Assessing TD fNIRS capability to detect hemodynamic oscillations in cerebral cortex

We present a simulation study to evaluate the feasibility of using Time Domain fNIRS to monitor hemodynamic oscillations in biological tissues like the cerebral cortex. Two geometries (slab and two-layer medium) were considered to define the optimal acquisition parameters and to assess the ability of the technique to detect and separate oscillations occurring at different depths within the probed medium by exploiting the time-gating of TD fNIRS signals

Alocação de recursos e rentabilidade das pesquisas originadas do Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Soja.

Desenvolvimento da soja no Brasil; Beneficios gerados pela pesquisa no CNPSo; Propriedades da pesquisa e principais tecnologias geradas.bitstream/item/23241/1/Doc26.pd

Measurements of atmospheric aerosol in the Salentum Peninsula and its correlation with local meteorology

In this paper the results of measurements of Total Suspended Particles (TSP) and PM10 are presented. The samplings were carried out with a mobile laboratory in five locations on the Salentum peninsula situated in the southeastern part of Italy in Puglia. Measurements were taken discontinuously during the period 2002?2004. Some results of PM2.5 measurements taken only in 2004 are also presented. Up to now no systematic analyses of aerosol concentration in the Salentum peninsula have been presented in the scientific literature. This study is therefore a useful basis for assessing the local situation and for planning future monitoring and investigations. Measurements were performed using a standard European PM10 inlet (CEN?EN12341, 1998) and successive gravimetric detection of aerosol deposited over 24 hours periods on filters. The measurement sites can be considered representative of urban background for all the cases investigated. Results show concentrations in good agreement with lognormal distributions, indicating that the PM10 fraction is about 69% of TSP and PM2.5 is about 81% of PM10, which allows us to evaluate that the fraction of PM2.5 is about 56% of TSP. Concentration levels were correlated with local meteorological parameters, such as wind velocity, wind direction and precipitations. Results indicate that there is, on average, a substantial decrease of concentration levels in high wind conditions and on rainy days. They also suggest the possibility of a significant contribution 1 of African Dust to PM10 and TSP, especially in the summer season, which could be responsible for some periods of concentrations above the threshold imposed by the European legislation on PM10

Measurements of atmospheric aerosol in the Salentum Peninsula and its correlation with local meteorology

In this paper the results of measurements of Total Suspended Particles (TSP), PM10 and PM2.5 and their correlation with meteorological parameters are presented. The samplings were carried out with a mobile laboratory in seven locations in the Salentum Peninsula located in the southeastern part of Italy in Puglia. Measurements were taken discontinuously during the period 2002-2005. Up to now no systematic analyses of aerosol concentrations in the Salentum Peninsula have been presented in the scientific literature. This study is therefore a useful basis for assessing the local situation and for planning future monitoring. Measurements have been performed, on a daily basis, using standard European inlet (CEN-EN12341, 1998) and successive gravimetric detection of aerosol deposited on filters. The measurement sites can be considered representative of urban background for all the cases investigated. An analysis of the random uncertainties (LOQ and LOD) for the different types of filters used is reported. Results show concentrations in good agreement with lognormal distributions, indicating that the PM10 fraction is about 66% of TSP and PM2.5 is about 67% of PM10, which allows us to evaluate that the fraction of PM2.5 is about 44% of TSP. Concentration levels were correlated with local meteorological parameters, especially with wind velocity and precipitations. Results indicate that during rainy days the average concentration is reduced of about 70% and the reduction is larger for TSP and PM10 with respect to PM2.5. There is, on average, a substantial decrease of concentration levels in high wind conditions. Results also suggest the possibility of a significant contribution of African dust to PM10 and TSP, especially in the spring and summer season, which could be responsible for some days with concentrations above the threshold imposed by the European legislation on PM10

About the initial mass function and HeII emission in young starbursts

We demonstrate that it is crucial to account for the evolution of the starburst population in order to derive reliable numbers of O stars from integrated spectra for burst ages t > 2 - 3 Myr. In these cases the method of Vacca & Conti (1992) and Vacca (1994) systematically underestimates the number of O stars. Therefore the current WR/O number ratios in Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies are overestimated. This questions recent claims about flat IMF slopes (alpha ~ 1-2) in these objects. If the evolution of the burst is properly treated we find that the observations are indeed compatible with a Salpeter IMF, in agreement with earlier studies. Including recent predictions from non-LTE, line blanketed model atmospheres which account for stellar winds, we synthesize the nebular and WR HeII 4686 emission in young starbursts. For metallicities 1/5 <= Z/Z_sun <= 1 we predict a strong nebular HeII emission due to a significant fraction of WC stars in early WR phases of the burst. For other metallicities broad WR emission will always dominate the HeII emission. Our predictions of the nebular HeII intensity agree well with the observations in WR galaxies and an important fraction of the giant HII regions where nebular HeII is detected. We propose further observational tests of our result.Comment: ApJ Letters, accepted. 8 pages LaTeX including 3 PostScript figures, uses AASTeX and psfig macros. PostScript file also available at ftp://ftp.stsci.edu/outside-access/out.going/schaerer/imf.p