The molecular complex associated with the Galactic HII region Sh2-90: a possible site of triggered star formation

We investigate the star formation activity in the molecular complex associated with the Galactic HII region Sh2-90, using radio-continuum maps obtained at 1280 MHz and 610 MHz, Herschel Hi-GAL observations at 70 -- 500 microns, and deep near-infrared observation at JHK bands, along with Spitzer observations. Sh2-90 presents a bubble morphology in the mid-IR (size ~ 0.9 pc x 1.6 pc). Radio observations suggest it is an evolved HII region with an electron density ~ 144 cm^-3, emission measure ~ 6.7 x 10^4 cm^-6 pc and a ionized mass ~ 55 Msun. From Hi-GAL observations it is found that the HII region is part of an elongated extended molecular cloud (size ~ 5.6 pc x 9.7 pc, H_2 column density >= 3 x 10^21 cm^-2 and dust temperature 18 -- 27 K) of total mass >= 1 x 10^4 Msun. We identify the ionizing cluster of Sh2-90, the main exciting star being an O8--O9 V star. Five cold dust clumps (mass ~ 8 -- 95 Msun), four mid-IR blobs around B stars, and a compact HII region are found at the edge of the bubble.The velocity information derived from CO (J=3-2) data cubes suggests that most of them are associated with the Sh2-90 region. 129 YSOs are identified (Class I, Class II, and near-IR excess sources). The majority of the YSOs are low mass (<= 3 Msun) sources and they are distributed mostly in the regions of high column density. Four candidate Class 0/I MYSOs have been found; they will possibly evolve to stars of mass >= 15 Msun. We suggest multi-generation star formation is present in the complex. From the evidences of interaction, the time scales involved and the evolutionary status of stellar/protostellar sources, we argue that the star formation at the immediate border/edges of Sh2-90 might have been triggered by the expanding HII region. However, several young sources in this complex are probably formed by some other processes.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Detection and characterization of a 500 μm dust emissivity excess in the Galactic plane using Herschel/Hi-GAL observations

Context. Past and recent observations have revealed unexpected variations in the far-infrared – millimeter (FIR-mm) dust emissivity in the interstellar medium. In the Herschel spectral range, those are often referred to as a 500 μm emission excess. Several dust emission models have been developed to interpret astrophysical data in the FIR-mm domain. However, these are commonly unable to fully reconcile theoretical predictions with observations. In contrast, the recently revised two level system (TLS) model, based on the disordered internal structure of amorphous dust grains, seems to provide a promising way of interpreting existing data. Aims. The newly available Herschel infrared GALactic (Hi-GAL) data, which covers most of the inner Milky Way, offers a unique opportunity to investigate possible variations in the dust emission properties both with wavelength and environment. The goal of our analysis is to constrain the internal structure of the largest dust grains on Galactic scales, in the framework of the TLS model. Methods. By combining the IRIS (Improved Reprocessing of the IRAS Survey) 100 μm with the Hi-GAL 160, 250, 350, and 500 μm data, we model the dust emission spectra in each pixel of the Hi-GAL maps, using both the TLS model and, for comparison, a single modified black-body fit. The effect of temperature mixing along the line of sight is investigated to test the robustness of our results. Results. We find a slight decrease in the dust temperature with distance from the Galactic center, confirming previous results. We also report the detection of a significant 500 μm emissivity excess in the peripheral regions of the plane (35° < |l| < 70°) of about 13–15% of the emissivity, which can reach up to 20% in some HII regions. We present the spatial distributions of the best-fit values for the two main parameters of the TLS model, i.e. the charge correlation length, lc, used to characterize the disordered charge distribution (DCD) part of the model, and the amplitude A of the TLS processes with respect to the DCD effect. These distributions illustrate the variations in the dust properties with environment, in particular the plausible existence of an overall gradient with distance to the Galactic center. A comparison with previous findings in the solar neighborhood shows that the local value of the excess is less than expected from the Galactic gradient observed here

Modeling and predicting the shape of the far-infrared to submillimeter emission in ultra-compact HII regions and cold clumps

Dust properties are very likely affected by the environment in which dust grains evolve. For instance, some analyses of cold clumps (7 K- 17 K) indicate that the aggregation process is favored in dense environments. However, studying warm (30 K-40 K) dust emission at long wavelength ($\lambda$$>$300 $\mu$m) has been limited because it is difficult to combine far infared-to-millimeter (FIR-to-mm) spectral coverage and high angular resolution for observations of warm dust grains. Using Herschel data from 70 to 500 $\mu$m, which are part of the Herschel infrared Galactic (Hi-GAL) survey combined with 1.1 mm data from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS), we compared emission in two types of environments: ultra-compact HII (UCHII) regions, and cold molecular clumps (denoted as cold clumps). With this comparison we tested dust emission models in the FIR-to-mm domain that reproduce emission in the diffuse medium, in these two environments (UCHII regions and cold clumps). We also investigated their ability to predict the dust emission in our Galaxy. We determined the emission spectra in twelve UCHII regions and twelve cold clumps, and derived the dust temperature (T) using the recent two-level system (TLS) model with three sets of parameters and the so-called T-$\beta$ (temperature-dust emissvity index) phenomenological models, with $\beta$ set to 1.5, 2 and 2.5. We tested the applicability of the TLS model in warm regions for the first time. This analysis indicates distinct trends in the dust emission between cold and warm environments that are visible through changes in the dust emissivity index. However, with the use of standard parameters, the TLS model is able to reproduce the spectral behavior observed in cold and warm regions, from the change of the dust temperature alone, whereas a T-$\beta$ model requires $\beta$ to be known.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 19 pages, 8 figures, 7 table

A Bayesian method for the analysis of the dust emission in the Far-Infrared and Submillimeter

We present a method, based on Bayesian statistics, to fit the dust emission parameters in the far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. The method estimates the dust temperature and spectral emissivity index, plus their relationship, properly taking into account the statistical and systematic uncertainties. We test it on three sets of simulated sources detectable by the Herschel Space Observatory in the PACS and SPIRE spectral bands (70-500 μm), spanning over a wide range of dust temperatures. The simulated observations are a one-component interstellar medium and two two-component sources, both warm (H II regions) and cold (cold clumps (CCs)). We first define a procedure to identify the better model, then we recover the parameters of the model and measure their physical correlations by means of a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm adopting multi-variate Gaussian priors. In this process, we assess the reliability of the model recovery and of parameter estimation. We conclude that the model and parameters are properly recovered only under certain circumstances and that false models may be derived in some cases. We applied the method to a set of 91 starless CCs in an interarm region of the Galactic plane with low star formation activity, observed by Herschel in the Hi-GAL survey. Our results are consistent with a temperature-independent spectral index

Sodium intake and blood pressure in children and adolescents: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. In adults, high sodium intake is associated with elevated blood pressure. In children, experimental studies have shown that reducing sodium intake can reduce blood pressure. However, their external validity is limited, notably because the sodium reduction was substantial and not applicable in a real-life setting. Observational studies, on the other hand, allow assess the association between blood pressure and sodium intake across usual levels of consumption. There is also evidence that the association differs between subgroups of children according to age and body weight. Our objective is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental and observational studies on the association between sodium intake and blood pressure in children and adolescents and to assess whether the association differs according to age and body weight. A systematic search of the MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and CENTRAL databases will be conducted and supplemented by a manual search of bibliographies and unpublished studies. Experimental and observational studies involving children or adolescents between 0 and 18 years of age will be included. The exposure will be dietary sodium intake, estimated using different methods including urinary sodium excretion. The outcomes will be systolic and diastolic blood pressure, elevated blood pressure and hypertension. If appropriate, meta-analyses will be performed by pooling data across all studies together and separately for experimental and observational studies. Subgroup meta-analyses by age and body weight will be also conducted. Moreover, separate meta-analyses for different sodium intake levels will be conducted to investigate the dose-response relationship. This systematic review and meta-analysis will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. A report will be prepared for national authorities and other stakeholders in the domains of nutrition, public health, and child health in Switzerland. CRD42016038245

Describing Sensory Experience: The Genre of Wine Reviews

The purpose of the article is to shed light on how experiences of sensory perceptions in the domains of VISION, SMELL, TASTE and TOUCH are recast into text and discourse in the genre of wine reviews. Because of the alleged paucity of sensory vocabularies, in particular in the olfactory domain, it is of particular interest to investigate what resources language has to offer in order to describe those experiences. We show that the main resources are, on the one hand, words evoking properties that are applicable cross-modally and properties of objects that range over more than one domain, and on the other, vivid imagery that compares the characteristics of the wine with people, building, animals and the hustle and bustle of market places and other events. The second goal is to account for the construals of the meanings of the expressions used in the recontextualization into written discourse in the light of their apparent flexibility across the descriptions of the sensory experiences. In contrast to a large body of the literature on sensory meanings in language, we argue that the descriptors of properties such as sharp, soft, lemon and cherry used to describe a wine’s qualities across the sensory domains are not polysemous synesthetic metaphors, but monosemous synesthetic metonymizations, more precisely zone activations. With regard to the imagery used, the construals represented cover both similes, metaphorizations and metonymizations proper

Variations of the spectral index of dust emissivity from Hi-GAL observations of the Galactic plane

Original article can be found at: http://www.aanda.org/ Copyright The European Southern ObservatoryContext. Variations in the dust emissivity are critical for gas mass determinations derived from far-infrared observations, but also for separating dust foreground emission from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Hi-GAL observations allow us for the first time to study the dust emissivity variations in the inner regions of the Galactic plane at resolution below 1°. Aims. We present maps of the emissivity spectral index derived from the combined Herschel PACS 160 μm, SPIRE 250 μm, 350 μm, and 500 μm data, and the IRIS 100 μm data, and we analyze the spatial variations of the spectral index as a function of dust temperature and wavelength in the two science demonstration phase Hi-GAL fields, centered at l = 30° and l = 59°. Methods. Applying two different methods, we determine both dust temperature and emissivity spectral index between 100 and 500 μm, at an angular resolution (θ) of 4'. Results. Combining both fields, the results show variations of the emissivity spectral index in the range 1.8–2.6 for temperatures between 14 and 23 K. The median values of the spectral index are similar in both fields, i.e. 2.3 in the range 100–500 μm, while the median dust temperatures are equal to 19.1 K and 16.0 K in the l = 30° and l = 59° field, respectively. Statistically, we do not see any significant deviations in the spectra from a power law emissivity between 100 and 500 μm. We confirm the existence of an inverse correlation between the emissivity spectral index and dust temperature, found in previous analyses.Peer reviewe

Persistence of biogeochemical alterations of deep-sea sediments by bottom trawling

© 2020. The Authors. Bottom trawling grounds have been expanding to deeper areas of the oceans since the mid-XXth century, and mitigating strategies aimed to protect fish stocks, such as temporal trawling closures, have recently been implemented. Here we investigated the biogeochemical properties of sediment from a deep-sea trawling ground in Palamós Canyon (NW Mediterranean) to assess the effects of a 2-months trawling closure in the recovery of sedimentary organic matter. In comparison to untrawled areas, the continuous erosion and sediment mixing in trawling grounds led to coarser reworked sediments impoverished in organic carbon (∼30% loss) and promoted the degradation of labile compounds (52–70% loss). These impacts persisted after the temporal trawling closure, highlighting that this management strategy is insufficient to restore the seafloor. Considering the continuous expansion of bottom trawling grounds, this activity could have significant and irreversible biogeochemical impacts on ocean margins at a global scale, hampering their carbon burial capacity

Pharmacist interventions to improve hypertension management: protocol for a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

INTRODUCTION: Hypertension management remains a major public health challenge in primary care. Innovative interventions to improve blood pressure (BP) control are needed. One approach is through community-based models of care with the involvement of pharmacists and other non-physician healthcare professionals. Our objective is to systematically review the evidence of the impact of pharmacist care alone or in collaboration with other healthcare professionals on BP among hypertensive outpatients compared with usual care. Because these interventions can be complex, with various components, the effect size may differ between the type of interventions. One major focus of our study will be to assess carefully the heterogeneity in the effects of these interventions to identify which ones work best in a given healthcare setting. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Systematic searches of the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Excerpta Medica (Embase) and Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) databases will be conducted. Randomised controlled trials assessing the effect of pharmacist interventions on BP among outpatients will be included. Examples for pharmacist interventions are patient education, feedback to physician and medication management. The outcome will be the change in BP or BP at follow-up or BP control. Results will be synthesised descriptively and, if appropriate, will be pooled across studies to perform meta-analyses. If feasible, we will also perform a network meta-analysis to compare interventions that have not been compared directly head-to-head by using indirect evidence. Heterogeneity in the effect will be evaluated through prespecified subgroup and stratified analyses, accounting notably for the type and intensity of interventions, patients' characteristics and healthcare setting. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not required as the results will be drawn from currently available published literature. Outcomes of the review will be shared through peer-reviewed journal and used for implementation policy. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021279751