Vialactea Visual Analytics tool for Star Formation studies of the Galactic Plane

We present a visual analytics tool, based on the VisIVO suite, to exploit a combination of all new-generation surveys of the Galactic Plane to study the star formation process of the Milky Way. The tool has been developed within the VIALACTEA project, founded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, that creates a common forum for the major new-generation surveys of the Milky Way Galactic Plane from the near infrared to the radio, both in thermal continuum and molecular lines. Massive volumes of data are produced by space missions and ground-based facilities and the ability to collect and store them is increasing at a higher pace than the ability to analyze them. This gap leads to new challenges in the analysis pipeline to discover information contained in the data. Visual analytics focuses on handling these massive, heterogeneous, and dynamic volumes of information accessing the data previously processed by data mining algorithms and advanced analysis techniques with highly interactive visual interfaces offering scientists the opportunity for in-depth understanding of massive, noisy, and high-dimensional data

Distance of Hi-GAL sources

Aims. Distances are key to determining the physical properties of sources. In the Galaxy, large (> 10 000) homogeneous samples of sources for which distance are available, covering the whole Galactic distance range, are still missing. Here we present a catalog of velocity and distance for a large sample (> 100 000) of Hi-GAL compact sources. Methods. We developed a fully automatic Python package to extract the velocity and determine the distance. To assign a velocity to a Hi-GAL compact source, the code uses all the available spectroscopic data complemented by a morphological analysis. Once the velocity is determined, if no stellar or maser parallax distance is known, the kinematic distance is calculated and the distance ambiguity (for sources located inside the Solar circle) is solved with the H I self-absorption method or from distance-extinction data. Results. Among the 150 223 compact sources of the Hi-GAL catalog, we obtained a distance for 124 069 sources for the 5σ catalog (and 128 351 sources for the 3σ catalog), where σ represents the noise level of each molecular spectrum used for the line detections made at 5σ and 3σ to produce the respective catalogs. © P. Mège et al. 2021

The Hi-GAL compact source catalogue – I. The physical properties of the clumps in the inner Galaxy (−71. ◦ 0 < ℓ < 67.◦ 0)

Hi-GAL (Herschel InfraRed Galactic Plane Survey) is a large-scale survey of the Galactic plane, performed with Herschel in five infrared continuum bands between 70 and 500 µm. We present a band-merged catalogue of spatially matched sources and their properties derived from fits to the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and heliocentric distances, based on the photometric catalogues presented in Molinari et al., covering the portion of Galactic plane −71.◦ 0 < ℓ < 67.◦ 0. The band-merged catalogue contains 100 922 sources with a regular SED, 24 584 of which show a 70-µm counterpart and are thus considered protostellar, while the remainder are considered starless. Thanks to this huge number of sources, we are able to carry out a preliminary analysis of early stages of star formation, identifying the conditions that characterize different evolutionary phases on a statistically significant basis. We calculate surface densities to investigate the gravitational stability of clumps and their potential to form massive stars. We also explore evolutionary status metrics such as the dust temperature, luminosity and bolometric temperature, finding that these are higher in protostellar sources compared to pre-stellar ones. The surface density of sources follows an increasing trend as they evolve from pre-stellar to protostellar, but then it is found to decrease again in the majority of the most evolved clumps. Finally, we study the physical parameters of sources with respect to Galactic longitude and the association with spiral arms, finding only minor or no differences between the average evolutionary status of sources in the fourth and first Galactic quadrants, or between 'on-arm' and 'interarm' positions

Structural Insights from Binding Poses of CCR2 and CCR5 with Clinically Important Antagonists: A Combined In Silico Study

Chemokine receptors are G protein-coupled receptors that contain seven transmembrane domains. In particular, CCR2 and CCR5 and their ligands have been implicated in the pathophysiology of a number of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Based on their roles in disease, they have been attractive targets for the pharmaceutical industry, and furthermore, targeting both CCR2 and CCR5 can be a useful strategy. Owing to the importance of these receptors, information regarding the binding site is of prime importance. Structural studies have been hampered due to the lack of X-ray crystal structures, and templates with close homologs for comparative modeling. Most of the previous models were based on the bovine rhodopsin and β2-adrenergic receptor. In this study, based on a closer homolog with higher resolution (CXCR4, PDB code: 3ODU 2.5 Å), we constructed three-dimensional models. The main aim of this study was to provide relevant information on binding sites of these receptors. Molecular dynamics simulation was done to refine the homology models and PROCHECK results indicated that the models were reasonable. Here, binding poses were checked with some established inhibitors of high pharmaceutical importance against the modeled receptors. Analysis of interaction modes gave an integrated interpretation with detailed structural information. The binding poses confirmed that the acidic residues Glu291 (CCR2) and Glu283 (CCR5) are important, and we also found some additional residues. Comparisons of binding sites of CCR2/CCR5 were done sequentially and also by docking a potent dual antagonist. Our results can be a starting point for further structure-based drug design

Spatial distribution of star formation related to ionized regions throughout the inner Galactic plane

We present a comprehensive statistical analysis of star-forming objects located in the vicinities of 1360 bubble structures throughout the Galactic plane and their local environments. The compilation of ~70 000 star-forming sources, found in the proximity of the ionized (Hii) regions and detected in both Hi-GAL and GLIMPSE surveys, provided a broad overview of the different evolutionary stages of star-formation in bubbles, from prestellar objects to more evolved young stellar objects (YSOs). Surface density maps of star-forming objects clearly reveal an evolutionary trend where more evolved star-forming objects (Class II YSO candidates) are found spatially located near the center, while younger star-forming objects are found at the edge of the bubbles. We derived dynamic ages for a subsample of 182 H ii regions for which kinematic distances and radio continuum flux measurements were available. We detect approximately 80% more star-forming sources per unit area in the direction of bubbles than in the surrounding fields. We estimate the clump formation efficiency (CFE) of Hi-GAL clumps in the direction of the shell of the bubbles to be ~15%, around twice the value of the CFE in fields that are not affected by feedback effects. We find that the higher values of CFE are mostly due to the higher CFE of protostellar clumps, in particular in younger bubbles, whose density of the bubble shells is higher. We argue that the formation rate from prestellar to protostellar phase is probably higher during the early stages of the (H ii) bubble expansion. Furthermore, we also find a higher fraction of massive YSOs (MYSOs) in bubbles at the early stages of expansion ( < 2 Myr) than older bubbles. Evaluation of the fragmentation time inside the shell of bubbles advocates the preexistence of clumps in the medium before the bubble expansion in order to explain the formation of MYSOs in the youngest H ii regions ( < 1 Myr), as supported by numerical simulations. Approximately 23% of the Hi-GAL clumps are found located in the direction of a bubble, with 15% for prestellar clumps and 41% for protostellar clumps. We argue that the high fraction of protostellar clumps may be due to the acceleration of the star-formation process cause by the feedback of the (Hii) bubbles. © ESO, 2017

Integrated data access, visualization and analysis for Galactic Plane surveys: The VIALACTEA case

The VIALACTEA project brings to a common forum the major new-generation surveys of the Milky Way Galactic Plane from 1μm to the radio, both in thermal continuum and in atomic and molecular lines, to attack in a systematic way the characterization of the Milky Way as a star formation engine. Images, catalogues, spectroscopic datacubes and radiative transfer models of the Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of sites of star formation have been incorporated and indexed in the VIALACTEA Knowledge Base (VLKB). The VLKB consists of a combination of a relational database where the VIALACTEA data and metadata are homogenised and stored, and a filesystem-based stored information. This infrastructure allowed, among others, the generation of extensive catalogue for compact sources and extended structures in the Galactic Plane, the implementation of data-mining algorithms for the band-merging of multiwavelength data and expert systems for the automated analysis of molecular line surveys to extract critical kinematical information and derive distances using Galaxy rotation curves and new 3D extinction maps. A new VIALACTEA 3D Visual Analytics interface has been developed that provides integrated access and analysis of continuum and spectroscopic images together with catalogue data directly interfacing with the VLKB

Advanced Environment for Knowledge Discovery in the VIALACTEA Project

The VIALACTEA project aims at building a predictive model of star formation in our galaxy. We present the innovative integrated framework and the main technologies and methodologies to reach this ambitious goal