Prosecuting a scapegoat for the state will not lead to justice for the shootings on Bloody Sunday

A former British paratrooper involved with the shooting dead of 14 unarmed demonstrators on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (in Derry, in 1972), was arrested in November last year. Maurice Punch argues that this is a graphic example of a scapegoat masking the sins of the state. It does not properly address the issues of The Troubles to put one individual in the dock, when elites are not made accountable for their actions

A new analysis strategy for detection of faint gamma-ray sources with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes

A new background rejection strategy for gamma-ray astrophysics with stereoscopic Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT), based on Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and real background data from the H.E.S.S. [High Energy Stereoscopic System, see [1].] experiment, is described. The analysis is based on a multivariate combination of both previously-known and newly-derived discriminant variables using the physical shower properties, as well as its multiple images, for a total of eight variables. Two of these new variables are defined thanks to a new energy evaluation procedure, which is also presented here. The method allows an enhanced sensitivity with the current generation of ground-based Cherenkov telescopes to be achieved, and at the same time its main features of rapidity and flexibility allow an easy generalization to any type of IACT. The robustness against Night Sky Background (NSB) variations of this approach is tested with MC simulated events. The overall consistency of the analysis chain has been checked by comparison of the real gamma-ray signal obtained from H.E.S.S. observations with MC simulations and through reconstruction of known source spectra. Finally, the performance has been evaluated by application to faint H.E.S.S. sources. The gain in sensitivity as compared to the best standard Hillas analysis ranges approximately from 1.2 to 1.8 depending on the source characteristics, which corresponds to an economy in observation time of a factor 1.4 to 3.2.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure

VHE Observations of BL Lacertae Objects: 1995-2000

The results of observations of 29 BL Lacertae objects taken with the Whipple Observatory 10 m gamma-ray Telescope between 1995 and 2000 are presented.Comment: 4 pages to be published in the Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference (Tsukuba, Japan 2003

A domain-specific design architecture for composite material design and aircraft part redesign

Advanced composites have been targeted as a 'leapfrog' technology that would provide a unique global competitive position for U.S. industry. Composites are unique in the requirements for an integrated approach to designing, manufacturing, and marketing of products developed utilizing the new materials of construction. Numerous studies extending across the entire economic spectrum of the United States from aerospace to military to durable goods have identified composites as a 'key' technology. In general there have been two approaches to composite construction: build models of a given composite materials, then determine characteristics of the material via numerical simulation and empirical testing; and experience-directed construction of fabrication plans for building composites with given properties. The first route sets a goal to capture basic understanding of a device (the composite) by use of a rigorous mathematical model; the second attempts to capture the expertise about the process of fabricating a composite (to date) at a surface level typically expressed in a rule based system. From an AI perspective, these two research lines are attacking distinctly different problems, and both tracks have current limitations. The mathematical modeling approach has yielded a wealth of data but a large number of simplifying assumptions are needed to make numerical simulation tractable. Likewise, although surface level expertise about how to build a particular composite may yield important results, recent trends in the KBS area are towards augmenting surface level problem solving with deeper level knowledge. Many of the relative advantages of composites, e.g., the strength:weight ratio, is most prominent when the entire component is designed as a unitary piece. The bottleneck in undertaking such unitary design lies in the difficulty of the re-design task. Designing the fabrication protocols for a complex-shaped, thick section composite are currently very difficult. It is in fact this difficulty that our research will address

High energy blazars spectroscopy with X-Shooter on the VLT

We present results of observations in the UV to near-IR range for eight blazars, three of which have been recently discovered at Very High Energies (VHE) and five appearing as interesting candidates for VHE {\gamma}-ray detection. We focus in this paper on the search for their redshifts, which are unknown or considered as uncertain.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy (Gamma2012), July 9-13, 2012, Heidelberg, German

On the application of differences in intrinsic fluctuations of Cherenkov light images for separation of air showers

The sensitivity of ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray observatories depends critically on the primary particle identification methods which are used to retain photon-initiated events and suppress the spurious background produced by cosmic rays. We suggest a new discrimination technique which utilizes differences in the fluctuations of the light intensity in the images of showers initiated by photons and those initiated by protons or heavier nuclei. The database of simulated events for the proposed VERITAS observatory has been used to evaluate the efficiency of the new technique. Analysis has been performed for both a single VERITAS imaging telescope, and a system of these telescopes. We demonstrate that a discrimination efficiency of > 1.5 - 2.0 can be achieved in addition to traditional background rejection methods based on image shape parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publucation in Astropart. Phy

A New Analysis Method for Reconstructing the Arrival Direction of TeV Gamma-rays Using a Single Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope

We present a method of atmospheric Cherenkov imaging which reconstructs the unique arrival direction of TeV gamma rays using a single telescope. The method is derived empirically and utilizes several features of gamma-ray induced air showers which determine, to a precision of 0.12 degrees, the arrival direction of photons, on an event-by-event basis. Data from the Whipple Observatory's 10 m gamma-ray telescope is utilized to test selection methods based on source location. The results compare these selection methods with traditional techniques and three different camera fields of view. The method will be discussed in the context of a search for a gamma-ray signal from a point source located anywhere within the field of view and from regions of extended emission.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics May 11, 200