19,601 research outputs found
Predictors of refusal to participate: a longitudinal health survey of the elderly in Australia
BACKGROUND:
The loss of participants in longitudinal studies due to non-contact, refusal or death can introduce bias into the results of such studies. The study described here examines reasons for refusal over three waves of a survey of persons aged ≥ 70 years.
METHODS:
In a longitudinal study involving three waves, participants were compared to those who refused to participate but allowed an informant to be interviewed and to those who refused any participation.
RESULTS:
At Wave 1 both groups of Wave 2 non-participants had reported lower occupational status and fewer years of education, had achieved lower verbal IQ scores and cognitive performance scores and experienced some distress from the interview. Those with an informant interview only were in poorer physical health than those who participated and those who refused. Depression and anxiety symptoms were not associated with non-participation. Multivariate analyses found that verbal IQ and cognitive impairment predicted refusal. Results were very similar for refusers at both Waves 2 and 3.
CONCLUSIONS:
Longitudinal studies of the elderly may over estimate cognitive performance because of the greater refusal rate of those with poorer performance. However, there is no evidence of bias with respect to anxiety or depression
Stellar Oscillations Network Group
Stellar Oscillations Network Group (SONG) is an initiative aimed at designing
and building a network of 1m-class telescopes dedicated to asteroseismology and
planet hunting. SONG will have 8 identical telescope nodes each equipped with a
high-resolution spectrograph and an iodine cell for obtaining precision radial
velocities and a CCD camera for guiding and imaging purposes. The main
asteroseismology targets for the network are the brightest (V<6) stars. In
order to improve performance and reduce maintenance costs the instrumentation
will only have very few modes of operation. In this contribution we describe
the motivations for establishing a network, the basic outline of SONG and the
expected performance.Comment: Proc. Vienna Workshop on the Future of Asteroseismology, 20 - 22
September 2006. Comm. in Asteroseismology, Vol. 150, in the pres
High-precision abundances of elements in Kepler LEGACY stars. Verification of trends with stellar age
HARPS-N spectra with S/N > 250 and MARCS model atmospheres were used to
derive abundances of C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Fe, Ni, Zn, and Y in ten
stars from the Kepler LEGACY sample (including the binary pair 16 Cyg A and B)
selected to have metallicities in the range -0.15 < [Fe/H] < +0.15 and ages
between 1 and 7 Gyr. Stellar gravities were obtained from seismic data and
effective temperatures were determined by comparing non-LTE iron abundances
derived from FeI and FeII lines. Available non-LTE corrections were also
applied when deriving abundances of the other elements. The results support the
[X/Fe]-age relations previously found for solar twins. [Mg/Fe], [Al/Fe], and
[Zn/Fe] decrease by ~0.1 dex over the lifetime of the Galactic thin disk due to
delayed contribution of iron from Type Ia supernovae relative to prompt
production of Mg, Al, and Zn in Type II supernovae. [Y/Mg] and [Y/Al], on the
other hand, increase by ~0.3 dex, which can be explained by an increasing
contribution of s-process elements from low-mass AGB stars as time goes on. The
trends of [C/Fe] and [O/Fe] are more complicated due to variations of the ratio
between refractory and volatile elements among stars of similar age. Two stars
with about the same age as the Sun show very different trends of [X/H] as a
function of elemental condensation temperature Tc and for 16 Cyg, the two
components have an abundance difference, which increases with Tc. These
anomalies may be connected to planet-star interactions.Comment: 13 pages with 7 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
The impact of ship emission controls recorded by cloud properties
The impact of aerosols on cloud properties is one of the leading uncertainties in the human forcing of the climate. Ships are large, isolated sources of aerosol creating linear cloud formations known as shiptracks. These are an ideal opportunity to identify and measure aerosol-cloud interactions. This work uses over 17,000 shiptracks during the implementation of fuel sulphur content regulations to demonstrate the central role of sulphate aerosol in ship exhaust for modifying clouds. By connecting individual shiptracks to transponder data, it is shown that almost half of shiptracks are likely undetected, masking a significant contribution to the climate impact of shipping. A pathway to retrieving ship sulphate emissions is demonstrated, showing how cloud observations could be used to monitor air pollution
Observations of MCG-5-23-16 with Suzaku, XMM-Newton and NuSTAR: Disk tomography and Compton hump reverberation
MCG-5-23-16 is one of the first AGN where relativistic reverberation in the
iron K line originating in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole was
found, based on a short XMM-Newton observation. In this work, we present the
results from long X-ray observations using Suzaku, XMM-Newton and NuSTAR
designed to map the emission region using X-ray reverberation. A relativistic
iron line is detected in the lag spectra on three different time-scales,
allowing the emission from different regions around the black hole to be
separated. Using NuSTAR coverage of energies above 10 keV reveals a lag between
these energies and the primary continuum, which is detected for the first time
in an AGN. This lag is a result of the Compton reflection hump responding to
changes in the primary source in a manner similar to the response of the
relativistic iron K line.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Ap
Investigation of new material combinations for hard x-ray telescope designs
The materials chosen for depth graded multilayer designs for hard x-ray telescopes (10 keV to 80 keV) have until now been focusing on W/Si, W/SiC, Pt/C, and Pt/SiC. These material combinations have been chosen because of good stability over time and low interface roughness, However both W and Pt have absorption edges in the interesting energy range from 70 - 80 keV. If looking at the optical constants Cu and Ni would be good alternative high-Z candidates since the k-absorption edges in Cu and Ni is below 10 keV. We have investigated both of these materials as the reflecting layer in combination with SiC as the spacer layer and give the performance in terms of roughness, minimum obtainable d-spacing and stability over time as deposited in our planar magnetron sputtering facility. Likewise we review the same properties of WC/SiC coatings which we have previously developed and which allow for very small d-spacings. The combination of WC/SiC or the well established W/SiC with the above mentioned Cu and Ni-containing multilayers in the same stack allows for novel telescope designs operating up to and above 100 keV without the absorption edge structure
IC 751: a new changing-look AGN discovered by NuSTAR
We present the results of five NuSTAR observations of the type 2 active
galactic nucleus (AGN) in IC 751, three of which were performed simultaneously
with XMM-Newton or Swift/XRT. We find that the nuclear X-ray source underwent a
clear transition from a Compton-thick () to a Compton-thin () state on timescales of months, which makes
IC 751 the first changing-look AGN discovered by NuSTAR. Changes of the
line-of-sight column density at a level are also found on a
time-scale of hours ().
From the lack of spectral variability on timescales of ks we infer
that the varying absorber is located beyond the emission-weighted average
radius of the broad-line region, and could therefore be related either to the
external part of the broad-line region or a clumpy molecular torus. By adopting
a physical torus X-ray spectral model, we are able to disentangle the column
density of the non-varying absorber () from that of the varying clouds
[], and to constrain that of
the material responsible for the reprocessed X-ray radiation (). We find evidence of significant intrinsic X-ray
variability, with the flux varying by a factor of five on timescales of a few
months in the 2-10 and 10-50 keV band.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 11 pages, 6 figure
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