Receipt for Lock

Receipt for $.50 paid by J.R. Whitmer, chair of the Cherry Statue Committee to W.T. Cargile local sheet metal contractor for the purchase of a lock for the copper box.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/exhibit_2015/1040/thumbnail.jp

The Payne: self-consistent ab initio fitting of stellar spectra

We present The Payne, a general method for the precise and simultaneous determination of numerous stellar labels from observed spectra, based on fitting physical spectral models. The Payne combines a number of important methodological aspects: it exploits the information from much of the available spectral range; it fits all labels (stellar parameters and element abundances) simultaneously; it uses spectral models, where the atmosphere structure and the radiative transport are consistently calculated to reflect the stellar labels. At its core The Payne has an approach to accurate and precise interpolation and prediction of the spectrum in high-dimensional label-space, which is flexible and robust, yet based on only a moderate number of ab initio models (O(1000) for 25 labels). With a simple neural-net-like functional form and a suitable choice of training labels, this interpolation yields a spectral flux prediction good to $10^{-3}$ rms across a wide range of $T_{\rm eff}$ and log g (including dwarfs and giants). We illustrate the power of this approach by applying it to the APOGEE DR14 data set, drawing on Kurucz models with recently improved line lists: without recalibration, we obtain physically sensible stellar parameters as well as 15 element abundances that appear to be more precise than the published APOGEE DR14 values. In short, The Payne is an approach that for the first time combines all these key ingredients, necessary for progress towards optimal modelling of survey spectra; and it leads to both precise and accurate estimates of stellar labels, based on physical models and without re-calibration. Both the codes and catalog are made publicly available online.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, ApJ (Accepted for publication- 2019 May 11

An Analytical Conductor\u27s Guide to the SATB A Capella Works of Arvo Part

Arvo Part (b. 1935) is an Estonian composer whose works include film scores, piano and organ works, chamber music, choral/orchestral works, and unaccompanied choral works. This dissertation is limited to the composer\u27s SATB a cappella works. During an eight-year period of silence from 1968 to 1976, Part ceased serious composition in order to find his true compositional voice. During this hiatus, Part abandoned his Lutheran faith, converting to the Russian Orthodox Church, and discovered a fascination with sacred Medieval and Renaissance music, which had been denied him as a student in the USSR. These events, added to the lingering influence of his composition teacher, Heino Eller, became the primary influences in Part\u27s new style of composition, which he named tintinnabuli. The tintinnabuli style is defined and explained in Chapter 1 and discussed in the analyses in subsequent chapters. For each individual work, I identify tintinnabulation elements, tonal centers, central pitches of various voices (not always the tonic), characteristics relating to Russian Orthodox liturgy, and Medieval or Renaissance musical characteristics. Also, the text source and an English translation are provided for each work. Chapter Two includes analyses of the SATB choral a cappella works composed through 1996. Chapter Three considers individual sections of Kanon Pokajanen and includes a discussion of Old Church Slavonic (the language of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the language of three of Part\u27s a cappella works). Chapter Four includes analyses of the SATB choral a cappella works composed from 1997 to the present. In addition, general conducting issues related to Part\u27s compositions will be addressed in Chapter Five (and in the analysis for a specific piece, when necessary), as well as performance practice issues (vibrato, intonation, room acoustics, etc.). The goal is to provide choral conductors with an analytical and practical guide to the SATB a cappella works of Arvo Part, which will serve as a teaching tool to better enable both conductors and ensembles to understand the structure of the music

Identification of the Lithium Depletion Boundary and Age of the Southern Open Cluster Blanco 1

We present results from a spectroscopic study of the very low mass members of the Southern open cluster Blanco 1 using the Gemini-N telescope. We obtained intermediate resolution (R~4400) GMOS spectra for 15 cluster candidate members with I~14-20 mag, and employed a series of membership criteria - proximity to the cluster's sequence in an I/I-Ks color-magnitude diagram (CMD), kinematics agreeing with the cluster systemic motion, magnetic activity as a youth indicator - to classify 10 of these objects as probable cluster members. For these objects, we searched for the presence of the Li I 6708 A feature to identify the lithium depletion boundary (LDB) in Blanco 1. The I/I-Ks CMD shows a clear mass segregation in the Li distribution along the cluster sequence; namely, all higher mass stars are found to be Li-poor, while lower mass stars are found to be Li-rich. The division between Li-poor and Li-rich (i.e., the LDB) in Blanco 1 is found at I=$18.78 \pm 0.24$ and I-Ks=$3.05 \pm 0.10$. Using current pre-main-sequence evolutionary models we determine an LDB age of $132 \pm 24$ Myr. Comparing our derived LDB age to upper-main-sequence isochrone ages for Blanco 1, as well as for other open clusters with identified LDBs, we find good chronometric consistency when using stellar evolution models that incorporate a moderate degree of convective core overshoot.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for Publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Rational Engagement as a Way of Showing Respect to Oneself and Others: How We Ought to Respond to Persons Who Hold Unreasonable Beliefs

We often encounter persons who hold unreasonable beliefs. I explore how respect informs our response to these persons. I conclude that we ought to be willing or disposed to engage in rational discussion sometimes and to some extent with persons who hold unreasonable beliefs as a way of recognizing and respecting their rational nature. I describe what the duty of rational engagement looks like in practice and apply the duty to individual cases. I then explore various considerations, including the consideration of self-respect, that influence whether we have reason to engage and how we should respond in different cases

Orthogonal Polynomials On An Arc Of The Unit Circle With Respect To A Generalized Jacobi Weight: A Riemann-Hilbert Method Approach

We investigate the asymptotic behavior of polynomials orthogonal over a symmetric arc of the unit circle with respect to a generalized Jacobi-type weight. Full asymptotic expansions for the orthogonal polynomials are obtained at every point of the complex plane. Our method of proof is based on a characterization of the orthogonal polynomials as solutions of a 2X2 matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem, which extends to the unit circle the original Riemann-Hilbert characterization for orthogonal polynomials on the real line, first discovered by Fokas, Its, and Kitaev. In order to extricate the behavior of the polynomials from its Riemann-Hilbert matrix representation, we follow the steepest descent method of matrix transformations developed by Deift and Zhou

A Technique to Derive Improved Proper Motions for Kepler Objects of Interest

We outline an approach yielding proper motions with higher precision than exists in present catalogs for a sample of stars in the Kepler field. To increase proper motion precision we combine first moment centroids of Kepler pixel data from a single Season with existing catalog positions and proper motions. We use this astrometry to produce improved reduced proper motion diagrams, analogous to a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, for stars identified as Kepler Objects of Interest. The more precise the relative proper motions, the better the discrimination between stellar luminosity classes. With UCAC4 and PPMXL epoch 2000 positions (and proper motions from those catalogs as quasi-bayesian priors) astrometry for a single test Channel (21) and Season (0) spanning two years yields proper motions with an average per-coordinate proper motion error of 1.0 millisecond of arc per year, over a factor of three better than existing catalogs. We apply a mapping between a reduced proper motion diagram and an HR diagram, both constructed using HST parallaxes and proper motions, to estimate Kepler Object of Interest K-band absolute magnitudes. The techniques discussed apply to any future small-field astrometry as well as the rest of the Kepler field.Comment: Accepted to The Astronomical Journal 15 August 201