A catalogue of Locus Algorithm pointings for optimal differential photometry for 23 779 quasars

ABSTRACT This paper presents a catalogue of optimized pointings for differential photometry of 23 779 quasars extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Catalogue and a Score for each indicating the quality of the Field of View (FoV) associated with that pointing. Observation of millimagnitude variability on a time-scale of minutes typically requires differential observations with reference to an ensemble of reference stars. For optimal performance, these reference stars should have similar colour and magnitude to the target quasar. In addition, the greatest quantity and quality of suitable reference stars may be found by using a telescope pointing which offsets the target object from the centre of the FoV. By comparing each quasar with the stars which appear close to it on the sky in the SDSS Catalogue, an optimum pointing can be calculated, and a figure of merit, referred to as the ‘Score’ is calculated for that pointing. Highly flexible software has been developed to enable this process to be automated and implemented in a distributed computing paradigm, which enables the creation of catalogues of pointings given a set of input targets. Applying this technique to a sample of 40 000 targets from the fourth SDSS quasar catalogue resulted in the production of pointings and Scores for 23 779 quasars based on their magnitudes in the SDSS r-band. This catalogue is a useful resource for observers planning differential photometry studies and surveys of quasars to select those which have many suitable celestial neighbours for differential photometry

National Soils Database

End of project reportThe objectives of the National Soils Database project were fourfold. The first was to generate a national database of soil geochemistry to complete the work that commenced with a survey of the South East of Ireland carried out in 1995 and 1996 by Teagasc (McGrath and McCormack, 1999). Secondly, to produce point and interpolated spatial distribution maps of major, minor and trace elements and to interpret these with respect to underlying parent material, glacial geology, land use and possible anthropogenic effects. A third objective was to investigate the microbial community structure in a range of soil types to determine the relationship between soil microbiology and chemistry. The final objective was to establish a National Soils Archive

Structure and evolution of the plant cation diffusion facilitator family of ion transporters

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Singing the same tune? International continuities and discontinuities in how police talk about using force

This article focuses on a research project conducted in six jurisdictions: England, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Venezuela, and Brazil. These societies are very different ethnically, socially, politically, economically, historically and have wildly different levels of crime. Their policing arrangements also differ significantly: how they are organised; how their officers are equipped and trained; what routine operating procedures they employ; whether they are armed; and much else besides. Most relevant for this research, they represent policing systems with wildly different levels of police shootings, Police in the two Latin American countries represented here have a justified reputation for the frequency with which they shoot people, whereas at the other extreme the police in England do not routinely carry firearms and rarely shoot anyone. To probe whether these differences are reflected in the way that officers talk about the use of force, police officers in these different jurisdictions were invited to discuss in focus groups a scenario in which police are thwarted in their attempt to arrest two youths (one of whom is a known local criminal) by the youths driving off with the police in pursuit, and concludes with the youths crashing their car and escaping in apparent possession of a gun, It might be expected that focus groups would prove starkly different, and indeed they were, but not in the way that might be expected. There was little difference in affirmation of normative and legal standards regarding the use of force. It was in how officers in different jurisdictions envisaged the circumstances in which the scenario took place that led Latin American officers to anticipate that they would shoot the suspects, whereas officers in the other jurisdictions had little expectation that they would open fire in the conditions as they imagined them to be

A system to detect gradual change in long term EEG /

A system was developed for detecting gradual changes in background EEG, with a view to simplifying the tedious task of long-term monitoring in the neurological intensive care unit.Six-channel EEG recordings serve as input to the system. EEG from each hemisphere is segmented into variable length epochs described by nine-dimensional feature vectors. A fixed scaling operation is performed so that differentiation between segments using the Euclidean distance between feature vectors relies equally on each feature.Cluster analysis is performed to select five types of EEG that best represent the data spread for each hour. Color-coded circles representing clusters from every hour are mapped on a two-dimensional plot. The relative location of these circles reflects the difference between their associated EEG. Change between hours is detected by observing the movement of circles associated with each hour.Detection of change with this method agreed closely with that observed via manual review but was much simpler

Drawing Style, Genre and the Destabilization of Register in a Graphic Adaptation of Trollope’s 1878 Novel John Caldigate

A chapter in the edited collection "Drawn from the Classics: Essays on Graphic Adaptations of Literary Works.

Outcome of active disease in ankylosing spondylitis:a prospective study

Abstract Background: People with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) typically experience episodic exacerbations, but the extent to which they subsequently experience a sustained reduction in disease markers below recognized thresholds for active disease is unclear. Objective: To investigate changes in, and associations between, disease markers over 18 months in people with active AS. Methods: Within a cohort of 89 participants with AS, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) scores of 4 or higher were used to identify those with active disease. Standard assessment tools were used to monitor participants prospectively at four consecutive six-monthly intervals. Participants received standard treatments but none received anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) medication during the study. Results: The median age of the cohort was 50 years (inter-quartile range [IQR] 38.5–55.5), the median age of disease onset was 25 years (IQR 18–33) and the median disease duration was 18 years (IQR 13–27). Forty-seven (53%) participants had a BASDAI score of 4 or higher on the first assessment, of whom 45 (51%) scored 4 or higher on all subsequent assessments. Furthermore, 38 (43%) and 16 (18%) participants scored BASDAI 5 or 6, respectively, or higher, throughout. BASDAI scores correlated strongly with Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) scores. Compared with 19 (21%) participants whose BASDAI scores were consistently below 4 throughout, participants with persistently high BASDAI scores showed higher scores for anxiety and depression, and some evidence of functional deterioration during the study period. Conclusions: In this cohort, disease markers in most people with active AS were sustained above the standard threshold for active disease. This has important implications for planning care pathways and for optimal utilization of anti-TNFα treatment

Lack of Association between an Interleukin-I Receptor Antagonist Gene Polymorphism and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Non-MHC linked genes may contribute to genetic predisposition to the development of systemic lupus erythematosus. The possibility that cytokine genes may be involved was raised by the observation of increased frequency in expression of an uncommon allele of an interleukin-I receptor antagonist gene polymorphism and SLE in a recent U.K. study. We have not been able to show any significant differences in expression of this allele in SLE patients as a whole or in any patient subgroups. Our results actually show a slight decrease in the expression of this allele in SLE patients compared with healthy controls and in SLE patients with malar rash compared with SLE patients without malar rash