23,588 research outputs found
The forensic analysis of soil by FTIR with multivariate analysis
Over the past few years more and more studies have been carried out in an attempt to utilize chemical profiles
of soil using a wide variety of analytical methods. The value of soil as evidence rests with its prevalence at
crime scenes and its transferability between the scene and the criminal. This can be of value for comparison if
the scene of crime is known, but could also be so in the identification of a scene. The main basis for the
comparison of sites to determine provenance is that soils vary from one place to another. The aim of this work
is to find simple methods to identify soil provenance based on FTIR and multivariate analysi
Updated fit to three neutrino mixing: status of leptonic CP violation
We present a global analysis of solar, atmospheric, reactor and accelerator
neutrino data in the framework of three-neutrino oscillations based on data
available in summer 2014. We provide the allowed ranges of the six oscillation
parameters and show that their determination is stable with respect to
uncertainties related to reactor neutrino and solar neutrino flux predictions.
We find that the maximal possible value of the Jarlskog invariant in the lepton
sector is () at the () level
and we use leptonic unitarity triangles to illustrate the ability of global
oscillation data to obtain information on CP violation. We discuss "tendencies
and tensions" of the global fit related to the octant of as well
as the CP violating phase . The favored values of
are around while values around are
disfavored at about . We comment on the non-trivial task
to assign a confidence level to this value by performing a Monte
Carlo study of T2K data.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Typos corrected. Updated results of
the global fit will be available at http://www.nu-fit.org
Contribution Ceilings and the Incidence of Payroll Taxes
Social security contributions (SSCs) are typically formally split between employers and employees as payroll taxes, levied on earnings at a constant tax rate that applies only up to a ceiling, above which the marginal tax rate falls to a reduced rate, often 0. Such contribution ceilings create a concave kink point in the budget set of workers and hence should generate a dip in the distribution of earnings around the ceiling through labour supply responses (the reverse of bunching expected at convex kink points) but such a dip is not observed empirically. This paper sets out a new approach to infer the incidence of SSCs that exploits the absence of this dip and the fact that (mechanically) the distributions of labour cost (earnings inclusive of all payroll taxes), gross earnings (net of employer payroll taxes) and net earnings (net of both employer and employee payroll taxes) cannot all be smooth around a kink. The other papers in this special issue apply the method to data for Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK and all find that distribution of gross earnings is smooth around kinks (implying that the distributions of labour costs and net-of-tax earnings are not) even though the concept of gross earnings is irrelevant in the standard static model of labour supply and demand that dominates the public economics literature. This suggests that other features of the labour market, such as wage bargaining based on the gross earnings concept, are relevant for determining the incidence of SSCs.Fil: Gonzalez Alvaredo, Facundo. Paris School of Economics; Francia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientÃficas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Breda, Thomas. Paris School of Economics; FranciaFil: Roantree, Barra. Institute for Fiscal Studies; Reino UnidoFil: Saez, Emmanuel. University of California at Berkeley; Estados Unido
M@TE - Monitoring at TeV Energies
Blazars are extremely variable objects emitting radiation across the
electromagnetic spectrum and showing variability on time scales from minutes to
years. For the understanding of the emission mechanisms, simultaneous
multi-wavelength observations are crucial. Various models for flares predict
simultaneous flux increases in the X-ray and gamma-ray band or more complex
variability patterns, depending on the dominant process responsible for the
gamma-ray emission. Monitoring at TeV energies is providing important
information to distinguish between different models. To study duty cycle and
variability time scales of an object, an unbiased data sample is essential, and
good sensitivity and continuous monitoring are needed to resolve smaller time
scales. A dedicated long-term monitoring program at TeV energies has been
started by the FACT project. Its success clearly illustrated that the usage of
silicon based photo sensors (SIPMs) is ideal for long-term monitoring. They
provide not only an excellent and stable detector performance, but also allow
for observations during bright ambient light minimizing observational gaps and
increasing the instrument's duty cycle. The observation time in a single
longitude is limited to 6 hours. To study typical variability time scales of
few hours to one day, the ultimate goal is 24/7 monitoring with a network of
small telescopes around the globe (DWARF project). The installation of an
Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope is planned in San Pedro Martir, Mexico. For the
M@TE (Monitoring at TeV energies) telescope, a mount from a previous experiment
is being refurbished to be equipped with a camera using the new generation of
SiPMs. In the presentation, the status of the M@TE project will be reported
outlining the scientific potential, including the possibility to extend
monitoring campaigns to 12 hours by coordinated observations together with
FACT.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Contribution to the 6th International Symposium on
High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy (Gamma2016), Heidelberg, Germany. To be
published in the AIP Conference Proceeding
A Test of Photometric Redshifts for X-ray Selected Sources
We test the effectiveness of photometric redshifts based upon galaxy spectral
template fitting for X-ray luminous objects, using a sample of 65 sources
detected by Chandra in the field of the Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey
(CFGRS). We find that sources with quasar-dominated spectra (for which galaxy
spectral templates are not appropriate) are easily identified, and that
photometric redshifts are robust for the rest of the sources in our sample.
Specifically, for the 59 sources that are not quasar-dominated at optical
wavelengths, we find that the photometric redshift estimates have scatter
comparable to the field galaxy population in this region. There is no evidence
for a trend of increasing dispersion with X-ray luminosity over the range L_X =
10^39 - 5x10^43 erg/s, nor is there a trend with the ratio of X-ray to optical
flux, f_X/f_R. The practical implication of this work is that photometric
redshifts should be robust for the majority (~90%) of the X-ray sources down to
f_X ~ 10^-16 erg/s/cm^2 that have optical counterparts brighter than R ~ 24.
Furthermore, the same photometry can be easily used to identify the sources for
which the photometric redshifts are likely to fail. Photometric redshift
estimation can thus be utilized as an efficient tool in analyzing the
statistical properties of upcoming large Chandra and XMM-Newton data sets and
identifying interesting subsamples for further study.Comment: To appear in ApJ (6 pages, 6 figures). Replaced with accepted versio
Global fit to three neutrino mixing: critical look at present precision
We present an up-to-date global analysis of solar, atmospheric, reactor, and
accelerator neutrino data in the framework of three-neutrino oscillations. We
provide results on the determination of theta_13 from global data and discuss
the dependence on the choice of reactor fluxes. We study in detail the
statistical significance of a possible deviation of theta_23 from maximal
mixing, the determination of its octant, the ordering of the mass states, and
the sensitivity to the CP violating phase, and discuss the role of various
complementary data sets in those respects.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. v3: final version to appear in JHEP. Updated
results will be provided at http://www.nu-fit.or
Automated identification of river hydromorphological features using UAV high resolution aerial imagery
European legislation is driving the development of methods for river ecosystem protection in light of concerns over water quality and ecology. Key to their success is the accurate and rapid characterisation of physical features (i.e., hydromorphology) along the river. Image pattern recognition techniques have been successfully used for this purpose. The reliability of the methodology depends on both the quality of the aerial imagery and the pattern recognition technique used. Recent studies have proved the potential of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to increase the quality of the imagery by capturing high resolution photography. Similarly, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been shown to be a high precision tool for automated recognition of environmental patterns. This paper presents a UAV based framework for the identification of hydromorphological features from high resolution RGB aerial imagery using a novel classification technique based on ANNs. The framework is developed for a 1.4 km river reach along the river Dee in Wales, United Kingdom. For this purpose, a Falcon 8 octocopter was used to gather 2.5 cm resolution imagery. The results show that the accuracy of the framework is above 81%, performing particularly well at recognising vegetation. These results leverage the use of UAVs for environmental policy implementation and demonstrate the potential of ANNs and RGB imagery for high precision river monitoring and river management
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A Dense Reference Network for Mass-Market Centimeter-Accurate Positioning
The quality of atmospheric corrections provided
by a dense reference network for centimeter-accurate carrierphase
differential GNSS (CDGNSS) positioning is investigated.
A dense reference network (less than 20 km inter-station distance)
offers significant benefits for mass-market users, enabling lowcost
(including single-frequency) CDGNSS positioning with rapid
integer ambiguity resolution. Precise positioning on a massmarket
platform would significantly influence the world economy,
ushering in a host of consumer-focused applications such as
globally-registered augmented and virtual reality and improved
all-weather safety and efficiency for intelligent transportation
systems, applications which have so far been hampered by the
several-meter-level errors in standard GNSS positioning. This
contribution examines CDGNSS integer ambiguity resolution
performance in terms of network correction uncertainty, and
network correction uncertainty, in turn, in terms of network
density. It considers the total error in network corrections: a
sum of ionospheric, tropospheric, and reference station multipath
components. The paper’s primary goal is to identify the network
density beyond which mass-market users would see no further
significant improvement in ambiguity resolution performance. It
finishes by describing development and deployment of a low-cost
dense reference network in Austin, Texas.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic
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