A study of bipolar and compact nebulae at radio, submillimetre and infrared wavelengths

Radio observations have been made of a sample of optically selected bipolar nebulae, to examine their spatial structures and to determine the nature of the sources which excite them. IRAS point source survey data, sub-millimeter wavelength molecular line and continuum measurements have been combined with the radio data to constrain the estimates of the nature of the excitation sources. Two thirds of the sample are found to be associated with luminous (L > 1000 L⊙) objects which are characterized as ZAMS B0-B2 stars. Several cases show characteristics of ionized outflowing gas, and may be pre-main sequence objects. The remaining third of the sample have ZAMS exciting stars between B3 and A5

CAUSES OF MISSISSIPPI SANDHILL CRANE MORTALITY IN CAPTIVITY, 1984-95

During 1984-95, 111 deaths were documented in the captive flock of Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) housed at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Trauma was the leading cause of death (37%), followed by infectious/parasitic diseases (25%), anatomic abnormalities (15%), and miscellaneous (8%). No positive diagnosis of cause of death was found in 19% of the necropsies. Chicks \u3c 2 months old suffered 76 % of captive deaths. Trauma, the greatest cause of deaths of captive juveniles and adults, is likely limited to collisions in the wild. Infectious/parasitic diseases and anatomic abnormalities could affect wild chick survival at similar rates to those of captive chicks

Atypical cortical connectivity and visuospatial cognitive impairments are related in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

BackgroundChromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome is one of the most common genetic causes of cognitive impairment and developmental disability yet little is known about the neural bases of those challenges. Here we expand upon our previous neurocognitive studies by specifically investigating the hypothesis that changes in neural connectivity relate to cognitive impairment in children with the disorder.MethodsWhole brain analyses of multiple measures computed from diffusion tensor image data acquired from the brains of children with the disorder and typically developing controls. We also correlated diffusion tensor data with performance on a visuospatial cognitive task that taps spatial attention.ResultsAnalyses revealed four common clusters, in the parietal and frontal lobes, that showed complementary patterns of connectivity in children with the deletion and typical controls. We interpreted these results as indicating differences in connective complexity to adjoining cortical regions that are critical to the cognitive functions in which affected children show impairments. Strong, and similarly opposing patterns of correlations between diffusion values in those clusters and spatial attention performance measures considerably strengthened that interpretation.ConclusionOur results suggest that atypical development of connective patterns in the brains of children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome indicate a neuropathology that is related to the visuospatial cognitive impairments that are commonly found in affected individuals

A Quality Major: Some Doctoral Programs Are Beginning to Offer a Specialization in Quality

Describes the doctorate in technology management from Indiana State University, a member of a consortium offering the degree that prepares graduates to be technological leaders for public and private sectors

TECHNIQUES FOR REARING AND RELEASING NONMIGRATORY CRANES: LESSONS FROM THE MISSISSIPPI SANDHILL CRANE PROGRAM

Captive-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) reared at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (patuxent) have been released at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge (MSCNWR) since 1981. Of 131 birds released through December 1990, 103 were reared by foster parents. The remaining 28 were experimentally hand-reared in 1989 and 1990. After refining release procedures, parent-reared birds have integrated into the wild flock, many have survived, and some have bred. Releases of hand-reared cranes elsewhere in the 1970\u27s were largely unsuccessful. at least in part due to the lack of a lengthy acclimation period. A new hand-rearing protocol holds promise in producing release-worthy birds. The technique employs some features first used in the 1960\u27s (e.g., a costume for the human caretaker and model crane heads used to train chicks to feed). In the mid-1980\u27s, the following features were added: (1) the costumed caretaker was given a visor and feathers, (2) a taxidermic crane head or a hand puppet was held or suspended from the ceiling for use in stimulating chicks to feed, (3) a taxidermic mount of a brooding crane supplied warmth, (4) a full-sized live crane was maintained in an adjacent pen and in visual contact with neonatal young to provide an imprinting model, and (5) a small group of adult (or subadult) cranes was penned adjacent to the outdoor chick pens to provide socialization models. Recent releases of Mississippi sandhill cranes hand-reared according to this protocol and released in Mississippi have had high first-year survival rates. The now-operational technique holds promise for producing large numbers of release-worthy birds

TECHNIQUES FOR REARING AND RELEASING NONMIGRATORY CRANES: LESSONS FROM THE MISSISSIPPI SANDHILL CRANE PROGRAM

Captive-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) reared at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (patuxent) have been released at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge (MSCNWR) since 1981. Of 131 birds released through December 1990, 103 were reared by foster parents. The remaining 28 were experimentally hand-reared in 1989 and 1990. After refining release procedures, parent-reared birds have integrated into the wild flock, many have survived, and some have bred. Releases of hand-reared cranes elsewhere in the 1970\u27s were largely unsuccessful. at least in part due to the lack of a lengthy acclimation period. A new hand-rearing protocol holds promise in producing release-worthy birds. The technique employs some features first used in the 1960\u27s (e.g., a costume for the human caretaker and model crane heads used to train chicks to feed). In the mid-1980\u27s, the following features were added: (1) the costumed caretaker was given a visor and feathers, (2) a taxidermic crane head or a hand puppet was held or suspended from the ceiling for use in stimulating chicks to feed, (3) a taxidermic mount of a brooding crane supplied warmth, (4) a full-sized live crane was maintained in an adjacent pen and in visual contact with neonatal young to provide an imprinting model, and (5) a small group of adult (or subadult) cranes was penned adjacent to the outdoor chick pens to provide socialization models. Recent releases of Mississippi sandhill cranes hand-reared according to this protocol and released in Mississippi have had high first-year survival rates. The now-operational technique holds promise for producing large numbers of release-worthy birds

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist