Study on period search methods of variable stars: Application to ASAS and CRTS databases

Study on variable stars is an important topic of modern astrophysics. After the invention of powerful telescopes and high resolving powered CCD’s, the variable star data is accumulating in the order of peta-bytes. The huge amount of data need lot of automated methods as well as human experts. This thesis is devoted to the data analysis on variable star’s astronomical time series data and hence belong to the inter-disciplinary topic, Astrostatistics. For an observer on earth, stars that have a change in apparent brightness over time are called variable stars. The variation in brightness may be regular (periodic), quasi periodic (semi-periodic) or irregular manner (aperiodic) and are caused by various reasons. In some cases, the variation is due to some internal thermo-nuclear processes, which are generally known as intrinsic vari- ables and in some other cases, it is due to some external processes, like eclipse or rotation, which are known as extrinsic variables. Intrinsic variables can be further grouped into pulsating variables, eruptive variables and flare stars. Extrinsic variables are grouped into eclipsing binary stars and chromospheri- cal stars. Pulsating variables can again classified into Cepheid, RR Lyrae, RV Tauri, Delta Scuti, Mira etc. The eruptive or cataclysmic variables are novae, supernovae, etc., which rarely occurs and are not periodic phenomena. Most of the other variations are periodic in nature. Variable stars can be observed through many ways such as photometry, spectrophotometry and spectroscopy. The sequence of photometric observa- xiv tions on variable stars produces time series data, which contains time, magni- tude and error. The plot between variable star’s apparent magnitude and time are known as light curve. If the time series data is folded on a period, the plot between apparent magnitude and phase is known as phased light curve. The unique shape of phased light curve is a characteristic of each type of variable star. One way to identify the type of variable star and to classify them is by visually looking at the phased light curve by an expert. For last several years, automated algorithms are used to classify a group of variable stars, with the help of computers. Research on variable stars can be divided into different stages like observa- tion, data reduction, data analysis, modeling and classification. The modeling on variable stars helps to determine the short-term and long-term behaviour and to construct theoretical models (for eg:- Wilson-Devinney model for eclips- ing binaries) and to derive stellar properties like mass, radius, luminosity, tem- perature, internal and external structure, chemical composition and evolution. The classification requires the determination of the basic parameters like pe- riod, amplitude and phase and also some other derived parameters. Out of these, period is the most important parameter since the wrong periods can lead to sparse light curves and misleading information. Time series analysis is a method of applying mathematical and statistical tests to data, to quantify the variation, understand the nature of time-varying phenomena, to gain physical understanding of the system and to predict future behavior of the system. Astronomical time series usually suffer from unevenly spaced time instants, varying error conditions and possibility of big gaps. This is due to daily varying daylight and the weather conditions for ground based observations and observations from space may suffer from the impact of cosmic ray particles. Many large scale astronomical surveys such as MACHO, OGLE, EROS, xv ROTSE, PLANET, Hipparcos, MISAO, NSVS, ASAS, Pan-STARRS, Ke- pler,ESA, Gaia, LSST, CRTS provide variable star’s time series data, even though their primary intention is not variable star observation. Center for Astrostatistics, Pennsylvania State University is established to help the astro- nomical community with the aid of statistical tools for harvesting and analysing archival data. Most of these surveys releases the data to the public for further analysis. There exist many period search algorithms through astronomical time se- ries analysis, which can be classified into parametric (assume some underlying distribution for data) and non-parametric (do not assume any statistical model like Gaussian etc.,) methods. Many of the parametric methods are based on variations of discrete Fourier transforms like Generalised Lomb-Scargle peri- odogram (GLSP) by Zechmeister(2009), Significant Spectrum (SigSpec) by Reegen(2007) etc. Non-parametric methods include Phase Dispersion Minimi- sation (PDM) by Stellingwerf(1978) and Cubic spline method by Akerlof(1994) etc. Even though most of the methods can be brought under automation, any of the method stated above could not fully recover the true periods. The wrong detection of period can be due to several reasons such as power leakage to other frequencies which is due to finite total interval, finite sampling interval and finite amount of data. Another problem is aliasing, which is due to the influence of regular sampling. Also spurious periods appear due to long gaps and power flow to harmonic frequencies is an inherent problem of Fourier methods. Hence obtaining the exact period of variable star from it’s time series data is still a difficult problem, in case of huge databases, when subjected to automation. As Matthew Templeton, AAVSO, states “Variable star data analysis is not always straightforward; large-scale, automated analysis design is non-trivial”. Derekas et al. 2007, Deb et.al. 2010 states “The processing of xvi huge amount of data in these databases is quite challenging, even when looking at seemingly small issues such as period determination and classification”. It will be beneficial for the variable star astronomical community, if basic parameters, such as period, amplitude and phase are obtained more accurately, when huge time series databases are subjected to automation. In the present thesis work, the theories of four popular period search methods are studied, the strength and weakness of these methods are evaluated by applying it on two survey databases and finally a modified form of cubic spline method is intro- duced to confirm the exact period of variable star. For the classification of new variable stars discovered and entering them in the “General Catalogue of Vari- able Stars” or other databases like “Variable Star Index“, the characteristics of the variability has to be quantified in term of variable star parameters.

Dynamic mechanical analysis of binary and ternary polymer blends based on nylon copolymer/EPDM rubber and EPM grafted maleic anhydride compatibilizer

The dynamic mechanical properties such as storage modulus, loss modulus and damping properties of blends of nylon copolymer (PA6,66) with ethylene propylene diene (EPDM) rubber was investigated with special reference to the effect of blend ratio and compatibilisation over a temperature range –100°C to 150°C at different frequencies. The effect of change in the composition of the polymer blends on tanδ was studied to understand the extent of polymer miscibility and damping characteristics. The loss tangent curve of the blends exhibited two transition peaks, corresponding to the glass transition temperature (Tg) of individual components indicating incompatibility of the blend systems. The morphology of the blends has been examined by using scanning electron microscopy. The Arrhenius relationship was used to calculate the activation energy for the glass transition of the blends. Finally, attempts have been made to compare the experimental data with theoretical models.

Studies on New Binary Accelerator Systems in Rubber Vulcanisation

Department of Polymer Science and Rubber Technology, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Acid-Base, Surface electron donating and catalytic properties of binary oxides of Zr with rare earth elements

Department of Applied Chemistry, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Acid base characteristics of binary oxides of Zr with Ce and La

The surface acidity and basicity of binary oxides of Zr with Ce and La are determined using a series of Hammet indicators and Ho,,max values are reported. The generation of new acid sites habe been ascribed to the charge imbalance of M1-O-M2 bonds, where M1 and M2 are metal atoms. Both Bronsted and Lewis acid sites contribute to the acidity of the oxides

Study on acceleratore in rubber vulcanization with special reference to the binary systems containing substituted dithiobiurets

The thesis entitled Study on Accelerators in Rubber Vulcanization with Special Reference to the Binary Systems Containing Substituted Dithiobiurets. It includes a detailed study on the binary accelerator systems containing substituted dithiobiurets in natural rubber and NR latex and dithiobiurets in SBR and NR-SBR blends vulcanization systems. It deals with the experimental procedure adopted for the preparation of DTB-II and DTB-III; the procedure for compounding and vulcanization and determination of physical properties like modulus, tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, compression set, heat build up etc. The results indicate that there is efficient acceleration activity of the dithiobiurets in the vulcanization of natural rubber latex containing TMT. The study of dithiobiurets in natural rubber and NR latex reveal that they are having definite accelerating effect in SBR vulcanization systems.

Acid-Base. Surface Electron Donatin6 &.Catai.Ytlc Properties Of Some Binary Mixed Oxides Containing Rare Earth Elements

Catalysis research underpins the science of modern chemical processing and fuel technologies. Catalysis is commercially one of the most important technologies in national economies. Solid state heterogeneous catalyst materials such as metal oxides and metal particles on ceramic oxide substrates are most common. They are typically used with commodity gases and liquid reactants. Selective oxidation catalysts of hydrocarbon feedstocks is the dominant process of converting them to key industrial chemicals, polymers and energy sources.[1] In the absence of a unique successfiil theory of heterogeneous catalysis, attempts are being made to correlate catalytic activity with some specific properties of the solid surface. Such correlations help to narrow down the search for a good catalyst for a given reaction. The heterogeneous catalytic performance of material depends on many factors such as [2] Crystal and surface structure of the catalyst. Thermodynamic stability of the catalyst and the reactant. Acid- base properties of the solid surface. Surface defect properties of the catalyst.Electronic and semiconducting properties and the band structure. Co-existence of dilferent types of ions or structures. Adsorption sites and adsorbed species such as oxygen.Preparation method of catalyst , surface area and nature of heat treatment. Molecular structure of the reactants. Many systematic investigations have been performed to correlate catalytic performances with the above mentioned properties. Many of these investigations remain isolated and further research is needed to bridge the gap in the present knowledge of the field.

Ultrasound Image Despeckling using Local Binary Pattern Weighted Linear Filtering

Speckle noise formed as a result of the coherent nature of ultrasound imaging affects the lesion detectability. We have proposed a new weighted linear filtering approach using Local Binary Patterns (LBP) for reducing the speckle noise in ultrasound images. The new filter achieves good results in reducing the noise without affecting the image content. The performance of the proposed filter has been compared with some of the commonly used denoising filters. The proposed filter outperforms the existing filters in terms of quantitative analysis and in edge preservation. The experimental analysis is done using various ultrasound images