SAMP, the Simple Application Messaging Protocol: Letting applications talk to each other

SAMP, the Simple Application Messaging Protocol, is a hub-based communication standard for the exchange of data and control between participating client applications. It has been developed within the context of the Virtual Observatory with the aim of enabling specialised data analysis tools to cooperate as a loosely integrated suite, and is now in use by many and varied desktop and web-based applications dealing with astronomical data. This paper reviews the requirements and design principles that led to SAMP's specification, provides a high-level description of the protocol, and discusses some of its common and possible future usage patterns, with particular attention to those factors that have aided its success in practice.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for Virtual Observatory special issue of Astronomy and Computin

The Long and the Short End of the Term Structure of Policy Rules

We first document a large secular shift in the estimated response of the entire term structure of interest rates to inflation and output in the United States. The shift occurred in the early 1980s. We then derive an equation that links these responses to the coefficients of the central bank's monetary policy rule for the short-term interest rate. The equation reveals two countervailing forces that help explain and understand the nature of the link and how its sign is determined. Using this equation, we show that a shift in the policy rule in the early 1980s provides an explanation for the observed shift in the term structure. We also explore a shift in the policy rule in the 2002-2005 period and its possible effect on long-term rates.

Cousins Photometry and Temperatures for the Hyades, Coma, NGC 752, Praesepe, and M67

In this paper, new Cousins VRI data are presented for NGC 752 and Praesepe, and new and extant data are combined into an augmented database for M67. For those three clusters, catalogs containing Cousins VRI photometry, reddening-corrected values of (V -K)(J), and temperatures are produced. The same is done for Coma by using both previously published and newly derived Cousins photometry. An extant set of catalogs for the Hyades is updated to include V magnitudes and values of (R -I)(C) that were published after the original catalogs appeared. Finally, M67 V magnitudes published previously by Sandquist are corrected for an effect that depends on location on the face of the cluster. The corrected data and values of (V -I)(C) given by Sandquist are then set out in a supplementary catalog. Data files containing all of these catalogs are deposited in the CDS archives. To assess the quality of the data in the catalogs, the consistency of extant Cousins VRI databases is tested by performing analyses with the following features: (1) quantities as small as a few millimags are regarded as meaningful; (2) statistical analysis is applied; (3) no use is made of data other than VRI measurements and comparable results; (4) no inferences are drawn from color-magnitude comparisons; (5) pertinent data that have not been included previously are analyzed; and (6) results based on direct comparisons of stellar groups at the telescope are featured. In this way, it is found that our updated M67 color data and those of Sandquist are on the E region zero point. In contrast, values of (V -I)(C) from Montgomery and collaborators are found to be too red by 27 +/- 3 mmag, with an even larger offset being likely for unpublished data from Richer and his collaborators. Zero-point tests of our Cousins VRI colors for Coma, Praesepe, and NGC 752 are also satisfactory. Scale factor tests of the M67 colors are performed, and a likely scale factor error in the Montgomery et al. colors is found. However, it appears at present that the scale factors of our M67 colors and those of Sandquist are satisfactory. For the most part, zero-point tests of the assembled V magnitudes are also satisfactory, although it is found that further work on the V magnitudes for Praesepe and M67 would be useful. To put these results in perspective, it is pointed out that photometric tests that are satisfactory at the few-millimag level have been published for some two decades and so are not appearing for the first time in this paper.Astronom