OH yields from the CH3CO+O-2 reaction using an internal standard

Laser flash photolysis of CH3C(O)OH at 248 nm was used to create equal zero time yields of CH3CO and OH. The absolute OH yield from the CH3CO + O2 (+M) reaction was determined by following the OH temporal profile using the zero time OH concentration as an internal standard. The OH yield from CH3CO + O2 (+M) was observed to decrease with increasing pressure with an extrapolated zero pressure yield close to unity (1.1 ± 0.2, quoted uncertainties correspond to 95% confidence limits). The results are in quantitative agreement with those obtained from 248 nm acetone photolysis in the presence of O2

Health challenges in refugee reception: dateline Europe 2016

The arrival of more than one million migrants, many of them refugees, has proved a major test for the European Union. Although international relief and monitoring agencies have been critical of makeshift camps in Calais and Eidomeni where infectious disease and overcrowding present major health risks, few have examined the nature of the official reception system and its impact on health delivery. Drawing upon research findings from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project, this article considers the physical and mental health of asylum-seekers in transit and analyses how the closure of borders has engendered health risks for populations in recognised reception centres in Sicily and in Greece. Data gathered by means of a survey administered in Greece (300) and in Sicily (400), and complemented by in-depth interviews with migrants (45) and key informants (50) including representatives of government offices, humanitarian and relief agencies, NGOs and activist organisations, are presented to offer an analysis of the reception systems in the two frontline states. We note that medical provision varies significantly from one centre to another and that centre managers play a critical role in the transmission of vital information. A key finding is that, given such disparity, the criteria used by the UNHCR to grade health services reception do not address the substantive issue that prevent refugees from accessing health services, even when provided on site. Health provision is not as recorded in UNHCR reporting but rather there are critical gaps between provision, awareness, and access for refugees in reception systems in Sicily and in Greece. This article concludes that there is a great need for more information campaigns to direct refugees to essential services

Counting the Population in Need of International Protection Globally

Statistical data and evidence-based claims are increasingly central to our everyday lives. Critically examining ‘Big Data’, this book charts the recent explosion in sources of data, including those precipitated by global developments and technological change. It sets out changes and controversies related to data harvesting and construction, dissemination and data analytics by a range of private, governmental and social organisations in multiple settings. Analysing the power of data to shape political debate, the presentation of ideas to us by the media, and issues surrounding data ownership and access, the authors suggest how data can be used to uncover injustices and to advance social progress

The Galactic IMF: origin in the combined mass distribution functions of dust grains and gas clouds

We present here a theoretical model to account for the stellar IMF as a result of the composite behaviour of the gas and dust distribution functions. Each of these has previously been modelled and the models tested against observations. The model presented here implies a relation between the characteristic size of the dust grains and the characteristic final mass of the stars formed within the clouds containing the grains, folded with the relation between the mass of a gas cloud and the characteristic mass of the stars formed within it. The physical effects of dust grain size are due to equilibrium relations between the efficiency of grains in cooling the clouds, which is a falling function of grain size, and the efficiency of grains in catalyzing the production of molecular hydrogen, which is a rising function of grain size. We show that folding in the effects of grain distribution can yield a reasonable quantitative account of the IMF, while gas cloud mass function alone cannot do so.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, MNRAS accepted for publicatio

The Spiral Structure of the Outer Milky Way in Hydrogen

We produce a detailed map of the perturbed surface density of neutral hydrogen in the outer Milky Way disk demonstrating that the Galaxy is a non-axisymmetric multi-armed spiral. Spiral structure in the southern half of the Galaxy can be traced out to at least 25 kpc, implying a minimum radius for the gas disk. Overdensities in the surface density are coincident with regions of reduced gas thickness. The ratio of the surface density to the local median surface density is relatively constant along an arm. Logarithmic spirals can be fit to the arms with pitch angles of 20-25 degrees.Comment: 10 pages with 4 color figures. Accepted for publication in Science. Embargoed for discussion in the popular press until publication in ScienceXpress. Higher resolution versions of figures 3 and 4 are available at http://astron.berkeley.edu/~elevin

Regulating Drones Under the First and Fourth Amendments

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 requires the Federal Aviation Administration to integrate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, into the national airspace system by September 2015. Yet perhaps because of their chilling accuracy in targeted killings abroad, perhaps because of an increasing consciousness of diminishing privacy more generally, and perhaps simply because of a fear of the unknown, divergent UAV-restrictive legislation has been proposed in Congress and enacted in a number of states. Given UAV utility and cost-effectiveness over a vast range of tasks, however, widespread commercial use ultimately seems certain. Consequently, it is imperative to understand the constitutional restraints on public flight and constitutional protections afforded to private flight. Unfortunately, although there are a few Fourth Amendment precedents in manned aviation, they are mired not only in 1980s technology but also in the 1980s third party doctrine, and therefore do not reflect more recent Fourth Amendment developments and doctrinal fissures. There is also considerable uncertainty over First Amendment protection of information-gathering—for example, is there a right to record? Further, there is no judicial or scholarly analysis of how UAV flight fits within contemporary First Amendment forum doctrine, a framework that provides a useful starting point for analyzing speech restrictions in government-controlled airspace, but that comes with some uncertainties of its own. It is into this thicket that we dive, and fortunately some clarity emerges. Although the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine hopelessly misunderstands privacy and therefore under-protects our security and liberty interests, the Supreme Court’s manned flyover cases can be mined for a sensible public disclosure doctrine that seems agnostic as to the various Fourth Amendment conceptions: we do not typically require only law enforcement to shield its eyes. Of course, both constitutions and legislation can place special restrictions upon law enforcement, and sometimes doing so makes good sense. But as a general Fourth Amendment matter, the officer may do and see as the citizen would. Hence to understand Fourth Amendment regulation, we must understand how the First Amendment limits government restraint on speech-relevant private UAV flight. Here we analyze the developing right to record and apply contemporary forum doctrine to this novel means of speech and information-gathering. If navigable airspace is treated as a limited public forum, as we propose with some qualification, then the Federal Aviation Administration will have significant—though not unlimited—regulatory leeway to evenhandedly burden speech-related UAV activities where doing so would reasonably promote safe unmanned and manned flight operations. The Agency, however, would likely need further congressional action before it can restrict UAV flight based on privacy rather than safety concerns. As the legality and norms of private flight correspondingly take shape, they will inform Fourth Amendment restrictions on government use

Use of External Cephalic Version and Amnioreduction in the Delivery of a Fetal Demise with Macrocephaly Secondary to Massive Intracranial Teratoma

Introduction Congenital intracranial tumors are rare and often incidentally diagnosed on routine ultrasound. We report a case of a fetal demise with a massive intracranial teratoma at 25 weeks of gestation and the management of her delivery in the setting of macrocephaly, breech presentation, and polyhydramnios. Case A 31-year-old G3P1011 woman at 25 weeks\u27 gestation presented with a recent fetal demise and a fetal intracranial tumor first identified at 16 weeks\u27 gestational age. The patient had declined termination of pregnancy. Biometry was consistent with 24 weeks\u27 gestation, except for a head circumference of 394.4 mm consistent with 39 weeks\u27 gestation. The fetus was in a breech presentation. An external cephalic version (ECV) was successfully performed under epidural anesthesia and an amnioreduction was then performed to stabilize the fetal position. Immediate induction of labor and vaginal delivery followed. Discussion ECV and amnioreduction may help facilitate delivery in cases of fetal demise complicated by macrocephaly, malpresentation, and polyhydramnios

Unusually Luminous Giant Molecular Clouds in the Outer Disk of M33

We use high spatial resolution (~7pc) CARMA observations to derive detailed properties for 8 giant molecular clouds (GMCs) at a galactocentric radius corresponding to approximately two CO scale lengths, or ~0.5 optical radii (r25), in the Local Group spiral galaxy M33. At this radius, molecular gas fraction, dust-to-gas ratio and metallicity are much lower than in the inner part of M33 or in a typical spiral galaxy. This allows us to probe the impact of environment on GMC properties by comparing our measurements to previous data from the inner disk of M33, the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies. The outer disk clouds roughly fall on the size-linewidth relation defined by extragalactic GMCs, but are slightly displaced from the luminosity-virial mass relation in the sense of having high CO luminosity compared to the inferred virial mass. This implies a different CO-to-H2 conversion factor, which is on average a factor of two lower than the inner disk and the extragalactic average. We attribute this to significantly higher measured brightness temperatures of the outer disk clouds compared to the ancillary sample of GMCs, which is likely an effect of enhanced radiation levels due to massive star formation in the vicinity of our target field. Apart from brightness temperature, the properties we determine for the outer disk GMCs in M33 do not differ significantly from those of our comparison sample. In particular, the combined sample of inner and outer disk M33 clouds covers roughly the same range in size, linewidth, virial mass and CO luminosity than the sample of Milky Way GMCs. When compared to the inner disk clouds in M33, however, we find even the brightest outer disk clouds to be smaller than most of their inner disk counterparts. This may be due to incomplete sampling or a potentially steeper cloud mass function at larger radii.Comment: Accepted for Publication in ApJ; 7 pages, 4 figure