Binary Star Database (BDB): New Developments and Applications

Binary star DataBase (BDB) is the database of binary/multiple systems of various observational types. BDB contains data on physical and positional parameters of 260,000 components of 120,000 stellar systems of multiplicity 2 to more than 20, taken from a large variety of published catalogues and databases. We describe the new features in organization of the database, integration of new catalogues and implementation of new possibilities available to users. The development of the BDB index-catalogue, Identification List of Binaries (ILB), is discussed. This star catalogue provides cross-referencing between most popular catalogues of binary stars.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Approximate analytical description of the high latitude extinction

The distribution of visual interstellar extinction $A_V$ has been mapped in selected areas over the Northern sky, using available LAMOST DR5 and Gaia DR2/EDR3 data. $A_V$ was modelled as a barometric function of galactic latitude and distance. The function parameters were then approximated by spherical harmonics. The resulting analytical tridimensional model of the interstellar extinction can be used to predict $A_V$ values for stars with known parallaxes, as well as the total Galactic extinction in a given location in the sky.Comment: 18 pages, 33 figures, accepted by EP

Quality flags for GSP-Phot Gaia DR3 astrophysical parameters with machine learning: Effective temperatures case study

Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) provides extensive information on the astrophysical properties of stars, such as effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, and luminosity, for over 470 million objects. However, as Gaia's stellar parameters in GSP-Phot module are derived through model-dependent methods and indirect measurements, it can lead to additional systematic errors in the derived parameters. In this study, we compare GSP-Phot effective temperature estimates with two high-resolution and high signal-to-noise spectroscopic catalogues: APOGEE DR17 and GALAH DR3, aiming to assess the reliability of Gaia's temperatures. We introduce an approach to distinguish good-quality Gaia DR3 effective temperatures using machine-learning methods such as XGBoost, CatBoost and LightGBM. The models create quality flags, which can help one to distinguish good-quality GSP-Phot effective temperatures. We test our models on three independent datasets, including PASTEL, a compilation of spectroscopically derived stellar parameters from different high-resolution studies. The results of the test suggest that with these models it is possible to filter effective temperatures as accurate as 250 K with ~ 90 per cent precision even in complex regions, such as the Galactic plane. Consequently, the models developed herein offer a valuable quality assessment tool for GSP-Phot effective temperatures in Gaia DR3. Consequently, the developed models offer a valuable quality assessment tool for GSP-Phot effective temperatures in Gaia DR3. The dataset with flags for all GSP-Phot effective temperature estimates, is publicly available, as are the models themselves.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Open star clusters in the Milky Way - Comparison of photometric and trigonometric distance scales based on Gaia TGAS data

The global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way (MWSC) is a comprehensive list of 3061 objects that provides, among other parameters, distances to clusters based on isochrone fitting. The Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) catalogue, which is a part of Gaia data release 1 (Gaia DR1), delivers accurate trigonometric parallax measurements for more than 2 million stars, including those in star clusters. We compare the open cluster photometric distance scale with the measurements given by the trigonometric parallaxes from TGAS to evaluate the consistency between these values. The average parallaxes of probable cluster members available in TGAS provide the trigonometric distance scale of open clusters, while the photometric scale is given by the distances published in the MWSC. Sixty-four clusters are suited for comparison as they have more than 16 probable members with parallax measurements in TGAS. We computed the average parallaxes of the probable members and compared these to the photometric parallaxes derived within the MWSC. We find a good agreement between the trigonometric TGAS-based and the photometric MWSC-based distance scales of open clusters, which for distances less than 2.3 kpc coincide at a level of about 0.1 mas with no dependence on the distance. If at all, there is a slight systematic offset along the Galactic equator between $30^\circ$ and $160^\circ$ galactic longitude.Comment: Accepted for publication as a Letter in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 4 pages, 4 figure

Verification of Photometric Parallaxes with Gaia DR2 Data

Results of comparison of Gaia DR2 parallaxes with data derived from a combined analysis of 2MASS (Two Micron All-Sky Survey), SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey), GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer), and UKIDSS (UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey) surveys in four selected high-latitude $|b|>48^{\circ}$ sky areas are presented. It is shown that multicolor photometric data from large modern surveys can be used for parameterization of stars closer than 4400 pc and brighter than $g_{SDSS} = 19.^m6$, including estimation of parallax and interstellar extinction value. However, the stellar luminosity class should be properly determined.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Collinder 135 and UBC 7: A physical pair of open clusters

Context. Given the closeness of the two open clusters Collinder 135 and UBC 7 on the sky, we investigate the possibility that the two clusters are physically related.Aims. We aim to recover the present-day stellar membership in the open clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 (300 pc from the Sun) in order to constrain their kinematic parameters, ages, and masses and to restore their primordial phase space configuration.Methods. The most reliable cluster members are selected with our traditional method modified for the use of Gaia DR2 data. Numerical simulations use the integration of cluster trajectories backwards in time with our original high-order Hermite4 code -GRAPE.Results. We constrain the age, spatial coordinates, velocities, radii, and masses of the clusters. We estimate the actual separation of the cluster centres equal to 24 pc. The orbital integration shows that the clusters were much closer in the past if their current line-of-sight velocities are very similar and the total mass is more than seven times larger than the mass of the most reliable members.Conclusions. We conclude that the two clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 might very well have formed a physical pair based on the observational evidence as well as numerical simulations. The probability of a chance coincidence is only about 2%

Collinder 135 and UBC 7: A Physical Pair of Open Clusters

Given the closeness of the two open clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 on the sky, we investigate the possibility of the two clusters to be physically related. We aim to recover the present-day stellar membership in the open clusters Collinder 135 and UBC 7 (300 pc from the Sun), to constrain their kinematic parameters, ages and masses, and to restore their primordial phase space configuration. The most reliable cluster members are selected with our traditional method modified for the use of Gaia DR2 data. Numerical simulations use the integration of cluster trajectories backwards in time with our original high order Hermite4 code \PGRAPE. We constrain the age, spatial coordinates and velocities, radii and masses of the clusters. We estimate the actual separation of the cluster centres equal to 24 pc. The orbital integration shows that the clusters were much closer in the past if their current line-of-sight velocities are very similar and the total mass is more than 7 times larger the mass of the determined most reliable members. We conclude that the two clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 might very well have formed a physial pair, based on the observational evidence as well as numerical simulations. The probability of a chance coincidence is only about $2\%$.Comment: Accepted for publication as a Letter in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 5 pages, 2 figure

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat