First ERTS-1 results in southeastern France: Geology, sedimentology, pollution at sea

Results obtained by four ERTS projects in southeastern France are summarized. With regard to geology, ERTS photos of Western Alps are very useful for tectonic interpretation because large features are clearly visible on these photographs even though they are often hidden by small complicated structures if studied on large scale documents. The 18-day repetition coverage was not obtained, and time-varying sedimentological surveys were impossible. Nevertheless, it was possible to delineate the variations of the shorelines in the Rhone Delta for a period covering the least 8,000 years. Some instances of industries discharging pollutant products at sea were detected, as well as very large anomalies of unknown origin. Some examples of coherent optical processing have been made in order to bring out tectonic features in the Alps mountains

On the non-detection of gamma-rays from energetic millisecond pulsars -- dependence on viewing geometry

Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) and normal non-recycled pulsars are both detected in $\gamma$-rays. However, it appears that a much larger fraction of known energetic and nearby MSPs are detected in $\gamma$-rays, in comparison with normal pulsars, thereby making undetected $\gamma$-ray MSPs exceptions. In this paper, we demonstrate that the viewing angles (i.e. between the pulsar spin axis and the line of sight) are well described by the orbital inclination angles which, for binary MSPs with helium white dwarf companions, can be determined using the relationship between the orbital period and the white dwarf mass. We use the predicted viewing angles, in complement with values obtained from other constraints when available, to identify the causes of non-detection of energetic and nearby MSPs from the point of view of beaming geometry and orientation. We find evidence for slightly different viewing angle distributions, and postulate that energetic and nearby MSPs are mainly undetected in $\gamma$-rays simply because they are seen under unfavourable (i.e. small) viewing angles. We finally discuss the magnetic fields of $\gamma$-ray detected pulsars and show that pulsars which are efficient at converting their rotational energy into $\gamma$-ray emission may have overestimated dipolar magnetic field strengths.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. MNRAS, in press. Updated to reflect changes made at the proof stag

Processing and Linking Audio Events in Large Multimedia Archives: The EU inEvent Project

In the inEvent EU project [1], we aim at structuring, retrieving, and sharing large archives of networked, and dynamically changing, multimedia recordings, mainly consisting of meetings, videoconferences, and lectures. More specifically, we are developing an integrated system that performs audiovisual processing of multimedia recordings, and labels them in terms of interconnected “hyper-events ” (a notion inspired from hyper-texts). Each hyper-event is composed of simpler facets, including audio-video recordings and metadata, which are then easier to search, retrieve and share. In the present paper, we mainly cover the audio processing aspects of the system, including speech recognition, speaker diarization and linking (across recordings), the use of these features for hyper-event indexing and recommendation, and the search portal. We present initial results for feature extraction from lecture recordings using the TED talks. Index Terms: Networked multimedia events; audio processing: speech recognition; speaker diarization and linking; multimedia indexing and searching; hyper-events. 1

Completeness Results for Parameterized Space Classes

The parameterized complexity of a problem is considered "settled" once it has been shown to lie in FPT or to be complete for a class in the W-hierarchy or a similar parameterized hierarchy. Several natural parameterized problems have, however, resisted such a classification. At least in some cases, the reason is that upper and lower bounds for their parameterized space complexity have recently been obtained that rule out completeness results for parameterized time classes. In this paper, we make progress in this direction by proving that the associative generability problem and the longest common subsequence problem are complete for parameterized space classes. These classes are defined in terms of different forms of bounded nondeterminism and in terms of simultaneous time--space bounds. As a technical tool we introduce a "union operation" that translates between problems complete for classical complexity classes and for W-classes.Comment: IPEC 201

Detection of explosives vapours on quartz crystal microbalances: generation of very low-concentrated vapours for sensors calibration

AbstractA controlled vapours generator of explosives compounds has been evaluated for delivering low-concentrated vapours in order to determine the threshold of quartz crystal microbalances based chemical gas sensors

Five New Millisecond Pulsars From a Radio Survey of 14 Unidentified Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Sources

We have discovered five millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in a survey of 14 unidentified Fermi-LAT sources in the southern sky using the Parkes radio telescope. PSRs J0101-6422, J1514-4946, and J1902-5105 reside in binaries, while PSRs J1658-5324 and J1747-4036 are isolated. Using an ephemeris derived from timing observations of PSR J0101-6422 (P =2.57 ms, DM=12 pc cm-3), we have detected {\gamma}-ray pulsations and measured its proper motion. Its {\gamma}-ray spectrum (a power law of {\Gamma} = 0.9 with a cutoff at 1.6 GeV) and efficiency are typical of other MSPs, but its radio and {\gamma}-ray light curves challenge simple geometric models of emission. The high success rate of this survey-enabled by selecting {\gamma}-ray sources based on their detailed spectral characteristics-and other similarly successful searches indicate that a substantial fraction of the local population of MSPs may soon be known.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted by ApJ

Radio Detection of the Fermi LAT Blind Search Millisecond Pulsar J1311-3430

We report the detection of radio emission from PSR J1311-3430, the first millisecond pulsar discovered in a blind search of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) gamma-ray data. We detected radio pulsations at 2 GHz, visible for <10% of ~4.5-hrs of observations using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Observations at 5 GHz with the GBT and at several lower frequencies with Parkes, Nancay, and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope resulted in non-detections. We also report the faint detection of a steep spectrum continuum radio source (0.1 mJy at 5 GHz) in interferometric imaging observations with the Jansky Very Large Array. These detections demonstrate that PSR J1311-3430, is not radio quiet and provides additional evidence that the radio beaming fraction of millisecond pulsars is very large. The radio detection yields a distance estimate of 1.4 kpc for the system, yielding a gamma-ray efficiency of 30%, typical of LAT-detected MSPs. We see apparent excess delay in the radio pulsar as the pulsar appears from eclipse and we speculate on possible mechanisms for the non-detections of the pulse at other orbital phases and observing frequencies.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. ApJ Letters, in pres

Polynomial kernelization for removing induced claws and diamonds

A graph is called (claw,diamond)-free if it contains neither a claw (a $K_{1,3}$) nor a diamond (a $K_4$ with an edge removed) as an induced subgraph. Equivalently, (claw,diamond)-free graphs can be characterized as line graphs of triangle-free graphs, or as linear dominoes, i.e., graphs in which every vertex is in at most two maximal cliques and every edge is in exactly one maximal clique. In this paper we consider the parameterized complexity of the (claw,diamond)-free Edge Deletion problem, where given a graph $G$ and a parameter $k$, the question is whether one can remove at most $k$ edges from $G$ to obtain a (claw,diamond)-free graph. Our main result is that this problem admits a polynomial kernel. We complement this finding by proving that, even on instances with maximum degree $6$, the problem is NP-complete and cannot be solved in time $2^{o(k)}\cdot |V(G)|^{O(1)}$ unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis fai

Application of the Gaussian mixture model in pulsar astronomy -- pulsar classification and candidates ranking for {\it Fermi} 2FGL catalog

Machine learning, algorithms to extract empirical knowledge from data, can be used to classify data, which is one of the most common tasks in observational astronomy. In this paper, we focus on Bayesian data classification algorithms using the Gaussian mixture model and show two applications in pulsar astronomy. After reviewing the Gaussian mixture model and the related Expectation-Maximization algorithm, we present a data classification method using the Neyman-Pearson test. To demonstrate the method, we apply the algorithm to two classification problems. Firstly, it is applied to the well known period-period derivative diagram, where we find that the pulsar distribution can be modeled with six Gaussian clusters, with two clusters for millisecond pulsars (recycled pulsars) and the rest for normal pulsars. From this distribution, we derive an empirical definition for millisecond pulsars as $\frac{\dot{P}}{10^{-17}} \leq3.23(\frac{P}{100 \textrm{ms}})^{-2.34}$. The two millisecond pulsar clusters may have different evolutionary origins, since the companion stars to these pulsars in the two clusters show different chemical composition. Four clusters are found for normal pulsars. Possible implications for these clusters are also discussed. Our second example is to calculate the likelihood of unidentified \textit{Fermi} point sources being pulsars and rank them accordingly. In the ranked point source list, the top 5% sources contain 50% known pulsars, the top 50% contain 99% known pulsars, and no known active galaxy (the other major population) appears in the top 6%. Such a ranked list can be used to help the future follow-up observations for finding pulsars in unidentified \textit{Fermi} point sources.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted by MNRA