Tomographic Separation of Composite Spectra. IX. The Massive Close Binary HD 115071

We present the first orbital elements for the massive close binary, HD 115071, a double-lined spectroscopic binary in a circular orbit with a period of 2.73135 +/- 0.00003 days. The orbital semiamplitudes indicate a mass ratio of M_2/M_1 = 0.58 +/- 0.02 and yet the stars have similar luminosities. We used a Doppler tomography algorithm to reconstruct the individual component optical spectra, and we applied well known criteria to arrive at classifications of O9.5 V and B0.2 III for the primary and secondary, respectively. We present models of the Hipparcos light curve of the ellipsoidal variations caused by the tidal distortion of the secondary, and the best fit model for a Roche-filling secondary occurs for an inclination of i = 48.7 +/- 2.1 degrees. The resulting masses are 11.6 +/- 1.1 and 6.7 +/- 0.7 solar masses for the primary and secondary, respectively, so that both stars are very overluminous for their mass. The system is one of only a few known semi-detached, Algol-type binaries that contain O-stars. We suggest that the binary has recently emerged from extensive mass transfer (possibly through a delayed contact and common envelope process).Comment: Submitted to Ap

Pannexin 1 channels facilitate communication between T cells to restrict the severity of airway inflammation

Allergic airway inflammation is driven by type-2 CD4(+) T cell inflammatory responses. We uncover an immunoregulatory role for the nucleotide release channel, Panx1, in T cell crosstalk during airway disease. Inverse correlations between Panx1 and asthmatics and our mouse models revealed the necessity, specificity, and sufficiency of Panx1 in T cells to restrict inflammation. Global Panx1(-/-) mice experienced exacerbated airway inflammation, and T-cell-specific deletion phenocopied Panx1(-/-) mice. A transgenic designed to re-express Panx1 in T cells reversed disease severity in global Panx1(-/-) mice. Panx1 activation occurred in pro-inflammatory T effector (Teff) and inhibitory T regulatory (Treg) cells and mediated the extracellular-nucleotide-based Treg-Teff crosstalk required for suppression of Teff cell proliferation. Mechanistic studies identified a Salt-inducible kinase-dependent phosphorylation of Panx1 serine 205 important for channel activation. A genetically targeted mouse expressing non-phosphorylatable Panx1S205A phenocopied the exacerbated inflammation in Panx1(-/-) mice. These data identify Panx1-dependent Treg:Teff cell communication in restricting airway disease

What Is a Representative Brain? Neuroscience Meets Population Science

The last decades of neuroscience research have produced immense progress in the methods available to understand brain structure and function. Social, cognitive, clinical, affective, economic, communication, and developmental neurosciences have begun to map the relationships between neuro-psychological processes and behavioral outcomes, yielding a new understanding of human behavior and promising interventions. However, a limitation of this fast moving research is that most findings are based on small samples of convenience. Furthermore, our understanding of individual differences may be distorted by unrepresentative samples, undermining findings regarding brain–behavior mechanisms. These limitations are issues that social demographers, epidemiologists, and other population scientists have tackled, with solutions that can be applied to neuroscience. By contrast, nearly all social science disciplines, including social demography, sociology, political science, economics, communication science, and psychology, make assumptions about processes that involve the brain, but have incorporated neural measures to differing, and often limited, degrees; many still treat the brain as a black box. In this article, we describe and promote a perspective—population neuroscience—that leverages interdisciplinary expertise to (i) emphasize the importance of sampling to more clearly define the relevant populations and sampling strategies needed when using neuroscience methods to address such questions; and (ii) deepen understanding of mechanisms within population science by providing insight regarding underlying neural mechanisms. Doing so will increase our confidence in the generalizability of the findings. We provide examples to illustrate the population neuroscience approach for specific types of research questions and discuss the potential for theoretical and applied advances from this approach across areas

The Science of Pronominal Usage: He and It in Co-Reference to Inanimate Objects in Late Middle English Texts on Alchemy

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The published version can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0075424210384225This article explores the variation between he and it in coreference to inanimate entities (such as mercury, sulfur, and salt). Using alchemical texts from the fifteenth century as material, the article demonstrates that there was much more variation in pronominal reference in this period than has previously been shown. Of the possible explanations suggested by previous research, the earlier grammatical gender system and transference from Latin do not seem to play a role, while pronoun clustering and pronominal reanalysis appear to influence the quantitative distribution. The scale of individuation used by Siemund and Stenroos to explain similar usage is shown not to be a straightforward predictor. Other factors such as personification and perceived similarities between animate and inanimate entities may affect the degree of perceived individuation. The choice of he over she seems to be influenced by pronominal reanalysis and straightforward personification in some cases. In other instances, it is speculated that the he usage reflects (stereotypical) gender conceptions in the Middle Ages

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Low Complexity Regularization of Linear Inverse Problems

Inverse problems and regularization theory is a central theme in contemporary signal processing, where the goal is to reconstruct an unknown signal from partial indirect, and possibly noisy, measurements of it. A now standard method for recovering the unknown signal is to solve a convex optimization problem that enforces some prior knowledge about its structure. This has proved efficient in many problems routinely encountered in imaging sciences, statistics and machine learning. This chapter delivers a review of recent advances in the field where the regularization prior promotes solutions conforming to some notion of simplicity/low-complexity. These priors encompass as popular examples sparsity and group sparsity (to capture the compressibility of natural signals and images), total variation and analysis sparsity (to promote piecewise regularity), and low-rank (as natural extension of sparsity to matrix-valued data). Our aim is to provide a unified treatment of all these regularizations under a single umbrella, namely the theory of partial smoothness. This framework is very general and accommodates all low-complexity regularizers just mentioned, as well as many others. Partial smoothness turns out to be the canonical way to encode low-dimensional models that can be linear spaces or more general smooth manifolds. This review is intended to serve as a one stop shop toward the understanding of the theoretical properties of the so-regularized solutions. It covers a large spectrum including: (i) recovery guarantees and stability to noise, both in terms of $\ell^2$-stability and model (manifold) identification; (ii) sensitivity analysis to perturbations of the parameters involved (in particular the observations), with applications to unbiased risk estimation ; (iii) convergence properties of the forward-backward proximal splitting scheme, that is particularly well suited to solve the corresponding large-scale regularized optimization problem

North American monsoon and convectively coupled equatorial waves simulated by IPCC AR4 coupled GCMs

This study evaluates the fidelity of North American monsoon and associated intraseasonal variability in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) coupled general circulation models (CGCMs). Twenty years of monthly precipitation data from each of the 22 models' twentieth-century climate simulations, together with the available daily precipitation data from 12 of them, are analyzed and compared with Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly and daily precipitation. The authors focus on the seasonal cycle and horizontal pattern of monsoon precipitation in conjunction with the two dominant convectively coupled equatorial wave modes: the eastward-propagating Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) and the westward-propagating easterly waves. The results show that the IPCC AR4 CGCMs have significant problems and display a wide range of skill in simulating the North American monsoon and associated intraseasonal variability. Most of the models reproduce the monsoon rainbelt, extending from southeast to northwest, and its gradual northward shift in early summer, but overestimate the precipitation over the core monsoon region throughout the seasonal cycle and fail to reproduce the monsoon retreat in the fall. Additionally, most models simulate good westward propagation of the easterly waves, but relatively poor eastward propagation of the MJO and overly weak variances for both the easterly waves and the MJO. There is a tendency for models without undiluted updrafts in their deep convection scheme to produce better MJO propagation.open221

Miocene waterfowl and other birds from central Otago, New Zealand

Copyright © The Natural History Museum 2007Abundant fossil bird bones from the lower Bannockburn Formation, Manuherikia Group, an Early-Middle Miocene lacustrine deposit, 16–19 Ma, from Otago in New Zealand, reveal the “St Bathans Fauna” (new name), a first Tertiary avifauna of land and freshwater birds from New Zealand. At least 23 species of birds are represented by bones, and probable moa, Aves: Dinornithiformes, by eggshell. Anatids dominate the fauna with four genera and five species described as new: a sixth and largest anatid species is represented by just one bone. This is the most diverse Early-Middle Miocene duck fauna known worldwide. Among ducks, two species of dendrochenines are most numerous in the fauna, but a tadornine is common as well. A diving petrel (Pelecanoididae: Pelecanoides) is described, so extending the geological range of this genus worldwide from the Pliocene to the Middle Miocene, at least. The remaining 16 taxa are left undescribed but include: a large species of gull (Laridae); two small waders (Charadriiformes, genus indet.), the size of Charadrius bicinctus and Calidris ruficollis, respectively; a gruiform represented by one specimen similar to Aptornis; abundant rail (Rallidae) bones, including a common flightless rail and a rarer slightly larger taxon, about the size of Gallirallus philippensis; an ?eagle (Accipitridae); a pigeon (Columbidae); three parrots (Psittacidae); an owlet nightjar (Aegothelidae: Aegotheles sp.); a swiftlet (Apodidae: Collocalia sp.); and three passerine taxa, of which the largest is a member of the Cracticidae. The absence of some waterbirds, such as anserines (including swans), grebes (Podicipedidae) and shags (Phalacrocoracidae), among the abundant bones, indicates their probable absence from New Zealand in the Early-Middle Miocene.T. H. Worthy, A. J. D. Tennyson, C. Jones, J. A. McNamara and B. J. Dougla

Dynamics of coherently pumped lasers with linearly polarized pump and generated fields

The influence of light polarization on the dynamics of an optically pumped single-mode laser with a homogeneously broadened four-level medium is theoretically investigated in detail. Pump and laser fields with either parallel or crossed linear polarizations are considered, as are typical in far-infrared-laser experiments. Numerical simulations reveal dramatically different dynamic behaviors for these two polarization configurations. The analysis of the model equations allows us to find the physical origin of both behaviors. In particular, the crossed-polarization configuration is shown to be effective in decoupling the pump and laser fields, thus allowing for the appearance of Lorenz-type dynamics

Pyronaridine-Artesunate versus Chloroquine in Patients with Acute Plasmodium vivax Malaria: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Non-Inferiority Trial

BACKGROUND: New antimalarials are needed for P. vivax and P. falciparum malaria. This study compared the efficacy and safety of pyronaridine-artesunate with that of chloroquine for the treatment of uncomplicated P. vivax malaria. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This phase III randomized, double-blind, non-inferiority trial included five centers across Cambodia, Thailand, India, and Indonesia. In a double-dummy design, patients (aged >3-≤ 60 years) with microscopically confirmed P. vivax mono-infection were randomized (1:1) to receive pyronaridine-artesunate (target dose 7.2:2.4 mg/kg to 13.8:4.6 mg/kg) or chloroquine (standard dose) once daily for three days. Each treatment group included 228 randomized patients. Outcomes for the primary endpoint, Day-14 cure rate in the per-protocol population, were 99.5%, (217/218; 95%CI 97.5, 100) with pyronaridine-artesunate and 100% (209/209; 95%CI 98.3, 100) with chloroquine. Pyronaridine was non-inferior to chloroquine: treatment difference -0.5% (95%CI -2.6, 1.4), i.e., the lower limit of the 2-sided 95%CI for the treatment difference was greater than -10%. Pyronaridine-artesunate cure rates were non-inferior to chloroquine for Days 21, 28, 35 and 42. Parasite clearance time was shorter with pyronaridine-artesunate (median 23.0 h) versus chloroquine (32.0 h; p<0.0001), as was fever clearance time (median 15.9 h and 23.8 h, respectively; p = 0.0017). Kaplan-Meier estimates of post-baseline P. falciparum infection incidence until Day 42 were 2.5% with pyronaridine-artesunate, 6.1% with chloroquine (p = 0.048, log-rank test). Post-baseline P. vivax or P. falciparum infection incidence until Day 42 was 6.8% and 12.4%, respectively (p = 0.022, log rank test). There were no deaths. Adverse events occurred in 92/228 (40.4%) patients with pyronaridine-artesunate and 72/228 (31.6%) with chloroquine. Mild and transient increases in hepatic enzymes were observed for pyronaridine-artesunate. CONCLUSION: Pyronaridine-artesunate efficacy in acute uncomplicated P. vivax malaria was at least that of chloroquine. As pyronaridine-artesunate is also efficacious against P. falciparum malaria, this combination has potential utility as a global antimalarial drug. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00440999