Six New Publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2024 by telescoper

It’s Saturday morning again and time to post an update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. As last week there are six papers to announce, bringing the count in Volume 7 (2024) up to 93 and the total altogether up to 208.

In chronological order, the six papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.

First one up, published on Monday 14th October 2024, is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics and is called “Backreaction in Numerical Relativity: Averaging on Newtonian gauge-like hypersurfaces in Einstein Toolkit cosmological simulations“. This paper presents a numerical study of the effect of local inhomogeneities on the dynamical evolution of the Universe, i.e. the so-called “backreaction” problem; the authors are Alexander Oestreicher and Sofie Marie Koksbang of the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

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

You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

The second paper to announce, published on 15th October 2024, is “Weak-Lensing Shear-Selected Galaxy Clusters from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program: II. Cosmological Constraints from the Cluster Abundance” by I-Non Chiu (National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan) and 11 others based in Taiwan, Japan, India and the USA. This paper, which is also in the folder Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics  presents constraints on cosmological parameters obtained from a sample of galaxy clusters

You can see the overlay here:

The accepted version of this paper can be found on the arXiv here.

The third paper is “Image formation near hyperbolic umbilic in strong gravitational lensing” by Ashish Kumar Meena (Ben Gurion University, Israel) and Jasjeet Singh Bagla (IISER Mohali, India). It presents a detailed theoretical discussion of a particular form of strong gravitational lensing and its observational consequences; it is in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies and was published on October 15th 2024.

The overlay is here:

 

The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here.

The fourth paper, published on 16th October 2024 and in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies,  is “Weak Gravitational Lensing around Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in the DES Year 3 Data” by N. Chicoine (University of Chicago, USA) et al. (105 authors; DES Collaboration). It presents a  demonstration of the viability of using weak gravitational lensing to constrain the halo masses of low surface brightness galaxies.

The overlay is here

 

You can find the officially accepted version of this paper here.

The fifth paper in this batch is “Imprints of interaction processes in the globular cluster system of NGC 3640” by Ana I Ennis (Waterloo, Canada) and Juan Pablo Caso & Lilia Patricia Bassino (Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata, Argentina). This one was also published on 16th October 2024 and is in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, Here is the overlay

 

 

You can find the official accepted version on the arXiv here.

Finally for this week we have “On the nature of the C IV-bearing circumgalactic medium at 𝒛∼𝟏” by Suyash Kumar, Hsiao-Wen Chen, Zhijie Qu & Mandy C. Chen (U. Chicago), Fakhri S. Zahedy (U. North Texas), Sean D. Johnson (Carnegie Observatories), Sowgat Muzahid (IUCAA, India) and Sebastiano Cantalupo (U. Milan Bicocca)

The overlay is here

 

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here.

That’s it for now. More next week!

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Steps to Improve

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on October 18, 2024 by telescoper

Along with all academic staff at Maynooth University I received an email this afternoon from the Vice-President for Research and Innovation, which contained the following request:

Well, I certainly won’t be providing any such lists at any time for this or any similar purpose, let alone by next Wednesday! I will be boycotting the QS World University Rankings and I urge any of my “peers” who are contacted about it to do likewise.

I assume that request this is a panicky reaction to the fact that Maynooth is so low in the current current QS league tables and falling in most others. This decline is a direct result of policies implemented by the Management Team at Maynooth, pushing up a student-staff ratio that is already the highest in Ireland, and starving core activities of resources while squandering millions on management salaries and perks – latest example of which is  €500,000 on a luxury taxi service for “priority staff members”; you can guess who that means. ..

I would prefer that the people in charge of Maynooth University made some attempt to improve teaching and research – you know, the things that a university is suppose to do – rather than try to game these ridiculous league tables. Such an approach, however, seems to be out of the question. Maynooth’s race to the bottom is bound to continue unless and until attitudes change at the top.

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The trouble with arXiv

Posted in Biographical, Open Access with tags , , , , on October 17, 2024 by telescoper

We’re now publishing papers at a steady rate at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. This is probably not obvious to outsiders, but our platform actually consists of two different sites, one handling submissions and the other dealing with publishing those papers accepted. Although we have a large (and still expanding) team of volunteer Editors to deal with the former, as Managing Editor I am the only person with the keys to the publishing side of things. This part of the process has been simplified enormously after the automation introduced earlier this year but it still takes some time to do, as I have to check the overlay and metadata before pressing the button to deposit everything with Crossref and make the overlay live. I also announce each paper on social media. This usually takes around 15 minutes per paper, give or take.

Now that I’ve returned to full teaching duties at Maynooth University, I’ve developed a routine to deal with this activity. During workdays I usually wake around 7am, make some coffee, and then check the day’s arXiv mailing to see if any of our accepted papers have been announced. If any have, I do the honours while I have my coffee, and then proceed to shower and breakfast (including Coffee no. 2); if none have, I go straight to shower and breakfast. I’ve been following this routine for quite a while now.

In the last couple of weeks, however, I have noticed quite often when I try to look up newly-announced papers on arXiv that the connection times out with a message saying ‘rate exceeded’. If that happens I just wait a while and try again. It’s not a very serious issue but it does slow down the process.

Well, today I found out the reason via a message on Mastodon. The loading errors at arXiv are caused by people doing many simultaneous downloads in attempts to scrape all the content from arXiv as soon as it is announced. This is almost certainly to provide material for Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, which are essentially Automated Plagiarism Engines. I propose the acronym APE for the kind of person who engages in this sort of activity.

This is a very tedious development and I hope arXiv can find a way of putting a stop to it without inconveniencing its authentic users. I suggest that the people managing arXiv identify the culprits and send the boys round.

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Eyes Right!

Posted in Biographical with tags , , , on October 17, 2024 by telescoper

Yesterday afternoon I had my eyes examined, it being two years since my last test. I went with some trepidation because for the past several visits to the optometrist have resulted in a new prescription and the consequent need to fork out a not inconsiderable amount of dosh on new spectacles. I wear varifocals as I have both astigmatism (which primarily affects long-distance vision) and the usual problem at close range for people of my age. Varifocal lenses are rather expensive but do work pretty well for me. Since I’m now a member of the Over-Sixties Club I just assumed there would be steady deterioration from now on.

Every time I go to the opticians they seem to have different kit and a different procedure, but this time – to my surprise – the result was the same as last time: no change in prescription and therefore no need to buy new glasses. It was good to learn that my vision is relatively stable. I’m set for the next two years, unless I lose or break my specs and need to replace them.

Before the eye test itself I had a retinal exam which involved taking a picture of the back of my eye. This wasn’t carried out by the optometrist but by an assistant, but the resulting photographs were delivered magically onto the optometrist’s computer screen and shown to me. It turns out my eyes are reasonably healthy. Indeed the picture of my retina has hardly changed since the one from two years ago…

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A Century of See See Rider

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , on October 16, 2024 by telescoper

Back in 2023 I posted an item marking the first appearance of Louis Armstrong on record with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band back in 1923. Now it’s time to mark another jazz centenary which also involves Satchmo but in a different setting. King Oliver’s band split up at the end of 1923 over a disagreement about a planned nationwide tour and in 1924 Louis Armstrong moved to New York. He was soon snapped up by Fletcher Henderson and spent a glorious year as star trumpet soloist with Henderson’s big band. During that time he also made records with various small bands, including a number with the great vocalist and “Mother of the Blues” Gertrude “Ma” Rainey.

One of the tracks recorded by Ma Rainey in the Paramount studio in New York was called See See Rider. Although not released until 1925, the very first recording of this number was made exactly one hundred years ago today, on 16th October 1924, by “Ma Rainey and her Georgia Jazz Band”, the supporting musicians being Charlie Dixon (Banjo), Buster Bailey (Clarinet), Charlie Green (Trombone), Fletcher Henderson (Piano) and Louis Armstrong (Cornet). The origins of this blues song are lost in the mists of time but it has been recorded a huge number of times, not only by jazz and blues musicians but also by the likes of Elvis Presley; I posted a great version by Peggy Lee here.

Unusually for the time, two takes were made of which the following was the first. Notice that there is an introduction in the form of a verse, which is quite unusual: most blues performances involve only a chorus. Despite the limitations of recording technology at the time you can hear what a tremendously soulful voice Ma Rainey had, and the muted cornet work by Louis Armstrong is unmistakable.

The sound quality may not be great, but it’s a priceless piece of music history.

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A Taste of the Euclid Survey

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on October 15, 2024 by telescoper

Today (15th October 2024) saw the release of a sneak preview of the main survey of the European Space Agency’s Euclid survey at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan. Here’s the key image.

This image is not at full science resolution of the Euclid survey and is meant primarily as an appetizer. The resolution is11Kx4K,  and is processed by the same pipeline that produced the Euclid Early Release Observations featured here and here. You can find more detail about these images here and here. I have taken this from the latter article:

Euclid has been surveying the sky since 14 February 2024 and data processing is in full swing – the first public release of 53 deg² of science-grade Wide Survey data will take place in March next year. But how much data has Euclid already observed and how can we possibly visualize this? At a rate of 10 deg² per day, the Euclid Wide Survey has already surpassed 1000 deg², that is 5000x the apparent size of the Moon in the sky! Now ESA has put out a first set of images that allow to grasp how much data Euclid is and will be producing.

There’s also this explanatory video:

This is just taster. The main survey will take many years to complete. But it’s a start…

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Failures of Scopus

Posted in Maynooth, Open Access with tags , , , , , on October 14, 2024 by telescoper

I think it’s time to provide an update on the continuing (lack of) progress getting The Open Journal of Astrophysics properly indexed in Scopus (which markets itself as a purveyor of “metrics you can trust”). You might recall back in June that I reported that OJAp had been included in the index, but unfortunately the Scopus team messed up very badly by omitting about one-third of our papers and most of our citations. I reported a month ago that Scopus had committed to fixing the issue within two weeks. Now almost FIVE WEEKS later they haven’t done a thing.

Here’s the problem:

In the column marked Documents 2020-23  you will see the number 67. In fact we published 99 articles between 2020 and 2023, not 67. This is easily established here. The number 67 relates to the period 2022-23 only. Accidentally or deliberately, Scopus has omitted a third of our papers from its database. But the error doesn’t end there. Papers published in OJAp between 2020 and 2023 have actually been cited 959 times, not 137. If you restrict the count to papers published in 2022-23 there are 526 citations. It’s no wonder that OJAp has such a low CiteScore, and consequently appears so far down the rankings, when the citation information is so woefully inaccurate.

“Metrics you can trust?” My arse!

If you want accurate bibliometric information about the papers published in the two years that Scopus has chosen to ignore you can look here.

This all merely demonstrates the folly that so many institutions place so much trust in Scopus. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that Scopus listing is such a reliable indicator of quality that any article not published in a Scopus journal is worthless. Knowing that it has a monopoly, Scopus has no incentive to put any effort into its own quality assurance. It can peddle any error-ridden tripe to its subscribers, most of them paying for the product with taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately the bean-counters at Maynooth University are as credulous as any, mindlessly parroting spurious announcements based on the Scopus database.

Maynooth University is proud to offer undergraduates a course in Critical Skills. I suggest it that the gullible members of its management team would do well to take it.

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Alarums and Excursions

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth on October 13, 2024 by telescoper

Last week was the third week of the semester at Maynooth University and teaching activity has ramped up to its full level: tutorials have begun; assignments handed in, corrected and returned; projects allocated; and so on. With a quarter of the term now over, and two new modules to teach, I’m relieved that apart from a batch of assignments to correct (which I’ll do this afternoon), I haven’t fallen behind schedule.

The addition of our Space Week event made this an extra busy week, as did a few personal matters that have been dragging on for ages and weighing on my mind, but which are now at last resolved; the last stage completed on Friday.

To add to all this I had to interrupt work to make two extra trips from my office and back. On Wednesday I went early to my office on campus planning to write my Space Week talk in the afternoon, after a lunchtime tutorial. Unfortunately when I got there I realized I had left the power supply for my laptop at home. A sensible person would have bought two adapters, one for work and one for home, but I didn’t do that so had to go home to retrieve it. It’s only about a 20-minute walk home from my office but I was annoyed at having to waste 40 minutes there and back, not to mention a bit tired.

In the pub after the evening event, one of our technicians told me that he keeps a collection of spare power supplies in his office, so I needn’t have bothered. Sigh.

The following morning I was in the office again when I got a phone call from one of my neighbours who told me the burglar alarm in my house was ringing. I could hear it over the phone actually. It’s very loud. I had time to get there and back before my lecture so I set off home once again. By the time I got back to the house, the alarm had switched off but when I checked the control panel it explained “REAR WINDOW. GROSS EVENT.” I did wonder what “GROSS” meant in this context, however. Had something particular disgusting happened? Or had 144 people tried to break in?

There was no sign of any break-in and all windows including those at the rear were intact so all was well. I then checked the instructions for the alarm to see what “GROSS” was meant to indicate. It turns out to mean one large thump on the window, as opposed to “PULSE” which refers to a series of short impacts. There was no certainly no sign of anything gross. Although there was no supporting evidence, my best guess is that a bird flew into the window.

Anyway, I reset the alarm and waited for 15 minutes to see if it went off again in case there was a fault and when it didn’t I went back to work. It hasn’t happened again.

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Pass on Bach

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , on October 12, 2024 by telescoper

I thought I’d share this lovely little clip of the late great jazz guitarist Joe Pass. It’s from a show that classical guitarist John Williams presented along with three other exponents of the guitar from different genres. At this point they had been talking about the similarities between Jazz and Baroque music, especially with regards to the improvisation, so Williams invited Pass to improvise on a Chaconne by Johan Sebastian Bach. The result is absolutely fascinating, not least because of the musical jokes in the form of blue notes that Pass includes during his spontaneous elaboration. The first elicits a big smile from John Williams because the tritone Pass plays was regarded as the diabolus in musica in Bach’s time, but for a jazz musician blue notes like this are par for the course.

P.S. it’s amazing how little Joe Pass’s right hand seems to move…

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Six New Publications at the Open Journal of Astrophysics

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2024 by telescoper

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will have noticed that I didn’t post an update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics last weekend. Despite having accepted several papers for publication in the preceding week, no final versions had made it onto the arXiv. We can’t published a paper until the authors post the final version, so that meant a bit of a backlog developed. This week included one day with no arXiv update (owing to a US holiday on Tuesday 8th October) and a major glitch on Crossref on Thursday which delayed a couple, but even so we’ve published six papers which is the most we’ve ever managed in a week. This week saw the publication of our 200th article; the total as of today is 202.  The count in Volume 7 (2024) is now up to 87; we have four papers in the queue for publication so we should pass 90 next week if all goes well.

In chronological order, the six papers published this week, with their overlays, are as follows. You can click on the images of the overlays to make them larger should you wish to do so.

First one up, published on Monday 7th October 2024 is “z~2 dual AGN host galaxies are disky: stellar kinematics in the ASTRID Simulation” by Ekaterina Dadiani (CMU; Carnegie Mellon U.) Tiziana di Matteo (CMU), Nianyi Chen (CMU), Patrick Lachance (CMU), Yue Shen (U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Yu-Ching Chen (Johns Hopkins U.), Rupert Croft (CMU), Yueying Ni (CfA Harvard) and Simeon Bird (U. California Riverside) – all based in the USA. The paper, which is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies describes a numerical study of the morphology of AGN host galaxies containing close pairs of black holes.

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

 

You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.

The second paper to announce, published on 8th October 2024, is “Origin of LAMOST J1010+2358 Revisited” by S.K. Jeena and Projjwal Banerjee of the Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad, Kerala, India. This paper discusses  the possible formation mechanisms for Very Metal Poor (VMP) stars and the implications for the origin of LAMOST J1010+2358 and is in the folder marked Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.

You can see the overlay here:

The accepted version of this paper can be found on the arXiv here.

The third paper is very different in both style and content: “Assessing your Observatory’s Impact: Best Practices in Establishing and Maintaining Observatory Bibliographies” by Raffaele D’Abrusco (Harvard CfA and 14 others; the Observatory Bibliographers Collaboration) and is in the folder marked Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. It presents discussion of the methods used by astronomical observatories to construct and analyze bibliographic databases. The overlay is here:

(This one gave me a rare opportunity to use the library of stock images that comes with the Scholastica platform!) The officially accepted version can be found on arXiv here.

The fourth paper, also published on 8th October 2024, and our 200th publication, is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics, and is called “CombineHarvesterFlow: Joint Probe Analysis Made Easy with Normalizing Flows“. The authors are Peter L. Taylor, Andrei Cuceu, Chun-Hao To, and Erik A. Zaborowski of Ohio State University, USA. The article presents a new method that speeds up the sampling of joint posterior distributions in the context of inference using combinations of data sets. The overlay is here

You can find the officially accepted version of this paper here.

The fifth paper in this batch is “Estimating Exoplanet Mass using Machine Learning on Incomplete Datasets” by Florian Lalande (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology), Elizabeth Tasker (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Kanagawa) and Kenji Doya (Okinawa); all based in Japan. This one was published on 10th October 2024 in the folder marked Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. It compares different methods for inferring exoplanet masses in catalogues with missing data

 

 

You can find the official accepted version on the arXiv here.

Finally for this week we have “Forecasting the accuracy of velocity-field reconstruction” by Chris Blake and Ryan Turner of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. This was also published on 10th October 2024 and is in the folder marked Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics. The paper describes a numerical study of the reliability and precision of different methods of velocity-density reconstruction. The overlay is here

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here.

That’s it for now. We have published six papers, with a very wide geographical spread of authors, and in five of the six astro-ph categories we cover. I think it’s been a good week!

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