Contact Information

Research Interests

• Astrophysics: Optical Pulsars - Observations, Data Analysis and Modelling
• Medical Imaging: Enhancement of Medical X-Rays / Segmentation
• Imaging: Development of Parallel Image Deconvolution systems
• Grid/Meta Computing

Key/recent publications

Talks/Presentations

Talk given to the Elba Pulsar workshop June 2009 - 'Optical Pulsars' 

Talk given to the ESO E-ELT meeting May 2009 - 'HTRA'

White paper on High Time Resolution Astrophysics - September 2010

Public Talks as part of National Science Week/Galway Science Festival

Tides

Pulsars

Open Night Talk : movie1 : movie2

Crab Picture

All Data

Random1 random0.1 Random0.01 Random0.001 Random0.0001 Random0.00001

HTRA-Crete POS Papers

GASP Draft Paper

National Plan All : National Plan in Parts

PSR J0357

Lecture 3 - Evening Class

Astronet Science Vision

Pulsar Talk

Lecture 3 Evening Class

Cern Talk

Recent Papers - click here for a full list

Astrophysics

Mignani, R. P., Shearer, A., de Luca, A., Moran, P., Collins, S., and Marelli, M., 2011, A&A, 533, "VLT observations of the two Fermi pulsars PSR J1357-6429 and PSR J1048-5832"

Mc Donald, John, O' Connor, Padraig, de Burca, Dairmaid, Golden, Aaron, and Shearer, Andy,  2011,
accepted for publication in MNRAS[arXiv:1106.5207]  "Inverse Mapping of Polarised Optical Emission from Pulsars : Basic Formulation and Determination of Emission Altitude"

De Luca, A., Marelli, M., Mignani, R. P., Caraveo, P. A., Hummel, W., Collins, S.,  Shearer, A., Saz Parkinson, P. M., Belfiore, A., and Bignami, G. F.,  2011, ApJ,  733,  "Discovery of a Faint X-Ray Counterpart and a Parsec-long X-Ray
Tail for the Middle-aged, gamma-Ray-only Pulsar PSR J0357+3205"

Dhillon, V. S., Keane, E. F., Marsh, T. R., Stappers, B. W., Copperwheat, C. M., Hickman, R. D. G., Jordan, C. A., Kerry, P., Kramer, M., Littlefair, S. P., Lyne, A. G., Mignani, R. P., and  Shearer, A.,  2011, accepted for publication in MNRAS [arXiv:1103.1304] "A search for optical bursts from the rotating radio transient J1819-1458 with ULTRACAM - II. Simultaneous ULTRACAM-Lovell Telescope  observations"

Neustroev, V. V., Suleimanov, V. F., Borisov, N. V., Belyakov, K. V., and  Shearer, A.,  MNRAS,  410,  977,  "Dark spot, spiral waves and the SW Sextantis behaviour: it is all about UX Ursae Majoris"

Beskin, Grigory, Bondar, Sergey, Karpov, Sergey, Plokhotnichenko, Vladimir, Guarnieri, Adriano, Bartolini, Corrado, Greco,  Giuseppe, Piccioni, Adalberto, and {\bf Shearer, Andrew},  2011, Advances in Astronomy,  "From TORTORA to MegaTORTORA -Results and Prospects of Search for Fast Optical Transients"

Dhillon, V. S., Marsh, T. R., Littlefair, S. P., Copperwheat, C. M., Kerry, P., Dib, R., Durant, M., Kaspi, V. M., Mignani, R. P., and Shearer, A., MNRAS, 394, L116, 2009, "Optical pulsations from the anomalous X-ray pulsar 1E1048.1-5937"

McDonald, John and Shearer, Andrew, ApJ, 690, 19, 2009, "Investigations of the Magnetospheric Plasma Distribution in the Vicinity of a Pulsar. I. Basic Formulation"

Shearer, A. and Neustroev, V. V., MNRAS, 390, 238, 2008, "Optical observations of PSR J0205+6449"

Shearer, Andy, Cunniffe, John, Voisin, Bruno, Neustroev, Vitaly, Browne, Michael, Andersen, Torben, Enmark, Anita, and Linde, Peter, SPIE, 6986, 2008, "High time resolution astrophysics and ELTs: Which wavelength?"

Shearer, Andy, Cunniffe, John, Voisin, Bruno, Neustroev, Vitaly, Andersen, Torben, and Enmark, Anita, AIPC, 984, 232, 2008, "High Time Resolution Astrophysics and Extremely Large Telescopes"

Shearer, Andrew, ASSL, 351, 4020, 2008, "High Time Resolution Astrophysics and Pulsars"

Phelan, Don, Ryan, Oliver, and Shearer, Andrew, ASSL, 351, 2008, "High Time Resolution Astrophysics"

Devereux, Nick and Shearer, Andrew, ApJ, 671, 123, 2007, "Kinematics of the Broad-Line Region in M81"

Golden, A., Bourke, S., Clyne, G., Butler, R. F., Shearer, A., Muxlow, T. W. B., and Brisken, W. F., ApJ, 635, L156, 2005, "A MERLIN Observation of PSR B1951+32 and Its Associated Plerion"

Dhillon, V. S., Marsh, T. R., Hulleman, F., van Kerkwijk, M. H., Shearer, A., Littlefair, S. P., Gavriil, F. P., and Kaspi, V. M., MNRAS, 363, 614, 2005, "High-speed, multicolour optical photometry of the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 with ULTRACAM"

Neustroev, V. V., Zharikov, S., Tovmassian, G., and Shearer, A., MNRAS, 362, 1482, 2005, "Steps towards a solution of the FS Aurigae puzzle - I. Multicolour high-speed photometry with ULTRACAM"

O'Connor, P., Golden, A., and Shearer, A., ApJ, 631, 479, 2005, "Synchrotron Self-Absorption in Pulsar Magnetospheres: Implications for Optical Emission"

Tuairisg, S. Ó., Butler, R. F., Shearer, A., Redfern, R. M., Butler, D., and Penny, A., MNRAS, 345, 980, 2003, "TRIFFID observations of the cores of the three globular clusters M15, M92 and NGC 6712"

Shearer, A., Stappers, B., O'Connor, P., Golden, A., Strom, R., Redfern, M., and Ryan, O., Sci, 301, 495, 2003, "Enhanced Optical Emission During Crab Giant Radio Pulses"

Computing and VO papers

WebCom-G: a Candidate Middleware for Grid Ireland, Morrison, J. P., Coghlan, B., Shearer, A., International Journal for High Performance Computing Applications, 20, 409 (2006)

The MarineGrid project in Ireland with Webcom, Kenirons, Martin, Curran, Oisin, Cunnffe, John, Ryan, Jenny, Ryan, Paul, Shearer, Andrew, Computers & Geosciences, 35, 205 (2009)

A workflow model for heterogeneous computing environments, Curran O. & Shearer
A. Future Generation Computer Systems - The International Journal of  Grid-Computing, 25, 414-425 (2009)

Sub-Linear Feature Detection from Bathymetric Data-Sets with WebCom-G, Kenirons, M. P.,Curran, O., Cunniffe, J, Torpey S., Ryan, J., Ryan, P. & Shearer, A., Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing 2005, 113, (2005)

Resource aggregation and workflow with Webcom O. Curran, P. Downes, J. Cunniffe, A. Shearer & J. Morrison, 3rd International Conference on HighPerformance Computing and Communications (HPCC 2007), High Performance Computing and Communications, 4781, 108-119 (2007)

Fine-grained workflow in heterogeneous environments, O.Curran, P. Downes, J. Cunniffe & A, Shearer, 16th Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-Based Processing, 115-119, (2008)

WebCom-G: Implementing an Astronomical Data Analysis Pipeline on a Grid-type Infrastructure, Tuairisg, S. O., Browne, M., Cuniffe, J., Shearer, A.; Morrison, J. & Power, K., Astronomical Society the Pacific Conference Series, 347, 325, (2005)

A pipeline for automatical  processing and analyzing archival images from multiple instruments,  O’Tuairisg, S., Golden, A., Butler, R. F., Shearer, A., and Voisin, B. , Ground-based Telescopes. Edited by Oschmann, Jacobus M., Jr. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 5493, pp. 467-473 (2004)., 5493, 467, (2004)

Simulating instruments for mining uncalibrated archives, Voisin, B., Micol, A., O’Tuairisg, S., Butler, R. F., Golden, A., and Shearer, A. , Ground-based Telescopes. Edited by Oschmann, Jacobus M., Jr. Proceedings of the
SPIE, Volume 5493, pp. 294-301 (2004)., 5493, 294, (2004)

Medical Imaging/Physics

Downes P, Curran O, Cunniffe J & Shearer, A, 2010, International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications,   24   Issue: 2,   213-227   Distributed Radiotherapy Simulation with the Webcom Workflow System

Pleural effusion segmentation in thin-slice CT, Donohue, R., Shearer, A., Bruzzi,  J., and Khosa, H. , Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference Series, 7259, (2009)

The use of chloroaluminium phthalocyanine tetrasulfonate (AlPcTS) for time-delayed fluorescence imaging, Gundy, S., Van der Putten, W., Shearer, A., Buckton, D., Ryder, A. G., and Ball, M., Physics in Medicine and Biology, 49, 359,
(2004)

Determination of the modulation transfer function for a time-gated fluorescence imag-
ing system, Gundy S, Van der Putten W, Shearer A, Buckton D and Ryder AG, Journal of Biomedical Optics, 9 (6), 1206 (2004)

Image deconvolution as an aid to mammographic tumour identification., A. Shearer,  T. ODoherty, P. Abbott, W. van der Putten, Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing, 37 (1998)

Scatter and noise reduction in computed radiography images., T. ODoherty, A.  Shearer, P. Abbott, W. van der Putten, Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing, 63 (1999)

Massively Parallel Image Restoration with Spatially Variant Point Spread Function, Gorman, G., O’Doherty, T., Butler, R., Wilson, N. and Shearer, A., Proc.Int.Conf.Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (Proc.PDPTA’2001), CSREA Press, Las Vegas, (2001)

Time-resolved fluorescence studies of porphycene and tetrasulfonated derivatives in varying solvents, Gundy, S., van der Putten, W., Shearer A., Ryder, A.G. and Ball, M, Physica Medica; European Journal of Medical Physics, vol.
17(3), p. 162 (2001)

Parallel image restoration with spatial ly variant point spread function: description and first clinical results, Shearer, A., Gorman, G., O’Doherty, T., van der Putten, W. J., McCarthy, P., and Jelen, L. , Proc. SPIE Vol. 4322, p. 787-795, Medical Imaging 2001: Image Processing, Milan Sonka; Kenneth M. Hanson; Eds., 4322, 787, (2001)

Teaching responsibilities

Lecture Courses for 2011/12

Semester I

PH 103 : Introduction to Astronomy [Friday 10-11 - 125]

PH 101 : Physics {Monday, Wednesday Friday 12-1]

EP 462 : Problem Solving [Thursday 11-12 - 220]

Semester II

EP464 : Signal and Image Processing [Monday11-12; Thursday12-1]

EP402 : Medical Imaging [Monday11-12; Thursday12-1]

EP466 : Astrophysics [Wednesday, Thursday [13-14:00]

EP 462 : Problem Solving [Wednesday 11-12]