Arthropods Associated With Purple Loosestrife in Illinois Wetlands

We estimated and described the arthropod fauna on purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) plants in northeastern Illinois wetlands. A total of 1063 individual arthropods were collected—930 insects and 133 arachnids. The av- erage number of arthropods ranged from 19.00 to 86.75 individuals per loos- estrife plants of a single root crown. We collected individuals from twenty-five families representing 8 orders of insects. Miridae, Anthocoridae, Lygaeidae, Cicadellidae, and Aphididae were each represented by at least 50 individuals. Three orders and ten families were found that had not been previously reported as occurring on purple loosestrife, but many of these taxa were represented by only a few individuals

Catalog of quasars from the Kilo-Degree Survey Data Release 3

We present a catalog of quasars selected from broad-band photometric ugri data of the Kilo-Degree Survey Data Release 3 (KiDS DR3). The QSOs are identified by the random forest (RF) supervised machine learning model, trained on SDSS DR14 spectroscopic data. We first cleaned the input KiDS data from entries with excessively noisy, missing or otherwise problematic measurements. Applying a feature importance analysis, we then tune the algorithm and identify in the KiDS multiband catalog the 17 most useful features for the classification, namely magnitudes, colors, magnitude ratios, and the stellarity index. We used the t-SNE algorithm to map the multi-dimensional photometric data onto 2D planes and compare the coverage of the training and inference sets. We limited the inference set to r<22 to avoid extrapolation beyond the feature space covered by training, as the SDSS spectroscopic sample is considerably shallower than KiDS. This gives 3.4 million objects in the final inference sample, from which the random forest identified 190,000 quasar candidates. Accuracy of 97%, purity of 91%, and completeness of 87%, as derived from a test set extracted from SDSS and not used in the training, are confirmed by comparison with external spectroscopic and photometric QSO catalogs overlapping with the KiDS footprint. The robustness of our results is strengthened by number counts of the quasar candidates in the r band, as well as by their mid-infrared colors available from WISE. An analysis of parallaxes and proper motions of our QSO candidates found also in Gaia DR2 suggests that a probability cut of p(QSO)>0.8 is optimal for purity, whereas p(QSO)>0.7 is preferable for better completeness. Our study presents the first comprehensive quasar selection from deep high-quality KiDS data and will serve as the basis for versatile studies of the QSO population detected by this survey.Comment: Data available from the KiDS website at http://kids.strw.leidenuniv.nl/DR3/quasarcatalog.php and the source code from https://github.com/snakoneczny/kids-quasar

Large-scale structure and matter in the universe

This paper summarizes the physical mechanisms that encode the type and quantity of cosmological matter in the properties of large-scale structure, and reviews the application of such tests to current datasets. The key lengths of the horizon size at matter-radiation equality and at last scattering determine the total matter density and its ratio to the relativistic density; acoustic oscillations can diagnose whether the matter is collisionless, and small-scale structure or its absence can limit the mass of any dark-matter relic particle. The most stringent constraints come from combining data on present-day galaxy clustering with data on CMB anisotropies. Such an analysis breaks the degeneracies inherent in either dataset alone, and proves that the universe is very close to flat. The matter content is accurately consistent with pure Cold Dark Matter, with about 25% of the critical density, and fluctuations that are scalar-only, adiabatic and scale-invariant. It is demonstrated that these conclusions cannot be evaded by adjusting either the equation of state of the vacuum, or the total relativistic density.Comment: 17 Pages. Review paper from the January 2003 Royal Society Discussion Meeting, "The search for dark matter and dark energy in the universe

Two-Dimensional Topology of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey

We study the topology of the publicly available data released by the 2dFGRS. The 2dFGRS data contains over 100,000 galaxy redshifts with a magnitude limit of b_J=19.45 and is the largest such survey to date. The data lie over a wide range of right ascension (75 degree strips) but only within a narrow range of declination (10 degree and 15 degree strips). This allows measurements of the two-dimensional genus to be made. The NGP displays a slight meatball shift topology, whereas the SGP displays a bubble like topology. The current SGP data also have a slightly higher genus amplitude. In both cases, a slight excess of overdense regions are found over underdense regions. We assess the significance of these features using mock catalogs drawn from the Virgo Consortium's Hubble Volume LCDM z=0 simulation. We find that differences between the NGP and SGP genus curves are only significant at the 1 sigma level. The average genus curve of the 2dFGRS agrees well with that extracted from the LCDM mock catalogs. We compare the amplitude of the 2dFGRS genus curve to the amplitude of a Gaussian random field with the same power spectrum as the 2dFGRS and find, contradictory to results for the 3D genus of other samples, that the amplitude of the GRF genus curve is slightly lower than that of the 2dFGRS. This could be due to a a feature in the current data set or the 2D genus may not be as sensitive as the 3D genus to non-linear clustering due to the averaging over the thickness of the slice in 2D. (Abridged)Comment: Submitted to ApJ A version with Figure 1 in higher resolution can be obtained from http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~hoyle

Arthropods Associated With Purple Loosestrife in Illinois Wetlands

We estimated and described the arthropod fauna on purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) plants in northeastern Illinois wetlands. A total of 1063 individual arthropods were collected—930 insects and 133 arachnids. The av- erage number of arthropods ranged from 19.00 to 86.75 individuals per loos- estrife plants of a single root crown. We collected individuals from twenty-five families representing 8 orders of insects. Miridae, Anthocoridae, Lygaeidae, Cicadellidae, and Aphididae were each represented by at least 50 individuals. Three orders and ten families were found that had not been previously reported as occurring on purple loosestrife, but many of these taxa were represented by only a few individuals

Correlation Function of Superclusters of Galaxies

We present a study of the two-point correlation function of superclusters of galaxies. The largest catalogs are used. The results show negligible correlation less than 0.1-0.2 for separations up to 500-600 h^{-1} Mpc. Small correlations are obtained using various estimates and samples. Seemingly there are no structures of superclusters of galaxies.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables. To appear in 1998 ApJ, 506, No. 2 (Oct 20

Probing dark energy with steerable wavelets through correlation of WMAP and NVSS local morphological measures

Using local morphological measures on the sphere defined through a steerable wavelet analysis, we examine the three-year WMAP and the NVSS data for correlation induced by the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect. The steerable wavelet constructed from the second derivative of a Gaussian allows one to define three local morphological measures, namely the signed-intensity, orientation and elongation of local features. Detections of correlation between the WMAP and NVSS data are made with each of these morphological measures. The most significant detection is obtained in the correlation of the signed-intensity of local features at a significance of 99.9%. By inspecting signed-intensity sky maps, it is possible for the first time to see the correlation between the WMAP and NVSS data by eye. Foreground contamination and instrumental systematics in the WMAP data are ruled out as the source of all significant detections of correlation. Our results provide new insight on the ISW effect by probing the morphological nature of the correlation induced between the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure of the Universe. Given the current constraints on the flatness of the Universe, our detection of the ISW effect again provides direct and independent evidence for dark energy. Moreover, this new morphological analysis may be used in future to help us to better understand the nature of dark energy.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, replaced to match version accepted by MNRA

Anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation and heart failure: Insights from the NCDR PINNACLE-AF registry.

BackgroundIn non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients, congestive heart failure (CHF) confers an increased risk of stroke or systemic thromboembolism. This risk is present in both heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). It is unclear if clinicians account for both types of CHF in their NVAF anticoagulation practices. Accordingly, we characterized current outpatient anticoagulation trends in NVAF patients with HFpEF compared to patients with HFrEF.MethodsThe outpatient NCDR PINNACLE-AF registry was analyzed to identify patients with NVAF and CHF. The study population was subdivided into HFpEF (ie, LVEF ≥ 40%) and HFrEF (LVEF &lt; 40%). Anticoagulation rates by CHF group were compared and stratified by CHA2 DS2 -VASc score.ResultsA total of 340 127 patients with NVAF and CHF were identified, of whom 248 136 (73.0%) were classified as HFpEF and 91 991 (27.0%) as HFrEF. Patients with HFpEF had higher mean CHA2 DS2 -VASc scores and were more likely to be female, older, and have hypertension (P &lt; 0.001). Unadjusted anticoagulation rates were significantly lower in patients with HFpEF compared to those with HFrEF (60.6% vs 64.2%, respectively). Lower rates of anticoagulation in the HFpEF group persisted after risk adjustment (RR: 0.93 [95% CI: 0.91, 0.94]). Stratification by CHA2 DS2 -VASc score demonstrated that lower rates of anticoagulation in patients with HFpEF persisted until a score of ≥5.ConclusionsPatients with NVAF and HFpEF have significantly lower anticoagulation rates when compared to their HFrEF counterparts. These findings suggest a potential underappreciation of HFpEF as a risk factor in patients with NVAF

A Quantitative Evaluation of the Galaxy Component of COSMOS and APM Catalogs

We have carried out an independent quantitative evaluation of the galaxy component of the "COSMOS/UKST Southern Sky Object Catalogue" (SSC) and the "APM/UKST J Catalogue" (APM). Using CCD observations our results corroborate the accuracy of the photometry of both catalogs, which have an overall dispersion of about 0.2 mag in the range 17 <= b_J <= 21.5. The SSC presents externally calibrated galaxy magnitudes that follow a linear relation, while the APM instrumental magnitudes of galaxies, only internally calibrated by the use of stellar profiles, require second-order corrections. The completeness of both catalogs in a general field falls rapidly fainter than b_J = 20.0, being slightly better for APM. The 90% completeness level of the SSC is reached between b_J = 19.5 and 20.0, while for APM this happens between b_J = 20.5 and 21.0. Both SSC and APM are found to be less complete in a galaxy cluster field. Galaxies misclassified as stars in the SSC receive an incorrect magnitude because the stellar ones take saturation into account besides using a different calibration curve. In both cases, the misclassified galaxies show a large diversity of colors that range from typical colors of early-types to those of blue star-forming galaxies. A possible explanation for this effect is that it results from the combination of low sampling resolutions with properties of the image classifier for objects with characteristic sizes close to the instrumental resolution. We find that the overall contamination by stars misclassified as galaxies is < 5% to b_J = 20.5, as originally estimated for both catalogs. Although our results come from small areas of the sky, they are extracted from two different plates and are based on the comparison with two independent datasets.Comment: 14 pages of text and tables, 8 figures; to be published in the Astronomical Journal; for a single postscript version file see ftp://danw.on.br/outgoing/caretta/caretta.p

A Local Hubble Bubble from SNe Ia?

We analyze the monopole in the peculiar velocities of 44 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to test for a local void. The sample extends from 20 to 300 Mpc/h, with distances, deduced from light-curve shapes, accurate to ~6%. Assuming Omega_m=1 and Omega_lambda=0, the most significant deviation we find from the Hubble law is an outwards flow of (6.6+/-2.2)% inside a sphere of radius 70 Mpc/h as would be produced by a void of ~20% underdensity surrounded by a dense shell. This shell roughly coincides with the local Great Walls. Monte Carlo analyses, using Gaussian errors or bootstrap resampling, show the probability for chance occurrence of this result out of a pure Hubble flow to be ~2%. The monopole could be contaminated by higher moments of the velocity field, especially a quadrupole, which are not properly probed by the current limited sky coverage. The void would be less significant if Omega_m is low and Omega_lambda is high. It would be more significant if one outlier is removed from the sample, or if the size of the void is constrained a-priori. This putative void is not in significant conflict with any of the standard cosmological scenarios. It suggests that the Hubble constant as determined within 70 Mpc/h could be overestimated by ~6% and the local value of Omega may be underestimated by ~20%. While the present evidence for a local void is marginal in this data set, the analysis shows that the accumulation of SNe Ia distances will soon provide useful constraints on elusive and important aspects of regional cosmic dynamics.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Slightly revised version. To appear in ApJ, 503, Aug. 20, 199