4,268 research outputs found
Gamma Ray Bursts as cosmological tools
The use of Gamma Ray Bursts as ``standard candles'' has been made possible by
the recent discovery of a very tight correlation between their rest frame
intrinsic properties. This correlation relates the GRB prompt emission peak
spectral energy E_peak to the energy E_gamma corrected for the collimation
angle theta_jet of these sources. The possibility to use GRBs to constrain the
cosmological parameters and to study the nature of Dark Energy are very
promising.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the workshop 'Astrophysical
sources of high energy particles and radiation', Torun - Poland 20-24 June
2005, Ed. T. Bulik, B. Rudak, G. Madejsk
Prone position: Does it help with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)?
Introduction: Lung protective ventilation therapy with low tidal volume-high PEEP is the standard treatment for the patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Oscillators are occasionally used for salvage ventilation in cases where poor compliance restricts the use of traditional ventilation with ARDS. In addition to ventilator therapy, prone positioning has been used to improve oxygenation. We presented a challenging case of ARDS, which failed medical management extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support and oscillatory ventilation. Prone positioning was initiated which improved oxygenation, respiratory compliance and posterior atelectasis. Case presentation: A 41-year-old morbid obese female developed ARDS due to influenza pneumonia. The patient remained hypoxic despite optimum medical and ventilator management and required veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV ECMO). CT scan of the chest showed ARDS with posterior consolidation. Despite ARDSnet ventilation support, antiviral therapy and ECMO support, there was no clinical improvement. High frequency oscillatory ventilation was initiated on ECMO day #13, which resulted in no respiratory improvement over the next 5 days. On ECMO day #18, the patient was placed on a Rotaprone? bed Therapy, utilizing a proning strategy of 16 hours a day. The clinical improvements observed were resolving of the consolidation on CXR, improvements in ventilatory parameters and decreased oxygen requirements. The patient was successfully weaned off ECMO on POD#25 (8 days post prone bed). Conclusions: Prone position improved oxygen saturation and pulmonary compliance in severe ARDS requiring ECMO and it might facilitate early weaning
The Epeak-Eiso plane of long Gamma Ray Bursts and selection effects
We study the distribution of long Gamma Ray Bursts in the Ep-Eiso and in the
Ep,obs-Fluence planes through an updated sample of 76 bursts, with measured
redshift and spectral parameters, detected up to September 2007. We confirm the
existence of a strong rest frame correlation Ep ~ Eiso^0.54+-0.01. Contrary to
previous studies, no sign of evolution with redshift of the Ep-Eiso correlation
(either its slope and normalisation) is found. The 76 bursts define a strong
Ep,obs-Fluence correlation in the observer frame (Ep,obs ~ F^0.32+-0.05) with
redshifts evenly distributed along this correlation. We study possible
instrumental selection effects in the observer frame Ep,obs-Fluence plane. In
particular, we concentrate on the minimum peak flux necessary to trigger a
given GRB detector (trigger threshold) and the minimum fluence a burst must
have to determine the value of Ep,obs (spectral analysis threshold). We find
that the latter dominates in the Ep,obs-Fluence plane over the former. Our
analysis shows, however, that these instrumental selection effects do not
dominate for bursts detected before the launch of the Swift satellite, while
the spectral analysis threshold is the dominant truncation effect of the Swift
GRB sample (27 out of 76 events). This suggests that the Ep,obs-Fluence
correlation defined by the pre--Swift sample could be affected by other, still
not understood, selection effects. Besides we caution about the conclusions on
the existence of the Ep,obs-Fluence correlation based on our Swift sample
alone.Comment: To appear in MNRA
Cosmological constraints with GRBs: homogeneous medium vs wind density profile
We present the constraints on the cosmological parameters obtained with the
-- correlation found with the most recent sample of
19 GRBs with spectroscopically measured redshift and well determined prompt
emission spectral and afterglow parameters. We compare our results obtained in
the two possible uniform jet scenarios, i.e. assuming a homogeneous density
profile (HM) or a wind density profile (WM) for the circumburst medium. Better
constraints on and are obtained with the
(tighter) -- correlation derived in the wind density
scenario. We explore the improvements to the constraints of the cosmological
parameters that could be reached with a large sample, 150 GRBs, in the
future. We study the possibility to calibrate the slope of these correlations.
Our optimization analysis suggests that GRBs with redshift
can be used to calibrate the -- with
a precision better than 1%. The same precision is expected for the same number
of bursts with . This result suggests that we do not
necessarily need a large sample of low z GRBs for calibrating the slope of
these correlations.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to A&
Long Gamma-Ray Bursts as standard candles
As soon as it was realized that long GRBs lie at cosmological distances,
attempts have been made to use them as cosmological probes. Besides their use
as lighthouses, a task that presents mainly the technological challenge of a
rapid deep high resolution follow-up, researchers attempted to find the Holy
Grail: a way to create a standard candle from GRB observables. We discuss here
the attempts and the discovery of the Ghirlanda correlation, to date the best
method to standardize the GRB candle. Together with discussing the promises of
this method, we will underline the open issues, the required calibrations and
how to understand them and keep them under control. Even though GRB cosmology
is a field in its infancy, ongoing work and studies will clarify soon if and
how GRBs will be able to keep up to the promises.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 16th Annual October Astrophysics
Conference in Maryland "Gamma Ray Bursts in the Swift Era", eds. S. Holt, N.
Gehrels & J. Nouse
A Bayesian Mixed Multinomial Logit Model for choice-sets and decision-makers’ heterogeneity
Como escolhem as cagarras o seu par?
A secção Biologia é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues.[…].
No caso da Cagarra Calonectris borealis, os critérios envolvidos na escolha do parceiro começam agora a ser conhecidos como resultado do trabalho desenvolvido pelo Grupo de Aves Marinhas do Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas (GAM-DOP) da Universidade dos Açores, em colaboração com a Universidade de Vigo (UV). As cagarras são consideradas espécies modelo para estudos de escolha de parceiro pois têm uma elevada fidelidade ao parceiro (aprox. 81.8 a 96.4%), vivem várias décadas e possuem baixa fecundidade.
[…].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Spectral analysis of Swift long GRBs with known redshift
We study the spectral and energetics properties of 47 long-duration gamma-ray
bursts (GRBs) with known redshift, all of them detected by the Swift satellite.
Due to the narrow energy range (15-150 keV) of the Swift-BAT detector, the
spectral fitting is reliable only for fitting models with 2 or 3 parameters. As
high uncertainty and correlation among the errors is expected, a careful
analysis of the errors is necessary. We fit both the power law (PL, 2
parameters) and cut--off power law (CPL, 3 parameters) models to the
time-integrated spectra of the 47 bursts, and present the corresponding
parameters, their uncertainties, and the correlations among the uncertainties.
The CPL model is reliable only for 29 bursts for which we estimate the nuf_nu
peak energy Epk. For these GRBs, we calculate the energy fluence and the rest-
frame isotropic-equivalent radiated energy, Eiso, as well as the propagated
uncertainties and correlations among them. We explore the distribution of our
homogeneous sample of GRBs on the rest-frame diagram E'pk vs Eiso. We confirm a
significant correlation between these two quantities (the "Amati" relation) and
we verify that, within the uncertainty limits, no outliers are present. We also
fit the spectra to a Band model with the high energy power law index frozen to
-2.3, obtaining a rather good agreement with the "Amati" relation of non-Swift
GRBs.Comment: 16 pages. To appear in MNRAS. Minor changes were introduced in this
last versio
Recent results on GaAs detectors - 137
The present understanding of the charge collection in GaAs detectors with
respect to the materials used and its processing are discussed. The radiation
induced degradation of the charge collection efficiency and the leakage current
of the detectors are summarised. The status of strip and pixel detectors for
the ATLAS experiment are reported along with the latest results from GaAs X-ray
detectors for non-high energy physics applications.Comment: 7 pages. 4 postscript figures + 1 postscript preprint logo + 1 LaTeX
file + 1 style file. Also available at
http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/preprints/97/05
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