2,651 research outputs found
How galactic environment regulates star formation
In a new simple model I reconcile two contradictory views on the factors that determine the rate at which molecular clouds form stars-internal structure versus external, environmental influences-providing a unified picture for the regulation of star formation in galaxies. In the presence of external pressure, the pressure gradient set up within a self-gravitating turbulent (isothermal) cloud leads to a non-uniform density distribution. Thus the local environment of a cloud influences its internal structure. In the simple equilibrium model, the fraction of gas at high density in the cloud interior is determined simply by the cloud surface density, which is itself inherited from the pressure in the immediate surroundings. This idea is tested using measurements of the properties of local clouds, which are found to show remarkable agreement with the simple equilibrium model. The model also naturally predicts the star formation relation observed on cloud scales and at the same time provides a mapping between this relation and the closer-to-linear molecular star formation relation measured on larger scales in galaxies. The key is that pressure regulates not only the molecular content of the ISM but also the cloud surface density. I provide a straightforward prescription for the pressure regulation of star formation that can be directly implemented in numerical models. Predictions for the dense gas fraction and star formation efficiency measured on large-scales within galaxies are also presented, establishing the basis for a new picture of star formation regulated by galactic environment
Optical Music Recognition with Convolutional Sequence-to-Sequence Models
Optical Music Recognition (OMR) is an important technology within Music
Information Retrieval. Deep learning models show promising results on OMR
tasks, but symbol-level annotated data sets of sufficient size to train such
models are not available and difficult to develop. We present a deep learning
architecture called a Convolutional Sequence-to-Sequence model to both move
towards an end-to-end trainable OMR pipeline, and apply a learning process that
trains on full sentences of sheet music instead of individually labeled
symbols. The model is trained and evaluated on a human generated data set, with
various image augmentations based on real-world scenarios. This data set is the
first publicly available set in OMR research with sufficient size to train and
evaluate deep learning models. With the introduced augmentations a pitch
recognition accuracy of 81% and a duration accuracy of 94% is achieved,
resulting in a note level accuracy of 80%. Finally, the model is compared to
commercially available methods, showing a large improvements over these
applications.Comment: ISMIR 201
Riskfree Rate Dynamics: Information, Trading and State Space Modeling
Lucas, A. [Promotor]Koopman, S.J. [Promotor]Menkveld, A.J. [Copromotor
Strategies of Climate Change Denial: The case of Thierry Baudet
This paper discusses different strategies of climate change denial and focusses on the specific case of Dutch politician Thierry Baudet. Much of the literature concerning climate change denial focusses on Anglo-American cases, therefore more research non-English speaking countries is necessary. The theoretical framework describes the state of the art concerning climate change denialism and its links to occurring phenomena in Western societies and politics such as post-truth and populism. Afterwards, by conducting a deductive analysis of Thierry Baudet’s climate denialism in the Netherlands, a more thorough understanding of the different strategies proposed by Stefan Rahmstorf and Engels et al. is reached. Although all four categories are detected in Baudet’s denialism, consensus denial seems to be the most prevalent. The analysis of his usage of the notion of a climate apocalypse, combined with the analysis of his specific focus on consensus denial, broadens the understanding of how climate change denial can relate to populism. 
Dihedral Angle Measurements for Structure Determination by Biomolecular Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy
In structural studies of immobilized, aggregated and self-assembled biomolecules, solid-state NMR (ssNMR) spectroscopy can provide valuable high-resolution structural information. Among the structural restraints provided by magic angle spinning (MAS) ssNMR the canonical focus is on inter-atomic distance measurements. In the current review, we examine the utility of ssNMR measurements of angular constraints, as a complement to distance-based structure determination. The focus is on direct measurements of angular restraints via the judicious recoupling of multiple anisotropic ssNMR parameters, such as dipolar couplings and chemical shift anisotropies. Recent applications are highlighted, with a focus on studies of nanocrystalline polypeptides, aggregated peptides and proteins, receptor-substrate interactions, and small molecule interactions with amyloid protein fibrils. The review also examines considerations of when and where ssNMR torsion angle experiments are (most) effective, and discusses challenges and opportunities for future applications
A mass-dependent slope of the galaxy size-mass relation out to z~3: further evidence for a direct relation between median galaxy size and median halo mass
We reassess the galaxy size-mass relation out to z~3 using a new definition
of size and a sample of >29,000 galaxies from the 3D-HST, CANDELS, and
COSMOS-DASH surveys. Instead of the half-light radius r_50 we use r_80, the
radius containing 80% of the stellar light. We find that the r_80 -- M_star
relation has the form of a broken power law, with a clear change of slope at a
pivot mass M_p. Below the pivot mass the relation is shallow (r_80 \propto
M_star^0.15) and above it it is steep (r_80\propto M_star^0.6). The pivot mass
increases with redshift, from log(M_p/M_sun)~ 10.2 at z=0.4 to log(M_p/M_sun)~
10.9 at z=1.7-3. We compare these r_80-M_star relations to the M_halo-M_star
relations derived from galaxy-galaxy lensing, clustering analyses, and
abundance matching techniques. Remarkably, the pivot stellar masses of both
relations are consistent with each other at all redshifts, and the slopes are
very similar both above and below the pivot when assuming M_halo \propto
r_80^3. The implied scaling factor to relate galaxy size to halo size is r_80 /
R_vir = 0.047, independent of stellar mass and redshift.From redshift 0 to 1.5,
the pivot mass also coincides with the mass where the fraction of star-forming
galaxies is 50%, suggesting that the pivot mass reflects a transition from
dissipational to dissipationless galaxy growth. Finally, our results imply that
the scatter in the stellar-to-halo mass ratio is relatively small for massive
halos (~0.2 dex for M_halo>10^12.5 M_sun).Comment: Accepted in ApJL. Please also see complementary paper Miller et al.
201
Confirmation of the compactness of a z=1.91 quiescent galaxy with Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3
We present very deep Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) photometry of a massive,
compact galaxy located in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This quiescent galaxy
has a spectroscopic redshift z=1.91 and has been identified as an extremely
compact galaxy by Daddi et al. 2005. We use new H-F160W imaging data obtained
with Hubble Space Telescope/WFC3 to measure the deconvolved surface brightness
profile to H = 28 mag arcsec**-2. We find that the surface brightness profile
is well approximated by an n=3.7 Sersic profile. Our deconvolved profile is
constructed by a new technique which corrects the best-fit Sersic profile with
the residual of the fit to the observed image. This allows for galaxy profiles
which deviate from a Sersic profile. We determine the effective radius of this
galaxy: r_e=0.42 +- 0.14 kpc in the observed H-F160W-band. We show that this
result is robust to deviations from the Sersic model used in the fit. We test
the sensitivity of our analysis to faint "wings" in the profile using simulated
galaxy images consisting of a bright compact component and a faint extended
component. We find that due to the combination of the WFC3 imaging depth and
our method's sensitivity to extended faint emission we can accurately trace the
intrinsic surface brightness profile, and that we can therefore confidently
rule out the existence of a faint extended envelope around the observed galaxy
down to our surface brightness limit. These results confirm that the galaxy
lies a factor of 10 off from the local mass-size relation.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters
Customer flow, intermediaries, and the discovery of the equilibrium riskfree rate
Macro announcements change the equilibrium riskfree rate. We find that treasury prices reflect part of the impact instantaneously, but intermediaries rely on their customer order flow in the 15 minutes after the announcement to discover the full impact. We show that this customer flow informativeness is strongest at times when analyst forecasts of macro variables are highly dispersed. We study 30 year treasury futures to identify the customer flow. We further show that intermediaries appear to benefit from privately recognizing informed customer flow, as, in the cross-section, their own-account trade profitability correlates with access to customer orders, controlling for volatility, competition, and the announcement surprise. These results suggest that intermediaries learn about equilibrium riskfree rates through customer orders
Microparticle assembly pathways on lipid membranes
Understanding interactions between microparticles and lipid membranes is of
increasing importance, especially for unraveling the influence of microplastics
on our health and environment. Here, we study how a short-ranged adhesive force
between microparticles and model lipid membranes causes membrane-mediated
particle assembly. Using confocal microscopy, we observe the initial particle
attachment to the membrane, then particle wrapping, and in rare cases
spontaneous membrane tubulation. In the attached state, we measure that the
particle mobility decreases by 26%. If multiple particles adhere to the same
vesicle, their initial single-particle state determines their interactions and
subsequent assembly pathways: 1) attached particles only aggregate when small
adhesive vesicles are present in solution, 2) wrapped particles reversibly
attract one another by membrane deformation, and 3) a combination of wrapped
and attached particles form membrane-mediated dimers, which further assemble
into a variety of complex structures. The experimental observation of distinct
assembly pathways induced only by a short ranged membrane-particle adhesion,
shows that a cellular cytoskeleton or other active components are not required
for microparticle aggregation. We suggest that this membrane-mediated
microparticle aggregation is a reason behind reported long retention times of
polymer microparticles in organisms.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures (including supporting material
The development of the Ghana sugar industry1960-70: An exercise in ex-post evaluation
The present report contains very little in the way of factual information about the two projects; neither does it attempt to present a detailed analysis of the many different factors which caused the projects to deviate from the original project plans. It tries to explain what we had in mind when undertaking this study and how our originat ideas had to be adjusted after confrontation with the actual project histories (Sections 1 and 2). How far all this is relevant, either to project analysis in developing countries, in general, or to future project work in Ghana, will be discussed in the final part of this report (Section 3)
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