Archive for October, 2024

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The Valencia Flood Disaster

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on October 31, 2024 by telescoper

The death toll resulting from the terrible floods in the Valencia region of Spain has now risen to 158 and seems set to get higher as bodies are recovered from mud and collapsed buildings. Condolences to everyone affected. I was in the city of Valencia just a few months ago, though not in the part of the region most affected.

If you want to see how bad the floods were then take a look at these satellite images from the European Space Agency‘s website taken three weeks apart by the Landsat-8 satellite.

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The Scopus Horror Show

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , on October 31, 2024 by telescoper

Today being Hallowe’en, it seems an appropriate time to tell you a horror story. A few weeks ago I posted about the inaccuracy of the Scopus bibliographic database. I’ve contacted Scopus multiple times to supply them with correct data about the Open Journal of Astrophysics, but the errors persist. It seems I’ll have to take legal action to get them to correct the false and misleading information Scopus is displaying.

I was recently told about a paper with the title The museum of errors/horrors in Scopus. Written by F. Franceschini, D. Maisano & L. Mastrogiacomo and published in 2016, it demonstrates that people have known how poor Scopus is for many years. Yet still it is used.

Here is part of the abstract:

Recent studies have shown that the Scopus bibliometric database is probably less accurate than one thinks. As a further evidence of this fact, this paper presents a structured collection of several weird typologies of database errors, which can therefore be classified as horrors. Some of them concern the incorrect indexing of so-called Online-First paper, duplicate publications, and the missing/incorrect indexing of references. A crucial point is that most of these errors could probably be avoided by adopting some basic data checking systems.

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.006

Eight years on, there’s no sign of scopus adopting “basic data systems” but they don’t really have an incentive to improve do they? It seems the world of research assessment refuses to question the reliability of the product. Critical thinking is an alien concept to the bean counters.

P.S. Oíche Shamhna shona daoibh go léir!

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Swans Again

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on October 30, 2024 by telescoper

Some time ago, back in July, I posted about the sad demise of one of the beautiful swans that had been nesting at the canal harbour in Maynooth. I used to walk along the towpath to work sometimes, but currently there is work being done to renovate the canal bank so I have got out of the habit of walking along there. A couple of days ago, however, a colleague sent me a photograph which reminded me to post an update:

Picture credit: Joost Slingerland

You will see that there are two swans once again. In fact there are three, as I shall explain.

First, contrary to what I said in my previous post, it was the male swan (cob) that died of an infection. The female swan (pen) was also very ill, and was taken aware to be nursed back to health by the team at Kildare Wildlife Rescue hence her temporary disappearance. She recovered, and was returned to the canal. However, a new pair of young swans – shown in the picture – moved in on the little island where the previous pair used to nest and drove off older pen. I’m told there wasn’t exactly a peaceful handover; it was more of a forcible eviction. The new swans will no doubt nest on the island, and perhaps raise cygnets next year, while the older one is usually to be found further along the canal, near the Mullen Bridge, apparently healthy but on her own.

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New Image Casts Doubt on Standard Cosmological Theory

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on October 28, 2024 by telescoper

Scarcely a day goes by without some news outlet or other claiming that recent observations have ruled out the standard cosmological model. This remarkable new image does however seem to cast doubt on many aspects of the Big Bang Theory:

For one thing, it seems to be much less homogeneous and isotropic than we previously imagined. Although the composition is uncertain, it also seems to have a much higher fraction of baryonic matter than currently assumed. Whether or not this picture overthrows the standard model or not, it seems likely to lead to a revival of interest in cosmological applications of the Burgers equation.

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Management Memes

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , on October 28, 2024 by telescoper

I’m too old to be making memes, but it’s a Bank Holiday so,in the light of recent developments at Maynooth University, I thought I’d give it a go. If this one proves popular there are many more I could post…

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The League of Ireland

Posted in Football with tags , , , , , , on October 27, 2024 by telescoper

I don’t think I’ve ever written a blog post about the League of Ireland (soccer) before, but since it’s a holiday weekend and I’ve just watched Dundalk versus Shamrock Rovers on the telly, I thought I’d do a quickie.

I’ve been following this year’s League of Ireland Premier Division with some interest as it has been very close. You can see how competitive the league is just by looking at the table: 35 games played with three points for a win and the top team only has 60 points! Each team plays the others 4 times, incidentally, making a total of 36 games. The last round of matches happens next Friday, 1st November; the season runs from February to November.

Anyway, Shelbourne seemed to be battling it out with Derry City for the top spot, but then St Patrick’s Athletic and Shamrock Rovers starting gaining ground, as Both Derry and Shelbourne stumbled. Today’s result was important because Shamrock Rovers had to win to keep the competition alive. Favourites to win against the bottom club, they didn’t play very well but scraped home 1-0. The gap in quality between top and bottom of this league is really very small.

Now the situation is simple: if Shelbourne win on Friday – or if Shamrock Rovers don’t – then Shelbourne are champions. If Shelbourne lose or draw and Shamrock Rovers win then Shamrock Rovers are champions. On paper, Shelbourne have the tougher game, away at Derry City, while Shamrock Rovers at home to Waterford. It’s a toss-up who will win.

UPDATE: 1st November. They left it very late but Shelbourne beat Derry 1-0 to take the title. Shamrock Rovers also won, but to no avail…

P.S. As the crow flies, Shamrock Rovers (who play at Tallaght Stadium) is the nearest Premier Division club to Maynooth

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Saving Time Again

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on October 27, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Sunday 27th October 2024 and in the early hours of this morning the clocks went back, bidding goodbye to Summer Time. You can tell I’m an oldie because I have quite a lot of time-keeping devices around the house that need to be set by hand. My computer updates itself, of course, but I’m not sure if WordPress does. I’ll find out when I publish this post!

I’ve written before about the silly business of moving the clocks backwards and forwards (e.g. here) so I won’t repeat it all again. I will mention, however, that some time ago, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the European Parliament approved a directive that would abolish `Daylight Saving Time’.  Unfortunately that plan has been ‘paused’ and there’s no sign of it happening for the foreseeable future.  I’ve long felt that the annual ritual of putting the clocks forward in the Spring and back again in the Autumn was a waste of time effort, so I’ll be glad when this silly practice is terminated. It would be far better in my view to stick with a single Mean Time throughout the year. I’m disappointed that this hasn’t already happened.

Anyway, talking of time, we have now completed five weeks of teaching in Semester 1 at Maynooth University. Tomorrow (Monday 28th October) is the October Bank Holiday and next week is Study Week so there are no lectures or tutorials. When I took the train into Dublin on Friday evening I noticed it was much less busy than during term-time. I think most students had already left for the week.

Bank Holiday Weekend Weather..

Normally Study Break comes halfway through the 12-week teaching term but this year it splits 5-7. Since I’m teaching two new modules this term I am not unhappy to have an earlier break to allow me a bit more time for preparation and to catch up on some correcting, but I am conscious that this is going to make for a longer run-in to the Christmas holiday. We are supposed to teach up until Friday 20th December, on which day I do have a lecture scheduled, though I suspect attendance will be low!

I’m not sure how much studying the students do during Study Week, but it’s not a holiday for academic staff even though there is no undergraduate teaching. Among other things we have examinations to write for the January examination period, which must be checked and printed well in advance. The break from teaching will also allow me a bit of time to work on my retirement plans and figure out how much Time I can afford buy with my Savings…

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Puccini 100 at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2024 by telescoper

Last night’s Concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin was billed as Puccini 100 as it was primarily intended to mark the centenary of the death of Giacomo Puccini. Guest conductor Carlo Rizzi had a long association with Welsh National Opera and is well-versed in Puccini’s operatic repertoire but this concert featured a rare treasure in the form of the Messa di Gloria, a large-scale work for choir, two soloists and orchestra Puccini wrote as a graduation piece when he was still a music student in Milan. Contrary to what you might infer from the title, it’s actually a full setting of the Latin Mass. Although written when the composer was only 20, the piece was never officially published until 1952, long after Puccini’s death. He did, however, recycle some pieces from it during his career as a composer of operas, chiefly in Manon Lescaut.

Before the Messa..

Although I’m a fan of Puccini’s operas I had never heard the Messa before and didn’t really know what to expect. It was turned out to be quite a revelation. As you might have anticipated it does sound more “operatic” than you might expect of a religious work and that dramatic certainly heightens the impact of the performance. I’m told that the National Symphony Chorus worked like crazy last week in rehearsals for this concert, and it certainly showed. The choir sounded absolutely amazing. Congratulations to choral director David Young! The two soloists were Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones and South African bass-baritone Simon Shibambu, both of whom were in fine voice. I particularly enjoyed the duet between them in the final Agnus Dei that brings the piece to a surprisingly gentle conclusion.

I really enjoy concerts that feature compositions I’ve never heard before, and this was a great example of that. I’m really glad that the Messa was chosen to mark Puccini 100. I must get a recording of it…

But the Puccini was only half the concert. Before the wine break we heard a very nice orchestral overture in C Major by Fanny Mendelssohn and then the evergreen 4th Symphony (“The Italian”) written by her kid brother, Felix, as a celebration of the time he spent in Italy on a Grand Tour. It was interesting to hear the two pieces played together as there is so much in common between the styles of composition, but so many subtle differences in voice. It’s a great pity that the sexism of the day prevented Fanny Mendelssohn from fulfilling her potential as a composer.

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Two New Publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Saturday morning again so here’s another report on activity at the  Open Journal of Astrophysics.  Since the last update we have published two more papers, taking  the count in Volume 7 (2024) up to 95 and the total published by OJAp up to 210.  We’ve still got a few in the pipeline waiting for the final versions to appear on arXiv so I expect we’ll reach the 100 mark for 2024 in the next couple of weeks.

The first paper of the most recent pair, published on October 22 2024,  and in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “Cloud Collision Signatures in the Central Molecular Zone”  by Rees A. Barnes and Felix D. Priestley (Cardiff University, UK) .  This paper presents an analysis of combined hydrodynamical, chemical and radiative transfer simulations of cloud collisions in the Galactic disk and Central Molecular Zone (CMZ).

Here is a screen grab of the overlay which includes the abstract:

 

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so.  You can find the officially accepted version of this paper on the arXiv here.

The second paper has the title “Partition function approach to non-Gaussian likelihoods: macrocanonical partitions and replicating Markov-chains” and was published October 25th 2024. The authors are Maximilian Philipp Herzog, Heinrich von Campe, Rebecca Maria Kuntz, Lennart Röver and Björn Malte Schäfe (all of Heidelberg University, Germany). This paper, which is in  the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics, describes a method of macrocanonical sampling for Bayesian statistical inference, based on the macrocanonical partition function, with applications to cosmology.

Here is a screen grab of the overlay which includes the abstract:

 

You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

That concludes this week’s update. More  next week!

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Edgeworth Connections

Posted in History, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on October 25, 2024 by telescoper

It’s a small world.

This year I am supervising an undergraduate project student who is looking at approximations to probability distribution functions. This project was inspired by a nice paper on the arXiv by Elena Sellentin, Andrew Jaffe and Alan Heavens about the use of the Edgeworth series which I blogged about here.

It turns out that the student who picked this project hails from a place very close to Edgeworthstown in County Longford. I’ve been through there on the train going to and from Sligo, but I never thought much about the possible connection, assuming the name was a coincidence. When I met my project student yesterday for our weekly discussion, however, he told me he had looked into it and the results are very interesting.

The Edgeworth series was invented by Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (1845-1926) who was a political economist and philosopher was born in Edgeworthstown. He was the grandson of the Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817) who had no fewer than 22 children (including the novelist Maria Edgeworth) and was a founder member of the Royal Irish Academy. In a manner not untypical of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry, the Edgeworths renamed the local town from Meathas Troim (anglicized form Mostrim), c.f. Parsonstown.

There is a directly astronomical connection with the Edgeworth family too. Kenneth Edgeworth (1880-1972) was another member of the Edgeworth dynasty, `one of ‘the archetypal gentleman literary and scientific families’ who had sufficient private income to be able to pursue a diverse range of interests. Kenneth Edgeworth was an independent theoretical astronomer, best known for proposing the existence of a disc of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune in the 1930s. Observations later confirmed the existence of this structure, often called the Kuiper belt or, especially in Irish circles, the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.

Here’s the front page of one of his astronomical publications:

Anyway, what’s the probability that a student would randomly pick a project involving a method invented a person born just a few miles away from his family home?

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