Telescope performance and image simulations of the balloon-borne coded-mask protoMIRAX experiment

In this work we present the results of imaging simulations performed with the help of the GEANT4 package for the protoMIRAX hard X-ray balloon experiment. The instrumental background was simulated taking into account the various radiation components and their angular dependence, as well as a detailed mass model of the experiment. We modeled the meridian transits of the Crab Nebula and the Galatic Centre region during balloon flights in Brazil ($\sim -23^{\circ}$ of latitude and an altitude of $\sim 40 \thinspace$ km) and introduced the correspondent spectra as inputs to the imaging simulations. We present images of the Crab and of three sources in the Galactic Centre region: 1E 1740.7-2942, GRS 1758-258 and GX 1+4. The results show that the protoMIRAX experiment is capable of making spectral and timing observations of bright hard X-ray sources as well as important imaging demonstrations that will contribute to the design of the MIRAX satellite mission.Comment: 9 figure

Astmaatikon kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta

Astma on yleisimpiä kansantautejamme. Lääkehoitoa vaativista pitkäaikaisista sairauksista se on kolmanneksi yleisin verenpainetaudin ja sepelvaltimotaudin jälkeen. Lasten pitkäaikaissairauksista astma on yleisin. Valtakunnallisessa astmaohjelmassa esitetyn arvion mukaan vaikea-asteista astmaa sairastaa kaikista potilaista 20 %, keski-vaikeaa 20 % ja lievää astmaa 60 %. Opinnäytetyön nimi on astmaatikon kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta. Opinnäytetyömme toimeksiantaja on Kainuun maakunta-kuntayhtymän keuhkosairauksien poliklinikka. Opinnäytetyömme tarkoituksena oli kar-toittaa, miten kyselyyn osallistuvat astmaatikot ovat sitoutuneita omahoitoon. Tavoitteenamme oli selvittää, miten potilaat saavat keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla ohjausta astman omahoitoon, olivatko potilaat saaneet ohjausta riittävästi ja mihin asioihin he olisivat halunneet saada enemmän tietoa ja ohjausta. Opinnäytteemme tutkimuksellinen lähestymistapa oli kvalitatiivinen tutkimusote. Opinnäytetyön aineiston ke-ruumenetelmänä käytimme kyselyä. Kysely muodostui avoimista kysymyksistä, joilla haluttiin selvittää astmaati-kon omahoitoon sitoutumista ja potilasohjauksen laatua ja kokemuksia potilasohjauksesta. Kerätty aineisto analysoitiin sisällön analyysin avulla. Tulokset esitettiin eri astman hoitoon sisältyvien teemojen ylä- ja alakategorioina. Kyselyyn vastasi 13 vastaajaa (n = 13). Tuloksista kävi ilmi, että kyselyyn osallistuneet astmaatikot olivat pääosin tyytyväisiä saamansa potilasohjaukseen keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla. Osalla vastaajista on astman hoito omasta jaksamisesta kiinni. Osa vastaajista tietää ja ymmärtää astman hoidon merkityksen terveydelle. Opinnäytetyömme tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla hoitotyön käytäntöön. Opinnäytetyömme tulokset antavat tietoa miten astmaa sairastavan potilasohjausta ja sen sisältöä voidaan jatkossa kehittää. Tulokset antavat tietoa potilasohjauksen kehittämistarpeista. Jatkotutkimusaiheena olisi hyvä selvittää sairaanhoitajien kokemuksia astmaa sairastavan potilasohjauksesta keuhkosairauksien poliklinikalla. Opinnäytetyö prosessin kautta olemme vahvistaneet sairaanhoitajan työssä tarvittavaa tiedollista ja taidollista ja asenteista osaamista jota voimme hyödyntää astmaa sairastavan kokonaishoitoon ja ohjaukseen. Prosessin kautta olemme saaneet vahvistuksen sille, miten tärkeä on sairaanhoitajan asenne ja osaaminen potilasohjaukseen.Asthma is one of the most common national diseases. Amongst long term diseases requiring medical treatment it is the third most common after arterial hypertension and coronary artery diseases. Among Childhood long term diseases asthma is the most common. According to an estimate provided by a nationwide asthmas program 20 % of all asthma patients suffer from severe asthma, 20 % from mildly severe and 60 % suffer from slight asthma. The name of this thesis is an Asthma Patient’s Experiences of Supervision. The commissioner of the thesis was the Joint Authority of the Kainuu Region and our working – life supervisor was the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. The purpose of this thesis was to clarify by survey how the asthma patients involved were committed to care for their asthma. The aim was to clarify whether patients had been provided with sufficient instruction and supervision and in what issues did they require further knowledge and instruction. The investigational approach of this thesis was qualitative, using a survey to collect data. The survey con-sisted of open questions intending to clarify how asthma patients are committed to care for asthma and to establish the quality of patient instruction and how patients experienced instruction. The collected ma-terial was analyzed using qualitative contents analysis. The results were presented in super and sub categories in different themes related to the care of asthma. 13 respondents took part in the survey (n=13).The results indicated that patients were mainly satisfied with instruction received in the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. For some of the respondents, the care of their asthma depended on how they were coping generally. Others understood and were aware of the significance of caring for their asthma to their health. The results of the thesis provide information on how patient instruction and its contents can be developed in the future. In the future, it would be appropriate to research how nurses experience the instruction and supervision of asthma patients in the Pulmonary Diseases Outpatients’ Department. The thesis process has strengthened the knowledge and skill-based competence as well as attitudes required in nursing, which we can use in the care and instruction of asthma patients. The process has confirmed how important attitude and competence is in patient instruction

On a new theoretical framework for RR Lyrae stars I: the metallicity dependence

We present new nonlinear, time-dependent convective hydrodynamical models of RR Lyrae stars computed assuming a constant helium-to-metal enrichment ratio and a broad range in metal abundances (Z=0.0001--0.02). The stellar masses and luminosities adopted to construct the pulsation models were fixed according to detailed central He burning Horizontal Branch evolutionary models. The pulsation models cover a broad range in stellar luminosity and effective temperatures and the modal stability is investigated for both fundamental and first overtones. We predict the topology of the instability strip as a function of the metal content and new analytical relations for the edges of the instability strip in the observational plane. Moreover, a new analytical relation to constrain the pulsation mass of double pulsators as a function of the period ratio and the metal content is provided. We derive new Period-Radius-Metallicity relations for fundamental and first-overtone pulsators. They agree quite well with similar empirical and theoretical relations in the literature. From the predicted bolometric light curves, transformed into optical (UBVRI) and near-infrared (JHK) bands, we compute the intensity-averaged mean magnitudes along the entire pulsation cycle and, in turn, new and homogenous metal-dependent (RIJHK) Period-Luminosity relations. Moreover, we compute new dual and triple band optical, optical--NIR and NIR Period-Wesenheit-Metallicity relations. Interestingly, we find that the optical Period-W(V,B-V) is independent of the metal content and that the accuracy of individual distances is a balance between the adopted diagnostics and the precision of photometric and spectroscopic datasets.Comment: 51 pages, 20 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication on Ap

Theoretical study of molecular electronic excitations and optical transitions of C60

We report results on ab initio calculations of excited states of the fullerene molecule by using configuration interaction (CI) approach with singly excited determinants (SCI). We have used both the experimental geometry and the one optimized by the density functional method and worked with basis sets at the cc-pVTZ and aug-cc-pVTZ level. Contrary to the early SCI semiempirical calculations, we find that two lowest $^1 T_{1u} \leftarrow {}^1 A_g$ electron optical lines are situated at relatively high energies of ~5.8 eV (214 nm) and ~6.3 eV (197 nm). These two lines originate from two $^1 T_{1u} \leftarrow {}^1 A_g$ transitions: from HOMO to (LUMO+1) ($6h_u \to 3t_{1g}$) and from (HOMO--1) to LUMO ($10h_g \to 7t_{1u}$). The lowest molecular excitation, which is the $1 ^3 T_{2g}$ level, is found at ~2.5 eV. Inclusion of doubly excited determinants (SDCI) leads only to minor corrections to this picture. We discuss possible assignment of absorption bands at energies smaller than 5.8 eV (or $\lambda$ larger than 214 nm).Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 9 Table

Influência da intermitência do tempo de irrigação na cultura da videira festival irrigada por gotejamento, no vale do Submédio são Francisco.

Portando, esse trabalho teve como objetivo adequar manejos de irrigação que possibilite maiores produções da cultura com a mesma quantidade de água requerida

Optical and Near-Infrared UBVRIJHK Photometry for the RR Lyrae stars in the Nearby Globular Cluster M4 (NGC 6121)

We present optical and near-infrared UBVRIJHK photometry of stars in the Galactic globular cluster M4 (NGC 6121) based upon a large corpus of observations obtained mainly from public astronomical archives. We concentrate on the RR Lyrae variable stars in the cluster, and make a particular effort to accurately reidentify the previously discovered variables. We have also discovered two new probable RR Lyrae variables in the M4 field: one of them by its position on the sky and its photometric properties is a probable member of the cluster, and the second is a probable background (bulge?) object. We provide accurate equatorial coordinates for all 47 stars identified as RR Lyraes, new photometric measurements for 46 of them, and new period estimates for 45. We have also derived accurate positions and mean photometry for 34 more stars previously identified as variable stars of other types, and for an additional five non-RR Lyrae variable stars identified for the first time here. We present optical and near-infrared color-magnitude diagrams for the cluster and show the locations of the variable stars in them. We present the Bailey (period-amplitude) diagrams and the period-frequency histogram for the RR Lyrae stars in M4 and compare them to the corresponding diagrams for M5 (NGC 5904). We conclude that the RR Lyrae populations in the two clusters are quite similar in all the relevant properties that we have considered. The mean periods, pulsation-mode ratios, and Bailey diagrams of these two clusters show support for the recently proposed "Oosterhoff-neutral" classification.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures, 7 table

Relationship between the DTA peak and phase diagram : symbiosis between a thermodynamic database and a DTA curve

The shape of a differential thermal analysis (DTA) curve depends on the sample and the reference, the heating or cooling rates used in theexperiment as also the thermal resistance to heat ¯ow from the heat source to the cell containing the sample (or the reference), Ra (Rr).Having access to a database that contains the values of the sample heat capacity, Cp, and those of the enthalpy of transformation, H, andcalculating the parameters that depend on the apparatus, the cells and the reference, as well as the heating rate used, it is possible todetermine the T (Ta ÿ Tr) values through the equationTa ÿ Tr RadHdt RrCrdTrdt ÿ RaCadTadtwhere Ca is the heat capacity of the cell sample system and Cb the heat capacity of the cell reference system. The comparison betweenthe calculated and experimental values for T enables an assessment to be made as to whether the modelled parameters are in agreementwith the experimental information. This procedure enables a deeper perception of the thermal analysis in general and of the apparatus usedin particular

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 $K_s$-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($J-K_s$) and in the reddening law cause very large ($\sim$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

Seleção econômica de sistemas de irrigação para produção de tomate em cultivo orgânico na região de Cerrado do Brasil Central.

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