The ASTRA Spectrophotometer: A July 2004 Progress Report

A cross-dispersed spectrophotometer with CCD detector and its automated 0.5-m telescope at the Fairborn Observatory, now under construction, should begin observations in 6 to 9 months. The Citadel ASTRA Telescope will be able to observe Vega the primary standard, make rapid measurements of the naked-eye stars, use 10 minutes per hour to obtain photometric measurements of the nightly extinction, and obtain high quality observations of V=10.5 mag. stars in an hour. The approximate wavelength range is 3300-9000A with a resolution of 14A in first and 7A in second order. Filter photometric magnitudes and indices will be calibrated in part for use as quality checks. Science observations for major projects such as comparisons with model atmospheres codes and for exploratory investigations should also begin in the first year. The ASTRA team realizes to deal with this potential data flood that they will need help to make the best scientific uses of the data. Thus they are interested in discussing possible collaborations. In less than a year of normal observing, all isolated stars in the Bright Star Catalog that can be observed can have their fluxes well measured. Some A Star related applications are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Poster presented at IAU Symposium 224 "The A Star Puzzle", 7-13 July 2004, Poprad, Slovaki

Weather in stellar atmosphere: the dynamics of mercury clouds in alpha Andromedae

The formation of long-lasting structures at the surfaces of stars is commonly ascribed to the action of strong magnetic fields. This paradigm is supported by observations of evolving cool spots in the Sun and active late-type stars, and stationary chemical spots in the early-type magnetic stars. However, results of our seven-year monitoring of mercury spots in non-magnetic early-type star alpha Andromedae show that the picture of magnetically-driven structure formation is fundamentally incomplete. Using an indirect stellar surface mapping technique, we construct a series of 2-D images of starspots and discover a secular evolution of the mercury cloud cover in this star. This remarkable structure formation process, observed for the first time in any star, is plausibly attributed to a non-equilibrium, dynamical evolution of the heavy-element clouds created by atomic diffusion and may have the same underlying physics as the weather patterns on terrestrial and giant planets.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; to be published in Nature Physic

Mulsemedia: State of the art, perspectives, and challenges

Mulsemedia-multiple sensorial media-captures a wide variety of research efforts and applications. This article presents a historic perspective on mulsemedia work and reviews current developments in the area. These take place across the traditional multimedia spectrum-from virtual reality applications to computer games-as well as efforts in the arts, gastronomy, and therapy, to mention a few. We also describe standardization efforts, via the MPEG-V standard, and identify future developments and exciting challenges the community needs to overcome

Mental Health Treatment Involvement and Religious Coping among African American, Hispanic, and White Veterans of the Wars of Iraq and Afghanistan

Although racial/ethnic differences have been found in the use of mental health services for depression in the general population, research among Veterans has produced mixed results. This study examined racial/ethnic differences in the use of mental health services among 148 Operation Enduring/Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans with high levels of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and evaluated whether religious coping affected service use. No differences between African American, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic white Veterans were found in use of secular mental health services or religious counseling. Women Veterans were more likely than men to seek secular treatment. After controlling for PTSD symptoms, depression symptom level was a significant predictor of psychotherapy attendance but not medication treatment. African American Veterans reported higher levels of religious coping than whites. Religious coping was associated with participation in religious counseling, but not secular mental health services

Short-Term Nitrogen Dioxide Exposure and Emergency Hospital Admissions for Asthma in Children: A Case-Crossover Analysis in England.

BACKGROUND: There is an increasing body of evidence associating short-term ambient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure with asthma-related hospital admissions in children. However, most studies have relied on temporally resolved exposure information, potentially ignoring the spatial variability of NO2. We aimed to investigate how daily NO2 estimates from a highly resolved spatio-temporal model are associated with the risk of emergency hospital admission for asthma in children in England. METHODS: We conducted a time-stratified case-crossover study including 111,766 emergency hospital admissions for asthma in children (aged 0-14 years) between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2015 in England. Daily NO2 levels were predicted at the patients' place of residence using spatio-temporal models by combining land use data and chemical transport model estimates. Conditional logistic regression models were used to obtain the odds ratios (OR) and confidence intervals (CI) after adjusting for temperature, relative humidity, bank holidays, and influenza rates. The effect modifications by age, sex, season, area-level income deprivation, and region were explored in stratified analyses. RESULTS: For each 10 µg/m³ increase in NO2 exposure, we observed an 8% increase in asthma-related emergency admissions using a five-day moving NO2 average (mean lag 0-4) (OR 1.08, 95% CI 1.06-1.10). In the stratified analysis, we found larger effect sizes for male (OR 1.10, 95% CI 1.07-1.12) and during the cold season (OR 1.10, 95% CI 1.08-1.12). The effect estimates varied slightly by age group, area-level income deprivation, and region. SIGNIFICANCE: Short-term exposure to NO2 was significantly associated with an increased risk of asthma emergency admissions among children in England. Future guidance and policies need to consider reflecting certain proven modifications, such as using season-specific countermeasures for air pollution control, to protect the at-risk population

Equilibrium configurations of fluids and their stability in higher dimensions

We study equilibrium shapes, stability and possible bifurcation diagrams of fluids in higher dimensions, held together by either surface tension or self-gravity. We consider the equilibrium shape and stability problem of self-gravitating spheroids, establishing the formalism to generalize the MacLaurin sequence to higher dimensions. We show that such simple models, of interest on their own, also provide accurate descriptions of their general relativistic relatives with event horizons. The examples worked out here hint at some model-independent dynamics, and thus at some universality: smooth objects seem always to be well described by both ``replicas'' (either self-gravity or surface tension). As an example, we exhibit an instability afflicting self-gravitating (Newtonian) fluid cylinders. This instability is the exact analogue, within Newtonian gravity, of the Gregory-Laflamme instability in general relativity. Another example considered is a self-gravitating Newtonian torus made of a homogeneous incompressible fluid. We recover the features of the black ring in general relativity.Comment: 42 pages, 11 Figures, RevTeX4. Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity. v2: Minor corrections and references adde

The HgMn Binary Star Phi Herculis: Detection and Properties of the Secondary and Revision of the Elemental Abundances of the Primary

Observations of the Mercury-Manganese star Phi Herculis with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) conclusively reveal the previously unseen companion in this single-lined binary system. The NPOI data were used to predict a spectral type of A8V for the secondary star Phi Her B. This prediction was subsequently confirmed by spectroscopic observations obtained at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. Phi Her B is rotating at 50 +/-3 km/sec, in contrast to the 8 km/sec lines of Phi Her A. Recognizing the lines from the secondary permits one to separate them from those of the primary. The abundance analysis of Phi Her A shows an abundance pattern similar to those of other HgMn stars with Al being very underabundant and Sc, Cr, Mn, Zn, Ga, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, and Hg being very overabundant.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 45 pages, 11 figure

Holocene history of the 79° N ice shelf reconstructed from epishelf lake and uplifted glaciomarine sediments

Acknowledgements This work was funded by a NERC standard grant (grant no. NE/N011228/1), and some radiocarbon analysis was funded by NEIF (grant NE/S011587/1; allocation number 2169.1118). We thank the Alfred Wegener Institute, particularly Angelika Humbert and Hicham Rafiq, for significant logistic support through the iGRIFF project. Additional support was provided by Station Nord (Jorgen Skafte), Nordlandair, Air Greenland, and the Joint Arctic Command. Naalakkersuisut (government of Greenland) provided scientific survey (VU-00121) and export (046/2017) licences for this work. Finally, we would like to thank our (Nanu Travel) field ranger Isak (and dog Ooni) for keeping us safe in the field and taking great pleasure in beating James A. Smith at cards. Financial support This research has been supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant no. NE/N011228/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Semiotic Approach for Guiding the Visualizing of Time and Space in Enterprise Models

Part 2: Organizational Semiotics and ApplicationsInternational audienceEven if geographical aspects such as location are included already in the Zachman framework (as the where-perspective), it is not common to have detailed geographical aspects included in enterprise models. Cartography is the science of visualizing geographical information in maps. Traditionally the field has not included conceptual relationships that you find in enterprise models. Both cartography and enterprise modelling have developed guidelines for obtaining high quality visualizations. SEQUAL is a quality framework developed for understanding quality of models and modelling languages based on semiotic theory. In cartography such frameworks are not common. An adaptation of SEQUAL in the context of cartographic maps called MAPQUAL has been presented earlier. Differences between quality of maps and quality of conceptual models, pointing to guidelines for combined representations have been performed, and we try in this paper to investigate the utility of these guidelines in a simple trial. The result of the trial is presented, indicating that it is possible to represent conceptual, temporal, and spatial aspects in the same models in many ways, but that the choice of main perspective should depend on participant appropriateness

Efficacy and safety of the anti-IL-12/23 p40 monoclonal antibody, ustekinumab, in patients with active psoriatic arthritis despite conventional non-biological and biological anti-tumour necrosis factor therapy: 6-month and 1-year results of the phase 3, multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised PSUMMIT 2 trial

Objective: Assess ustekinumab efficacy (week 24/week 52) and safety (week 16/week 24/week 60) in patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) despite treatment with conventional and/or biological anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) agents. Methods: In this phase 3, multicentre, placebo-controlled trial, 312 adults with active PsA were randomised (stratified by site, weight (≤100 kg/>100 kg), methotrexate use) to ustekinumab 45 mg or 90 mg at week 0, week 4, q12 weeks or placebo at week 0, week 4, week 16 and crossover to ustekinumab 45 mg at week 24, week 28 and week 40. At week 16, patients with <5% improvement in tender/swollen joint counts entered blinded early escape (placebo→45 mg, 45 mg→90 mg, 90 mg→90 mg). The primary endpoint was ≥20% improvement in American College of Rheumatology (ACR20) criteria at week 24. Secondary endpoints included week 24 Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index (HAQ-DI) improvement, ACR50, ACR70 and ≥75% improvement in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI75). Efficacy was assessed in all patients, anti-TNF-naïve (n=132) patients and anti-TNF-experienced (n=180) patients. Results: More ustekinumab-treated (43.8% combined) than placebo-treated (20.2%) patients achieved ACR20 at week 24 (p<0.001). Significant treatment differences were observed for week 24 HAQ-DI improvement (p<0.001), ACR50 (p≤0.05) and PASI75 (p<0.001); all benefits were sustained through week 52. Among patients previously treated with ≥1 TNF inhibitor, sustained ustekinumab efficacy was also observed (week 24 combined vs placebo: ACR20 35.6% vs 14.5%, PASI75 47.1% vs 2.0%, median HAQ-DI change −0.13 vs 0.0; week 52 ustekinumab-treated: ACR20 38.9%, PASI75 43.4%, median HAQ-DI change −0.13). No unexpected adverse events were observed through week 60. Conclusions: The interleukin-12/23 inhibitor ustekinumab (45/90 mg q12 weeks) yielded significant and sustained improvements in PsA signs/symptoms in a diverse population of patients with active PsA, including anti-TNF-experienced PsA patients