrophic outliers, assuming that this
fraction is well known. We show the effect of uncertainties in photometric
redshift bias and scatter. Finally we quantify how priors on the intrinsic
alignment model would improve dark energy constraints.Comment: 14 pages and 9 figures. Replaced with final version accepted in
"Gravitational Lensing" Focus Issue of the New Journal of Physics at
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/9/12/E0
Preventing preschool mental health problems: Population-based cluster randomized controlled trial
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Objective
Prevention of child behavior problems may reduce later mental health problems. We compared the effectiveness, at the population level, of an efficacious targeted prevention program alone or following a universal parenting program.
Method
Three arm, cluster randomized controlled trial. 1353 primary caregivers and healthy eight-month-old babies recruited July 2010 to January 2011 from well-child centers (randomization unit). Primary outcome: Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) externalizing and internalizing scales* at child age three and 4.5 years. Secondary outcomes: Parenting Behavior Checklist* and over-involved/protective parenting (primary caregiver report). Secondary caregivers completed starred measures at age three.
Results
Retention was 76% and 77% at ages three and 4.5 years, respectively. At three years, intention-to-treat analyses found no statistically significant differences (adjusted mean difference (95% CI; p-value)) for externalizing (Targeted versus Usual Care -0.2 (-1.7 to 1.2; p= 0.76); Combined versus Usual Care 0.4 (-1.1 to 1.9; p=0.60)) or internalizing behavior problems (Targeted versus Usual Care 0.2 (-1.2 to 1.6; p= 0.76); Combined versus Usual Care 0.4 (-1.1 to 2.0; p=0.58)). Primary outcomes were similar at 4.5 years. At three years, primary and secondary caregivers reported less over-involved/protective parenting in both the Combined and Targeted versus Usual Care arm; secondary caregivers also reported less harsh discipline in the Combined and Targeted versus Usual Care arm. Mean program costs per family were 682 (Combined arm).
Conclusion
When translated to the population level by existing staff, pre-existing programs appeared ineffective in improving child behavior, alone or in combination, but improved parenting
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