52 research outputs found
Chlamydia trachomatis prevalence and chlamydial/ HPV co-infection among HPV-unvaccinated young italian females with normal cytology
Infections caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) and human papillomavirus (HPV) are the two main sexually transmitted infections; however, epidemiological data on Ct prevalence and Ct/HPV co-infection in Italy are scant. This study aimed at estimating the prevalence of Ct infection and Ct/HPV co-infection in young HPV-unvaccinated females with normal cytology, and placed particular attention on the possible association between Ct-DNA positivity and different HPV infecting genotypes. Five hundred 66 healthy females aged 16-26 years without cervical lesions, previously assessed for HPV infection (HPV-DNA prevalence: 18.2%), were tested for Ct-DNA. The overall prevalence of Ct was 5.8% (95% CI: 4.2-8.1), while Ct/HPV co-infection was recorded in 2.7% (95% CI: 1.6-4.3) of subjects. Compared with HPV-DNA-negative females, HPV-DNA positive subjects had significantly (P < 0.001) higher odds of being infected with Ct (odds ratio of 4.20, 95% CI: 2.01-8.71). Both Ct and Ct/HPV infections were much more prevalent in under 18-year-olds than in older women. Subjects positive for single high-risk HPV genotypes and various multiple HPV infections had higher odds of being Ct-DNA positive. Our findings confirm that HPV and Ct infections are very common among asymptomatic young Italian females. This underlines the urgent need for nationwide Ct screening programs and reinforcement of sexual health education, which would be the most important public health strategies, since no Ct vaccines are currently available
Foreground removal from CMB temperature maps using an MLP neural network
One of the main obstacles in extracting the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
signal from observations in the mm-submm range is the foreground contamination
by emission from galactic components: mainly synchrotron, free-free and thermal
dust emission. Due to the statistical nature of the intrinsic CMB signal it is
essential to minimize the systematic errors in the CMB temperature
determinations. Following the available knowledge of the spectral behavior of
the galactic foregrounds simple, power law-like spectra have been assumed. The
feasibility of using a simple neural network for extracting the CMB temperature
signal from the combined CMB and foreground signals has been investigated. As a
specific example, we have analysed simulated data, like that expected from the
ESA Planck Surveyor mission. A simple multilayer perceptron neural network with
2 hidden layers can provide temperature estimates, over more than 80 percent of
the sky, that are to a high degree uncorrelated with the foreground signals. A
single network will be able to cover the dynamic range of the Planck noise
level over the entire sky.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc
Supermassive Binaries and Extragalactic Jets
Some quasars show Doppler shifted broad emission line peaks. I give new
statistics of the occurrence of these peaks and show that, while the most
spectacular cases are in quasars with strong radio jets inclined to the line of
sight, they are also almost as common in radio-quiet quasars. Theories of the
origin of the peaks are reviewed and it is argued that the displaced peaks are
most likely produced by the supermassive binary model. The separations of the
peaks in the 3C 390.3-type objects are consistent with orientation-dependent
"unified models" of quasar activity. If the supermassive binary model is
correct, all members of "the jet set" (astrophysical objects showing jets)
could be binaries.Comment: 31 pages, PostScript, missing figure is in ApJ 464, L105 (see
http://www.aas.org/ApJ/v464n2/5736/5736.html
Planck early results. XXVI. Detection with Planck and confirmation by XMM-Newton of PLCK G266.6-27.3, an exceptionally X-ray luminous and massive galaxy cluster at z ~ 1
Planck early results XXIV : Dust in the diffuse interstellar medium and the Galactic halo
Peer reviewe
Planck early results IX : XMM-Newton follow-up for validation of Planck cluster candidates
Peer reviewe
Planck Early Results XXVI: Detection with Planck and confirmation by XMM-Newton of PLCK G266.6-27.3, an exceptionally X-ray luminous and massive galaxy cluster at z~1
We present first results on PLCK G266.6-27.3, a galaxy cluster candidate
detected at a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 in the Planck All Sky survey. An
XMM-Newton validation observation has allowed us to confirm that the candidate
is a bona fide galaxy cluster. With these X-ray data we measure an accurate
redshift, z = 0.94 +/- 0.02, and estimate the cluster mass to be M_500 = (7.8
+/- 0.8)e+14 solar masses. PLCK G266.6-27.3 is an exceptional system: its
luminosity of L_X(0.5-2.0 keV)=(1.4 +/- 0.05)e+45 erg/s, equals that of the two
most luminous known clusters in the z > 0.5 universe, and it is one of the most
massive clusters at z~1. Moreover, unlike the majority of high-redshift
clusters, PLCK G266.6-27.3 appears to be highly relaxed. This observation
confirms Planck's capability of detecting high-redshift, high-mass clusters,
and opens the way to the systematic study of population evolution in the
exponential tail of the mass function.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; final version accepted for publication in A&A ;
minor changes in Sec.2.,3.2 and 4.1; Table 1: misprint on R500 error
corrected; abundance value adde
Planck early results. XXII. The submillimetre properties of a sample of Galactic cold clumps
We perform a detailed investigation of sources from the Cold Cores Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO). Our goal is to probe the reliability
of the detections, validate the separation between warm and cold dust emission components, provide the first glimpse at the nature, internal
morphology and physical characterictics of the Planck-detected sources. We focus on a sub-sample of ten sources from the C3PO list, selected to
sample different environments, from high latitude cirrus to nearby (150 pc) and remote (2 kpc) molecular complexes. We present Planck surface
brightness maps and derive the dust temperature, emissivity spectral index, and column densities of the fields. With the help of higher resolution
Herschel and AKARI continuum observations and molecular line data, we investigate the morphology of the sources and the properties of the
substructures at scales below the Planck beam size. The cold clumps detected by Planck are found to be located on large-scale filamentary (or
cometary) structures that extend up to 20 pc in the remote sources. The thickness of these filaments ranges between 0.3 and 3 pc, for column
densities NH2 ⌠0.1 to 1.6 Ă 1022 cmâ2, and with linear mass density covering a broad range, between 15 and 400 M pcâ1. The dust temperatures
are low (between 10 and 15K) and the Planck cold clumps correspond to local minima of the line-of-sight averaged dust temperature in these
fields. These low temperatures are confirmed when AKARI and Herschel data are added to the spectral energy distributions. Herschel data reveal
a wealth of substructure within the Planck cold clumps. In all cases (except two sources harbouring young stellar objects), the substructures are
found to be colder, with temperatures as low as 7 K. Molecular line observations provide gas column densities which are consistent with those
inferred from the dust. The linewidths are all supra-thermal, providing large virial linear mass densities in the range 10 to 300 M pcâ1, comparable
within factors of a few, to the gas linear mass densities. The analysis of this small set of cold clumps already probes a broad variety of structures
in the C3PO sample, probably associated with different evolutionary stages, from cold and starless clumps, to young protostellar objects still
embedded in their cold surrounding cloud. Because of the all-sky coverage and its sensitivity, Planck is able to detect and locate the coldest spots
in massive elongated structures that may be the long-searched for progenitors of stellar clusters
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