If left always on, I think there is a fair chance at some point people will determine that cellular Apple Watches cause cancer. Apple should investigate this possibility and do what it can to mitigate. Airplane Mode is Your Friend For a little perspective, don’t go running with your hair on fire to throw your Apple Watch into the trash. I own an Apple Watch. I even wear it every day. However, my Apple Watch is always in Airplane mode. Why? Well, first, because then I can wear it for long periods of time without needing to recharge it—it lasts 3 days between charges in Airplane mode. Second, because I find most Apple Watch apps useless. But third, and most importantly, I believe it is inevitable that people will discover that wireless technology causes cancer. The Math of: No it Doesn’t, Yes it Does In fact, I believe that this is more a math problem than it is a debate of scientific studies. The bottom line is, the more exposed you are to RF radiation, the more likely you are to have a random DNA-bit flipped that spawns a mutation, i.e., cancerous growth. Now there have been dozens of “yes, cellphones cause cancer”, “no, cellphones do not cause cancer” studies. To me, that sounds amazingly like what happened with the tobacco industry for decades. That includes one recent study by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) that shows an increase in tumors in rats exposed to cellphone radiation (albeit at exposures which are at greater levels than most cell phone users experience). However, I think that there is something people are not paying attention to. The Apple Watch 3 now sports a cellular transceiver strapped to your arm as much as 24 hours a day. Every day. This seems beyond NTP rat-like exposure, and perhaps even beyond the long exposures that caused many Connecticut cops to contract testicular and brain cancer from their radar guns. With many radiation safety protocols, you reduce radiation injury by increasing distance, decreasing time exposed, and increasing shielding, whereas the Apple Watch seems to be doing the opposite. In my totally non-expert, non-learned, non-medically-trained, non-scientific, monkey-at-best opinion, it is a near certainty and inevitability that such constant close contact and exposure will increase the odds of a radiation-induced-DNA-bit-flip and cause cancer. [Update: Even the CDC is noting that the “International Agency for Research


Using deep infrared observations conducted with the MOIRCS on the Subaru Telescope in GOODS-N combined with public surveys in GOODS-S, we investigate the dependence on stellar mass, M_*, and galaxy type of the close pair fraction (5 kpc < r < 20 kpc) and implied merger rate. In common with some recent studies we find that the fraction of paired systems that could result in major mergers is low (~4%) and does not increase significantly with redshift to z~1.2, with (1+z)^{1.6 \pm 1.6}. Our key finding is that massive galaxies with M_* > 1E11 Msun are more likely to host merging companions than less massive systems (M_* ~ 1E10 Msun). We find evidence for a higher pair fraction for red, spheroidal hosts compared to blue, late-type systems, in line with expectations based on clustering at small scales. So-called "dry" mergers between early-type galaxies represent nearly 50% of close pairs with M_* > 3E10 Msun at z~0.5, but less than 30% at z~1. This result can be explained by the increasing abundance of red, early-type galaxies at these masses. We compare the volumetric merger rate of galaxies with different masses to mass-dependent trends in galaxy evolution, finding that major mergers cannot fully account for the formation of spheroidal galaxies since z~1. In terms of mass assembly, major mergers contribute little to galaxy growth below M_* ~ 3E10 Msun but are more significant among galaxies with M_* > 1E11 Msun, 30% of which have undergone mostly dry mergers over the observed redshift range. Overall, the relatively more rapid coalescence of high mass galaxies mirrors the expected hierarchical growth of halos and is consistent with recent model predictions, even if the downsizing of star formation and morphological evolution involves additional physical processes.


area -- just that he hadn't performed or flown there.This time around, the same prosecution team faced off against an entirely new defense team, led by celebrity attorney Tom Mesereau, who mounted a far more aggressive strategy in defending Cosby than the previous team by focusing on attacking the credibility of Constand.It remains to be seen whether that more muscular strategy will pay off or backfire.The primary difference between Cosby's first trial and his second was that at last summer's trial the judge in the case, O'Neill, allowed only one additional accuser to testify and support Constand's account, based on the prosecution's argument that it needed to show a common scheme or pattern to Cosby's alleged assault of Constand.This time around, the judge allowed five such women to take the stand.Another new element in this year's trial was O'Neill's decision to allow the testimony of Marguerite "Margo" Jackson, a former colleague of Constand's at Temple, who testified that Constand once mused about framing a celebrity. The judge had rejected her testimony in the first trial as hearsay. Constand has denied Jackson's claims.Unlike last summer, when a parade of Cosby accusers turned up inside and outside the courthouse, just three steadfast accusers -- Victoria Valentino, Therese Serignese and Lili Bernard -- sat quietly in the back of the court for virtually every moment of the lengthy pre-trial motions process, the jury selection and the trial.Cosby faces up to 10 years in prison for each count, if convicted.


The distance dependence and atomic-scale contrast observed in nominal contact potential difference (CPD) signals recorded by KPFM on surfaces of insulating and semiconducting samples, have stimulated theoretical attempts to explain such effects. We attack this problem in two steps. First, the electrostatics of the macroscopic tip-cantilever-sample system is treated by a finite-difference method on an adjustable nonuniform mesh. Then the resulting electric field under the tip apex is inserted into a series of atomistic wavelet-based density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Results are shown for a realistic neutral but reactive silicon nano-scale tip interacting with a NaCl(001) sample. Bias-dependent forces and resulting atomic displacements are computed to within an unprecedented accuracy. Theoretical expressions for amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) KPFM signals and for the corresponding local contact potential differences (LCPD) are obtained by combining the macroscopic and atomistic contributions to the electrostatic force component generated at the voltage modulation frequency, and evaluated for several tip oscillation amplitudes A up to 10 nm. Being essentially constant over a few Volts, the slope of atomistic force versus bias is the basic quantity which determines variations of the atomic-scale LCPD contrast. Already above A = 0.1 nm, the LCPD contrasts in both modes exhibit almost the same spatial dependence as the slope. In the AM mode, this contrast is approximately proportional to $A^{-1/2}$, but remains much weaker than the contrast in the FM mode, which drops somewhat faster as A is increased. These trends are a consequence of the macroscopic contributions to the KPFM signal, which are stronger in the AM-mode and especially important if the sample is an insulator even at sub-nanometer separations where atomic-scale contrast appears.


If you are looking for “edgy” art, Bill Herndon, 83, of Acton is your man. He is a custom knife-maker. Herndon’s passion for creating art in steel began at his father’s side. His father’s hobby was photography and his job was engineering. Earning a degree in engineering, he then earned a degree one in illustrative design after serving as a photographer in the U.S. military while stationed in Germany in the 1950’s. After a lifetime in photography and career of selling movie film stock in San Francisco, he retired to Acton in 1997 where he began creating custom knives in his garage. “When I first started out, I sharpened everything in sight” Herndon said. He sharpened his lawn mower blades and then quickly cut off three toes with it. Creating his own steel Herndon wipes the sweat off his face as he stands in front of the 3,000-degree furnace roaring in his back yard. He is creating a piece of “Damascus” steel, a tedious process perfected in the Third Century in India and the Middle East. The process welds thin layers of steel together and creates distinctive design patterns in a blank of steel that will become a knife blade. After removing the glowing billet of steel from the white hot mouth of the forge, borax is added to bind the layers. Then 30 tons of force is applied in the nearby press, fusing the strips into one slab of steel. After repeating the process many times, he moves the blank blade to his power hammer. Activating the six foot tall, clanking, belt driven monster with his foot, Herndon pummels the steel with 50 pounds of pressure at a deafening 250 beats per minute to coax the steel to the thickness of a knife blade. “Using the power hammer saves my old arms,” he laughs. Heating the blade again, he then taps the edge with a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil to give the blade the familiar curve of a bowie knife. Work continues in the machine shop Herndon weaves through the narrow isles between rows of grinders, band saws and drill presses in his garage. His workshop is literally “cutting edge,” with each piece of machinery focused on a specific task in creating his knives. “Don’t call it a hobby – it’s a vocation,” he said. Herndon pulls on his scratched glasses, tattered leather gloves


If budget-cutters in Washington decided to eliminate food stamps for New Yorkers, city politicians would be denouncing the cruelty of the “Republican war on the poor.” Yet Mayor de Blasio and the City Council are inflicting the same sort of pain on low-income New Yorkers by denying them access to one of the nation’s most effective anti-poverty programs: Walmart. When he was mayor, Michael Bloomberg supported Walmart’s efforts to open a store in New York, but the company faced unremitting resistance from unions and elected officials, and it gave up the fight once de Blasio moved into Gracie Mansion. “I have been adamant that I don’t think Walmart — the company, the stores — belong in New York City,” de Blasio said. Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government. How could any progressive with a conscience oppose an organization that confers such benefits? How could de Blasio and the council effectively take money out of the pockets of the poorest families in New York? Because, though they would deny it, they care a lot more about pleasing powerful labor interests, especially the United Food and Commercial Workers, which helped lead the long fight to keep Walmart out of the five boroughs. Labor activists have been spreading horror stories for more than a decade about Walmart’s purported mistreatment of workers, yet somehow they haven’t dissuaded thousands of people in other cities from lining up for jobs whenever a Walmart opens. Often there are five or 10 applicants for each job. As the economist Richard Vedder has noted, the pay at Walmart is comparable with that of other large retailers. Some argue that Walmart exerts downward pressure on retail wages, but even if that’s true — and it’s debatable — the effect is tiny compared with the savings at the cash register. According to Furman, Walmart lowered American retail workers’ pay by less than $5 billion while saving shoppers more than $250 billion with lower prices. Anti-Walmart agitators complain about the government subsidies that some of the company’s workers receive for health insurance, which, they argue, burden taxpayers.


A mobile robot represented by a point moving in the plane has to explore an unknown terrain with obstacles. Both the terrain and the obstacles are modeled as arbitrary polygons. We consider two scenarios: the unlimited vision, when the robot situated at a point p of the terrain explores (sees) all points q of the terrain for which the segment pq belongs to the terrain, and the limited vision, when we require additionally that the distance between p and q be at most 1. All points of the terrain (except obstacles) have to be explored and the performance of an exploration algorithm is measured by the length of the trajectory of the robot. For unlimited vision we show an exploration algorithm with complexity O(P + D?k), where P is the total perimeter of the terrain (including perimeters of obstacles), D is the diameter of the convex hull of the terrain, and k is the number of obstacles. We do not assume knowledge of these parameters. We also prove a matching lower bound showing that the above complexity is optimal, even if the terrain is known to the robot. For limited vision we show exploration algorithms with complexity O(P + A + ?Ak), where A is the area of the terrain (excluding obstacles). Our algorithms work either for arbitrary terrains, if one of the parameters A or k is known, or for c-fat terrains, where c is any constant (unknown to the robot) and no additional knowledge is assumed. (A terrain T with obstacles is c-fat if R/r ? c, where R is the radius of the smallest disc containing T and r is the radius of the largest disc contained in T .) We also prove a matching lower bound ?(P + A + ?Ak) on the complexity of exploration for limited vision, even if the terrain is known to the robot.


If you fired up Pokemon Go yesterday just to find that you weren't able to connect, there's one potentially good reason behind it. It appears that Google recently updated how their SafetyNet detections work, and the new changes are able to pick up some previous root-hiding methods. If you are using Magisk, the current workaround is to set it to operate in "core only" mode via settings in Magisk Manager. Magisk developer topjohnwu issued a statement on the subject earlier today, in which he waxed for a bit on the perpetual cat-and-mouse game of hiding from SafetyNet checks. He stated that he has found a workaround for the new detection policy, but to wait for the next beta. It appears that the most likely method for detection now is app based. Rather than checking if su is present when it shouldn't be or if it can be invoked, it appears that Google might just be checking to see if a root manager application is installed. It's such a simple check that it's difficult to prevent since any app can call up a list of apps on the device, and technically it doesn't even check if a device has been modified or tampered with since a root manager can be present without having root. He could easily fix that by simply tweaking the name of his application, but that's not an ideal fix, as detection could just as easily change the name it looks for. Chainfire's suhide seems to be able to escape package name detection for the time being, as it uses another method to work, though the downloads page for suhide says it isn't currently working. So in the meantime, if you've been hiding root, right now you'll have to move Magisk over into core only mode for the time being if you still want to pass SafetyNet checks. We've reached out to topjohnwu for more information about a future workaround for the SafetyNet changes, or a release schedule for any fixes, and we will add any relevant information to this post when we get it.


31, 2013. (2) Expansion of election to accelerate amt credits in lieu of bonus depreciation.-- (A) In general.--The amendment made by subsection (c) (other than so much of such amendment as relates to section 168(k)(4)(D)(iii) of such Code, as added by such amendment) shall apply to taxable years ending after December 31, 2013. (B) Transitional rule.--In the case of a taxable year beginning before January 1, 2014, and ending after December 31, 2013, the bonus depreciation amount determined under section 168(k)(4) of such Code for such year shall be the sum of-- (i) such amount determined without regard to the amendments made by this section and-- (I) by taking into account only property placed in service before January 1, 2014, and (II) by multiplying the limitation under section 168(k)(4)(C)(ii) of such Code (determined without regard to the amendments made by this section) by a fraction the numerator of which is the number of days in the taxable year before January 1, 2014, and the denominator of which is the number of days in the taxable year, and (ii) such amount determined after taking into account the amendments made by this section and-- (I) by taking into account only property placed in service after December 31, 2013, and (II) by multiplying the limitation under section 168(k)(4)(B)(ii) of such Code (as amended by this section) by a fraction the numerator of which is the number of days in the taxable year after December 31, 2013, and the denominator of which is the number of days in the taxable year. (3) Technical amendment.--The amendment made by subsection (e) shall take effect as if included in the provision of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 to which it relates.


We present a {\it Chandra} observation of IRAS 19254--7245, a nearby ULIRG also known as {\it the Superantennae}. The high spatial resolution of {\it Chandra} allows us to disentangle for the first time the diffuse starburst emission from the embedded Compton-thick AGN. The 2-10 keV spectrum of the AGN emission is fitted by a flat power-law $\Gamma=1.3$) and a He-like Fe K$\alpha$ line with EW$\sim$1.5 keV, consistent with previous observations. The Fe K$\alpha$ line profile could be resolved as a blend of a neutral 6.4 keV line and an ionized 6.7 keV (He-like) or 6.9 keV (H-like) line. Variability is detected compared with the previous {\it XMM-Newton} and {\it suzaku} observations, demonstrating the compact size of the iron line emission. We fit the spectrum of the galaxy-scale extended emission excluding the AGN and other bright point sources with a soft thermal component with kT~0.8 keV. The luminosity of the extended emission is about one order of magnitude lower than that of the AGN. The basic physical and structural properties of the extended emission are fully consistent with a galactic wind being driven by the starburst (no contribution to the feedback by the AGN is required). A candidate ultra-luminous X-ray source is detected 8\arcsec\ south of the southern nucleus. The 0.3-10 keV luminosity of this off-nuclear point source is ~$6\times 10^{40}$ erg s$^{-1}$ if the emission is isotropic and the source is associated with the Superantennae.


If you were hoping to snag a ticket to Easton's most celebrity-packed retirement party, you might be out of luck. The State Theatre announced Monday that "Boak's Bash," the Jan. 6 tribute concert for C.F. Martin and Co.'s retiring Director of Museum and Archives Dick Boak, sold out before tickets became available to the general public. The show, first announced on Dec. 4, is slated to feature Boak's celebrity friends and clients like iconic blues rocker Steve Miller and blues/pop star John Mayer. State Theatre members did get a chance to grab a seat: Tickets, which cost $85 to $184, went on sale to the venue's members on Tuesday, Dec. 5. But the sale for the general public, which had been announced for Dec. 12 at 10 a.m., has been scrapped because of the sell-out. In the initial announcement for the show, the State Theatre cautioned that "limited tickets" had been made available to the venue for the event. Other stars scheduled to appear at the event include country legend Marty Stuart, former Wings lead guitarist Laurence Juber, former Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, singer-songwriter David Bromberg, local musician Craig Thatcher and guitarist Trevor Gordon Hall. Boak earned these high-profile fans throughout a career at Martin Guitar that spanned four decades and included a number of different roles. He is known for launching the company's signature guitar series. A retrospective art show looking back on Boak's career in the State Theatre's Easton Hospital Gallery will accompany the concert. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the State Theatre. Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.


We combine the CfA3 supernova Type Ia (SN Ia) sample with samples from the literature to calculate improved constraints on the dark energy equation of state parameter, w. The CfA3 sample is added to the Union set of Kowalski et al. (2008) to form the Constitution set and, combined with a BAO prior, produces 1+w=0.013 +0.066/-0.068 (0.11 syst), consistent with the cosmological constant. The CfA3 addition makes the cosmologically-useful sample of nearby SN Ia between 2.6 and 2.9 times larger than before, reducing the statistical uncertainty to the point where systematics play the largest role. We use four light curve fitters to test for systematic differences: SALT, SALT2, MLCS2k2 (R_V=3.1), and MLCS2k2 (R_V=1.7). SALT produces high-redshift Hubble residuals with systematic trends versus color and larger scatter than MLCS2k2. MLCS2k2 overestimates the intrinsic luminosity of SN Ia with 0.7 < Delta < 1.2. MLCS2k2 with R_V=3.1 overestimates host-galaxy extinction while R_V=1.7 does not. Our investigation is consistent with no Hubble bubble. We also find that, after light-curve correction, SN Ia in Scd/Sd/Irr hosts are intrinsically fainter than those in E/S0 hosts by 2 sigma, suggesting that they may come from different populations. We also find that SN Ia in Scd/Sd/Irr hosts have low scatter (0.1 mag) and reddening. Current systematic errors can be reduced by improving SN Ia photometric accuracy, by including the CfA3 sample to retrain light-curve fitters, by combining optical SN Ia photometry with near-infrared photometry to understand host-galaxy extinction, and by determining if different environments give rise to different intrinsic SN Ia luminosity after correction for light-curve shape and color.


if there is no display, at the point of sale. Such information shall also include information on recycling old televisions and other consumer electronics. ``(3) Other devices.--For devices other than television sets that are included in section 303(s) and that contain an analog tuner, but not a digital tuner, the Commission shall require the clear and conspicuous placement of a comparable consumer advisory label on such devices, as well as on the outside of the retail packaging of such devices. ``(4) Additional disclosures.-- ``(A) Announcements and notices required.--From November 1, 2007, through March 31, 2009-- ``(i) each television broadcaster shall air, at a minimum, 120 seconds per day of public service announcements between the hours of 6 a.m. and 11:35 p.m., at variable time slots throughout the week, with at least half aired between the hours of 5 p.m. and 11:35 p.m.; and ``(ii) any multichannel video program distributor shall include a notice in or with each periodic bill. ``(B) Content of announcements and notices.--The announcements and notices required by this paragraph shall educate consumers about the deadline for termination of analog television broadcasting and the equipment options consumers have after such termination. Announcements aired and notices distributed after January 1, 2008, shall also educate consumers about the need for and availability of the converter box voucher program and the steps to redeem the voucher. ``(5) Advisory committee.-- ``(A) Establishment.--The Commission shall, after consultation with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, create a DTV Transition Federal Advisory Committee to lead the effort to educate the public about the digital television transition and to ensure that the public knows the information described in paragraph (3)(B). Such consumer education shall commence no later than September 1, 2007. ``(B) Composition.--The committee shall be composed of representatives from the following groups: commercial broadcasters, noncommercial broadcasters, cable operators, satellite providers, retailers and manufacturers of consumer electronics equipment, electronic recyclers, minority groups, Hispanic Americans, Americans whose primary language is not English, Americans with disabilities, Americans living in rural communities, general business, senior citizens, commercial advertising, and consumers in general. ``(C) Advisory committee role.--The committee shall-- ``(i) develop a comprehensive education plan for consumers regarding the digital television transition which includes-- ``(I) specific and targeted messages to reach


We calculate the masses of bottom mesons using an improved relativistic action for the b-quarks and the RBC/UKQCD Iwasaki gauge configurations with 2+1 flavors of dynamical domain-wall light quarks. We analyze configurations with two lattice spacings: a^{-1} = 1.729 GeV (a ~ 0.11 fm) and a^{-1} = 2.281 GeV (a ~ 0.086 fm). We use an anisotropic, clover-improved Wilson action for the b-quark, and tune the three parameters of the action nonperturbatively such that they reproduce the experimental values of the B_s and B_s* heavy-light meson states. The masses and mass-splittings of the low-lying bottomonium states (such as the eta_b and Upsilon) can then be computed with no additional inputs, and comparison between these predictions and experiment provides a test of the validity of our method. We obtain bottomonium masses with total uncertainties of ~0.5-0.6% and fine-structure splittings with uncertainties of ~35-45%; for all cases we find good agreement with experiment. The parameters of the relativistic heavy-quark action tuned for b-quarks presented in this work can be used for precise calculations of weak matrix elements such as B-meson decay constants and mixing parameters with lattice discretization errors that are of the same size as in light pseudoscalar meson quantities. This general method can also be used for charmed meson masses and matrix elements if the parameters of the heavy-quark action are appropriately tuned.


The article was published electronically by a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers did some mathematical modeling and computer simulations to determine how likely people were to come close to a hypothetical infectious passenger sitting in an aisle seat on the 14th row of a single-aisle airplane. They concluded that on average, only one person on a flight of about 150 passengers would be infected. Researchers who were not involved said it would be difficult to use the relatively small study to make any general conclusions about the risks of an airline passenger getting a cold or flu, let alone other diseases like measles or tuberculosis. But it’s a novel study about a subject that hasn’t been well researched, they said. Studies have looked at how respiratory viruses spread in labs and in homes, but “this is the first time I’ve seen it done for airplanes,” said Seema Lakdawala, a University of Pittsburgh biologist who studies how flu spreads. She and others not involved in the research were intrigued by the study’s findings about how people moved about the cabin and came in contact with each other. It found: About 38 percent of passengers never left their seat, 38 percent left once, 13 percent left twice, and 11 percent left more than twice. Not surprisingly, a lot of the people getting up had an aisle seat. About 80 percent of people sitting on the aisle moved at least once during their flights, compared with 62 percent in middle seats and 43 percent in window seats. The 11 people sitting closest to a person with a cold or flu are at the highest risk. That included two people sitting to their left, the two to their right, and people in the row immediately in front of them and those in the row behind. A lot of frequent fliers will be interested in the study’s results, said Edward Pizzarello, an investor in a Washington-area venture-capital firm who also writes a travel blog. “It’s absolutely a fear I hear from people all the time. They just believe that they’re going to get sick from going on an airplane, or they got sick from being on an airplane,” he said. Pizzarello said he’s an aisle person, because he doesn’t want to feel trapped in the window seat if he needs to get up. Will he now go for the window? Maybe, he said, if a sick person sits next to him.


Low temperature specific heat, C, in magnetic fields up to Hc2 is reported for underdoped Ba(Fe0.955Co0.045)2As2 (Tc=8 K) and for three overdoped samples Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 (x=0.103, 0.13, and 0.15, Tc=17.2, 16.5, and 11.7 K respectively). Previous measurements of thermal conductivity (as a function of temperature and field) and penetration depth on comparable composition samples gave some disagreement as to whether there was fully gapped/nodal behavior in the under-/overdoped materials respectively. The present work shows that the measured behavior of the specific heat gamma (proportional to C/T as T->0, i. e. a measure of the electronic density of states at the Fermi energy) as a function of field approximately obeys gamma proportional to H**(0.5 +- 0.1), similar to the Volovik effect for nodal superconductors, for both the underdoped and the most overdoped Co samples. However, for the two overdoped compositions x=0.103 and 0.13, the low field (H < 10 T) data show a Volovik-like behavior of gamma proportional to H**(0.3-0.4), followed by an inflection point, followed at higher fields by gamma proportional to H**1. We argue that within the 2-band theory of superconductivity, an inflection point may occur if the interband coupling is dominant.


We present the first results from a near-IR spectroscopic campaign of the Cl1604 supercluster at z~0.9 and the cluster RX J1821.6+6827 at z~0.82 to investigate the nature of [OII] 3727A emission in cluster galaxies at high redshift. Of the 401 members in the two systems, 131 galaxies have detectable [OII] emission with no other signs of current star-formation, as well as strong absorption features indicative of a well-established older stellar population. The combination of these features suggests that the primary source of [OII] emission in these galaxies is not the result of star-formation, but rather due to the presence of a LINER or Seyfert component. Using the NIRSPEC spectrograph on the Keck II 10-m telescope, 19 such galaxies were targeted, as well as six additional [OII]-emitting cluster members that exhibited other signs of ongoing star-formation. Nearly half (~47%) of the 19 [OII]-emitting, absorption-line dominated galaxies exhibit [OII] to Ha equivalent width ratios higher than unity, the typical value for star-forming galaxies. A majority (~68%) of these 19 galaxies are classified as LINER/Seyfert based on the emission-line ratio of [NII] and Ha, increasing to ~85% for red [OII]-emitting, absorption-line dominated galaxies. The LINER/Seyfert galaxies exhibit L([OII])/L(Ha) ratios significantly higher than that observed in populations of star-forming galaxies, suggesting that [OII] is a poor indicator of star-formation in a large fraction of high-redshift cluster members. We estimate that at least ~20% of galaxies in high-redshift clusters contain a LINER/Seyfert component that can be revealed with line ratios. We also investigate the effect this population has on the star formation rate of cluster galaxies and the post-starburst fraction, concluding that LINER/Seyferts must be accounted for if these quantities are to be meaningful.


If there’s one thing casual photographers are guilty of, it’s leaving their images on a memory card. Sure, memory card capacities are so large that you may never have to offload them, but they end up becoming digital graveyards for your photos and videos. Canon has created a new device, called the Connect Station, that’s designed to put all that content on the big screen, and share it. The company debuted the new product category at the 2015 International CES Show. First previewed at Photokina in 2014 (codenamed Cross Media Station), the Connect Station CS100 ($300) is essentially a network-attached storage (NAS) device, a 1TB portable hard drive connected to a home network that lets you archive, display, and share images and videos taken with a digital camera and camcorder. Updated on February 14, 2017: Canon issued a firmware update that adds support for non-Canon cameras, improves smartphone compatibility, and allows for playback of videos that have been edited on a computer, making the device a bit more flexible. Updated on July 14, 2016: Canon released a new mobile app for the CS100 that would allow users to view and back-up images from their phones or tablets. This article, originally published on January 5, 2015, has been updated to reflect the changes. The idea for such a product isn’t new, as there are other similar media storage and sharing drives available (in fact, Canon had a prototype of it five years ago, although that early version used different technologies). But the CS100, with near-field communication (NFC) and Wi-Fi built in, was designed to help Canon camera and camcorder owners get content off their media cards and give them a viewing experience they can enjoy. The CS100 is a standalone product that doesn’t require a computer to function, although it does need to be connected to a TV in order to view content and menus; it supports Full HD displays via HDMI. To add content, you can transfer photos and videos wirelessly from Wi-Fi-enabled Canon cameras and camcorders (NFC helps to facilitate the pairing and download processes quickly); directly off an SD or Compact Flash card through the built-in card reader; or from a compatible camera or flash drive through the USB port. Although it uses the 802.11n Wi-Fi protocol, it’s much faster to insert a memory card. The CS100 also


We take deep images of four ultra faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies, Canes Venatici I (CVn I), Bootes I (Boo I), Canes Venatici II (CVn II), and Leo IV using the Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. The colour-magitude diagrams (CMDs) extend below the main sequence turn-offs (MSTOs) and yield measurements of the ages of stellar populations. The stellar populations of faint three galaxies, Boo I, CVn II and Leo IV dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are estimated as old as a Galactic globular cluster M92. We confirm that Boo I dSph has no intrinsic colour spread in the MSTO, and no spatial difference in the CMD morphology, which indicates that Boo I dSph is composed of an old single stellar population. One of the brightest UFDs, CVn I dSph, shows a relatively younger age (-12.6 Gyr) with respect to Boo I, CVn II, and Leo IV dSphs, and the distribution of red horizontal branch (HB) stars is more concentrated toward the centre than that of blue HB stars, suggesting that the galaxy contains complex stellar populations. Boo I and CVn I dSphs show the elongated and distorted shapes. CVn II dSph has the smallest tidal radius as a Milky Way satellite and has distorted shape, while Leo IV dSph shows less concentrated spherical shape. The simple stellar population of faint UFDs indicates that the gases in their progenitors were removed more effectively than those of brighter dSphs at an occurrence of their initial star formation. This is reasonable if the progenitors of UFDs belong to the less massive halos than those of brighter dSphs.


This work provides a statistical analysis of the massive star binary characteristics in the Cygnus OB2 Association using radial velocity information of 114 B3-O3 primary stars and orbital properties for the 24 known binaries. We compare these data to a series of Monte Carlo simulations to infer the intrinsic binary fraction and distributions of mass ratios, periods, and eccentricities. We model the distribution of mass ratio, log-period, and eccentricity as power-laws and find best fitting indices of alpha=0.1+/-0.5, beta=0.2+/-0.4, and gamma=-0.6+/-0.3 respectively. These distributions indicate a preference for massive companions, short periods, and low eccentricities. Our analysis indicates that the binary fraction of the cluster is 44+/-8% if all binary systems are (artificially) assumed to have P<1000 days; if the power-law period distribution is extrapolated to 10^4 years, a plausible upper limit for bound systems, the binary fraction is ~90+/-10%. Of these binary (or higher order) systems, ~45% will have companions close enough to interact during pre- or post-main-sequence evolution (semi-major axis ~/<4.7 AU). The period distribution for P<27 days is not well reproduced by any single power-law owing to an excess of systems with periods around 3-5 days (0.08-0.31 AU) and a relative shortage of systems with periods around 7-14 days (0.14-0.62 AU). We explore the idea that these longer-period systems evolved to produce the observed excess of short-period systems. The best fitting binary parameters imply that secondaries generate, on average, ~16% of the V-band light in young massive populations. This means that photometrically based distance measurements for young massive clusters & associations will be systematically low by ~8% (0.16 mag in the distance modulus) if the luminous contributions of unresolved secondaries are not taken into account.


of 2003, is amended to read as follows: ``(3) Qualifying plan defined.--For purposes of this section, the term `qualifying plan' means a prescription drug plan offered by a PDP sponsor.''. SEC. 6. REPEAL OF MA REGIONAL PLAN STABILIZATION FUND. (a) In General.--Section 1858 of the Social Security Act, as added by section 221(c) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, is amended-- (1) by striking subsection (e); (2) by redesignating subsections (f), (g), and (h) as subsections (e), (f), and (g), respectively; and (3) in subsection (e), as so redesignated, by striking ``subject to subsection (e),''. (b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 1851(i)(2) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395w-21(i)(2)), as amended by section 221(d)(5) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, is amended by striking ``1858(h)'' and inserting ``1858(g)''. SEC. 7. REPEAL OF HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS. Section 1201 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, and the amendments made by such section, are repealed. SEC. 8. EFFECTIVE DATE. (a) In General.--The amendments made by this Act shall take effect as if included in the enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. (b) Application of Laws.--If any amendment to any provision of any Act is repealed by this Act, such provision shall be applied and administered as if the amendment had never been enacted.


Using a one-dimensional height integrated model, we calculate the evolution of an unequal mass binary black hole with a coplanar gas disk that contains a gap due to the presence of the secondary black hole. Viscous evolution of the outer circumbinary disk initially hardens the binary, while the inner disk drains onto the primary (central) black hole. As long as the inner disk remains cool and thin at low $\dot{M}_{\rm ext}$ (rather than becoming hot and geometrically thick), the mass of the inner disk reaches an asymptotic mass typically $\sim 10^{-3}-10^{-4}\Msun$. Once the semimajor axis shrinks below a critical value, angular momentum losses from gravitational waves dominate over viscous transport in hardening the binary. The inner disk then no longer responds viscously to the inspiraling black holes. Instead, tidal interactions with the secondary rapidly drive the inner disk into the primary. Tidal and viscous dissipation in the inner disk lead to a late time brightening in luminosity $L\propto t_{\rm minus}^{5/4}$, where $t_{\rm minus}$ is the time prior to the final merger. This late time brightening peaks $\sim 1$ day prior to the final merger at $\sim 0.1 L_{\rm Edd}$. This behavior is relatively robust because of self regulation in the coupled viscous-gravitational evolution of such binary systems. It constitutes a unique electromagnetic signature of a binary supermassive black hole merger and may allow the host galaxy to be identified if used in conjunction with the Laser Interferometric Space Antenna (LISA) localization.


if applicable), adjusted under section 8462. ``(3) A reduction under this section-- ``(A) shall become effective as of the effective date of the election under subsection (b) or (c) of section 8416 or section 8417(b), as the case may be; ``(B) shall not be terminated on account of a change in marital status or for any other reason; and ``(C) shall be in addition to any reduction under section 8419(a) or 8420. ``(c) Subsections (a) and (b) shall not apply with respect to an election under section 8416 or 8417(b) if-- ``(1) the employee or Member makes such election after having made an election under section 8420; and ``(2) the election under section 8420 becomes void under section 8416 (b)(3) or (c)(2). ``(d) That the total amount withheld under this section from the annuity of an employee or Member, as of time of death or other annuity- terminating event, is less than the amount described in subsection (a) (including interest) shall not affect either the entitlement of such employee's or Member's survivor to receive the annuity elected for such survivor under section 8416 (b) or (c) or section 8417 (as the case may be) or the amount of such survivor annuity.''. (b) Technical and Conforming Amendments.--(1) Section 8416(b)(2) of title 5, United States Code, is amended by striking ``be effective'' and inserting ``become effective''. (2) The first sentence of section 8416(c)(2) of title 5, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``The election and reduction shall become effective the first day of the second month after the election is received by the Office, but not less than 9 months after the date of the marriage.''. (3) Section 8417(b)(2) of title 5, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``(2) An election under this subsection-- ``(A) shall be made at the time of retirement or, if the marriage is dissolved after the date of retirement, within 2 years after the date on which the marriage of the former spouse to the employee or Member is dissolved; and ``(B) shall become effective the first day


Supernovae Ib/c are likely to be associated to long GRBs, therefore it is important to compare the SN rate in galaxies with the GRB rate. To do that we computed Type Ib/c SN rates in galaxies of different morphological type by assuming different histories of star formation and different supernova Ib/c progenitors. We included some recent suggestions about the dependence of the minimum mass of single Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars upon the stellar metallicity and therefore upon galactic chemical evolution. We adopted several cosmic star formation rates as functions of cosmic time, either observationally or theoretically derived, including the one computed with our galaxy models. Then we computed the cosmic Type Ib/c SN rates. We derived the following conclusions: i) the ratio cosmic GRB - Type Ib/c rate varies in the range 10^{-2}-10^{-4} in the whole redshift range, thus suggesting that only a small fraction of all the Type Ib/c SNe gives rise to GRBs. ii) The metallicity dependence of Type Ib/c SN progenitors produces lower cosmic SN Ib/c rates at early times, for any chosen cosmic star formation rate. iii) Different theoretical cosmic star formation rates, computed under different scenarios of galaxy formation, produce SN Ib/c cosmic rates which differ mainly at very high redshift. However, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions on the high redshift trend because of the large uncertainties in the data. iv) GRBs can be important tracers of star formation at high redshift if their luminosity function does not vary with redshift and they can help in discriminating among different galaxy formation models.


We have studied formation of planetesimals at a radial pressure bump in a protoplanetary disk created by radially inhomogeneous magnetorotational instability (MRI), through three-dimensional resistive MHD simulations including dust particles. In our previous papers, we showed that the inhomogeneous MRI developing in non-uniform structure of magnetic field or magnetic resistivity can transform the local gas flow in the disk to a quasi-steady state with local rigid rotation that is no more unstable against the MRI. Since the outer part of the rigid rotation is super-Keplerian flow, a quasi-static pressure bump is created and dust concentration is expected there. In this paper, we perform simulations of the same systems, adding dust particles that suffer gas drag and modulate gas flow via the back-reaction of the gas drag (dust drag). We use O(10^7) super-particles, each of which represents many dust particles with sizes of centimeter to meter. We have found that the dust drag suppresses turbulent motion to decrease the velocity dispersion of the dust particles while it broadens the dust concentrated regions to limit peaky dust concentration, compared with the simulation without the dust drag. We found that reduction in the velocity dispersion) is dominated over the suppression in particle concentration. For meter-size particles with the friction time ~1/Omega, where Omega is Keplerian frequency, the gravitational instability of the dust particles that may lead to planetesimal formation is expected. For such a situation, we further introduced the self-gravity of dust particles to the simulation to demonstrate that several gravitationally bound clumps are actually formed. Through analytical arguments, we found that the planetesimal formation from meter-sized dust particles can be possible at ~5AU, if dust spatial density is a few times larger than that in the minimum mass solar nebula.


The possibility of inducing topological superconductivity with cuprate high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) is studied for various heterostructures. We first consider a ballistic planar junction between a HTSC and a metallic ferromagnet. We assume that inversion symmetry breaking at the tunnel barrier gives rise to Rashba spin-orbit coupling in the barrier and allows equal-spin triplet superconductivity to exist in the ferromagnet. Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations are obtained by explicitly modeling the barrier, and taking account of the transport anisotropy in the HTSC. By making use of the self-consistent boundary conditions and solutions for the barrier and HTSC regions, an effective equation of motion for the ferromagnet is obtained where Andreev scattering at the barrier is incorporated as a boundary condition for the ferromagnetic region. For a ferromagnet layer deposited on a (100) facet of the HTSC, triplet p-wave superconductivity is induced. For the layer deposited on a (110) facet, the induced gap does not have the p-wave orbital character, but has an even orbital symmetry and an odd dependence on energy. For the layer on the (001) facet, an exotic f-wave superconductivity is induced. We also consider the induced triplet gap in a one-dimensional half-metallic nanowire deposited on a (001) facet of a HTSC. We find that for a wire axis along the a-axis, a robust triplet p-wave gap is induced. For a wire oriented 45 degrees away from the a-axis the induced triplet p-wave gap vanishes. For the appropriately oriented wire, the induced p-wave gap should give rise to Majorana fermions at the ends of the half-metallic wire. Based on our result, topological superconductivity in a semi-conductor nanowire may also be possible given that it is oriented along the a-axis of the HTSC.


SGR 0418+5729 is a transient Soft Gamma-ray Repeater which underwent a major outburst in June 2009, during which the emission of short bursts was observed. Its properties appeared quite typical of other sources of the same class until long-term X-ray monitoring failed to detect any period derivative. The present upper limit on $\dot P$ implies that the surface dipole field is $B_p\lesssim 7.5\times 10^{12}\ {\rm G}$ (Rea et al 2010), well below those measured in other Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) and in the Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs), a group of similar sources. Both SGRs and AXPs are currently believed to be powered by ultra-magnetized neutron stars (magnetars, $B_p\approx 10^{14}$--$10^{15}\ {\rm G}$). SGR 0418+5729 hardly seems to fit in such a picture. We show that the magneto-rotational properties of SGR 0418+5729 can be reproduced if this is an aged magnetar, $\approx 1\ {\rm Myr}$ old, which experienced substantial field decay. The large initial toroidal component of the internal field required to match the observed properties of SGR 0418+5729 ensures that crustal fractures, and hence bursting activity, can still occur at present time. The thermal spectrum observed during the outburst decay is compatible with the predictions of a resonant compton scattering model (as in other SGRs/AXPs) if the field is low and the magnetospheric twist moderate.


If you know anything about Odyssey already, it’s probably that it’s the Mario game with actual humans in it. These people - as opposed to whatever kind of being the moustached one is - all reside in New Donk City: which marries New York with a litany of Donkey Kong references both obvious and obscure. For example, the mayor of city is the same Pauline that Jumpman (a.k.a. Mario) tried to rescue way back in 1981. While we didn’t catch sight of ol’ DK himself, it seems impossible that he won’t turn up in the final game. In the meantime, we were contented ourselves with collecting Power Moons that fuel Mario’s ship - the Odyssey - and further his quest to rescue the kidnapped Princess Peach from Bowser planned wedding to her. While it’s a shame that the most revolutionary Mario game yet is still happy to stick with Peach as a damsel-in-distress, the idea of scattering a load of collectables across one huge world is a good one. Even in our brief time with Odyssey, we found loads Power Moons scattered around New Donk City. From secret levels below manholes to the top of the Empire State Building, this game makes a great effort to reward your curiosity and the same went for our time in the sunny climes of the Sand Kingdom. That you can go from playing an 8-bit, 2D side-scrolling section to leaping about on a Sphinx-like taxi called a Jaxi in the space of a minute speaks volumes of the creativity that’s been crammed into the game. Better still, each world we delved into had its own unique art style and challenges. Rather than sticking to the usual formula of fire world, ice world, water world, it seems as though Nintendo has done its utmost to break conventions and confound expectations. Having gone into our time with Odyssey with some degree of suspicion how everything would fit together, we came out of it wanting to see just how ludicrous it might get.


The magnetic flux periodicity in superconducting loops is reviewed. Whereas quantization of the magnetic flux with hc/2e prevails in sufficiently thick loops with current free interior, the supercurrent in narrow loops is either hc/2e or hc/e periodic with the external magnetic flux. The periodicity depends on the properties of the condensate state, in particular on the Doppler shift of the energy spectrum. For an s-wave superconductor in a loop with diameter larger than the coherence length, the Doppler shift is small with respect to the energy gap, and the hc/2e periodic behavior of its flux dependent thermodynamic properties is maintained. However, for smaller s-wave loops and, more prominently, narrow d-wave loops of any diameter R, the Doppler shift has a strong effect on the supercurrent carrying state; as a consequence, the fundamental flux periodicity is in fact hc/e. It is shown analytically and numerically that the hc/e periodic component in the supercurrent decays only algebraically as 1/R for large d-wave loops. For nodal superconductors the discrete nature of the eigenergies close to the Fermi energy has to be respected in the evaluation of the Doppler shift. Furthermore, we investigate, whether the Doppler shift modifies the supercurrent through Josephson junctions with d-wave superconductors. For transparent junctions, the Josephson current behaves similar to the persistent supercurrent in a loop. These distinct physical phenomena can be compared, if the magnetic flux in units of hc/e is identified with the phase variation of the order parameter divided by 4 pi.


If you're after a computer close to the size of the tiny Raspberry Pi but approaching the power of the MacBook, then you may want to check out the LattePanda Alpha. However, it's worth noting the LattePanda Alpha is not a Pi competitor. While the Pi costs just $35, the LattePanda Alpha starts at $289. The difference is reflected in the specs, with the LattePanda Alpha having more in common with a laptop than a low-cost board like the Pi. The LattePanda Alpha uses the same class of Intel processor as found in this year's 12-inch MacBook, a 7th generation, Intel Core m3. Backing up this processor is 8GB of DDR3 memory and 64GB Flash storage, alongside Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, 4K video out. While the board's makers DFRobot say the Alpha will ship with Windows 10 Pro, they add it will also be compatible with a range of Linux-based OSes. The board—which is about 70% the length of the iPhone 7 Plus—is designed to be used to be used by developers working in a wide range of fields, from robotics to internet of things, and as such has the necessary electronics for adding a wide-range of custom hardware to the board. SEE: Hardware spotlight: The Raspberry Pi The Alpha has 2 x 50-Pin headers for hooking up hardware, as well as an Arduino Leonardo co-processor. Alongside the Alpha, the board's makers will also release a version of the board without the eMMC storage for $269, as well as the lower-specced LattePanda Delta, which starts at $129. The Delta runs on an Intel Celeron N4100 processor, has 4GB of RAM but still keeps many of the advantages of the Alpha board, such as 802.11ac Wi-Fi and 3 x USB 3.0 ports. Both boards are being crowdfunded via Kickstarter, and as of publication have passed their £72,611 funding target, with just shy of £97,000 raised with 56 days left to go. DFRobot estimate that the boards, which are also available with a 7-inch touchscreen display, will ship in May next year. It is not the first Windows 10-based, developer board


Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric orbits of exoplanetary systems via both analytical formulae and numerical modeling. Exoplanets have a combination of reflected and thermally emitted light that cause the photocenter of the system to shift increasingly farther away from the host star with increasing wavelength. We find that, if observed at long enough wavelengths, the planet can dominate the astrometric motion of the system, and thus it is possible to directly measure the orbits of both the planet and star, and thus directly determine the physical masses of the star and planet, using multi-wavelength astrometry. In general, this technique works best for, though is certainly not limited to, systems that have large, high-mass stars and large, low-mass planets, which is a unique parameter space not covered by other exoplanet characterization techniques. Exoplanets that happen to transit their host star present unique cases where the physical radii of the planet and star can be directly determined via astrometry alone. Planetary albedos and day-night contrast ratios may also be probed via this technique due to the unique signature they impart on the observed astrometric orbits. We develop a tool to examine the prospects for near-term detection of this effect, and give examples of some exoplanets that appear to be good targets for detection in the K to N infrared observing bands, if the required precision can be achieved.


We investigate the quantitative constraint on the triple-alpha reaction rate based on stellar evolution theory, motivated by the recent significant revision of the rate proposed by nuclear physics calculations. Targeted stellar models were computed in order to investigate the impact of that rate in the mass range of 0.8 < M / Msun < 25 and in the metallicity range between Z = 0 and Z = 0.02. The revised rate has a significant impact on the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, while its influence on the evolution of massive stars (M >~ 10 Msun) is minimal. We find that employing the revised rate suppresses helium shell flashes on AGB phase for stars in the initial mass range 0.8 < M / Msun < 6, which is contradictory to what is observed. The absence of helium shell flashes is due to the weak temperature dependence of the revised triple-alpha reaction cross section at the temperature involved. In our models, it is suggested that the temperature dependence of the cross section should have at least nu > 10 at T = 1 - 1.2 x 10^8 K where the cross section is proportional to T^{nu}. We also derive the helium ignition curve to estimate the maximum cross section to retain the low-mass first red giants. The semi-analytically derived ignition curves suggest that the reaction rate should be less than ~ 10^{-29} cm^6 s^{-1} mole^{-2} at ~ 10^{7.8} K, which corresponds to about three orders of magnitude larger than that of the NACRE compilation. In an effort to compromise with the revised rates, we calculate and analyze models with enhanced CNO cycle reaction rates to increase the maximum luminosity of the first giant branch. However, it is impossible to reach the typical RGB tip luminosity even if all the reaction rates related to CNO cycles are enhanced by more than ten orders of magnitude.


If the activity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is predominantly induced by major galaxy mergers, then a significant fraction of AGNs should harbor binary massive black holes in their centers. We study the mass function of binary massive black holes in nearby AGNs based on the observed AGN black-hole mass function and theory of evolution of binary massive black holes interacting with a massive circumbinary disk in the framework of coevolution of massive black holes and their host galaxies. The circumbinary disk is assumed to be steady, axisymmetric, geometrically thin, self-regulated, self-gravitating but non-fragmenting with a fraction of Eddington accretion rate, which is typically one tenth of Eddington value. The timescale of orbital decay is {then} estimated as ~10^8yr for equal mass black-hole, being independent of the black hole mass, semi-major axis, and viscosity parameter but dependent on the black-hole mass ratio, Eddington ratio, and mass-to-energy conversion efficiency. This makes it possible for any binary massive black holes to merge within a Hubble time by the binary-disk interaction. We find that (1.8+-0.6%) for the equal mass ratio and (1.6+-0.4%) for the one-tenth mass ratio of the total number of nearby AGNs have close binary massive black holes with orbital period less than ten years in their centers, detectable with on-going highly sensitive X-ray monitors such as Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image and/or Swift/Burst Alert Telescope. Assuming that all binary massive black holes have the equal mass ratio, about 20% of AGNs with black hole masses of 10^{6.5-7}M_sun has the close binaries and thus provides the best chance to detect them.


5,000,000 for fiscal year 1999, $7,500,000 for fiscal year 2000, and $9,000,000 for fiscal year 2001 to carry out section 129 of the Foreign Assistance Act, as added by subsection (a). (2) Availability of funds.--Amounts appropriated pursuant to this subsection shall remain available until expended. (c) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on October 1, 1998. SEC. 9. MULTILATERAL ASSISTANCE. (a) Funding.--Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated for fiscal years 1999, 2000, and 2001 pursuant to chapter 1 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, there are authorized to be appropriated to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture (in this section referred to as the ``Fund'') the following amounts for the following fiscal years: (1) Fiscal year 1999.--For fiscal year 1999, $3,000,000. (2) Fiscal year 2000.--For fiscal year 2000, $3,000,000. (3) Fiscal year 2001.--For fiscal year 2001, $3,000,000. (b) Availability of Funds.--Amounts appropriated pursuant to subsection (a) shall remain available until expended. (c) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that the President, acting through the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, should-- (1) request the Fund-- (A) to find new ways to support and protect treatment centers and programs that are carrying out rehabilitative services for victims of torture; and (B) to encourage the development of new such centers and programs; (2) use the voice and vote of the United States to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Committee Against Torture established under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and (3) use the voice and vote of the United States to establish a country rapporteur or similar procedural mechanism to investigate human rights violations in a country if either the Special Rapporteur or the Committee Against Torture indicates that a systematic practice of torture is prevalent in that country.


This dissertation focuses on phenomenological studies for possible signals for supersymmetric events at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We have divided our endeavours into three separate projects. First, we consider SUSY models where the gluino production at the LHC should be rich in top and bottom quark jets. Requiring $b$-jets in addition to missing energy $\eslt$ should, therefore, enhance the supersymmetry signal relative to Standard Model backgrounds. We quantify the increase in the supersymmetry reach of the LHC from $b$-tagging in a variety of well-motivated models of supersymmetry. We also explore $top$-tagging at the LHC. Second, we explore the prospects for detecting the direct production of third generation squarks in models with an inverted squark mass hierarchy. This is signalled by $b$-jets + $\eslt$ events harder than in the Standard Model, but softer than those from the production of gluinos and heavier squarks. We find that these events can be readily separated from SM background (for third generation squark masses in the 200-400 GeV range), and the contamination from the much heavier gluinos and squarks although formidable can effectively be suppressed. Third, we attempt to extract model-independent information about neutralino properties from LHC data. assuming only the particle content of the MSSM and that all two-body neutralino decays are kinematically suppressed, with the neutralino inclusive production yielding a sufficient cross section. We show that the Lorentz invariant dilepton mass distribution encodes clear information about the relative sign of the mass eigenvalues of the parent and daughter neutralinos. We show that we can extract most neutralino mass matrix parameters if there is a double mass edge.


With the legacy of Spitzer and current advances in (sub)mm astronomy, a large number of 'transitional' disks has been identified which are believed to contain gaps or have developped large inner holes, some filled with dust. This may indicate that complex geometries may be a key feature in disk evolution that has to be understood and modeled correctly. The disk around LkCa 15 is such a disk, with a gap ranging from ~5 - 50 AU, as identified by Espaillat et al. (2007) using 1+1D radiative transfer modelling. To fit the SED, they propose 2 possible scenarios for the inner (<5 AU) disk - optically thick or optically thin - and one scenario for the outer disk. We use the gapped disk of LkCa 15 as a showcase to illustrate the importance of 2D radiative transfer in transitional disks, by showing how the vertical dust distribution in dust-filled inner holes determines not only the radial optical depth but also the outer disk geometry. We use MCMax, a 2D radiative transfer code with a self-consistent vertical structure, to model the SED. We identify two possible geometries for the inner and outer disk, that are both different from those in Espaillat et al. (2007). An inner disk in hydrostatic equilibrium reprocesses enough starlight to fit the near infrared flux, but also casts a shadow on the inner rim of the outer disk. This requires the outer disk scale height to be large enough to rise out of the shadow. An optically thin inner disk does not cast such a shadow, and the SED can be fitted with a smaller outer disk scale height. For the dust in the inner regions to become optically thin however, the scale height would have to be so much larger than its hydrostatic equilibrium value that it effectively becomes a dust shell. It is currently unclear if a physical mechanism exists which could provide for such a configuration.


Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 is amended in the second sentence-- (1) in paragraph (6), by striking ``and'' after the semicolon at the end; (2) in paragraph (7), by striking the period at the end and inserting ``; and''; and (3) by adding at the end the following: ``(8) hydroelectric power technology.''. SEC. 14. REPORT ON MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON HYDROPOWER. Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate and the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives a report on actions taken by the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Corps of Engineers to carry out the memorandum of understanding on hydropower entered into on March 24, 2010, with particular emphasis on actions taken by the agencies to work together and investigate ways to efficiently and responsibly facilitate the Federal permitting process for Federal and non-Federal hydropower projects at Federal facilities, within existing authority. SEC. 15. NONAPPLICATION TO FEDERAL POWER MARKETING ADMINISTRATIONS. (a) In General.--This Act and the amendments made by this Act shall not-- (1) apply to a hydroelectric project that provides power marketed by a Federal Power Marketing Administration; or (2) impact any additions, improvements, or replacements of hydroelectric generation at Federal projects carried out by a Federal Power Marketing Administration; (b) Modifications.--Nothing in this Act limits the authority under existing law of a Federal Power Marketing Administrator in the event that operations at Federal projects with hydropower facilities are modified. SEC. 16. BUDGETARY EFFECTS. The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.


if this group can bounce back, Quenneville had a short answer: "We're going to have to." Chicago captain Jonathan Toews called it a very disappointing loss. His personal goal drought is now 12 straight postseason games, though he did have an assist. "We got to find a way to put pressure on them, got to make them realize that winning a fourth game is the toughest for any team in any series," Toews said. Fiala finally converted on his third chance in overtime. Crawford got a glove on a puck nearly midway through the extra period off Fiala's shot from the high slot. Crawford also got his left toe on a shot from Fiala in the slot with 6:00 left. Then James Neal found Fiala with a pass, and he beat Crawford to send fans home shortly after midnight local time. "It was a great save by Crawford," Fiala said of the toe save by the Chicago goalie. "I was pretty angry, I could have finished it there, but never mind, we won." The Predators brought out the star power with country singer Carrie Underwood, married to Nashville captain Mike Fisher, to sing the national anthem. Five catfish also were tossed onto the ice before the puck dropped and combined with a late start for a very loud standing-room only crowd of 17,204. Nashville outshot Chicago 49-36. Rinne's shutout streak ended when Rasmussen scored the first postseason goal of his career 65 seconds into the second period. He beat Rinne glove-side off an assist from Marcus Kruger. The goal also snapped a scoreless skid for Chicago that spanned 177:45 back to their first-round loss to St. Louis last postseason. Then the Blackhawks quickly made it a 2-0 lead with a power-play goal by Kane. He scored the 50th postseason goal of his career with a wrister from the right circle at 11:15 of the second, taking advantage of Marcus Kruger standing in front of Rinne. Forsberg started the rally. He scored on a wrister hitting the puck in the air past Crawford, who was caught having turned around in the crease, at 4:24. Blackhawks forward Richard Panik argued the puck went off the netting, but the play was called a good goal after a review. "It went off the shoulder and then off the glass and then straight in,


the lesser of-- ``(i) 50 percent of the portion of lifetime income payments (within the meaning of section 72(c)(5), applied with the substitutions described in subparagraph (B)) otherwise includible in gross income under this section (determined without regard to this paragraph), or ``(ii) the amount in effect under section 72(b)(5)(A). ``(B) Recapture and other special rules.--For purposes of this paragraph, rules similar to the rules of subparagraphs (D) and (E) of section 72(b)(5) and section 72(x) shall be applied by substituting `beneficiary of the life insurance contract' for `annuitant' and `life insurance contract' for `annuity contract' therein.''. (2) Conforming amendment.--Paragraph (1) of section 101(d) of such Code is amended by inserting ``or paragraph (3)'' after ``to the extent not excluded by the preceding sentence''. (e) Effective Date.-- (1) In general.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to amounts received in calendar years beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act. (2) Special rule for existing contracts.--In the case of a contract in force on the date of the enactment of this Act that does not satisfy the requirements of section 72(c)(5)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (as added by this section), any modification to such contract (including a change in ownership) or to the payments thereunder that is made to satisfy the requirements of such section shall not result in the recognition of any gain or loss, any amount being included in gross income, or any addition to tax that otherwise might result from such modification, but only if the modification is completed prior to the date that is 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act.


Unless you’re willing to spend upwards of £4000 on a Nikon D5 or Sony A9, this camera has the best feature set of any DSLR around. While those two full-frame rivals tend to be used more for action and sports than landscape, macro or portrait shots (largely due to their lower resolution sensors), the D850 is a genuine all-rounder, and a great one at that. You get both a super high resolution sensor, and a camera which copes reasonably well with fast-moving subjects. That’s thanks to an upgrade in frame rate – it can now shoot at 7.5fps (or 9fps if you attach the additional D850 grip), and the AF system is the same used in the fantastic D5. The D850 is capable of locking onto your subject very quickly and easily, even in lower light conditions. Moving subjects are also dealt with easily, especially for ones that have a reasonably predictable pattern of movement. The only complaint we have about autofocus is that all of the AF points are grouped towards the centre of the frame - that means that there will be occasions when you need to focus and recompose. To facilitate fast frame rates, the D850 has two memory card slots. One for SD, which is compatible with the fast UHS-II format. The other is for the even faster XQD format, though cards of this type can set you back upwards of £70 for 32GB, as right now they’re made by very few manufacturers. One of the downsides of having such a high resolution sensor is massive file sizes. In short, if you’re shooting both JPEGs and RAW files, you’re gonna need a bigger hard drive. Still, if you’re a professional working in the field who needs to get shots of a football match or a news event across quickly, you’ll be pleased to know that you can shoot in lower resolution modes and still have access to raw files. You can also use the great DX crop mode, which essentially works with the central part of the sensor as if you were using an APS-C sensor. If you’re wondering why you might want this, it basically means that your long lenses can appear even longer and get you closer to the action. Since you have all those extra megapixels to play with, effectively cropping into the image still leaves you with an incredibly useable 19 megapixels. Silent shooting is another feature that’s very useful in certain situations, such as


will have to play at Dallas anyway – not that the Cowboys are the end-all, be-all of the NFC. Winning at the Georgia Dome isn’t exactly an easy task either. (Getty Images) Getty Images/Getty Images The only game that matters is the one in front of you, but if you’re the look-ahead type (like all those Redskins fans who spent this week figuring out where they’d travel as that No. 6 seed) the scenario looks like this: No. 4 Green Bay: vs. Giants, at Cowboys or Falcons No. 6 Detroit: at Seahawks, at Cowboys (Getty Iages) Getty Images/Stacy Revere I’m taking the “worse” draw every time. The Packers are on a six-game winning streak and Aaron Rodgers may have just clinched the MVP with a four-touchdown night in Detroit. Who or where they play may be irrelevant. But it’s now the NFL playoffs and nothing will come easy nor will anything be handed to you. The Green Bay Packers were going to have a tough ride to their ultimate destination – Houston on Feb. 5 for Super Bowl LI – no matter what happened on Sunday night. It just so happens that the tougher ride came with the spoils of victory. So if Green Bay lost by winning, did Detroit win by losing? Eh, not so much. The Lions have lost three straight games and didn’t defeat a single team in the 2016 playoff field. At this point, I’m not sure I’d pick them to win their wild-card game even if they somehow got to host the Browns.


The association of an electromagnetic signal with the merger of a pair of supermassive black holes would have many important implications. For example, it would provide new information about gas and magnetic field interactions in dynamical spacetimes as well as a combination of redshift and luminosity distance that would enable precise cosmological tests. A proposal first made by Bode & Phinney (2007) is that because radiation of gravitational waves during the final inspiral and merger of the holes is abrupt and decreases the mass of the central object by a few percent, there will be waves in the disk that can steepen into shocks and thus increase the disk luminosity in a characteristic way. We evaluate this process analytically and numerically. We find that shocks only occur when the fractional mass loss exceeds the half-thickness (h/r) of the disk, hence significant energy release only occurs for geometrically thin disks which are thus at low Eddington ratios. This strongly limits the effective energy release, and in fact our simulations show that the natural variations in disk luminosity are likely to obscure this effect entirely. However, we demonstrate that the reduction of luminosity caused by the retreat of the inner edge of the disk following mass loss is potentially detectable. This decrease occurs even if the disk is geometrically thick, and lasts for a duration on the order of the viscous time of the modified disk. Observationally, the best prospect for detection would be a sensitive future X-ray instrument with a field of view of on the order of a square degree, or possibly a wide-field radio array such as the Square Kilometer Array, if the disk changes produce or interrupt radio emission from a jet.


Ponoka RCMP are looking for this man alleged to have taken some items from Main Street Hardware in Ponoka without paying. When asked, the man told the clerk he was ‘borrowing’ the items. RCMP photo Ponoka RCMP are looking for a man claiming he was ‘borrowing’ items from Main Street Hardware. Police were called to the hardware store March 17 after the man allegedly left the store with several items without paying. It appears that the suspect left the store with a hammer and scraper. When asked by the clerk to pay for them he said he was borrowing the items. “The store manager explained that the items had to be paid for before leaving but the male left with the merchandise,” say police. Investigators say they are looking for a Caucasian man in his 30s. At the time he was wearing a black hoodie. Ponoka man arrested for impaired driving Police charged a 56-year-old Ponoka man with impaired driving last week. At about 10 a.m. on March 16 witnesses called the police of an erratic driver heading westbound into Ponoka on Highway 53. Police say two witnesses reported a white Dodge Ram driving erratically into oncoming traffic. Police say he travelled at a high rate of speed through the Mecca Glen school zone and almost hit the ditch. “RCMP located the vehicle at the intersection of Highway 2A and Highway 53 and proceeded to observe the occupant’s driving pattern,” states a Ponoka RCMP release. He was arrested and charged with impaired driving. A court date is yet to be set. -Heyden-Kaye If you have information, please call the Ponoka RCMP at 403-783-4472. If you want to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers by phone at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), or by internet at www.tipsubmit.com. You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers, and if you provide information to Crime Stoppers that leads to an arrest(s), you may be eligible for a cash reward.


the video below [COARSE LANGUAGE WARNING]: Angry homosexual kicks Christian customers out of coffee shop. WARNING! This video includes extremely graphic, hate-filled, blasphemous language.Watch and Share before Facebook takes it down! And let us know what YOU think. Posted by Abolish Human Abortion on Sunday, October 1, 2017 So can someone explain to me why Christian bakers are taken to court and publicly demeaned because they refuse to service a homosexual wedding, but when a gay liberals kicks a group of Christians out of their coffee shop, nobody in the mainstream media is reporting on it? Does anyone else see the double standard here? I still hold the belief that anyone in just about any business (except the healthcare profession and other emergency services) and choose who they do and don’t serve based on any factor, because the market will take care of itself. If a white guy walks into a shop, and the owner says “Get out, I don’t serve white people,” he should have that right, but as the guy has the right to go on social media and blast her and convince people to stop spending their money there. The owner will then have to decide if he wants to serve white people, or lose his business. That’s the way it should be in a free market. I think this guy has every right to do what he did, but the fact is that we’re living in a society that gives one person a pass while demonizing the other. Liberals wouldn’t tolerate it if it were the other way around, so why are we letting this happen?


We investigate the magnetic field dependence of the physical properties of f^2-configuration systems with a crystalline-electric field (CEF) singlet ground state, which gives rise to a non- Fermi liquid (NFL) fixed point due to the competition between the Kondo-Yosida singlet and CEF singlet states. On the basis of the numerical renormalization group method, we find that the magnetic field breaks this NFL fixed point via two mechanisms: one causing the polarization of f-electrons and the other giving the "channel" anisotropy. These two mechanisms induce a difference in the magnetic field dependence of the characteristic temperature T_F^{*}(H), the crossover temperature from NFL to Fermi-liquid behavior. While the polarization of f-electrons gives T_F^{*}(H) \propto H^x (x\sim2.0), the "channel" anisotropy gives the H-independent T_F^{*}(H). These two mechanisms cross over continuously at approximately the crossover magnetic field H_c, where an anomalous H-dependence of T_F^{*}(H) appears. Such T_F^{*}(H) well reproduces the NFL behaviors observed in Th_{1-x}U_xRu_2Si_2. We also find that the H-dependence of the resistivity and the magnetic susceptibility are in good agreement with the experimental results of this material. These results suggest that the NFL behaviors observed in Th_{1-x}U_xRu_2Si_2 can be understood if this material is located in the CEF singlet side near the critical phase boundary between the two singlet states.


the United States Government if the agency-- (1) demonstrates through a business case that it can provide the administrative service more efficiently; and (2) agrees to provide the administrative service to all other International Cooperative Administrative Support Services customer agencies at the overseas post. SEC. 6. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (a) Biennial Report.-- (1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 2 years thereafter, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services Executive Board, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system. (2) Content.--The report required under paragraph (1) shall-- (A) establish performance goals to define the level of performance to be achieved in providing efficient, effective, and equitable administrative services to International Cooperative Administrative Support Services customer agencies; (B) establish a balanced set of performance indicators to be used in measuring or assessing progress toward each performance goal; (C) describe how the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system ensures the accuracy and reliability of the data used to measure progress; and (D) identify strategies and the resources required to achieve performance goals. (b) Comptroller General Review.-- (1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a review of the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system. (2) Content.--The review required under paragraph (1) shall include-- (A) an evaluation of whether requiring agencies to participate in the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system for household furniture, furnishings, and appliance pools services and motor pools services has increased cost-efficiency and reduced administrative redundancies; (B) recommendations, if warranted, for further consolidation of services in the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system; (C) an evaluation of how implementation of this Act is affecting the performance of International Cooperative Administrative Support Services customer agencies; and (D) recommendations, if warranted, for improving the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services system and implementing this Act.


a violation of this subsection as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding. ``(4) Remedies.-- ``(A) Federal jurisdiction.--The Federal courts shall have jurisdiction to prevent and redress actual or threatened violations of this subsection by granting all forms of legal or equitable relief, including, but not limited to, injunctive relief, declaratory relief, damages, costs, and attorney fees. ``(B) Initiating party.--An action under this subsection may be instituted by the Attorney General of the United States, or by any person or entity having standing to complain of a threatened or actual violation of this subsection, including, but not limited to, any actual or prospective plan sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering a plan, any actual or prospective purchaser or beneficiary of a plan, and any individual or institutional health care provider. ``(C) Interim relief.--Pending final determination of any action under this subsection, the court may at any time enter such restraining order or prohibitions, or take such other actions, as it deems necessary. ``(5) Administration.--The Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services is designated to receive complaints of discrimination based on this subsection and coordinate the investigation of such complaints. ``(6) Definition.--For purposes of this subsection, the term `entity' includes a group health plan, a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage, and an employer or other sponsor of such plan or coverage.''. (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall be effective as if included in the enactment of Public Law 111-148.


We investigate the formation and evolution of satellite galaxies using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of a Milky Way(MW)-like system, focussing on the best resolved examples, analogous to the classical MW satellites. Comparing with a pure dark matter simulation, we find that the condensation of baryons has had a relatively minor effect on the structure of the satellites' dark matter halos. The stellar mass that forms in each satellite agrees relatively well over three levels of resolution (a factor of ~64 in particle mass) and scales with (sub)halo mass in a similar way in an independent semi-analytical model. Our model provides a relatively good match to the average luminosity function of the MW and M31. To establish whether the potential wells of our satellites are realistic, we measure their masses within observationally determined half-light radii, finding that the most massive examples have somewhat higher mass-to-light ratios than those derived for the MW dSphs from stellar kinematic data. A statistical test yields a ~9 percent probability that the simulated and observationally derived distributions of masses are consistent. Our results may suggest that either the MW halo is less massive than assumed in our simulations (~1.4e12 M_sun) or that there is substantial scatter in the satellite luminosity function or distribution of mass-to-light ratios at fixed host halo mass. Alternatively, feedback processes not properly captured by our simulations may have reduced the central densities of (sub)halos, or the subhalos may have initially formed with lower concentrations as would be the case, for example, if the dark matter were made of warm, rather than cold particles.


For extrasolar planets with orbital periods, P>10 days, radial velocity surveys find non-circular orbital eccentricities are common, <e>~0.3. Future surveys for extrasolar planets using the transit technique will also have sensitivity to detect these longer period planets. Orbital eccentricity affects the detection of extrasolar planets using the transit technique in two opposing ways: an enhancement in the probability for the planet to transit near pericenter and a reduction in the detectability of the transit due to a shorter transit duration. For an eccentricity distribution matching the currently known extrasolar planets with P>10 day, the probability for the planet to transit is ~1.25 times higher than the equivalent circular orbit and the average transit duration is ~0.88 times shorter than the equivalent circular orbit. These two opposing effects nearly cancel for an idealized field transit survey with independent photometric measurements that are dominated by Poisson noise. The net effect is a modest ~4% increase in the transiting planet yield compared to assuming all planets have circular orbits. When intrinsic variability of the star or correlated photometric measurements are the dominant source of noise, the transit detectability is independent of the transit duration. In this case the transit yield is ~25% higher than that predicted under the assumption of circular orbits. Since the Kepler search for Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a Solar-type star is limited by intrinsic variability, the Kepler mission is expected to have a ~25% higher planet yield than that predicted for circular orbits if the Earth-sized planets have an orbital eccentricity distribution similar to the currently known Jupiter-mass planets.


Consider the use of $\ell_{1}/\ell_{\infty}$-regularized regression for joint estimation of a $\pdim \times \numreg$ matrix of regression coefficients. We analyze the high-dimensional scaling of $\ell_1/\ell_\infty$-regularized quadratic programming, considering both consistency in $\ell_\infty$-norm, and variable selection. We begin by establishing bounds on the $\ell_\infty$-error as well sufficient conditions for exact variable selection for fixed and random designs. Our second set of results applies to $\numreg = 2$ linear regression problems with standard Gaussian designs whose supports overlap in a fraction $\alpha \in [0,1]$ of their entries: for this problem class, we prove that the $\ell_{1}/\ell_{\infty}$-regularized method undergoes a phase transition--that is, a sharp change from failure to success--characterized by the rescaled sample size $\theta_{1,\infty}(n, p, s, \alpha) = n/\{(4 - 3 \alpha) s \log(p-(2- \alpha) s)\}$. An implication of this threshold is that use of $\ell_1 / \ell_{\infty}$-regularization yields improved statistical efficiency if the overlap parameter is large enough ($\alpha > 2/3$), but has \emph{worse} statistical efficiency than a naive Lasso-based approach for moderate to small overlap ($\alpha < 2/3$). These results indicate that some caution needs to be exercised in the application of $\ell_1/\ell_\infty$ block regularization: if the data does not match its structure closely enough, it can impair statistical performance relative to computationally less expensive schemes.


CAL83 is a prototype of the class of Super Soft X-ray Sources (SXS). It is a binary consisting of a low mass secondary that is transferring mass onto a white dwarf primary and is the only known SXS surrounded by an ionisation nebula, made up of the interstellar medium (ISM) ionised by the source itself. With the VIMOS IFU we obtained spectra over a 25\times25" field of view, encompassing one quarter of the nebula. Emission line maps - H I, He II, [O III], [N II], and [S II] - are produced in order to study the morphology of the ionised gas. We include CAL83 on diagrams of various diagnostic ion ratios to compare it to other X-ray ionised sources. Finally we computed some simple models of the ionised gas around CAL83 and compare the predicted to the observed spectra. CAL83 appears to have a fairly standard ionisation nebula as far as the morphology goes: the edges where H is recombining are strong in the low stage ionisation lines and the central, clumpy regions are stronger in the higher stage ionisation lines. But the He II emission is unusual in being confined to one side of CAL83 rather than being homogeneously distributed as with the other ions. We model the CAL83 nebula with cloudy using model parameters for SXSs found in the literature. The He II emission does not fit in with model predictions; in fact none of the models is able to fit the observed spectrum very well. The spectral line images of the region surrounding CAL83 are revealing and instructive. However, more modelling of the spectrum of the ionised gas is necessary, and especially for the high-ionisation level emission from CAL83. In particular, we wish to know if the He II emission and the other nebular lines are powered by the same ionising source.


In this paper we report the results of high-resolution circular spectropolarimetric monitoring of the Herbig Ae star V380 Ori, in which we discovered a magnetic field in 2005. A careful study of the intensity spectrum reveals the presence of a cool spectroscopic companion. By modelling the binary spectrum we infer the effective temperature of both stars: $10500\pm 500$ K for the primary, and $5500\pm500$ K for the secondary, and we argue that the high metallicity ($[M/H] = 0.5$), required to fit the lines may imply that the primary is a chemically peculiar star. We observe that the radial velocity of the secondary's lines varies with time, while that of the the primary does not. By fitting these variations we derive the orbital parameters of the system. We find an orbital period of $104\pm5$ d, and a mass ratio ($M_{\rm P}/M_{\rm S}$) larger than 2.9. The intensity spectrum is heavily contaminated with strong, broad and variable emission. A simple analysis of these lines reveals that a disk might surround the binary, and that a wind occurs in the environment of the system. Finally, we performed a magnetic analysis using the Least-Squares Deconvolved (LSD) profiles of the Stokes $V$ spectra of both stars, and adopting the oblique rotator model. From rotational modulation of the primary's Stokes $V$ signatures, we infer its rotation period $P=4.31276\pm0.00042$ d, and find that it hosts a centred dipole magnetic field of polar strength $2.12\pm0.15$ kG, with a magnetic obliquity $\beta = 66\pm5^{\circ}$, and a rotation axis inclination $i=32\pm5^{\circ}$. However, no magnetic field is detected in the secondary, and if it hosts a dipolar magnetic field, its strength must be below about 500 G, to be consistent with our observations.


If only Alberto Nisman were alive to see justice finally being pursued. Three years ago, Mr. Nisman was set to testify to the country’s Congress on Ms. Kirchner’s role in the cover up. The day before his testimony, on Jan. 18, 2015, he was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires, with a bullet in his head. This, despite the fact that he had a 10-man security detail paid to protect him. Within hours, Ms. Kirchner announced that Mr. Nisman had committed suicide. In the days that followed, she strangely claimed his death was part of a lovers’ spat. Finally, she changed her story once more: His death may have been the result of rogue intelligence operatives. When we heard the news of Mr. Nisman’s death and of Ms. Kirchner’s suspected cover-up, we were horrified, but not entirely shocked. Anyone who had followed Mr. Nisman’s pursuit of this case knew that he was assuming grave risks by taking on both a terrorist state and his own government. Through a decade of investigation, Mr. Nisman received death threats against not only him but his children as well. One email he told us about had a picture of bloodied and brutalized bodies lying on the ground, with a note saying this would be the fate of his young daughters if he did not cease his investigation. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. None of it stopped him. Fearless and resolute, Mr. Nisman and his team had determined that former Iranian and Hezbollah officials planned the AMIA attack. He was able to show definitively that the plan included no less than Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; its minister of intelligence; its foreign minister; the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the head of the corps’ elite Quds force; the Iranian cultural attaché in Argentina; and the third


Relay networks having $n$ source-to-destination pairs and $m$ half-duplex relays, all operating in the same frequency band in the presence of block fading, are analyzed. This setup has attracted significant attention and several relaying protocols have been reported in the literature. However, most of the proposed solutions require either centrally coordinated scheduling or detailed channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter side. Here, an opportunistic relaying scheme is proposed, which alleviates these limitations. The scheme entails a two-hop communication protocol, in which sources communicate with destinations only through half-duplex relays. The key idea is to schedule at each hop only a subset of nodes that can benefit from \emph{multiuser diversity}. To select the source and destination nodes for each hop, it requires only CSI at receivers (relays for the first hop, and destination nodes for the second hop) and an integer-value CSI feedback to the transmitters. For the case when $n$ is large and $m$ is fixed, it is shown that the proposed scheme achieves a system throughput of $m/2$ bits/s/Hz. In contrast, the information-theoretic upper bound of $(m/2)\log \log n$ bits/s/Hz is achievable only with more demanding CSI assumptions and cooperation between the relays. Furthermore, it is shown that, under the condition that the product of block duration and system bandwidth scales faster than $\log n$, the achievable throughput of the proposed scheme scales as $\Theta ({\log n})$. Notably, this is proven to be the optimal throughput scaling even if centralized scheduling is allowed, thus proving the optimality of the proposed scheme in the scaling law sense.