726 research outputs found
What is the best test for peripheral vascular disease?
An ankle-brachial index is best for evaluating patients with symptoms of claudication (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, multiple cohort studies). That said, duplex ultrasonography or magnetic resonance angiography may be a preferable first step if immediate revascularization appears necessary (SOR: C, expert consensus and case reports)
Response and Recovery of the Comanche Carbonate Platform Surrounding Multiple Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events, Northern Gulf of Mexico
The ubiquity of carbonate platforms throughout the Cretaceous Period is recognized as a product of high eustatic sea-level and a distinct climatic optimum induced by rapid sea-floor spreading and elevated levels of atmospheric carbon-dioxide. Notably, a series of global oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) punctuate this time-interval and mark periods of significantly reduced free oxygen in the world's oceans. The best records of these events are often from one-dimensional shelf or basin sections where only abrupt shifts between oxygenated carbonates and anoxic shales are recorded. The Comanche Platform of central Texas provides a unique opportunity to study these events within a well-constrained stratigraphic framework in which their up-dip and down-dip sedimentologic effects can be observed and the recovery of the platform to equilibrium states can be timed and understood. Stable isotope data from whole cores in middle Hauterivian through lower Campanian mixed carbonate-siliciclastic strata are used to construct a 52-myr carbon isotope reference profile for the northern Gulf of Mexico. Correlation of this composite curve to numerous global reference profiles permits identification of several anoxic events and allows their impact on platform architecture and fades distribution to be documented. Oceanic anoxic events la, 1b, 1d, and 2 occurred immediately before, after, or during shale deposition in the Pine Island Member, Bexar Member, Del Rio Formation, and Eagle Ford Group, respectively. Oceanic anoxic event 3 corresponds to deposition of the Austin Chalk Group. Platform drowning on three occasions more closely coincided with globally recognized anoxic sub-events such as the Fallot, Albian-Cenomanian, and Mid-Cenomanian events. This illustrates that the specific anoxic event most affecting a given carbonate platform varied globally as a function of regional oceanographic circumstances. Using chemo- and sequence-stratigraphic observations, a four-stage model is proposed to describe the changing fades patterns, fauna, sedimentation accumulation rates, platform architectures, and relative sea-level trends of transgressive-regressive composite sequences that developed in response to global carbon-cycle perturbations. The four phases of platform evolution include the equilibrium, crisis, anoxic, and recovery stages. The equilibrium stage is characterized by progradational shelf geometries and coralrudist phototrophic faunal assemblages. Similar phototrophic fauna typify the crisis stage; however, incipient biocalcification crises of this phase led to retrogradational shelf morphologies, transgressive facies patterns, and increased clay mineral proportions. Anoxic stages of the Comanche Platform were coincident with back-ground deposition of organic-rich shale on drowned shelves and heterotrophic fauna dominated by oysters or coccolithophorids. Eustatic peaks of this stage were of moderate amplitude (similar to 30 m), yet relative sea-level rises were greatly enhanced by reduced sedimentation rates. In the recovery stage, heterotrophic carbonate factories re-established at the shoreline as progradational ramp systems and sediment accumulation rates slowly increased as dysoxia diminished. Full recovery to equilibrium conditions may or may not have followed. Geochemical and stratigraphic trends present in the four stages are consistent with increased volcanism along mid-ocean ridges and in large-igneous provinces as primary drivers of Cretaceous OAEs and the resulting transgressive-regressive composite sequences. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.BHP-BillitonReservoir Characterization Research Laboratory, the Bureau of Economic GeologyJackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at AustinBureau of Economic Geolog
Radio Linear Polarization of GRB Afterglows:Instrumental Systematics in ALMA Observations of GRB 171205A
Polarization measurements of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are a promising
means of probing the structure, geometry, and magnetic composition of
relativistic GRB jets. However, a precise treatment of instrumental calibration
is vital for a robust physical interpretation of polarization data, requiring
tests of and validations against potential instrumental systematics. We
illustrate this with ALMA Band 3 (97.5 GHz) observations of GRB 171205A taken
days after the burst, where a detection of linear polarization
was recently claimed. We describe a series of tests for evaluating the
stability of polarization measurements with ALMA. Using these tests to
re-analyze and evaluate the archival ALMA data, we uncover systematics in the
polarization calibration at the level. We derive a 3
upper limit on the linearly polarized intensity of Jy,
corresponding to an upper limit on the linear fractional polarization of
, in contrast to the previously claimed detection. Our
upper limit improves upon existing constraints on the intrinsic polarization of
GRB radio afterglows by a factor of 3. We discuss this measurement in the
context of constraints on the jet magnetic field geometry. We present a
compilation of polarization observations of GRB radio afterglows, and
demonstrate that a significant improvement in sensitivity is desirable for
eventually detecting signals polarized at the level from typical
radio afterglows.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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