CLUMPY: a code for gamma-ray signals from dark matter structures

We present the first public code for semi-analytical calculation of the gamma-ray flux astrophysical J-factor from dark matter annihilation/decay in the Galaxy, including dark matter substructures. The core of the code is the calculation of the line of sight integral of the dark matter density squared (for annihilations) or density (for decaying dark matter). The code can be used in three modes: i) to draw skymaps from the Galactic smooth component and/or the substructure contributions, ii) to calculate the flux from a specific halo (that is not the Galactic halo, e.g. dwarf spheroidal galaxies) or iii) to perform simple statistical operations from a list of allowed DM profiles for a given object. Extragalactic contributions and other tracers of DM annihilation (e.g. positrons, antiprotons) will be included in a second release.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, published in CPC. The CLUMPY code and its documentation can be found at http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/clump

Gender homophily from spatial behavior in a primary school: a sociometric study

We investigate gender homophily in the spatial proximity of children (6 to 12 years old) in a French primary school, using time-resolved data on face-to-face proximity recorded by means of wearable sensors. For strong ties, i.e., for pairs of children who interact more than a defined threshold, we find statistical evidence of gender preference that increases with grade. For weak ties, conversely, gender homophily is negatively correlated with grade for girls, and positively correlated with grade for boys. This different evolution with grade of weak and strong ties exposes a contrasted picture of gender homophily

Adaptive optics imaging of P Cygni in Halpha

We obtained Halpha diffraction limited data of the LBV star P Cyg using the ONERA Adaptive Optics (AO) facility BOA at the OHP 1.52m telescope on October 1997. Taking P Cyg and the reference star 59 Cyg AO long exposures we find that P Cyg clearly exhibits a large and diffuse intensity distribution compared to the 59 Cyg's point-like source. A deconvolution of P Cyg using 59 Cyg as the Point Spread Function was performed by means of the Richardson-Lucy algorithm. P Cyg clearly appears as an unresolved star surrounded by a clumped envelope. The reconstructed image of P Cyg is compared to similar spatial resolution maps obtained from radio aperture synthesis imaging. We put independent constraints on the physics of P Cyg which agree well with radio results. We discuss future possibilities to constrain the wind structure of P Cyg by using multi-resolution imaging, coronagraphy and long baseline interferometry to trace back its evolutionary status.Comment: 10 pages, 19 Encapsulated Postscript figure

Evaluation of diagnostic tools for potassium management in soybean

Degree Not ListedDepartment of AgronomyDorivar A Ruiz Diaz SuarezThree studies were conducted to evaluate soil test methods and tissue analysis as diagnostic tools for potassium (K) in soybean (Glycine max). The first study assessed the relationship between K adsorption by cation exchange resins (CER) and K uptake by soybean in field conditions. The study was conducted at two locations with contrasting soil test K levels and two treatments, including a control (0 kg K2O ha-1) and a high K rate with 168 kg K2O ha-1 applied pre-plant and incorporated. Cation exchange resins were buried in the field in multiple periods to cover the entire soybean reproductive growth stages. In addition, whole plant samples were collected at R2, R4, and R6 stages to measure plant K uptake. Soil volumetric water content and soil temperature were measured using a TEROS 11 sensor. This study found that CER tends to decrease in inverse proportion to plant K uptake, suggesting a measure of soil K surpluses because of root competition. The fertilized plots were able to maintain higher K supply rates during the peak plant demand. Depending on each location, soil temperature and soil moisture content were highly correlated with CER adsorption in control plots. The second study evaluated tissue nutrient concentration and nutrient ratios as predictors of soybean response to K fertilization. It was conducted at eight locations throughout eastern Kansas during 2019 and 2020. Four treatments were selected to evaluate soybean response to K fertilization. Treatments included a control with no K fertilization and rates with 56 kg K2O ha-1 increments until reaching a maximum of 168 kg K2O ha-1. Aboveground plant samples were collected at V4, R2, R4, and R6 stages to measure plant K and Magnesium (Mg) concentration. K concentration and K/Mg ratio at V4 growth stage were well correlated to K uptake at R6 and grain yield. Considering grain yield, the critical concentration range for K and K/Mg ratio was 16.4 to 18.0 g kg-1 and 2.3 to 2.4, respectively. The nutrient ratio was slightly better in predicting K uptake. The third study compared different soil test K (STK) methods and evaluated the correlation to soybean yield and K uptake response in low testing soils. Additionally, the study assessed the effect of sampling moment on STK results for NH4OAc and Mehlich-3 tests using dry and field moist samples. It was conducted at eight locations throughout eastern Kansas during 2019 and 2020. The treatments were a control with no K fertilization and rates with 56 kg K2O ha-1 increments until reaching a maximum of 168 kg K2O ha-1. Aboveground plant samples were collected at R6 stage to measure plant K uptake. In general, moist tests were better correlated to K response than dry tests, especially with NH4OAc. Among all evaluated methods, the CaCl2 dry and moist, NH4OAc moist, Resin K, and NaBPh4 tests were the best when correlating to relative yield and K uptake. CaCl2 dry is one the easiest and cheapest tests, also having a consistent correlation coefficient (around 0.70 for both variables). Furthermore, it might be an alternative to the NH4OAc moist test because of the high correlation (r=0.91). Three out of eight locations had STK changes for dry samples regardless of K fertilization between fall and the subsequent spring sampling. However, when considering moist samples, almost all locations had little or no STK change. Overall, the NH4OAc moist test was one of the best methods to estimate K availability in low testing soils; however, other non-conventional tests like CaCl2 dry might perform similarly but without the typic disadvantages of moist samples. Abbreviations: K, potassium; CER, cation exchange resins; Mg, Magnesium; STK, soil test potassium

SlideImages: A Dataset for Educational Image Classification

In the past few years, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved impressive results in computer vision tasks, which however mainly focus on photos with natural scene content. Besides, non-sensor derived images such as illustrations, data visualizations, figures, etc. are typically used to convey complex information or to explore large datasets. However, this kind of images has received little attention in computer vision. CNNs and similar techniques use large volumes of training data. Currently, many document analysis systems are trained in part on scene images due to the lack of large datasets of educational image data. In this paper, we address this issue and present SlideImages, a dataset for the task of classifying educational illustrations. SlideImages contains training data collected from various sources, e.g., Wikimedia Commons and the AI2D dataset, and test data collected from educational slides. We have reserved all the actual educational images as a test dataset in order to ensure that the approaches using this dataset generalize well to new educational images, and potentially other domains. Furthermore, we present a baseline system using a standard deep neural architecture and discuss dealing with the challenge of limited training data.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, to be presented at ECIR 202

The “Mirage” Sensor in a Industrial Environment: Optical and Thermal Losses Determinations

Since the first “Mirage” experiment run in the laboratory of ESPCI in 1979 [1], this method has been used by many other laboratories for the determination of optical and thermal properties and for non destructive evaluation [2] [3] [4]

REVIEW OF EARLY TRIASSIC THYLACOCEPHALA

Thylacocephala (Euarthropoda: Eucrustacea?) is a group of enigmatic fossil euarthropods, known from at least the Silurian to the Cretaceous. The Triassic is considered to be the period during which thylacocephalans were the most diversified with 17 species reported from 19 localities in nine countries. However, Thylacocephala were assumed to be rare during the Early Triassic until recent discoveries in Japan, Nevada and Idaho, U.S.A.       Our study focuses on thylacocephalans from the Early Triassic, especially from Madagascar and Idaho. The revision of previously known taxa from Madagascar provides new important information. A new kind of ornamentation is reported for Paraostenia ambatolokobensis nov. comb., previously assigned to Ostenocaris ambatolokobensis. In addition, Ankitokazocaris acutirostris and Paraostenia ambatolokobensis are only the third and fourth thylacocephalan taxa for which possible cephalic appendages are described.  New occurrences of Thylacocephala in Nevada and Idaho, U.S.A., lead to the description of one new taxon and to the reassignement of Parisicaris triassica to Ankitokazocaris triassica nov. comb. Those occurrences provide a significant contribution to the knowledge of Thylacocephala taxonomic diversity and geographic distribution during the Early Triassic. An important revision of Early Triassic thylacocephalan taxa from Japan and China is also performed, including Ankitokazocaris chaohuensis, Ankitokazocaris parva nov. comb., Ankitokazocaris utatsuensis nov. comb. and Paraostenia sp. Overall, the taxonomic diversity of Triassic thylacocephalans has likely been slightly over-estimated (17 species before, 15 now). However, the Triassic represents the richest period in terms of thylacocephalan-bearing outcrops (19 localities from nine countries)

Influence of Workload on Auditory Evoked Potentials in a Single-stimulus Paradigm

Mental workload can be assessed via neurophysiological markers. Temporal features such as event related potentials (ERPs) are one of those which are very often described in the literature. However, most of the studies that evaluate their sensitivity to workload use secondary tasks. Yet potentials elicited by ignored stimuli could provide mental state monitoring systems with less intrusive probing methods. For instance, auditory probing systems could be used in adaptive driving or e-learning applications. This study evaluates how workload influences auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) elicited by a single-stimulus paradigm when probes are to be ignored. Ten participants performed a Sternberg memory task on a touchpad with three levels of difficulty plus a view-only condition. In addition, they performed two ecological tasks of their choice, one deemed easy (e.g. reading novels), and the other difficult (e.g. programming). AEPs were elicited thanks to pure tones presented during the memory task retention period, and during the whole extent of the external tasks. Performance and AEPs were recorded and analyzed. Participants’ accuracy decreased linearly with increasing workload, whereas the difference in amplitude between the P3 and its adjacent components, N2 and SW, increased. This reveals the relevance of this triphasic sequence for mental workload assessment

Relationship between casting modulus and grain size in cast A356 aluminium alloys

Microstructure of Al-Si alloy castings depends most generally on melt preparation and on the cooling rate imposed by the thermal modulus of the component. In the case of Al-Si alloys, emphasis is put during melt preparation on refinement of pro-eutectic (Al) grains and on modification of the Al-Si eutectic. Thermal analysis has been used since long to check melt preparation before casting, i.e. by analysis of the cooling curve during solidification of a sample cast in an instrumented cup. The conclusions drawn from such analysis are however valid for the particular cooling conditions of the cups. It thus appeared of interest to investigate how these conclusions could extrapolate to predict microstructure in complicated cast parts showing local changes in the solidification conditions. For that purpose, thermal analysis cups and instrumented sand and die castings with different thermal moduli and thus cooling rates have been made, and the whole set of cooling curves thus recorded has been analysed. A statistical analysis of the characteristic features of the cooling curves related to grain refinement in sand and die castings allowed determining the most significant parameters and expressing the cube of grain size as a polynomial of these parameters. After introduction of a further parameter quantifying melt refining an excellent correlation, with a R2 factor of 0.99 was obtained

Evaluation of Corn Response to In-Season Potassium Fertilization Using Dry Fertilizer

In-season application of potassium (K) fertilizer may offer an alternative to remediate deficiencies developed during the growing season. The objective of this study was to determine corn response to topdress K application under deficient K soil conditions. Treatments included a control and 50 lb K2O/a in-season broadcasted at the V8 growth stage. The fertilizer source was potassium chloride (KCl). Measurements collected were plant biomass and tissue nutrient concentration at reproductive stage (R6), and grain yield. Potassium fertilization increased yield at the location evaluated in this study. The in-season fertilized treatment produced higher yield compared to the control (P \u3c 0.09). The late K fertilization had higher K concentration and uptake in the plant at R6 (P \u3c 0.06) with the same plant biomass as the control treatment. Also, broadcasting KCl at V8 resulted in a higher K/Mg ratio late in the season (R6). Preliminary results of this study suggest that in-season applications using dry K fertilizers could be used when pre-plant fertilization was not done. Nevertheless, for a dry growing season, corn response might be limited