text:
Apex Legends are here to STAY
Sooo, share Your crazy moves here! We know You want to ^^
by Remis
in Reviews, Video
Apex Legends best replays!
Apex Legends has blown everyone away. It has action, it has strategy, it has GUNZ..and it is amazingly FUN!
Some players got some serious skills already. We know You are one of them, so..SHARE! Write to us, send us a link to Your video and we will put it here, for all to see!
Sharing is caring. Also, I need some tips on how to be better at this game. I'm tired of being bullet meat!
Who knows, maybe we even reward best replays. Sooo, let's roll!
Also, don't forget to check our Apex Legends review.
Image source: EA games.
Tags: Apex LegendsBattle RoyaleReplaysVideo
Pre-order The Division 2 to get a freebie from Ubisoft
Apex Legends Tips and Tricks – Best Strategies to Adapt
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Review – Experience Bone Crushing Battles
Bose QuietComfort 35 II: The Best Noise-cancellation Headphones 2020
Genshin Impact Review: Play with Friends to Explore 7 Nations
Because of Gamers!Check this
Top Games Like Astral Chain – Best ARPGs December 14, 2020
Despite not introducing FPS gameplay, the game is still on the list of Best Games like Cyberpunk 2077. Why? Like the said game, it takes place in the dystopian future planet Earth, where the game starts to follow an event revolving around a police task force. Following the storyline, the player must defend the remnants […]
Saiba Khan
Top 5 Games Like Surge 2 – Best FPS Games December 14, 2020
Introduction The perfect match for Cyberpunk 2077 is Surge 2 that merges both Action and Role-playing game components. Deck13 Interactive develops the game for the Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. Both game components, such as Single-player and Multiplayer, are there, and the game uses a third-person viewpoint instead of FPS. An intensive character creature feature is […]
Top Games Like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided December 13, 2020
It releases with a mix of Action and RPG game components like Cyberpunk 2077. Eidos Montreal brings the game to multiple platforms like PS4, Xbox One, and more. Apart from ARPG elements, the game introduces stealthier gameplay and lets you experience the traditional FPS. Take place two years after the Human Revolution set in 2029; […]
Top Games Like Killzone Shadow Fall December 13, 2020
The traditional first-person shooter involves you fighting against enemies in a sci-fi setting. The 6th entry to the series of Killzone takes you thirty years forward in the future after the events of the previous title, where you discover a set of new characters. The player assumes the role of Lucas Kellan, who is tasked […]
Top Games Like Far Cry: Blood Dragon December 12, 2020
Ubisoft Montreal releases the Far Cry: Blood Dragon on 30 April 2013 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. The game features only a Single-player, and it serves as the stand-alone expansion pack to Far Cry 3. In short, you don't need to purchase the original title to enjoy the game. Furthermore, although the […]
Top 5 Best Games Like Cyberpunk 2077 December 12, 2020
Recently released Cyberpunk 2077 has taken over the gaming industry with a massive storm. Everyone is talking about the realistic graphics and smooth gameplay, along with highly detailed customization feature. The creators of "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" present Cyberpunk 2077 for multiple platforms, such as PlayStation 4 and PC. It brings a beautiful and […]
Why you should play PUBG Mobile, instead of PUBG Mobile Lite? December 10, 2020
In the pandemic, when we had nothing to do, there were a few things that kept us sane. In them, the most significant role was of PUBG. This game has been a source of entertainment for thousands of people. You would also agree that this is the only thing we look forward to as entertainment […]
Infinite Stim Glitch is back in Call of Duty: Warzone to ruin your Gaming Experience November 23, 2020
In case you're planning on jumping into CoD: Warzone today, then you might consider sitting this one out. A month ago after the developer fixed a quick-spreading exploit that enabled everyone to cheat their way to achieve victory, it seems the Call of Duty: Warzone's glitch is back once again to ruin your day. Exploit […]
Top Best Games Like Age of Empires – Best RTS Games November 11, 2020
Are you fed up playing Age of Empires? I probably think the question doesn't exist to ask because everyone knows the addictiveness and high-quality gameplay of the Age of Empires video game series that delivers fun-to-play gameplay and challenges to its fans for decades. Age of Empires is the first title in the series released […]
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Overview – System Requirements and Release Date November 10, 2020
Call of Duty video game series is ready to introduce a new title (Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War) for Multiple Platforms. The 6th installment in the sub-series, Black Ops, and the 17th entry in the overall series, serving as the direct sequel to Black Ops released in 2010. The game is planned to […]
info@g-litch.com
© 2018 G-Litch gaming


I have been a Triathlon Coach since 2013 and in that time, I have learned a lot. A lot about Triathlon, a lot about training the Human body to be conditioned for the rigours of endurance sports and a lot about people. The biggest lesson I have learned however is about the unconquerable human spirit and the amazing things that Human beings can do when they truly commit and believe in something.
Vast experience as a triathlete having been awarded the prestigious Silver All World Athlete, having raced in multiple Ironman races, Half Ironman races and winner of Age Group awards on the domestic scene at Sprint and Standard distance. Now focusing on coaching, Andy is Level 1 Swim Coach with Swim Ireland and also Level 1 ITU Triathlon coach.
To develop our athletes physically and mentally to meet the many challenges along the road to achieving and exceeding their goals. We strive to instill a strong, positive ethos in our athletes with an emphasis on developing personal belief and physical conditioning simultaneously. In doing so, we prepare our athletes to cope with adversity, push through self-imposed plateaus and achieve real results without negatively impacting on the athlete's personal life.
The role of the Coach is an interesting one, you're part motivator, part manager, part scientist, part drill-sergeant, part psychologist and finally, part friend. It's important to build bonds with your athletes, you need them to trust you and believe in what you're trying to get them to achieve. Most of all, you need honesty and the best way to get honesty is to build trust. When everything goes to plan, the dots line up and the stars align - there is truly no better feeling than witnessing one of your athletes achieve their potential.
(1) Don't over complicate things, keep it simple.
(2) Doing what everyone else is doing isn't necessarily going to yield you the improvements that you desire, each Athlete responds to different training stimulus.
(3) The first step to you becoming better is to start by believing in yourself and what you're trying to achieve.
We're not all going to reach the dizzy heights of representing our countries at the Olympics so it's also important to remember to enjoy the sport and enjoy your achievements for what they are. We want to see our athletes smiling from ear to ear at the finish line, shaking the hands of their competitors on completion of a tough race where they have given their maximum, that for us - is the ultimate barometer for success.


Julia Gillard's changes to Youth Allowance for inner-regional students were today proven to be discriminatory and lead to reduced educational attainment for regional students.
In Senate Estimates today, Victorian Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson raised with the Productivity Commission its Working Paper released yesterday called "Links between Literacy and Numeracy Skills and Labour Market Outcomes".
Under questioning by Senator Ronaldson this afternoon, Mr Kirby from the Productivity Commission acknowledged that one of the factors that might negatively affect someone's improved "educational attainment" was cost.
Mr Kirby acknowledged that the costs of living away from home and travel would be an example of such costs.
"This report and today's evidence is a further nail in the coffin of Labor's appalling failure to address the disadvantage faced by inner-regional students wishing to access Youth Allowance", Senator Ronaldson said.
"For inner-regional students the criteria have been reduced to one. These students are now required to work more hours, for a longer period of time, before being eligible for "Independent" status.
"Those in outer-regional, remote and very remote students can, however, access all three workforce participation criteria established by Ms Gillard. Ms Gillard's policy therefore discriminates against inner-regional students".
"The Government must immediately accept and adopt the measures outlined by Ms Marino in the Motion she moved in the House of Representatives on Monday night", Senator Ronaldson said.


text:
\section{Introduction}                                  \label{sec:Introduction}

In the last 20 years more than 3500 planets have been discovered, mainly around Main Sequence (MS) solar type stars \cite[exoplanet.eu,][]{schneider11}. One of the most successful methods to detect planets, the radial velocity (\textit{RV}) technique, is more difficult to be used in stars hotter than $\sim$\,6500\,K due to the increase in rotational velocities of those stars and the lack of a sufficient number of spectral lines to determine the velocity shifts in their spectra. Nevertheless, several brown dwarfs and planets have been reported by adapting the \textit{RV} technique to A-F stars \citep{galland06,desort08,lagrange09,borgniet14,borgniet16}. However, in order to understand the planetary formation mechanisms around early F or A stars we need larger samples, together with the determination of planetary masses. Thus, the preferred option to solve this issue has been to apply the \textit{RV} method on K giants, the evolved counterparts of those massive stars, with generally low rotation rates and a larger number of spectral lines in their much cooler spectra when compared with their unevolved MS counterparts \citep[e.g.][]{frink02,sato03,lovis07,niedzielski15}. This allows to probe a different stellar mass range.

\begin{center}
\begin{table*}
\caption{Stellar characteristics of the analyzed planet host candidates. Distances and magnitudes are extracted from WEBDA and SIMBAD, respectively.}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{llccc}
\hline
\noalign{\smallskip}
 & &  IC4651 No. 9122 & NGC2423 No. 3 & NGC4349 No. 127 \\
\noalign{\smallskip}
\hline
\hline
\noalign{\smallskip}
\teff           &  K                & 4720 $\pm$ 71      &   4592 $\pm$ 72        &  4503 $\pm$ 70      \\
\logg           &  (cm\,s$^{-2}$)   & 2.72 $\pm$ 0.15    &   2.33 $\pm$ 0.20      &   1.99 $\pm$ 0.19   \\
$[Fe/H]$        &                   &  0.08 $\pm$ 0.04   &   --0.03 $\pm$ 0.05    &  --0.13 $\pm$ 0.04   \\
$M$             &  M$_\odot$        & 2.06 $\pm$ 0.09    &    2.26 $\pm$ 0.07     &   3.81 $\pm$ 0.23   \\
$R$             &  R$_\odot$        & 8.90 $\pm$ 0.68    &   13.01 $\pm$ 1.11     &  36.98 $\pm$ 4.89  \\
$L$             &  L$_\odot$        & 35.29    &   67.56     &  504.36  \\
Age             & Gyr               & 1.223 $\pm$ 0.150  &   0.850 $\pm$ 0.068    &  0.203 $\pm$ 0.031  \\
Distance        & pc                &  888 &  766  & 2176     \\
$V$             & mag               &  10.91 &  10.04 $\pm$ 0.04  & 10.82 $\pm$ 0.08  \\
$\alpha$        &                   &  17:24:50.1  &  07:37:09.2   & 12:24:35.5   \\
$\delta$        &                   &  --49:56:56.1 &  --13:54:24.0  & --61:49:11.7  \\
\noalign{\medskip} %
\hline
\noalign{\medskip} %
\end{tabular}
\label{tab:stellar}
\end{table*}
\end{center}

A major issue when interpreting \textit{RV} variations in red giants is the presence of intrinsic stellar jitter which shows a typical level of 10-15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[e.g.][]{setiawan04,hatzes05} and increases towards more evolved stages \citep{hekker08} and for redder stars \citep{frink01}. These short-term (few hours to few days) low-amplitude \textit{RV} variations are mainly caused by radial oscillations, i.e. p-modes \citep[e.g.][]{hatzes07_review}. On the other hand, long-term non-radial pulsations can produce larger \textit{RV} amplitudes of hundreds of m\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[e.g.][]{hatzes99} which eventually can mimic the presence of a planet. Moreover, the combination of several modes of radial oscillations can produce night-to-night variations of $\sim$\,100\,m\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[e.g. see the case of $\alpha$ Boo and $\alpha$ Tau,][]{hatzes93}. The modulation of active regions in red giants can produce large amplitude \textit{RV} variations and on longer timescales as well. Therefore, it is important to carry out long-term observations covering more than one period of the planet candidates (and for a time span larger than the stellar rotational period), to evaluate the stability of the hypothetical planetary signal and its possible relation with the rotational period of the star.

Some interesting correlations between metallicity, stellar mass and the presence of planets have been proposed as more planets have been discovered during the last years. \citet{johnson10} found that the frequency of massive planets is higher around more massive stars but later, \citet{reffert15} reported that the giant planet occurrence rate peaks at $\sim$\,1.9\,M$_\odot$ and then rapidly drops for masses larger than $\sim$\,2.5-3\,M$_\odot$. They also found a clear planet-metallicity correlation for their confirmed planet-host giant star sample. However, the works by \citet{maldonado13} and \citet{mortier13_giants} only found such correlation for giant stars with masses larger than $\sim$\,1.5\,M$_\odot$.

Therefore, it is clear that in order to understand planet formation mechanisms we need to get accurate masses for the host stars. One of the main problems in characterizing these \textit{evolved} planetary systems is that the determination of masses for red giants is complicated by the crowding of evolutionary tracks with similar stellar parameters in that region of the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram and thus the determined planetary masses with the \textit{RV} technique may present very large uncertainties \citep{lloyd11,sousa15} \citep[but see ][]{ghezzi15,north17}. As a way to address this issue several programs to discover planets in open clusters have been started. The advantage of working with clusters is that ages and masses of their stars can be better constrained, thus the planetary characterization will be more reliable. Despite the efforts to detect those planets, only few discoveries have been reported. The first planet ever discovered in an open cluster was announced by \citet{sato07}. This was a long period planet (595 days) with a minimum mass of 7.6\,M$_{J}$ orbiting a red giant of 2.7\,M$_\odot$ in the Hyades ($\sim$\,600\,Myr). Soon after, a similar planet was announced around a 2.4\,M$_\odot$ giant in NGC2423 ($m_{2}$ sin \textit{i}\,=\,10.6\,M$_{J}$, P\,=\,750 days) by the \textit{RV} survey around intermediate mass stars of \citet[][hereafter Paper I]{lovis07}. This work also reported the discovery of a brown dwarf orbiting a 3.9\,M$_\odot$ red giant in NGC4349. Finally, \citet{brucalassi14} discovered a Jupiter-like planet in a 120 days orbit around a K giant in M67. We note that the search of planets in open clusters has also targeted MS stars with some detections of Neptune-size planets \citep{meibom13} and hot Jupiters in different clusters  \citep{quinn12,quinn14,malavolta16,brucalassi14,brucalassi16}.

The aim of this work is to present the new results of our \textit{RV} survey started in Paper I which includes the discovery of a long-period planet candidate in IC4651. The outline of the paper is as follows: in Sect. \ref{sec:observations} we present the data and derivation of stellar parameters. The planet candidate found in IC4651 is debated in Sect. \ref{sec:IC4651} and the discussion of the signals previously atributed to the presence of a planet in NGC2423 is presented in Sect. \ref{sec:NGC2423}. In Sect. \ref{sec:NGC4349} we provide evidence that the previously discovered signal from a brown dwarf in NGC4349 is most likely caused by modulation of stellar magnetic activity. Finally, in Sects. \ref{sec:discussion} and  \ref{sec:conclusion} we present a general discussion and conclusions of the results.

\section{Observations and sample} \label{sec:observations}

The \textit{RV} sample used in this work is fully described in Paper I. The objects analyzed here have been followed for nearly 5 years (from March 2005 to October 2009) with HARPS (ESO-3.6m, La Silla) and some of them were also observed with CORALIE (1.2\,m-Swiss Telescope, La Silla) in previous years. In summary, the survey has focused in open clusters observable from La Silla, with bright giants (maximum \textit{V}\,=\,10 or 13, for each instrument respectively) having masses between 1.5 and 4\,M$_\odot$. Moreover, only clusters with at least 3 giants known to be non-binary cluster members were chosen. Additional observations have been taken during 2017 and 2018 for the targets showing large \textit{RV} variations. The observing programs are detailed in a footnote in page 1. The observations were done using classical fibre spectroscopy mode (no simultaneous calibration) and the exposures times were estimated in order to have individual spectra with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) \,$\sim$\,30. This gives a typical \textit{RV} photon-noise of $\sim$\,3.5\,m\,s$^{-1}$ which is enough to detect massive planets around the surveyed stars.

In total, 142 stars were monitored within 17 open clusters using the HARPS spectrograph at the ESO 3.6m telescope (\textit{R}\,$\sim$\,115000). The stellar parameters, namely the effective temperature (\teff), surface gravity (\logg), metallicity ([Fe/H]), and  microturbulence ($\xi_{t}$) for most of the clusters were presented in \citet{santos09,santos12} and improved upon in \citet{delgado16} (by using higher S/N data and a Fe linelist optimized for cool stars) together with the derivation of stellar ages, masses and radii. In this paper we will focus on the results for three stars in the clusters IC4651, NGC2423 and NGC4349. The parameters for those targets are summarized in Table \ref{tab:stellar}.

\section{A planet candidate around IC4651 No. 9122} \label{sec:IC4651}

\subsection{Parent star characteristics}

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=8cm]{HR_paper_IC4651.pdf}
\caption{HR diagram for the cluster IC4651. The purple line is the isochrone of 1.25 Gyr and Z\,=\,0.018 ([Fe/H]\,=\,0.09 dex). The red dot is the planet host IC4651 No. 9122.}
\label{IC4651_HR}
\end{figure}

Our sample contains 8 giant stars in the open cluster IC4651 (distance \textit{d}\,=\,888 pc) with an average metallicity [Fe/H]\,=\,0.06\,$\pm$\,0.06 dex \citep[see Table B.1 of][]{delgado16}. In Fig. \ref{IC4651_HR} we show the HR diagram for this cluster. We use PARSEC isochrones \citep{bressan12} to derive masses and ages \citep[see Table B.2 of][]{delgado16}. The isochrone which better matches our stars has an age of 1.41 Gyr, slightly higher than the 1.14\,Gyr provided by the WEBDA database\footnote{http://www.univie.ac.at/webda/}. Our planet candidate host, with \teff\,=\,4720\,$\pm$\,71\,K, \logg\,=\,2.72\,$\pm$\,0.15\,dex, M\,=\,2.06\,$\pm$\,0.09\,M$_\odot$ and R\,=\,8.90\,$\pm$\,0.68\,R$_\odot$ (see Table \ref{tab:stellar}) seems to be on the first ascent of the Red Giant Branch (RGB) while most of the other stars seem to be located in the red clump. The mean radial velocity of the giants in this cluster is -30.28\,$\pm$\,1.33\,km\,s$^{-1}$ while the mean \textit{RV} of IC4651 No. 9122 is -30.26\,km\,s$^{-1}$, thus this star is likely a cluster member. We estimated a \textit{v} sin \textit{i} of 3.89\,km\,s$^{-1}$ in \citet{delgado16} for a fixed macroturbulence velocity of 2.36\,km\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[with the empirical formula by][]{valenti05}. This leads to a maximum rotational period of $\sim$115 days. If we consider the empirical relations for macrotubulence given by \citet{gray05} and \citet{hekker07} for class III stars we would obtain a macroturbulence velocity of 5.25\,km\,s$^{-1}$ which would then cause \textit{v} sin \textit{i} to decrease to 0.1\,km\,s$^{-1}$ (the lowest limit accepted by the procedure to derive \textit{v} sin \textit{i}). This is a probably unrealistic value which would lead to a rotational period of 4503 days.

In order to illustrate the stellar jitter of the observations we plot the \textit{RV} variations of the stars in the cluster in Fig.\,\ref{IC4651_scatter}. Most of the stars exhibit a scatter around 13\,m\,s$^{-1}$ while our planet candidate host shows a dispersion of 60\,m\,s$^{-1}$, clearly above the average stellar jitter. Thus, this may hint to the presence of a planet. The star with the \textit{RV} dispersion of 26\,m\,s$^{-1}$ is IC4651 No. 9791, which show \textit{RV} peak to peak variations of 80\,m\,s$^{-1}$. The photometric survey by \citet{sahay14} reported that this star is a long-period variable but could not establish its period due to the limited duration of the observations (130 days). Therefore, it is probable that the variability observed in brightness is related with the scatter in \textit{RV} and of stellar origin, although it is not possible either to determine any period with our \textit{RV} data. Interestingly, other two stars in this cluster, No. 8540 and No. 9025 also show brightness variability as reported by \citet{sahay14}, which in the case of the latter reaches 0.4 magnitudes with a 73 days cadence. However, the \textit{RV} scatter for these two stars is lower, 10.8\,m\,s$^{-1}$ and 12.1\,m\,s$^{-1}$, respectively, of the level of the expected noise in these stars. To diagnose these effects we will analyse different activity proxies in Section 3.4.

\subsection{The radial velocity dataset}

In the upper panel of Fig.\,\ref{ts_9122_additional}, the \textit{RV} data spanning 12.5 years of observations is shown. We collected a total of 47 points between ESO periods 75 and 83. These data already allow to infer the possible presence of a planet but we found hints that the \textit{RV} variability might be of stellar origin. Therefore, we collected 4 \textit{RV} additional points\footnote{We note that we have applied a small negative offset to the \textit{RV} points taken after 2015, when an upgrade of the HARPS fibers took place \citep{locurto15}. The shift was calculated by extrapolating the measurements of Table 3 in \citet{locurto15} to the FWHM of the spectra for this star.} during periods 99 and 100 (between April and October 2017). Moreover we found in the ESO archive 6 extra points taken during 2013 and 2014 (programs 091.C-0438 and 092.C-0282 by Sanzia Alves et al.) as listed in Table \ref{IC4651_rv}. The typical photon noise dominated errors in \textit{RV} of the data is $\sim$\,3\,m\,s$^{-1}$. However, the \textit{RV} variations are usually dominated by the stellar jitter which is much higher in this kind of stars as discussed in previous subsection. For example, solar-like p-mode oscillations in this star are expected to produce an amplitude of $\sim$\,4\,m\,s$^{-1}$ and a period of 0.13 days estimated with the scaling relations of \citet{kjeldsen95}.
Since the average scatter in the \textit{RV} data (for the 'stable' stars) is close to 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ we decided to add quadratically this noise to the photon noise before fitting the data to determine the planet orbit. We used the \textit{yorbit} algorithm \cite{segransan11} to fit the whole dataset with a model composed of a Keplerian function. \textit{Yorbit} uses a hybrid method based on a fast linear algorithm (Levenberg-Marquardt) and genetic operators (breeding,  mutations, crossover), and has been optimised to explore the parameter space for Keplerian fitting of radial velocity datasets. In our case, the global search for orbital parameters was made with a genetic algorithm.

An analysis using Generalised Lomb-Scargle (GLS) periodograms \citep[e.g.][]{zechmeister09} was performed for \textit{RV} (see upper panel of Fig.\,\ref{per_9122_additional}). The false-alarm-probability (FAP) was computed by bootstrapping the data and statistically significant peaks were considered for values above FAP = 1\%. A significant signal with a period of $\sim$741 days can be clearly observed in the periodogram. This periodic variation is well fitted by a Keplerian function with $P$\,=\,747\,days, $K$\,=\,100.8\,m\,s$^{-1}$, and $e$\,=\,0.15 (see Table \ref{tab:orbital_additional}). These values correspond to the expected signal induced by a planet with 7.2\,M$_{J}$ in a 2.05 AU semi-major orbit. The phase curve of the best fitted solution can be seen in Fig.\,\ref{IC4651all_phase}. The dispersion of the residuals is 17\,m\,s$^{-1}$ and the reduced $\chi^{2}$ is 1.34. As a further test we run a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to evaluate the white noise in our data. We get orbital parameters similar to those found by \textit{yorbit} and we determine a jitter of 13.5\,m\,s$^{-1}$ which is very close to the average \textit{RV} in the cluster. Therefore, we can conclude that the assumption of adding a noise of 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ does not alter the results and it is an acceptable solution to treat the stellar-induced noise that cannot be properly modelled with our current data.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{IC4651_periodogram_all.png}
\caption{Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodograms of \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ index for IC4651 No. 9122. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{per_9122_additional}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{IC4651No9122_harps_k1_rv_time_all_mass2p06.pdf}
\caption{Radial velocity curve as a function of time for IC4651 No. 9122. The fitted orbit corresponds to a period of 747 days. A stellar jitter of 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ has been added to the error bars.}
\label{IC4651all_phase}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{IC4651No9122_gradeAB_LS_FAP.png}
\caption{GLS of V magnitude for IC4651No9122 using ASAS data. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{IC4651_phot}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{IC4651_9122_RV_paper_280318_Red.png}
\caption{Stacked periodogram for \textit{RV} measurements in IC4651 No. 9122.}
\label{stacked_IC4651}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Photometry}
This star has been observed within the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) from the las Campanas Observatory (Chile) with observations available between 2001 and 2009 \citep{pojmanski02}, hence contemporaneous to our first set of \textit{RV} measurements. We found 151 measurements classified as good quality (they are given the grade A or B, with average errors of 0.05 mag) which show a $\sim$0.3 peak-to-peak variability in V magnitude. We downloaded the light curves in V magnitude from the The ASAS-3 Photometric V-band Catalogue\footnote{http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/asas/?page=aasc$\&$catsrc=asas3} and performed a GLS to detect any possible variability with the same period as the planet candidate. In Fig. \ref{IC4651_phot} we can see that there are two signals just above the FAP = 1\% line with periods of 296 and 2273 days. Since we cannot constrain well the rotational period of the star it is difficult to claim whether any of these signals in the photometry correspondo to such period.

\subsection{Stellar activity and line profile analysis}
To infer about activity modulations that could interfere with \textit{RV} we measured a simultaneous activity index based on the H$\alpha$ line. We choose not to use the \ion{Ca}{ii} H\&K and \ion{Na}{i} D$_1$ \& D$_2$ lines due to very low S/N ($<$\,3) on the former and line contamination on the latter. The H$\alpha$ index was calculated as in \citet{gomesdasilva11} and implemented using ACTIN\footnote{ACTIN is a FITS extractor and Activity Index calculator tool implemented in Python and available at https://github.com/gomesdasilva/ACTIN.}. The flux in the H$\alpha$ line was measured at 6562.81 \AA\,with a 1.6 \AA\,bandpass. Two reference lines were measured using two 10.75 \AA\,and 8.75 \AA\,windows centred at 6550.87 \AA\,and 6580.31 \AA, respectively. We then divided the flux in the H$\alpha$ line by the two reference lines to obtain the index. The errors on the fluxes were computed using photon noise, $\sqrt{N}$, with $N$ being the total flux in the band, and the error on the index was computed via propagation of errors. To further investigate \textit{RV} variations caused by stellar atmospheric phenomena, we also used the full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of the cross-correlation function (CCF). These values and their errors are provided by the HARPS pipeline. Moreover, we also analysed the Bisector Inverse Slope \citep[BIS,][]{queloz01} of the CCF but we note that this diagnostic of line asymmetry loses sensitivity for very low stellar rotations such as the case we are studying here \citep[e.g.][]{saar98,santos03_planet,queloz09,santos14}.

A periodogram analysis was carried out for FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ index to infer about possible impact of stellar activity or long-term oscillations on the observed \textit{RV} (see Fig. \ref{per_9122_additional}). The H$\alpha$ periodogram shows two peaks at 952 and 714\,days but they are not statistically significant. Interestingly, there are also peaks at 952\,days in the BIS and \textit{RV} periodograms although they are not significant. On the other hand, the FWHM periodogram also shows a long-period signal at $\sim$714\,days, above the FAP = 1\% line. This signal is probably due to rotational modulation of active regions in the atmosphere \citep[see e.g.][]{larson93,lambert87} since it matches the same period as H$\alpha$ index. As explained in Sect. 3.1, the determination of the rotation period is a very degenerate problem (depending on the assumption for macroturbulent velocity) and it is difficult then to determine whether that signal in the FWHM periodogram is caused by spot modulation or not. Nevertheless, we note that it has been reported that stars can have long-term activity cycles on top of the typical rotation-modulated cycle \citep{dumusque11,lovis11}. The fact that the period of the FWHM lies so close to the period of the planet candidate (which in turn matches one of the peaks of the H$\alpha$ index periodogram) casts doubts on the planetary hypothesis and will be further discussed in Sect. \ref{sec:discussion}. We note that during the referee process of this paper the work by \citet{leao18} announced the presence of a planet around IC4651 No. 9122 using the same \textit{RV} data presented here. However, in that work the variation of the FWHM of the CCF was not explored which made the authors conclude that the signal should be caused by a planet. Our analysis casts doubts on the planetary nature of the periodic signal and shows the importance of analysing all possible stellar indicators.

Stellar activity and pulsations are also expected to cause deformations in the line profile of spectral lines. Therefore, we also explored any possible correlation between the \textit{RV} and several line-profile indicators such as FWHM, Bisector Inverse Slope \citep[BIS,][]{queloz01}, V$_{span}$ \citep{boisse11}, biGauss \citep{nardetto06} and V$_{asy}$, BIS+ and BIS- \citep{figueira13} by using the python code \textit{LineProf.py}\footnote{https://bitbucket.org/pedrofigueira/line-profile-indicators} developed by \citet{figueira13}. We did not find any strong correlation for any of the indicators, with a maximum value of the Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.3 for the relation of V$_{span}$ with \textit{RV}.

To further evaluate the significance of the periodic signals for \textit{RV} we calculated the Stacked Bayesian general Lomb-Scargle (BGLS) periodogram which is shown in Fig. \ref{stacked_IC4651}. This tool, developed by \citet{mortier17}, aims at tracking the S/N of the detection of a signal over time. If an orbiting body, such as a planet, is the cause of the observed periodic signal, we expect that the signal gets more significant as we add more observations. On the other hand, stellar activity signals are unstable and incoherent and thus the Stacked BLGS will show that the probability of having a signal at a given period varies (decreasing or increasing) when adding more data. In Fig. \ref{stacked_IC4651} we can see that the peak at $\sim$700\,days gets more significant by adding more data and stabilises after $\sim$\,50 observations with some small fluctuations. This would be the expected behaviour for the signature of a planetary companion.

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC2423No3_harpsharps_k1_rv_time_all_mass2p26.pdf}
\caption{Radial velocity curve as a function of time for NGC2423 No. 3 using the complete dataset. The fitted orbit corresponds to a period of 698 days. A stellar jitter of 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ has been added to the error bars.}
\label{NGC2423all_phase}
\end{figure}

\section{Is the \textit{RV} variation of NGC2423 No. 3 due to the presence of a planet?} \label{sec:NGC2423}

In Paper I, showing the first results of this survey, a planet in the cluster NGC2423 was announced after collecting 46 \textit{RV} points (28 with CORALIE and 18 with HARPS) during 1529 days. The reported planet had a mass of 10.6\,M$_{J}$ orbiting around NGC2423 No. 3 with a period of 714.3 days in an orbit of eccentricity 0.21 and semimajor axis 2.1\,AU. The parent star has a mass of 2.26$\pm$0.07\,M$_\odot$ and seems to be ascending the RGB and it is probably the most evolved star among the surveyed ones within this cluster. Most of the stars in this cluster exhibit a \textit{RV} scatter below 30\,m\,s$^{-1}$ while NGC2423 No. 3 clearly constrasts with a dispersion of 72\,m\,s$^{-1}$. We refer the reader to Paper I for the HR diagram and \textit{RV} jitter histogram for this cluster. The parameters of NGC2423 No. 3 are detailed in Table \ref{tab:stellar}. For this star we can also estimate the rotational period from the projected rotational velocity. If we consider a macroturbulence velocity of 2.15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[with the formula by][]{gray05} we obtain \textit{v} sin \textit{i}\,=\,3.84\,km\,s$^{-1}$. Given that the radius of this star is 13\,R$_\odot$ we would obtain a maximum period of 172 days. On the other hand, if we consider the empirical relation of \cite{hekker07}, the macrotubulence velocity would be 5\,km\,s$^{-1}$ which leads to a very small \textit{v} sin \textit{i} (0.1\,km\,s$^{-1}$) which in turn corresponds to a maximum rotational period of 6627 days.

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC2423_periodogram_all.png}
\caption{Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodograms of \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ index for NGC2423 No. 3. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{per_3_additional}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC2423No3_gradeAB_LS_FAP.png}
\caption{GLS of V magnitude for NGC2423No3 using ASAS data. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{NGC2423_phot}
\end{figure}

\subsection{The radial velocity dataset}

In Fig. \ref{NGC2423all_phase} we show the \textit{RV} data for NGC2423 No. 3 spanning more than 15 years of observations (73 observations, 45 of them with HARPS) and the orbital solution obtained with \textit{yorbit} for a planet with a period of 698.6 days in a circular orbit with \textit{a}\,=\,2.02 AU. The typical photon noise dominated errors in \textit{RV} of the data is $\sim$\,3\,m\,s$^{-1}$ and $\sim$\,10\,m\,s$^{-1}$ for HARPS and CORALIE data, respectively. We note that we have also added here an error of 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ before fitting the data\footnote{In Paper I an error of 20\,m\,s$^{-1}$ was added, which was shown later to be overestimated, thus we decided to use here 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ as done for the previous star.}. By using the updated stellar mass (2.26$\pm$0.07\,M$_\odot$) from \citet{delgado16} we derive a planetary mass $m_{2}$ sin \textit{i}\,=\,9.6\,M$_{J}$ (see Table \ref{tab:orbital_additional}). The period and semi-major axis are very similar to previous values but the eccentricity is significantly lower (the former value was 0.21). The reduced $\chi^{2}$ of the fit is 2.13 and the dispersion of the residuals is 22.4\,m\,s$^{-1}$, a value similar to the typical error bars in \textit{RV} considering the stellar jitter. The residuals shown in Fig. \ref{NGC2423all_phase} seem to have a periodic behaviour. A GLS periodogram of the residuals shows two significant peaks around 400\,days. Interestingly, this is close to the period of 417\,days seen in the photometry (see below). However, we cannot properly fit such residuals with a single keplerian orbit or a sinusoidal function. We note here that by doing a two Keplerian fit, for the highest amplitude signal we would obtain similar orbital parameters as for the single Keplerian while the secondary signal would present a very bad fit. This probably reflects the fact that the residuals we see in the single Keplerian are of stellar origin, caused by different processes with different periods that our data cadence cannot resolve and thus cannot be fitted.

\subsection{Photometry}
We collected 497 photometric measurements from the ASAS-3 catalogue (with greade A or B) taken between 2000 and 2009 with average errors of 0.04 mag. The lightcurve shows a $\sim$0.15 peak-to-peak variability in V magnitude. After applying a GLS we can see in Fig. \ref{NGC2423_phot} a clear peak above the FAP = 1\% line with a period of 1124 days. Moreover, there is a second peak just above the FAP line at 417 days. Neither of these periods is close to the \textit{RV} period but they could be related to the rotation of the star.

\begin{center}
\begin{table*}
\caption{Orbital and physical parameters for the planet candidates.}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{llccc}
\hline
\noalign{\smallskip}
 & &  IC4651 No. 9122 & NGC2423 No. 3  & NGC4349 No. 127  \\
\noalign{\smallskip}
\hline
\hline
\noalign{\smallskip}
$\gamma$           & [km s$^{-1}$]      & --30.2868 $\pm$ 0.0107 &  18.3014 $\pm$ 0.0078      & --11.4322 $\pm$ 0.0119 \\
P                  & [days]             &   747.22 $\pm$ 2.95    &  698.61 $\pm$ 2.72         & 671.94 $\pm$   5.32 \\
K                  & [m s$^{-1}$]       &   100.765 $\pm$ 8.427  &  128.451 $\pm$ 5.851       & 229.454 $\pm$     9.932  \\
\textit{e}         &                    &    0.150 $\pm$ 0.068   &  0.088 $\pm$ 0.041         & 0.046 $\pm$   0.033 \\
$\omega$           & [deg]              &  --141.9 $\pm$ 16.1    &  --102.1 $\pm$ 23.2        & 168.3 $\pm$  54.5  \\
Tp                 & [BJD-2\,400\,000]  & 55575.85 $\pm$ 36.31   &  55083.27 $\pm$ 43.16      & 54306.62 $\pm$ 100.64 \\
$m_{2}$ sin \textit{i} & [M$_{J}$]          &      7.202             &     9.621              & 24.097           \\
\textit{a}         & [AU]               &      2.05              &      2.02                  & 2.35             \\
\noalign{\medskip}
\hline
\noalign{\medskip}
N$_{meas}$         &                    &      57                &    73                      &  46 \\
Span               & [days]             &      4592              &    5563                    &  1587 \\
$\Delta$v (HARPS-Coralie) & [km s$^{-1}$] &    ---               &    0.007                   &  --- \\
N$\sigma$          & [m s$^{-1}$]       &     17.00              &   22.40                    &  31.79 \\
\noalign{\medskip}
\hline
\noalign{\medskip} %
\end{tabular}
\label{tab:orbital_additional}
\end{table*}
\end{center}

\subsection{Stellar activity and line profile analysis}
In order to find any sign of stellar origin in the \textit{RV} variation for this star we performed a similar analysis as for IC4651 No. 9122. In Figs. \ref{ts_3_additional} and \ref{per_3_additional} we show the time series and periodograms of the HARPS data only. The quality and resolution of CORALIE data does not allow to investigate the BIS for this star. For this star we could measure the \ion{Na}{i} D$_1$ \& D$_2$ lines but they do not show any periodic variation. The \textit{RV} periodogram (Fig. \ref{per_3_additional}) shows a strong peak at $\sim$689.8\,days, similar to the period found with the Keplerian fit. The FWHM periodogram presents a significant peak at $\sim$\,322\,days with an alias at $\sim$\,303\,days caused by the long gap in time between the two sets of observations\footnote{We note that we have corrected the FWHM values since they tend to slightly increase with time due to the degradation of the spectrograph focus but still an increasing drift can be observed.}. The same happens to the H$\alpha$ periodogram, with a stronger peak at $\sim$\,392\,days and an alias at $\sim$\,357\,days also above the FAP level. This signal might be related to the period of 417 days observed in the photometry and be produced by rotational modulation of active regions. Finally, the BIS measurements show a peak just above the FAP line with exactly the same period as the \textit{RV} variability, 689.8\,days.

We also studied a possible relation between the \textit{RV} and line-profile indicators. In Fig. \ref{NGC2423_BIS} we can see how the \textit{RV} of NGC2423 No. 3 shows a strong correlation with biGauss and BIS (the Pearson's correlation coefficient is depicted in each plot). This fact warns us about the possibility that the signals we are observing are related to inhomogeneities in the stellar surface and not with an orbiting body. However, we note that the 18 \textit{RV} points initially presented in Paper I did not show any correlation with BIS and in some of the observing time windows the BIS is practically flat and thus not correlated with \textit{RV} (see Fig. \ref{ts_3_additional}). It is interesting however, that the sign of the slope for BIS vs \textit{RV} is opposite to what is found in many cases in the literature \citep[e.g.][]{queloz01,boisse09,figueira13}, as expected for \textit{RV} variations due to stellar spots. This case resembles that of the slow rotator HD\,41004A \citep{santos02} where BIS shows a strong positive correlation with \textit{RV}. In that system the best explanation for the \textit{RV} variation found and the positive correlation with BIS is given by the presence of a brown dwarf around the secondary component HD\,41004B (probably an M2 dwarf), which perturbs the contribution to the global CCF dominated by the primary. However, in our case, there are not reported binary companions around the planet candidate host but we cannot discard the possibility that there is a blended binary. By inspecting the SIMBAD database, we find that a foreground star from the cluster NGC2422 (PMS 419) with V=18.5 is at 9.18 arcsec distance from our star. That cluster is closer and younger than NGC2423 (490 pc vs 766 pc as in WEBDA database). By using the simulations done by \citet{cunha13} we can estimate a contamination of $\sim$1\,m\,s$^{-1}$ (considering that our target is a K5 star and the difference in apparent magnitude is 8). Thus, we can reject the hypothesis that such foreground star is affecting our \textit{RV} measurements. On the other hand we do not find a correlation of \textit{RV} with FWHM and contrast as also happens in the case of HD\,41004. Moreover, \citet{santerne15} simulated different blending scenarios (planet orbiting around a secondary unseen companion) and showed that when the secondary rotates faster than the primary (FWHM$_{1}$\,$<$\,FWHM$_{2}$) a positive correlation between BIS and \textit{RV} would be observed, as in our case. However, a positive correlation would also be observed for BiGauss and V$_{span}$ meanwhile here we do find a negative correlation for those two line profile indicators. Another case for a positive correlation between BIS and \textit{RV} was found for the active K giant EK Eri \citep{dall05} which later was reported to have a strong cool spot by \citet{auriere11} using the Zeeman-Doppler imaging method.

The real value of \textit{v} sin \textit{i} is uncertain, as in the case of IC4651 No. 9122. Thus, it is difficult to relate the periodicity of the FWHM with rotational modulation of active regions but we cannot discard that possibility. Indeed, the different peaks observed in the periodograms of FWHM, H$\alpha$ and photometry (322, 392 and 417\,days), on one hand, and of BIS (689.8\,days) on the other hand, might indicate that the variations of the former are due to rotational modulation whereas the period of the latter is related to stellar pulsations which in turn can also be producing the periodic variation in \textit{RV}. Indeed, the fact of having a signal with eccentricity close to zero cannot rule out the possibility that pulsations are causing the \textit{RV} variation \citep{frink02}. For this star we find large peak-to-peak \textit{RV} amplitudes of $\sim$270\,m\,s$^{-1}$ meanwhile BIS variations are much smaller (40\,m\,s$^{-1}$), which could be a signature of oscillations \citep{hatzes96}.

In an attempt to further understand the different signal observed in this star we show the stacked BGLS periodogram of \textit{RV} in Fig. \ref{stacked_NGC2423}. The probability of the signal steadily increases by adding new observations, thus the signal is stable.

\section{A stellar signal disguising as a brown dwarf around NGC4349 No. 127} \label{sec:NGC4349}
In Paper I, a 19.8\,M$_{J}$ substellar companion around NGC4349 No. 127 was presented with a period of 677.8\,days, $e$\,=\,0.19, $K$\,=\,188\,m\,s$^{-1}$ and $a$\,=\,2.38\,UA. As for the previous case, this star is also the most evolved in the cluster \citep[see also Paper I and ][ for HR diagrams and \textit{RV} scatter histogram]{delgado16} and it clearly stands out with a \textit{RV} scatter of 70\,m\,s$^{-1}$ (the average \textit{RV} jitter is 20\,m\,s$^{-1}$). The estimated \textit{v} sin \textit{i} for this star is 6.1\,km\,s$^{-1}$ \citep[assuming a macrotubulence velocity of 2.1\,km\,s$^{-1}$ derived from][]{valenti05} and the radius is 37\,R$_\odot$ which leads to a maximum rotational period of $\sim$\,307\,days. However, as shown in previous sections, if we consider the macroturbulence given by \citet{hekker07} relation (4.8\,km\,s$^{-1}$) we would obtain \textit{v} sin \textit{i}\,=\,4.8\,km\,s$^{-1}$ and a maximum rotational period of $\sim$\,390\,days. The stellar parameters for this star can also be seen in Table \ref{tab:stellar}.

\subsection{Radial velocity dataset}

In Fig. \ref{ts_127} we show the time series for \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ for NGC4349 No. 127. For this star the \ion{Na}{i} D$_1$ \& D$_2$ lines are contaminated. This plot includes 46 measurements collected during 1587 days while in Paper I, 20 \textit{RV} measurements along 784 days were presented. Figure \ref{per_127} shows the \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ periodograms for NGC4349 No. 127. The signal attributed to a brown dwarf candidate in Paper I has a significant peak at $\sim$666 days in the \textit{RV} periodogram which is similar to the period that we also find if we fit a Keplerian orbit to the data (672\,days, Fig. \ref{NGC4349_phase}). This value is very close to the 678 days period derived in Paper I. We obtain a planetary mass $m_{2}$ sin \textit{i}\,=\,24.1\,M$_{J}$ and the eccentricity value is 0.05, lower than previously reported value in Paper I.

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC4349_timeseries_until2009.png}
\caption{Time-series of \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ index for NGC4349 No. 127.}
\label{ts_127}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC4349_periodogram_until2009.png}
\caption{Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodograms of \textit{RV}, FWHM, BIS and H$\alpha$ index for NGC4349 No. 127. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{per_127}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{NGC4349No127_harps_k1_rv_time_all.pdf}
\caption{Radial velocity data as a function of time for NGC4349 No. 127. The fitted orbit corresponds to a period of 672 days. A stellar jitter of 15\,m\,s$^{-1}$ has been added to the error bars.}
\label{NGC4349_phase}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Stellar activity, photometry and line profile analysis}

In Figure \ref{per_127} we can see how the FWHM periodogram also shows a very strong peak at $\sim$666 days (middle panel), indicating that there are variations in the star's atmosphere with the exact same period as the \textit{RV}. Moreover, the H$\alpha$ periodogram also shows a signal at a similar period, with $P$\,$\sim$\,689 days (however just below the FAP = 1\% level). We can also see a significant signal at 235\,days for the FWHM which has a counterpart in the H$\alpha$ periodogram but with a lower power.

The time-series of \textit{RV}, FWHM, and H$\alpha$ show clearly the signals detected in the respective periodograms (see Fig. \ref{per_127}). We note that the amplitude of the FWHM variation is significant (peak-to-peak variation of $\sim$\,250\,m s$^{-1}$). In the figure, we can observe that FWHM and \textit{RV} are not in phase. However, stellar rotationally modulated active regions are known to induce \textit{RV} signals not in phase with activity proxies \citep[e.g.][]{queloz01,santos14}. In their detection paper, \citet{lovis07} used BIS and the \ion{Ca}{ii} H\&K lines as activity diagnostic tools to validate the candidate brown dwarf. However, BIS loses sensitivity for slow rotators and the stellar flux in the \ion{Ca}{ii} H\&K spectral region for red stars is very low, delivering a low S/N for this activity index. This could explain why the authors missed the strong signals coming from the star's atmosphere with the same period as the observed \textit{RV} variations.

For this star we found two independent sets of photometric measurements from the ASAS-3 catalogue. In one of the sets we do not find any significant peak in the GLS applied to the light curve. The second set is shown in Fig. \ref{NGC4349_phot}. We find three significant signals in the periodogram with periods 428, 342 and 1149 days. The first two periods might be related to the rotational period of the star which we have estimated to be in between 300 and 400 days. However, there is no clear signal around the 666 days period found in the \textit{RV} although we note that the first estimation of the maximum rotational period of $\sim$\,307\,days and the signal in photometry at 342\,days are close to the first harmonic (\textit{P}/2) of the \textit{RV} period for NGC4349No127.

On the other hand, we have compared the \textit{RV} with the line-profile indicators as done in previous section and we do not find significant correlations among the different indicators. Moreover, we show in Fig. \ref{stacked_NGC4349} the stacked BGLS for \textit{RV}. The signal looks stable and increase its significance by adding more observations which would be the expected behaviour for an orbiting body but such a trend is also expected if the stellar phenomena responsible for the \textit{RV} signal is stable over the time interval of our measurements.

\begin{figure
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{NGC4349No127_set1_gradeAB_LS_FAP.png}
\caption{GLS of V magnitude for NGC4349No127 using ASAS data. The dashed line indicates the FAP at 1\% level.}
\label{NGC4349_phot}
\end{figure}

\section{Discussion} \label{sec:discussion}

As we have seen in previous sections there can be different causes for the RV variability detected in our targets apart from the presence of planets. Long-period \textit{RV} variations with hundreds of days have been known to exist in several giant stars \citep[][]{walker89,larson93,hatzes93} with \textit{RV} amplitudes in the order of $\sim$50-400\,m\,s$^{-1}$ which were attributed to rotationally modulated active regions \citep{larson93,lambert87} or radial and non-radial pulsations \citep{hatzes99}, depending on the period of the signal. However, it is not clear yet whether pulsations (and of which kind) can create such high amplitude \textit{RV} variations as the ones observed. Indeed, stochastically-driven p-mode oscillations (also known as solar-type pulsations) are observed in giants from the lower RGB all the way to the AGB evolutionary phase \citep{mosser13}, where the most evolved of these are known as semi-regular variables. The properties of these pulsations follow specific scaling relations that can be used to predict their period and amplitude. Considering the stellar parameters estimated for the three stars under study, the expected periods would be less than a few days (the dynamical timescale for, e.g., NGC 2423 No. 3 is $\sim$\,20.8 hr). This, therefore, rules out the possibility that the variability seen in these stars is due to pulsations excited by a stochastic mechanism. On the other hand, if, by absurd, we were to assume that these type of pulsations justify the signal observed, and extrapolated from Eq. (9) of \citet{mosser13}, we would find an rms variability amplitude of 0.78 mag for modes with periods of about 698 days (the case of NGC2423 No. 3), hence a peak visible magnitude change of 1.1, which is well above what we see here. The use of the scaling relation in \citet{kjeldsen95} would then point to an rms velocity amplitude of the order of 10\,km\,s$^{-1}$, thus several orders of magnitude above what we see here.

Two other type of pulsations are observed in giants, that cannot be explained by a stochastically-driven mechanism. The first is the Mira variability, which shows much larger amplitudes than the oscillations discussed above. These are seen only at luminosities much higher than our target stars and, thus, can also be ruled out. The second - whose pulsation origin is still under debate \citep[e.g.][]{trabucchi17,takayama15} - has periods of several hundred days, significantly longer than the fundamental radial mode for the stars where they are observed. They appear as a particular sequence in the period-luminosity relation (sequence D) that is yet to be fully understood and are found both during the RGB and the AGB at luminosities  log\,(L/L$_{\odot}) \gtrsim$\,2.5\,dex. Recently they have been proposed to be manifestations of oscillatory convective modes \citep{saio15}. While in current theoretical models these appear only in giants with log\,(L/L$_{\odot}) \gtrsim$\,3\,dex (for a 2\,M$_{\odot}$ star), for models with reasonable convection parameters, the exact minimum luminosity depends on the mass and the mixing length adopted in the treatment of convection. NGC4349  No. 127 has log\,(L/L$_{\odot}) \sim$\,2.7 and could be a candidate for showing this type of pulsations, but we note that the period of 672 days is larger than expected for a typical sequence D star, unless the luminosity is significantly underestimated. The other two stars under study have much lower luminosity, so the presence of this type of pulsations seems to be even less likely, given the theoretical models. Also, their periods would be too long to fit into the sequence D described before. Moreover, the models by \citet{saio15} predict large surface temperature variations that are however not observed in our stars\footnote{We have derived \teff\ values for each individual spectrum and the maximum variation we observe is of $\sim$\,50\,K with no clear periodicity.}.

In summary, although pulsations are a possibility to explain the long-period variability seen in the RV, after considering the stellar parameters of the stars studied in this paper and the period and amplitude of the variability, we find that the type of pulsations discussed in the literature cannot comfortably explain our observations, with the possible exception of NGC4349 No. 127. We thus conclude, that either these are not produced by pulsations or they hint at a type of pulsation variability yet to be explained.

Alternatively, stellar activity and/or magnetic fields might be the cause for the \textit{RV} variability observed in giant stars. Among the three cases exposed in this work, probably, the easiest to explain would be NGC 4349 No. 127 since we find a perfect match between the periods of the \textit{RV}, the FWHM of the CCF and the H$_{\alpha}$ indicator. The variability we observe in these three indicators is thus presumably caused by rotational modulation of active regions. However, we are still far from fully understanding how the magnetic fields behave in giant stars and what are the timescales of stellar activity signals since their low rotation rates prevent their study through classical Doppler imaging, a successful technique to characterize the distribution of spots. Starspots with lifetimes of years have been observed with this technique in some stars \citep{strassmeier09,hussain02}. For example, polar cap-like starspots appear to have lifetimes of over a decade in RS CVn binaries as well as in young MS stars \citep{strassmeier09}. Nevertheless, a handful of giant stars with slow rotation have been studied in the last decade with the Zeeman Doppler imaging, which allows to obtain the strength and geometry of the surface magnetic field by using new high resolution spectropolarimeters such as Narval, ESPaDOnS or HARPSpol \citep{auriere15}. These authors found that most of the giant stars with detected magnetic fields (the longitudinal component) are undergoing the first dredge-up (i.e. they are close to the RGB base) and few of them are burning He in the core (red clump). Moreover, stars with rotational periods shorter than 200 days seem to have magnetic fields driven by a dynamo as in our Sun. Those stars present a good correlation between the strength of the magnetic field, the chromospheric activity ($S$-index) and the rotational period. On the other hand, stars such as EK Eri \citep{auriere11} or $\beta$ Ceti \citep{tsvetkova13} with $P_{rot}$ of 308.8 and 215 days, respectively, probably represent the prototype of descendants of magnetic Ap-Bp stars, hosting fossil magnetic fields. They have strong magnetic fields ($|B_{l}|_{max} >$\,10\,G) with lower than expected chromospheric activity. Finally, a last group of stars present very weak (sub Gauss level) but detectable magnetic fields with higher than expected chromospheric activity. Among this last group there are several interesting cases such as Pollux, Aldebaran and Arcturus.

Pollux ($\beta$ Gem) shows \textit{RV} variations with a period of 590 days spanning 25 years \citep{hatzes06} attributed to the presence of a planet. The star does not show any variability in the chromospheric \textit{S}-index or in the bisector velocity span \citep{hatzes06}. The photometric period does not match either that of the \textit{RV} variations. However, \textit{RV} values are correlated with the longitudinal magnetic field \citep{auriere09,auriere14}, casting doubts on the planetary nature of the signals. \citet{auriere15} also reported a weak magnetic field in Aldebaran ($\alpha$ Tau) but they could not determine the period of its variability. An extense study of \textit{RV} in this star spanning 20 years by \citet{hatzes15} reports the presence of a giant planet with a period of $\sim$\,630\,days and modulation of active regions with a period of $\sim$\,520\,days. Finally, a weak magnetic field was also detected in Arcturus ($\alpha$ Boo) by \citet{sennhauser11} with a possible period of 208\,days (only 3 measurements were made). The detection was confirmed by \citet{auriere15} but no period is provided. Therefore, it remains unclear if the high amplitude \textit{RV} variations (500\,m s$^{-1}$) with $P$\,=\,231 days detected by \citep{hatzes93} could be caused by the magnetic field. These three cases reflect very well the problematic of establishing the nature of different signals even when a large amount of data are collected during many years.

With the current data for the three stars studied here it is difficult to assure whether stellar chromospheric activity is affecting the \textit{RV} measurements. When adding all the spectra for a given star to increase the S/N in the blue region we cannot appreciate any sign of emission in the cores of \ion{Ca}{ii} H\&K lines. The semi-amplitude of the BIS has values of $\sim$20\,m s$^{-1}$ for IC4651 No. 9122 and NGC2423 No. 3 and $\sim$30\,m s$^{-1}$ for NGC4349 No. 127. Considering a maximum \textit{v} sin \textit{i} of 4\,km s$^{-1}$ for the former and 6\,km s$^{-1}$ for the latter, the presence of spots with a filling factor higher than 5\% would be needed to explain the BIS semi-amplitudes \citep[see Fig. 4 of ][]{santos03_planet}. However, for values of \textit{v} sin \textit{i} of 2\,km s$^{-1}$ or lower the presence of spots would not produce BIS variations. A spot filling factor of 5\%-10\% would produce a variability in $V$ of $\sim$0.05-0.11 mag which is below the peak-to-peak variability we observe for our stars (with approximate values of 0.3, 0.15 and 0.2\,mag for IC4651 No. 9122, NGC2423 No. 3 and NGC4349 No. 127, respectively). Therefore, the photometric variability we observe in our stars might be caused by spots (which in turn would produce the observed BIS variations) but the photometric periods do not match the period of the \textit{RV} neither the period of the BIS for any of the stars.

We find striking the fact that the periods in \textit{RV} found for the three stars are all close to 700 days. We also find hints that the amplitude and the phase of the signal is changed along the time for the three cases. Curiosly, in a recent paper by \citet{hatzes18} they also report a \textit{RV} signal in $\gamma$ Draconis (a K giant with \teff\,=\,3990\,K, \logg\,=\,1.67, 2.14\,M$_\odot$ and L\,=\,510\,L$_{\odot}$) with a semi-amplitude of 148\,m s$^{-1}$ and a period of 702\,days that changes in phase and amplitude. It is interesting, though, that they do not find any correlation of \textit{RV} with the Ca II index or with the BIS. These authors suggest that the variability observed in $\gamma$ Draconis might be caused by dipole oscillatory convection modes \citep{saio15} which could be also the explanation for the \textit{RV} variability observed in NGC4349 No. 127 as discussed above. There are other cases in the literature with long-period \textit{RV} variations in M giants as well. For example, \citet{lee17} reported that the M giant HD\,36384 shows photometric variations with a period of 570\,days close to the period of 535\,days in the \textit{RV}. Furthermore, the M giant $\mu$ UMa shows \textit{RV} variations with a period of 471\,days with bisector velocity curvature variations of 463\,days \citep{lee16}. Moreover, the EWs of H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ lines show periodic variations with 473\,days for this star. Recently, \citet{bang18} found \textit{RV} variations with a period of 719\,days in the M giant HD\,18438 which also shows photometric and H$\alpha$ variability with similar period. All these examples in the literature together with the three stars presented here warns us about the difficulty of confirming the planetary nature of periodic \textit{RV} variations in red giants, specially the most massive ones.

In the last years several works have discussed the planet occurrence as a function of stellar mass finding different results \citep[e.g.][]{omiya09,johnson10,reffert15,jones17}. When Paper I was published, only 6 substellar companions\footnote{Nowadays, this number goes up to 67 companions by using the data collected in The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia} were known around stars more massive than $\sim$\,1.78\,M$_\odot$ and they presented much higher masses on average than for lower mass stars (see Fig. 11 in Paper I), leading to the hypothesis that the frequency of massive planets is higher around more massive stars. Certainly, the inclusion of the brown dwarf around the massive star NGC4349 No. 127 contributed to such correlation. Later studies by the Korean--Japanese planet search program confirmed such result \citep{omiya12}. The works by \citet{reffert15,jones16} also suggest that the planet occurrence rate increases with stellar mass but peaks around 2\,M$_\odot$ and sharply decreases for stars more massive than 2.5-3\,M$_\odot$ in agreement with the theoretical model by \citet{kennedy08}. Indeed, the 12-years length Lick Observatory survey \citep{reffert15} did not find any planet around stars more massive than 2.7\,M$_\odot$ despite having a significant number of stars with masses up to 5\,M$_\odot$. Similarly, the 6-years length EXPRESS survey has not found any planet in stars more massive than 2.5\,M$_\odot$ \citep{jones16}. Nowadays, in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia we can find only 8 stars with masses above 2.7\,M$_\odot$ hosting planets or brown dwarfs\footnote{We note that not all the planet hosts have an entry for the stellar mass in this database and the available values listed there come from different sources/methods, thus any conclusion made from this heterogeneous dataset must be taken with caution.}, being HD\,13189 the only one more massive than NGC4349 No. 127, which should now be excluded. Moreover, the two bodies system around the 2.8\,M$_\odot$ star BD+20 2457 seems to be dynamically unstable \citep{horner14}, thus, the determination of planet occurrence rates with surveys covering the high stellar mass regime is advisable. As mentioned in the introduction, the measurement of masses for giant stars is a difficult task and several works discuss about the suitability of using isochrones compared with other methods such as asteroseismology which delivers much more precise masses. In order to do a proper statistical analysis evaluating planet occurrence rates we need to have a sample of homogeneously derived masses. Such study is out of the scope of the present paper but will be approached in a future work when the data collection for our survey in open clusters is completed.

\section{Conclusions} \label{sec:conclusion}

In this work we present the \textit{RV} data for three stars within the $\sim$\,15\,years survey of radial velocities in a sample of more than 142 giant stars in 17 open clusters. Additional data was collected during the last year. The large span of the data is needed in order to find long period planets since the probability of discovering short period planets around such kind of stars diminishes as the stars evolve and expand their radii. The long-term monitoring of giant stars is also essential to distinguish \textit{RV} variations caused by the rotational modulation of active regions because the rotational periods of evolved stars are much longer than for dwarfs.

We report the possible discovery of a 7.2\,M$_{J}$ planet in a 747 days orbit around the star No. 9122 in the intermediate-age open cluster IC4651. If confirmed, the planet would be at a distance of 2.05 AU and the eccentricity of the orbit would be 0.15. However, we find that the FWHM values of the CCF and the H$\alpha$ index show a periodic behavior with a bit shorter period than the \textit{RV} values. The period of the FWHM and H$\alpha$ index variation get even closer to that of the \textit{RV} when adding few more points taken after 2009. Nevertheless, we note that the significance of the periodic signals on those two indicators is low. We perform further tests on this system to understand whether the periodic \textit{RV} signals are of stellar origin. Although there exists the possibility of having both rotational modulation and a planet with close periods we conclude that more data will be needed to validate or refute the presence of such planet.

This survey already reported two substellar companions in Paper I, NGC2423 No. 3b and NGC4349 No. 127b. These stars were further followed in the next two years after the publication of Paper I (for NGC2423 No. 3 additional observations were carried out during last semester) and here we present an updated analysis of the \textit{RV} data. We find that the \textit{RV} variability of NGC2423 No. 3 is strongly correlated with the BIS of the CCF when using the full dataset, a fact that by itself probably invalidates the planet presence although we cannot explain the reason for such correlation. However, we note that such correlation is not stable along the time and the BIS becomes flat in some of the observed time windows. On the other hand, for NGC4349 No. 127 we find that the FWHM of the CCF presents a large amplitude periodic variation with the same strong peak as the \textit{RV}. Moreover, the periodogram of the H$\alpha$ index also shows a peak with a similar period very close to the 1\% FAP level. Therefore, we believe that the presence of active regions in the atmosphere and not a substellar companion is responsible for the \textit{RV} variability. For this star, the presence of a new kind of stellar pulsations might be a plausible explanation for the observed variability as well.

Long-term period signals have been observed in many K giants either produced by stellar activity or by oscillations. The amplitudes of these signals can also reach hundreds of m\,s$^{-1}$, mimicking the presence of giant planets. The three cases presented in this work are a clear example of the need to perform detailed analysis of \textit{RV} modulations in giant stars before the real nature of a planetary signal can be assumed. Moreover, the analysis of the FWHM of the CCF has revealed as essential in order to discard the presence of a companion but we note that this indicator is not widely used in the validation of planets around evolved stars. Finally, more theoretical and observational study is needed to further understand the different nature of stellar oscillations in evolved stars.

\begin{acknowledgements}
We thank Fran\c{c}ois Bouchy and Xavier Dumusque for coordinating the shared observations with HARPS and all the observers who helped collecting the data.

E.D.M., V.A., P.F., N.C.S., S.G.S. and J. P. F. acknowledge the support from Funda\c{c}\~ao para a Ci\^encia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through national funds and from FEDER through COMPETE2020 by the following grants: UID/FIS/04434/2013 \& POCI--01--0145-FEDER--007672, PTDC/FIS-AST/1526/2014 \& POCI--01--0145-FEDER--016886, PTDC/FIS-AST/7073/2014 \& POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016880 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028953.
E.D.M. acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract IF/00849/2015/CP1273/CT0003 and in the form of an exploratory project with the same reference. V.A., P.F., N.C.S., S.G.S. and M.C. also acknowledge the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contracts IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001, IF/01037/2013/CP1191/CT0001, IF/00169/2012/CP0150/CT0002, IF/00028/2014/CP1215/CT0002, and IF/00894/2012/CP0150/CT0004. J.P.F. acknowledges support by the fellowships SFRH/BD/93848/2013 funded by FCT (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). PF further acknowledges support from Funda\c{c}\~ao para a Ci\^encia e a Tecnologia (FCT) in the form of an exploratory project of reference IF/01037/2013/CP1191/CT0001. AM acknowledges funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement number 313014 (ETAEARTH).

This research has made use of the The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, SIMBAD and WEBDA databases. This work has also made use of the IRAF facility.

\end{acknowledgements}
\vspace{-0.4cm}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Our primary focus is on usurpassed quality workmanship and exceeding our customers expectations on every project.
E.E. Mills & Sons, Inc. has the knowledge, equipment, and manpower to handle all of your painting needs.
Don't wait till August to get your exterior projects scheduled. Get on the schedule now to insure your project is completed this summer.
We keep a gallery of all of our projects, and keep up to date references for all kinds of project sizes and types.
E.E. Mills & Sons, Inc. is a 4th Generation full service painting company serving central pennsylvania for almost 50 years.


text:
Q: template static function template class type deduction I want to make static function in singletone template class, that would be able to deduct types of template class.
The problem is, that calling static function from template class requires explicit type.
The only workaround that I've came up with was template function instead if template member function.
Here is an example. The problem is that foo4 part is not working
template <class T>
class Foo
{
private:
    Foo() {}
    Foo(const Foo&) = delete;
    Foo& operator= (const Foo&) = delete;

public:
    static auto& Instance()
    {
        static Foo foo{};
        return foo;
    }

    template<class K> static
    auto& DeductInstance(const K&)
    {
        static Foo<K> foo{};
        return foo;
    }

};

template<class K>
auto& DeductInstance(const K&)
{
    return Foo<K>::Instance();
}

void main()
{
    auto& foo1 = Foo<int>::Instance(); //OK
    auto& foo2 = Foo<int>::Instance(); //OK (return same example as foo1)
    auto& foo3 = DeductInstance(123); //OK
    auto& foo4 = Foo::DeductInstance(123); //NOT WORKING
}

A: The syntax you're asking for is theorically possible using injected class names. That would make Foo:: resolve to a particular, unrelated Foo<x>::. Here's an example:
struct BaseFoo {
    template<class K> static
    auto& DeductInstance(const K&);
};

template <class T>
struct Foo  {
    static auto& Instance() {
        static Foo foo{};
        return foo;
    }
};

template<>
struct Foo<void> : private BaseFoo {
    using BaseFoo::DeductInstance;
};

template<typename K>
auto& BaseFoo::DeductInstance(const K&)
{
    return Foo<K>::Instance();
}

using MakeFooAvailable = Foo<void>;

struct Dummy : MakeFooAvailable {
    auto& bar() {
        // Syntax working
        return Foo::DeductInstance(234);
    }
};

In the class Dummy, there's a injected class name for the base class Foo, resolving it to Foo<void>. Then, Foo<void> is making BaseFoo::DeductInstance available for name resolution in its scope.

I would advise not using this solution because it's a clever one. Clever generally mean surprising. Programmers don't expect seeing Foo as a non template when it is. The best solution I think would be:
auto& foo1 = Foo<int>::Instance(); //OK

The simpler, the better.

A: It's 2021 and we have CTAD, but I don't think it helps. I think this is very close to what you (and I!) want:
// A helper struct to provide Foo with a default template
// that isn't useful for instantiation:
struct DoNotInstantiate { DoNotInstantiate() = delete; };

template <class T = DoNotInstantiate>
class Foo
{
private:
    Foo() {
        static_assert(!std::is_same_v<T, DoNotInstantiate>, "You can't actually instantiate it with the default, it's just to make the static function work."); // Optional
    }
    // ...

public:
    // ...

    template<class K> static
    auto& DeductInstance(const K&)
    {
        static Foo<K> foo{};
        return foo;
    }
};

So you can call Foo<>::DeduceInstance(bar);. You still have to write the <> but otherwise, it's perfect, I think.
If you don't want that and really want to be able to call a static on a template, naming just the template name, there's this:
template <template<typename ...> class FooType, typename T>
auto DeduceInstance(const T& x) {
    return FooType<T>::DeduceInstance(x);
}

which lets you call DeduceInstance<Foo>(x) where Foo is just a template. But that feels round-about. I prefer Foo<>::DeduceInstance(x);.
It would be nice if CTAD let you write
template <class T>
Foo::DeductInstance(const T&) -> T&;

or maybe it would be
template <class T>
Foo::DeductInstance(const T&) -> Foo<T>::DeduceInstance(const T&);

or something similar, basically saying that if you use the template name without a type to call a static, use the argument list to dope out which template the caller was talking about.

A: I have to admit that I dont understand completely what you are trying to do. However, you can do either of the following two:
struct foo {
    template <typename T>
    static T deduce(const T& t) {
        return {};
    }
};

template <typename T>
T deduce_free(const T& t) {
    return {};
}

int main() {
    auto x = foo::deduce(1);
    auto y = deduce_free(1);
}

But you cannot call a method (whehter static or not) on some instance of bar<T> before you know what T is.
Things have changed a bit with C++17 which has class template argument deduction, though as far as I know this works for constructors, so you would still need a foo<int> first before you could call a foo<int>::deduce() I am too unexperienced with that to say something not wrong ;).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Alerts and Messages for U.S. visitors to the United Kingdom.
U.S. Citizens with emergencies, please call (0)20-7499-9000
Outside of Office Hours, contact: (0)20-7499-9000
Outside of the United Kingdom]: 011-44-20-7499-9000
Death of a U.S. Citizen in the UK
Legal Assistance in the UK
Medical Services in the UK
Chargé d'Affaires, ad interim Philip T. Reeker
Consul General Belfast Paul Narain
Consul General Edinburgh Jack Hillmeyer
Consul General Bermuda Karen Grissette
U.S. & The United Kingdom
U.S. Embassy London
U.S.-UK Extradition Treaty & Relationship
Official Reports of the United States Government
The United States has built a new Embassy in London! Check out our modern, welcoming, safe and energy efficient embassy for the 21st century.
Doing Business in The United Kingdom
Public Affairs (PA)
Cultural Connections
Embassy Grants Programs and Notice of Funding Opportunities
Take free online courses at your own pace and earn personalized certificates.
Embassy of the United States of America
33 Nine Elms Lane
London, SW11 7US
Phone: [44] (0)20 7499-9000
U.S. Consulate General Belfast
U.S. Consulate General Edinburgh
U.S. Consulate General Hamilton (Island of Bermuda)
U.S. Virtual Presence Post Wales
Other U.S. government agencies work with the United Kingdom, some with offices in the Embassy and some throughout the country.
Chargé d'Affaires Reeker at the Remembrance Day Memorial Commemoration at Brookwood American Cemetery
Chargé d'Affaires Reeker at the Pacific Futures Forum aboard HMS Prince of Wales
Chargé d'Affaires Reeker visits RAF Fairford
Chargé d'Affaires a.i Reeker at the 2021 Fulbright Reception
Message to U.S. Citizens: Disruptions in Glasgow and Edinburgh During COP26
Travel Advisory: U.S. Embassy and Consulates in the United Kingdom, May 11, 2021
Health Alert – U.S. Embassy London, UK
Deputy Secretary Sherman's Call with French, German, Italian and UK Counterparts
Joint Statement of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races
Secretary Blinken's Call with French, German, and UK Foreign Ministers
Statement on the 33rd Anniversary of the Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
U.S. and UK Issue Joint Statement to Enhance Cooperation on Quantum Information Science and Technology
Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference
U.S. & United Kingdom
Chargé d'Affaires Reeker Thanksgiving Speech at St. Paul's Cathedral
Secretary Blinken's Travel to Liverpool, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Honolulu
Remarks by Chargé d'Affaires Reeker at The 2021 Marine Ball
Embassy & Consulate Social Media Properties
Home	Home / Embassy & Consulate Social Media Properties
Social Media Properties
TwitterFacebookYouTubeFlickrInstagramBlogEmail Us
View U.S. Consulate General Belfast's Media Stream
U.S. Virtual Consulate Cardiff
View U.S. Virtual Consulate Cardiff's Media Stream
View U.S. Consulate General Edinburgh Media Stream
U.S. Embassy London Consular Services
U.S. Embassy & Consulates in the United Kingdom
TwitterFacebookYouTubeFlickrInstagramBlogLinkedInEmail Us
U.S. Consulate General Hamilton
U.S. Virtual Presence Post in Wales
Disclaimer – Footer
This is the official website of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in The United Kingdom. External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Very Rev. Kyle Dice Seage and the Rev. Charlie Dupree hijack the podcast! But they give it back. Then Brad Hughley joins in too. What do clergy wear on Sundays (other than vestments, of course)? What do people call their priests? What's it like when the bishop is married to the rector? And more!
This conversation was recorded at the 42nd Annual Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy in July 2017.


Description: An exhaustive bibliography (1,340 items) of Volodymyr Hnatiuk. See Volodymyr Hnatiuk in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
CIUS, "RR No. 15. Володимир Гнатюк," CIUS-Archives, accessed April 21, 2019, http://cius-archives.ca/items/show/25.


HANGZHOU, China/SHIELI, Kazakhstan (Reuters) – On a windswept steppe in southwestern Kazakhstan, the new Chinese-backed cement plant on the outskirts of the village of Shieli stands as a gleaming symbol to some of the Central Asian country's industrialisation.
But amid increased scrutiny of Belt and Road – a sprawling infrastructure plan meant to foster trade along a new "Silk Road" linking Asia with Europe, the Middle East and beyond – others say China is using the initiative to export industrial overcapacity, especially in heavy polluting industries.
Hundreds of cement plants have been shuttered in China under the pollution crackdown, according to state media, and the China Cement Association says that the country aims to eliminate about 400 million tonnes of capacity – about one-tenth of the total – by 2020.
"The overcapacity situation in China has become very severe…which is why we considered going to countries along the Belt and Road," the company's vice president Qu Hui told Reuters in an interview.
However, environmental groups say the export of the pollution problems that dogged China's rapid industrialisation is a concern.
"Given those differences in pollution standards in China and Kazakhstan, it might be profitable for China to shift cement plants – under the Belt and Road project – to Kazakhstan which has rich deposits of carbonates and silica used as cement feedstock," it said in an e-mail to Reuters.


Total strategic marketing. Full-range advertising. Expert branding. Encore Multimedia is the whole package. We believe that strategic thinking and optimal planning lead to breakthrough solutions and that successful, cost-effective marketing is the result of rich market insight, anticipation of new trends and the leveraging of relationships on every level.
We work hand-in-hand with you to develop and produce the right creative, select the right medium and map out distribution of that message to the right audience at the right time.
Business goes where it's wanted & stays where it's well-cared for.
President Dean Waskowiak and his wife Brenda started this agency from the ground up 25 years ago with the purpose of providing a great service to businesses not only in Longview, TX, but around the globe. Though the years have brought changes to office space and growth in staff, the focus always stays the same. At Encore we are customer focused and results driven, striving to give our clients the best service, followed by the best results.
Our benchmark is to ensure that every client experience is the best possible. Encore Multimedia goes beyond what most "traditional" agencies do and we evolve to blend seamlessly with your goals and then go the extra mile to exceed expectations with award-winning results…which is why so many of our clients return to us with "encore" business.
At Encore Multimedia, we value our many longstanding client relationships and are equally excited to welcome new clients and new challenges. We take the time to learn about you, your competition, and challenges you face, and then advance that knowledge to shape the best possible approach for your project.
We couldn't produce great work without great clients. Encore's output has earned over 170 regional and national awards. Thank you!
In the life we are given on this earth, there are a lot of things that we think are important. Some think possessions like cars, houses, boats, etc. are the most important. Others think things like prestige, position and wealth top the "important" list.


Knee Length Skirts Long Skirts. Skirts. All Skirts; Short Skirts; Knee Length Skirts; Long Skirts; New; Sale; View all Skirts. Jeans. the colours you like to wear, occasions you like to dress for, and much more! Create my style profile. Shop by Body Shape. Big �... This gorgeous SKIRT has an elasticated waist and is a long, MAXI length. It is purple, in a stretchy material and has an adjustable gather at the centre front, from the hem upwards.
You visually make your legs slimmer, if the ensemble with a long black skirt and tights include shoes of the same color. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical.... You visually make your legs slimmer, if the ensemble with a long black skirt and tights include shoes of the same color. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical.
You visually make your legs slimmer, if the ensemble with a long black skirt and tights include shoes of the same color. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical. Visually, you immediately lose a few pounds, that is doubly practical.
This gorgeous SKIRT has an elasticated waist and is a long, MAXI length. It is purple, in a stretchy material and has an adjustable gather at the centre front, from the hem upwards.
Hello! I'm Lily from the 2011 Seventeen Style Council. This is my very first blog on here. I'm very excited to be writing it. So, like I said, I'm Lily.


The last time the Blues played the Crusaders they leaked four converted tries in a woeful final 16 minutes in Christchurch, but all the indications are that they will be far more competitive in the final quarter against the same team at Eden Park on Saturday.
All Blacks midfielder Sonny Bill Williams will be on the field by then after being named on the reserves bench by coach Leon MacDonald, as predicted by the Herald. And so will All Blacks props Karl Tu'inukuafe and Ofa Tuungafasi, plus lock Gerard Cowley-Tuioti, who was such a standout for the Blues last season.
Ma'a Nonu, named to start at centre outside TJ Faiane, probably won't be. Nonu has played 60 minutes in pre-season – 60 more than Williams – and will probably depart to allow for his friend and former All Black teammate to move to second-five with Faiane moving out one.
It all adds up to a fascinating match-up because MacDonald has named a strong team, with Rieko Ioane on the left wing, Melani Nanai on the right, and first-five Otere Black and halfback Jonathan Ruru charged with navigating the team, led by lock Patrick Tuipulotu, around the field.
Starting props Alex Hodgman and Sione Mafileo are in good form and with Josh Goodhue at lock alongside Tuipuluto and fellow Northlander Tom Robinson at blindside flanker, the Blues have a very tall lineout.
Dalton Papalii, who made his All Blacks debut last year, will start at openside flanker in the injury-forced absence of co-captain Blake Gibson, with Harry Plummer named as back-up No10. Stephen Perofeta may need surgery on his damaged pectoral muscle, suffered last weekend against the Hurricanes.
The starting line-up will have the confidence of a good pre-season behind them, plus, presumably a good idea of exactly what game-plan MacDonald and fellow coaches Tom Coventry and Tana Umaga have settled on.
Playing the defending champions will be a big test for them, but the same is true also for Scott Robertson's men, because there remains a big element of the unknown in a big year for rugby in this country and beyond. Can MacDonald work his magic from the start against his old side who are led by the best coach in the competition? It could be a close one.
Blues team to play the Crusaders at Eden Park on Saturday, kick-off 7.35pm is: Michael Collins, Melani Nanai, Ma'a Nonu, TJ Faiane, Rieko Ioane, Otere Black, Jonathan Ruru, Akira Ioane, Dalton Papalii, Tom Robinson, Josh Goodhue, Patrick Tuipulotu ©, Sione Mafileo, James Parsons, Alex Hodgman.


It was 8:15 in the morning when I got a panicked call from my husband who was dropping off our kids at school.
I searched my inbox for the email about the Open House, and to my embarrassment saw that he was right.
This was not the first time something like this had happened. Despite spending hours each week reading emails, copying and pasting things into my calendar, and writing reminder notes for myself, I had forgotten to dress my kids in pajamas on PJ day (something they would not let me forget), send the library book back on library day and – my worst offense – pick them up on time on an early dismissal day.
Every time it happened, I would look into my kids' disappointed faces and feel terrible, like I was such a bad mom.
I didn't want to feel like that ever again, so I started to look for a way to handle it.
As I spoke to a few of my friends who had already traveled this part of the parenting journey before, one thing became very clear – everyone was using some sort of an app or a website, in many cases several, to help maintain order in their lives (and save their sanity).
I've since been an avid collector of apps/sites that simplify life and have even founded an app company myself that offers group communication and organization for parents, which you'll see below, called SimplyCircle.
Today, I've put together for you a list of 10 of my favorites apps for parents of school-aged kids. Some are smartphone apps, some are web apps, but all offer something to simplify our lives and allow us to feel like the fine parents that we are.
SimplyCircle makes it easy to communicate and organize, whether you're organizing a family of four or a group of 100. With SimplyCircle, you can send messages, create events with automated reminders, and easily manage volunteer signups. It's a perfect communications platform for classrooms, PTAs, sports teams, scout troops, or even just organizing your own family calendar.
ActivityHero makes it easy to find and book kids' camps and extracurricular activities. You can discover activities, read reviews, and enroll in activities online, without having to re-enter all the same information for every single activity you sign up for.
CatchMyParty is the easiest place to get party ideas. It's a Pinterest-style site where people upload photos of the fantastic kids' parties they've put together. You can browse the site for ideas, download free printables, or even purchase the supplies shown in the parties.
Waze is world's largest community based traffic and navigation app. If you're speeding from work to a 6:00 pm pickup, Waze will tell you if you're going to make it on time, which can either help dial-down your stress level, or let you know you may need to make emergency pickup arrangements.
WyzAnt is an online marketplace for parents looking for tutors. You can search for tutors, read reviews, and even do background checks to feel confident about the tutor you're hiring.
Nextdoor is a private social network for neighbors. You can use it to connect with your neighbors about local events, and even hear from local governments and public safety organizations with timely news about crime and safety issues.
Jooners is the easiest way to create a signup sheet online. If you're organizing a potluck or party, it's simple to collect volunteer signups all in one place. Jooners has dozens of premade templates to make it easy to set up all kinds of events.
Artkive lets you make an archive of your kids' artwork, stored in the cloud. You'll never again have to feel guilty about throwing away their artwork, since now it can be stored forever. Plus, you can even have the artwork printed into a hardcover book.
CookSmarts makes it easy to answer the question of what's for dinner. Voted Lifehacker's #1 meal planning app, Cook Smarts offers weekly menu plans, with options for different dietary types. Plus, it's only one click to print a grocery list.
Care.com is the leading marketplace for babysitters, and now they've even added care services for seniors, pet sitting, and home care. While the subscription pricing is a bit steep, they're the largest marketplace out there.
As a founder of a company, a mom of 2 young boys and a daughter of aging parents, I never have a dull moment. While I'll continue to have my fair share of typical parenting mishaps, I can say one thing confidently – showing up to pajama days without PJs, or to an Open House without flowers will never be one of them again.
Before you start adding more apps to your life, first review the ones you already have and remove those you don't need anymore. When I "purged" my unwanted apps, it freed up physical – and mental – space for me to add new ones that were genuinely helpful. Don't try to add too many apps at once as it can be overwhelming. Just pick one app to explore that resonates the most to start and work your way towards more from there.
Once a week, take just a few minutes to think about what you were frustrated with, what should have been easier, what were the biggest time or money wasters for you. Can any of these problems be solved with the apps from this list, or with other apps that your friends and neighbors recommend? Be sure to continually curate your list to remove ones that are no longer useful and will just clutter your life. Try to find a few perfect ones that have the most all-in-one capabilities so you won't have to deal with multiple organizers.
I'd love to hear your comments about which apps you find most useful.
Elena Krasnoperova is the founder of SimplyCircle, an online group communication service. A mother of two young boys, Elena holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University and comes from the world of consumer technology, having held leadership positions at global technology companies such as eBay, PayPal and oDesk. She founded SimplyCircle to help parent group leaders more effectively communicate with their groups, so parents could benefit from more organized communications.
Seven months ago we moved to this little lake house of ours in a small community of about 40 people. Since only half of the residents live here full-time, it is a tight knit little community who needs to communicate frequently. Those who do not live here still want to know what's going on or be able to quickly communicate with those of us in the neighborhood to check on their place, etc..
The month after we moved here, we received an invite to Nextdoor.com, and it is FABULOUS! Women in the community plan monthly get togethers. People will post that a raft is missing and has anyone seen it. We've searched down dogs, phones, and even something that flew out of the back of a pick-up together as a community.
There. That's a personal testimony.
Now, I'm off to check out Cook Smarts and WyzAnts. As a homeschooling parent there is never enough help with meals or school!
Thanks for the app list!
I really appreciate your personal testimony, Heather. All the apps on this list are new to me, and though I'd heard of a few, I wasn't even aware of the others until Elena introduced me to them. So glad to hear another voice in favor of one of these apps!