10,963 research outputs found
Free-free and H42alpha emission from the dusty starburst within NGC 4945 as observed by ALMA
We present observations of the 85.69 GHz continuum emission and H42alpha line
emission from the central 30 arcsec within NGC 4945. Both sources of emission
originate from nearly identical structures that can be modelled as exponential
discs with a scale length of ~2.1 arcsec (or ~40 pc). An analysis of the
spectral energy distribution based on combining these data with archival data
imply that 84% +/- 10% of the 85.69 GHz continuum emission originates from
free-free emission. The electron temperature is 5400 +/- 600 K, which is
comparable to what has been measured near the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The star formation rate (SFR) based on the H42alpha and 85.69 GHz free-free
emission (and using a distance of 3.8 Mpc) is 4.35 +/- 0.25 M/yr. This is
consistent with the SFR from the total infrared flux and with previous
measurements based on recombination line emission, and it is within a factor of
~2 of SFRs derived from radio data. The Spitzer Space Telescope 24 micron data
and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer 22 micron data yield SFRs ~10x lower
than the ALMA measurements, most likely because the mid-infrared data are
strongly affected by dust attenuation equivalent to A_V=150. These results
indicate that SFRs based on mid-infrared emission may be highly inaccurate for
dusty, compact circumnuclear starbursts.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
ALMA observations of 99 GHz free-free and H40 line emission from star formation in the centre of NGC 253
We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of 99.02
GHz free-free and H40 emission from the centre of the nearby starburst
galaxy NGC 253. We calculate electron temperatures of 3700-4500 K for the
photoionized gas, which agrees with previous measurements. We measure a
photoionizing photon production rate of s and
a star formation rate of M yr within the central
2010 arcsec, which fall within the broad range of measurements from
previous millimetre and radio observations but which are better constrained. We
also demonstrate that the dust opacities are ~3 dex higher than inferred from
previous near-infrared data, which illustrates the benefits of using millimetre
star formation tracers in very dusty sources.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
Tests of star formation metrics in the low metallicity galaxy NGC 5253 using ALMA observations of H30 line emission
We use Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of
H30 (231.90 GHz) emission from the low metallicity dwarf galaxy NGC
5253 to measure the star formation rate (SFR) within the galaxy and to test the
reliability of SFRs derived from other commonly-used metrics. The H30
emission, which originates mainly from the central starburst, yields a
photoionizing photon production rate of (1.90.3)10 s
and an SFR of 0.0870.013 M yr based on conversions that
account for the low metallicity of the galaxy and for stellar rotation. Among
the other star formation metrics we examined, the SFR calculated from the total
infrared flux was statistically equivalent to the values from the H30
data. The SFR based on previously-published versions of the H flux that
were extinction corrected using Pa and Pa lines were lower than
but also statistically similar to the H30 value. The mid-infrared (22
m) flux density and the composite star formation tracer based on H
and mid-infrared emission give SFRs that were significantly higher because the
dust emission appears unusually hot compared to typical spiral galaxies.
Conversely, the 70 and 160 m flux densities yielded SFR lower than the
H30 value, although the SFRs from the 70 m and H30 data
were within 1-2 of each other. While further analysis on a broader
range of galaxies are needed, these results are instructive of the best and
worst methods to use when measuring SFR in low metallicity dwarf galaxies like
NGC 5253.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The Assembly of Diversity in the Morphologies and Stellar Populations of High-Redshift Galaxies
We have studied the evolution in the morphologies, sizes, stellar-masses,
colors, and internal color dispersion (ICD) of galaxies at z=1 and 2.3, using a
near-IR, flux-limited catalog for the HDF-N. At z=1 most luminous galaxies have
morphologies of early-to-mid Hubble-types, and many show transformations
between their rest-frame UV-optical morphologies. Galaxies at z=2.3 have
compact and irregular morphologies with no clearly evident Hubble-sequence
candidates. The mean galaxy size grows from z=2.3 to 1 by 40%, and the density
of galaxies larger than 3 kpc increases by 7 times. At z=1, the size-luminosity
distribution is broadly consistent with that of local galaxies, with passive
evolution. However, galaxies at z=2.3 are smaller than the large present-day
galaxies, and must continue to grow in size and stellar mass. We have measured
the galaxies' UV-optical ICD, which quantifies differences in morphology and
the relative amount of on-going star-formation. The mean and scatter in
galaxies' total colors and ICD increase from z=2.3 to 1. At z=1 many galaxies
with large ICD are spirals, with a few irregular systems. Few z=2.3 galaxies
have high ICD, and those that do are actively merging. We interpret this as
evidence for the presence of older and more diverse stellar populations at z=1
that are not generally present at z>2. We conclude that the star-formation
histories of galaxies at z>2 are dominated by discrete, recurrent bursts, which
quickly homogenize the galaxies' stellar content, and are possibly associated
with mergers. The increase in the stellar-population diversification by z<1.4
implies that merger-induced starbursts occur less frequently than at higher
redshifts, and more quiescent star-forming modes dominate. This transition
coincides with the emergence of Hubble-sequence galaxies. [Abridged]Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 20 pages, in
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The identification of mitochondrial DNA variants in glioblastoma multiforme
Background:
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encodes key proteins of the electron transfer chain (ETC), which produces ATP through oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and is essential for cells to perform specialised functions. Tumor-initiating cells use aerobic glycolysis, a combination of glycolysis and low levels of OXPHOS, to promote rapid cell proliferation and tumor growth. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressively malignant brain tumor and mitochondria have been proposed to play a vital role in GBM tumorigenesis.
Results:
Using next generation sequencing and high resolution melt analysis, we identified a large number of mtDNA variants within coding and non-coding regions of GBM cell lines and predicted their disease-causing potential through in silico modeling. The frequency of variants was greatest in the D-loop and origin of light strand replication in non-coding regions. ND6 was the most susceptible coding gene to mutation whilst ND4 had the highest frequency of mutation. Both genes encode subunits of complex I of the ETC. These variants were not detected in unaffected brain samples and many have not been previously reported. Depletion of HSR-GBM1 cells to varying degrees of their mtDNA followed by transplantation into immunedeficient mice resulted in the repopulation of the same variants during tumorigenesis. Likewise, de novo variants identified in other GBM cell lines were also incorporated. Nevertheless, ND4 and ND6 were still the most affected genes. We confirmed the presence of these variants in high grade gliomas.
Conclusions:
These novel variants contribute to GBM by rendering the ETC. partially dysfunctional. This restricts metabolism to anaerobic glycolysis and promotes cell proliferation
Star Formation at z~6: The UDF-Parallel ACS Fields
We report on the i-dropouts detected in two exceptionally deep ACS fields
(B_{435}, V_{606}, i_{775}, and z_{850} with 10 sigma limits of 28.8, 29.0,
28.5, and 27.8, respectively) taken in parallel with the UDF NICMOS
observations. Using an i-z>1.4 cut, we find 30 i-dropouts over 21 arcmin^2 down
to z_AB=28.1, or 1.4 i-dropouts arcmin^{-2}, with significant field-to-field
variation (as expected from cosmic variance). This extends i-dropout searches
some ~0.9^m further down the luminosity function than was possible in the GOODS
field, netting a ~7x increase in surface density. An estimate of the size
evolution for UV bright objects is obtained by comparing the composite radial
flux profile of the bright i-dropouts (z<27.2) with scaled versions of the
HDF-N + HDF-S U-dropouts. The best-fit is found with a (1+z)^{-1.57_{-0.53}
^{+0.50}} scaling in size (for fixed luminosity), extending lower redshift
(1<z<5) trends to z~6. Adopting this scaling and the brighter i-dropouts from
both GOODS fields, we make incompleteness estimates and construct a z~6 LF in
the rest-frame continuum UV (~1350 A) over a 3.5 magnitude baseline, finding a
shape consistent with that found at lower redshift. To evaluate the evolution
in the LF from z~3.8, we make comparisons against different scalings of a lower
redshift B-dropout sample. Though a strong degeneracy is found between
luminosity and density evolution, our best-fit model scales as (1+z)^{-2.8} in
number and (1+z)^0.1 in luminosity, suggesting a rest-frame continuum UV
luminosity density at z~6 which is just 0.38_{-0.07} ^{+0.09}x that at z~3.8.
Our inclusion of size evolution makes the present estimate lower than previous
z~6 estimates.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal Letters, labelling to the left-hand axis of Figure 4 correcte
The B-Band Luminosity Function of Red and Blue Galaxies up to z=3.5
We have explored the redshift evolution of the luminosity function of red and
blue galaxies up to . This was possible joining a deep I band composite
galaxy sample, which includes the spectroscopic K20 sample and the HDFs
samples, with the deep and samples derived from the
deep NIR images of the Hubble Deep Fields North and South, respectively. About
30% of the sample has spectroscopic redshifts and the remaining fraction
well-calibrated photometric redshifts. This allowed to select and measure
galaxies in the rest-frame blue magnitude up to and to derive the
redshift evolution of the B-band luminosity function of galaxies separated by
their rest-frame color or specific (i.e. per unit mass) star-formation
rate. The class separation was derived from passive evolutionary tracks or from
their observed bimodal distributions. Both distributions appear bimodal at
least up to and the locus of red/early galaxies is clearly identified
up to these high redshifts. Both luminosity and density evolutions are needed
to describe the cosmological behaviour of the red/early and blue/late
populations. The density evolution is greater for the early population with a
decrease by one order of magnitude at with respect to the value at
. The luminosity densities of the early and late type galaxies with
. Indeed while star-forming
galaxies slightly increase or keep constant their luminosity density, "early"
galaxies decrease in their luminosity density by a factor from
to . A comparison with one of the latest versions of
the hierarchical CDM models shows a broad agreement with the observed number
and luminosity density evolutions of both populations.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Microstability analysis of pellet fuelled discharges in MAST
Reactor grade plasmas are likely to be fuelled by pellet injection. This
technique transiently perturbs the profiles, driving the density profile hollow
and flattening the edge temperature profile. After the pellet perturbation, the
density and temperature profiles relax towards their quasi-steady-state shape.
Microinstabilities influence plasma confinement and will play a role in
determining the evolution of the profiles in pellet fuelled plasmas. In this
paper we present the microstability analysis of pellet fuelled H-mode MAST
plasmas. Taking advantage of the unique capabilities of the MAST Thomson
scattering system and the possibility of synchronizing the eight lasers with
the pellet injection, we were able to measure the evolution of the post-pellet
electron density and temperature profiles with high temporal and spatial
resolution. These profiles, together with ion temperature profiles measured
using a charge exchange diagnostic, were used to produce equilibria suitable
for microstability analysis of the equilibrium changes induced by pellet
injection. This analysis, carried out using the local gyrokinetic code GS2,
reveals that the microstability properties are extremely sensitive to the rapid
and large transient excursions of the density and temperature profiles, which
also change collisionality and beta e significantly in the region most strongly
affected by the pellet ablation.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures. This is an author-created, un-copyedited
version of an article submitted for publication in Plasma Physics and
Controlled Fusion. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or
omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from i
The Impact of Inhaled Salbutamol on Repeated Sprint Ability in Pre- Fatigued Soccer Players
Objectives: Investigate the ergogenic effect of inhaling up to 1600 μg of salbutamol on intermittent running performance in pre-fatigued soccer players.
Methods: In a single blind randomised repeated measures design seven male and six female soccer players volunteered to participant. All participants were regularly playing competitive soccer and had no history of asthma. Following familiarisation sessions participants visited the exercise physiology laboratory on three occasions to complete an intermittent running protocol followed by twelve 17.5 m sprints. Prior to each trial participants inhaled either: placebo, 800 μg inhaled salbutamol (SAL800) or 1600 μg inhaled salbutamol (SAL1600). Following completion of the sprints a sample from the first urine passed was analysed for salbutamol concentration. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the mean sprint time, maximal sprint power, peak blood lactate post sprints and post sprint salbutamol urine concentration between conditions.
Results: Mean sprint time, maximum power, maximum velocity, peak HR and peak blood lactate during the 17.5 m sprints were not significantly different between treatments in soccer players. There was no significant difference between male and female players in urine drug concentration following SAL800 (mean + SD; 201.47 + 294.47 ng.ml-1 vs. 180.2 + 102.15 ng.ml-1) or SAL1600 (739.24 + 549.21 ng.ml-1 vs. 879.58 + 633.14 ng.ml-1). Three players urine drug concentrations were above the WADA decision limit set at 1200 ng.ml-1.
Conclusions: Inhaling up to 1600 μg inhaled salbutamol did not significantly improve repeated sprint performance. However, inhalation of 1600 μg may result in a urine concentration above the current WADA upper limit and decision limit leading to a positive test. Athletes should ensure they use inhaled salbutamol at therapeutic doses to avoid the risk of breaching the WADA decision limit
The evolution of clustering and bias in the galaxy distribution
This paper reviews the measurements of galaxy correlations at high redshifts,
and discusses how these may be understood in models of hierarchical
gravitational collapse. The clustering of galaxies at redshift one is much
weaker than at present, and this is consistent with the rate of growth of
structure expected in an open universe. If , this observation would
imply that bias increases at high redshift, in conflict with observed
values for known high- clusters. At redshift 3, the population of
Lyman-limit galaxies displays clustering which is of similar amplitude to that
seen today. This is most naturally understood if the Lyman-limit population is
a set of rare recently-formed objects. Knowing both the clustering and the
abundance of these objects, it is possible to deduce empirically the
fluctuation spectrum required on scales which cannot be measured today owing to
gravitational nonlinearities. Of existing physical models for the fluctuation
spectrum, the results are most closely matched by a low-density spatially flat
universe. This conclusion is reinforced by an empirical analysis of CMB
anisotropies, in which the present-day fluctuation spectrum is forced to have
the observed form. Open models are strongly disfavoured, leaving CDM
as the most successful simple model for structure formation.Comment: Invited review at the Royal Society Meeting `Large-scale structure in
the universe', London, March 1998. 20 Pages LaTe
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