9,030 research outputs found

    The role of interplanetary scattering in western hemisphere large solar energetic particle events

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    Using high-sensitivity instruments on the ACE spacecraft, we have examined the intensities of O and Fe in 14 large solar energetic particle events whose parent activity was in the solar western hemisphere. Sampling the intensities at low (~273 keV nucleon to the -1) and high (~12 MeV nucleon to the -1) energies, we find that at the same kinetic energy per nucleon, the Fe/O ratio decreases with time, as has been reported previously. This behavior is seen in more than 70% of the cases during the rise to maximum intensity and continues in most cases into the decay phase. We find that for most events if we compare the Fe intensity with the O intensity at a higher kinetic energy per nucleon, the two time-intensity profiles are strikingly similar. Examining alternate scenarios that could produce this behavior, we conclude that for events showing this behavior the most likely explanation is that the Fe and O share similar injection profiles near the Sun, and that scattering in the interplanetary medium dominates the profiles observed at 1 AU

    Surface Hydrogen Modeling of Super Soft X-ray Sources: Are They Supernova Ia Progenitors?

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    Nova explosions occur on the white dwarf (WD) component of a Cataclysmic Variable stellar system which is accreting matter lost by a companion. A Type Ia supernova explosion is thought to result when a WD, in a similar binary configuration, grows in mass to the Chandrasekhar Limit. Here, we present calculations of accretion of Solar matter, at a variety of mass accretion rates, onto hot (2.3×1052.3 \times 10^{5}K), luminous (30L_\odot), massive (1.25M_\odot, 1.35M_\odot) Carbon-Oxygen WDs. In contrast to our nova simulations where the WD has a low initial luminosity and a thermonuclear runaway (TNR) occurs and ejects material, these simulations do not eject material (or only a small fraction of the accreted material) and the WD grows in mass. A hydrogen TNR does not occur because hydrogen fuses to helium in the surface layers, and we call this process Surface Hydrogen Burning (SHB). As the helium layer grows in mass, it gradually fuses either to carbon and oxygen or to more massive nuclei depending on the WD mass and mass accretion rate. If such a WD were to explode in a SN Ia event, therefore, it would show neither hydrogen nor helium in its spectrum as is observed. Moreover, the luminosities and effective temperatures of our simulations agree with the observations of some of the Super Soft X-ray Binary Sources and, therefore, our results strengthen previous speculation that some of them (CAL 83 and CAL 87 for example) are probably progenitors of SN Ia explosions. Finally, we have achieved SHB for values of the mass accretion rate that almost span the observed values of the Cataclysmic Variables.Comment: Accepted by APJL, 4 pages, 1 figure, LaTex (uses emulateapj.sty

    How Common is Energetic ^3He in the Inner Heliosphere?

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    Using data from the SIS and ULEIS instruments on the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) we have identified periods during which energetic ^3He is present in near-Earth interplanetary space between November 1997 and May 2002. The data, which cover the energy intervals 0.2–1 MeV/nuc (ULEIS) and 4.5–16.3 MeV/nuc (SIS), show that ^3He is present a significant fraction of the time, as would be required if these suprathermal particles were the major source of the ^3He being accelerated by shocks in the interplanetary medium. Specifically, we find that energetic ^3He is present at least ~ 60% of the time, and perhaps significantly more often

    Seed populations for large solar particle events of cycle 23

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    Using high-resolution mass spectrometers on board the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), we surveyed the event-averaged ~0.1-60 MeV/nuc heavy ion elemental composition in 64 large solar energetic particle (LSEP) events of cycle 23. Our results show the following: (1) The rare isotope ^3He is greatly enhanced over the corona or the solar wind values in 46% of the events. (2) The Fe/O ratio decreases with increasing energy up to ~10 MeV/nuc in ~92% of the events and up to ~60 MeV/nuc in ~64% of the events. (3) Heavy ion abundances from C-Fe exhibit systematic M/g-dependent enhancements that are remarkably similar to those seen in ^3He-rich SEP events and CME-driven interplanetary (IP) shock events. Taken together, these results confirm the role of shocks in energizing particles up to ~60 MeV/nuc in the majority of large SEP events of cycle 23, but also show that the seed population is not dominated by ions originating from the ambient corona or the thermal solar wind, as previously believed. Rather, it appears that the source material for CME-associated large SEP events originates predominantly from a suprathermal population with a heavy ion enrichment pattern that is organized according to the ion's mass-per-charge ratio. These new results indicate that current LSEP models must include the routine production of this dynamic suprathermal seed population as a critical pre-cursor to the CME shock acceleration process

    Going beyond defining: Preschool educators\u27 use of knowledge in their pedagogical reasoning about vocabulary instruction

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    Previous research investigating both the knowledge of early childhood educators and the support for vocabulary development present in early childhood settings has indicated that both educator knowledge and enacted practice are less than optimal, which has grave implications for children\u27s early vocabulary learning and later reading achievement. Further, the nature of the relationship between educators\u27 knowledge and practice is unclear, making it difficult to discern the best path towards improved knowledge, practice, and children\u27s vocabulary outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to add to the existing literature by using stimulated recall interviews and a grounded approach to examine how 10 preschool educators used their knowledge to made decisions about their moment-to-moment instruction in support of children\u27s vocabulary development. Results indicate that educators were thinking in highly context-specific ways about their goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning, taking into account important knowledge of their instructional history with children and of the children themselves to inform their decision making in the moment. In addition, they reported thinking about research-based goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning that went beyond simply defining words for children. Implications for research and professional development are discussed

    Abundances and energy spectra of corotating interaction region heavy ions

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    We have surveyed He-Fe spectra for 41 Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs) from 1998–2007 observed on ACE. The spectra are similar for all species, and have the form of broken power laws with the spectral break occurring at a few MeV/nucleon. Except for overabundances of He and Ne, the abundances are close to those of the solar wind. We find the rare isotope ^3He is enhanced in ~40% of the events. In individual CIRs the Fe/O ratio correlates strongly with the solar wind Fe/O ratio measured 2–4 days prior to the CIR passage. Taken together with previously reported observations of pick-up He^+ in CIRs, these observations provide evidence that CIRs are accelerated out of a suprathermal ion pool of heated solar wind ions, pick-up ions, and remnant suprathermal ions from impulsive solar energetic particle (SEP) events

    Treating and Preventing Influenza in Aged Care Facilities: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

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    PMCID: PMC3474842This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
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