684 research outputs found
The Progenitors of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
Dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies present an evolutionary puzzle that we
explore in 40 early- and late-type dwarfs in the Local Group and nearby field.
Although dSphs formed stars over extended periods, today all but one are free
of detectable interstellar matter (ISM), even in the Fornax dSph, where stars
still formed 100 Myr ago. Combining metallicities for red giants with HI data
from the literature, we show that the well-known offset in
luminosity-metallicity (L-Z) relations for dSphs and dwarf irregular (dIrr)
galaxies exists also when comparing only their old stellar populations: dSphs
have higher mean stellar metallicities for a fixed luminosity. Evidently
younger dSphs experienced more efficient enrichment than young dIrrs. Dwarf
galaxies, whose locus in the L-Z diagram is consistent with that of dSphs even
for baryonic luminosities, are the ``transition-type dwarfs'' Phoenix, DDO210,
LGS3, Antlia, and KKR25. They have mixed dIrr/dSph morphologies, low stellar
masses, low angular momentum, and HI contents of less than a few 10^6 solar
masses. Unlike dIrrs, many transition-type dwarfs would closely resemble dSphs
if their gas were removed; they are likely dSph progenitors. As gas removal is
key, we consider the empirical evidence for various gas removal processes. We
suggest that internal gas removal mechanisms are inadequate and favor ram
pressure stripping to make dSphs. A combination of initial conditions and
environment seems to support the formation of dSphs, which appear to form from
small galaxies with active early star formation, whose evolution halts due to
externally induced gas loss. Transition-type dwarfs then are dSphs that kept
their ISM, and therefore should replace dSphs in isolated locations where
stripping is ineffective. (Abridged)Comment: 25 pages in AASTeX two-column preprint style, 1 table, 3 figures.
Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal (April 2003 issue
Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early diversification during the First Pandemic (541â750)
The first historically documented pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis began as the Justinianic Plague in 541 within the Roman Empire and continued as the so-called First Pandemic until 750. Although paleogenomic studies have previously identified the causative agent as Y. pestis, little is known about the bacteriumâs spread, diversity, and genetic history over the course of the pandemic. To elucidate the microevolution of the bacterium during this time period, we screened human remains from 21 sites in Austria, Britain, Germany, France, and Spain for Y. pestis DNA and reconstructed eight genomes. We present a methodological approach assessing single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ancient bacterial genomes, facilitating qualitative analyses of low coverage genomes from a metagenomic background. Phylogenetic analysis on the eight reconstructed genomes reveals the existence of previously undocumented Y. pestis diversity during the sixth to eighth centuries, and provides evidence for the presence of multiple distinct Y. pestis strains in Europe. We offer genetic evidence for the presence of the Justinianic Plague in the British Isles, previously only hypothesized from ambiguous documentary accounts, as well as the parallel occurrence of multiple derived strains in central and southern France, Spain, and southern Germany. Four of the reported strains form a polytomy similar to others seen across the Y. pestis phylogeny, associated with the Second and Third Pandemics. We identified a deletion of a 45-kb genomic region in the most recent First Pandemic strains affecting two virulence factors, intriguingly overlapping with a deletion found in 17th- to 18th-century genomes of the Second Pandemic. © 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
Screening for eating disorders in adolescents with chronic pain: the Eating Attitudes Testâ 16âChronic Pain
Background Few measures have been validated to screen for eating disorders (ED) in youth with chronic pain. We conducted confirmatory (CFA) of two established factor structures of the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26) in a sample of youth with chronic pain attending an intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment (IIPT) program and examined the validity of the best-fitting model in predicting ED diagnoses in this sample.
Methods Participants were 880 adolescents (M age = 16.1, SD = 2.1) consecutively admitted into an IIPT program who completed the EAT-26 upon admission. CFA was conducted and in the case of inadequate fit, EFA was planned to identify alternative models. Factors of the best-fitting model were included in a logistic regression analysis to predict ED diagnoses.
Results The TLIs (0.70; 0.90), RMSEAs (0.09; 0.07) and CFIs (0.73; 0.92) suggested poor fit of one model and adequate of the second model. Goodness of fit indices from EFA (TLI:0.85, RMSEA:0.06) did not outperform the fit of the second CFA. As such, the second model was retained with the exception of one factor. The items loaded onto a 16-item, five factor model: Fear of Getting Fat, Social Pressure to Gain Weight, Eating-Related Control, Eating-Related Guilt and Food Preoccupation. Based on chart review, 19.1% of the participants were diagnosed with an eating disorder. Logistic regression analyses indicated the new 16-item measure and Fear of Getting Fat, significantly predicted an ED diagnosis that did not include avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and Social Pressure to Gain Weight significantly predicted a diagnosis of ARFID
Prognostic significance of urokinase plasminogen activator and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 mRNA expression in lymph node- and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer
BACKGROUND: One of the most thoroughly studied systems in relation to its prognostic relevance in patients with breast cancer, is the plasminogen activation system that comprises of, among others, the urokinase Plasminogen Activator (uPA) and its main inhibitor, the Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). In this study, we investigated the prognostic value of uPA and PAI-1 at the mRNA level in lymph node- and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. METHODS: The study included a retrospective series of 87 patients with hormone-receptor positive and axillary lymph node-positive breast cancer. All patients received radiotherapy, adjuvant anthracycline-based chemotherapy and five years of tamoxifen treatment. The median patient age was 54 and the median follow-up time was 79 months. Distant relapse occurred in 30 patients and 22 patients died from breast cancer during follow-up. We investigated the prognostic value of uPA and PAI-1 at the mRNA level as measured by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. RESULTS: uPA and PAI-1 gene expression was not found to be correlated with any of the established clinical and pathological factors. Metastasis-free Survival (MFS) and Breast Cancer specific Survival (BCS) were significantly shorter in patients expressing high levels of PAI-1 mRNA (p < 0.0001; p < 0.0001; respectively). In Cox multivariate analysis, the level of PAI-1 mRNA appeared to be the strongest prognostic factor for MFS (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 10.12; p = 0.0002) and for BCS (HR = 13.17; p = 0.0003). Furthermore, uPA gene expression was not significantly associated neither with MFS (p = 0.41) nor with BCS (p = 0.19). In a Cox-multivariate regression analysis, uPA expression did not demonstrate significant independent prognostic value. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that high PAI-1 mRNA expression represents a strong and independent unfavorable prognostic factor for the development of metastases and for breast cancer specific survival in a population of hormone receptor- and lymph node-positive breast cancer patients
Leo V: A Companion of a Companion of the Milky Way Galaxy
We report the discovery of a new Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the
constellation of Leo identified in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Leo
V lies at a distance of about 180 kpc, and is separated by about 3 degrees from
another recent discovery, Leo IV. We present follow-up imaging from the Isaac
Newton Telescope and spectroscopy from the Hectochelle fiber spectrograph at
the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Leo V's heliocentric velocity is 173.4 km/s,
which is offset by about 40 km/s from that of Leo IV. A simple interpretation
of the kinematic data is that both objects may lie on the same stream, though
the implied orbit is only modestly eccentric (e = 0.2)Comment: Submitted to ApJ (Letters
Dark Matter and Stellar Mass in the Luminous Regions of Disk Galaxies
We investigate the correlations among stellar mass (M_*), disk scale length
(R_d), and rotation velocity at 2.2 disk scale lengths (V_2.2) for a sample of
81 disk-dominated galaxies (disk/total >= 0.9) selected from the SDSS. We
measure V_2.2 from long-slit H-alpha rotation curves and infer M_* from galaxy
i-band luminosities (L_i) and g-r colors. We find logarithmic slopes of
2.60+/-0.13 and 3.05+/-0.12 for the L_i-V_2.2 and M_*-V_2.2 relations, somewhat
shallower than most previous studies, with intrinsic scatter of 0.13 dex and
0.16 dex. Our direct estimates of the total-to-stellar mass ratio within
2.2R_d, assuming a Kroupa IMF, yield a median ratio of 2.4 for M_*>10^10 Msun
and 4.4 for M_*=10^9-10^10 Msun, with large scatter at a given M_* and R_d. The
typical ratio of the rotation speed predicted for the stellar disk alone to the
observed rotation speed at 2.2R_d is ~0.65. The distribution of R_d at fixed
M_* is broad, but we find no correlation between disk size and the residual
from the M_*-V_2.2 relation, implying that this relation is an approximately
edge-on view of the disk galaxy fundamental plane. Independent of the assumed
IMF, this result implies that stellar disks do not, on average, dominate the
mass within 2.2R_d. We discuss our results in the context of infall models of
disk formation in cold dark matter halos. A model with a disk-to-halo mass
ratio m_d=0.05 provides a reasonable match to the R_d-M_* distribution for spin
parameters \lambda ranging from ~0.04-0.08, and it yields a reasonable match to
the mean M_*-V_2.2 relation. A model with m_d=0.1 predicts overly strong
correlations between disk size and M_*-V_2.2 residual. Explaining the wide
range of halo-to-disk mass ratios within 2.2R_d requires significant scatter in
m_d values, with systematically lower m_d for galaxies with lower .Comment: 18 pages, 2 tables, 7 figures, Accepted to ApJ, Table 1 updated,
otherwise minor change
A practical field technique for measuring reservoir evaporation utilizing mass-transfer theory:
Variable Stars in the Cetus dSph Galaxy: Population Gradients and Connections with the Star Formation History
We investigate the variable star content of the isolated, Local Group, dwarf
spheroidal galaxy (dSph) Cetus. Multi-epoch, wide-field images collected with
the VLT/VIMOS camera allowed us to detect 638 variable stars (630 RR Lyrae
stars and 8 Anomalous Cepheids), 475 of which are new detections. We present a
full catalogue of periods, amplitudes, and mean magnitudes. Motivated by the
recent discovery that the pulsational properties of the RR Lyrae stars in the
Tucana dSph revealed the presence of a metallicity gradient within the oldest
(>10 Gyr old) stellar populations, we investigated the possibility of an
analogous effect in Cetus. We found that, despite the obvious radial gradient
in the Horizontal Branch (HB) and Red Giant Branch (RGB) morphologies, both
becoming bluer on average for increasing distance from the center of Cetus, the
properties of the RR Lyrae stars are homogeneous within the investigated area
(out to r~15'), with no significant evidence of a radial gradient. We discuss
this in connection with the star formation history (SFH) previously derived for
the two galaxies. The observed differences between these two systems show that
even systems this small show a variety of early evolutionary histories. These
differences could be due to different merger or accretion histories.Comment: Accepted for publication on MNRAS. The complete set of light curves
and finding charts, together with the full table of the pulsational
properties of all variable stars will be available in the on-line edition of
the pape
The SPLASH Survey: A Spectroscopic Analysis of the Metal-Poor, Low-Luminosity M31 dSph Satellite Andromeda X
Andromeda X (And X) is a newly discovered low-luminosity M31 dwarf spheroidal
galaxy (dSph) found by Zucker et al. (2007) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS - York et al. 2000). In this paper, we present the first spectroscopic
study of individual red giant branch stars in And X, as a part of the SPLASH
Survey (Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda's Stellar Halo).
Using the Keck II telescope and multiobject DEIMOS spectrograph, we target two
spectroscopic masks over the face of the galaxy and measure radial velocities
for ~100 stars with a median accuracy of sigma_v ~ 3 km/s. The velocity
histogram for this field confirms three populations of stars along the sight
line: foreground Milky Way dwarfs at small negative velocities, M31 halo red
giants over a broad range of velocities, and a very cold velocity ``spike''
consisting of 22 stars belonging to And X with v_rad = -163.8 +/- 1.2 km/s. By
carefully considering both the random and systematic velocity errors of these
stars (e.g., through duplicate star measurements), we derive an intrinsic
velocity dispersion of just sigma_v = 3.9 +/- 1.2 km/s for And X, which for its
size, implies a minimum mass-to-light ratio of M/L =37^{+26}_{-19} assuming the
mass traces the light. Based on the clean sample of member stars, we measure
the median metallicity of And X to be [Fe/H] = -1.93 +/- 0.11, with a slight
radial metallicity gradient. The dispersion in metallicity is large,
sigma([Fe/H]) = 0.48, possibly hinting that the galaxy retained much of its
chemical enrichment products. We discuss the potential for better understanding
the formation and evolution mechanisms for M31's system of dSphs through
(current) kinematic and chemical abundance studies, especially in relation to
the Milky Way sample. (abridged version)Comment: Accepted for Publication in Astrophys. J. 14 pages including 7
figures and 2 tables (journal format
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