104 research outputs found
Serum level of lactate dehydrogenase, homocystein, hemoglobin and platelet in preeclampsia
Objectives: Pre-eclampsia affects approximately 5-8% of pregnant women. The aim of this study was to compare the serum level of Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Homocystein, Hemoglubin and platelet in pregnant women diagnosed as pre-eclampsia and a normal group in Gorgan city, Northeastern Iran from 2007-2008. Methodology: In this case control study, 50 cases of pre-eclampsia were compared with the control group women hospitalized in Dezyani hospital. Pre-eclampsia criteria were: Blood pressure more than or equal to 140/90 mm hg and Proteinuria greater or equal to 300 mg/ 24 hours urine sample in the third trimester. Hemoglobin, platelet, LDH and hemocystein were measured. Data were analyzed by the mean of SPSS-14 program & Chi-2 or t-student were used. Results: The difference of BMI and family incomes was significant between two groups (P-value0.01). Hemocystein level was more than normal range in five patients with pre-eclampsia (P-value<0.001). Conclusions: In this study, hemocystein level was significantly higher in pre-eclampsia patients but LDH, hemoglobin and platelet level had no significant difference
Regaining the FORS: optical ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the exoplanet WASP-19b with VLT+FORS2
In the past few years, the study of exoplanets has evolved from being pure
discovery, then being more exploratory in nature and finally becoming very
quantitative. In particular, transmission spectroscopy now allows the study of
exoplanetary atmospheres. Such studies rely heavily on space-based or large
ground-based facilities, because one needs to perform time-resolved, high
signal-to-noise spectroscopy. The very recent exchange of the prisms of the
FORS2 atmospheric diffraction corrector on ESO's Very Large Telescope should
allow us to reach higher data quality than was ever possible before. With
FORS2, we have obtained the first optical ground-based transmission spectrum of
WASP-19b, with 20 nm resolution in the 550--830 nm range. For this planet, the
data set represents the highest resolution transmission spectrum obtained to
date. We detect large deviations from planetary atmospheric models in the
transmission spectrum redwards of 790 nm, indicating either additional sources
of opacity not included in the current atmospheric models for WASP-19b or
additional, unexplored sources of systematics. Nonetheless, this work shows the
new potential of FORS2 for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets in greater
detail than has been possible so far.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&
The Role of Nitrogen in Inducing Salt Stress Tolerance in Crocus sativus L.: Assessment Based on Plant Growth and Ions Distribution in Leaves
Making FORS2 fit for exoplanet observations (again)
For about three years, it was known that precision spectrophotometry with
FORS2 suffered from systematic errors that made quantitative observations of
planetary transits impossible. We identified the Longitudinal Atmospheric
Dispersion Compensator (LADC) as the most likely culprit, and therefore engaged
in a project to exchange the LADC prisms with the uncoated ones from FORS1.
This led to a significant improvement in the depth of FORS2 zero points, a
reduction in the systematic noise, and should make FORS2 again competitive for
transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets.Comment: To appear in the March issue of the ESO Messenge
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Upregulation of miR-20a and miR-10a expression levels act as potential biomarkers of aggressive progression and poor prognosis in cervical cancer
CARMENES detection of the Ca II infrared triplet and possible evidence of He I in the atmosphere of WASP-76b
Casasayas-Barris, N., et al.Ultra-hot Jupiters are highly irradiated gas giants with equilibrium temperatures typically higher than 2000 K. Atmospheric studies of these planets have shown that their transmission spectra are rich in metal lines, with some of these metals being ionised due to the extreme temperatures. Here, we use two transit observations of WASP-76b obtained with the CARMENES spectrograph to study the atmosphere of this planet using high-resolution transmission spectroscopy. Taking advantage of the two channels and the coverage of the red and near-infrared wavelength ranges by CARMENES, we focus our analysis on the study of the Ca II infrared triplet (IRT) at 8500 Å and the He I triplet at 10 830 Å. We present the discovery of the Ca II IRT at 7¿ in the atmosphere of WASP-76b using the cross-correlation technique, which is consistent with previous detections of the Ca II H&K lines in the same planet, and with the atmospheric studies of other ultra-hot Jupiters reported to date. The low mass density of the planet, and our calculations of the XUV (X-ray and EUV) irradiation received by the exoplanet, show that this planet is a potential candidate to have a He I evaporating envelope and, therefore, we performed further investigations focussed on this aspect. The transmission spectrum around the He I triplet shows a broad and red-shifted absorption signal in both transit observations. However, due to the strong telluric contamination around the He I lines and the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio of the observations, we are not able to unambiguously conclude if the absorption is due to the presence of helium in the atmosphere of WASP-76b, and we consider the result to be only an upper limit. Finally, we revisit the transmission spectrum around other lines such as Na I, Li I, H¿, and K I. The upper limits reported here for these lines are consistent with previous studies.We acknowledge funding from the European Research Council
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program
under grant agreement no. 694513, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of
the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the ERDF through
projects PID2019-109522GB-C5[1:4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, PID2019-
110689RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, ESP2017-87143-R, and ESP2016-
80435-C2-2-R, and the Centre of Excellence “Severo Ochoa” and “María de
Maeztu” awards to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (CEX2019-000920-
S), Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709), and Centro de
Astrobiología (MDM-2017-0737), and the Generalitat de Catalunya/CERCA programme. T.H. acknowledges support by the European Research Council under
the Horizon 2020 Framework Program via the ERC Advanced Grant Origins
83 24 28. G.M. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant
agreement No. 895525
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Upregulation of miR-300 and downregulation of miR-125b act as potential predictor biomarkers in progression, metastasis, and poor prognosis of osteosarcoma
A precise blue-optical transmission spectrum from the ground: evidence for haze in the atmosphere of WASP-74b
We report transmission spectroscopy of the bloated hot Jupiter WASP-74b in the wavelength range from 4000 to 6200 Å. We observe two transit events with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Focal Reducer and Spectrograph and present a new method to measure the exoplanet transit depth as a function of wavelength. The new method removes the need for a reference star in correcting the spectroscopic light curves for the impact of atmospheric extinction. It also provides improved precision, compared to other techniques, reaching an average transit depth uncertainty of 211 ppm for a solar-type star of V = 9.8 mag and over wavelength bins of 80 Å. The VLT transmission spectrum is analysed both individually and in combination with published data from Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer. The spectrum is found to exhibit a mostly featureless slope and equilibrium chemistry retrievals with PLATON favour hazes in the upper atmosphere of the exoplanet. Free chemistry retrievals with AURA further support the presence of hazes. While additional constraints are possible depending on the choice of atmospheric model, they are not robust and may be influenced by residual systematics in the data sets. Our results demonstrate the utility of new techniques in the analysis of optical, ground-based spectroscopic data and can be highly complementary to follow-up observations in the infrared with JWST
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