Discontinuous Almost Automorphic Functions and Almost Automorphic Solutions of Differential Equations with Piecewise Constant Argument

In this article we introduce a class of discontinuous almost automorphic functions which appears naturally in the study of almost automorphic solutions of differential equations with piecewise constant argument. Their fundamental properties are used to prove the almost automorphicity of bounded solutions of a system of differential equations with piecewise constant argument. Due to the strong discrete character of these equations, the existence of a unique discrete almost automorphic solution of a non-autonomous almost automorphic difference system is obtained, for which conditions of exponential dichotomy and discrete Bi-almost automorphicity are fundamental

Blending of Cepheids in M33

A precise and accurate determination of the Hubble constant based on Cepheid variables requires proper characterization of many sources of systematic error. One of these is stellar blending, which biases the measured fluxes of Cepheids and the resulting distance estimates. We study the blending of 149 Cepheid variables in M33 by matching archival Hubble Space Telescope data with images obtained at the WIYN 3.5-m telescope, which differ by a factor of 10 in angular resolution. We find that 55+-4% of the Cepheids have no detectable nearby companions that could bias the WIYN V-band photometry, while the fraction of Cepheids affected below the 10% level is 73+-4%. The corresponding values for the I band are 60+-4% and 72+-4%, respectively. We find no statistically significant difference in blending statistics as a function of period or surface brightness. Additionally, we report all the detected companions within 2 arcseconds of the Cepheids (equivalent to 9 pc at the distance of M33) which may be used to derive empirical blending corrections for Cepheids at larger distances.Comment: v2: Fixed incorrect description of Figure 2 in text. Accepted for publication in AJ. Full data tables can be found in ASCII format as part of the source distribution. A version of the paper with higher-resolution figures can be found at http://faculty.physics.tamu.edu/lmacri/papers/chavez12.pd

Analysis of Wind Instruments on Orofacial Anatomy: A Review of Literature

The focus of this review of literature is on orofacial anatomy and their association with the longevity of wind instrument use. The importance of how playing wind instruments creates a disadvantage for the oral cavity and therapeutic approaches to decrease the adverse effects. Using the university’s library database and PubMed, the authors performed a thorough search on the literature of our topic. Specific key terms such as wind instrumentalists, oral health, orofacial anatomy, and therapy were used to conduct our search. The searched was limited to the English language and within five years of publications. The findings acknowledged pathologically infectious microorganisms can proliferate in the mouthpiece of wind instruments, leading to diseases. The major orofacial anatomy affected by consistent use of musical instruments include salivary glands, the temporomandibular joint, and the dentition. Excessive pressure was a key factor in inflammation and damage to the hard and soft orofacial tissues. Furthermore, the reviewed literature revealed embouchure is vital to understanding a musicians oral health necessities. Developments in dentistry have been able to establish treatment in many cases for prosthodontic care and treatment plans for others wind instrumentalists so they have a chance to continue their passion with comfort and health.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/denh_student/1007/thumbnail.jp

Two-fluid temperature-dependent relativistic waves in magnetized streaming pair plasmas

A relativistic two-fluid temperature-dependent approach for a streaming magnetized pair plasma is considered. Such a scenario corresponds to secondary plasmas created at the polar caps of pulsar magnetospheres. In the model the generalized vorticity rather than the magnetic field is frozen into the fluid. For parallel propagation four transverse modes are found. Two are electromagnetic plasma modes which at high temperature become light waves. The remaining two are Alfveacutenic modes split into a fast and slow mode. The slow mode is cyclotron two-stream unstable at large wavelengths and is always subluminous. We find that the instability cannot be suppressed by temperature effects in the limit of large (finite) magnetic field. The fast Alfveacuten mode can be superluminous only at large wavelengths, however it is always subluminous at high temperatures. In this incompressible approximation only the ordinary mode is present for perpendicular propagation. For oblique propagation the dispersion relation is studied for finite and large strong magnetic fields and the results are qualitatively described.Institute for Fusion Studie

Learning Ground Traversability from Simulations

Mobile ground robots operating on unstructured terrain must predict which areas of the environment they are able to pass in order to plan feasible paths. We address traversability estimation as a heightmap classification problem: we build a convolutional neural network that, given an image representing the heightmap of a terrain patch, predicts whether the robot will be able to traverse such patch from left to right. The classifier is trained for a specific robot model (wheeled, tracked, legged, snake-like) using simulation data on procedurally generated training terrains; the trained classifier can be applied to unseen large heightmaps to yield oriented traversability maps, and then plan traversable paths. We extensively evaluate the approach in simulation on six real-world elevation datasets, and run a real-robot validation in one indoor and one outdoor environment.Comment: Webpage: http://romarcg.xyz/traversability_estimation

Lick Spectral Indices for Super Metal-rich Stars

The Lick Fe5015, Fe5270, Fe5335, Mgb and Mg2 indices are presented for 139 candidate SMR stars of different luminosity class studied in Malagnini et al. (2000). Evidence is found for a standard (i.e. [Mg/Fe]~0) Mg vs. Fe relative abundance. Both the Worthey et al. (1994) and Buzzoni et al. (1992, 1994) fitting functions are found to suitably match the data at super-solar metallicity regimes. See http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~eps/home.html for further details.Comment: 16 pages with 11 figures (Aastex format). To appear in the Nov. '01 issue of the PAS

Statistical properties of the GALEX spectroscopic stellar sample

The GALEX General Data Release 4/5 includes 174 spectroscopic tiles, obtained from slitless grism observations, for a total of more than 60,000 ultraviolet spectra. We have determined statistical properties of the sample of GALEX stars. We have defined a suitable system of spectroscopic indices, which measure the main mid-UV features at the GALEX low spectral resolution and we have employed it to determine the atmospheric parameters of of stars in the range 4500<Teff<9000 K. Our preliminary results indicate that the sample is formed by a majority of main sequence F- and G-type stars, with metallicity [M/H]>-1 dex.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Science, UV universe special issu