The past decades have shown a rise in skin cancer. This creates the need for prevention and efficient treatment. The most common skin cancer (melanoma) can only be treated when detected early. In...Show moreThe past decades have shown a rise in skin cancer. This creates the need for prevention and efficient treatment. The most common skin cancer (melanoma) can only be treated when detected early. In this thesis we propose a method of increasing awareness for people with a high risk of skin cancer as well as allowing for early detection. Skin cancer is hard to detect, even for experiences healthcare professionals. One of the signals of potential harm full lesions is change over time. We propose to develop an application with which changes in skin lesions can be identified early. By allowing patients to film their body with a mobile phone camera we aim to track the development of lesions. If a patient films their body regularly changes can be detected and the application can urge the patient to consult a dermatologist. In this thesis we explore the possibility of combining the frames of these films into an overview displaying the patients complete back or arm. Combining frames is called stitching. Different stitching techniques found in literature are explored and tested for effectiveness. The optimizations performed are reported and the final result is presented. The location of the different lesions on an overview of the body is needed to show the patient and the healthcare professional where potential harmful lesions are located on the body. This allows for further inspection at the dermatology department.Show less
The intergalactic medium (IGM) contains most of the baryonic matter of the Universe and serves as a suitable environment for probing the thermal history of the Universe. The crucial moment in IGM...Show moreThe intergalactic medium (IGM) contains most of the baryonic matter of the Universe and serves as a suitable environment for probing the thermal history of the Universe. The crucial moment in IGM evolution is the Epoch of Reionization, corresponding to the transition from neutral to ionized IGM. However, due to the observational limitations, this period is still not well understood. In this thesis, we focus on constraining IGM thermal history by using Lyman-alpha forests data. This method is applicable in a wide range of temperatures, densities, and ionization fractions of cosmic gas at z about 2 − 5. Observations show that the longitudinal flux power spectrum of the Lyman-α forest exhibits a cut-off at small scales. This phenomenon is caused by thermal Doppler broadening, peculiar velocities along the line of sight (LOS), Hydrogen pressure smoothing, and warm dark matter. The first two effects act only along LOS, while the last two affect all spatial directions. To separate the one-dimensional and three-dimensional effects, we used the method of close quasar pairs, which is based on studying the correlations between Lyman-alpha forests of close quasar pairs. We used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to analyze the differences between distributions of phase difference, which characterizes correlations between Lyman-alpha forests. The calculations were performed for various thermal histories, parameters characterizing IGM, LOS separations, and wavenumbers, and accounting for different effects (Doppler broadening and peculiar velocities). Our results indicate that this method can distinguish various thermal histories regardless of the IGM thermal state and one-dimensional effects. Moreover, at separations of the order of pressure broadening, there is a prominent feature caused by different influences of pressure smoothing at large and small scales. In addition, this simple and powerful approach has the potential to distinguish scenarios with warm dark matter.Show less
This thesis aims to alleviate the final parsec problem by investigating the hypothetical intermediate-mass black hole environment lying at the cores of galaxies, a model first proposed by Ebisuzaki...Show moreThis thesis aims to alleviate the final parsec problem by investigating the hypothetical intermediate-mass black hole environment lying at the cores of galaxies, a model first proposed by Ebisuzaki et al. (2001) [1]. Although intermediate-mass black holes remain undetected, their nature could be the key to understanding supermassive black hole formation. If they are indeed present at the hearts of galaxies, their mutual interactions encourage supermassive black hole-intermediate-mass black hole merging events. Such merging events bypass theoretical constraints placed by binary dynamics and the Eddington limit, allowing for supermassive black holes to grow into their colossal sizes, and could potentially help explain their existence in the early stages of the Universe’s life. We investigate this model using both a Newtonian (Hermite) and post-Newtonian (HermiteGRX) algorithm. The post-Newtonian algorithm incorporates terms up to order 2.5, allowing it to model gravitational wave emission, which acts as an energy sink source and encourages merging events. In addition to comparing the results found using either algorithm, we forecast its corresponding gravitational wave events. More specifically, assuming a steady intermediate-mass black hole infall rate of one every 7 Myr, we predict a population of NIMBH = 15∼20 residing at the inner 0.4pc of the Milky Way galaxy. In turn, the future gravitational wave interferometer LISA and the proposed one µAres will be able to detect up to 926 supermassive black hole-intermediate-mass black hole merging events per year up to a redshift z ≤ 3. This value is three orders of magnitude larger than those found in various literature ([2]; [3]; [4]; [5]) due to the lack of observation of intermediate-mass black hole leaving a large parameter space in such analysis.Show less
We use the large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical FLAMINGO simulations to identify dissociated clusters of galaxies by a visual inspection. This dissociation is seen between the dark matter and...Show moreWe use the large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical FLAMINGO simulations to identify dissociated clusters of galaxies by a visual inspection. This dissociation is seen between the dark matter and gas components of two merging galaxy clusters: the dark matter regions pass through each other while the gas components collide and get stuck in the middle between the dark matter regions. A first selection removes low-mass haloes with M200c < 1014.5 M⊙ to conform to what is observationally possible. After this, selections of certain parameters are used to try to select a large amount of dissociated clusters. Based on just offsets between the centres of potential, mass, and X-ray luminosity, about 5% of the objects that satisfy the specific conditions are dissociated, while 20% of all dissociated objects are included. In a different selection, based on angles between CoM velocities, mass ratios, and offsets, about 20% are dissociated while 15% of the total amount is selected. Properties of all dissociated haloes are analysed and reveal that slightly different constraints on the offsets, velocity angles, and other parameters might provide better results. Nevertheless, it is still very difficult to find a definitive selection that only picks out the dissociated clusters. Finally, the X-ray luminosity–mass relation is also analysed and reveals that dissociated clusters have a slightly higher X-ray luminosity. This is explained by the presence of hot gas, which exists because of the collision of the gas components that significantly heats up the gas. This hot gas emits more X-rays than cold gas so the X-ray luminosity is expected to be higher in dissociated clusters than in relaxed clusters that have not recently undergone a merging event.Show less
Over the years, the development of large-scale structure simulations has given us more and more cluster samples from which we can infer cosmological information via cluster counts. As a matter of...Show moreOver the years, the development of large-scale structure simulations has given us more and more cluster samples from which we can infer cosmological information via cluster counts. As a matter of fact, we can use this probes to constraint some cosmological parameters like the matter density Ωm or the amplitude of density fluctuations at 8 Mpc h−1, σ8. However, this kind of data analysis is heavily affected by systematic errors of astrophysical kind. A recent proxy has been proposed to overcome this difficulties: the cluster sparsity, defined as the ratio of different halo mass definitions. In this thesis we will test this observable on the halo catalogue of the new simulation FLAMINGO, studying its property in a fullhydrodynamics simulation for the first time. We will test its dependence on different cosmologies, showing that the effects of baryonic matter are almost an order of magnitude higher than the differences between two valid cosmologies (in this case Planck-18 and DES). Finally, we will use the hot gas particles included in FLAMINGO to perform a mock X-ray measurement of the sparsity in order to predict the systematics that could affect a real-life observation. We find that indeed a significant bias affects the halo mass, while the sparsity is way less biased and is actually compatible with accurate values extracted from the simulation. We conclude that the sparsity does seem as a reliable and effective proxy for cosmological constraints.Show less
