Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The low-mass companion of GQ Lup

Using NACO on the VLT in the imaging mode we have detected an object at a distance of only 0.7 arcsec from GQ Lup. The object turns out to be co-moving. We have taken two K-band spectra with a resolution of λ /Δλ = 700. In here, we analyze the spectra in detail. We show that the shape of spectrum is not spoiled by differences in the Strehl ratio in the blue and in the red part, as well as differential refraction. We reanalyze the spectra and derive the spectral type of the companion using classical methods. We find that the object has a spectral type between M9V and L4V, which corresponds to a Teff between 1600 and 2500 K. Using GAIA-dusty models, we find that the spectral type derivation is robust against different log(g )-values. The Teff derived from the models is again in the range between 1800 and 2400 K. While the models reproduce nicely the general shape of the spectrum, the 12CO lines in the spectrum have about half the depth as those in the model. We speculate that this difference might be caused by veiling, like in other objects of similar age, and spectral class. We also find that the absolute brightness of the companion matches that of other low-mass free-floating objects of similar age and spectral type. A comparison with the objects in USco observed by Mohanty et al. (2004b) shows that the companion of GQ Lup has a lower mass than any of these, as it is of later spectral type, and younger. The same is as true, for the companion of AB Pic. To have a first estimate of the mass of the object we compare the derived Teff and luminosity with those calculated from evolutionary tracks. We also point out that future instruments, like NAHUAL, will finally allow us to derive the masses of such objects more precisely. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
The RTS,S malaria vaccine: Current impact and foundation for the future

The RTS,S vaccine has recently been recommended for implementation as a childhood vaccine in regions with moderate-to-high malaria transmission. We discuss mechanisms of vaccine protection and longevity, implementation considerations, and future research needed to increase the vaccine’s health impact, including vaccine modifications for higher efficacy and longevity of protection. Description The RTS,S malaria vaccine is a new starting point for combating malaria and is a foundation for future vaccines.
APOE ε4 genotype, amyloid-β, and sex interact to predict tau in regions of high APOE mRNA expression

The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is strongly linked with cerebral β-amyloidosis, but its relationship with tauopathy is less established. We investigated the relationship between APOE ε4 carrier status, regional amyloid-β (Aβ), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumetrics, tau positron emission tomography (PET), APOE messenger RNA (mRNA) expression maps, and cerebrospinal fluid phosphorylated tau (CSF ptau181). Three hundred fifty participants underwent imaging, and 270 had ptau181. We used computational models to evaluate the main effect of APOE ε4 carrier status on regional neuroimaging values and then the interaction of ε4 status and global Aβ on regional tau PET and brain volumes as well as CSF ptau181. Separately, we also examined the additional interactive influence of sex. We found that, for the same degree of Aβ burden, APOE ε4 carriers showed greater tau PET signal relative to noncarriers in temporal regions, but no interaction was present for MRI volumes or CSF ptau181. This potentiation of tau aggregation irrespective of sex occurred in brain regions with high APOE mRNA expression, suggesting local vulnerabilities to tauopathy. There were greater effects of APOE genotype in females, although the interactive sex effects did not strongly mirror mRNA expression. Pathology is not homogeneously expressed throughout the brain but mirrors underlying biological patterns such as gene expression. Description APOE genotype modifies tau pathology in regions of high APOE mRNA expression. The genetic of tau pathology APOE ε4 allele is associated with increased risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the relationship between the APOE ε4 allele and the major hallmarks of AD pathophysiology remains to be completely elucidated. Now, Dincer et al. used imaging data, cerebrospinal fluid, and mRNA from APOE ε4 carrier and noncarrier participants and showed that APOE ε4 influenced brain Aβ, tau, and CSF ptau181. Moreover, APOE ε4 was associated with increased tau burden in regions with high APOE mRNA expression. The results suggest that the severity of brain pathology might be driven by gene expression. APOE status should be considered when evaluating disease progression and clinical trials.
The sub-galactic and nuclear main sequences for local star-forming galaxies

We describe a sub-galactic main sequence (SGMS) relating star formation rate surface density ($\Sigma_{\textrm{SFR}}$) and stellar mass density ($\Sigma_{\star}$) for distinct regions within star forming galaxies, including their nuclei. We use a sample of 246 nearby star-forming galaxies from the "Star Formation Reference Survey" and demonstrate that the SGMS holds down to $ \sim $1 kpc scales with a slope of $\alpha=0.91$ and a dispersion of 0.31 dex, similar to the well-known main sequence (MS) measured for globally integrated star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses. The SGMS slope depends on galaxy morphology, with late-type galaxies (Sc$-$Irr) having $\alpha = 0.97$ and early-type spirals (Sa$-$Sbc) having $\alpha = 0.81$. The SGMS constructed from sub-regions of individual galaxies has on average the same characteristics as the composite SGMS from all galaxies. The SGMS for galaxy nuclei shows a dispersion similar to that seen for other sub-regions. Sampling a limited range of SFR$-$M$_{\star} $ space may produce either sub-linearity or super-linearity of the SGMS slope. For nearly all galaxies, both SFR and stellar mass peak in the nucleus, indicating that circumnuclear clusters are among the most actively star-forming regions in the galaxy and the most massive. The nuclear SFR also correlates with total galaxy mass, forming a distinct sequence from the standard MS of star-formation. The nuclear main sequence will be useful for studying bulge growth and for characterizing feedback processes connecting AGN and star formation.
Predicting Stellar Angular Sizes

Reliable prediction of stellar diameters, particularly angular diameters, is a useful and necessary tool for the increasing number of milliarcsecond resolution studies being carried out in the astronomical community. A new and accurate technique of predicting angular sizes is presented for main-sequence stars, giant and supergiant stars, and more evolved sources such as carbon stars and Mira variables. This technique uses observed K and either V or B broadband photometry to predict V = 0 or B = 0 zero-magnitude angular sizes, which are then readily scaled to the apparent angular sizes with the V or B photometry. The spread in the relationship is 2.2% for main-sequence stars, 11%-12% for giant and supergiant stars, and 20%-26% for evolved sources. Compared to other simple predictions of angular size, such as linear radius-distance methods or blackbody estimates, zero-magnitude angular size predictions can provide apparent angular sizes with errors that are 2-5 times smaller.
Attentional Enhancement of Tracked Stimuli in Early Visual Cortex Has Limited Capacity

Keeping track of the location of multiple moving objects is one of the well documented functions of visual attention. However, the mechanism of attentional selection that supports such continuous tracking is unclear. In particular, it has been proposed that target selection in early visual cortex occurs in parallel, with tracking errors arising because of attentional limitations at later processing stages. Here, we examine whether, instead, total attentional capacity for enhancement of early visual processing of tracked targets is shared between all attended stimuli. If the magnitude of attentional facilitation of multiple tracked targets was a key limiting factor of tracking ability, then one should expect it to drop systematically with increasing set-size of tracked targets. Human observers (male and female) were instructed to track two, four, or six moving objects among a pool of identical distractors. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) recorded during the tracking period revealed that the processing of tracked targets was consistently amplified compared with the processing of the distractors. The magnitude of this amplification decreased with increasing set size, and at lateral occipital electrodes it closely followed inverse proportionality to the number of tracked items, suggesting that limited attentional resources must be shared among the tracked stimuli. Accordingly, the magnitude of attentional facilitation predicted the behavioral outcome at the end of the trial. Together, these findings demonstrate that the limitations of multiple object tracking (MOT) across set-sizes stem from the limitations of top-down selective attention already at the early stages of visual processing. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The ability to selectively attend to relevant features or objects is the key to flexibility of perception and action in the continuously changing environment. This ability is demonstrated in the multiple object tracking (MOT) task where observers monitor multiple independently moving objects at different locations in the visual field. The role of early attentional enhancement in tracking was previously acknowledged in the literature, however, the limitations on tracking were thought to arise during later stages of processing. Here, we demonstrate that the strength of attentional facilitation depends on the number of tracked objects and predicts successful tracking performance. Thus, it is the limitations of attentional enhancement at the early stages of visual processing that determine behavioral performance limits.
The Shear TEsting Programme 2: Factors affecting high precision weak lensing analyses

The Shear Testing Programme (STEP) is a collaborative project to improve the accuracy and reliability of weak-lensing measurement, in preparation for the next generation of wide-field surveys. We review 16 current and emerging shear-measurement methods in a common language, and assess their performance by running them (blindly) on simulated images that contain a known shear signal. We determine the common features of algorithms that most successfully recover the input parameters. A desirable goal would be the combination of their best elements into one ultimate shear-measurement method. In this analysis, we achieve previously unattained discriminatory precision via a combination of more extensive simulations and pairs of galaxy images that have been rotated with respect to each other. That removes the otherwise overwhelming noise from their intrinsic ellipticities. Finally, the robustness of our simulation approach is confirmed by testing the relative calibration of methods on real data. Weak-lensing measurements have improved since the first STEP paper. Several methods now consistently achieve better than 2 per cent precision, and are still being developed. However, we can now distinguish all methods from perfect performance. Our main concern continues to be the potential for a multiplicative shear calibration bias: not least because this cannot be internally calibrated with real data. We determine which galaxy populations are responsible for bias and, by adjusting the simulated observing conditions, we also investigate the effects of instrumental and atmospheric parameters. The simulated point spread functions are not allowed to vary spatially, to avoid additional confusion from interpolation errors. We have isolated several previously unrecognized aspects of galaxy shape measurement, in which focused development could provide further progress towards the sub-per cent level of precision desired for future surveys. These areas include the suitable treatment of image pixellization and galaxy morphology evolution. Ignoring the former effect affects the measurement of shear in different directions, leading to an overall underestimation of shear and hence the amplitude of the matter power spectrum. Ignoring the second effect could affect the calibration of shear estimators as a function of galaxy redshift, and the evolution of the lensing signal, which will be vital to measure parameters including the dark energy equation of state.
Detection of Low-energy Breaks in Gamma-Ray Burst Prompt Emission Spectra

The radiative process responsible for gamma-ray burst (GRB) prompt emission has not been identified yet. If dominated by fast-cooling synchrotron radiation, the part of the spectrum immediately below the peak energy should display a power-law behavior with slope , which breaks to a higher value (i.e., to a harder spectral shape) at lower energies. Prompt emission spectral data (usually available down to keV) are consistent with one single power-law behavior below the peak, with typical slope , higher than (and then inconsistent with) the expected value . To better characterize the spectral shape at low energy, we analyzed 14 GRBs for which the Swift X-ray Telescope started observations during the prompt. When available, Fermi-GBM observations have been included in the analysis. For 67% of the spectra, models that usually give a satisfactory description of the prompt (e.g., the Band model) fail to reproduce the 0.5–1000 keV spectra: low-energy data outline the presence of a spectral break around a few keV. We then introduce an empirical fitting function that includes a low-energy power law , a break energy , a second power law , and a peak energy . We find ( ), ( ), ( ), and ( ). The values and are very close to expectations from synchrotron radiation. In this context, corresponds to the cooling break frequency. The relatively small ratio suggests a regime of moderately fast cooling, which might solve the long-lasting problem of the apparent inconsistency between measured and predicted low-energy spectral index.
Testing the Wallace’s riverine barrier hypothesis based on frog and Squamata reptile assemblages from a tributary of the lower Amazon River

ABSTRACT The classic Wallace’s riverine barrier hypothesis (RBH) has been widely invoked to explain species distribution and evolutionary divergence throughout Amazonia. Dispersal and gene flow limited by the inability to cross a river restricts geographic distribution to an interfluvial zone, which causes different assemblage compositions between opposite river banks. In this study, we sampled frogs and Squamata reptiles along the Jari River, a tributary of the lower Amazon River, to test the RBH at assemblage level. We used non-metric multidimensional scaling based on species abundance to compare assemblage composition between river banks. We found that 63.6% of the frogs sampled are absent or occur in low abundances on one of the river banks, which resulted in distinct assemblages between banks. This finding supported the barrier-effect as a predictor of the regional frog diversity, which is remarkable, since the Jari River is considerably narrower than all the Amazonian rivers for which RHB has been supported. However, although some reptile species were restricted to one of the river banks, assemblage composition did not differ between banks. This finding suggests that the barrier-effect should not be extrapolated to other groups of organisms, since good dispersers can homogenize assemblages between river banks.
An expanded eventscape framework as the driver of attachment and loyalty to mass-participation sporting events

Abstract Mass-participation sporting events (MPSEs), or large-scale participation events, have been growing rapidly in the last two decades and have been increasingly viewed as a tourism phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of expanded eventscape on attendees’ attachment and loyalty to a long-distance running event. Survey data were collected from 466 respondents at Haikou Marathon in Hainan Island, China. The study found that physical eventscape is positively correlated with social eventscape and both are the precursors of event dependence and event identity of mass-participation running events. Furthermore, social eventscape has a far greater impact on event dependence. While both event dependence and event identity influence participants’ loyalty, event dependence has a greater impact on runners’ loyalty. this study offers practical implications for management and marketing of mass-participation sporting events (MPSEs) by demonstrating a refined understanding of the dynamics among expanded eventscape, event attachment, and event loyalty.
A Novel Scheme for Joint Error Control and Dynamic Security Coding Using Puncturing Mechanism

Reliability and confidentiality are two crucial aspects of digital wireless communications. Due to open-air communication, wireless communication is easy to be eavesdropped on. This paper proposes a scheme allowing a joint error control and dynamic security coding. This scheme consists of combining encryption and Turbo coding in only one step. The secret key derived from channel parameters between legitimate users is used as a seed for Data Encryption Standard (DES) generator and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) generators with different key lengths to generate a pseudo-random bit sequence. The pseudo-random bit sequence is used to control the puncturing mechanism in the Turbo code. The simulations are carried out in Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh channels. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme in the AES generator with a high key length outperforms the conventional Turbo code in error correction capability. Moreover, the proposed scheme allows dynamic security coding without changing the hardware structure of the transceiver devices.
A Spectroscopic Survey of Field Red Horizontal-branch Stars

A metallicity, chemical composition, and kinematic survey has been conducted for a sample of 340 candidate field red horizontal-branch (RHB) stars. Spectra with high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio were gathered with the McDonald Observatory 2.7 m Tull and the Hobby–Eberly Telescope echelle spectrographs, and were used to determine effective temperatures, surface gravities, microturbulent velocities, [Fe/H] metallicities, and abundance ratios [X/Fe] for seven α and Fe-group species. The derived temperatures and gravities confirm that at least half of the candidates are true RHB stars, with (average) parameters Teff ∼ 5000 K and log g ∼ 2.5. From the α abundances alone, the thin and thick Galactic populations are apparent in our sample. Space motions for 90% of the program stars were computed from Hipparcos and Gaia parallaxes and proper motions. Correlations between chemical compositions and Galactic kinematics clearly indicate the existence of both thin-disk and thick-disk RHB stars.
Radio and X-ray properties of the source G29.37+0.1 linked to HESS J1844-030

Fil: Castelletti, Gabriela Marta. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomia y Fisica del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomia y Fisica del Espacio; Argentina
Evolution, Explosion, and Nucleosynthesis of Core-Collapse Supernovae

We present a new set of presupernova evolutions and explosive yields of massive stars of initial solar composition (Y = 0.285, Z = 0.02) in the mass range 13-35 M☉. All the models have been computed with the latest version (4.97) of the FRANEC code that now includes a nuclear network extending from neutrons to 98Mo. The explosive nucleosynthesis has been computed twice: a first one with a hydro code and a second one following the simpler radiation-dominated shock approximation (RDA). The main results concerning the models and the associated explosions are as follows: (1) the inclusion of the latest available input physics does not alter significantly the main properties of the presupernova models with respect to our previous ones; (2) the differences between the old and new explosive yields computed with the RDA remain confined within a factor of 2 for most of the nuclei; (3) the differences between the elemental RDA yields and those computed with a hydro code do not exceed 0.1 dex, with the exceptions of the elements produced mainly by the complete explosive Si burning: in this case the variations are anyway less than a factor of 3; (4) the relation between the final kinetic energy and the 56Ni ejected weakens as the mass of the progenitor star increases; (5) the yields corresponding to the ejection of a given amount of 56Ni are in fair agreement with those obtained by a more energetic explosion in which the mass cut is chosen in order to give the same 56Ni. The production factors (integrated over a Salpeter mass function between 13 and 35 M☉) of the majority of the isotopes show an almost scaled solar distribution relative to oxygen. The few exceptions are discussed in detail. We also find that the present integrated yields allow a fraction of the order of 10%-20% of Type Ia supernovae if their latest available yields are adopted.
Decomposing Real Square Matrices via Unitary Diagonalization

Diagonalization, or eigenvalue decomposition, is very useful in many areas of applied mathematics, including signal processing and quantum physics. Matrix decomposition is also a useful tool for approximating matrices as the product of a matrix and its transpose, which relates to unitary diagonalization. As stated by the spectral theorem, only normal matrices are unitarily diagonalizable. However we show that all real square matrices are the real part of some unitarily diagonalizable matrix.
How planetary growth outperforms migration

Planetary migration is a major challenge for planet-formation theories. The speed of type-I migration is proportional to the mass of a protoplanet, while the final decade of growth of a pebble-accreting planetary core takes place at a rate that scales with the mass to the two-thirds power. This results in planetary growth tracks (i.e., the evolution of the mass of a protoplanet versus its distance from the star) that become increasingly horizontal (migration dominated) with the rising mass of the protoplanet. It has been shown recently that the migration torque on a protoplanet is reduced proportional to the relative height of the gas gap carved by the growing planet. Here we show from 1D simulations of planet–disc interaction that the mass at which a planet carves a 50% gap is approximately 2.3 times the pebble isolation mass. Our measurements of the pebble isolation mass from 1D simulations match published 3D results relatively well, except at very low viscosities (α < 10−3) where the 3D pebble isolation mass is significantly higher, possibly due to gap edge instabilities that are not captured in 1D. The pebble isolation mass demarks the transition from pebble accretion to gas accretion. Gas accretion to form gas-giant planets therefore takes place over a few astronomical units of migration after reaching first the pebble isolation mass and, shortly after, the 50% gap mass. Our results demonstrate how planetary growth can outperform migration both during core accretion and during gas accretion, even when the Stokes number of the pebbles is small, St ~ 0.01, and the pebble-to-gas flux ratio in the protoplanetary disc is in the nominal range of 0.01–0.02. We find that planetary growth is very rapid in the first million years of the protoplanetary disc and that the probability for forming gas-giant planets increases with the initial size of the protoplanetary disc and with decreasing turbulent diffusion.