5,758 research outputs found
A new model for gravitational potential perturbations in disks of spiral galaxies. An application to our Galaxy
We propose a new, more realistic, description of the perturbed gravitational
potential of spiral galaxies, with spiral arms having Gaussian-shaped groove
profiles. We investigate the stable stellar orbits in galactic disks, using the
new perturbed potential. The influence of the bulge mass on the stellar orbits
in the inner regions of a disk is also investigated. The new description offers
the advantage of easy control of the parameters of the Gaussian profile of its
potential. We find a range of values for the perturbation amplitude from 400 to
800 km^2 s^{-2} kpc^{-1} which implies a maximum ratio of the tangential force
to the axisymmetric force between 3% and 6%, approximately. Good
self-consistency of arm shapes is obtained between the Inner Lindblad resonance
(ILR) and the 4:1 resonance. Near the 4:1 resonance the response density starts
to deviate from the imposed logarithmic spiral form. This creates bifurcations
that appear as short arms. Therefore the deviation from a perfect logarithmic
spiral in galaxies can be understood as a natural effect of the 4:1 resonance.
Beyond the 4:1 resonance we find closed orbits which have similarities with the
arms observed in our Galaxy. In regions near the center, in the presence of a
massive bulge, elongated stellar orbits appear naturally, without imposing any
bar-shaped potential, but only extending the spiral perturbation a little
inward of the ILR. This suggests that a bar is formed with a half-size around 3
kpc by a mechanism similar to that of the spiral arms. The potential energy
perturbation that we adopted represents an important step in the direction of
self-consistency, compared to previous sine function descriptions of the
potential. Our model produces a realistic description of the spiral structure,
able to explain several details that were not yet understood.Comment: 12 pag., 11 fig. Accepted for publication in A&A, 2012 December 1
Acute pyelonephritis during pregnancy complicated by acute respiratory distress syndrome - Two cases report
O síndrome de dificuldade respiratória aguda (SDRA) caracteriza-se por lesão pulmonar aguda e acarreta hipoxemia, infiltrados pulmonares intersticiais difusos e diminuição da compliance pulmonar. É um evento raro e na gravidez estima-se que ocorram 16-17 casos por 100.000 gravidezes. Dentro dos factores etiológicos do SDRA destacam-se: os não relacionados com a gestação (pneumonia bacteriana, pneumonite química, sépsis e choque séptico, trauma, pancreatite aguda, lesão pulmonar aguda relacionada com transfusão...), os exacerbados pela gravidez (pneumonia vírica, listeriose, pielonefrite...) e os relacionados com a gestação (edema pulmonar associado a tocólise, embolia do líquido amniótico, embolia do trofoblasto, pré-eclâmpsia, corioamnionite e endometrite). A pielonefrite aguda é uma das principaisindicações de hospitalização anteparto e acontece em cerca de 1-2% de todas as gravidezes. As alterações fisiológicas e anatómicas que ocorrem durante a gestação originam estase urinária, o que condiciona um aumento da prevalência de infecções do tracto urinário (ITU). A compressão mecânica pelo útero é a principal causa de hidroureter e hidronefrose (mais evidente à direita); o relaxamento do músculo liso induzido pela progesterona tem um papel importante no aumento da capacidade vesical e estase urinária. Por outro lado, as diferenças no pH urinário, a osmolaridade, a glicosúria e a aminoacidúria induzida pela gravidez podem facilitar o crescimento bacteriano. No entanto, há que ter em consideração outros factores de risco não-obstétricos que potenciam este quadro: antecedentes de pielonefrite, anomalias do tracto urinário (incompetência das válvulas vesico-uretrais, cálculos renais), condições médicas (diabetes mellitus, anemia de célulasfalciformes), problemas neurológicos (paralisia por lesão da medula espinhal) e baixo estatuto socioeconómico. Entre as complicações maternas e fetais associados à pielonefrite destacam-se: a anemia, a sépsis e a disfunção renal transitória. Tem sido também reportada como causa de síndrome de dificuldade respiratória aguda (SDRA), e cerca de 7% das grávidas com pielonefrite pode desenvolverinsuficiência respiratória (IR). Esta associação foi descrita pela primeira vez em 1984 por Cunningham, que considerou que as endotoxinas libertadas pela lise da parede bacteriana originaria a lesão alveolar-capilar, provocando falência respiratória. No entanto, o mecanismo exacto desta complicação ainda está por esclarecer. A morbi-mortalidade materna e fetal do SDRA é alta. Desta forma, é crucial a monitorização por equipa multidisciplinar, muitas vezes em regime de internamento na Unidade de CuidadosIntensivos(UCI). Foi realizada uma avaliação retrospectiva dos processos clínicos das duas grávidas com pielonefrite complicada com SDRA, admitidas no Centro Hospitalar do Porto (CHP), entre Janeiro de 2000 e Dezembro de 2012
Early Identification of Violent Criminal Gang Members
Gang violence is a major problem in the United States accounting for a large
fraction of homicides and other violent crime. In this paper, we study the
problem of early identification of violent gang members. Our approach relies on
modified centrality measures that take into account additional data of the
individuals in the social network of co-arrestees which together with other
arrest metadata provide a rich set of features for a classification algorithm.
We show our approach obtains high precision and recall (0.89 and 0.78
respectively) in the case where the entire network is known and out-performs
current approaches used by law-enforcement to the problem in the case where the
network is discovered overtime by virtue of new arrests - mimicking real-world
law-enforcement operations. Operational issues are also discussed as we are
preparing to leverage this method in an operational environment.Comment: SIGKDD 201
Configurational temperature control for atomic and molecular systems
A new configurational temperature thermostat suitable for molecules with holonomic constraints is derived. This thermostat has a simple set of motion equations, can generate the canonical ensemble in both position and momentum space, acts homogeneously through the spatial
coordinates, and does not intrinsically violate the constraints. Our new configurational thermostat is
closely related to the kinetic temperature Nosé-Hoover thermostat with feedback coupled to the position variables via a term proportional to the net molecular force. We validate the thermostat by comparing equilibrium static and dynamic quantities for a fluid of n-decane molecules under
configurational and kinetic temperature control. Practical aspects concerning the implementation of the new thermostat in a molecular dynamics code and the potential applications are discussed
Discovery of optical pulsations in V2116 Ophiuchi/GX 1+4
We report the detection of pulsations with s period in V2116 Oph,
the optical counterpart of the low-mass X-ray binary GX 1+4. The pulsations are
sinusoidal with modulation amplitude of up to 4% in blue light and were
observed in ten different observing sessions during 1996 April-August using a
CCD photometer at the 1.6-m and 0.6-m telescopes of Laborat\'orio Nacional de
Astrof\'{\i}sica, in Brazil. The pulsations were also observed with the
fast photometer. With only one exception the observed optical periods are
consistent with those observed by the BATSE instrument on board the Compton
Gamma Ray Observatory at the same epoch. There is a definite correlation
between the observability of pulsations and the optical brightness of the
system: V2116~Oph had magnitude in the range when the pulsed
signal was detected, and when no pulsations were present. The
discovery makes GX 1+4 only the third of accretion-powered X-ray
pulsars to be firmly detected as a pulsating source in the optical. The
presence of flickering and pulsations in V2116 Oph adds strong evidence for an
accretion disk scenario in this system. The absolute magnitude of the pulsed
component on 1996 May 27 is estimated to be . The implied
dimensions for the emitting region are 1.1 R_{\sun}, 3.2 R_{\sun}, and 7.0
R_{\sun}, for black-body spectral distributions with K, K, and K, respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures in PostScript, latex, accepted for publication on
the Astrophysical Journal Letter
Investigation of model capability in capturing vertical hydrodynamic coastal processes: a case study in the north Adriatic Sea
Abstract. In this work we consider a numerical study of hydrodynamics in the coastal zone using two different models, SHYFEM (shallow water hydrodynamic finite element model) and MITgcm (Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model), to assess their capability to capture the main processes. We focus on the north Adriatic Sea during a strong dense water event that occurred at the beginning of 2012. This serves as an interesting test case to examine both the models strengths and weaknesses, while giving an opportunity to understand how these events affect coastal processes, like upwelling and downwelling, and how they interact with estuarine dynamics. Using the models we examine the impact of setup, surface and lateral boundary treatment, resolution and mixing schemes, as well as assessing the importance of nonhydrostatic dynamics in coastal processes. Both models are able to capture the dense water event, though each displays biases in different regions. The models show large differences in the reproduction of surface patterns, identifying the choice of suitable bulk formulas as a central point for the correct simulation of the thermohaline structure of the coastal zone. Moreover, the different approaches in treating lateral freshwater sources affect the vertical coastal stratification. The results indicate the importance of having high horizontal resolution in the coastal zone, specifically in close proximity to river inputs, in order to reproduce the effect of the complex coastal morphology on the hydrodynamics. A lower resolution offshore is acceptable for the reproduction of the dense water event, even if specific vortical structures are missed. Finally, it is found that nonhydrostatic processes are of little importance for the reproduction of dense water formation in the shelf of the north Adriatic Sea
New type II Cepheids from VVV data towards the Galactic center
The Galactic center (GC) is the densest region of the Milky Way. Variability
surveys towards the GC potentially provide the largest number of variable stars
per square degree within the Galaxy. However, high stellar density is also a
drawback due to blending. Moreover, the GC is affected by extreme reddening,
therefore near infrared observations are needed. We plan to detect new variable
stars towards the GC, focusing on type II Cepheids (T2Cs) which have the
advantage of being brighter than RR Lyrae stars. We perform parallel
Lomb-Scargle and Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis of the
-band time series of the VISTA variables in the Via Lactea survey, to
detect periodicities. We employ statistical parameters to clean our sample. We
take account of periods, light amplitudes, distances, and proper motions to
provide a classification of the candidate variables. We detected 1,019 periodic
variable stars, of which 164 are T2Cs, 210 are Miras and 3 are classical
Cepheids. We also found the first anomalous Cepheid in this region. We compare
their photometric properties with overlapping catalogs and discuss their
properties on the color-magnitude and Bailey diagrams. We present the most
extensive catalog of T2Cs in the GC region to date. Offsets in E() and
in the reddening law cause very large (1-2 kpc) uncertainties on
distances in this region. We provide a catalog which will be the starting point
for future spectroscopic surveys in the innermost regions of the Galaxy.Comment: A&A, accepte
Exploration of Power-Performance Tradeoffs through Parameterization of FPGA-based Multiprocessor Systems
The design space of FPGA-based processor systems is huge, because many parameters can be modified at design- and runtime to achieve an efficient system solution in terms of performance, power and energy consumption. Such parameters are, for example, the number of processors and their configurations, the clock frequencies at design time, the use of dynamic frequency scaling at runtime, the application task distribution, and the FPGA type and size. The major contribution of this paper is the exploration of all these parameters and their impact on performance, power dissipation, and energy consumption for four different application scenarios. The goal is to introduce a first approach for a developer’s guideline, supporting the choice of an optimized and specific system parameterization for a target application on FPGA-based multiprocessor systems-on-chip. The FPGAs used for these explorations were Xilinx Virtex-4 and Xilinx Virtex-5. The performance results were measured on the FPGA while the power consumption was estimated using the Xilinx XPower Analyzer tool. Finally, a novel runtime adaptive multiprocessor architecture for dynamic clock frequency scaling is introduced and used for the performance, power and energy consumption evaluations
Polar distortions in hydrogen bonded organic ferroelectrics
Although ferroelectric compounds containing hydrogen bonds were among the
first to be discovered, organic ferroelectrics are relatively rare. The
discovery of high polarization at room temperature in croconic acid [Nature
\textbf{463}, 789 (2010)] has led to a renewed interest in organic
ferroelectrics. We present an ab-initio study of two ferroelectric organic
molecular crystals, 1-cyclobutene-1,2-dicarboxylic acid (CBDC) and
2-phenylmalondialdehyde (PhMDA). By using a distortion-mode analysis we shed
light on the microscopic mechanisms contributing to the polarization, which we
find to be as large as 14.3 and 7.0\,C/cm for CBDC and PhMDA
respectively. These results suggest that it may be fruitful to search among
known but poorly characterized organic compounds for organic ferroelectrics
with enhanced polar properties suitable for device applications.Comment: Submitte
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