Uncovering the Beast: Discovery of Embedded Massive Stellar Clusters in W49A

We present subarcsecond J, H, and Ks images (FWHM ~ 0.5") of an unbiased 5'x 5' (16pc x 16pc) survey of the densest region of the W49 giant molecular cloud. The observations reveal 4 massive stellar clusters (with stars as massive as \~120 Msun), the larger (Cluster 1) about 3 pc East of the well known Welch ring of ultra-compact Hii regions. Cluster 1 is a) extincted by at least Av > 20 mag of foreground (unrelated and local) extinction, b) has more than 30 mag of internal inhomogeneous visual extinction implying that it is still deeply buried in its parental molecular cloud, and c) is powering a 6 pc diameter giant Hii region seen both at the NIR and radio continuum. We also identify the exciting sources of several UCHii regions. The census of massive stars in W49A agrees or is slightly overabundant when compared with the number of Lyman continuum photons derived from radio observations. We argue that although the formation of the Welch ring could have been triggered by Cluster 1, the entire W49A starburst region seems to have been multi-seeded instead of resulting from a coherent trigger.Comment: ApJ Letters accepted. All figures provided as nice resolution jpeg/gif files. Get full-res version at http://www.eso.org/~jalves/W49A.pd

Orion revisited. II. The foreground population to Orion A

Following the recent discovery of a large population of young stars in front of the Orion Nebula, we carried out an observational campaign with the DECam wide-field camera covering ~10~deg^2 centered on NGC 1980 to confirm, probe the extent of, and characterize this foreground population of pre-main-sequence stars. We confirm the presence of a large foreground population towards the Orion A cloud. This population contains several distinct subgroups, including NGC1980 and NGC1981, and stretches across several degrees in front of the Orion A cloud. By comparing the location of their sequence in various color-magnitude diagrams with other clusters, we found a distance and an age of 380pc and 5~10Myr, in good agreement with previous estimates. Our final sample includes 2123 candidate members and is complete from below the hydrogen-burning limit to about 0.3Msun, where the data start to be limited by saturation. Extrapolating the mass function to the high masses, we estimate a total number of ~2600 members in the surveyed region. We confirm the presence of a rich, contiguous, and essentially coeval population of about 2600 foreground stars in front of the Orion A cloud, loosely clustered around NGC1980, NGC1981, and a new group in the foreground of the OMC-2/3. For the area of the cloud surveyed, this result implies that there are more young stars in the foreground population than young stars inside the cloud. Assuming a normal initial mass function, we estimate that between one to a few supernovae must have exploded in the foreground population in the past few million years, close to the surface of Orion A, which might be responsible, together with stellar winds, for the structure and star formation activity in these clouds. This long-overlooked foreground stellar population is of great significance, calling for a revision of the star formation history in this region of the Galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Performances of a Newly High Sensitive Trilayer F/Cu/F GMI Sensor

We have selected stress-annealed nanocrystalline Fe-based ribbons for ferromagnetic/copper/ferromagnetic sensors exhibiting high magneto-impedance ratio. Longitudinal magneto-impedance reaches 400% at 60 kHz and longitudinal magneto-resistance increases up to 1300% around 200 kHz.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Sensors and Actuators A (in review

A new level-set-based protocol for accurate bone segmentation from CT imaging

A new medical image segmentation pipeline for accurate bone segmentation from computed tomography (CT) imaging is proposed in this paper. It is a two-step methodology, with a pre-segmentation step and a segmentation refinement step, as follows. First, the user performs a rough segmenting of the desired region of interest. Second, a fully automatic refinement step is applied to the pre-segmented data. The automatic segmentation refinement is composed of several sub-steps, namely, image deconvolution, image cropping, and interpolation. The user-defined pre-segmentation is then refined over the deconvolved, cropped, and up-sampled version of the image. The performance of the proposed algorithm is exemplified with the segmentation of CT images of a composite femur bone, reconstructed with different reconstruction protocols. Segmentation outcomes are validated against a gold standard model, obtained using the coordinate measuring machine Nikon Metris LK V20 with a digital line scanner LC60-D and a resolution of 28 µm. High sub-pixel accuracy models are obtained for all tested data sets, with a maximum average deviation of 0.178 mm from the gold standard. The algorithm is able to produce high quality segmentation of the composite femur regardless of the surface meshing strategy used.The authors also would like to acknowledge Hospital CUF, Porto (Portugal), Clínica Dr. Campos Costa, Porto (Portugal), and ISQ, Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade for all technical support provided during this work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Optimized cross-slot flow geometry for microfluidic extension rheometry

A precision-machined cross-slot flow geometry with a shape that has been optimized by numerical simulation of the fluid kinematics is fabricated and used to measure the extensional viscosity of a dilute polymer solution. Full-field birefringence microscopy is used to monitor the evolution and growth of macromolecular anisotropy along the stagnation point streamline, and we observe the formation of a strong and uniform birefringent strand when the dimensionless flow strength exceeds a critical Weissenberg number Wicrit 0:5. Birefringence and bulk pressure drop measurements provide self consistent estimates of the planar extensional viscosity of the fluid over a wide range of deformation rates (26 s1 "_ 435 s1) and are also in close agreement with numerical simulations performed by using a finitely extensible nonlinear elastic dumbbell model

Constraining Elko Dark Matter at the LHC with Monophoton Events

A mass dimension one fermion, also known as Elko, constitutes a dark matter candidate which might interact with photons at the tree level in a specific fashion. In this work, we investigate the constraints imposed by unitarity and LHC data on this type of interactions using the search for new physics in monophoton events. We found that Elkos which can explain the dark matter relic abundance mainly through electromagnetic interactions are excluded at the 95\%CL by the 8 TeV LHC data for masses up to 1 TeV.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Micromechanical study of the dilatational response of porous solids with pressure-insensitive matrix displaying tension-compression asymmetry

In this paper, the dilatational response of porous solids with pressure-insensitive matrix displaying strength differential (SD) effects is investigated. To this end, micromechanical finite-element analyses of three-dimensional unit cells are carried out. The matrix behavior is governed by the isotropic form of Cazacu et al. (2006) criterion that accounts for SD effects through a parameter k. Simulation results are presented for axisymmetric tensile loadings corresponding to fixed values of the stress triaxiality for the two possible values of the Lode parameter, LP. For moderate and high stress triaxialities, it is shown that for materials for which the matrix tensile strength is larger than its compressive strength (k > 0), under tensile loadings corresponding at LP=1 the void growth rate is much faster than in the case of tensile loadings at LP=-1. The opposite holds true for materials with matrix tensile strength lower than its compressive strength (k< 0). This drastic difference in porosity evolution is explained by the distribution of the local plastic strain and stresses, which are markedly different than in a von Mises material (i.e. no SD effects of the matrix).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The feasibility of a custom-made endoprosthesis in mandibular reconstruction: implant design and finite element analysis

This work studies the feasibility of custom-made endoprosthesis in the reconstruction of major mandibular defects. The natural anatomical and occlusal relations are used to accurately reconstruct a mandibular defect. The customized implant allows the accurate restoration of the facial profile and aesthetics. The biomechanical behaviour of mandibular endoprosthesis was validated with Finite Element Analysis for three masticatory tasks, namely incisal, right molar and left group clenching. The implanted mandible shows displacement fields and stress distributions very similar to the intact mandible. The strain fields observed along the bone-implant interface may promote bone maintenance and ingrowth. The preliminary results show that this implant may be a reliable alternative to other prosthetic mandibular reconstruction approaches.The first author would like to acknowledge FCT Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal) for the PhD grant SFRH/BDE/51143/2010. The authors also would like to acknowledge MCM - Mario da Costa Martins & Filho Lda. for all technical support provided during this work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio