1,934 research outputs found
Pulmonary artery wave intensity analysis in pulmonary hypertension associated with heart failure and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction
Wave intensity analysis (WIA) uses simultaneous changes in pressure and flow velocity to determine wave energy, type, and timing of traveling waves in the circulation. In this study, we characterized wave propagation in the pulmonary artery in patients with pulmonary hypertension associated with leftâsided heart disease (PHLHD) and the effects of dobutamine. During right heart catheterization, pressure and velocity data were acquired using a dualâtipped pressure and Doppler flow sensor wire (Combowire; Phillips Volcano), and processed offline using customized Matlab software (MathWorks). Patients with low cardiac output underwent dobutamine challenge. Twenty patients with PHLHD (all heart failure with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction) were studied. Right ventricular systole produced a forward compression wave (FCW), followed by a forward decompression wave (FDW) during diastole. Wave reflection manifesting as backward compression wave (BCW) following the FCW was observed in 14 patients. Compared to patients without BCW, patients with BCW had higher mean pulmonary artery pressure (28.7 ± 6.12 vs. 38.6 ± 6.5 mmHg, p = 0.005), and lower pulmonary arterial capacitance (PAC: 2.88 ± 1.75 vs. 1.73 ± 1.16, p = 0.002). Pulmonary vascular resistance was comparable. Mean pulmonary artery pressure of 34.5 mmHg (area under the curve [AUC]: 0.881) and PAC of 2.29 mL/mmHg (AUC: 0.833) predicted BCW. The magnitude of the FCW increased with dobutamine (n = 11) and correlated with pulmonary artery wedge pressure. Wave reflection in PHLHD is more likely at higher pulmonary artery pressures and lower PAC and the magnitude of reflected waves correlated with pulmonary artery wedge pressure. Dobutamine increased FCW but did not affect wave reflection
MAGIC MOORE-PENROSE INVERSES AND PHILATELIC MAGIC SQUARES WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE DANIELSâZLOBEC MAGIC SQUARE
We study singular magic matrices in which the numbers in the rows and columns and in the two main diagonals all add up to the same sum. Our interest focuses on such magic matrices for which the Mooreâ
Penrose inverse is also magic. Special attention is given to the âDanielsâZlobec magic squareââ introduced by the British magician and television performer Paul Daniels (b. 1938) and considered by Zlobec (2001);
see also Murray (1989, pp. 30â32). We introduce the concept of a âphilatelic magic squareâ as a square arrangement of images of postage stamps so that the associated nominal values form a magic square. Three philatelic magic squares with stamps especially chosen for Sanjo Zlobec are presented in celebration of his 70th birthday; most helpful in identifying these stamps was an Excel checklist by MĂ€nnikkö (2009)
Efficiency of Nonlinear Particle Acceleration at Cosmic Structure Shocks
We have calculated the evolution of cosmic ray (CR) modified astrophysical
shocks for a wide range of shock Mach numbers and shock speeds through
numerical simulations of diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) in 1D quasi-
parallel plane shocks. The simulations include thermal leakage injection of
seed CRs, as well as pre-existing, upstream CR populations. Bohm-like diffusion
is assumed. We model shocks similar to those expected around cosmic structure
pancakes as well as other accretion shocks driven by flows with upstream gas
temperatures in the range K and shock Mach numbers spanning
. We show that CR modified shocks evolve to time-asymptotic states
by the time injected particles are accelerated to moderately relativistic
energies (p/mc \gsim 1), and that two shocks with the same Mach number, but
with different shock speeds, evolve qualitatively similarly when the results
are presented in terms of a characteristic diffusion length and diffusion time.
For these models the time asymptotic value for the CR acceleration efficiency
is controlled mainly by shock Mach number. The modeled high Mach number shocks
all evolve towards efficiencies %, regardless of the upstream CR
pressure. On the other hand, the upstream CR pressure increases the overall CR
energy in moderate strength shocks (). (abridged)Comment: 23 pages, 12 ps figures, accepted for Astrophysical Journal (Feb. 10,
2005
Nonthermal Emission from a Supernova Remnant in a Molecular Cloud
In evolved supernova remnants (SNRs) interacting with molecular clouds, such
as IC 443, W44, and 3C391, a highly inhomogeneous structure consisting of a
forward shock of moderate Mach number, a cooling layer, a dense radiative shell
and an interior region filled with hot tenuous plasma is expected. We present a
kinetic model of nonthermal electron injection, acceleration and propagation in
that environment and find that these SNRs are efficient electron accelerators
and sources of hard X- and gamma-ray emission. The energy spectrum of the
nonthermal electrons is shaped by the joint action of first and second order
Fermi acceleration in a turbulent plasma with substantial Coulomb losses.
Bremsstrahlung, synchrotron, and inverse Compton radiation of the nonthermal
electrons produce multiwavelength photon spectra in quantitative agreement with
the radio and the hard emission observed by ASCA and EGRET from IC 443. We
distinguish interclump shock wave emission from molecular clump shock wave
emission accounting for a complex structure of molecular cloud. Spatially
resolved X- and gamma- ray spectra from the supernova remnants IC 443, W44, and
3C391 as might be observed with BeppoSAX, Chandra XRO, XMM, INTEGRAL and GLAST
would distinguish the contribution of the energetic lepton component to the
gamma-rays observed by EGRET.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure, Astrophysical Journal, v.538, 2000 (in press
Nonlinear shock acceleration beyond the Bohm limit
We suggest a physical mechanism whereby the acceleration time of cosmic rays
by shock waves can be significantly reduced. This creates the possibility of
particle acceleration beyond the knee energy at ~10^15eV. The acceleration
results from a nonlinear modification of the flow ahead of the shock supported
by particles already accelerated to the knee momentum at p ~ p_*. The particles
gain energy by bouncing off converging magnetic irregularities frozen into the
flow in the shock precursor and not so much by re-crossing the shock itself.
The acceleration rate is thus determined by the gradient of the flow velocity
and turns out to be formally independent of the particle mean free path
(m.f.p.). The velocity gradient is, in turn, set by the knee-particles at p ~
p_* as having the dominant contribution to the CR pressure. Since it is
independent of the m.f.p., the acceleration rate of particles above the knee
does not decrease with energy, unlike in the linear acceleration regime. The
reason for the knee formation at p ~ p_* is that particles with are
effectively confined to the shock precursor only while they are within limited
domains in the momentum space, while other particles fall into
``loss-islands'', similar to the ``loss-cone'' of magnetic traps. This
structure of the momentum space is due to the character of the scattering
magnetic irregularities. They are formed by a train of shock waves that
naturally emerge from unstably growing and steepening magnetosonic waves or as
a result of acoustic instability of the CR precursor. These losses steepen the
spectrum above the knee, which also prevents the shock width from increasing
with the maximum particle energy.Comment: aastex, 13 eps figure
When non-activists care: group efficacy mediates the effect of social identification and perceived instability on the legitimacy of collective action
In recent years, multiple social movements have emerged around the world. In addition, public surveys indicate the highest recorded levels of support for protest. In this context of acceptance of collective action, we examine the role of non-activists in the legitimacy of social movements, as this âpassiveâ support can contribute to social change. Given that antecedents of legitimacy have been neglected in the literature, we carried out a survey (N = 605) among a general sample of the population in Chile to shed light on this issue. We found that social identification with movements and perceived instability predicted the perceived legitimacy of protests by social movements, and that both variables had only indirect effects, through group efficacy. This suggests that perceiving social movements as able to achieve success can lead non-activists to perceive their actions as legitimate, highlighting the importance to movements of being seen to be effective
Cosmological Shocks in Adaptive Mesh Refinement Simulations and the Acceleration of Cosmic Rays
We present new results characterizing cosmological shocks within adaptive
mesh refinement N-Body/hydrodynamic simulations that are used to predict
non-thermal components of large-scale structure. This represents the first
study of shocks using adaptive mesh refinement. We propose a modified algorithm
for finding shocks from those used on unigrid simulations that reduces the
shock frequency of low Mach number shocks by a factor of ~3. We then apply our
new technique to a large, (512 Mpc/h)^3, cosmological volume and study the
shock Mach number (M) distribution as a function of pre-shock temperature,
density, and redshift. Because of the large volume of the simulation, we have
superb statistics that results from having thousands of galaxy clusters. We
find that the Mach number evolution can be interpreted as a method to visualize
large-scale structure formation. Shocks with Mach<5 typically trace mergers and
complex flows, while 520 generally follow accretion onto
filaments and galaxy clusters, respectively. By applying results from nonlinear
diffusive shock acceleration models using the first-order Fermi process, we
calculate the amount of kinetic energy that is converted into cosmic ray
protons. The acceleration of cosmic ray protons is large enough that in order
to use galaxy clusters as cosmological probes, the dynamic response of the gas
to the cosmic rays must be included in future numerical simulations.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, Accepted to ApJ, minor changes mad
The Contribution of Different Supernova Populations to the Galactic Gamma-Ray Background
The contribution of Source Cosmic Rays (SCRs), accelerated and still confined
in Supernova Remnants (SNRs), to the diffuse high energy \gr emission above 1
GeV from the Galactic disk is studied. The \grs produced by the SCRs have a
much harder spectrum than those generated by the Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs).
Extending a previous paper, a simple SNR population synthesis is considered and
the Inverse Compton emission from the SCR electrons is evaluated in greater
detail. Then the combined spectrum of \gr emission from the Galactic Supernova
Remnant population is calculated and this emission at low Galactic latitudes is
compared with the diffuse \gr emission observed by the EGRET and ground based
instruments. The average contribution of SCRs is comparable to the GCR
contribution already at GeV energies, due to Supernovae of types II and Ib
exploding into the wind bubbles of quite massive progenitor stars, and becomes
dominant at \gr energies above 100 GeV. At TeV energies the dominant
contribution is from SCRs in SNRs that expand into a uniform interstellar
medium. In fact, the sum of hadronic and Inverse Compton \grs would exceed the
limits given by the existing experimental data, unless the confinement time
, i.e. the time until which SNRs confine the main fraction of
accelerated SCRs, is as small as yr and the typical magnetic
field strength in SNRs as large as 30 G. Both situations are however
possible as a result of field amplification through CR backreaction in the
acceleration process. It is pointed out that accurate measurements of the
low-latitude diffuse Galactic \gr spectrum at TeV-energies can serve as a
unique consistency test for CR origin from the Supernova Remnant population as
a whole.Comment: To appear in Astrophysical Journa
The effect of cosmic-ray diffusion on the Parker instability
The Parker instability, which has been considered as a process governing the structure of the interstellar medium, is induced by the buoyancy of magnetic fields and cosmic rays. In previous studies, while the magnetic field has been fully incorporated in the context of isothermal magnetohydrodynamics, cosmic rays have normally been treated with the simplifying assumption of infinite diffusion along magnetic field lines but no diffusion across them. The cosmic-ray diffusion is, however, finite. In this work, we fully take into account the diffusion process of cosmic rays in a linear stability analysis of the Parker instability. Cosmic rays are described with the diffusion-convection equation. With realistic values of cosmic-ray diffusion coefficients expected in the interstellar medium, we show that the result of previous studies with the simplifying assumption about cosmic-ray diffusion applies well. The finiteness of the parallel diffusion decreases the growth rate of the Parker instability, while the relatively smaller perpendicular diffusion has no significant effect. We discuss the implication of our result on the role of the Parker instability in the interstellar mediumopen373
Cosmic Ray Protons and Magnetic Fields in Clusters of Galaxies and their Cosmological Consequences
The masses of clusters of galaxies estimated by gravitational lensing exceed
in many cases the mass estimates based on hydrostatic equilibrium. This may
suggest the existence of nonthermal pressure. We ask if radio galaxies can heat
and support the cluster gas with injected cosmic ray protons and magnetic field
densities, which are permitted by Faraday rotation and gamma ray observations
of clusters of galaxies. We conclude that they are powerful enough to do this
within a cluster radius of roughly 1 Mpc. If present, nonthermal pressures
could lead to a revised estimate of the ratio of baryonic mass to total mass,
and the apparent baryonic overdensity in clusters would disappear. In
consequence, , the clumping part of the cosmological density
, would be larger than .Comment: Accepted by ApJ, 16 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, epsfig.sty, aaspp4.st
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